Bits and bobs

Hello, crafting friends and a happy valentines day!

 

When I made THIS card by tipping up my snippets box and putting some of the contents together, a lovely lady commented that she'd like to see more of this kind of card. Haha, well I need no encouragement at all I assure you!  Here are some items I selected from the snippets box:

 

And that snippet of designer paper on the left has been in my paper drawer since before the old King died (as we say around here when we mean a long time ago!) Here's the result:

The first thing to do was layer the wood-stamped rectangle over the designer paper and trim both to the same width with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle (still my most-used frame dies!) I tucked the textured grey circle-ish shape behind it and secured everything with glue.

 

The heart was rescued from a card I made ages ago (before the old King died!) and which subsequently got wet and was ruined. I arranged some left over die-cut leaves behind it and embellished the front with a punched heart and an enamel dot before attaching it to the panel.

 

 

I stamped the wood-stamped rectangle with a row of hearts from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks, then popped the sentiment up on dimensional pads above it. Finally, the paper panel was glued to a card base.

CHALLENGES

I'm sharing the love at the Snippets Playground with this card - thank goodness it's always sunny there!

 

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Today, as a special treat for being my bestie, I threw a juicy marrow bone into the garden and sent Eva to find it. She lay on the grass in the garden in the freezing cold and gnawed at it for literally HOURS! I finally called her in, worrying about the cold, and she came, said a quick hello and then stood by the French doors looking at me pointedly.

 

"Could you open the door for me please? Yes, I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. I'm rather busy today as there is A Bone in the garden that needs my attention!"

 

Sending hugs,

Not just merry but also bright

Hello, crafting friends!

 

We all love those frosty winter days with bright blue skies don't we but not so much the grim grey ones we've had for the last couple of days here in the heart of England. I thought a nice bright Christmas card might cheer us all up!

To make this card I sponged a card panel with splodges of bright colours and trimmed it to size with a Crimped Frame die from the Greetery. 

Next I scribbled on some scrap card using bright alcohol marker pens and cut Christmas lights out of them with a long-ago-retired mini punch from Stampin' Up. After adding black tops to the lights, I arranged them over the corresponding colours on my background panel and doodled in the wires with a black fineliner pen.

To finish, I glued the lights in place and heat embossed a red sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks. The panel was then mounted onto a piece of red card and attached to a card base.

CHALLENGES

I was inspired by Jo's Rainbow Christmas theme at Christmas Kickstart so I'm joining in there; I'm also linking up with Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge where Anything Christmas Goes; the ABC Christmas Challenge where A is for Any Christmas Goes and B is for Baubles; and the Rudolph Day Challenge where Anything Christmas Goes.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We used to have coloured Christmas lights like these when I was a child and I loved the shape of the bulbs and how colourful they were. Every year they had to be brought out and tested with to see which bulbs had blown because if one blew, the whole string wouldn't work. I never knew how it worked - it was just one of those mysteries of Christmas. These days I have a string of clear lights that I've had for years and which work every time! I suppose that's progress.

Sending hugs,

A warming cup of hot chocolate

Hello, crafting friends!

There's no doubt that the idea of a large mug of steaming hot cocoa, topped with whipped cream and marshmallows, is extremely attractive when you've just been rained on for an hour and a half! Today's card fulfilled that desire without any of the calories! 

I painted an acrylic block with some red and mustard inks mixed with water and smooshed it onto a piece of watercolour paper, then loaded my brush with the watery mustard ink and tapped it onto a pair of scissors to add splatters. I also tapped my Wink of Stella pen against the scissors to add a touch of glimmer. The panel was left to dry while I made a cup of hot chocolate.

No, not to drink! To add to the card! I stamped the large mug from Waffle Flower's Books and Coffee and used alcohol markers to colour it. Snowflakes from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters were added using white craft ink. There's a cute little label in Books and Coffee which I stamped, cut out and decorated with the tiny heart from the set. The cream/marshmallows is a cloud from Inky Doodles' Somebunny To Love, stamped and fussy cut and the candy cane is a snippet of striped designer paper cut out with the handle of Stampin' Up's Umbrella punch - cunning huh?!

The panel was stamped with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Cosy Christmas and mounted on a dark red mat before it was added to the card base.

CHALLENGES

The photo at The Card Concept really caught my eye this fortnight and I was inspired by the red mug, snowflake motif, the blurred background and the hot chocolate to create my Mixed Media card. I'm also joining in with CAS Mix Up where the theme is Splatters and Happy Little Stampers Water Colour where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We're big fans of hot chocolate as a treat in our family. The topping of marshmallows is known as marshMELLOWS because my youngest son misheard the word when he was little. We have lots of family words that he, as the youngest, misheard. Once, the Olympic Games were being held in a year when we holidayed by the sea. We would watch bits of the event on TV in the evenings and talked  about the Olympics often. While playing in the rock pools on the beach during the day, I pointed out limpets to my youngest son. All of us now call them Olympets as he heard the word! We have Nice Creams too, possibly because of the same holiday!

Sending hugs,

Happy blue, orange and yellow Christmas!

Hello, crafting friends!

I'm skipping about with a happy spring in my step today because I'm guesting with the incredibly talented team at CAS Christmas! And what a fun challenge they've got for you this month:

I love a non-traditional colour palette for Christmas and my only difficulty was choosing which colours! If you have this problem too, my top tip is to choose your stamp set first and then let the colours choose YOU! 

I went with this utterly adorable polar bear from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters and immediately thought of some zingy yellow stars and orange accents in a turquoise and white landscape.

I started by die-cutting a stitched rectangle of watercolour paper using a Heffy Doodle die, then water-colouring a smaller rectangle in blue ink. When it was dry I added some snow using an opaque acrylic paint. The bear features a little heart which I masked off while inking the image up with black ink, then un-masked and coloured with an orange marker before stamping. I added a little shading with an alcohol marker before cutting him out and adding him to my scene. The card was finished with a sprinkling of punched stars and a sentiment from a retired Uniko set.

Now it's your turn! I can't wait to see what colours pop into your head this month. Head over to CAS Christmas here and prepare to be knocked out by the fabulous inspiration from the DT. You can link up your card there when you're ready.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at the 'Not A Creature Was Stirring' challenge at Jingle Belles; also at Merry Little Christmas where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The bear in today's card reminds me of a little white bear that my daughter had when she was tiny. She had a whole collection of bears and this one was called Polo. My daughter was an early talker and used to enjoy solemnly reciting the names of all the bears. We would weave funny stories around them and I seem to recall that Polo was always a very naughty bear which would make my daughter giggle!!

Sending hugs,

A rainbow of Christmas lights

Hello, crafting friends!

Aaargh - it's so dark!! Is it normally this dark in October?! Is hibernation an option?! Eva has just shaken her head at me... Oh well - better just carry on crafting then!

I've been playing with a Stampin' Up Christmas lights punch that must've retired eons ago. I used alcohol markers to colour scraps of white card stock, leaving a white streak to represent 'shine', and used the punch to cut coloured bulbs out of it. Detail was added to the top of each bulb with a black marker and then I added extra shine by heat embossing the bulbs with clear embossing powder.

To create the card, I cut a small panel of white card stock and stamped a sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks on it in bright yellow ink. The nine coloured lights were arranged on the panel and I doodled wires with a black fineliner pen before glueing them on. The panel was matted onto another piece of white card stock before attaching to the card base.

CHALLENGES

I made this card using the fab sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches. There's a DT call there and I'm giving it a go! I'm also linking up with the Merry Little Christmas challenge where Anything Goes; and CAS on Friday where there's a CAS Christmas theme this week.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Good news - the sun has come out! Eva and I are off to splash in the puddles with our wellies on!

Sending hugs,