Natural merriness

Hello, crafting friends!

 

In the first half of this year, I was so busy that I didn't have much time to craft. And even when I did find a minute, it was a stamp and go type of crafting. What I really love is starting a card, changing my mind, having a lightbulb moment, dragging half my stash out to find the right thing... only to have another idea and swerve off on another tack! Do you know what I mean? That's how this card was made!

 

I had a vague idea of making a Christmas card and I knew I wanted to use some left over botanical die cuts on it, perhaps as a wreath, but the card base started as white until I came over all rustic and brought out the brown card stock, which made me think I might stencil a brick wall using brown ink for a tone on tone look but then suddenly remembered white ink... well, you get the picture!

 

I liked the frosty look of the white ink on the brown card and added extra 'snow' with a white paint pen. Then, inspired by the natural vibe of the card, I rooted about in my DSP drawer for a precious snippet of wood effect paper to make a beam to hang my snippety wreath on with a twine bow. The wreath die from SU had been cut out of green card which I swiped with white ink, and the botanical die cuts from Mama Elephant were white so I coloured those with ink and a sponge dauber, and then glued everything together.

The sentiments are from The Greetery's Snowflake Soirée, the 'be merry' part stamped on the card base and the 'may all your days' part stamped on kraft card, snipped out and popped up on dimensional pads. 

CHALLENGES

I used lots of left over botanical die cuts on this card, a snippet of wood effect paper, an offcut of brown card for the card base and a white offcut to line it with, plus a tiny piece of kraft for the sentiment and some left over twine. All that is to say that I'm playing at the Snippets Playground with this card; I'm also joining in at Jingle Belles where Lauren and Stef want to see cards with a vintage vibe (and I'm hoping my card will pass the Vintage Test!); I'm joining in at Color My Heart Color Dare #563, choosing the left hand diagonal Candy Apple/Toffee/Green Apple; I'm also just in time to join in with Rudolph Days where we make a card to celebrate the 25th of each month, then share by the end of the month.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Autumn seems to be drawing in a bit early this year. It's still lovely and warm but not boiling hot, and it's quite unsettled. It's actually much nicer for the dogs...

 

... and they get to intersperse their swimming activities with rabbit hunting which is much too hot for Eva with her thick coat in the full sun!

 

PS I must once again state that no rabbit is ever in the smallest danger of being caught by either of these two goofballs!!

Sending hugs,

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,

May all your Christmasses be bright

Hello, crafting friends!

It's another Tuesday and another great challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. But today is a bit special for me because this is my first month hosting at this challenge! It means I've come up with all the colour palettes and sketches for October and I really hope you'll be inspired by them :) Today is colour week and I've deliberately chosen a bright palette that could work for any occasion:

I decided to use the colours to make a Christmas card - and, talk about Merry and Bright, you may want to pop on a pair of sunglasses now!!

This is a quick no-stamping card. I used a snippet of an old Stampin' Up paper to represent stylised snow, topped it with a die cut wreath from Stampin' Up, a die cut sentiment from Hobbycraft and some berries punched out of card stock and given 'shine' detail with a white Posca acrylic paint pen.

Right, now it's your turn! Do hop over to the CAS Colours & Sketches challenge site to see all the amazing cards my teamies have made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post so that you can share your own creation too. I'm so excited to see how you were inspired by my colour palette!

CHALLENGES

I’m linking this card up at The Snippets Playground where the challenge is to make cards using snippets and off cuts.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I’m not staying to chat today as I’m at the seaside with Eva and my daughter :) Photos coming soon...

Sending hugs,

Birthday sunshine and flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

When you need to make a card right now, a sketch is a great starting point - and Julie has come up with a great one for this week's CAS Colours and Sketches challenge!

I love how versatile this is. You can use it as it is, or flip it as I've done and moved the oval up a bit!

The oval shape on my card was achieved by trimming a panel with a stitched rectangle die by Heffy Doodle and cutting an oval aperture in it with a nesting die. I masked off the edges of the card base underneath the aperture and sponged yellow ink into the Sunny Day stencil by Clearly Besotted.

The aperture was just the right size for the birthday wishes sentiment from Avery Elle's A Tag For All. I glued that in place and then embellished the oval with leaves and flowers from Stampin' Up's Wreath Builder die set. TIP: I filled the hole in the centres of my blue flowers with the centres of some yellow ones I also cut. This is a fiddly task but I found that placing the flower onto a glue dot, then adding the centre made life easier. You can then peel the whole flower off the backing paper and apply it wherever you want it.

Are you ready to join us with your take on this sketch? As always, there's lots of wonderful inspiration from the CS&S team at the blog, and our lovely Guest Designer Valérie, and you can link up your entry there too. Don't forget to keep your  design clean and simple with plenty of space. I can't wait to see what you make!

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

This card was chosen as the Emerald winner at Color My Heart Color Dare!

CHALLENGES

I took colour inspiration from Color My Heart Color Dare's tic tac toe challenge, choosing the column on the right: Avocado, Canary and Bluebird; there's a Birthdays theme at Addicted to Stamps and More this fortnight, so I'm playing along there; I'm also joining in with the Anything Goes theme at Happy Little Stampers Stencil Challenge; and the Anything Goes option at Seize The Birthday.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I  don't know what on earth I'm doing making such a springlike card! In reality, Arctic winds are flinging flurries of bitter little snowflakes against the windows and every time I leave the house I say "I'm going out, I may be some time." In another life, we might have cheered each other up with coffee get togethers or a cosy games evening. Le sigh. I have decked my house out with potted daffodils instead. Go away winter! Only spring now!

Sending hugs,