Banners and boughs

Hello, crafting friends...

 

... and a happy Thanksgiving to all those celebrating today :)

 

Have you finished your festive cards yet? If you haven't, you can come and be in my gang because I certainly haven't! But that's okay because it's a Tic Tac Toe Challenge Thursday which means loads of inspiration, courtesy of Elizabeth this week:

I chose the diagonal from bottom left Stamping/Free/Layers and went with neutrals with just a pop or two of colour.

 

The card started with a kraft card base, the edges of the front sponged with white craft ink. I layered it with gingerbread coloured card cut with the largest of the Greetery's Nordic Frames dies. I also cut a layer from kraft card with the medium size frame and stamped it with a bunch of mistletoe from Budding Beauties Winter, also from the Greetery. Once I'd stamped it, I stenciled around it with white craft ink using Funky Fossils Brick Wall stencil.

 

The stamped image was intensified with coloured pencils and I added a shadow which helps it to pop. Berries were added with a Posca white acrylic paint pen. To finish, I stamped a banner image from a retired Stampin' Up set and stamped a Greetery sentiment inside, bending it to fit the curve. The banner was fussy cut and I added some shading with brown ink and a sponge dauber to add dimension before popping it up on dimensional pads.

 

Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site to check out my team mates' card samples - prepare to be amazed! And then it's your turn! Choose a row, column or diagonal from the board, create a card using the inspiration, then share with us using the Linky Tool at the bottom of the challenge post.  We are looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with Inkspirational where the theme is Seasonal; at ABC Christmas W is for Wreath and X is for XOXO - Hugs and Kisses and I thought my bunch of mistletoe would be good for the hugs and kisses theme! I'm also linking up with the Stencil Fun Challenge where the optional theme is Leaves

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's been so wet here and I've had my hands full with Lulu, so I'm only now getting round to tidying up in the garden. Everything needs cutting back and the leaves need sweeping up and the grass needs a final trim, but that's okay because I've got some wonderful helpers!! Here we see the difference between Eva and Lulu:

 

 

This is Eva. She likes to carry my trimmings around the garden and if I make a pile of leaves, she makes a nest in it. She is demonstrating her 'Smoosh Face', a term coined by my eldest son, which is where she's concentrating on something on the ground and her ears flop forwards and her forward goes all wrinkly and smooshed. We can never resist Smoosh Face and it often results in cooing noises from us and Tummy Rubs for her!

 

This is Lulu. She likes to take her ball with her as she wanders around the house and garden. She hides it under things and then takes immense pleasure in triumphantly finding it again. She is delighted that I have had the idea of cutting lots of trimmings from the hedge for the sole purpose of giving her an excellent place to hide her ball!

Sending hugs,

Bobbin' Robin!

Hello, crafting friends!

 

We're heading towards the end of the month and there were a couple of challenges I've been wanting to join in with. This card covers both bases|!

I started by cutting a card panel with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and sponging lots of blue ink onto it. Funky Fossil's Snow Flurry stencil was positioned over the top and I sponged the same colour blue into it for a soft tone on tone look. I stamped the pine branch from The Greetery's Budding Beauties Winter at the bottom of the panel, adding extra pine needles and doodling in extra branches with a marker.

 

The adorable robins are from an old set from Clearly Besotted. I coloured two of them with coloured pencils, layering up the colours and blending them. I perched one robin on the branch and the other in the air as if he was dive bombing his friend! 

 

 

The sentiment was put together using two sentiments from WPlus9's Silver Bells. Once I'd stamped everything, I mounted the panel onto a slightly bigger green panel and attached it to a card front. I'm excited to see my Christmas card stash growing!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at  We Love Stamping where the challenge is Anything Goes with optional Add a Stencil; and Rudolph Days for the monthly Christmas card challenge.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I realised the other day that although I think of this house as 'the new house', we have lived in it for over twenty years! I had a sudden memory of the boys playing together. The two of them were inseparable when they were little and played all sorts of extraordinarily detailed imaginative games. If they wanted their characters to have something, they drew it on a piece of paper and cut it out with scissors. They didn't bother to colour it in or anything, their imaginations did everything! In case you're feeling sorry for them, they did also have plenty of toys!

Sending hugs,

Oh deer

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome to another Thursday round of Tic Tac Toe! It's Joanne's turn to get us inspired with a brand new board and as usual there are all sorts of ways you could go with it!

 

 

I'm loving the autumn season but a little voice has been getting ever louder in my head and I have responded by getting a bit more serious about making Christmas cards!! I chose the left hand column Foliage/Berries/Trees.

 

 

The scene was made with a retired Stampin' Up set called Snow Front. I used a torn sticky note to create a simple snowy background, then stamped trees and snow drifts and deer, adding details with markers and coloured pencils. The scene was trimmed to size and attached to the centre of a frame, hand drawn with a gold pencil directly onto a card base.

 

The sentiment is from a retired Uniko set called Pure Florals Poinsettia, stamped in red ink and heat embossed for a bit of shine (hard to see that here.) The holly and berries are from The Greetery's Budding Beauties Winter, stamped and fussy cut and positioned to tie everything together.

Okay, so it's your turn! You can choose any row, column or diagonal from the board and do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge blog to see the amazing samples the design team have made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your own creation with us. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Winter Wonderland where the theme is Let It Snow; I think this card would be a good card for a man, and it's a CAS design which is the challenge at the The Male Room.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I met up for coffee (and, in his case, an enormous bacon sandwich!) with my youngest son. We went to a place near the train station that had been recommended to me by a friend who grew up up in the area. It's always fun to go to a cafe where you need to be careful not to run over any stray birds in the car park...

 

and when you visit the Ladies Room, there are peacocks on the roof!! Thank goodness we didn't bring Eva!

Sending hugs,

It's a wrap!

Hello, crafting friends!

Oh the joy of seeing a couple of challenges and snatching some time to join in!

This card looks simple but I had a bit of problem solving to do before it came together. I wanted the stamped 'ribbon' to look as if it was wrapped around the panel, but the stamp I had from Uniko's Background Builders Classics wasn't long enough for a standard card so I trimmed the  card base and panel down a bit. Luckily I had a kraft envelope the right size!

I stamped on the kraft card stock with Stampin' Up's Poppy Parade ink. The kraft darkens it down a bit so Real Red card stock was a good match when I die cut the bows using MFT's Birthday Cocktail die set. The holly sprig is from Budding Beauties Winter by the Greetery.

I had planned a circular tag style sentiment but I couldn't get my elements to work well together. In the end, I found this sentiment from Thye Greetery's Snowflake Soirée which fit the space exactly and that excited me so much I forgot about circles!

CHALLENGES

I loved the brown-paper-parcels-tied-up-with-string in the snow and the sketch at Inspired By this week; Sparkles Christmas Challenge's theme for November is Presents and I thought it would be fun to create a card that looked like a present!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It was my darling dayughter's birthday yesterday and her floofy sister naturally wished to send birthday greetings. Normally she greets the family with cute little 'hen noises' or raises her nose and 'arooos' gently but since we were celebrating at a distance this year, we sent this:

It is not natural for a retriever to hold a thin rose stem in her mouth I can tell you! I removed all the thorns first and used kitchen paper to create a padded area for Eva to hold on to. She was rewarded with dried sprats!! Isn't she adorable?

Sending hugs,

The Circles that you find

Hello, crafting friends!

It's time for a new challenge at Addicted to CAS and Sue has chosen a code word that really got me inspired so I hope it'll do the same for you!

Some stitched dies from Waffleflower were my starting point. I cut some overlapping circles in a card panel, inlaying the smaller one. I wanted a third circle, so used a little circle punch to cut out a 2021 I found in a magazine, mounting it onto another circle cut out of red card.

Positioning the card panel onto a card base, I traced round the inside of the large circle with a soft pencil. I used this as a guide for stamping on the card base. I sponged some neutral ink over the area, then stamped a fir branch and berries from Budding Beauties Winter from the Greetery. Finally, I assembled my elements - attached the card panel to the card front, positioned a die cut sentiment and the 2021 below it and finished with a single enamel dot.

So, now it's your turn and I can't wait to see how you interpret the word 'Circles'. There's amazing inspiration at the Addicted to CAS challenge site as always, and you'll find the Linky Tool there so that you can share your own creation with us. Remember to keep your creation nice and clean and simple won't you, and above all have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Watercooler Wednesday where Tristan is hosting the All Occasions challenge; and also Happy Little Stampers Christmas challenge where Anything Goes with optional Make a Scene.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Do you ever get triggered to remember a song? The code word for today's challenge made me think of a sentence 'the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind' which, when I looked it up, turned out to be from a great song that I hadn't heard for a very, very long time! One of the things I like to do is to look songs up on YouTube and then play all the versions I can find. Here, for your listening pleasure is a version by the sublime Dusty Springfield whose voice was just so distinctive. Anyone remember this?

Sending hugs,

Bottled Up for Christmas

Hello, crafting friends!

It's Tuesday and time for a new month of fun challenges at CAS Colours and Sketches! M friend Joanne is stepping up to host throughout November and boy has she got some great colours and sketches to inspire you with! Here's the colour palette she's starting with:

If you're up to your ears in Christmas card designs, you may find it very helpful - I certainly have!

I started by masking off the bottom of a card panel and sponging a neutral ink above it to ground my focal images. The darker green ink was used to stamp the two layers of a holly spray from Budding Beauties Winter by the Greetery, and I added the berries in red.  The bottle is from Bottled Up also by the Greetery. It has three layers and I used the lighter green to stamp all three which gives a very subtle texture. 

Once my bottle of holly was stamped I used one of Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside Border dies to cut a curve from the side of the card panel. I mounted this onto a card base and finished the card with a die cut sentiment and some highlights to my foliage with a Posca white acrylic paint pen.

And now it's over to you! Check out the fabulous inspiration from the rest of the team at the CAS Colours and Sketches challenge site, and you can share your own creation there too via the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post. Have fun - and don't forget to keep your card nice and clean and simple with lots of nice clear space!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Addicted to Stamps and More where there's a Christmas challenge; also Just Us Girls where Bobby has chosen Leaves as her wild card theme - and I'm hoping my holly leaves won't disrupt the autumnal gallery too much! I'm also playing along at Allsorts where Lorraine's challenge is to Add a Sentiment.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Just as the clocks went back in the UK this weekend, the wind picked up and the temperatures dropped and next morning we found lots of broken branches, leaves everywhere and sadly a few trees down too. Never mind 'sweater weather', it's coat weather and I would recommend hard hats too!

Sending hugs,