Left overs and hugs

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I can't even begin to explain how much fun I had today! Some Blogland challenges had inspired me to take a look in my patterned paper drawer and the first thing I saw was the Simple Stories Christmas pad I'd bought to make some last-minute 'patterned background and bold die cut sentiment' cards last year. There were some whole sheets left in the pad but there were also some off cuts and some little journaling cards which I thought I might use to create some non-festive cards. Come and see:

 

CARD NUMBER ONE

 

I started trimming some coordinating strips which I put together in an L shape on a card panel. The large heart, which I found on one of the journal cards, was fussy cut, stiffened by stacking it up with snippets of white card, and popped up on the panel. I added another heart, die cut from a mustard snippet and an enamel heart.

 

The 'hugs' sentiment was cut using the Greetery's Slim Alphabet dies. I thought it would go nicely with the heart theme :)

 

 

CARD NUMBER TWO

Instead of going for the blue and red with mustard accents, this time I focused on the warm mustard with red and blue accents. I LOVE the patterns and muted colours in this pad!

 

 

The mug of flowers was fussy cut from a journal card and I added layered die cut hearts and a sentiment banner fussy cut from another journal card. 

Here are some of the snippets I used (I added more as I went along plus white snippets). Sadly I ran out of time as I would definitely have enjoyed making more of these!

CHALLENGES

I fell in love with Kim's gorgeous sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, and used it for both my cards; I used Patterned Paper on both, so will enter these at Double D where that is the theme; X is for Xtra Hearts at The Alphabet Challenge so I'm linking up Card One there; I'm taking my mug of flowers to The Snippets Playground - I shall give the flowers to Miss Di to cheer her up and then nip up to the treehouse and fill it up with hot chocolate! Liz said something about Baileys... I don't know what that is but it sounds delicious!!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I tend to walk the golden girls in the park at the moment because it is mostly flooded. They are thrilled with this and I can let them off to zoom around in the water because there are very few people around, and those there are tend to have dogs who are also careering about! We saw a man looking thoughtfully at the football pitch, which is completely submerged. "Looks more like a water polo pitch doesn't it!" he said to me. And then went off into peals of laughter at his own wit!

Sending hugs,

Snippety collage

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I was amazed to read that Miss Di has been running The Snippets Playground for no less than ELEVEN YEARS! Wow! I was around in Blogland when she took over but surely it was yesterday...?! I am enjoying a little free time at the moment so I immediately tipped out my Snippets Box and prepared to join in with the celebrations! 

 

We have been asked to include a photo of the snippets we used for this challenge and here are mine above. I made a collage style 'welcome home' card with them:

 

I started with the background snippet. This was an offcut from a piece that had been stamped with Stampin' Up's Hardwood background stamp. I taped pieces of coordinating washi tape on one side of it for a bit of extra interest. The leaves were a practice run of a Greetery die I bought last year and then *hangs head* have never used since. I tore the leaves into sections and glued them to the background. 

Next I die cut the little house from the tiny white snippet using an X Cut die. I taped some yyellow washi tape over the middle of the tiny wood effect strip of DSP then glued the house over it so the washi 'illuminated' the windows. I added the gem-embellished heart (found at the bottom of the Snippets Box) and popped the whole thing up on the background using dimensional pads. Finally, the sentiments were added.

Apologies for the appalling photos - light levels are very low :/

CHALLENGES

I'm heading over to The Snippets Playground with this card and a large cake piped with 'congratulations on eleven snippety years' in pink icing! I'm also nipping over to Darnell's NBUS Challenge as the Side of Greens die can now officially be removed from the Never Before Used Schtuff box!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Yes, January is dull and dreary, but if you're a dog...

 

 

... there's still plenty of squirrel hunting fun to be had!

Although I have a feeling the squirrels were all blowing raspberries and cat-calling the 'hunters'!!

Sending hugs,

Precious Love

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Happy Saturday to you and welcome to a brand new challenge at Addicted to CAS! My talented teamie Raga has chosen the cue word for us this time and it's a timely one with Valentine's Day around the corner:

 

Of course you can use hearts on any kind of card, so the world is your oyster! I have gone for the kind of card you could give at any time of the year to show your love and appreciation.

 

I started this card with a beautiful sentiment from The Colorado Co's Big and Bold Get Well, stamping it in pink ink. I heat embossed it with clear embossing powder so that it became waterproof and then splodged a load of diluted blue ink over it and blotted with kitchen paper. When it was dry I cut a label shape out of it, using a die from The Works, and attached it to a card base.

Meanwhile, I cut some gold foil hearts using dies and punches and enjoyed decorating them. The largest one was run through an embossing folder I picked up in a Hobbycraft sale last weekend - 50p well spent I reckon! It was embellished with a clear gem. I punched a few pink hearts and stacked them up under the punched heart to add subtle detail. The tiny heart embosses as it cuts :)  Finally, all the hearts were glued in place around the sentiment.

So now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Addicted to CAS challenge site to check out the beautiful designs my talented 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 with us when you're ready. Have fun - but remember to keep your design nice and clean and simple!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge where Anything Goes; I'm  also joining in at CASology where the cue card is Affection.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I'll leave you with a picture sent from my very own precious daughter* captioned "Me as a child when you used to tell me to tidy my room!"

*May not be an ACTUAL photo of my daughter!!

Sending hugs,

A dotty little note

Hello, crafting friends!

Even though I rarely buy designer paper, I seem to have a lifetime's supply having been a Stampin' Up demonstrator in the past! There are loads of tiny snippets to be used up and I found a fun way of using some of them today.

The leaves are a new-to-me stencil from Uniko called Nature's Treasures. I love them! They include the mask of the leaves as well, which makes the stencil even more versatile, AND you can use them to position where you want your stencilling to go. 

Inspired by the lovely Joanne James, who remarked that hearts are not just for valentines, the dotty flowers were cut with a small heart punch out of off-cuts of ancient SU paper. I centred the flowers with black double-stacked punched circles to toughen them up a bit! The sentiment is a favourite from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

This car was a Diamond Winner at Color My Heart Color Dare and a Cut Above at The Paper Players!

CHALLENGES

I chose my colours from the Color My Heart Color Dare's colour wheel challenge where we pick 3 colours next to one another; I'm also linking up with Anne Marie's clean and simple Polka Dots challenge at The Paper Players; using up the snippets means I can nip over to the Di's Snippets Playground (with my broll I think!!); and, because I've used my new Uniko schtencil, I'll sashay over to Darnell's NBUS challenge where we go to share our Never Before Used Schtuff!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have so enjoyed watching all the birds nesting in our tiny garden this year but the other morning I went out to a scene of disaster. I knew something was wrong straight away - it was strangely quiet out there. An egg had fallen onto a flower bed and three little fledglings lay dead on the grass. I suppose it must have been a cat, or one of the clumsy pigeons, and I know it's all part of nature but it made me feel so sad.

Sending hugs,

A hill of hearts

Hello, crafting friends!

Are you ready for a fun new challenge from CAS Colours and Sketches? Jeanne is our hostess this month and she has come up with a great sketch featuring a lovely curve.

Valentine's Day is coming up and while I wouldn't normally send out loads of valentines I am determined this year that every single small event in the calendar will be celebrated big time! All my family will be getting a card (and probably a load of heart-shaped confectionary too!) so I went with a heart motif. 

My curve was made with one of the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Border dies. I scribbled pink swatches onto a scrap bit of card stock with alcohol markers and cut hearts out with a small heart punch, then arranged them in ombré fashion along the edge of the curve. Once the hearts were glued down, I trimmed the curve to card width using a stitched rectangle die by Heffy Doodle.

To finish the card, I used grey ink to stamp a sentiment from Blossoms in Bloom by Clearly Besotted and attached the curved heart panel to a card base using dimensional pads.

Now it's over to you - but don't forget this is a CAS card challenge, so do remember to leave plenty of white space when designing your card! Check out all the inspiration HERE, from this week's special guest designer, and from my talented teamies :)

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So happy that this card was showcased at Less is More!

CHALLENGES

Less is More has an All In A Row theme this fortnight, so I shall link this card up there.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Our snow is on its way out now but when it first settled the fields at the back of my house were full of snowmen by late afternoon. There was non-one about so I let Eva romp off to career about, roll in the snow and dig for invisible mice. Two minutes later she came bouncing back with a carrot in her mouth. It was a snowman's nose which she had stolen and I'm sorry to say it was demolished it before I could return it :/

Sending hugs,