Happy birthday gorgeous girl!

Hello, crafting friends!

I think it's always lovely to celebrate a birthday with a picture of your best friend on a card - especially when the bestie in question is an adorable dog! 

I didn't have any stamps that look like her except this one from the choir in Clearly Besotted's Howl It's Christmas. So I stamped the whole choir in SU Crumb Cake ink, added her kind of tail with the matching marker and coloured her with alcohol markers before carefully cutting her away from the rest of the choir. The edges of the cut-out was carefully coloured with the SU marker to give it a 'finished' look.

The best place for a pup is a walk in the countryside, so I took a small card base, positioned a circle template on the front and sponged pale yellow ink into it. Without moving the circle template, I placed the grassy part of Funky Fossil's Scenic Border stencil over it and sponged brown ink inside. The stencil was moved down and the process repeated to get a nice textured ground. The little dog was placed on dimensionals on the background and the card was finished with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Fly With Me, stamped onto sponged cardstock and trimmed with sharp paper snips.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So pleased that this card made the AAA Birthday Challenge's Top 3!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card with AAA Birthday Challenge where they want to see a stencilled background this month; I'm also joining in at Addicted to Stamps and More, which has morphed into a fortnightly challenge and this fortnight it's Make Your Mark.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Here's the young lady that inspired today's card. Isn't she a beauty?

And look at the card again - can you even tell the difference? Lol!!

Sending hugs, 

Christmas Walkies

Hello, crafting friends!

Have you seen the Clearly Besotted Howl It's Christmas set? As a dog walker, it would have been criminal to have denied some of my customers the sight of a choir of pups singing 'Walkies in a Winter Wonderland' so it found its way into my shopping basket! Come and see:

I chuckled the whole way through making this card! I started by stamping Clearly Besotted's Picture It Christmas stamp onto a card panel, masked it off and inked in a sky using distress ink. The background was coloured with alcohol markers and I added more ink in the foreground before trimming it to size with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die.

Just look at the pups! Jenny, one of the two sisters who own Clearly Besotted, is an incredibly talented designer, and the angelic expressions on these little faces are surely drawn from life! I stamped them, coloured them and fussy cut the choir, then set them aroo-ing on the icy foreground, using dimensionals to pop them up.

The sentiments in the Howl It's Christmas set are so funny and punny (Bark the Herald Angels Sing or Santa Paws is Coming to Town anyone?!) but also come in a beautiful cursive font. I chose Walkies in a Winter Wonderland for mine, cackling like a hen the whole while! A few highlights with a white Posca paint pen and the card was done.

CHALLENGES

I am linking up with Christmas With The Cuties with this card; also Kickstart Christmas with the If It's Christmassy Link It Up challenge; and Watercooler Wednesday where Anything Goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Do you remember the Baroness? The elderly boxer who sadly passed away a month ago? I have been missing her, as Eva and I walk around the countryside and of course everywhere there are memories of her. Well, yesterday I had a phone call from a lady with severe arthritis who is struggling to walk her dog. I went to meet her today and took the little dog out with me and Eva...

Meet Florence, an eight year old boxer who is the friendliest little soul! She and Eva kicked up their heels and romped through the fields together, despite the torrential rain. I am so happy to have her on board - it feels a little like the spirit of the Baroness has come to us.

Sending hugs,