Left overs for Mothers Day?

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Today I decided to tip out my scraps box! I wanted to make a mothers day card and, after a little rummage, selected these items:

Those watercoloured flowers were left over from THIS box card which I made for a lovely friend of mine last year. Later on in the year, I bought the pads and mats that would enable me to use my dies to emboss. I used one of the Nordic Frame dies from The Greetery to see how it worked and this embossed panel was the result. It has been sitting in the snippets box ever since but was perfect for the card I planned today. Here's what I made with my snippets:

I started by masking off the bottom of the embossed panel and sponged a little blue ink above it to make a background, leaving the negative space as a 'ground'. The bottle, from The Greeteryy's Bottled Up, was stamped on the snippet of white card, cut out and glued onto the panel.

 

I fussy cut the flowers and leaves and arranged some of them over the neck of the bottle, popping the front daffodils up on dimensional pads.

 

I couldn't for the life of me find a mothers day sentiment in my stash but then I had a bright idea - the magazines would be full of adverts for mothers day! Sure enough, I found a white on black mothers day text, cut it out, mounted it on black card and added a pink, die-cut 'happy' using a Lawn Fawn birthday die. Clever huh?!!

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

This card won March's Flower Challenge! I felt very honoured!!

CHALLENGES

The Flower Challenge has a fun challenge this month - to make a card featuring flowers and to Use Scraps. My card was made with snipppets apart from the card base so I'm linking up there, and also with The Snippets Playground where all cards entered must be from snippets. I'm also joining in at We Love Stamping where Anything (stamped) Goes with optional Spring theme; also Stamping Sensations where we are invited to Stamp Something For Spring. I'm also linking up with a new-to-me challenge called Four Seasons where Anything Goes Spring.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I do love dear old England with its silly weather! Two days ago Eva and I were drenched with torrential rain every time we went out but today, spring has definitely sprung. It was so hot that Eva, who is still sporting a winter coat, spent a lot of time reacquainting herself with the river.

 

She was with a friend, a cheerful black lab named Otis, who is a genius when it comes to finding balls in the river. No ball today but he DID manage to come out with this squeaky carrot which he generously shared with Eva!

Sending hugs,

From the snippets box with love

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Happy Thursday and welcome to a shiny new challenge at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge! My friend LeAnne is in charge of the board this week and she has got all your valentine bases covered as well as plenty of options for any other kind of card you choose to make!

I've gone for the left hand column, Pink/Valentine or Heart/White, and have added in a few of the other ideas too! 

This card was made entirely of snippets except for the card base. I cut a heart out of a scrap of pretty pale pink striped paper and stamped up the side of it with a floral stamp from So Much by Uniko, adding colour with coloured pencils. 

The 'love' sentiment comes from the same stamp set. I stamped it in red on a tiny scrap of thick white card, heat embossed it with clear embossing powder, snipped it out and decorated it with a tiny die cut heart. I arranged some gold thread on my decorated heart before adding the sentiment label.

 

For a bit of extra dimension, I die cut a few more hearts out of off-cyuts of red card and glued them in a stack, finishing with the DSP one I'd decorated. I found a gold die cut 'you' in the snippets box, which I'd trimmed off a Lawn Fawn birthday sentiment in the dim and distant past, and added it to my sentiment label. To finish, I added gold dots around the flowers with a gold Uni Paint marker.

So now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and drool over the amazing inspiration from my team mates. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to link up your own creation when you're ready. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with the penultimate Ruby's Memory challenge at The Snippets Playground; and at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where Anything Goes this month.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Eva has a new friend! When we walk in the fields behind our house, we sometimes meet a lady who brings her granddaughter to play there. The two year old is not remotely nervous of Eva - her grandmother tells me she's used to dogs - but Eva has been cautious around the little girl knowing that toddlers can be unpredictable. But after meeting them in the fields a good few times now, Eva and the little girl have struck up a friendship. It is so sweet! Eva lays down beside the little girl to make herself smaller and the little girl strokes her and makes kissy noises. Sometimes she naughtily takes off her hat and gives it to Eva who runs off with it! The grandmother shrugs and tells me that's what washing machines are for!

Sending Hugs,

I just miss you

Hello, crafting friends!

What sort of cards have you mostly made this year? I seem to have made a lot of notecards, Hello cards, Thinking of You cards and Miss You cards.

This card gave me the perfect excuse to use a new-to-me stamp set called Missing You by Inky Doodles that I couldn't resist because of the adorable pup.

I started by die-cutting some clouds in shades of grey using one of the Lawn Fawn Puffy Cloud border dies. They were arranged ombré style and I added a sentiment from WPlus9's Hello and Thanks.

Next I stamped the pup, coloured him with alcohol markers and fussy cut him. I masked off the corner of a card base and sponged an area for my pup to sit and gaze up at the sentiment in the clouds. If this were my pup, he'd never be alone, not even ever!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with The Rainbow Card Challenge where they're looking for shades of Smokey Slate this month; also Watercooler Wednesday where it's Tristan's tuyrn to host All About Occasions; I felt this was an appropriate card for the males of the species so I'm playing along with the Clean and Simple challenge at Cards 4 Guyz; and since it was my first time inking up the Missing You schtamp schet, I'm joining in at NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff)!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I haven't been around lately as Eva has developed an ear infection which has caused a hematoma (swelling of the ear flap.) I'm devastated. She's always been a water baby so I've always made sure I've looked after her ears and this is the first time she's ever had an infection. I took her to the vet and found that vet we knew and trusted has left. The new vet was frankly appalling. He had no idea how to handle a nervy dog and was unable to outline any treatment options except drugs. Eva was absolutely traumatised by the whole experience and I was shocked. 

Neither of us slept the night after the visit but as you can see, Eva has now moved on and is smiling again. We really don't deserve dogs.

Sending hugs,

Sail away with me honey!

Hello, crafting friends!

Summer is back here in the heart of England so when I thought about making a Man Card today, I thought of sailing away somewhere with calm waters and warm breezes...

What do you think? I've masked off the top two thirds of some semi-coated card stock and sponged the remaining third with Stampin' Up's Shaded Spruce and Pacific Point inks to create an ocean. This was trimmed to A6 size with a Heffy Doodle stitched rectangle die.

The ship from Uniko's Nautical Treasures was stamped onto my ocean in Memento black ink. Using an off cut of white card stock, I sponged more Pacific Point ink into Funky Fossil's Simply Stripes stencil, then stamped the ship again onto it. I was then able to cut out the sails and paper piece them onto the original ship. I added a flag snipped out of red card stock for a pop of colour.

Finally, I used Lawn Fawn's Happy Birthday Border die to cut out a sentiment from my ocean. I replaced it with a version cut out of black card stock, then added the original over the top.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So pleased this card was a Team Pick at Tic Tac Toe Challenge!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with the Tic Tac Toe challenge, which inspired me this week with its top row Stripes/Masculine/Blue; I'm also joining in with Jaydee's Masculine Birthday challenge at the Paper Players; and last but not least, I'm playing along with The Male Room, where Travel is the theme.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I do try to keep up with Eva's training and she is very good on the whole (except when she thinks she knows best of course!) Here she is doing a great Stay...

... but that alert look shows me she's only staying on sufferance because if that squirrel comes out of the tree, she'll have him! 

Sending hugs,