Easter blessings

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Today I'm showing you one of this year's Easter cards which uses up snippets of very old paper and card, and a ruined card base, and uses an interesting ink technique!

 

I used the back of a ruined card base to create a panel. I stenciled a 'glow' on it using Clearly Besotted's Sunny Day stencil sponged with yellow ink. I wanted to depict the crosses of Jesus and the two criminals but didn't have stamps, so I used the edge of a piece of card dipped in an ink pad to create them - sometimes you just have to be a bit resourceful!! - then filled in with a brown marker.

 

The 'green hill without a city wall' (which always confused me when I sang it as a child!) was cut out from an offcut of some very old SU paper using an oval die from a nesting set. I added a snippet of contrasting paper at the top and cut the whole panel to size with a stitched rectangle from Heffy Doodle.

 

For the sentiment, I cut a small oval from the panel and replaced it with another oval stamped with the word 'Blessings'. The large Easter die cut is from The Greetery and was cut from a snippet of card which matched the hill paper. The card was finished with an assortment of sequins and enamel dots.

 

CHALLENGES

I used Amy's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for this card so will link up there; Krafty Chicks has an All Occasions challenge and Addicted to Stamps and More has its Any Occasion challenge going on so I'm joining in at both.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When you have a dog that has lived four years of her life in another household, you really don't know how they'll react when they come across something new. Today, we were walking up a lane when a horse and rider came round a corner. Eva was right beside me and I put her on lead immediately; Lulu ran towards the horse - eek! BUT...  I called her, she turned on a sixpence and ran back to me. I was able to pop her on lead and walk past the horse and rider with a cheery remark about the weather. Eva is great around horses but I didn't know about Lulu and I was SO proud of her!

Sending hugs,

Slimline pine

Hello, crafting friends!

 

A quick post today to try to catch a few challenges I've been mulling over!

 

 

I recently took delivery of this absolutely stunning 3D slimline embossing folder from Altenew - Classic Pine Cones. It ran through my Bigshot like a dream and was so easy to colour: I just sponged colour all over the background and then added the brown ink to the pine cones with a dauber - simple! All that was needed was a sprinkling of 'snow' courtesy of a Posca white acrylic paint marker.

 

The panel was cut to size with my trimmer and I sponged some more brown ink round the edges to add dimension. After mounting the panel onto a slimline card base, I added a simple sentiment from an older Stampin' Up set, stamped in dark brown ink on a white offcut, cut out with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and glued to the card front.  This was a quick card that could be good for batches!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Jingle Belles where Stephanie and Lauren are Keeping it Neutral; also Can You Handle The Pressure where embossing is required and there's an optional theme of Nautical (that I obviously didn't go for!); I'm joining in with challenge 618 at Try Stamping on Tuesday where the  Technique is Slimline; the Group of Seven technique this month is Colouring Dry Embossed images and I'm linking up there too; Also, this embossing folder is having it's first whirl so I'm sharing at Darnell's NBUS Challenge!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Thank you to all who asked after Eva's 'poor paw'. It turned out to be a fungal infection in her nailbed which disappeared after just a few days of treatment and she is now romping about as usual! I did give the pups a bit of a pep talk about Being Careful with their paws and they cocked their heads to one side, tails wagging, wolfed down a treat or two and shot off into the undergrowth!

 

 

Sending hugs,

Embossing on plaid

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Here's a Christmas card I made with some gorgeous plaid paper gifted to me by a very kind friend. The papers were released by Stampin' Up in 2020 and featured plaids in loads of beautiful colours. I bought a pack and loved it so much I used pretty much every scrap! Of course I couldn't get more as SU don't tend to carry papers over to subsequent catalogues, so I was absolutely delighted with the gift.

For this card, I cut a panel from a blue and green plaid using a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle. I stamped a garland of ivy from Stampin' Up's Quite Curvy stamp set onto a white card panel, and used the same rectangle die to cut it out. The ivy was coloured with alcohol markers and I fussy cut the top section away so that I could layer it over the plaid.

 

The sentiment is from Stampin' Up's Merry Christmas To All and was stamped directly onto the plaid in versamark ink and heat embossed with gold embossing powder. While I was at it, I drew berries on the ivy with a versamark pen and heat embossed those in gold too.

The panel was attached to a card base and I finished the card with a little bird from the Quite Curvy set, stamped, coloured as a robin with coloured pencils, fussy cut and mounted on dimensional pads.

CHALLENGES

I'm playing along with Happy Little Stampers Christmas challenge where Anything Goes this month; At Jingle Belles, Lauren and Stephanie have a What Santa Brought challenge and I am joining in with my gifted designer paper.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Eva loves opening presents and must be quite bemused when they make an appearance at seemingly random times in the year! Here she is opening one of her presents at Christmas...

... a fabulous crinkly eared elephant which she carried around proudly throughout the festive period! Unfortunately it's gone to the dog toy graveyard already as OH inadvertently used it to play tuggy with Eva at new year and it wasn't designed for that! Please don't feel bad for Eva though - she has an extremely large basket of toys!!

Sending hugs,

Christmas with a crunch!

Hello, crafting friends!

Today I'm showing you one of the cards I made but couldn't share until it had arrived. This one was made for my daughter and her partner and I'm happy to say it made them smile!

Aren't these the cutest gingerbread people? They're from Mama Elephant and I just couldn't resist them! I made a background on the card base with my Gingham byackground stamp by Kaisercraft, adding some fade out stencilling using the Knitted stencil from Funky Fossil.

The plate of gingerbread people and the separate biscuits were stamped in light brown ink, coloured with alcohol markers and fussy cut. I glued the plate to the card and popped the little gingerbread people up on dimensionals.

The card was finished with a sentiment made from two stamps in Stampin' Up's Merry Christmas to All. I am increasingly drawn to sentiment sets that enable me to mix and match words and fonts :)

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with Chocolate Baroque's Anything Goes challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We've been talking about Christmas advertisements in our family. OH mentioned there had been a lot of CGI adverts recently and I said I thought that they were a very successful way for companies to get the attention of families. Kevin the Carrot was one of the most successful campaigns for one of the supermarkets, I added, and the company even got to sell merchandise every year on the back of it. "Kevin the Carrot," said OH. "Is that a CGI ad?" We all stared at him. " Oh no," said my daughter with a deadpan expression, "I think they hired an actual carrot for that one!"

Sending hugs,

Frosty Christmas greetings

Hello, crafting friends!

My fingers are beginning to feel a bit chilly when I'm out walking Eva first thing and, although that's because of a sharp wind rather than any frost, it got me thinking about those lovely bright frosty mornings to come. Which inspired today's card!

First I made a background by masking off most of my card front and inking a fading strip down the left hand edge. I removed the mask and stamped a greeting, combining stamps from Stampin' Up's Merry Christmas To All and Uniko's Pure Floral Poinsettia.

Then out came my perfect snowflakes from Dies By Chloe that I found on eBay last year! I cut several flakes out of silver and blue card stocks and arranged them down the edge. The card was finished with clear gems and blue sequins.

CHALLENGES

I used the fabulous sketch at this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge; I'm also joining in with Less is More, choosing the blue and Silver option; and will also link up at The Rainbow Card Challenge's Sparkling Sapphire Challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Just when I thought we'd got through firework season, they started up again last night :/ There are fields at the bottom of the road behind our house and I had taken Eva out there last thing as usual when a firework went off directly across the field. She was petrified and her flight instinct took over. She turned tail and ran home, with me clinging to her lead like a rag doll. When 40 kilos of golden retriever wants to get home fast, there's not much you can do about it! I just wish people would stop buying fireworks. Yes, they're pretty but they're a shocking pollutant and they're sure as heck not good for either wild or domestic animals. What do you think? Could you live life without fireworks?

Sending hugs,

An ill wind

Hello crafting friends!

We've all seen someone struggling along in the wind and rain with an umbrella that is supposed to protect them from the elements but that has turned into a monster with a will of its own. I thought it would be a great illustration of being there for a friend whose life has turned upside down with troubles. Come and see:

I made a windy, stormy background with the swirl from Merry Christmas To All from Stampin' Up - I always said that was an all-year-round set! The swirl was stamped with white craft ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder, then distress ink was blended from the corner of the card panel towards the centre of the card. You can see that better if we zoom in:

Do you like the brolly? It's from another Stampin' Up set called Under My Umbrella. I would buy a flowery number like this like a shot if I saw it in the shops! To make it I stamped the umbrella outline in black ink, made a mask with a sticky note using the coordinating punch, and stamped the smallest floral image through it. The design was coloured using water-based markers - which are fine for small areas. The umbrella handle was stamped in Stazon black ink so that it would stand out over the embossed background and the little handle grip was punched out using the punch.

I thought this sentiment would work well with my stormy scene. It's basically saying 'when life turns your brolly inside out, I'm here for you' which, come to think of it, would have been the PERFECT sentiment!

Delighted that this card was a Festive Fave!

And very proud to have won at Inspire.Create with this card too!

CHALLENGES
I'm playing along with AAA cards, which wants to see cards with an image in one corner; Inspire Create, where Movement is the theme; and Festive Friday where I've chosen Blue, Green and Friendship Sentiment from the inspiration list.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Forgive me for being obsessed about my broken oven, but an exciting new development has arisen. A part has been ordered which will hopefully restore the oven to its former efficient glory but, in the meantime, I've discovered from reading the manual that the top part, which I've always thought was just a grill, can also function as an oven! Pepperoni pizza - here we come!!!

Have a happy weekend!

Hugs,

Different ways to use a stamp

Hello crafting friends!

I have a couple of cards to show you today that use the same stamp in very different ways. One of the cards was a doddle to make and I banged out eight of them in an hour or two while chatting and crafting with a friend...

... The other card took practically a whole day and had me shrieking like a baboon as everything went wrong! Can you guess which is which?

THE FIRST CARD
This started with a greeting made out of some of the words in Stampin' Up's Merry Christmas To All. I arranged 'wishing you a' and 'Christmas' on a single block and stamped it in black ink, while 'Happy' went on a separate block and was stamped in red.

All the gorgeous leaves and branches I used to decorate around the greeting are from Uniko's Winter Foliage. This card was simple and everything went according to plan :)


THE SECOND CARD
I think the problem with this one is that I had only a vague plan for it! I started by masking off the edges of a thick card base. The remaining space was stamped in versamark ink with the snowflake from Stampin' Up's Winter Post (retired), then heat embossed with white embossing powder. The card base warped badly but I saved it by running it through my big shot a few times.

I used the fir branch from the first card to stamp over the embossed snowflakes, left and top, sponging a little extra ink round the edges for definition. The snowflakes were polished off with a tissue. I cut an off-centre square out of a card panel (it turned out to be in the wrong place so I had to do it again.) This was placed over the embossed card base and looked ok so I was encouraged to go on!

I then spent many ages of this world adding things, taking them away, trying a variety of sentiments which all went horribly wrong... until I ended up with this reindeer from the Winter Post set, a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said, and a little garland made with tiny circles punched out of shiny gold card with a cropadile.


CHALLENGES
As always, I am so grateful for all the wonderful challenge sites out there that inspire us all. I shall link both cards up with The Twofer Challenge, where the theme this month is Holiday Foliage and the foliage I've used in both cards is the fir branch. The second card was made using the beautiful sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. I shall also link it up with Perfectly CAS where the theme is Christmas; Jingle Belles, where we are taking inspiration from their header; and Festive Friday, where I've chosen Woodland Creatures, Leaves and Gold from the inspiration list.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
We are getting to that time of year where the light levels are shockingly low if it's cloudy, even at nearly midday. Of course that means it's nearly Christmas which brings with it friends and family, glowing fires and decorations, feasting and fun... so it's not all bad!

Are there things that you love about this time of year? Or would you prefer to hibernate until spring like a polar bear? Do let me know in the comments below :)

Hugs,