Happy news

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Happy Thursday and a very warm welcome to the latest Tic Tac Toe challenge! This week, I've come up with a board that I hope will inspire you to join in with us.

Lots of different ways to use this board! Here's what I came up with using the bottom row Die Cut/Leaves/Pearls:

To make this card I first masked off the edges of a thick card base with low tack tape and sponged blue ink into the remaining space. The leaves were added using green ink and Uniko's Nature's Treasure stencil.

The sweet sentiment is from WPlus9's Strictly Sentiments 2 and was stamped in black ink. To finish the card, I added die cut flowers from Stampin' Up's Wrapped Flowers dies and decorated the centres with pearls.

So now it's your turn! Which row or column will you choose? Or perhaps you've been inspired by one of the diagonal lines on the tic tac toe board? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and check out the gorgeous samples from my talented team mates. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and can use it to share your own creation with us. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

AND IN OTHER NEWS

This card was rustled up because we have been blessed with more good news... there is to be a new addition to the family! My eldest nephew and his wife are expecting their first baby later this year and I am absolutely thrilled to bits for them.

Sending hugs,

In memory of Ruby the Westie

Hello, crafting friends!

I am very proud to be guesting at Pixies Snippets Playground today, particularly because it is a Ruby's Memory challenge. Ruby was a little Westie rescued by Lynne In NI, one of the Playground's regulars. The little dog was a much-loved family member for many years before sadly passing in December last year. With permission from Lynne, Di from the Playground decided to set up a challenge in her memory, where players could donate prizes and Di would match the amount as a donation to the charity that rescued Ruby.

The challenge is to make a card using up snippets of paper and/or card and any other little snippets you might have lying about. My card uses the last of some free papers I got from this year's Stampin' Up Sale-a-bration promotion. 

I loved the leafy paper and this is the very last piece! It was trimmed to size with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle. The sentiment is from WPlus9's Strictly Sentiments 2, stamped on an offcut of white card and cut out with a nesting label die from The Works. I've definitely stamped it wonkily but, as I said to Di, that seems appropriate for the times we're living in!

The flowers are cut out of another of the papers and I think they look so chubby and cheerful! There's always a design in a pack of papers that you're not so keen on and cutting elements out of it can often be a great way to use it.

As a little extra, I made a little Sour Cream container with another off-cut of paper and decorated it with one of the left-over cut-out flowers. These take very little paper and are so useful as gift wrapping for small gifts.

The prizes I donated are the sentiment set I used on my card, as well as the cutest little doggy set from Clearly Besotted called Dog Years.  To win them, you simply need to complete three steps:

• Click HERE to go to The Snippets Playground

• Use the Linky Tool there to enter ONE card using snippets of designer paper and/or card

• Leave a comment stating that you'd like to enter the prize draw. 

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Dawn's Occasions challenge at Watercooler Wednesday. Addicted to Stamps and More also have an Any Occasion challenge so I'm also playing along there.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

About four months ago, we met a little dog on the fields at the back of our house. She was found with her siblings in a cardboard box, abandoned on a Romanian street, and was rescued, brought to England and homed with a lady who lives locally. When we met this pup, she was terrified, hiding in a hedge and barking hysterically. I have never known any dog be able to resist Eva though and, sure enough, this little dog quickly understood that she was no threat. Humans though were a different matter and the dog made it quite clear that I was to keep my distance. It has been four months since we first met this dog and I can report that yesterday, for the first time, she came up to me, tail wagging, and allowed me to pet her. I am as proud as can be!

Sending hugs,

The hills are alive!

Hello, crafting friends!

A quick post today as I suddenly got the urge to make a card and it gets dark so quickly now that it's hard to photograph them.

I'm using a new stamp set, Pile on the Hugs by MFT. I got it because I thought the little figures could be used as cute versions of my grown up children which will make them smile. First up - my daughter! This is exactly the sort of thing she would do on top of a hill, and in my mind I can hear her singing 'The hills are alive' and doing a great Julie Andrews impression! I stamped the figure, coloured her with alcohol markers and fussy cut her.

I made a background byy masking off the bottom and sides of the card and inking in a brown hill with a homemade curved stencil. Above that are some stencilled clouds - I used Scenic Border stencil from Funky Fossil and light grey ink for this. I popped my figure up on dimensionals and finished the card with a lovely curvyy sentiment from Strictly Sentiments 2 by WPlus9.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with some of my favourite challenges which I'm delighted to see arrive back after the holidays. At the Paper Players, LeAnne would like to see us Use Something New; Nancy is hosting at Just Us Girls and wants to see cards featuring the word Hello; and at the Color Throwdown Amy has come up with a great wintery palette of Rust, Cream and Brown. I'm also linking up with NBUS where Darnell wants to see your Never Before Used Schtuff in a very inspiring gallery :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's still cold and frosty here, which I love because it means no muddy pups when we get back from our walks :) I had to laugh this morning as the first thing I saw on a VERY frosty morning was a van parked outside with Frost Family Van Hire on the side of it. I hadn't realised the frost was delivered by van!!

Sending hugs,

One layer of leaves

Hello, crafting friends!

While I was in the middle of making yesterday's card, Eva wandered by with her enthusiastic tail and sent a stamp set flying onto the floor. As I bent to pick it up, I thought the colours I was using would be perfect for one of the images in the set... Thank you my floofy assistant!

The stamp set turned out to be one of my favourites - In the Meadow by Funky Fossil, but I'd not thought to use any of the images in an autumnal way! I used my stamping platform to stamp the leaf image in three Stampin' Up inks: Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry and Mossy Meadow, tucking a sentiment from WPlus9's Strictly Sentiments 2 between two of them.

It really is the simplest card - one layer and just stamps and inks - no fancy techniques - but I think it's quite effective. I added a sprinkling of gems, which I coloured cinnamon with an alcohol marker, and called it a day :)

CHALLENGES

The Paper Players and Sunday Stamps have very similar autumnal colour swatches this week, so I'm linking up with both challenges.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

In return for giving me stamping ideas, I found Eva a clean field with softy grass so that she could do this:

Full of joie de vivre and living for the moment - what a lot dogs can teach us!

Sending hugs,

Hello there autumn!

Hello, crafting friends!

While romping about in the countryside with Eva, I'm definitely seeing some beautiful coloured leaves swirling about and lots of bright berries too. Very inspiring for cards!

The panel on this card started off with the Birch Trees stencil from Funky Fossil. I held it over a scrap of card stock and used a pale orange alcohol marker to add colour. While the stencil was still in place, I over-stamped the colour with a tree from White Christmas (retired) by Stampin' Up.

When the stencil was removed I coloured the trees with alcohol markers and added detail with a black fineliner pen. Then came the fun! I chose some tiny leaves from an ancient Clearly Besotted set called Flower Arrangement and stamped them in gorgeous autumnal colours. When those were done, the panel was trimmed with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die

I stamped a few more of the leaves directly onto the card base, using the panel as a guide. Then I stamped more of the leaves on scrap card, cut them out and popped them up for a bit of dimensional interest. The sentiment is from WPlus9's Strictly Sentiments 2, cut out with a stitched rectangle die.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So happy that this card was the Diamond Winner at Color My Heart Color Dare  and a Librarian's Choice at The Library Challenge!

CHALLENGES

I was inspired by a few of the many autumn-themed challenges out there! The trees and falling leaves were from the Library Challenge's fabulous book cover; the colours from Color My Heart Color Dare's stunning inspiration graphic; I fell in love with the sketch from Fab Friday; and I made an autumnal scene as per this month's Autumn Glory theme at Stamping Sensations.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The leaves are beginning to drop now, and some of the trees are looking very autumnal, but you can see from this photo taken this morning...

... that there's still a lot of green around. Eva, who was on Squirrel Patrol, had scampered on ahead and had disappeared around that corner; I called her and am delighted to report that her recall was absolutely spot on - which is quite impressive under the squirrelly circumstances!

Sending hugs,