Tip it up and start again

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Like lots of crafters, I have a little box where I keep all the elements I die cut, colour, emboss or otherwise prepare and then decide aren't right for a project. You don't want to waste all that hard work! After a conversation with  a crafty friend the other day, I decided that tipping my box out and making something with some of the contents would be a fun thing to do -  and it WAS!!

When I tipped the box out, it looked like this:

Aaargh! Total chaos! But I rummaged about and found these items...

And put them together like this:

 

I glued the offcut of sponged scene to the bigger snippet of wood effect paper, then trimmed the top and bottom with a stitched rectangle die for a neat finish. The circle frame was cut using two circle punches once and I was able to tuck one of the little flower clumps behind it for a 3D look. The flowers are from Stampin' Up's Under My Umbrella and have been coloured and fussy cut, so I'm glad to have made use of them at last!

 

That lacy die cut is part of a Stampin' Up window die given to me by my friend Em - thanks lovely!! The butterfly is from Uniko's English Country Garden Butterflies and has been embossed in gold and coloured with markers.

 

 

A top tip for this kind of card is to choose items of similar shades or hues and then to introduce a 'disruptor colour'. My disruptor is the sentiment which, although it is stamped in brown which works well with the frame and background, has been sponged in yellow so it pops off the page. I glued my collage panel to a card base and added blue sequins to finish.

CHALLENGES

I made this card for The Snippets Playground which has got a wonderful new makeover for the new year. It remains a lovely friendly place to play and there are prizes to be won so do check it out! I'm also linking up with We Love Stamping where Anything Stamped Goes with the option of Wings.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Well, there IS no news apart that I'm a little fed up of the winter already! That's no attitude is it? Perhaps I should write a list of all the things that are wonderful about the winter. Can you help?

Sending hugs,

Singing in the rain

Hello, crafting friends!

Welcome to another fun challenge at Addicted to CAS! This week Raga is our host and she's obviously thinking of the garden with her code word!

I am a dog walker and rainy is not my favourite weather to walk in as it tends to go hand in glove with mud! But if you have to be out in the rain, you may as well cheer things up with some dotty accessories...

... like these cheerful yellow wellies and orange brolly from Stampin' Up's Under My Umbrella. They have have been paper-pieced with snippets of bright dotty paper. I positioned them on a die cut circle, stamped with Uniko's Pinstripe background to suggest rain.

The sentiment is from Paper Smooches' Sunny Side Up and is stamped in a nice cheery red.

Are you ready to have some fun with our code word? Be sure to check out all the fab inspiration from the team, and from our special guest Arlene, at the Addicted to CAS website won't you! You'll find the Linky Tool there too so that you can share your creation. Remember we are a clean and simple challenge so make sure your card features minimal layers and plenty of lovely clean space!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Inkspirational where the theme is Spots/Dots; I'm also joining in at The Snippets Playground where the goal is to make cards using scraps and lefty overs.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When I was making today's card I was thinking about my  youngest son who was given a raincoat and wellies with a duck theme when he was maybe two or three years old. He adored them and wore them whether it was raining or not! Just the sight of him wearing them was enough to cheer me up on a rainy day :)

I got so nostalgic I had to look them up to see if they were still available. And yes, they are! The raincoat on the left is sold by Regatta and the wellies on the right are from Boden. Aren't they adorable?!

Sending hugs,

Hearts and Showers

Hello, crafting friends!

Happy Saturday and welcome to another fortnight of fun at Addicted to CAS! Love is in the air this time as Nancy hosts our new challenge with the code word Hearts.

This is not the year to hold back on sending love to all those we care about and I liked the idea of a whole deluge of heart rain! I started by inking pale blue ink from the top of a card panel and fading it out a third of the way down. The same ink was used to stencil some hearts on the ink blend using an old Stampin' Up stencil from many moons ago, then I added tiny stamped hearts from Uniko's Big and Bold Love.

The umbrella and sentiment are from Stampin' Up's Under My Umbrella. The umbrella was stamped in red, the canopy coloured with an alcohol marker and I used that tiny Uniko heart again to over-stamped it with a heart pattern. Once the umbrella was cut out and positioned on the panel, I used a stamping platform to stamp the sentiment. The edges of the panel were scored before attaching to a card base with dimensional pads.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to make a card featuring hearts? You'll find heaps of inspiration from my teamies, and from this fortnights special guest designer Joyce, here on the ATCAS blog. Don't forget we are a clean and simple challenge so make sure there's plenty of breathing space on your design! I can't wait to see what you  come up with!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where Love Is In The Air!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have posted more valentines cards than I have ever in my life this year! I really do think sending someone a card to tell them you love them and appreciate them is a very good thing to do. I notice that Galentine's Day (where women celebrate their girlfriends) has become more and more popular, and now Palentine's Day has taken off so you can celebrate ANY of your friends!

And yes, Eva, that does include you!

Sending hugs,

Happy birthday baby!

Hello, crafting friends!

I definitely needed cheering up on this grey-sky day but some bright colours and the birthday of a tiny person perked me up no end!

I've been doing a lot of masking lately, which enables me to work on the card base itself rather than adding a layer. This card started with a mask and a soft blend of blue ink to represent sky. I stamped the elephant from MFT's Safari Party directly on top of that, and then again on a scrap of card stock which was then coloured with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers, fussy cut and glued over the original. 

The friendly looking flowers from Stampin' Up's Under My Umbrella work well with this elephant :) I stamped a few different clusters, coloured them and cut them out before arranging them at her feet. Finally, I added a punched heart and a sentiment created from an MFT and an Inkydoodles set.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with the Day of the Month Card Club challenge where the theme is Elephant Appreciation Day and with AAA Birthday where the challenge is to use Animals or Critters on our cards. The colours come from this week's Green, Pink and Blue palette at Just Us Girls.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

On the subject of birthdays, six years ago, the youngest member of my family - and the floofiest! - was born. Here she is, when she came to live with us in 2014 and changed our lives for ever.

She has become an elegant grown up lady dog who has learned all her obedience skills (but sometimes conveniently forgets them) and has become a loyal and constant companion (except when those cheeky squirrels taunt her or if there's someone around with a tasty snack!) I love her with all my heart. Happy Birthday Eva, my sweet girl!

Sending hugs,

Butterfly Season

Hello, crafting friends!

It's definitely butterfly season now. Eva and I are seeing some beauties while we're romping about in the countryside. (Actually it's Eva that romps, I try to be more dignified!) Butterflies are featuring on my cards now too and I've been thinking about how to present them in different ways. I've come up with a pair of cards today - come and see:

The first features a wreath decorated with butterflies, and the second shows a split meadow scene where the flowers seem to be turning into butterflies.

CARD ONE
To start the first card, I drew a light pencil line around a glass positioned just off a card panel. I used this as a guide to stamp some flowers from Stampin' Up's Under My Umbrella, which were coloured with alcohol markers. A bow, from MFT's Birthday Cocktail set of dies, was cut twice, offset to make a double bow and placed at the top of the wreath.

The butterflies are from Funky Fossil's In the Meadow stamp set, stamped, coloured and fussy cut. I used them to embellish my wreath and added a blocky sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks and a sprinkling of iridescent sequins.

CARD TWO
I made a little meadow scene for this card, using Funky Fossil's Scenic Borders stencil for the grass, and some flowers from their In The Meadow stamp set. The scene was cut into panels using a stitched rectangle die by Heffy Doodles, sponged with blue distress ink, and attached to a card base.

The butterflies were stamped, coloured, fussy cut and given a lick of sparkle with a Wink of Stella pen. They were popped up on dimensionals and I finished with a birthday sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said.

EDITED TO ADD SOME AWARDS
Yay!! This card won a Festive Friday Faves badge!

I'm also delighted to be Honourably Mentioned at the Twofer Challenge!

CHALLENGES
I am joining in with the Twofer Challenge with these two cards. The theme this month is Butterflies, and, as always, we are asked to make two different cards, for different occasions, using the same stamp, die or stencil. With Card One, I'm also linking up with this week's sketch at MFT Sketch Challenge and with Card Two, I'm playing along at Festive Friday, where I've chosen Pink, Green and Flowers from the inspiration list.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I may try to behave in a dignified fashion on our walks but Eva prefers to immerse herself fully into the role of a wild dog. On today's walk, she dived into a hedge and when I called her back emerged triumphantly looking like this:

She invited me to admire her new ombré 'do' but I suggested a rinse off in the river instead. She agreed to this with enthusiasm, leaping in, careering about energetically chasing sticks before bouncing out and shaking river water all over me. On the way back she found the perfect spot for a good roll on a dusty track and showed me what it would look like if a dog had a romp in a bag of flour. She was about to top this off with a smearing of horse manure when I pointed out rather tersely that I'd had enough and it was time to return home.

Current status is clean, floofy and fragrant (until next time!!)

Hugs,

Birthday Bear at the Beach

Hello crafting friends!

After spending a day dodging showers today, I thought it would be fun to warm myself up with a sizzling hot beach scene! Come and see:

I started this card by sponging the centre of a card panel with distress inks to create a sky, sea and sand. The bear is from MFT's Safari Party and he normally holds balloons. I gave him a delicious strawberry ice cream instead, using the sun ray from Paper Smooches' Sunny Side Up for the cone, and doodling in the ice cream with a fine liner pen. I doodled him a nice stripy pair of swimming trunks too :)

Who doesn't enjoy a nice sunny day on their birthday? The sun from Sunny Side up cuts out nicely with a 1" circle punch I discovered and, in case my little bear got a little too hot, I provided him with a beach umbrella courtesy of Under My Umbrella by Stampin' Up. I coloured all my elements with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and finished the card with a sentiment made from a combination of sets.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
... Well, not an award as such, but this card was mentioned honourably at As You See It!

CHALLENGES
I'm linking my beach card up with Just Us Girls, where the word this week is Sunshine; Festive Friday, where I chose Sun, Bright Colours and Vacation Theme from the inspiration list (as well as Patterns and Ice cream!); Seize The Birthday, where it's All About Summer; and As You See It, where we're asked to choose one of our favourite movies. Although my card doesn't represent anything about it apart from the beach, I've chosen Beaches - a film about the friendship between two women that is perfect if you feel like a good cry!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I've been making ice cream using just fruit - have you heard of this? When bananas get over-ripe, I cut them into inch pieces and freeze them. To make 'ice cream', I just take out a few of the pieces, allow them to defrost very slightly and whizz them up in the food processor. You can make different flavours by adding other frozen fruits - strawberries or raspberries are delicious! - or you can add vanilla extract to the basic banana and chopped chocolate say, or chopped nuts. For extra decadence I add a little cream - still healthier than the sugar and sweetener loaded commercial stuff. It takes just minutes too!

Let me know if you try this won't you!

Hugs,

Introducing... the umbrella frock!

Hello crafting friends!

This is a looooong, picture-heavy post! Do you fancy a cup of something while you're here? Might as well get comfy!

After a long walk this morning with my floofy pal, and a bite of lunch, I settled down in The Craft Square Metre and had a lot of fun making two cards featuring an umbrella. Come and see:

I've kindly paper pieced the umbrella in the same designer paper, so that you can see more clearly what's been going on! The stamp set I used is Under My Umbrella by Stampin' Up and you can see that one of the umbrellas in the set can double up nicely as a frock!

CARD ONE
This is the conventional way of using the stamp set.

I stamped the wellies and the umbrella onto a card panel and coloured the wellies and the ground with alcohol markers. The umbrella was stamped again onto designer paper and cut out with the coordinating punch. The punch also has a handle, so I used it to make the hand grip in the same paper.

I stamped some flowers from the set onto off cuts of card stock, coloured them and fussy cut them. These were used to embellish my arrangement along with a die cut bow from MFT's Birthday Cocktail and a pink enamel dot.

The card panel was cut out with one of my Heffy Doodles Stitched Rectangle dies, and then a smaller one to cut the stamped image out. I replaced the smaller panel inside the larger one and attached them to a card front. A thin black strip of card stock was glued across the front and a block sentiment by Uniko was added to it.


CARD TWO
This is where, by the magic of stamping, the brolly turns into a frock! But first I masked and sponged a background, added flowers from Lawn Fawn's Easter party, and cut a panel out with a Stitched Rectangle die.

For my young lady, I started by masking off the pointy bit of the brolly and stamping it once on designer paper and then again on white card stock. The girl from Clearly Besotted's Fly With Me was stamped above these and I joined the two with a fineliner.

There were fiddly bits to deal with: she's usually a one-armed girl so I had to stamp her again so that I could give her a second arm, which I cut out and glued to her body. Also she didn't have legs so I doodled those in. After I'd reconstructed her (like the bionic woman!) I coloured her with alcohol markers, then cut out the designer paper dress and glued it over the top. She looks quite pleased with it doesn't she?!!

The sentiment is made from Easter Party (wishing you a very happy) and MFT's From Me To You (Birthday) and it was positioned using a stamping platform. The final details were the balloons, cut out of vellum with a balloon punch, coloured on the back with markers and given strings with my trusty fineliner.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
So delighted to be Honourably Mentioned at Freshly Made Sketches for my brolly and wellies card :)

CHALLENGES
It was the Rain/Umbrella theme at the Twofer Challenge that got me going on this so I'm linking both cards there.

Card One:
I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches as the starting point to this card; I'm also playing along at Allsorts, where the theme is Flowers and Showers and at Double D where Showers and Flowers are the theme and my card made full use of the gorgeous pink wellies and yellow polka dot bow on the mood board.

Card Two:
I'm joining in with Festive Friday where I chose red, blue, green, hearts and balloons from the inspiration list; I'm also linking up with Handstamped Sentiments where I was inspired by the balloons and birthdays featured on the mood board.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Today I went on a visit! I was returning a DVD box set that had been lent me by a lovely friend. Now before you send me hate mail and tell me I'm putting everyone in danger, I promise I thought very carefully about what I was doing. I went across my small town by car, stopped outside my friend's house, placed the DVDs in a carrier bag on the doorstep, rang the bell and then scuttled down to the bottom of her path. We then shared a short conversation from afar and then I got in my car and went home. I felt like a proper gad-about!

Have you had a good weekend?

Hugs,