Experimenting with trees

Hello, crafting friends!

Well, I have had fun in The Craft Square Metre today! I took a small tree from a Christmas stamp set and had a good old play with it in a couple of non-festive ways! 

The set I found the tree in was Stampin' Up's From Our House To Yours. In the first card I stamped it on a smooshed background and in the second card I used it as part of a stamped autumnal border. 

CARD ONE

Here's the first.

I dripped inks in various purples onto some cling wrap, spritzed it with water and placed a card panel into the result. Once the panel was dry, I masked off a horizontal line and watercoloured in a ground. Once THAT was dry, I masked off the ground and repeat-stamped the tree in dark purple, varying the heights. A matching purple marker was used to fill in any gaps.

The most interesting part of the panel was trimmed using a tall, thin stitched rectangle die by Christina Griffiths. To represent the moon, I punched a small hole in the sky and filled it with the same-sized circle punched out of shiny card stock, taped at the back to secure. I added stars with a white gel pen and stamped the sentiment (from Stampin'Up's Today's Tiles) in dark purple ink. The panel was attached to a card base with dimensionals.

CARD TWO

For the second card, I tried using the tree as twiggy branches in a leafy border. I think it works!

The foliage and berries mostly come from WPlus9's Silver Bells but I also used a leaf that was out on my desk from Reverse Confetti's Fall Foliage. I tried the stamping out on scrap paper first and then copied the design carefully onto a card panel. 

For the sentiment, I cut a strip of card stock and trimmed it top and bottom with a stitched rectangle die. The bold sentiment is from WPlus9's Hello and Thanks, stamped in dark brown ink. I thought I had stamped my borders so carefully but when I put the card together, I noticed a red blob on my pristine white card... that's why there are lots of gems on this card!!!

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So happy that the twiggy autumnal card was chosen as a Weekly Winner at CAS Colours and Sketches!

And that both cards were Honourably Mentioned at The Twofer Challenge!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking both cards up with The Twofer Challenge where the theme this month is Trees, and we are asked to use the same stamp/die/stencil, on two different designs, for two different occasions.

I'm also entering Card One into this month Stamping Sensations challenge where the theme is Great Outdoors; and also joining in at Less is More's Shades of Purple colour challenge.

Card Two was made with those amazing colours at CAS Colours and Sketches (my second entry!) and I'm also linking it up at Just Add Ink where the challenge is to Just Add 'A'. My 'A' is autumn of course!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Forgive the rubbish photo but it really does sum up our weekend...

Yep! This weekend we have mostly been cavorting about the countryside in the sunshine :) How about you?

Hugs,

What colours to use for male cards?

Hello, crafting friends!

It was the birthday of a tall, handsome and altogether charming young man last week - my eldest son! Naturally I made a card to celebrate. It's so easy to go for muted colours when creating cards for the guys isn't it, but sometimes brights can be the very thing!

I pulled out an old favourite Stampin' Up set called Celebrate Today to make this card. (Thank you SO much for restoring it to me Gill. I think of you with such gratitude whenever I use it!) 

The balloons were stamped across the card stock, overlapping each other and creating patterns of deeper colour. There are two balloons in the set and I made sure I used the balloon with the word happy in it where I wanted my greeting to go. Now that I have a stamping platform, the solid images in the set stamp beautifully every time, with no patchiness.

Once I'd got the balloons where I wanted them, I cut a panel out using a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die and added the word 'birthday' in a lovely flowing font using Avery Elle's Big Birthday. The panel was attached to a card base and that was it - quite simple with the colours being the stars of the show.

CHALLENGES
I'm linking this card up with Crafty Friends where I used colours from their gorgeous summer pallette; also Allsorts, where theyy want us to Make It Masculine; and finally, Seize The Birthday, where I've gone for the Anything Goes option.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I'm afraid the Blouse Burglar has been at it again. A selection of blouses were stolen in broad daylight from a bedroom in our house. The bold thief carried them downstairs and strewed them brazenly around the garden!

She was caught red-handed but, when challenged, brought them back in and gave them up in return for a fishy treat!

Hope you are all keeping safe and well.

Hugs,

Peace on the beach

Hello, crafting friends!

After a win at the fabulous CAS on Friday challenge, I've been invited to Guest Design with the lovely ladies there. *waves hello* The theme this week is

Summer 

Since there's no chance of me going on holiday this summer, I've gone to fantasy holiday land! Come and see:

A peaceful spot on an empty beach, glorious sunshine, a pile of books, the clink of ice in my Strawberry Daiquiri... YES PLEASE! Sorry, I didn't mean to shout but it does sound like the ideal place to unwind. In reality of course, Eva would be with me and would be scampering in and out of the sea in a very unrestful way and shaking cold salty water all over me!!!

I used one of Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside Border dies on speckled card stock for my sand and a pale blue card stock for the sky. This was masked with a sticky note and a sea inked in with a sponge. I added a sunshine from Concorde & 9th's Hello Sunshine and used a Heffy Doodles Stitched Rectangle die to cut them first into a rectangle, then to trim it into a square.

I made a beach towel out of a piece of striped washi tape and then assembled the rest of my elements - the cocktail is from Clearly Besotted's Raise a Glass, the books from Waffle Flower's Books and Coffee and the sunglasses from Paper Smooches' Sunny Side Up. I coloured everything in with alcohol markers, fussy cut them and attached them to the card.

Finally, I found a sentiment which worked perfectly with the shape of my sand: it's from Fly With Me by Clearly Besotted and it made me very happy!

Okay, it's over to you now! What does summer mean to you? I hope you'll join in with us and link your lovely CAS creation up here. There's some amazing talent on the CAS on Friday design team and you'll find some fabulous inspiration here too :)

CHALLENGES
I'm joining in at Time Out where the code word is Peaceful and the Beach/Ocean theme at The Sisterhood of Crafters.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Eva doesn't need a beach to go swimming. She has a very effective water radar and is always diving into undergrowth and finding hidden streams.

When she gets home, she likes to be rinsed off and rubbed down with a towel. After that, she's more than ready for a square meal. Once that's eaten, she checks to see if I'm good for any chews or other treats but, if not, she settles down for a nice snoozle. This is usually in an area where I have to step over her to leave the house because then she knows if I'm going out or not :)

Hope you are all safe and well.

Hugs,

Birds in the birches

Hello, crafting friends!

Happiness is...  a crafting session that goes well! I have a stencil that I've tried to use several times only to fill up the recycle bin with the results. But now I know how to use it!

The stencil is Birch Forest by Funky Fossil and I was having trouble with getting the trees to look ok against the inky backgrounds I was creating. I held it in place and sponged two shades of blue ink into it, blending them together. Then - and this was the breakthrough - with the stencil still in place, I carefully traced along the tree trunks and into the bark detail of the stencil using a fine-nibbed fineliner pen - thank you CAS Mix Up for that game-changing suggestion!

After removing the stencil, I coloured the trees and branches with a waterbased grey marker and used the fineliner to outline the thin branches. The panel was trimmed into a square and mounted on a piece of blue card stock, cut with a stitched rectangle die by Heffy Doodles (I've found that I can use these to cut squares too - whoopee!)

The sentiment is from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks and I tucked a corresponding strip of pale blue card stock under the bottom left-hand corner. For a bit of fun, I added some cute little birds, fussy cut from some favourite SU papers I've been hoarding saving for this exact moment!

CHALLENGES
Several challenges inspired me to make this card: The sketch is by Jen T at this week's Freshly Made Sketches; The stencil tracing was a wonderful idea from CAS Mix Up; The colours are from Just Add Ink and Color My Heart Color Dare's Monochrome Blue challenge; and I'm also joining in with the Sisterhood of Crafters where the theme is Ink It Up.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
For those of you worried that Eva may have been chastened after yesterday's adventure, here she is looking considerably cleaner and having a nap after a profitable morning spent rifling through the laundry.

She has confiscated this blouse for further investigation!

Hope you had a good weekend and are keeping safe and well wherever you are in the world.

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,

Raising a glass to friends

Hello, crafting friends!

Never mind whelmed, I have been overwhelmed-and-a-half by the chaos that my inbox has become all of a sudden! It was that week off that did it :/ Anyway, while clearing it out I found a few challenges that are about to end. Yep, THAT's why I miss so many challenge deadlines!

This is a very quick and simple card which enabled me to use up some annoyingly small snippets of card stock - hooray! I started by masking off the bottom of a thick card base with a sticky note and sponging a little ink upwards to create a 'ground'.

Next came the die cutting: I used an MFT set called Birthday Cocktail, cutting the glass once out of vellum and then again out of grey card stock, and the bow out of a bright pink scrap. The drink was coloured on the back of the vellum glass with a marker, and I gave it some sparkle on the front with a Wink of Stella pen.

The glass was assembled using thin smears of glue. I attached it to the card base and added a sentiment from Stampin' Up's From Our House To Yours using grey and pink inks. I stamped tiny hearts from the same set onto the tag from the die set and added it to the glass, but I didn't like the look, so I added interest with some gems instead.

CHALLENGES
I'm joining in with The Snippets Playground  - the only thing that wasn't a snippet was the card base and even the gems were rescued from a card that was being recycled! I'm also playing along at AAA Cards where the main theme is Made in Minutes, and coming back for a second entry at Festive Friday, where I've chosen Friendship sentiment, Sparkle and Die cuts from the inspiration list. I hope I'm also in time to link up with Less is More's Fuchsia, Yellow and Grey colour theme.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
This card is dedicated to all my lovely crafting friends. I really do appreciate you - the people in my life that understand what I mean when I'm consumed with excitement about a new stamp set or accidentally discovering a new colour palette! Thank you for coming to visit and cheering me up with your comments; and thank you for always being there when I pop round to yours.

I raise my glass to you all (or I would do but Eva seems to be in charge of it!)

Cheers!

Mystic butterfly

Hello, crafting friends!

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be guesting at The Color Throwdown this week! This is a challenge I loved before my four-year hiatus and have enthusiastically joined in with again after returning to crafting last July.

Here are this weeks amazing colours on the left - blue, green, peach and gold...

... and my interpretation of them on the right.

That beautiful photo inspired me to create an inky background. I chose semi-coated card stock, sponged water-based inks over it, then clapped wet hands over it to create splatters - very cosmic don't you think?! Once it was dry, I cut a panel out of it with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die.

The large butterfly from Uniko's English Country Garden Butterflies was stamped onto the panel with versamark, heat embossed with gold embossing powder and coloured with SU water-based markers. I repeated the process on scrap card stock and fussy cut this one, popping it up over the one on the panel.

I mounted the panel onto a dark blue card base, cutting a frame for the front using the same stitched rectangle die as before so I was able to fit the inky panel into it. The card was finished with a Lawn Fawn sentiment die cut from gold card.

CHALLENGES
I'm linking up with Stamping Sensations where the theme is All Creatures Great and Small; also joining in at Allsorts, where they want to see Something Beginning with 'B'.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I managed to collar my youngest son today. I'm taking him to the dentist on Tuesday, to have some essential work done before he heads back to his university house, and have been mentally going through all the paperwork that will need to be sent online. "Let's talk about Tuesday," I said to him. "Okay," replied my son cheerfully. "When's that?"

Hope you are all keeping safe and well.

Hugs,