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Thursday 28 March 2024

Butterfly Challenge #194

 It's quite a while since I took part in the Butterfly challenge so I thought I'd pop in with this recently made card.  The theme is D for decoupage, die cuts and a range of colours, details of which you can see by following the link.  I'm playing along for fun because I only managed the die cuts and of course butterflies 😊.  I cut an oval aperture into a piece of cream pearl card and backed it with a leafy die cut.  Two butterflies were stamped, coloured and die cut and the sentiment was cut twice and glued together to give it a bit of stability.


Leaves - die by Stampin' Up
Oval - die from Tonic nested ovals
Butterflies - stamps and dies from Globleland (Amazon)
Sentiment - unbranded die

Monday 25 March 2024

Rudolph Days Challenge

 The Rudolph Days Challenge is a great opportunity to make Christmas cards through the year, thus hopefully avoiding a mad dash in December..  You can read all about it if you follow the link.  I've made a Christmas scene here and haven't added a sentiment because it sort of speaks for itself.  I cut the frame into a piece of white pearl card and backed it with some snowflake design paper; added a die cut hill and then the little reindeer on his sledge.  I felt it just needed something extra so added some tall trees and a tiny bird from my bits box to perch on the lamp post.


Frame and Trees - unbranded dies
Sledge and Reindeer - Gummiapan dies
Hill - die from MFT set

Sunday 24 March 2024

Allsorts Challenge #773/4

 The theme for the two-week  Allsorts Challenge  is **Keep it Simple** or of course there is always Anything Goes as an option.  I've been trawling through my collection of magazine give-aways and have pulled out a set from 2018 which I thought deserved an airing.  It's a collection of dies including the pretty cut our circular design and a selection of small leaves, flowers and butterflies.  I cut a backing to fit my card and backed it with an embossed panel before cutting out leaves and butterflies from some scraps (snippets) of card which had been coloured using Pixie powders. A simple computer sentiment and that's it - a simple card for the challenge.


Dies - Card Making Magic magazine free gift 2018
Embossing Folder - not marked possibly Creative Expressions


Thursday 21 March 2024

Inspiration from a Blog Visit

 As I've said before ideas for cards very often come from seeing what other people post on their blogs and when I saw a recent post by the talented Sarn  HERE  I was immediately reminded of some bird stamps which I've had in my crafty stash for a long time (since 2008 in fact) although I was surprised to see just how long I've had them 😉.  I can't recall when this set last saw ink but it felt good using one of the birds to make a card inspired, and similar to the one Sarn had made.  The flower stamp I used as part of the background and the 'arty' words were also neglected stamps.  The bird was stamped and embossed and the background floral one stamped using Distress Oxide.  Some Oxide ink in another colour was 'splodged' around and the words simply stamped in black.  The panel was then popped onto a kraft card and a simple adhesive sentiment added.


Flower stamp - Elusive Images 2007 (now known as Chocolate Baroque)
Bird - stamp from Elusive Images Dawn Chorus 2008
Arty words - Elusive Images 2008 ATC stamp set
Sentiment - Indigo Blu

Tuesday 19 March 2024

Snippets challenge #476

 Despite trying my hardest the snippets mountain never seems to diminish but making something for the Playground Challenge certainly helps a little and there is always an opportunity to be in the draw for some lovely prizes along the way.  This time I used quite a few of my smaller white snippets to stamp a series of cat images and then coloured and fussy cut them ready for arranging into what I hope is a pleasing composition 😉.  Sorry no picture of the left overs as there were just tiny 'trimmings' from my snipping which all went straight into the bin. The white background square was a larger snippet but the blue layer was cut from a whole sheet leaving the remainder to go into my snippets collection.  This set of stamps is one which was given away with a magazine several years ago - would you believe I actually have a box of freebies, some of which haven't even been opened but I do trawl through them now and then seeking inspiration.


Cats and words - free set of stamps from a magazine (several years ago)
Birthday Sentiment - wiry words set of stamps
Colouring - Inktense pencils and water brush

Sunday 17 March 2024

Current Allsorts Challenge

 The theme for the Allsorts Challenge this week is **Feathers and/or Fur** with of course the usual anything goes option.  What better excuse for me to bring my favourite bunny out to play and this time he is seated on the window sill, probably looking for Spring 😊.  Guess what, it's raining again today so I hope he's taken shelter.  I've used an archway image stamped by a generous friend and the flowers were fussy cut (they are quite small so not the easiest option) 🙄.  The arch was masked off before using a stencil for the wall effect.  Some lovely prizes this week so good luck everyone!


Arch stamp - from Paper Artsy
Wall effect - stencil from Tim Holtz
Sentiment - produced on the computer

Wednesday 13 March 2024

Silhouette Flowers

 Amongst the crafty items sent to me recently were two stamped and embossed floral silhouette images. die cut using a stitched rectangle die.  I've turned them into two 'same but different' cards which I'm sharing here.  The first one had the background 'smooshed' with Distress Oxide inks adding a little bit of stamping for interest.  The second one was stencilled in a quite different colour with the addition of three die cut butterflies in a toning colour.  Both images were mounted onto a black background and die cut sentiments were cut from the same black card.  



Sentiments - dies from Crafter's Companion
Stencil - unknown source
Butterflies - Crafter's Companion
Texture stamps - from my stash Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque)