Rudolph Days Challenge - March

 I found it difficult to stop making Christmas cards at the end of last year so I have a few in hand, one of which I'm taking along to the Rudolph Days challenge for this month.  I've used some pieces of patterned paper as a background and resized and printed the reindeer and duck which were downloaded from Craft Addiction UK.  The little gnome was one which had been left over from another project and was just sitting on my desk waiting to be used.  The downloads were ready coloured, if I remember rightly but they are also available as uncoloured images.  The gnome was stamped, coloured by me and fussy cut.

Happy Rudolph Days everyone

Reindeer and Duck - designs  hand drawn by Louise Dunne for CAUK
Gnome - from a retired Stampin' Up set from a couple of years ago

Garden Theme

 It's another lovely day here and my thoughts are turning towards the garden, which is where I should really be making a start but instead I've been clearing my desk a little and using up some of the flowers which I did cut recently and which weren't all used at the time.  This time I did more die cutting and cut out a wheelbarrow and watering can.  Also a die was used to cut the detail into the background layer. I started by cutting the layer to fit my 5 x 7 card and cut out the patterned area, backing it with a slightly larger piece of green to tone with the leaves on the flowers.  The wheelbarrow was cut from some snippets of dark grey card which came from one of my bits boxes and had some sort of glimmer finish applied sometime in the past - no idea what was used but I thought it looked metallic, so suited the purpose nicely.  The watering can and sentiment were cut from some really small snippets.  At least now I've finally used up the surplus snowdrops and crocus die cuts while it's still Spring.

Background - cut using a die from a Tim Holtz Mixed Media die set
Wheelbarrow and Watering Can - unbranded dies which I've had for a while
Sentiment - an unbranded die from Temu

Snippets Playground Challenge #528

 I'm skipping along to the Snippets Playground on this lovely sunny day to hand in my homework for the challenge.  For my card this time I pulled out some white snippets and also some pearl pieces in a lovely shade of blue although I'm not sure the pearlescent finish will actually show up on the screen.  I started with a white snippet which needed a slight trim to fit the onto the card blank and I used the slatted arch die to cut the aperture in the centre.  I used yet another snippet, this time a piece of a geli print to use as a background to show through the slats.  Some light stencilling was added diagonally across the white layer for added interest and this was then adhered to the card blank using some quite thin foam strips.  The arched shape was then dropped into the aperture and the die cut birds put in place.  I felt that this card needed something a bit more than a single sentiment so I composed one on the computer and printed it in a toning blue rather than introducing black.  Some great items in the prize as always so why not search through your Snippets and have a go 😉

 

Stencil - from Lavinia Stamps
Arch - a single die which is unbranded (from Temu)
Birds - also unbranded dies from Temu
Sentiment - composed using MS Word

Allsorts Challenge # 845

Time for a new theme on the Allsorts challenge and this one is **Things with Wings**, chosen by Lynn and of course there is the usual *Anything Goes* option.  Prizes this time are from Taylored Expressions and you can see full details on the Allsorts blog post. 

For my DT card I've featured a couple of owls with a bit of painless 'surgery' on the die cuts to layer them for added interest. and I also die cut the trees and the frame.  The background is a piece of paper which has probably been in my box of random pieces just waiting to be used as appropriate.  The sentiment was produced on the computer and printed in a toning shade of brown.

Trees - an unbranded die which I've had for quite a long time, source unknown
Frame - die from Craft Addiction UK
Owls - dies from Craft Addiction UK
Sentiment - produced using MS Word and die cut using a retired Stampin' Up die

Coffee Lover

I have an ATC to share today and I'm taking it along to the Tag-along and ATC Challenge under the *anything goes* category.  I know lots of people like owls and also coffee so I've combined the two here. I started by trimming a ready made background to the correct size and then stamped the owl image and the wording using Versafine Clair and some clear embossing powder.  Not much more to be said about this small piece of art really but if you fancy entering the challenge take a look - the theme is **Spring Flowers** so along with the anything goes option there's lots of scope.

Background - ready printed from Aall & Create
Owl and words - Funky Fossil Coffee Lovers stamp set

Snippets Playground Challenge # 527

 Time for another new challenge in the Snippets Playground with some lovely prizes for a lucky winner. I'm not sure that the fussy cut images really count as Snippets because they were from a download and of course I had to use a whole piece of card in the printer but the background, parcels and tag were all cut from Snippets.  For the background I trimmed a large snippet to slightly smaller than the card blank before cutting a circular aperture using a tattered edge die, followed by cutting another tattered circle off centre from the fall out circle.  Next move was to emboss the larger circle (the one with the small aperture).  I then added thin foam strips to the back of the backing piece and adhered it to the base card, finally dropping the small and embossed pieces back into the recess which adds interest to the white on white background layer..  I then fussy cut the two pre-coloured  characters and die cut some parcels using toning snippets of card.  A little tag, decorated with a tiny punched flower and there it is - my offering for the latest Snippets Playground challenge.

Embossing - folder which was a magazine gift from several years back
Circle dies - an unbranded set from Amazon
Parcels and Tag - from Tiny Tag set of dies Craft Addiction UK
Characters - Jellybean and Pipkin coloured downloads from Craft Addiction UK
Tiny Flower - punch from Stampin' Up (long retired)

Daffodils

 I'm back again with more Spring flowers for the Tag-along and ATC challenge because, as usual, I cut and coloured too many flowers for my previous project and of course I have lots of the background strips to use as well.  This time I cut a tag using a punch which cuts a nice top shape and I also rounded the bottom corners as well to match.  I overstamped using a colour which would tone with the daffs; stamped and cut the word and added a stamped bird to the bottom corner.  The bottle to hold the flowers was coloured and then sparkled with a Wink of Stella pen although it's not easy to see the shimmer in the picture.  A toning ribbon was added.  I'm enjoying using these backgrounds and it's good to be using up some of my white left over strips of card in an interesting way.

Tag Top punch - from Stampin' up (probably retired)
Bottom Corners - rounded using an ancient X-cut punch
Daffodils - Gummiapan dies
Bird - a Lavinia small robin stamp
Bottle - Sizzix die from a set of three 666199 Freshly Picked
Beautiful Word - from Life is Beautiful Visible Image