Floral Silhouette

 A floral card to share today, CAS style using up a piece of card left over from one of my inky play sessions.  I added a bit of stencilling to make it a bit more interesting and then cut out a circle and glued it to a white card, adding a narrow white frame around.  The floral spray was die cut twice from black card and layered together for extra stability.  The final touch was a matching black sentiment and a few tiny gems.

Sentiment produced using Microsoft Word
Silhouette Flowers - unbranded die

April at Stamping Sensations

 The Theme this month at Stamping Sensations is **anything goes** and there is also a mood board for extra inspiration. I've used the daisy image which is echoed in my choice of background paper for this Spring garden card.The greenhouse and foliage have been stamped and I've added various die cut elements to complete the scene.  As usual there is a lovely prize for the person whose name is drawn at the end of the challenge.

Greenhouse and foliage - Garden Greenhouse stamps and dies Stampin' Up (retired)
Cat - dies by Impression Obsession
Rectangles - Creative Dies Designs (possibly no longer available)
Pots - dies from Joanna Sheen
Tiny flowers in pot - Sizzix Ikebana dies set
Butterflies - from my pot of 'useful bits and pieces'

Allsorts Challenge #776

 The theme for the current challenge at Allsorts is **Spring** and I'm certainly happy to note that it seems to have arrived at last - two consecutive days with sunshine and NO rain 😊.   I think this card with its planter tub filled with crocus should fit the bill so I'm popping along with it.  There are great prizes too with winners announced monthly so why not break out your Spring-themed crafty stash and have a go.  There is always the 'anything goes' option too.

Brick Background - 3D embossing folder from Stampin' Up
Dies - all from Gummiapan
Sentiment - produced on the computer

Spring

 Well at last it's starting to look a bit more like Spring outside - sun is shining this morning and - say it quietly - it's actually not raining 😊.  Also the lilac tree is showing signs of bursting into flower, followed closely by a laburnum, always a welcome sight.  I came across this stamp recently and thought it would make a nice card for someone who enjoys crosswords - love these hedgie characters.  A straightforward card with an image stamped and coloured along with some pretty background paper and a strip of embossed card to match.

Hare

 The results of a bit of inky play to share today using Distress inks, silhouette stamps and a technique I spotted a while back on a YouTube video by Tracey from Lavinia Stamps.  The watercolour card was cut to size and  wetted with some clean water and then a circular plastic lid was wetted around its edge and dipped into some Brusho pigment powder sprinkled onto a glass mat. This lid was then 'stamped' onto the paper and allowed to dry naturally which left an attractive ring shape to use as the basis for more stamping of the various foliage and other elements to make a little scene.  Such a great idea and bound to be slightly different each time of course.  A text stamp was second-generation stamped around the image for a bit of texture effect, a simple sentiment and that's it.  Many variations possible on this theme I'm sure.

Stamps all from Lavinia Stamps

Allsorts Challenge #775

 The Allsorts challenge this week is **For the Love of Animals** .  It so happens that April is National Pet Month to raise awareness of responsible pet ownership so they are asking for anything showing pet or domestic animals.  Lots of people keep cats I know and as I had a couple of stamped, coloured and fussy cut cats left from a previous project I decided I'd use them for this card.  The large sentiment was also loitering in my 'useful bits and pieces' box from when I first cut this die to see how it cut and to work out how best to put the layers together.  I seem to remember that this one was a bit difficult to layer up neatly but I eventually worked out the best method for me.  I started by cutting two layers to fit the card blank and stamped some words from the stamp set in black ink before adhering the large sentiment and adding the two fussy cut cats.

Cats and stamped words - stamp set from a magazine dating back to around 2018
Colouring - used Inktense pencils and a water brush
Large Sentiment - unbranded die

Coffee Anyone??

 Following up my alcoholic card with a caffeinated one, definitely not CAS this time though - more of a mixed media style.  I do like to mix things up a bit - variety is the spice of life.  The image was stamped using brown Versafine ink and some extra colour was added using Inktense pencils and a water brush.  I then added some stencilling and extra stamping using Distress Oxide ink and finally the words were produced on the computer and die cut.

Large stamp - from Aall & Create Caffeinated set
Stencil - one I've had a while (no details, sorry)
other stamps from the above set and also from my stamp collection