New Horions

 I managed to get my hands on some of the beautiful scenic designer papers which fall into the 'too nice to use' category but I have made myself use some of it at least 😉.  This DSP comes at 6" square and for a start and in the interests of making them last I cut one sheet into four smaller squares and have made some cards - this is just one of them and I will post the others at some point.  I've added some stamping and die cutting to these small landscapes using stamps and dies from various sets in my stash, finally finding papers and card to build them up onto larger card blanks (this one is 7" x 5"). I might even persuade myself to use some of the other designs in their entirety, watch this space.

DSP - New Horizons from Stampin' Up
Everything else - from my stash and/or scrap boxes 

SOS #471 - Make Mine a Tall One

 This title explains my card for today which I'm taking along to Shopping Our Stash for their current challenge which as always encourages the use of items already in the stash to make cards for their various themes. You may have guessed that the theme is **a tall slim card**.  I've been digging deep for this one and the tree stamp used dates back to 2009 from Elusive Images which is now known as Chocolate Baroque although I don't know if the set is still available. I produced the background piece using a geli plate and some Distress Ink pads which I've had for more years than I care to count - most of them still work too which is great. The sentiment stamp is not quite that old but, again I've had this set for a few years, also still going strong even though it was a freebie given with a magazine.. Why not go 'shopping your stash' - you could get a nice surprise at what you unearth 😉

Stamp - Tall Trees Set Elusive Images 2009 (now known as Chocolate Baroque
Sentiment - from my favourite freebie set

Toadstool - and the Rest

 I  sometimes wonder if any of you have a favourite card making technique and when I tried to decide which was mine I came to the conclusion that I don't have one, but just like to lose myself in making cards with no particular favourite.  I would say that the only thing I really don't like doing is to 'batch-bake'  or production line making - definitely not for me.  I do occasional have a run of doing lots of die cutting or perhaps stamping and at the moment I've made several cards in what I call 'Lavinia' style using the geli plate, stamps, inks et al - great fun and no two cards are alike.

The one I'm sharing today was made by cutting a piece of white card the same size as my DL geli plate, inked using a roller and then added some stamping on the edges of the plate before pulling a print.  Once this was dry I had a rummage amongst my stamps and selected some I thought could build into a pleasing scene.- no particular plan in mind - just let the overall image build up as I went along. What you might call 'winging it' but I must say the morning just whizzed by and I even forgot to have my elevenses cuppa😉.  

Inking - all done using Ranger Distress inks and Versafine Clair
Stamps - Lavinia Stamps with some other silhouette foliage stamps (mainly magazine freebies)

A Fun Birthday Card

 I probably make more birthday cards than any others and today's is a fun one featuring some airborne sheep. Started off by using a cloud mask for the sky followed by stamping, colouring and die cutting the three sheep.  I then found a piece of green card and die cut the top edge for grass, adding a fence and some colourful balloons.  It so happens that Allsorts are asking for **anything birthday related** to celebrate their 13th Blog Birthday so I will be popping over there with this card. Lots of great ideas from their design team 😀

Stamps and Dies - from various Stampin' Up sets ( mostly retired)

Celebrate Bee Day

 I read somewhere that today is Bee Day so what does a card maker do - why, make a card of course 😉.  I've not seen it mentioned anywhere since but I will share my card anyway and do my bit for the bees by not mowing the daisies and buttercups on the lawn - any excuse to avoid that job although it will have to be done at some point.  It is raining this morning so the grass will be growing longer by the minute.

For my card I used  suitable paper which came with some stamps as a free magazine gift a few years ago and have die cut a honeycomb in gold and a large bee.  The sentiment was part of the free gift stamp set..

Happy Bee Day everyone!!

Bee - dies from Sizzix
Honeycomb - another Sizzix die
Sentiment and background - free gift with a magazine some time ago
Sentiment dies - Stitched so Sweetly Stampin' Up, retired I think

Allsorts Challenge #676

 The challenge over at Allsorts this week is **add some sparkle** and I've added some Wink of Stella and a little golden bee to my card.  I've stencilled some colour onto the background here and then die cut a bottle, some wild flowers and a little bee.  The bottle was die cut from white before being coloured and then painted over a couple of times with some Wink of Stella although the true sparkle doesn't really show in the picture.  The wild flowers were cut from white card also and then water coloured.  The sentiment was stamped directly onto the background and then I remembered I had a small scrap left of some card to which I'd applied gilding flakes so I used this to cut the little bee.  You will see from the 'recipe' below that I've had all these items for a long time - no recent purchases used 😉 so I will also be taking this over to Shopping our Stash where the theme is pastels  and this challenge encourages the use of things already in our stash rather than always going for something new.

Bottle - a  'steel rule' die from Tim Holtz which I've had for years
Flowers - Wildflowers and Wildflower Stems #2 from Tim Holtz
Stencil - Honeycomb Tim Holtz
Bee - from a Tonic die set which came free with a magazine
Sentiment - another magazine gift stamp from way back

Snippets Playground Challenge #428

 Time for another challenge over at the Snippets Playground and I've made a card with a garden scene this time.  Everything came from my snippets mountain apart from the base card and a piece of woodgrain paper from a 6" paper pad.  I started with a stitched rectangle cut from a snippet of cream and backed it with a slightly larger brown piece which has had a stitched zig-zag detail die cut at the bottom.  I then got out several different die sets and cut all the rest of the elements from an assortment of coloured snippets.  These 'bits' were then arranged, and re-arranged, until I was satisfied with the composition before gluing them down - the leafy border was cut in green and then again from some tiny coloured snippets so that I could snip the little flowers off to glue into place!! 

There is super collection of stamps as the prize this fortnight so why don't you rummage through your snippets and have a go 😉😉.  Your Snippets don't have to be as tiny as mine, but I just love fiddling to build up scenes.

Bird Feeder and larger birds - dies from Joanna Sheen
Smaller birds - dies from Memory Box
Tree, border and fence - die set from Sizzix
Zig-zag edge - dies from Daisy Mae
Sentiment - composed using My Craft Studio, printed and cut with Stampin' Up die