Clean and Simple

 I've not given up on the idea of making masculine cards but yesterday I became side-tracked and came up with a fairly clean and simple floral card.  This one is a DL card and I've used a texture stamp to add three panels before over stamping with a floral silhouette in black.  A little stitched banner for the greeting and there we have it - a clean and simple result.

Textured Areas - stamp from free set with magazine (Phill Martin)
Flowers - stamp from the same set of freebies
Banner - from a Daisy Mae border set of dies, greeting stamp from Stampin' Up

Cards for Men

 I wonder why so many of us find it difficult to make cards for men, especially if they aren't particularly into football or drinking!!  I'm quite sure there are far more stamps, dies and the like out there for cards which are definitely feminine but luckily there are some items around which we can use for more general masculine styled cards (without a football or glass of beer in sight)..  I do realise that I make far fewer for men than for women but I am trying to balance things out a bit.  This is one such card which I made a while ago.  I started with a piece of design paper with light script on it and added some random stencilled circles.  The image was stamped and heat embossed onto another scrap of the text paper and layered with a darker rectangle.  Scrabbled through the scrap boxes and came up with a die cut cog and a piece of inky, dry embossed card with a sort of industrial/metallic finish.  Assembled everything and added a little banner sentiment.

Image - from a retired Stampin' Up set Feeling Sentimental
Cog - Sizzix die
Embossed strip - Cuttlebug embossing folder I think but not a recent purchase
Text Paper - Prima
Stencil - from All & Create

Strays

 There were a couple of stray donkeys loitering on my desk, already coloured and fussy cut so I've decided to add them both this garden scene.  Started by cutting out the white square before stamping the little scene and then lightly brushing blue for the sky and green for the grass.  Colouring was done using alcohol pens and then I added the donkeys and a clump of flowers (another stray), finally stamping the sentiment and layering everything together onto a pink background.  Definitely a mix of sunshine and showers here today - blue skies one minute and showers of rain the next with not much warning - that will make the grass grow, and the weeds I suspect.

Donkeys - Darling Donkeys stamp set Stampin' Up
Gate and flowers - Grace's Garden stamp set, also SU
Sentiment - from Hey Chick stamp set, also SU
Clump of flowers - from Kangaroo and Company, also SU
Colouring - Copic alcohol pens

Pixie's Playground Challenge #402

 The challenge this time around is another for Ruby's Memory and you can read all about it by following the link HERE.  As usual there is a great prize to be won by one lucky person so why not sort out some of your snippets and make a card.  Mine this time around is a floral one using up various snippets and bits and pieces lying around on my desk or in the overflowing snippets boxes.  Background papers were left over from other projects and the white rectangle was cut from a snippet of card, as was the sentiment label.  I came across the vase stamped onto a scrap of card so that was fussy cut and coloured.  A leaf was stamped onto the white background before adding the punched flowers (tiny snippets here).  Finally the flower centres and the tiny butterflies came from a little container which I keep for any useful pieces of 'fall-out' or waste from die cutting.  You know how difficult I find it to throw anything away which could possibly be used on a project 😉😉

Circles Revisited

 

When I tried the technique recently using some die cut circles I was left with two spare half circle motifs so I've put them together in a slightly different way and made another card straight away rather than popping them into an oddments box.  This time I've used some butterfly design paper and a fussy cut butterfly all in colours to tone with the circles.  Some Wink of Stella was applied to the butterfly but this doesn't show up too well in the picture.

Backgrounds and Butterfly - DSP from Stampin' Up,unfortunately now sold out

Request Card

 A while back I was asked if I could make a card featuring a steam train and as luck would have it I remembered I had just the right stamp somewhere in my collection.  It is one which I've had for many years and it does come out to play now and then.  Image was coloured using pencils.  I unearthed some suitable text background paper and embossed a scrap of card for another layer.  The word and number were also part of the request.

 

Image - stamp from Joanna Sheen
Dies -  layering rectangles from Tonic
Letters - from a Sizzix alphabet die set
Numbers - from a Crafter's Companion die set
Text background - paper pad from Prima

Baby Girl

A baby card today for a change, always like to keep a few in hand just in case one is requested.  The pink papers were the remains of some given away with a magazine probably a couple of years ago and I had some bits and pieces of toning card in the scrap boxes to die cut the hearts.  The kangaroo and baby were stamped, coloured using alcohol pens and then fussy cut. Words were stamped onto a scrap of card then cut using a small circle punch.

Background Papers - magazine gift from some years ago
Hearts - dies from Tonic and Crafter's Companion (small hearts punched)
Image - Kangaroo and Company set from Stampin' Up
Words - from same stamp set
Colouring - Copic alcohol pens