Good Crafting Weather!

Wet and windy here today, albeit with a few glimpses of sunshine in between the showers but it does mean that it's perfect crafting weather.  I have another entry into the Tag-along and ATC challenge and this time it's a tag. I started with a piece of a Geli print, made some time ago and used one of the dies from a triptych set to cut it, then the slightly larger die to cut a piece of brown card.  To this I added a brick wall die cut in cream, a dragonfly cut out from a scrap of card which had been coloured using Pixie powders and some die cut flowers which I coloured to tone.  Finally the flowers had some gold centres to match with the die cut bow.  There is a nice shimmer on the flower petals and the flowers cover the 'blooms' part of the current challenge theme.

Tag - dies from unbranded triptych die set
Bow - die from Gummiapan
Bricks and Flowers - unbranded die set from Temu
Dragonfly - Elegant Dragonfly die set from Craft Addiction UK (smallest one used)

Happy Easter

 I don't normally make Easter cards and have never really had much in the way of Easter crafting items in my stash but I have to confess that in a weak moment I succumbed - couldn't resist the Hoppy Bunnies die set.  Of course once I'd got my sticky mitts on them I just had to make a couple of cards which I'm sharing today to wish Happy Easter to all of my bloggy friends and the people who visit my blog leaving lovely comments.  Would you believe it was only a few days ago that I realised that it was actually Easter this weekend - caught me out by being so early this year 🤣🤣.  Bunnies aren't just for Easter and I'm sure the dies will get used through the year, either as a group or trimmed down somewhat which is what happened here. There are actually seven bunnies in a row, the grass, carrots, eggs and the sentiment complete with shadow.

Slatted Circle - dies from Craft Addiction UK
Bunnies etc - also all from CAUK
Crate - an unbranded die
Torn Edge dies - also unbranded from Amazon
Cut out circle detail on second card -  die from CAUK

A Bookmark to Share

 There is a new theme this month for the Tag-along and ATC challenge, set by Brenda who would like to see **Blooms - Butterflies - Birds** with a choice of either one, two or all three as the fancy takes you and if this doesn't suit, then there is always the *Anything Goes* option.  You can choose to make an ATC, a Tag or a Bookmark so there are many possibilities open to you with a super prize at the end of the month for a lucky winner.

I thought for a change I'd make a bookmark and as luck would have it I had some already inked and decorated strips of card to hand.  These white strips are left over when I cut into an A4 sheet of card to make my approximately 6" square cards.  I taped four of them together using low tack tape on the back before getting into a session of smooshing colour, random stamping and stencilling to form an attractive overall background effect.  Once dry the tape was removed and I'm left with four long narrow strips which are ideal for trimming into ATCs, tags or bookmarks.  For this project I used a punch to shape the top and another punch to round the bottom corners - a piece of ribbon or tassel will be added eventually.  I then selected some stamps to add the flowers at the bottom, a quotation (which includes birds) and a couple of butterflies in between.  All stamping was done using Versafine Claire Twilight and the smooshing was Distress Oxides in various colours.

Quotation - from a  magazine give away set dated 2016
Butterflies - stamps from Visible Image Wings of Change (a recent win from Snippets)
Flowers - also from the magazine stamp set dated 2016
Punches used - top a very ancient from Stampin' Up and X-cut for the bottom corners

Snippets Challenge # 529

 I'm off to the Snippets Playground to hand in my homework for the current challenge and as usual have made my own card blank and then used a selection of Snippets to build up the design.  I started with a fairly large snippet of white card which I embossed with a brick wall design, then a smaller white snippet to cut out the slatted arch which was backed with yet another white snippet which had been smooshed with some yellow ink.  The flowers were die cut from an even smaller white snippet and coloured using watercolour and a fine paintbrush. Rocky the dog is a digital download and was fussy cut from a sheet which I'd printed.  He was also coloured using ink pressed onto a ceramic tile from an inkpad and applied with a paintbrush (slightly watered down).  I do hope Rocky doesn't intend burying his bone amongst the flowers 🤣.  The final touch is a die cut sentiment using snippets of white and some purple to tone with the flower heads.

Brick Wall Effect - embossing folder from Stampin' Up (long retired
Slatted Arch - unbranded die
Flowers - dies from Gummiapan
Rocky - digital download from Craft Addiction UK hand drawn by Louise Dunne
Sentiment - unbranded die set from Temu

Allsorts Challenge Blog # 846

 Time for a new theme at Allsorts and this time it has been chosen by Brenda who would like to see your Springtime projects.  As usual there is also the Anything Goes option.  We have a guest designer alongside the usual team and prizes are from Buddly Crafts.

For my card this time I decided to do a bit of a mixed media design incorporating a hare as these creatures are seen around in the Spring.  I started by building up some background interest using Distress Oxide inks, some random stamping and also used some texture paste with a stencil. This detail shows up much more clearly when seen in real life as the texture paste I used is slightly translucent.  The hare was stamped onto a piece of cream card, coloured and I then used a rectangular die to cut him out, leaving just his ears protruding over the edge; finally using a distressed notebook die to trim off one side.  I then die cut a small torn notebook piece to add to the design and this was stamped with some light text.  As a final touch I stamped the word 'Nature' onto a scrap of card and fussy cut.

.Hare - stamp from Indigo Blu mixed media magazine box set #11
Random text stamping - also from Indigo Blu magazine sets
Stencil - from Gummiapan
Distressed Notebook dies - unbranded
Nature word - from a really ancient Chocolate Baroque stamp set

Furball

 Yes, that's the name of the latest digital download designed and hand drawn by Louise Dunne who keeps coming up with such adorable characters.  They come in uncoloured as well as coloured versions  and this one has been fussy cut from an A4 sheet of coloured bunnies.  He's sitting on a large birthday greeting and keeping an eye on the pretty silver-winged bees buzzing around him.

Birthday - unbranded die which I've had for a few years from Amazon I think
Furball - available as a digital download from Craft Addiction UK
Bees - from a die set also from Craft Addiction UK with several bees, honeycomb and honeypot

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