French Connection

What is the French connection you might ask - well I've used dies from Sue Wilson's French collection sets to make this card which is sort of in her style but not so elaborate. (How does she find time to do all the pricking around her borders?).  Hers must take absolutely ages to make because this one took long enough with all the various die cuts and embossing required.  A non crafting friend asked where I bought all the 'bits and pieces' which I put on my cards, having no idea that I actually either stamp, colour and/or cut them out myself.  Details of items used are below.

Background - Creative Expressions Pinpoint embossing folder Floral Brocade
Dies - Sue Wilson's French Connection Auvergne and Provence
Greeting - computer generated and punched with a Stampin' Up oval - just the right shape and size
Spray - Vinery die with Faux Quilled Blooms dies

A Sympathy Card

This card is a combination of stamping and die cutting using fairly subdued colours in keeping with the sentiment using a mixture of dies from Tonic (corners) and Spellbinders for the circles.  The stamp is from a set by Stampin' Up.

Pixie Snippets Challenge 138

There aren't too many snippets on my card for the Pixie snippets challenge this week because I wanted to show most of the background which I made using a mask to emboss.  I inked one side of the mask with Versamark before running it through the Big shot, then added clear embossing powder and heated.  The next stage was to choose three colours of distress ink to colour the piece.  Once this was done it really seemed a shame to cover it up so I rooted around in my bits and pieces file and found a stamped greeting and the decorative doily mat then looked in my scraps box and found a piece of matching blue card which was cut for an extra layer to produce this fairly minimalistic card which is nice and bright for a fairly dull morning.

Background - inked with Distress inks
Mask used - Special Touch triple scallop
Doily - Marianne die
Greeting - free stamp (from magazine) on Nellie die shape