Butterfly challenge #82

This time the butterfly challenge has been mixed up a bit and they are asking for M is for Matching Pairs and/or the colour of orange peel.  I gave this some thought before deciding to go for a three panel card using die cuts and Pixie Powders.  I started with the powders and a little Brusho as well to make a background which has a shimmer which unfortunately doesn't show up well in the picture.  I die cut three panels and the top layer of two matching butterflies from this and then used some orange card to cut the decorative top layer of the panels with a scrap of green for the bottom layer of the butterflies.  A birthday greeting was added to the centre panel.  As always there is a draw for a butterfly related prize and some great inspiration to give you some ideas if you want to have a go at the challenge.

Panel Dies - Silhouette Scenes by Tonic
Butterflies - Detailed mini from Sizzix
Sentiment - die from Crafter's Companion
Pixie Powders and Brusho
Card Colour - Pumpkin Pie Stampin' Up (colour of orange peel)

Unicorn

This was one time when I wished I'd not bought a magazine with freebies (well almost anyway!!). When I came to use the stamps I discovered they were so firmly attached to their packaging that it was a really hard tussle to get them peeled off and unfortunately once that was achieved for the one I wanted to use I found it was very reluctant to adhere to my blocks satisfactorily, thus making them quite difficult to use.  I'm surprised they actually didn't tear or stretch when I was pulling them off.  However, that said I did eventually manage to get this card made so I will share it.There was a die set also to cut out the unicorn (or horse - the horn is separate) and I stamped the carousel onto a snippet of die cut patterned paper before popping the unicorn in place.  I had this matching piece of pink floral paper in my stash and the narrow border ribbon is the reverse of this paper.  Finally I cut a zig zag strip and some fancy corners from the same patterned card as the main image and added a simple sentiment.  Even if I don't manage to use the stamps at least I have the unicorn die which will be good for making 'small girl' cards.

Unicorn and Carousel - free dies and stamp set with magazine
Background paper - Stampin' Up
Patterned card for image and corners - from my bits boxes
Sentiment - computer generated on punched shapes from Stampin' Up
Main die - Spellbinders fancy labels

The Rest of the Batch

I did my bit of batch making and have made five more Christmas cards to go into a pack with the Santa I shared on Saturday.  The second Santa one is very similar to the first and I've also done two with gingerbread people and two with reindeer.  I did have to cut into some new sheets of card for the blue circles but apart from that all the other bits, apart from the card bases of course, came out of my bits boxes.  It is never ending though because now I have more blue scraps to save!!  The circular sentiments (Winter Wishes and Believe) were freebies generously offered by Annette HERE where there are plenty from which to choose whatever the occasion.  I saved the single images then took them into My Craft Studio to alter the size so that it fitted one of my punches before producing a whole sheet which I've printed off.

Sorry if they look a bit wonky, shifted a bit when I closed the scanner lid!

Reindeer and Gingerbread People - Tonic dies
Circles - Sizzix dies
Papers - Stampin' Up and one Docraft from years back
Snow - Lawn Fawn Hillside dies
Trees and houses - Crafter's  Companion dies
Sentiments - free from Annette - see link within the message

Pixie Snippets challenge weeks 289/290

The lovely Di has done some clever re-assembly of die cut snippets to produce an elegant heart on her card this week and no prizes for guessing what the 'prize' could be if you enter the challenge and are lucky enough to be a winner in the draw.  My card for the Playground Challenge this time has been made using yet another of my collection of freebie dies and of course some of my snippet mountain.

While I was having a sort out recently I came across a fairly large snippet of white card which had been embossed with a script folder.  I got out my pot of pearlescent acrylic medium and a scrunch of cling film to dab randomly over the surface.  Once dry it was then sponged with two colours of Oxide ink - the pearl resisted the colour of course.  A square was cut from this piece and then I searched through my scraps to find small snippets to cut the main die (circle with leaves and flowers) and also some extra flowers and leaves which were all assembled onto a die cut circle, carefully saving the tiny flower centres from the die cuts to pop back into the flowers.  The 'happy' word was also part of the die set which included some small word stamps to complete various sentiments.  The Misti came in very handy for placing the 'birthday' word in just the right place.  Finally I punched a couple of tiny butterflies from scraps of the remaining background, leaving me with a small strip which I've used on another card so that's one less large snippet hanging around - still plenty of small ones though!

Circle - Sizzix circles dies with stitched detail
Central motif and Flowers - Free die/stamp set with Die Cutting Essentials magazine
Butterflies - punch from Stampin' Up