Inspiration

 Inspiration comes from all around us, both consciously and sub-consciously and the idea for this card was inspired by seeing that my friend Anne had included some cats on her latest card.  I knew that I had the self same dies in my stash but, as happens, they'd not seen the light of day for a really long time so I set about unearthing them.  The idea of using the 'brick wall' embossing folder along with some beautiful landscape paper was the sub-conscious part .😀

Papers - from New Horizons Stampin' Up (retired)
Curvy Hill - Curvy die set also SU (retired)
Brick Walls - Brick 3D embossing folder SU
Cats - dies from Impression Obsession in my stash for years
Sentiment, Fence and grasses - SU New Horizons

Christmas in July

 It always feels a bit odd to be making Christmas cards at this time of the year, particularly when it is so very hot and threatening to become even hotter - phew!!.  Anyway it is Christmas in July over in the Pixie's Playground with a bumper Christmas prize for the lucky winner.  Of course the card made has to be Christmas related and the usual use of snippets required. I started with a card blank and cut a piece of red card from a whole sheet - has to be done sometimes but naturally it leaves me with more bits for the snippets box!  The patterned layer was a fairly large snippet from last year and the gnome, holly and green circle were all die cut from bits in my snippets collection.  It is quite possible that the 'merry Christmas' sentiment and small white circle came from the snippets box of the friend who kindly sent me some of them to use.  I did emboss the white piece using a very small winter scene embossing folder..

Gnome - die was a gift from a friend
Holly Sprig - die set by Sizzix
White embossing - E/F by Crafter's Companion
Sentiment - die cut was a gift from another friend

So Glad

 This card was made a  while ago but not shown before and it seems just right for the Allsorts Challenge which is **Allsorts of Animals**.  These cute sheep are having a great time saying 'So Glad It's Your Birthday' and doing a happy dance in the sunshine..  As usual there some great cards made by the design team and a super prize available for a lucky winner.  I started with a square of white card which I brushed with blue and green Distress inks before adding all the stamped and die cut elements.

Stamps and Dies - Counting Sheep from Stampin' Up (retired I think)

A Riddle ...

...  for a very hot Sunday afternoon 😀.  When is an ocean not an ocean?? When my head saw these stamps as a landscape 😉.  I die cut a scalloped rectangle and set about building a mini landscape with various stamps and then made it into a card using another piece of the beautiful Horizons DSP which was simply trimmed to fit my card and a row of die cut trees and a sentiment added.  The colour match is so much better in real life

Scalloped Rectangle - Colour and Contour set from Stampin' Up 
Landscape - built up using Ocean Front stamp set and trees from New Horizon set SU
Details - distant treeline and fence - stamps from Card-Io