Stamping Sensations Challenge

 I spotted a mid month reminder this morning for the current Stamping Sensations challenge where the theme is *Animal Magic* or of course *anything goes*.  It so happens I was having a bit of a tidy up of my workspace and had come across these three fun hippos which were stamped, coloured with alcohol pens and fussy cut quite a while ago and I'd   already decided it was about time they danced their way onto a card - so here they are.  I also found the little cat and the tiny tufts of grass at the bottom of a container of 'bits' - handy or what?  I cut a panel to fit a 7" x 5" card and adhered some 'sky' printed paper and a die cut strip of green for the 'grass'.  A simple birthday greeting and that's a few more of my oddments used - always satisfying to see these being made into something which, hopefully, will give pleasure to the recipient of the finished card.  There are animal themed prizes from A & C for the lucky winners at the end of the month.

Hippo Stamps - from Stampin' Up (retired)
 Kitty - also from SU (retired)
Tufts of Grass - dies possibly also SU but cut ages ago and 'saved'
Die to Cut Grassy Edging - from MFT possibly no longer available

Birthday Fishes!!

 No, the title isn't a typo because **Something Fishy** is the theme for the latest challenge at Allsorts and this one nearly had me stumped because despite my vast array of crafty goodies I discovered that I'm sadly lacking in anything fishy.  That is until I remembered that at some time in the past there had been a fish themed die set given away as a magazine freebie although to be honest I wasn't sure I still had it and I know for a fact that the packet was never opened (you guessed - not a favourite theme of mine 😉).  However, I delved deep and found the set which actually dates from 2017 and this is the first time the dies have been used - the magazine is long gone.  I used the fishbowl die to cut an aperture into a square of white card  which I backed with a scrap of green pearl paper and layered onto some green pearl card.  The bowl was cut using silver card and was then inserted into the aperture.  I selected some of the smaller dies to cut out so that they could appear to be swimming around in the bowl, adding an extra bit of weed and a starfish to the bottom corner of the card.  The fun sentiment dies were also included in the set which was actually good value.  There are some lovely Lavinia stamps as prizes this month and don't forget if you don't have anything fishy there's always the *anything goes* option.

Dies were a magazine freebie set dating from 2017 and the packet had not been opened until today🤣

Snippets Playground #489

 Time to pop into the playground to see what's afoot today - I hear there might be cake and a drop of bubbly 😊.  I've raided my ever growing Snippets collection to make a Christmas card this time although I did actually have to break into a whole piece of white card to fit my card blank but of course there was some left to join the rest of my Snippets for another time.  I started by cutting the large words with their backing from red and white Snippets so that I could place them to work out where I needed to cut out the Star Frame aperture.  A snippet of blue snowy printed paper was placed behind said aperture and I've added a row of tiny trees (cut from a snippet of green which was in my 'inky play' snippets pile.  Finally I die cut a little house to add to the scene and decided to call it a day, apart from cutting another of the starry frames to make that one a double layer.  Some great prizes as always so why not raid your Snippets collection and make a card.  

Greeting - dies by Julie Hickey
Star Frame and Trees - dies from Gummiapan
House - unknown but I've had the dies for a long time (come out each year for Christmas)