Allsorts Challenge #854

 It's my turn to choose a theme for the Allsorts Challenge and I thought that **At the Seaside** would be appropriate and of course, if you don't fancy that, then there's always the *Anything Goes* option.  Prizes this time are from Stamp Addicts - full details on the Allsorts blog post..  For my DT card I've pulled out a long retired set from Stampin' Up and also dies from my stash along with some  white cut wooden posts which were sent to me a couple of years ago by a kind friend. 

I started with a white card blank and cut a stitched frame slightly smaller to fit.  This was backed using a piece of suitable paper from my oddments box.  The tall grasses were stamped onto this layer, as were the birds and the sentiment. I then coloured the wooden posts using Distress inks; die cut and coloured the seagulls and the light fence  before assembling the scene.

Frame - die from Craft Addiction UK
Wooden Posts and Seagulls - dies from Gummiapan
Fence - die from a long retired Stampin' Up set Ocean Front
Grasses - unbranded stamps from Amazon
Birds - stamp from a Card-Io set
Sentiment - from a long retired SU stamp set New Horizons

Stencil Fun

 I recently spotted that there was a stamp and stencil cover gift on an issue of Creative Stamping and decided that I should treat myself.  I do my grocery shopping online these days and so don't get to see the latest magazines sitting on the shelves to tempt me but I'm so pleased that I spotted this one was around.  I duly ordered it online and I can see I'm going to have lots of fun using this great gift set.  I started with this design which is similar to one of the ones within the magazine and it's far from perfect but, hey, it's hand crafted 🤣🤣.  The suggestion was to leave the 'squares' stencil in place to stamp the images but I found this just didn't work for me which was frustrating but I persevered and set about masking off each section with Post-it notes before stamping each one separately.  I very nearly gave up the whole idea because to be honest it was far too hot in my craft room to be fiddling about with this. I certainly needed a lie down in a darkened room to recover before eventually assembling it into a finished card.  There are already other ideas going around in my head and you will be seeing more cards using this super set of stamps and stencils in due course.  It's boring going on about the weather but it really is too hot to be tinkering about with masks, ink and stamps - sorry 🥵

Stamps and Stencils - cover gift from Creative Stamping #162
Sentiment - from Art Gallery Stampin' Up set (long retired)
Background - printed from a Buddly Crafts download
Wavy Edge square die - unbranded set from Amazon