Robin

Here is another of the little critters I've made using the free dies recently acquired.  This time it is a robin so naturally it's another card for the Christmas box.  He has simply been popped onto some embossed and die cut circles with papers from my stash and a stamped greeting.  It is still fairly early but so far it looks as if we are in for one of those horrible dark and grey days - not nice!

Circles - Tattered Lace dies
Banner - Sue Wilson die
Robin - built from scraps using free dies from magazine

Snowman in a Bottle

I've no idea how long it takes to put a ship into a bottle but I must say it took me a while to get this little chap placed within his snowy landscape.  There was die cutting, stamping and masking to think about and in the right order but after a couple of false starts I succeeded.  The idea came to me out of the blue yesterday evening so I had a play this morning before I forgot what I'd been thinking about. Details of items used are below.

Jar and Lid - Jar of Love set by Stampin' Up
Snowy Scene - Stamps from Cardio
Snowman - Love Never Melts from Wild Rose Studio
Sentiment - from free set of Christmas stamps
Background Paper - from free pad with magazine
Square Die - Sue Wilson Noble Pierced Square die

Something for Christmas

One of the tempting magazines which I bought recently featured some lovely digital designs from Pink Gem and I've used one of the reindeer ones on this card - another one for the Christmas box.  The company also do stamps and other crafty items so well worth checking them out if you NEED something new to spark your creativity.  The background paper is from my stash of paper pads which seem to last me for years so I'm not sure how old it is and the smaller blue paper was in one of my scrap boxes along with some toning blue card to back the image.  A die cut snowflake and a greeting which came with the image and that's it really.

It is so dark and dreary today, also raining so you can probably guess what I might be doing rather than venturing out.

Image - digital download from Pink Gem Designs

Card and Paper - from my stash

Snowflake - free die from magazine

Playground Time

Well I must say that the Snippets Challenge seems to come around so quickly but luckily my friend Anne delivered the goodies which had tempted me at the recent Stampin' Up event so I have something new to use which is always fun.  There were lots of jobs I should have been doing yesterday but once I'd had lunch I decided to have a little play to see what I could make with this stamp set and matching dies.  There is almost too much in these packets - no less than 37 stamps - and I found it difficult to choose which to start off with.  Eventually I settled on a straightforward jar of flowers which involved some double stamping and die cutting - of course using up snippets of card in the process.  Some larger snippets of design paper were used for the background and oddments of card for the corners and greeting.  I have a feeling that it might be a good idea to stamp and cut out a good selection of the jars, flowers and so on in this set so that I can then pick and choose, playing around until I come up with an interesting idea. Sometime when inspiration goes missing it is handy to have a selection of die cuts to 'audition' until something just looks right although I must say that many of my ideas come to mind when I'm out walking (and thinking).

Do take a look HERE to see what inspiration there is this week in the Playground where you can also check out last week's picks.

Jar of Flowers - Jar of Love set from Stampin' Up, stamps and dies
Label - Deco label  from SU embossed with Cuttlebug folder
Background papers - also Stampin' Up
Corner Punch - Stampin' Up

Butterflies

It is time again for a butterfly challenge on Mrs A's blog HERE and this time the alphabetical theme is  HOOPS AND/OR HAREBELLS  which I've loosely translated as circles and blue on my card.  I found a pretty piece of blue paper as a background then cut two scalloped circles from pearl card, one of which I embossed with a butterfly design and the other was sponged with blue distress ink.  Two circular shaped die cuts were added behind the main image to continue the theme.  I bought this die set some time ago as a 'must-have' and this is actually the first time it has been used!!  Finally I die cut some butterflies, again sponging with the same blue ink.  Do take a look at the challenge blog to see some great inspiration for this challenge - well worth a look and there is a themed prize too.

Scallop Circles - Tattered Lace dies
Butterflies - Crafter's Companion dies
Circular embellishments - Tattered Lace dies
Embossing Folder - Docrafts

Simple Card

Because I had quite a lot of my recently made master board left I was able to make this quick card by die cutting a lacy square and simply adding a sentiment in the centre.  There is still enough left for at least one more card when I decide how to use it.

Master Board - made using gesso, distress inks and various stencils and stamps
Sentiment - computer generated, oval punch and die cut
Fancy Frame - Tonic die set Twisted Twine Square

More Christmas

I seem to be on a roll with Christmas cards at the moment so while the right colours of scraps were to hand I quickly cut out the sentiment,  sleigh and deer from various freebie dies as well as stamping, colouring and cutting out the Santa from a free stamp set - coloured using alcohol pens.  A sky background and another strip of glitter paper for snow, job done!