Time to visit the Playground Again

The lovely Di has come up with a great card this week for using up snippets and alongside this she has given us a detailed description of how it was done - including some very useful tips - thanks for those!  You can see her card HERE.

For my card this week I've resorted to paper piecing again which is a good way of using up the scraps of patterned paper which accumulate and which we can't bear to throw away. The background is an odd snippet of patterned paper and there was just enough left to stamp and cut out one of the balloons; the elephant was stamped onto a snippet of white and also some orange spot paper (with another balloon); nesting dies were used to cut the two circles; the sentiment was stamped before being cut with nesting banner dies in matching blue and white; finally I found a snippet of orange card to cut out the 'bubbles' which were popped behind the main image.

Image - Elephant from set of stamps by Stampin' Up, balloons from another set also SU
Scalloped Circles and 'Bubbles'  - dies from Tattered Lace
Banner - dies from Sue Wilson with computer sentiment

A Little Bird Told Me ...

Well there are three birds actually here which were stamped and coloured using Inktense pencils to make this simple card using a piece of patterned paper, a doily and some ribbon.  The weather seems to be staying dry and sunny but still none too warm - there was a really white frost when I got up this morning brr!!!

 
Stamp - Birds on a Wire from Hobby Art
Dies - Spellbinders
Sentiment - free stamp, punches from Stampin' Up.

Butterfly Challenge

The butterfly challenge HERE this time is F for Faux or the colour jasmine.  I have to say upfront that my entry is a bit tongue in cheek and if it doesn't qualify I won't be surprised - or upset.  Daisy Trail were offering a special deal on quilling digi kits so I thought I'd take up the offer for fun just to see what they were like.  So... some faux quilling digital style with a card made entirely in Craft Artist with no coiled paper harmed in the making!!  I imagine my friend Jill of Jill's Quills will be amused if not horrified to see this and I could well be drummed out of the Quilling Guild!!

As I said this was just done for fun - faux quilling, whatever next?? There is still time to have a go at some faux technique incorporating butterflies, just follow the link to see some inspiration from the Design Team

Playing

This morning I've been playing with Distress Oxide ink pads and also Glitter Kiss - two relatively new products.  Unlike the original distress inks, the Oxide ones can be used on dark card - black in this case.  Three colours were used (yellow, orange and red) although I didn't seem to achieve the depth of colour I was expecting so once dry I added some copper Glimmer Mist spray (had those for years).  The copper glimmer looks so much better for real than it appears on the screen.  I then cut some more black card slightly larger than the main image piece and used Glitter Kiss on just the edges to give a nice mount  to show up against the black.  The background piece of card was embossed and the flower and butterflies were cut from black card.  Greeting produced on the computer and mounted onto a scalloped circle also treated to some Glitter Kiss with finally a piece of copper ribbon to match. All in all an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning - the card does look a bit sombre here but rest assured it is much brighter when seen for real!

Background - Sue Wilson embossing folder A4
Dies - Sizzix wild flowers and Sue Wilson butterflies
Image - background made using Distress Oxide inks with Glimmer mist copper
Mats - black card with Glitter Kiss applied - Creative Expressions Cosmic Shimmer

Something Beginning with B

While visiting some of my favourite blogs I spotted a challenge from Allsorts and they seem to be playing a game of 'I-Spy' and the letter is 'B'.  I was just about to post this card which as it happens has a bird on it so I guess this would qualify.   I stamped a large dictionary page as background before over stamping with some flowers and a branch.  I then stamped, coloured and die cut the bird and punched out a few tiny flowers from scraps of card coloured using the same ink as was used to colour the bird (Distress Markers).  A fancy die cut which was lying around just seemed to fit the space at the side and a stamped greeting was cut out with banner dies with the bottom layer being white card coloured with Distress ink to match the flowers.

Bird - Best Birds stamps and matching dies from Stampin' Up
Dictionary Page - Stampin' Up large stamp
Wisteria Flowers - Stamp from Chocolate Baroque
Banners and Fancy Shape - Sue Wilson dies.
Flowers - punch from Stampin' Up

Snippets Playground Challenge

I normally make something specifically for the Pixie Snippets fortnightly challenge but this time I'm entering something made for a challenge set by the patchwork and quilting group of which I'm a member because it uses eleven and a half snippets of yellow fabric - don't ask!!  I will however explain why such an odd number in case any other groups would like to give their members a similar challenge so bear with me.

Here goes - we were told to use black fabric measuring 10" x 30" as our background and next we had to pick (lucky dip style) a colour, a shape and a number from three pots each containing ten  folded pieces of paper - my draw resulted in having eleven and a half yellow circles to work with.  The project was to be kept a secret until completed in time for the big reveal which was last Thursday which means I can now share a photo of my efforts.  There were some very ingenious ideas and some forty or so of these hangings will be displayed at our next quilt exhibition and possibly at a Crafts4Crafters show in the autumn as part of the South West Quilters stand.

As I had raided my scraps of fabric to find the yellow snippets and also found some green and purple to add to the mix I reckon this will qualify for the Playground this week.  The yellow circles were made into Suffolk Puffs (or yo-yos for American readers) and I then cut out a stem, leaves and a couple of butterflies so that when applied to the background it would, hopefully, pass for a flower - maybe a hollyhock??

I hope you all have a lovely Easter weekend - weather looks quite nice at the moment but definitely not as warm as it was a week ago.

Easily Sidetracked ...

Yes, that's me!!  I started this morning with the intention of catching up with one of my least favourite jobs which is preparing and putting inserts into cards, then popping them into cello bags with envelopes.  A very necessary job I know but one which I tend to leave until there a pile to deal with rather than finishing off as I go along.  As the title suggests I did become sidetracked and started playing around with a technique for using an embossing folder to emulate the letterpress effect.  I brayered some ink onto one side of the folder, then stamped a house scene directly onto the folder before popping in a piece of watercolour paper and running it through the machine.  Magic - the house is now peeping through the birch trees!!  I coloured the house and bushes with Distress markers, drew a few birds in the sky, added a sentiment and here we have a New Home card.  I can see that this technique has many more possibilities and is one which I will be using again I'm sure.

Incidentally I have now printed off all the inserts I need and I REALLY am about to finish off what I meant to do today before I do anything else.  I've even done an insert for this card and the ink is hardly dry - how good is that?

Embossing Folder - Woodland Scene by Sizzix (Stampin' Up)
House - stamp from a Chocolate Baroque set (had them for years)
Sentiment - free from a recent magazine give away