Groovi Robins

Another Christmas card, this time using a variety of Groovi plates to make up the design which has a minimal amount of white work and has been coloured on the back using Polychromos pencils.  There is more Groovi temptation on Hochanda today but I'm sitting on my hands to avoid the dreaded 'Buy' button!!

Dragonfly Canvas

Five crafty friends met up yesterday with Janie for a mixed media workshop which was so enjoyable and we had a wonderful selection of inks, paints, stamps and so on all to hand from which to choose.  We all started off from scratch going through the basics of working on a canvas to build up a design before developing our own pieces.  It was quite a full-on day but we mostly managed to more or less finish - in my case it just needed a few additions this morning such as the scattering of daisies which all needed cutting out and I also added a few finishing touches and some gilding.  Most of the stamps used on my piece were drawn by Janie.  I already have ideas buzzing around in my head for another piece in probably a different colour scheme.

Picot cutting

I've been trying to improve my parchment picot cutting technique and have included some on this card.  The frame and butterfly are traced from Groovi plates and I've cut away some of the butterfly wing areas to show the pretty background paper.  Also the edge was pierced with a 'V' tool then cut with snips - decided it just needed something else so added a couple of gridwork panels.  The colouring was done using Polychromos pencils.  Getting there slowly I think!

Floral Card

This floral card was made mainly from bits and pieces lying around on my work space with the addition of a piece of suitable background.  The die cut panel is from a set which makes a sort of box/envelope - this is the flap which actually got rejected when I made one up because there was a little problem in one area but I couldn't bear to throw it away.  I decided that it could well come in to add to a card if I could cover up the 'glitch' which I've done with some flowers, stamped and die cut from scraps of Pixie Powder card.  A simple sentiment, a stray ivy leaf die cut and some card candi for flower centres and that's it - job done.

Panel - Tonic die
Flowers - Sue Wilson flower stamp with matching die
Ivy Leaf - Creative Expressions die
Sentiment - stitched ovals dies from Stampin' Up (clear stamp of unknown origin)

Pixie Snippets Challenge Weeks 299/300

Time again for another snippets card for the Playground fortnightly challenge HERE and as usual the lovely Di has given us details of how she made her card to inspire us.  My offering this time is another Christmas card using a bauble die which was cut in gold and cream card before popping the opposite colours into the spaces to produce matching baubles in opposite colours.  More snippets were used for the branches and greenery with some scraps of seasonal paper and kraft card and a sentiment.  Finally a couple of pieces of twine were used to suspend the baubles from the branch.  Lots of snippets used and still more waiting in the wings!!

Designer Papers - left over from sheets printed using Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD
Baubles - Tonic dies
Scalloped Circle - Tattered Lace die
Sentiment - freebie downloaded from Netty's Cards
Greenery - Tim Holtz evergreens dies and Ivy using Creative Expressions die

Thistle?

When sorting out a few bits and pieces I came across some stamped and coloured images which hadn't made their way onto cards and this is one of them.  I managed to match it up with some background paper from a pad I've had for a long time and a few scraps of coloured card die cut to make a border and a fancy corner. The sentiment was produced on the computer and punches were used to layer it.  I'm not sure if this is meant to be a thistle or maybe an artichoke type of flower but I do quite like it.

Image - stamp from chocolate Baroque (not sure if it is still available)
Corner die - Marianne
Border - Sue Wilson die (green layer)
Sentiment - punches from Stampin' Up

One for the Box

This is another card to go into the box for some future occasion.  I thought I'd get in a bit more practise by working a pierced and cutwork edge onto a piece of parchment before adding a design in the centre.  I decided to work in that order so that if the edge went totally wrong I wouldn't waste any work done on a design as it seems to be really easy to pierce holes in the wrong place (for me anyway!!).  However it appears to have worked reasonably well so I built up a design using a selection of Groovi plates and  simply layered it onto some coloured background with a darker layer underneath to frame the whole thing.  I'm finding that parchment work is, for me, the new 'colouring in' as a mindful and relaxing exercise and of course involves a bit of thought when it comes to building up a 'picture' or design.