It has certainly been a strange challenging couple of years so here's hoping for at least some improvement for the coming year. Thank you all for taking the time to visit my blog and leave lovely comments, they are so appreciated.
Stay Safe and Well
Just when I'd decided I had enough Christmas cards made and seasonal things were being packed away for a while along comes the Grand Christmas give-away challenge from Pixie's Crafty Workshop where as well as using snippets to make the card, the theme has to be either Christmas or New Year. Luckily my snippets mountain is always ready to hand so I just needed to decide what else I needed to make my entry. I do have lots (and lots) of patterned paper snippets so I gathered three different designs from the same set along with some matching red card pieces and of course some white as well. The die I've used is a good one for using up bits and pieces so I started by cutting the largest piece of red card to fit a 5" x 7" card blank, then cut the frame part of the die using the white, and also a plain piece for a backing (glued these two together). Followed by carefully placing the die onto the patterned scraps to cut out the strips which I then popped back into the apertures and glued them down. The chevrons at the bottom were cut from a smaller snippet of the red card. The final thing was to die cut the words from another scrap of white and some snowflakes from silver and white snippets and here it is - my Snippets entry for the Grand Christmas Draw with a selection of lovely prizes which are being revealed throughout the four weeks until Linky closes. PLEASE do read the instructions carefully, they are very detailed but easy to understand.
Die - Spellbinders
Patterned Papers - from a retired Stampin' Up Set
Words - Britannia dies
Snowflakes - dies from various sources
There is another challenge over at the Allsorts Blog and they are asking for Wings and/or Tails so lots of choice amongst my crafty stash. I decided to go for just tails with these quirky cats which I've stamped and coloured before layering up with a kraft card border and a piece of wood design paper. There is a great prize this time so why not find some of your own 'wings and/or tails' and have a go.
Stamp - Trilby Cats from Crafty Individuals
Sentiment - stamp and die from Sizzix
Background - wood paper pad from The Works
Well, I've written all of my Christmas cards and discovered that I have lots left over so I really must put the seasonal dies and stamps back into their boxes until next year - didn't realise I'd made quite as many and of course I did have a few left from last year, and so they mount up 😉😉.
I have a great grandson who will be one year old at the end of the month so thought I'd get ahead of the game and make a card for him. While I was searching through my stash recently, searching for something in particular (as I'm sure we all do), I spotted a set of Forever Friends stamps which I've had for many years and I know they've not been used for a while so I made a mental note to use one of them for this card. Struggled a bit to find some suitable background paper but managed to find something on an old CD and I've added some die cut bunting with his name on and a nice large figure one. While I had the stamp set out I stamped and coloured two or three other images which I can use to make cards to pop into my box.
Image - from Forever Friends stamp set by Docraft - probably no longer available
Bunting - die from unknown source
Alphabet - dies from a set which came free with a magazine many years ago
Number - die from unknown source
Backing Paper - from Polkadoodles Pretty Tuff CD (also quite old)
Colouring - Polychromos pencils
A card showing a garden this morning - quite unlike the actual day outside which is very dark and lashing with rain. I made this for a friend's birthday recently and I know she's received it so it's ok to show it here. I started with a square of white card and brushed on some blue and green ink to set the scene, then I stamped all the other elements onto scraps of white card, coloured them and fussy cut before arranging them into a floral garden. The sentiment was die cut twice and layered together to give it some dimension.
Garden Scene - stamps from Grace's Garden set Stampin' Up (retired)
Greeting - die from Birthday Chick set Stampin' Up (retired)
I'm not sure if I've entered the Allsorts Challenge before but if so it was a very long time ago. As the request this time is to use a die I thought I could make use of something from my vast collection accumulated over the years. The word die I think was one which I was lucky to have won in another challenge last year and because of course it arrived in the New Year it has been tucked away safely just waiting to be brought out of hiding - first time of using for this one. I started by die cutting a scalloped square in the Cherry Cobbler card before then taping the Merry and Bright word die in place to cut the greeting. A slightly smaller square of white card was cut as a backing. Background paper is the last sheet of a collection from last year and as this is quite a busy design the simple die cut words seem to be just right for this simple and quite quick card. Lots of lovely inspiration from the Design Team, well worth taking a look.
Word Die - from L'il Inker
Scalloped square - Tonic die
Background - paper from Stampin' Up - last season, so is retired
Some stamps just lend themselves so well to paper piecing an that in turn makes them suitable to use for the Pixie Snippets Playground Challenge. Everything here apart from the card blank has come from my snippets mountain. I started by stamping the image onto a piece of white card and then stamped again onto scraps of patterned papers, just inking the parts I needed for each section. These were then carefully fussy cut before sticking into place, also adding a couple of small circles punched from a scrap of silver glitter card. Next I sorted out some slightly larger snippets so that I could cut some layers and a background. This time there is a choice between two great prize bundles so well worth taking the opportunity of using up some of your own snippets to make a card for the challenge.
Stamp - Woodware Little Festive Branch
Dies - Phill Martin and Tonic
