Faux Cloisonne

 This is the theme for the CAS Mix Up Challenge this time around and there is some great inspiration from the design team as well as links to some tutorials.  I'm afraid I was unable to lay my hands on any glossy magazines to use so I stamped the floral motif onto white card using glimmer gold ink and then heat embossed with detail gold powder.  The colouring was done using Twinkling H2O's (a real blast from the past) and then I fussy cut the motif.  I then unearthed a large swirly stamp to use as a background on the card base, added the 'cloisonne brooch' and a sentiment.

Floral Motif - Ruby Tuesday Design a Flower from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque)
Swirl - Nature Swirls from Chocolate Baroque
Sentiment - from my favourite freebie sentiment stamp set

Butterfly Challenge Letter 'C'

 Card design and colours etc beginning with the letter 'C' for the Butterfly Challenge this time - follow the link to read all about it and to find a tutorial for the Collar Card which is one I'd not heard of before.  I've made a collar card and used three of the colours, some circles and of course a butterfly  I started with a square of double sided patterned paper in a suitable colour to form the collar element and infilled it at the top with a strip of glimmer parchment although the glimmer doesn't show on the screen I'm afraid.  I then searched through my dies to see what circles I had and came across this set which hasn't been used in quite a long time.  Circles and butterfly were die cut from blue and green card with a touch of pink (celadon, cornflower and coral).  This was quite straightforward to make using the tutorial so why not have a go - there are prizes on offer too as usual.

Designer Paper and Glimmer Parchment - from Stampin' Up
Circles - die set from Marianne which I've had for a long time
Butterfly - dies from Sizzix (Tim Holtz)
Sentiment - die from Stampin' Up Hay Birthday Chick set

Birthday Time

 Another card to share today where I've used one of the stamps which I seem to have had forever (quite possibly not been inked before) and which came to light when I was looking for the stamps used on my previous project.  I stamped the hot air balloon onto some cream card,  added some colour and cut it out before sponging the edges.  Next thing was to decide what to use as a background and I stamped several of the watch and clock stamps onto masking paper and carefully cut them out so that I could build up a design onto a square of cream card of the right size, finally infilling with a text stamp before again sponging the edges.    Making this background required a degree of concentration but I quite enjoyed doing it which is the main thing.The two words were stamped onto scraps of card and cut out to add a greeting. 

Balloon Stamp - Crafty Individuals
Clocks and Watches - from two sets of magazine gift stamps
Background Text - from Tiny Stamp set Chocolate Baroque
Words - random stamps from my collection of sentiment stamps

Inspiration

 Inspiration - where does yours come from I wonder?  From many sources I guess, just like mine.  One good source is trawling round crafty blogs and seeing what other like-minded people are making and of course quite often doing this is the trigger for a bit of retail therapy which I'm trying hard to resist at the moment 😉 by looking through my stash and using items which have not seen the light of day recently (if at all in some cases, I'm ashamed to admit).  Guess I'm not alone in this failing though 🤣🤣.

The idea for this card started when I saw the miniature stamps had been used by Design Team members at Chocolate Baroque. I remembered that I've had these stamps since their initial launch  many years ago so I had a rummage and brought them out of retirement, spotting quite a few (lots!) of other neglected stamps in the process so I'm now on a mission to bring more items out of hiding.  I started by stamping the little topper using a selection of the stamps and while I was thinking about how to turn it into a card I suddenly thought that another under-used item could be just what was needed.  This street scene embossing folder is what came to mind so I embossed a piece of cream card and then inked it to bring out the detail.  Just finished off with a birthday greeting on a banner and ended up with a card suitable for a man, often difficult ones to make if the recipient isn't into football or beer 🙄.

Stamps - Mail Art, Curiosities and Mini Stamps from Chocolate Baroque
Sentiment - stamp from Tim Holtz
Banner - dies from Creative Expressions
Embossing - fold by Sheena Douglass

Allsorts Week #661

 I was lucky enough to have won a lovely prize in the Grand Snippets Christmas Draw and before I stow it away in the 'Christmas Box' I thought I'd have a little play.  I've used it to make this card for the Allsorts Challenge where the theme is **anything goes with an option to use a stencil**.  I started with a square of blue card and stencilled some darker blue snowflakes randomly over the whole area.  You may have guessed that my prize was the word die which I've cut using some silver 'no shed' glitter card and I also die cut a little snowflake to pop into the corner.  I think this die will be great for batch making if time is pressing although I have to admit this method isn't favourite with me as I rarely make more than one card of the same design.  I can see myself using the die with a selection of different background techniques.  Some great inspiration on the Allsorts Blog, well worth taking a look and playing along.

Background - stencil which came free with a magazine
Words - Memory Box die
Snowflake - another magazine freebie I think

Back in the Swing

 As mentioned recently I've not made many cards since the beginning of the year but I think I'm back into the swing of things now which is just as well because I have such a lot of 'stuff' to use and enjoy.  Whilst thinking about what I could make the idea of using a die to dry emboss surfaced so I found a die suitable to use as a background and, once embossed, I left the die in place and inked through it in a few different colours.  I've also used the same die to lightly stencil a shadowy design onto the base card.  The next move was to die cut some layered flowers and leaves using heavy watercolour paper (300 gsm) and then inking the flowers using blending brushes.  Left the leaves white on this occasion as I didn't want to introduce green which might clash with the background colours.  A small piece of the same paper was coloured with ink before die cutting the sentiment and I drew around the outline of the die so that I could fussy cut a backing for it.  Once all this was done the card was fairly quick to put together.

Background - Tied Together die from Couture Creations
Flowers and Leaves - Beautiful Brushstrokes set Stampin' Up (retired)
Sentiment - Hey Birthday Chick set Stampin Up

Snippets Playground Challenge #420

 I can hardly believe it is two weeks since my last post here but I've not been idle, just been sewing and doing other things rather than making cards.  Thought I should get back into the swing before I forget how 😉😉.  There is a bumper prize on offer this time (too many items to photograph) but there are details to be found HERE and this is another 'Ruby's Memory challenge. Well worth popping over to the Playground where the sun always shines.

 Pretty well everything on this card came from my Snippets collection  apart from the card blank.  Admittedly the flowers came from a printed image which has two sets per page and this was a half page left over from a previous project.  The dies came with a magazine which also includes a disc for printing the images and some background papers. The snippet of white card was embossed with a floral E/F and I found an oddment of green which toned with the leaves on the image.

Flowers - Charisma design from Tattered Lace magazine (not recent)
Backgrounds - CD from the same magazine