Flower Power

This card is made for a man so although I've paper-pieced the van I selected a subtle floral design of paper.  The vehicle was stamped onto a strip of cream card and then again onto the designer paper so that I could fussy-cut and adhere in place after I'd coloured details such as wheels, windows etc.  Next move was to get out my Pixie Powders and colour a piece of kraft card which, when dry was cut into a couple of strips and dry embossed, then lightly touched with gold gilding wax.  The  background paper was an odd piece from a magazine freebie collection from last year some time.

I hope you've all survived yesterday's storms without any major damage - certainly good advice was given for us to stay indoors.  Not that I needed much persuasion to spent some crafty time.

Otters

Had some fun stamping and colouring these cute otters and then decided to die cut them using stitched circles to make this card. Coloured using alcohol pens.  Quite quick to put together once I'd decided what to do with them and with the sentiment from the same stamp set this would suit a variety of situations.  One to add to my box of cards anyway.

Images - Awesome Otters stamp set Stampin' Up
Background - DSP also from SU
Circles - Stitched Shapes dies from SU, (may be retired)

Bird Cages

 Another card to share today featuring bird cages, although it is in quite a different style.  This time I've used a stamp from a set which came to light recently when I was going through my collection for inspiration.  I stamped in black onto a medium/dark piece of card and then selectively coloured parts of the image using Coloursoft pencils which seem to work well used in this way - looking better in real life than on screen.  I then fussy cut the image before layering it up with a piece of cream embossed card and adding a sentiment.

 Stamp - from Chocolate Baroque Pretty Birdcage set
Embossing - folder which came free with a magazine

Allsorts Challenge #663

Back again with a card for the new Allsorts Challenge and this time they are asking for **Clean and Simple (CAS) with the option of Elegance**.  I'd say my card is CAS but will leave the decision about 'elegance' to my viewers and the design team - not sure if it qualifies on that point.  I've used some dies which I've had for a while and as the lines are quite fine it was quite a task to apply glue to them so I hope they all stay put.  Quite a bit of 'white space (which is actually cream) and the sentiment was stamped direct with the aid of a positioning platform - not sure where I'd be without that - probably ending up with lots of throw-away pieces of card with messy stamping on them 😉.  Black and gold card from my scrap boxes was used for the die cutting.

Dies Used - Birdcages set from Sizzix
Sentiment - stamp from a favourite magazine freebie set

Allsorts Challenge Blog

The Allsorts Challenge this time is **anything goes with the option of adding red flowers** .  There is a lovely prize and some great ideas from the Design Team.  The idea came to me for this card while I was walking home from meeting some friends for coffee and I've used a die set which has been in my stash for a considerable time and despite it being a 'must have' at the time, I'm ashamed to say it has never been out of the packet 🙄.  I chose a DL card blank and inked some random splatters using two different stamps and die cut the 'coffee rings' from a scrap of 'inky play' card which has also been lying around for some time.  The flowers and leaves were also die cut from scraps.

Splatters - random stamps from Stampin' Up retired sets
Rings - die from Sizzix Coffee Rings
Flowers - Creative Expressions Dandelion Clocks die set

Snippets Playground

 Off to visit the Snippets Playground for the latest challenge - worth following the link for a visit to see the lovely inspiration card which showcases the prize which will be won by the  lucky entrant whose name comes out of the 'hat'.  Everything apart from the base card has come from my collection of leftovers although I do think that 'snippets' is a nicer name for them.  I started with a piece  of white card slightly smaller than the base card and stencilled a leafy area before finding smaller snippets of heavy watercolour paper to die cut the  coneflowers which I then coloured with Distress inks.  The vase was stamped and die cut, using another snippet.  The final touch was a sentiment left over from another project for which I'd printed a few in varying sizes so that I could use the most appropriate.  A tiny scrap of pink card was added to highlight the sdentiment and pick up the colours of the flower petals.  

Stencil - from Lavinia Stamps
Coneflowers - unbranded die
Vase - stamp and die from Stampin' Up Boho Indigo (retired)
Sentiment - produced on computer using Word

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