Butterfly Challenge #168

 Time for another Butterfly Challenge and this time it is the letter 'L' with an interesting Latch Fold card along with Lace, Lavender and a selection of other colours.  See the full details HERE.  Although I do appreciate some of the fancy folds around I'm not a great fan of making them so I've just gone along with the lace and some of the colours with of course some added butterflies.  The image was printed from a CD, as was the patterned paper which has lavender, blue and lettuce colours..  The lace is a die cut and I've added a simple sentiment with a scattering of tiny blue butterflies.

Image and Background - from Lavender Tea CD Polkadoodles
Lace - Sizzix die
Butterflies - small embossing die from Stampin' Up (long retired)
Sentiment - Computer generated, SU punch and die used to cut

Blossom Tree

 I'm still persevering with my efforts to curb spending on crafty stash, apart of course from the essential consumables, and with this in mind I've come up with a card design based on on something I saw on TV just this week which almost had me hitting the 'buy now' button.  However I remembered that I had a tree die amongst my collection so this is my take on the card I saw demonstrated - only similar in that I've used a tree and some blossom but I'm glad I had a go.  I started by die cutting a cream oval and then die cut the tree into the centre (this tree has no outside cutting edge).  I then cut the same tree three times more from scraps of red, brown and green card and having backed the cream oval with another blue one I proceeded to collect as many of the 'fall out' die pieces as was practical and glued the red hearts and some of the larger leaves back into the spaces - the easiest piece to place was of  course the brown tree trunk.  That job done I then found a scrap of pink pearl card and cut out a selection of tiny flowers and adhered them to make the tree blossom.   Having decided to back the image with a slightly larger green oval I realised that what I should have done instead of using a piece of blue card behind the cream at the start,  I could have just used green in the first place. This way I could have avoided having to scrabble around popping the tiny leaves back into the tree outline and simply used the hearts and tree trunk - hindsight is wonderful isn't it!!  Finally I found some pink papers in my stash and added a sentiment to complete this card.

In case you are wondering, the die set which I so nearly bought is called Tree of Life from John Next Door - nothing like the one I've used but at least seeing it got my brain ticking over to come up with my own design based on the blossoming tree theme

Tree - die from My Favourite Things
Blossom - small flowers die set by John Next Door
Papers - from a couple of different magazine give-aways
Sentiment - produced in Word and die cut using SU die (Colour and Contour set)
Oval dies - Tonic

Wonky Patchwork

 I spotted a mention of 'wonky four-patch squares' recently - something new to me so of course I had to investigate via good old YouTube.  There always seems to be something different to learn or try out so I just had to have a go at this using up some miscellaneous 5" charm squares before launching into cutting any of my larger pieces of fabric. It is quite a simple idea and I ended up with a small pile of wonky squares so rather than just let them sit I worked out some measurements to enable me to use these squares along with some other fabrics from my stash to make a straightforward but useful tote bag.  It has a handy pocket in the lining.  Just goes to show that something useful and attractive can be easily made from oddments of fabric.  If you started with larger squares you could soon put together enough to make a quilt which could be colour-coordinated or scrappy depending on what fabrics you have.

Flower Fairies

Last week seems to have flown by since I last shared a card here but I've been in stitching mode, making a bag and also finishing off a quilt which was started a while ago.  It is always a good feeling to clear up some 'works in progress'.  I have a good sized shelf lined with a variety of craft CD's and DVD's most of which haven't been used for ages and this Flower Fairy one must have been sitting there for about 10 years or more and in fact I wasn't even sure if it would still work with Windows 10 because I've discovered that some of my collection now seem to be obsolete in that respect.  Sad really but I think I'm going to have to work through them and discard those that no longer function but at least it will make space for a bit more tidying up of crafty 'stuff'.  I chose a fairy design and matching papers which were printed and then I found some card to tone and set about putting this card together, added a little sentiment and that's it done.  Mind you there were 6 images to a page so I still have another five to use - must try not to leave them languishing in my oddments box for too long 😉

Image and papers - Crafter's Companion Flower Fairies CD
Sentiment - Computer generated and punched with Stampin' Up punches (retired)
Square dies - Tonic

Snippets Playground #423

 The weeks certainly seem to come around quickly and it is time for a new challenge in the Snippets Playground.  I've made a DL card this time and everything apart from the card blank has been 'found' in my various snippets collections.  The  background paper was a left over snippet from a paper give-away which came with a magazine and the frame was cut from a snippet of cream card.  The watch was stamped and gold embossed on a scrap before fussy cutting and the selection of cogs die cut from small snippets of brown and kraft card with the addition of some gold gilding wax.  Finally a sentiment was die cut from yet another snippet of gold pearl card.  Some over stamping was added to the background paper which was fairly plain to start with.

Frame - dies from Phill Martin set
Cogs - die set from X-cut which I've had for a long time (so useful)
Stamping - various free stamps (magazine give-aways)

Allsorts Challenge #665

The challenge at Allsorts this week is **hand coloured or paper pieced image** and because the bird on this card was hand coloured I'm popping along to share it.  I started with some partial stencilling on a square of cream card; die cutting the swirl, sentiment label and two birds before colouring the larger of the birds using watercolour pencils.  The swirl was cut from a piece of Pixie Powder coloured kraft card which was left over from a recent project.

Birds - from Best Birds Stampin' Up (retired)
Swirl - Swirly Scribbles Stampin' Up (retired)
Stencil - Lavinia Stamps
Sentiment - from my favourite freebie sentiment stamp set

Windmill

 I received a class in the post recently from the lovely Jenny and if you visit her at Stamping Moments you will be able to see there is currently another one on offer - scroll down to see details of previous ones.  Occasionally there is a card within the class which just doesn't immediately appeal  and this was the case here, nothing at all wrong with the design but just not for me..  I decided to use some things from my own stash along with some of the die cuts provided for the class and have made a different card.  

I started with a square of blue card which I embossed and then I cut a piece of green patterned paper using a grassy edge die.  Next thing was to stamp and fussy cut some tulip flowers and leaves  and to print a sentiment before assembling everything together using the die cut windmill and the rows of small tulips (these last two items came with the class).  

Windmill - from Tulip Fields set Stampin' Up
Small tulip border - from Flowering Tulips also SU
Embossing Folder - Bark 3D folder from SU
Large Tulips - Timeless Tulips set SU