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Saturday, 5 November 2022

Snowflakes

 I see that the latest Allsorts challenge is **sparkle and shine** and this recently made Christmas card came to mind because sparkly silver card has been used behind the die cut snowflakes and also for the decorative word which is the main feature of the card.  A piece of suitable paper came from my Christmas oddments box, job done - another card ready for the festive season.


Background - printed using Season's Greetings CD from Artylicious
Large Word - die from Creative Expressions
Snowflakes - die from my Christmas collection gathered over many years

Wednesday, 2 November 2022

Allsorts Challenge #700

 An extra special week on the Allsorts blog with it being their 700th challenge and as they are asking for something which celebrates a special occasion  I've chosen to go with Christmas.  Do pop along to see the special occasions chosen by the talented guest designer and the regular design team members.  Some great prizes to be won as well.

A generous blogging friend kindly sent me this reindeer stamp so of course I had to feature him on a card straight away.  Background was produced using Distress Oxide inks and the details stamped using Versafine Clair.


Stamps - by Lavinia Stamps

Sunday, 30 October 2022

Snippets Challenge #440

 The current challenge over at the Playground has an optional theme this time and yes, you've guessed it, Halloween or Autumn although if you want to play along with 'anything goes' as usual then that's fine.  Plenty of fun things going on there as well with hot soup, witches brew and the like and there's a rumour that the residents are dressing up😉.  Of course there is a great prize to be won  so why not delve into your supply of snippets and have a go.

I have no need of a Halloween card but I did decide to go along with the Autumnal idea and everything apart from the card blank was taken from my snippets mountain - mostly using white or cream snippets which I've coloured.  The first thing was to find some not too small pieces which were smooshed through a selection of Distress Oxide inks which, once dry, were used to die cut the larger leaves with the addition of a touch of gold glimmer here and there.  The toadstool and other small pieces were die cut from the cream and then coloured using Distress markers; the two layers of wreath were cut from snippets of brown and green.I found a larger cream snippet which was trimmed to fit onto the card, leaving a small margin and another die was used to cut out the corner detail, backed with yet another snippet of text paper, adding a few inky splodges along the way for added interest.  I even used a tiny snippet of raffia tied into a knot - you will have gathered by now that I rarely throw anything away if I think it could be used 🤣.


Dies used - from FIVE different Tim Holtz (Sizzix) sets


Tuesday, 25 October 2022

Birthday Cat

 The inspiration for this card came from something similar seen on YouTube where the main feature was a stag but as I don't have a stag stamp I did a bit of lateral thinking and used this quirky cat stamp instead to make a birthday card for a cat-loving friend.


Background - inked using Distress Oxides
Stamps - from Card-IO, Lavinia and free magazine gift
Sentiment - computer using Microsoft Word
Masks - from Lavinia Stamps

Saturday, 22 October 2022

Allsorts Challenge #699

 A nice easy theme this week on the Allsorts Challenge **colours of Autumn** and I thought this landscape card would fit the bill - a mixture of stamping and die cutting to make this autumnal scene.


Stamps and Dies - Grassy Grove by Stampin' Up

The next Allsorts challenge is their 700th and the week promises to be something special so pop back in a week's time to see what is coming up



Thursday, 20 October 2022

Christmas Bauble

 Each year I bring out a bauble stencil which I bought after seeing demonstrations at a craft show several years ago.  I must say I do miss going to the larger craft shows to see new products being used but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with crowded places since Covid reared its nasty head. For this card I've used purple shades to compose this little wintry scene using some silhouette stamps. The image was mounted onto a piece of toning design paper which I've had for more years than I can remember.


Stencil - from Card-IO
Stamps - from different Card-IO seasonal sets

Monday, 17 October 2022

Allsorts Challenge #698

Another challenge from Allsorts and of course the opportunity to win a great prize. The theme this time is **Add a Sentiment** and as usual there is plenty of inspiration from the design team.

I decided to make a feature of the sentiment by re-visiting the eclipse technique which is something I've not seen for quite a while - ideas seem to come and go don't they and most techniques come around at some point as a reminder.  I started by stamping some flowers onto a square of card before using a die to cut out the words,  adding a die cut label with the final word, which could have been anything but I chose 'birthday'.  The words stand out well in real life but, as is often the case, the picture doesn't show it as clearly 🙄 

There are various ways of achieving this effect and plenty of YouTube tutorials available. 



Flowers - Stamps from Art Gallery set Stampin' Up
Words die - matching die set Art Gallery Stampin' Up
Birthday - word produced using Microsoft Word