Allsorts Challenge #706

 Time for another challenge at Allsorts and this time it's **A/G or Let it Snow**.  I am pretty well up to date with Christmas cards, especially as I thought they should be posted earlier than I would do normally because of  possible hold-ups due to strikes.  I've opted for the anything goes option this time with a couple of bookmarks which I've made as Christmas gifts.  It's a bit of a challenge in itself to come up with interesting designs in such a tall thin layout but I do always enjoy a challenge, especially when the end result doesn't look too bad 😂.  As usual there are lovely prizes to be won and some great inspiration from the design team.

Stamps by Lavinia

A Week

I see it's a week since I last posted anything here but one way and another it has been a frustrating week.  Following on from recently losing both my land line and broadband for nearly a week, leaving me with lots of catching up to do, I seem to have had various problems - why oh why is it so difficult to speak to a real person when phoning to untangle things or make appointments which seem to be like hens' teeth🙄. Life just seems to get more and more complicated - or maybe it is just me getting old but I don't think so.

Anyway I have a stamped card made fairly recently to share today.  I started with a Gelli plate background and built up the scene with a selection of stamps, finally adding some second generation words around the edge just to give a bit of extra texture along with some light inking.

Very cold weather at present but maybe a good excuse to head for the craft room - keep warm everyone.

Stamps - all from Lavinia

Seasonal Snippets

 I have a Christmas card for the latest challenge in the Snippets Playground - worth visiting today because the sun always shines there - allegedly - and we seem to have relentless fog for several days on the trot so it will be nice to see some sunshine. Of course the tree house is all lit up for Christmas so that should brighten things anyway, the big switch on was last night.

 As usual I've managed to make my card using snippets for everything apart from the card blank.  This is a side opening 7 x 5 card started by finding the snippet of patterned paper and trimming to size, followed by a white snippet which I streaked with some colour direct from a fairly old distress ink pad which wasn't too 'juicy'.  I then scrabbled through my smaller snippets of green, red and gold to die cut the poinsettia flower and leaves; finally stamping a greeting onto a snippet of white, fussy cutting and layering onto a piece of red.

Dies used - Tim Holtz Sizzix Holly and Poinsettia set

Flowers

 Today's card is a floral one - a change from making cards for Christmas.  I was sorting out some of my older stamps recently - wooden ones which I rarely use these days and came across the crackle effect one which I've used to make a background for this card.  It's not that I don't have loads of patterned paper but I thought this would work to showcase the pretty flowers in their jars.  The jars were die cut from some dark blue pearlescent card scraps and the flowers from left over oddments of watercolour paper which I then coloured using Distress ink pens.  The sentiment was printed using the computer and die cut with a handy small rectangle die.

Dies - Tim Holtz floral set which included the jars
Stamp - Hampton Arts USA wooden stamp, years old

Trees and Leaves

 This week's challenge at Allsorts is **A/G or trees and leaves** and having made this card I realise that although it has trees  they have no leaves but I suppose in any case it will fit the A/G (anything goes) category so all is not lost 😀😀.  Some great inspiration from the design team as usual.

Stamps - Lavinia
Sentiment - produced on computer

White Christmas

 Time for another challenge over at the Playground, where as you probably know by now we are encouraged to use up our snippets. A little while ago I had purchased some white card blanks but it wasn't until I opened the pack to use them that I noticed quite a proportion of them had damaged corners - I guess the pack had been dropped at some point. Anyway I wasn't sure where they had come from so rather than faff about trying to find out I decided to cut my losses and simply trim off the damaged part, leaving me with some sizeable snippets of white card  as if I didn't have enough white snippets already but heigh-ho that's the way the cookie crumbles 😀.  This has led me into making a white-on-white Christmas card for the challenge and apart from the card blank (undamaged) everything else was cut from the snippets.  There's always a silver lining and in this case at least the snippets actually matched the background perfectly 😉.  Why not pop along to the Playground to use up some of your snippets - a lovely prize as usual and possibly hot chocolate and crumpets if you time your visit well!.

Dies from Stampin'up, Lawn Fawn and some unbranded ones
Sentiment Die - a magazine gift from several years back 

Christmas Wreath

 I've made another Christmas card even though I still have quite a lot left from last year's makes but I feel I should open up my box of Christmas themed stamps and dies because I'm sure they need an airing. I started by using a circle mask and lightly inking around with a  light green before adding the twigs, holly leaves and berries.  The tiny berries on the holly were coloured with a glaze gel pen but of course that doesn't show in the picture.  The larger berries were coloured using watercolour pencil and the final thing was to add the stamped sentiment.

Stamps by Lavinia apart from the twig which was from Card-IO
Sentiment - from a set of free magazine gift stamps by Phill Martin