Tall Card

 A bit of a change today with a DL card made in a grungy style - I do like to mix it up a bit with what I make - variety is the spice of life 😉😉.  I've used one of the floral stamped images sent to me by a generous friend and have added my own touch to it with some Distress oxide ink smooshed around and with a few extra stamped splodges.  While I had the inks out I also smooshed some onto another piece of card so that I could cut the smaller extra pieces which I've used to add a bit of interest to the layout.  There was a bit of stencilling added to the base card and the same inks were used for this and also for colouring the petals of the flower using a water brush.  

Flower - stamp by Carabelle
Splodges - stamp from French Foliage set by Stampin' Up (retired)
Distress Oxide - Broken China, Dusty Concord and Wilted Violet

Crazy Cats

 I've come up with an idea for a card using a couple of the Crazy Cats which I stamped, coloured and fussy cut recently - I still have a couple of dogs ready to go as well when I can think of another layout for them.  I used a brick wall embossing folder for a background, adding a window with shutters.  Next move was to cut out the large 'happy' word and a smaller 'birthday' - assembled everything and that's it, job done.  I do really like these quirky pets 😉

Cats - Tim Holts stamp set mini Crazy Cats and Dogs
Large Word - die from Crafter's Companion
Small Word - Britannia dies
Window and Shutters - Gummiapan dies
Brick Wall - Embossing Folder from Stampin' Up

A quick Card

 This card was quite quick to make once I'd stamped, coloured and fussy cut the dog. Searching for something recently I came across my set of Crazy Dog and Cat stamps which I've had for many years.  They'd not seen ink for such a long time so I stamped a few of them and had a nice quiet afternoon colouring and fussy cutting.  Once they were done I had to think of how I could use them and my first idea was to use a die cut background with just a single dog and a sentiment.  I then remembered that a kind friend had included some die cut bones as an extra with some others she sent,  so one of these was coloured and used as well.  I could make other very similar cards using the rest of my dogs and cats but I really don't like making more than one card the same so my brain is ticking over now working out what else I can use to make something different.  My die cut background was backed with a snippet of patterned paper and the sentiment was one which I produced on the computer.

Background die - maker unknown, sorry
Dog - from Tim Holtz Crazy Dogs
Bone - die cut using a Gummiapan die (courtesy of a friend)
Sentiment - produced in Word

Playground Challenge # 465

 Well I'm making a quick dash over to the Snippets Playground this morning with my homework - and why a quick dash?  That's because it is raining pretty steadily for the second day in a row.  I just hope there is plenty of hot chocolate on offer 😉😉.  Apart from having used a card blank, everything else on this card came from my various snippets collections.  Started with a large snippet of patterned paper trimmed to fit the card, then sorted out small pieces of white, yellow, greens and mauves to cut the other elements.  The sentiment was stamped using purple ink and the final addition was a scattering of matching pearls.  As usual there is a lovely prize on offer for one lucky person so why not use up some of your snippets to be in with a chance of winning 😊.

Trying Techniques

 Trying different techniques is often the way to go if ideas are lacking and I enjoy watching card making videos on YouTube where a wide variety can be found.  I particularly like seeing videos presented by Chrissie Stokes and of course the offerings from Lavinia are well worth a watch (many others are also available).  Anyway today's card was inspired by a recent video from Chrissie who, in turn, had been watching Lou Collins using this technique.  I've used a stamp which was with a recent Indigo Blu boxed magazine kit, stamped onto some watercolour card and heat embossed with white before adding quite a bit of water and a selection of Distress Oxide inks, drying and re-applying until I was happy.  I started with some random splodges (technical term) and then added more localised colour to the flowers and leaves, finally adding some darker ink to the background areas.  If you watch the videos from either Chrissie or Lou there are lots of hints and tips.  The final touch was just a simple sentiment produced in Word, and if you don't know how easy it is to produce light lettering on a dark background just watch one of the videos and all will be revealed. 

Stamp - from Indigo Blu magazine kit
Distress Oxide - Walnut Stain, Rusty Hinge, Iced Spruce, Cracked Pistachio
Embossing - Wow Opaque white

Outing for the Pets

 These pets are out early to post their Christmas cards.  The design came about because I wanted to use the lovely German Postbox die cut which I'd received from a friend.  Coloured it using alcohol pens and then racked my brains for ways it could be incorporated into a card design.  I eventually came up with the idea of the pets and a few robins for good measure.  You will see I've  again used the tree die as a background but with some different DSP for the sky.  Sorted out some suitable snippets of card, die cut and assembled the dog and cat; stamped, coloured and die cut the robins and embossed a piece of curvy white card with some 'snow'.  I really enjoy dreaming up this sort of design and then playing around with the components to build the card which will hopefully make someone smile at Christmas.  Mixing items from various stamp/die sets is a fun thing to do but I'm always careful to return them to their 'home' when the work is finished 😉

Background - Aspen Tree die from Stampin' Up
Robins - from Quite Curvy stamp/die set also Stampin' Up (retired)
Cat and Dog - dies from Globeland (Amazon)
German Post Box - die from Charlie and Paulchen (courtesy of a generous friend)

Christmas Kickstart Challenge

 It is a very special Kickstart challenge this month and you can read all about it on their blog HERE

You will probably have gathered that the theme is **CATS** as well as Christmas of course and for my card I've chosen some wintry trees and added black cats and a few flying birds - fairly simple but at least it is in keeping with the theme.  I've used some snowflake background paper to showcase the trees.

Trees - die from Stampin' Up
Cats - dies set from Impression Obsession (years old)
Flying birds - dies from Gummiapan