Inspiration from a Blog Visit

 As I've said before ideas for cards very often come from seeing what other people post on their blogs and when I saw a recent post by the talented Sarn  HERE  I was immediately reminded of some bird stamps which I've had in my crafty stash for a long time (since 2008 in fact) although I was surprised to see just how long I've had them 😉.  I can't recall when this set last saw ink but it felt good using one of the birds to make a card inspired, and similar to the one Sarn had made.  The flower stamp I used as part of the background and the 'arty' words were also neglected stamps.  The bird was stamped and embossed and the background floral one stamped using Distress Oxide.  Some Oxide ink in another colour was 'splodged' around and the words simply stamped in black.  The panel was then popped onto a kraft card and a simple adhesive sentiment added.

Flower stamp - Elusive Images 2007 (now known as Chocolate Baroque)
Bird - stamp from Elusive Images Dawn Chorus 2008
Arty words - Elusive Images 2008 ATC stamp set
Sentiment - Indigo Blu

Snippets challenge #476

 Despite trying my hardest the snippets mountain never seems to diminish but making something for the Playground Challenge certainly helps a little and there is always an opportunity to be in the draw for some lovely prizes along the way.  This time I used quite a few of my smaller white snippets to stamp a series of cat images and then coloured and fussy cut them ready for arranging into what I hope is a pleasing composition 😉.  Sorry no picture of the left overs as there were just tiny 'trimmings' from my snipping which all went straight into the bin. The white background square was a larger snippet but the blue layer was cut from a whole sheet leaving the remainder to go into my snippets collection.  This set of stamps is one which was given away with a magazine several years ago - would you believe I actually have a box of freebies, some of which haven't even been opened but I do trawl through them now and then seeking inspiration.

Cats and words - free set of stamps from a magazine (several years ago)
Birthday Sentiment - wiry words set of stamps
Colouring - Inktense pencils and water brush

Current Allsorts Challenge

 The theme for the Allsorts Challenge this week is **Feathers and/or Fur** with of course the usual anything goes option.  What better excuse for me to bring my favourite bunny out to play and this time he is seated on the window sill, probably looking for Spring 😊.  Guess what, it's raining again today so I hope he's taken shelter.  I've used an archway image stamped by a generous friend and the flowers were fussy cut (they are quite small so not the easiest option) 🙄.  The arch was masked off before using a stencil for the wall effect.  Some lovely prizes this week so good luck everyone!

Arch stamp - from Paper Artsy
Wall effect - stencil from Tim Holtz
Sentiment - produced on the computer

Silhouette Flowers

 Amongst the crafty items sent to me recently were two stamped and embossed floral silhouette images. die cut using a stitched rectangle die.  I've turned them into two 'same but different' cards which I'm sharing here.  The first one had the background 'smooshed' with Distress Oxide inks adding a little bit of stamping for interest.  The second one was stencilled in a quite different colour with the addition of three die cut butterflies in a toning colour.  Both images were mounted onto a black background and die cut sentiments were cut from the same black card.  

Sentiments - dies from Crafter's Companion
Stencil - unknown source
Butterflies - Crafter's Companion
Texture stamps - from my stash Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque)

Spring Flowers

 I've been playing with some die cuts and stamped images which I received from a kind bloggy friend - it was a lovely surprise to receive out of the blue an envelope containing some 'happy post'.  Very many thanks - you know who you are.  This is just one of the cards I've made so far - starting with an arched window stamped onto white card which had been die cut using a stitched rectangle.  I masked off the arch and used a stencil to make a stone effect wall, then die cut a selection of leaves, flowers and grass to build up a little Springtime scene. The window box was added using part of a window die set from my collection. No sentiment added yet but it's handy to have a few cards without so that any message can be hand written on the insert.  I do enjoy the challenge of working with something chosen by another crafter and there will be more cards to come.

Wall Effect - a very old Tim Holtz stencil
Window Box - Snipped from a Crafter's Companion window die (not recent)
Daffs, Crocus and Snowdrops - dies from Gummiapan
Grass - unbranded die
Leaves - from a retired Stampin' Up die set
Arched Window - stamp from Paper Artsy

On The Fence

 This card is for the current Allsorts Challenge where the theme is **USE YELLOW** - there's certainly a fair bit of yellow here, both in the image and also the stencilling.  I started by pencilling a faint circle onto a piece of card before building up the surrounding foliage and then stamping the baby owl sitting on the fence.  The final touch was to stencil around the outside using a Lavinia stencil.  The stamps are also Lavinia designs.

Another One

 Another of my Stickeroo cards to share today, this time a small tall one which I thought suited the proportions of the mage . I  found some toning background paper and just added a narrow pierced strip of card and a computer sentiment .

Pierced Strip - from a Tonic embossing die set
Background paper - from a Phill Martin pad