Spring

 Well at last it's starting to look a bit more like Spring outside - sun is shining this morning and - say it quietly - it's actually not raining 😊.  Also the lilac tree is showing signs of bursting into flower, followed closely by a laburnum, always a welcome sight.  I came across this stamp recently and thought it would make a nice card for someone who enjoys crosswords - love these hedgie characters.  A straightforward card with an image stamped and coloured along with some pretty background paper and a strip of embossed card to match.

Hare

 The results of a bit of inky play to share today using Distress inks, silhouette stamps and a technique I spotted a while back on a YouTube video by Tracey from Lavinia Stamps.  The watercolour card was cut to size and  wetted with some clean water and then a circular plastic lid was wetted around its edge and dipped into some Brusho pigment powder sprinkled onto a glass mat. This lid was then 'stamped' onto the paper and allowed to dry naturally which left an attractive ring shape to use as the basis for more stamping of the various foliage and other elements to make a little scene.  Such a great idea and bound to be slightly different each time of course.  A text stamp was second-generation stamped around the image for a bit of texture effect, a simple sentiment and that's it.  Many variations possible on this theme I'm sure.

Stamps all from Lavinia Stamps

Allsorts Challenge #775

 The Allsorts challenge this week is **For the Love of Animals** .  It so happens that April is National Pet Month to raise awareness of responsible pet ownership so they are asking for anything showing pet or domestic animals.  Lots of people keep cats I know and as I had a couple of stamped, coloured and fussy cut cats left from a previous project I decided I'd use them for this card.  The large sentiment was also loitering in my 'useful bits and pieces' box from when I first cut this die to see how it cut and to work out how best to put the layers together.  I seem to remember that this one was a bit difficult to layer up neatly but I eventually worked out the best method for me.  I started by cutting two layers to fit the card blank and stamped some words from the stamp set in black ink before adhering the large sentiment and adding the two fussy cut cats.

Cats and stamped words - stamp set from a magazine dating back to around 2018
Colouring - used Inktense pencils and a water brush
Large Sentiment - unbranded die

Coffee Anyone??

 Following up my alcoholic card with a caffeinated one, definitely not CAS this time though - more of a mixed media style.  I do like to mix things up a bit - variety is the spice of life.  The image was stamped using brown Versafine ink and some extra colour was added using Inktense pencils and a water brush.  I then added some stencilling and extra stamping using Distress Oxide ink and finally the words were produced on the computer and die cut.

Large stamp - from Aall & Create Caffeinated set
Stencil - one I've had a while (no details, sorry)
other stamps from the above set and also from my stamp collection

Glass of Red Anyone??

 A bit early in the morning I'd say (more like coffee time) but I thought I'd share this card today.  It's quite CAS - a word cloud which I produced on the computer with the addition of a die cut.  I cut the die twice and layered them together to give it a bit of stability.  Some toning ink was stencilled over the words for added interest.

Stencil - Lavinia design
Word Cloud - Produced using Word (Office 365)
Wine - unbranded die
Ink and Card used - Cherry Cobbler from Stampin' Up

Snippets Playground Challenge #477

 Fun and games in the Playground today with an Easter Egg Hunt - Happy Easter everyone😊🐰.  I thought the occasion called for our favourite bunny to make another appearance and this time he's sitting amongst the trees enjoying the odd burst of sunshine which we've been having in between the showers.  I started with a fairly large snippet of kraft card to fit my card blank and die cut the forest scene in the centre using a die set which was a magazine gift back in 2017 - this set also included the scalloped circle and I used a smaller die from another set to cut out the aperture to fit the scene, using a snippet of cream card.  This was back4ed with a snippet of designer paper.  Bunny and the 'text speak' sentiment were also cut from snippets of cream.  The little flowers and butterflies were cut from minute snippets of card from my collection of inky background snippets.  Apologies - no picture of the snippets because I swept them all into the bin without taking a picture this time.  The only thing which wasn't a snippet is the card blank.

Bunny - unbranded die
Sentiment - die from Gummiapan Mystery Bag
All Other Dies - magazine free gift dating back to 2017
Sky Background - snippet from Stampin' Up DSP (possibly retired)

Butterfly Challenge #194

 It's quite a while since I took part in the Butterfly challenge so I thought I'd pop in with this recently made card.  The theme is D for decoupage, die cuts and a range of colours, details of which you can see by following the link.  I'm playing along for fun because I only managed the die cuts and of course butterflies 😊.  I cut an oval aperture into a piece of cream pearl card and backed it with a leafy die cut.  Two butterflies were stamped, coloured and die cut and the sentiment was cut twice and glued together to give it a bit of stability.

Leaves - die by Stampin' Up
Oval - die from Tonic nested ovals
Butterflies - stamps and dies from Globleland (Amazon)
Sentiment - unbranded die