Snippets Challenge #494

Having a bit of a change from making Christmas cards so these birds are flying along to the Playground for the latest Snippets challenge which as usual has a lovely prize for a lucky winner picked at random.  I had some snippets of white card  suitable for cutting a couple of pierced squares and an even smaller snippet of black card for the birds.  I've actually remembered to include a picture of the left overs too.  I smooshed some ink onto one of the squares  and added a bit of visual texture using a circle stamp.  The birds on a gingko branch were then die cut and placed over the detailed area.  A simple stamped sentiment and that's it - quick card for the challenge.

Circle stamp - from Crafty Roo
Birds - one of a set of dies from Amazon
Squares - dies from Noble Pierced squares Creative Expressions

Current Allsorts Challenge

 The theme for this week's Allsorts Challenge is **Ribbon or Twine** or the usual *Anything Goes* with of course a lovely prize on offer.  Despite the fact that I have a huge selection of ribbons in my stash, I've chosen to use twine for this card.  I started by die cutting a fairly large tag and rummaged in my box of 'useful bits' and pulled out a couple of pieces of tissue paper on which I'd previously stamped some numbers and an old style typewriter using stamps from a couple of different magazine give-away sets. The pieces were adhered to the tag using Mod Podge, followed by some stencilling, inking and over stamping to add some visual texture.  Twine was used to wrap around the actual tag as well as being threaded through the top.  A die cut bee was coloured lightly with some toning ink and the wings brushed with Wink of Stella.  The design paper in the background came from an ancient 12" paper pad.

Tag - die set from Sizzix (Tim Holtz)
Numbers - stamp from Phill Martin magazine give-away a few years back
Typewriter - stamp from a more recent Stamping Magazine (Lou Collins designs)
Bee - die from Gummiapan
Words - sticker sheet also a magazine give-away (Indigo Blue I think)
Designer Paper - from a Tim Holtz 12" pad of kraft resist designs - years old!

Rudolph Days November

 This part of each month always seems to come around so quickly and this time of course it means that the Big Day is getting ever closer.  My card for the Rudolph Days October challenge was chosen as one of the top picks which means I'm invited to be a Guest Designer for this month.  I've used an image from a set of dies which I couldn't resist as they really amused me with four different seasonal characters all wearing spectacles although of course they can be used without.  I've also added some foliage and berries and popped Rudolph onto a couple of 'torn edge' rectangles, backed with some toning design paper.

Rectangle dies - Sizzix
Foliage - Sizzix
Rudolph - from Cool Yule die set Sizzix (Tim Holtz)

Stamping Sensations November

 The theme for this month at Stamping Sensations is **Anything Goes** with an option of **Magical**.  I'm not sure my card is magical but as it's all stamped it should be OK for the anything goes theme. I started by inking my circular Gelli plate with Distress inks, spattered on some water droplets and then 'stamped' it onto a piece of white card.  The large floral stamp was used twice followed by some grasses and tiny leaves and finally a butterfly.  The flowers were coloured to tone with the background and then some highlights added using a gold gel pen..

Stamps - from Lavinia (butterfly from a magazine freebie set I think) 

Allsorts Challenge #807

 The theme for the current Allsorts Challenge is **Anything Goes** with an optional **Food and Drink**.  I have actually used a teacup on my card but as you see it's been put to a different use to hold some flowers.  I'm not sure if it fits the food and drink theme but at least it's ok for anything goes - tea is something I never drink anyway. The teacup, flowers and sentiment were stamped, coloured and fussy cut before adhering them to the background which was made by smooshing Distress Oxide inks and over stamping with some other stamps to give it a bit of visual texture.

There are some great cards from the Design Team for inspiration and welcome to Helen who is a new recruit to the team.

Stamps - all from Crafty Roo   

Postage Stamp

 This card was made a little while ago but has remained on file for some reason rather than being posted here. I used an image from a pad of LOTV images which I've had for ages; trimmed it to a square and over printed with some post related little images.  A square 'postage stamp' die which I've had for many years was brought of hiding and used to cut a white layer, followed by a purple layer cut with a square die.  Background paper was printed from a downloaded collection.

Image from Lily of the Valley
Stamp Die - an old Spellbinders set
Background - downloaded papers from Buddly Crafts

Snippets Challenge #493

 There's a new challenge over in the Snippets Playground where I'm sure you probably know that's where we are positively encouraged to use up some of our snippets rather than cutting into whole pieces of new card or paper.  There's always a super prize for one lucky entrant each fortnight as well so why don't you search through your own snippets and have a go 😀.  This time I've used my usual card blank and I also had to cut into a new piece of card for a layer slightly smaller but of course this leaves me with a sizeable snippet for other projects.  The wonky tree was stamped onto this piece of card and then stamped again onto a selection of quite small snippets of various green paper so that I could fussy cut the sections to paper piece onto the image.  As these pieces were so small I trimmed them over the waste paper bin so I'm afraid I couldn't take a picture of them this time - they really were tiny 😉. The sentiment was stamped at the bottom and some small gold stars added - these were leftovers from a previous card. I always save any die cuts, however small because they always come in useful at some time.  Finally I decided a border was needed and luckily I found a large green snippet for this and of course 'gutted' or cut out a square from the centre before using it here - no one would know once the card is assembled.

Stamps - from Crafty Roo at sale price
Stars - from a Sizzix Seasonal die set