Butterfly Challenge #115

Time to spin the wheel at the Butterfly Challenge and this time the letter is 'Y' and I've actually managed to include all seven selections which are Yale blue, yellow, yew, yarn, you and finally your choice (yellow gems for me).  I started out with the intention of cutting four corners using some small pieces of Yale blue card but had forgotten that the die doesn't have an outside edge (not used it for ages) and I didn't have a larger piece of the right colour to cover the whole card. Best laid plans and all that so a rethink was required making use of the small piece of blue rather than add it to my left overs.  There was enough to cut one layer of the butterfly in blue with yellow for the background.  I happened to have a sentiment which includes the word 'you' on a scrap of white card so used two dies to cut out the two layers, adding some yarn on two corners of the blue rectangle.  The piece of yellow background was from an ancient Papermania pad and finally I added some yew leaves and the 'your choice' of yellow gems.  Whew that took a bit of explaining!  Do pop along to the butterfly blog to see some great inspiration and maybe win a prize if you take part.

Butterfly - Sizzix dies
Leaves - Joanna Sheen dies
Sentiment Plaque - Sue Wilson Greek Islands collection dies
Corner die - Papercrafts trellis die

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #2 - Bundle Up!

Time to visit the Christmas Kickstart blog for their second challenge and this time they are asking for a card with an example of wrapping up warmly for winter.  I've chosen to make a snowy scene using some stamps which were given away as freebies possibly the Christmas before last.  These images were stamped, coloured using Copic pens and then carefully cut out with scissors.  The trees were die cut as were the snowy hills.  A scrap of patterned paper was used for the sky and a greeting was stamped directly onto it.  The penguins are all wearing either hats, scarves or ear muffs and all these details were also stamped, coloured and cut out with scissors.  I then had a dry run to compose the scene before sticking everything into place - it's a wonder the penguins aren't dizzy from being shuffled about so many times before settling into place!!

Penguins and Signpost - free stamps from magazine
Hills - dies from Lawn Fawn stitched hills
Greeting - Stampin' Up

Another New Challenge

I spotted a link (thanks Viv) to another new challenge for 2019, this time from the CAS people (Clean and Simple) who have decided to bring the use of stencils to the fore.  There are going to be a succession of techniques featured showing various ways to use stencils which I'm sure many of us have but fail to use as often as we could.  You can find the blog HERE if you want to go along and see what this is all about.

The first challenge is to use the stencil in a basic way by sponging ink through and of course the card has to be in the CAS style which is a little out of my comfort zone but I do have a go now and then.  I started by die cutting an oval from a piece of scrap paper to use as a mask to add some light colouring to the card before sponging one of the colours through a leafy stencil from my collection.  Next I stamped the bird and the sentiment with the aid of the Misti.  Finally a little border was cut and adhered because I felt it just needed a little something extra - hope it still classes as CAS!!

Time to pop along and take a look following the links above and then maybe looking at your own stencil collection.

Stencil - from Imagination Crafts
Inks - Distress Oxide Picked Raspberry and Fossilized Amber
Sentiment - from a Stampin' Up set
Bird - stamp from Elusive Images (very old) still available from chocolate Baroque
Border - Memory Box Tessatina die

Monochrome - Well Almost!

This started out as an idea for a monochrome card but in the end I couldn't  resist adding a bit of colour to the ladybird.  The bugs were stamped using pigment ink and heat embossed so they are shiny.  I then die cut them which requires some care to make sure the die is lined up correctly and I had to have more than one attempt at that.  They were then adhered to a piece of white card which had  been stamped using a dictionary page stamp and this was in turn added to a script background and a circle of grey patterned paper from a pad I've had in my stash forever.  I'm still on a mission to make a few more masculine cards although this could be sent to anyone unless you knew they hated 'bugs'.

Bugs - Entomology stamp set with matching dies by Tim Holtz
Dictionary - stamp from Stampin' Up
Papers - from my stash
Sentiment - Tim Holtz stamp

Masculine Cards

I have a good supply of cards made but noticed that I'm a bit short on ones suitable to send to men so I'm on a mission to redress the balance.  For this card I've used lots of items which I've had for some years apart from the wood grain background paper which is a recent acquisition.  A scrap of card was embossed with a clock embossing folder and highlighted with copper gilding wax. A clock face has been stamped on another piece and backed with a circle in a colour to match the embossed panel.  The cogs were cut from a scrap of card which had been coloured with spritzes of copper  spray.  Finally a sentiment was stamped on yet another scrap.

Clock Face - stamp from Stampin' Up Sense of Time
Embossing Folder and sentiment stamp - both by Tm Holtz
Cogs - dies from Papermania (Docraft)
Background - pad of paper from The Works

New Challenge

I've been sent in the direction of a new challenge called 'Christmas Kickstart Challenge' with the aim of making a seasonal card each fortnight to avoid the last minute rush when December comes around and you have loads to make and very little time.  I'm sure lots of us start out with good intentions of starting early but fail somehow!!  The rules are simple so why don't you pop along and take a look.

The theme this time is to incorporate deer and this is my card ready to add to the small number I had left in the box after Christmas.  It uses an image which I'd downloaded at least a couple of years ago so I printed off some of them to use.  Image was layered onto a piece of holographic card and then I sorted out a couple of white scraps of card; one of which was embossed with snowflakes and brushed over with blue ink while the other was stamped with a greeting before die cutting it into a banner.  A snowflake background sets it all off and I simply added a holographic snowflake.

It was the lovely Jules who gave the information about this new challenge and she has made a gorgeous 'Rudolph' card.

Pixie Snippets #343

Congratulations to the Pixie snippets Playground which is 8 years old - it was originally started by Jules whose blog is HERE and Di took it on some seven years ago.  I am sure there are so many people who appreciate all the hard work which goes into maintaining this sort of thing so a huge 'thank you' is in order.

Now it is onto the latest challenge and this is the card I've made this morning using up some small snippets along with a couple of larger ones and as usual I still have a few bits left over from this card as well - never ending snippet collecting!!!  It's just as well that I decided not to make any resolutions for this year because if I had, one of them would have been broken when I called at the newsagent to pay my paper bill on Friday.  You've guessed it - I was tempted to glance at the crafty magazines, which to be fair are just inside the door so can't be avoided.  I couldn't resist getting one which had a stamp and die set featuring a cute owl with some great little sayings alongside the pictorial stamps.  There were only two dies, one for the owl outline and one for a wing (only one).

I started with a piece of green card slightly smaller than my base card and embossed with a leaf design.  Next I stamped the owl onto a piece of fawn coloured card and added a little colour to beak, eyes and feet before die cutting.  When it came to the wings I obviously had to die cut two and then they had to be stamped afterwards so that there was a left and a right so one was stamped on the front and the other on the reverse side.  The leaves and bunting were stamped onto scraps of white card and cut out carefully using scissors.  The next move was to stamp the branch onto some white card, carefully placing an oval die over it to cut out the shape, then I resorted to using the Misti to place the wording and the bunting stamp in the right place.  Finally the coloured bunting, leaves and owl were all put into place with foam pads before adding a larger oval layer and a birthday greeting to the card.

Coincidentally there is a great article in the magazine written by Jules who has made a fabulous cork board project using wine corks - if you visit her blog you will see that she didn't actually have to drink that many bottles of wine to get the corks!!!

Background - Creative Expressions embossing folder
Ovals - Tonic dies
Owl Scene - stamps and die set free with Papercraft Inspirations magazine (current issue)