All the Fun of the Fair

 I've been looking through my collection of 'freebie' die and stamp sets which I've collected over the years although due to Covid and Lockdown it seems ages since I bought any craft magazines - not that I'm short of dies and stamps, free or otherwise but I could never resist picking them up from the supermarket 😉.  Unfortunately, or may be fortunately, craft magazines don't seem to be available with my online grocery shopping!!

 Anyway I came across a large set of dies from four years ago which includes houses, which I have used before, and also some city-scape dies and ones depicting a fairground which I've never used so I set about making a card with a fairground theme which I thought would be apt for the lovely summery weather we are having at present.  This card involved quite a bit of measuring and trimming of pieces of card to build up the various layers and I certainly wouldn't want to be making a lot like this but I think it has turned out OK in the end.  I've yet to use the city-scape dies but I'm sure an idea will come to me at some point for these as well.

Snippets Playground #430

 The weeks certainly seem to come around quickly and it is time for another opportunity to use up some of my Snippet mountain for the latest challenge HERE.  There is as usual a great prize for the lucky person drawn out of the hat so why not take the opportunity to reduce your pile of snippets and have a go. Apart from the DL card blank everything else has been gathered from my snippets collection.  The piece of background paper was left over from a sheet used on another card and it came from a magazine freebie paper pack.  The three ovals were die cut from white scraps and I then stamped images and coloured using pencils.. I was lucky enough to find a snippet of 'gutted' card which was large enough to trim to size to layer behind the DSP.  For anyone who doesn't know, 'gutting' is where you cut out a shape from the middle of any of the lower layers when matting and layering to make a card.  It's an 'economy' thing - as if we don't have enough left over bits already 🤣🤣

Ovals - Stitched Shapes dies Stampin' Up (retired)
Stamping - using stamps from Garden Birdhouses set also Stampin' Up

Allsorts #680

 The theme for the current Allsorts Challenge is **any stamped image** which is great - love stamping and I certainly have plenty to choose from..  Fortunately I had a Gelli plate background sitting on my desk so I rummaged through my Lavinia stamps collection to see what I could make of it and this is the result using a paper mask with matching circle cut out. Well worth following the link to see the inspiration from the design team.

Lavinia Stamps - Woodland Hare, Star lights, Twisted Vine, Slender Mushrooms
Background - used circular Gelli Plate

Inky Play

 This card started with one of the Gelli plate backgrounds which I made recently - makes sense to do a few while the 'messy' stuff is out.  I then looked through some of my stamps and pulled out this fairy which for some reason immediately brought to mind the Piped Piper of Hamelin.  I don't have any rats to follow him (or children either) but did come across this gaggle of geese which I though would be a fun twist on the idea.  Finished off by stamping foliage and flowers around - I dithered a bit about adding a stamped sentiment, still not entirely sure about this but it's done now so no going back 😉.

Background - Gelli plate using Distress Oxide inks and Brushos
Stamps - mix of Lavinia stamps with some others from my  (growing) collection

New Home

 A card to share today, made using dies from more than one set and also some more of the beautiful New Horizons DSP.  A few layers here to create this scene which I thought would be ideal  to welcome someone into a new home.

House - from Peaceful Cabin set Stampibn' Up (retired)
Main Scene - New Horizons DSP, stamps and dies Stampin' Up

Still Away with the Fairies

 I believe there's a saying 'a cat may look at a King', but this particular one is gazing at a fairy, poetic license maybe 😉.  I started by masking off the edges of my card with low-tack stencil tape before adding some thin gesso through a leafy stencil to act as a resist. When dry this was followed  by lightly brushing some colour; then stamping the fairy and toadstools.   A little bit of second-generation stamped text was added for interest and a simple sentiment, leaving the cat to be stamped after the masking tape had been removed..

Fairy, cat and toadstools - Lavinia stamps
Text and sentiment - stamps from my stash

A Fairy Dwelling

I really enjoyed building up the colour to showcase this quaint dwelling.  The image was stamped onto a piece of white card followed by carefully cutting out a mask so that I could then add all the other details. The final thing after removing the paper mask was to colour the dwelling with pencils. 

 

 Stamps - Bumble Lodge, flowers and leaves Lavinia Stamps
Stencil - from Lavinia stamps
Colouring - Polychromos pencils
Sentiment - from a set of stamps I've had for ages, probably free from a magazine