Christmas Tomte

Another quick card for my Christmas collection, this time with stamping, colouring and fussy cutting.  Image was stamped, coloured using alcohol pens with the addition of some coloured pencil here and there before fussy cutting.  Found some paper which was a magazine freebie from some time back and as this had words incorporated there was no need for a sentiment.  A scrap of kraft card was embossed with a brick wall E/F and a sprig of holly die cut from scraps.  A fairly quick and easy card to make once I'd gathered all the bits and pieces together. 

Background - paper given \away free with magazine
Brick Wall - embossing folder from Stampin' Up
Holly - dies from a magazine freebie set
Gnome - Tomte (gnome) from Woodware Fuzzies range of stamps

Playground Challenge #408

 My card for the Pixie's Playground Challenge this time is another version of a recent Christmas card but using a whole different selection of snippets.  Again, apart from the card blank no whole pieces of card or paper have been cut into to produce this one.  The owls have been stamped and die cut but on the stamps they are surrounded by stars and sitting on branches so I was very pleased I have a stamp positioner gizmo to make sure the stamped images are in the right place on the background and sitting within the die cut 'windows'.  To do this I cut two squares of the same size, one in white and one in the patterned paper.  Windows were cut into the patterned layer and then I lined both layers up in the Misti to position the stamps, carefully removed the top layer and stamped owls complete with backgrounds before stamping them again onto snippets of card so that the owls themselves could be die cut.  As usual there is a lovely prize on offer for the lucky person to be pulled out of the hat so why not have a go - this one is a Ruby's Memory challenge, follow the link to read all about it.

Images - Have a Hoot stamp set Stampin' Up last Christmas (retired)
Snowflake - X-cut Papermania die

Heatwave

 I have the heatwave to blame for my lack of blogging this past week - in fact a lack of everything really.  When I feel hot and uncomfortable just sitting still that is really too much for me so in fact I've achieved nothing beyond the bare essentials although I have read a couple of books.  Suffering from sleep deprivation as well as I guess are many others.  Anyway there is at least a little bit of breeze about this morning and I've actually managed to produce a card even if it has taken me much longer than normal.  This one is for my Christmas collection and has used up a few more of my snippets for the stamping and die cutting - no whole pieces of paper or card have been cut into this morning 😉

Owls, frame and sentiment - Have a Hoot Stampin' Up set from last year (retired)
Holly - part of a die set which came with a magazine last year

Bird House

 Yet another of my gelli plate experimental backgrounds titivated up with some stamping - it has been good to get back into stamping as a change from endless die cuts although there will be a variety of techniques used here from day to day.  Variety is the spice of life!!

Bird House - stamp from a magazine freebie set which I've had (unused!!) for a long while 
Cat - Lavinia Stamps
Foliage - mix of Lavinia stamps and others from my collection
Words - Phill Martin freebie stamps

Trees??

 The idea for this card isn't entirely my own, spotted it a little while ago and decided to give it a try although I must apologise for not crediting the source.  You know how it is - you see something that sticks in your mind and then cannot find it again 🙄.  What I did remember is that you start out with a stencil and ink up a piece of card and then some of the motifs were cut out and used as 3-D 'trees'.  I inked a piece of cream card to give the impression of a landscape and then stamped a couple of trees to form a backdrop..   I chose three sections of the stencilled piece and cut them out, inking the edges slightly.  Popped them into place and then stamped a couple of hares and some flying birds to complete the scene.  I dithered a bit about adding a sentiment, eventually deciding I would.

Stencil - Pods from Lavinia Stamps
Bare Trees - stamp from an Autumnal set which were free with a magazine last year
Hares - Lavinia Stamps
Birds - Card-io stamp
Sentiment - from magazine freebie set Phill Martin

Christmas Snippets

My card for the latest Pixie Snippets Challenge is a Christmas one - thought I'd make a start and make one or two in between other projects and they will soon add up to what should be enough for this year when the time comes.   There is a super prize this time with inspiration from a guest designer - this one aims at using up some of our smaller snippets which we can't bear to throw away. Why not take a look and maybe have a go yourself.

For my card I turned to a set of dies and stamps which came as a magazine freebie perhaps last year or even maybe the year before that - all I know is that the packet had remained unopened in my box of Seasonal stash.  I sorted out some snippets of blue and white card which I used for the small square motifs but unfortunately I didn't have a large enough piece of anything matching for a background so I simply printed off a sheet from a favourite CD, cut a piece to fit this card and now I have yet another good-sized snippet for one or two more cards.  The sentiment was one from the gift set and was stamped onto the background paper and white embossed.  The small blue squares were snippets left from a piece of  card printed from the same CD on a previous occasion. For the scenes I cut stitched squares from white pearl card snippets and then used parts of the dies to produce the separate buildings and trees to fit the blue squares.

Backgrounds - printed from Season's Greetings CD Artylicious (Chocolate Baroque)
Squares - dies from Tonic and Stampin' Up
Scenes - die cut in white pearl card using die/stamp set given with a magazine

Stencilling and Stamping

 This clean and simple card is more or less CASE'd from one made by the talented Eileen Godwin who has made lots of YouTube videos well worth watching for inspiration. (Just Google her name).  I didn't have the stencil or all the stamps which she used but managed to improvise 😀.  I started off with brushing two colours of ink through a stencil to make a partial impression, followed by using the Misti to position the stamps.  The stars and the word were second generation impressions.  The image was mounted onto a piece of paper which had just the right colours to tone with the inking.

Stencil - Berry design from Lavinia stamps
Cat - also from Lavinia
Butterfly - from a Penny Black silhouette floral set
Word - from a stamp set which I've had for many years (Chocolate Baroque)
Stars - stamp from a large sheet of Christmas stamps, magazine freebie
Background - paper from Clarity stamps