The inspiration for this card came from something similar seen on YouTube where the main feature was a stag but as I don't have a stag stamp I did a bit of lateral thinking and used this quirky cat stamp instead to make a birthday card for a cat-loving friend.
Background - inked using Distress Oxides
Stamps - from Card-IO, Lavinia and free magazine gift
Sentiment - computer using Microsoft Word
Masks - from Lavinia Stamps
A nice easy theme this week on the Allsorts Challenge **colours of Autumn** and I thought this landscape card would fit the bill - a mixture of stamping and die cutting to make this autumnal scene.
The next Allsorts challenge is their 700th and the week promises to be something special so pop back in a week's time to see what is coming up
Each year I bring out a bauble stencil which I bought after seeing demonstrations at a craft show several years ago. I must say I do miss going to the larger craft shows to see new products being used but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with crowded places since Covid reared its nasty head. For this card I've used purple shades to compose this little wintry scene using some silhouette stamps. The image was mounted onto a piece of toning design paper which I've had for more years than I can remember.
Stencil - from Card-IO
Stamps - from different Card-IO seasonal sets
Another challenge from Allsorts and of course the opportunity to win a great prize. The theme this time is **Add a Sentiment** and as usual there is plenty of inspiration from the design team.
I decided to make a feature of the sentiment by re-visiting the eclipse technique which is something I've not seen for quite a while - ideas seem to come and go don't they and most techniques come around at some point as a reminder. I started by stamping some flowers onto a square of card before using a die to cut out the words, adding a die cut label with the final word, which could have been anything but I chose 'birthday'. The words stand out well in real life but, as is often the case, the picture doesn't show it as clearly 🙄
There are various ways of achieving this effect and plenty of YouTube tutorials available.
Flowers - Stamps from Art Gallery set Stampin' Up
Words die - matching die set Art Gallery Stampin' Up
Birthday - word produced using Microsoft Word
It's the turn of Sarn to host the Playground Challenge this fortnight and she has used a small snippet of white card on which to draw one of her beautiful 'tangle' designs. It doesn't matter how few or how many snippets you use, you can still enter with a chance of winning as great prize so why not pop along for a visit - hot chocolate is usually on offer too now the weather has turned colder 😉😉.
Everything, with the exception of the base card, came from my snippets mountain which, as I've mentioned before, never seems to diminish. I found a square of white and a square of blue which were trimmed slightly to fit the card blank. A stitched circle die was used to cut out the apertures, leaving three blue circles to pop back into the 'mountain' for another day and the white square was embossed. I then used small snippets of white to stamp and colour the hippos, with even smaller snippets of colours for the accessories. I do hope they are in a heated swimming pool 😄. The layers were put together with thin foam pads so that the hippos could peep out of the apertures.
Circle Dies - Creative Expressions
Embossing Folder - Creative Expressions
Hippos - Stampin' Up, as was the sentiment die
My attention has been drawn to another stamping challenge HERE and the theme for this month is **Colours of Autumn**. As my second Bumble Lodge card has been coloured in shades of yellow, green and brown I thought I'd pop over there to share it. This one was coloured using pencils and the surrounding area inked with Distress ink and some stamped stars.
Stamps - from Lavinia Stamps
Stencil - also Lavinia
Lodge Coloured using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils
I'm not at all sure that many people will be moving house in the current financial climate but I have made a 'New Home' card anyway because I just wanted an excuse to use this beautiful stamp. This is a great stamp to colour and I actually stamped and coloured two in different colourways. This one was coloured using Inktense pencils and a water brush and the other, which you will see another day, was coloured using Polychromos pencils. I started by cutting a large tag from watercolour paper and once the image was finished I sponged with toning colours, adding ribbon to match. The DL base card was stamped with some 'splodges'before adhering the tag and the words.
Image - Bumble Lodge from Lavinia Stamps
Tag - die set from Sizzix
