Late for Rudolph Day

 Phew, I almost missed this month's Rudolph Day. My Christmas card making isn't coming along too well this year - it's hard to start thinking about next Christmas when i feel I never got the chance to celebrate the last one properly! 

I've used another of the Forever Friends die cut decoupage sheets  along with backgrounds from thee kit, a felt snowflake border from my stash, a doiley  and a printed banner which was a gift from a friend. 

I am sharing this with

Rudolph Days at ScrappyMo's 

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - anything goes/stars  

Christmas crafts all year round - something beginning with E or F (felt & Forever Friends)

Lighthouse on the rocks

 Today is a first outing for a set of stamps I won in a recent challenge at Allsorts. It's a Hunkydory set from the For The Love of Stamps range, called Lighthouse Harbour (which is strange as there's no harbour in it!). I do think lighthouses are great images to use on masculine cards. Not sure what that says about the symbolism in my subconscious! On the other hand, I've met a lot of light house keepers and they have all been male - by the time equal opportunities for women became firmly established here in the UK, many lighthouses were becoming fully automated and no longer needed keepers, so women missed their chance of the job. 

I cut scrap paper into a cloud shape and used it as a mask to sponge blue ink lightly over the background. Then I stamped the image twice onto separate card, coloured it with Promarkers and cut it out, using just the rocks of the second image. I layered them onto the background, using 3D adhesive for the rocks to make them appear to be in the foreground. I stamped and die cut the sentiment and then added a few gulls flying around the tower. 

I am sharing this with 

Addicted to Stamps and More - Make Your Mark  

Cardz 4 Guyz - By the water  

Allsorts Challenge - anything goes 

Dragonflies and Music

 Considering that dragonflies are my very favourite crafting theme, I seem to have featured them on far too few of my recent makes. In fact a quick scroll through my recent posts shows only one dragonfly themed make this year so far. I'd better bring all my lovely dragonfly stamps into action to put that right! 

The stamp I have used here is a very old (about 20 years?) unmounted stamp, which I have stamped onto blue cloud effect paper and roughly torn.  I can't remember where the stamp came from - possibly Crafty Individuals? I've added a similar sized piece of torn sheet music and made a bright blue brusho background to display the image on. The letters are chipboard ones from my stash and it is finished with a scattering of enamel dots. 

I am sharing this with 

We love Chocolate Baroque - I love....  dragonflies, music, stamping, making backgrounds 

Retro Rubber - Anything goes 

Beary Merry Christmas

I used a set of Forever Friends die cut decoupage and papers for this card. 

Not really my "thing" but still a fun way to make a quick card. And I do like stripy paper to give skinny cards an even skinnier look. I added a little wooden Santa, some sparkle mesh ribbon and a couple of gems. Job done - and as my Christmas card box isn't filling up at my normal two-cards-a-week rate this year, a much needed quickie to bulk it out. 

I am sharing this with 

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - anything goes/ a song or carol (Oh Christmas Tree) 

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Slimline Cards  

Sunset Stag

 

A very CAS  Christmas card today. I punched a circle from masking paper and attached it to the card, then used a finger dauber to blend red distress ink over it, moving horizontally all the time to give a sunset sky effect. I added a stamped sentiment, then die cut the stag and positioned him so that his magnificent horns stand out against the setting sun. The tiniest red gem I could find gives him a subtle hint of "Rudolph". 

I am sharing this with 

Less is More - CAS  inking 

Make my Monday - Clean and Simple 

CAS Christmas - kraft, red and white  

Sparkles Christmas - CAS 

L is for Layers - Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers

 It's over a year since I left the design team over at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, but it's a bit like the Hotel California - you can check out any time but you can never leave! So here I am, as current Queen of Snark, with my guest post for the latest challenge, L is for Layers. 

A card with lots of layers would have been just too obvious wouldn't it? So I thought of something else with lots of layers.... 

An Onion!

I backed a piece of white card with double sided adhesive sheet then placed a whole set of nesting dies on it and cut them all in one go. Then starting at the centre I stuck them to my card, leaving off the outer ring which I coloured with a marker and pencils to give an onion skin effect before adding it. Then I covered the whole thing with a sheet of clean paper to protect it from my messy old plates and ran it through the die cutting machine to flatten the surface. I gave it added onionyness by running a very pale green pencil lightly around the joins of the rings. 

I printed the sentiment onto separate paper, then scribbled over it with a marker to make it onion-coloured. I had planned to cut neat rectangles, but the scribbled areas actually reminded me of bits of torn onion skin so I cut them out as they were and added them to the card. 

What to layers say to you? how about sharing your own ideas over at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers?  Who knows, I could be handing over my crown to you next! 

Chilli Chef

 It was Mark's birthday yesterday and this is the card I made for him,  combining two of his passions, chillies and cooking. 

It's a large 20cm square card  made using a background, sentiment and pyramage that I downloaded from Crafts U Print layered with matching red, black and green card. The chillis in the corners are 3-d decoupage. Simple to make but very striking and perfect for him. 

I am sharing this with CD Sunday Plus - anything goes 

New Indigo Blu kit

I'm sure you all know by now how much I loved the #2 Indigo Blu magazine kit. Well, earlier this week I got the #3 kit and I think I'm going to love it just as much. Sadly I missed the #1 kit (if any of you has a spare one to sell, please let me know). 

Anyway, these are my first two makes with the kit. 

I am sharing the two cards together at Twofers, where the theme this month is Your Choice 

Now a look at the two cards separately. 

First I made a one layer card, masking the front to leave a strip wide enough to hold the whole of the large flower stamp, positioned to leave room on the right for the sentiment. I sponged various shades of yellow ink to fill the space and stamped the image on it, then removed the masking and stamped the sentiment. This would make a great birthday or general greetings card.

I am sharing this with 

Allsorts Challenge - a stamped image 

Alphabet Challenge - Y is for yellow  

Little Red Wagon - One layer  

Now on to the second card, one of the fashionable DL sized cards. 

First of all I made a background of very wet watercolour card, sprinkled with purple brushos which I teased out to cover the card using a wet brush. I stamped the large flower stamp again, then fussy cut to remove all the background. I used the trimmings of the purple background to cut the fern frond die twice. Next I stamped the matching fern stamp on white card. Now, I know there is a clever trick for lining up a solid die over a stamped image, but I couldn't recall what it is, and after a couple of failed attempts using die cut waste to align it, I gave up and fussy cut it by hand. #I-AM-NEVER-DOING-THAT-AGAIN. 

I chose a sentiment that is suitable for an encouragement or even sympathy card, stamped it on my card base then attached the image and ferns, using 3D adhesive to give it some lift. 

I am sharing this with

Fab'n'Funky - No square cards  

Watercooler Wednesday - Feminine anything goes  

The Flower Challenge - Shades of Purple 

Crafty Calendar - Feminine 

Stamping Sensations - Monochromatic 

Inspired by Pinterest

Remember when you first discovered Pinterest and spent hours on end pinning photos of ideas you were going to try sometime but never got around to? Yes, well I did that too. Now I seldom even look at it unless I'm searching for something specific,  and it's dawned on me that I have several albums of ideas still waiting to be tried.  Perfect when inspiration is a bit slow off the starting blocks. I was scrolling through some of my boards at the weekend and was inspired to make this: 

I cut 5cm squares from snippets of coloured card and matted them with black, giving them very narrow borders. Then added a butterfly and leaves, cut from white snippets with some very old Spellbinders dies. Stamped the sentiment - that's from a Uniko set that I recently bought with a voucher from Di in the Playground. I think the wording of the sentiment is perfect for a CAS card! Then arranged the die cuts, using 3D adhesive to give the leaf spray lots of dimension. 

I am sharing this with 

Craft Rocket Challenges - Use Dies and/or Spring 

Butterfly Challenge - J for Jasmine, Jade, Japanese Carmine  

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge 398 

Butterflies and Sunflowers

 A bright, cheerful card for a dull, cold Monday morning. 

I used papers printed from Debbie Moore's "Sunflower Dreams" CD and lots of sunny yellow card to make a Joy fold card. The butterfly image holding the two flaps together is reinforced with the same yellow card, partly for strength and partly to give a uniform yellow to the back of the flaps. This could be a good place for the sender to write a greeting, since I seem to have covered every other space on the card! 

I am sharing this with

Allsorts Challenge - Use Yellow  

Butterfly Challenge - J for Joy Fold 2  

CD Sunday plus - Anything goes

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned paper challenge - Anything goes 

Alphabet Challenge - X is for Xtra folds 

I

Grumpy Cat does Zoom

 OK, OK, this started out with the "I am not a cat" idea but it evolved.... 

You know that moment when somebody breaks wind in a zoom meeting and it is heard in homes all over the world! And the culprit always forgets to hit Mute when they feel it coming on. I used my beloved Katzelkraft grumpy cat from the Les Chats Russes set, and drew in the bookshelves freehand.  I was very tempted to recreate the experience of a Welsh journalist who realised, too late, that she had left a very realistic dildo on the bookshelf behind her, but as I might be sending this card to my 8 year old granddaughter I thought I'd better not. But I've left a space for it, just in case I decide to send it to somebody else. 

My granddaughter is a bit of a Zoom Queen, I often look to her for help and advice with it. One of her tricks is to keep changing her display name to reflect the conversation topic, something I see my Grumpy Cat has also done. (He nicked a word from one of the pad of Tim Holtz sentiment stickers that I had out on the desk ready to use the "Sorry, not sorry" sticker from). Last week we were having a Zoom chat with her, and she suddenly got up, stalked to her bedroom door and yelled "Can you keep the noise down please? I'm on a meeting in here!" So grown up! 

While I'm sharing Zoom related anecdotes, I must mention my other daughter, who works for the UN, who was working from home and conducting a high level international meeting, when my 5 year old grandson appeared behind her in full Darth Vader outfit and started waving his light sabre at the delegates. 

Real life meetings, when they come back, are going to seem awfully dull! 

If you want some really hilarious ideas for Zoom themed greetings cards, pop over to see the fantastic creations at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, where I am entering this into the Z is for Zoom Meetings challenge. 

I am also sharing this with

Just us girls - Animals 

2 Crafty Critter Crazies - Anything goes 

Show us your pussycats - Furrything Goes 

Thunderbirds are GO!

 I was about 9 years old when the Thunderbirds craze hit the UK for the first time - I even had a pin-up of Scott Tracy on my bedroom wall, and of course wanted to be Lady Penelope when I grew up. And apparently for some people the craze has never faded, because recently I was asked to make a  Thunderbirds themed card for the 60th birthday of a friend's husband. 

I chose Thunderbird 3 because it gave me a chance to make a celestial background. The image is a free digi that I found online. For the background, I sponged layers of distress ink over the card. First pinks and purples, then shades of blue, then black and grey, blending as I went along. I sprayed it all with water and blotted it so the layers showed through. When it was dry I splattered with dilute gesso then added die cuts for the planet and sentiment. 

I am sharing this with

Addicted to Stamps and More - die cuts and/or stencils 

Make my Monday - masculine birthday 

Shopping Our Stash - Oh, the Places We'll Go! (outer space does count as a place, doesn't it?) 

I used it at last!

 I've had this stamp set, totally NBUS, for about 10 years. It was in a bundle of sets that i bought because I really wanted most of the other sets in the pack, and never got around to using this one. 

I stamped it so the stems ran off the edge of the card and coloured it with fine-tipped markers. The sentiment, too, is NBUS that's been in my stash for many years, but I can't remember where it came from. And I added a tiny Card-io dragonfly because dragonflies fill me with happiness. 

I am sharing this with

NBUS - Challenge 24 

Less is More - One layer - flowers  

Split circles

 If you ever use Pinterest, you'll know what it's like when you take a closer look at a pin and the next time you visit your home page is packed with similar ones. Well, this happened to me a couple of days ago and now my feed is full of cards made by stacking die cuts made with nesting dies. So I had to get it out of my system by making my own take on the idea. 

As you can imagine, it's a perfect way of using up snippets! I chose a selection of orange and green card snippets, cut then with stitched circle dies, stuck the layers together keeping one spot on the perimeter of each aligned, then cut the whole stack in half. 

Next I took a snippet of black, dusted it with an anti static pad and stamped the sentiment with clear embossing ink then embossed it with opaque white powder. 

I cut the stack of circles in half across the common diameter and arranged the two halves either side  of the sentiment strip, offsetting them by half the diameter of the largest circle. 

I've seen lots of variations on this theme, some keeping the circle intact, some stacking them centrally, some cutting the individual circles in half before stacking them then working so that one side is stacked to the left and one to the right, then lined up so the smallest circle matches up again (this creates a lovely wave like effect, I must try it, perhaps all in shades of blue). And of course the same thing done using other shapes such as squares and hexagons. So if you are looking to clear out your snippets box, you could make a whole set of these! 

I am sharing this with 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - challenge 397 

A Place to Start - Pick a Shape 

A Bit More Time to Craft Extra - Anything goes  

Watercooler Wednesday - All About occasions