Hello

 As you know, I like to work with CDs sometimes, but I've never mastered the art of printing out just the right amount of a page for the card I'm making, so end up with quite a lot of CD snippets, which I tuck into a large plastic wallet, separate from my "real" snippets box, and then promptly forget about. I decided it was time to do something about that, so for this card I've combined papers from my CD snippets folder with card scraps from my snippets box. 

The papers were printed from a Funky Hands CD. They've been hanging around for several years now but I think the CD  was V.Funky. I stamped the sentiment and cut it out with a Spellbinders nesting label die then layered it on the next size die cut in black. The flowers are cut with a First Edition layering die and the leaves with the die from the last Indigo Blu kit. 

I'm sharing this with 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - challenge 406 

CD Sunday Plus - anything goes 

Moonlit owl

 This beautiful owl stamp from Crafty Individuals was a freebie with Creative Stamping magazine a few months ago. 

A stamp as lovely as that deserves a special background, so I made a night sky background (obviously this owl lives somewhere there's no light pollution!).  First I blended distress inks in pinks and purples over the card. When that was fully dry, I added a layer of various shades of blue. Next I blended black ink over the whole thing, spritzed it with water and blotted it. Finally I spattered diluted white gesso over the whole thing. I die cut a moon and stamped the sentiment on it, then coloured the owl with Promarkers, fussy cut it and added it with 3-D adhesive. 

I'm sharing this with Just Us Girls where it is a photo inspiration week. 

Embossing with a die

 The "frame" for this card is made using a stitched rectangle die, on the "wrong" side of the card, run through the machine with the embossing mat and plate in place of the cutting plate. Embossing with a die is a technique I've not used for years, but it can be very effective and gives extra versatility to your dies. 

For the central panel and sentiment, I inked the die cut while still in the die, then stamped, still in the die, with stamps from SU's Just Believe set. The dragonflies are stamped from an old magazine freebie set, and lightly tinted with  the blue ink before cutting them out. 

I am sharing this with Colour Hues - Aqua and Black  

That Buddha again

This was an amazing coincidence - I had the Buddha stamp on my desk ready to make the card from my previous post, when the postie delivered a parcel - a bundle of beautiful First Edition 6 x 6 pads which I had won from Craft Label on Instagram. One of the pads was the Free Spirit pad, which I've had my eye on for some time, and just look at the main background paper I've chosen! It couldn't have been a better match for the stamp if I'd spent months searching for it. 

Naturally with a coincidence like that, I had so make a card straight away. I covered a card blank completely with the paper and ran a gold Delicata pad around the edge, then die cut circles of  one of the textured papers and gold mirri and placed them centrally on the card. 

Next I stamped and heat embossed the image on gold mirri - I wanted to emboss with black paper so I made sure to use the anti static pad very generously. Then I fussy cut it and arranged it over the circles. I finished off with a sentiment also cut from the pad. 

I am sharing this with

Fab'nFunky - Anything goes 

Allsorts - Design Paper 

Stay calm....

 and just.... 

The latest challenge at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is Watercolour. For this card, I stamped the buddha image on watercolour paper using Distress Ink in Walnut Stain. It takes a LOT of impressions to stamp on rough paper with distress ink, don't even think of doing it if you don't use a stamping platform! 

Then I coloured it in by using a water brush to draw the stamped lines out into the coloured areas of the robe, headdress and features. 

Next I roughly painted in the background using a diluted Rose Gold metallic watercolour paint,  then placed a sunburst stencil over it and sponged distress inks over, avoiding the image. I used Tea Dye out towards the edges and Walnut Stain nearer to the middle. Finally I rubbed gold finger wax around the edge of the paper. 

The sentiment is created with a Dymo label maker. 

And finally, here's Edna, looking like something out of Monet's garden 

Hush Puppy

 I can never think of basset hounds without thinking of Hush Puppies shoes. If  you know, you know! 

This rather dolorous chap is from one of The Card Hut's Precious Pets stamp sets. I embossed a pawprint border on the card then stamped him above the border and coloured with pencils. I chose a sentiment from one of Ranger's Tim Holtz Snarky Sentiments pads  - I reckon my Hush Puppy is rolling his eyes at his owner's latest choice of dog food! 

I am sharing this with 

Make My Monday - Cats or Dogs

Alphabet Challenge - Furry Friends 

Cardz 4 Guyz - Dogs or Puppies

Butterfly Birthday

 I've used up some of my oldest patterned papers on this card - the band across the middle is a paper from a pack that I was sent when I joined a stamp club run by Graphicus about 25 years ago, and the other papers are from a pack I bought in Tesco, of all places, at about the same time. I stamped the large butterfly across the bottom of the lower paper, but once I'd added the other stamped butterflies higher up I decided the bottom row looked a bit insignificant so I stamped the central butterfly again and added it with 3D adhesive. 

I'm sharing this with 

The Butterfly Challenge - I've chosen the colour Plum 

Cardz 4 Galz - Circles and Purples 

Sweet Stampin - something beginning with B (butterflies) 

Addicted to Stamps and More - Birthdays 

Watercooler Wednesday - all about occasions 

Lots of sunshine

 Well, there's not much sunshine here today. Unlike the hot sunny weather we had last week, Midsummer's Day  has dawned cold, wet and windy. But never mind, here's some sunshine in stamped form. 

These are the cards I have med for this month's Twofer Card Challenge - Sunshine. An encouragement card and a birthday card, made using a very old (about 25 years, I think) unmounted stamp which came in a grab bag. I love the cheerful face and chubby cheeks, 

Now the individual cards.

Blimey, for a CAS card this was a lot of trouble! My first attempt went totally awry, with both the sun and sentiment badly positioned and a large ink blob appearing out of nowhere. My second attempt used Promarkers instead of watercolours, and the edges of the blue area were too crisply defined for the look I wanted. Finally I got the positioning right and went back to watercolour, drawing the edges of the blue out on the right with an almost-dry brush to give a windswept look. 

I am sharing this with 

Addicted to CAS - Sun 

Less is More - Pale Blue and Yellow 

Perfectly CAS - One corner 

Now the second card. 

This time I stamped the sun onto hot sunshine colours of card and die cut them. Three squares is a classic layout for a slimline card, especially with a nice l-o-n-g sentiment to underline them. 

I am sharing this one with 

Craft Rocket - Birthday  

Just Us Girls - Orange, Poppy Red, Hot Pink  

Inkspirational - Slimline Cards 

Bits and pieces

 For this card I dug into my snippets box and came out with a handful of TINY bits and pieces - really too small to be worth keeping given how full my snippets box is, but nevertheless big enough to die cut a few flowers and leaves from. 

So that's what I did - chose a selection of tiny dies and squeezed them onto the scraps to give me an assortment of flowers and leaves. I used some waste card from a circle I'd die cut for another project as a mask and sponged a pink central circle on my card then stamped the sentiment to one side of it. Then I arranged my flowers and leaves around the other side of the circle. I added finishing touches with Cadence Liquid Pearls, which are actually more like liquid enamel dots. 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge 405 - Ruby's Memory  

Sparkles Monthly Challenge - Floral Extravaganza  

Little Red Wagon - Bits 

Craft Rocket Challenge - Birthday  

AAA Birthday - Flowers  

Guest Designer at Christmas Card Throwdown

 

I was delighted to be chosen as the May technique challenge winner at Christmas Card Throwdown  and be invited to be this week's guest designer. It's a theme challenge this week, with the theme of Gnomes. 

I don't have any specifically Christmassy gnome related stash, but it's easy to make any gnome look festive when you team him with the right colours and papers, especially as this cute gnome from Pink & Main's "Hey Gnomie" stamp and die set comes with a couple of fir trees. 

I coloured the images using Promarkers. The frame and the grey snowflake backing paper were a lucky bargain find in Poundland - always worth checking their craft aisle, as I suspect many of the items are repackaged discontinued docrafts items and I've often been able to restock favourites that are no longer available at full price. 

The sentiment is a woven fabric one that I've had for years. I've never used it because I felt the white stitching looked too grey. But with so much grey on the card, it worked perfectly.... well, until i took the photo. Now it looks too PINK! 

I'm looking forward to seeing all your gnomie creations over on the challenge blog. 

I am sharing this with 

Addicted to Stamps and More - Christmas 

Feeling Tropical

 I've lived in the tropics and to be honest the last few days it's been just as hot here in Hampshire! I still  associate hot weather with the tropics though. 

For this card I used an NBUS stamp and embossing folder set that came with Creative Stamping about a year ago. I painted the flat side of the folder with dark green watercolour paint before embossing, to make the leaves really stand out. I stamped the parrot and sentiment, coloured the parrot with Promarkers and fussy cut, and punched the sentiment with a circle punch. Then I took my favourite Woodware leaf punch and cut an assortment of leaves. Arranged everything on the card and finished with a few "water drops" of clear liquid pearls. 

I am sharing this with 

Passion for Markers - Summer Colours 

Let's Squash It - Nature and Watercolouring 

NBUS -NBUS 

Feeling Rough?

 Today I have a get well card for you. I'm loving heat embossing on stencilled texture paste at the moment and just had to feature it. 

This Hampton Arts stamp is my favourite for a humorous get well card, but I didn't have the sentiment I wanted in my stash so created it on the computer. For the background, I took a piece of card in "surgical gown turquoise" and a Uniko stencil, and applied opaque texture paste through the stencil. While the paste was wet, I sprinkled it with Distress Embossing Powder and heat embossed it. Normally when embossing with distress powder, some of the powder can be brushed off when cool to give a distress effect, but using it on texture paste means the "loose" powder is held in place by the paste once dry, so instead of patches without embossing, the finished effect is patches of a rougher texture. It gives a really interesting tactile finish to the background - perfect for "feeling rough"! 

The image is coloured with markers and both that and the sentiment roughly cut out with deckle edged scissors. 

I am sharing this with 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - T is for Texture 

A Place To Start - Create Your Own Challenge - I chose Card/Get Well/Stencil and Embossing 

Hope and Chances charity kit for June

 Every month, Christine Emberson at Hope and Chances  puts together a charity card making kit which almost always sells out within a few days. The kits go on sale on the first Sunday of each month - that latest update, on Friday, said there was just one kit left. 

This month I had to make sure I clicked that "buy now" button right away, as the charity of the month is Fibromyalgia Action UK. Mark has Fibro, and it's amazing how many people, medical staff included, have never heard of it so anything that helps to increase awareness is very welcome. 

The kit contained everything needed (apart from adhesives and pearls/gems) to make these two adorable little cards, and they were the perfect thing to make over this last "too hot to craft" weekend - no need for heat tools, glue guns or spotlights making the place hot and sticky! 

Tiger Lily

 What, three posts in one day? Well, I'm waiting in for an appointment, so I'm taking the opportunity to catch up with cards I made over the last few days. 

I was lucky enough to win the For the Love of Stamps set Lovely Lilies in the recent Allsorts Challenge birthday giveaway, and this is my first make with it. 

All the elements - flowers, leaves, stem and buds, are separate stamps and van be combined to build up the flower image. I stamped each flower, masking it before stamping the next, using a Rich Cocoa Memento ink pad, then once all the flowers were stamped, used a Bamboo Leaves pad to stamp the foliage. 

I coloured the image with Promarkers, using pencils for the delicate stamens, and added the image in brown ink. I'm still unsure whether black would have looked better. 

I think I'll be using this stamp set a lot,  the separate flowers mean they can be arranged as various varieties of lily, and done in white they would be perfect for sympathy cards. 

I am sharing this with 

Little Red Wagon - CAS 

The Flower Challenge - CAS 

More dragonflies

 Well, they're never very far away - and I've not used this Tonic Studios die set for far too long! 

I cut the large die and the smaller dragonfly from navy  card and arranged it at a jaunty angle (it really didn't look right upright) on a DL sized card topped with navy  and pink layers. The smaller dragonfly is swooping  down from the top corner. I stamped the sentiment with blue Versafine ink and added some baguette style pink gems. 

I am sharing this with the Butterfly Challenge where my chosen elements are navy, New York Pink and butterdragonflies (!) - well, I know Mrs A doesn't mind me slotting in the occasional dragonfly! 

Christmas Roses

 A couple of years ago, an online friend gave me The Paper Boutique's "The Christmas Visitor" collection to thank me for a favour. I used the papers a lot for a while then, of course, other things came along and that got set aside. But they are lovely papers and deserve to be seen more often! 

I've used several of the papers here, matted with one of the lovely coordinating plain cards from the collection, and used one topper image twice in order to be able to cut a second one of the roses in the foreground to add a little dimension. 

I'm sharing this at 

Jingle Belles - All bundled up  (In places there are up to 8 layers, not counting the base card!) 

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - anything goes 

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - sketch 

Balloon ride

 One sunny morning last week, I opened the bedroom curtains just in time to see a hot air balloon floating over the area, and felt that summer really is here at last! I've never ridden in one, have you? It must be a wonderful way to see the countryside. I've enjoyed seeing it from a helicopter and a light aircraft, but they move so fast everything's gone before you can really appreciate it. 

Which is a round about way of saying I've been using the wonderful balloon stamp from the Indigo Blu #2 kit again. 

I took a standard A5 sized card and cut away a third of the front  then added a narrow strip of brown card to the edge. Then I cut a piece of pale blue card to the same size as the card front, stamped the balloon over the right hand third and stuck the whole panel behind the front flap, so that when the card is open none of the joins and layers show. 

I stamped the image again, lightly coloured it with pencils and added the sentiments then layered with  blue and brown card then attached it to the front, then finished with a little brown candi. 

I am sharing this with 

Inkspirational - Photo challenge  

Sweet Stampin - Masculine Makes 

Pearly Sparkles - For Men/Boys  

Watercooler - All things Masculine 

Colour Hues - Blue and Brown 

Kitten in a basket

 No, that's not a new take on a 70s pub food classic! 

This adorable little Heffy Doodle stamp and die set has been sitting around in my stash, completely unused, since I won it in last October's Cat Lover's Hop. Simply because I lost it! I've searched high and low, then yesterday while looking for an embossing folder I found it tucked away in the back of my embossing folder box. Goodness knows how it got there! 

Anyway, here it is at last,  and I thought it would be great for using some of the tiny snippets in my box, simply stamping on my chosen colours and die cutting the stamped images - much quicker than stamping on white and colouring them! The grass-effect washi tape looks very much like carpet, so I used a scrap of that then added the sentiment (don't you just love that script font?) from the stamp set. 

I am sharing this with 

Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge 404  (actually this card goes well with the prize on offer this time!) 

Shopping Our Stash - Fur Babies  

NBUS - NBUS (but only because I'd lost it!) 

Show us Your Pussycats - Furrything Goes 

Besties

 As you've probably noticed, I really love this "Besties" stamp that was a gift with Making Cards magazine a few years ago - it has certainly seen a lot of action! 

And I also love stamping on kraft - especially when heat embossed in white, or stamped with Versamark to give a watermark effect.  For this card, I used white embossing powder (anti static pad VITAL!) to heat emboss the image and sentiment - the sentiment was part of a very useful set I won a few days ago in the Allsorts birthday challenge -  then used booze related stamps from my stash to randomly fill the rest of the space. 

I am sharing this with 

Taylormadecards4u - Use your words 

Stamping Sensations - I love....

Sisterhoodd of Snarky Stampers  - K is for Kraft 

The Flute Player

 In a few days' time it will be my oldest granddaughter's 12th birthday. And only a few days after that, she is taking part in a music competition, playing the flute which she loves. So I wanted to make her a card with a musical theme and, as she's turned into a lovely young lady over the last year or so, make a more grown-up card than I've made for her before. 

I found the perfect digi at Digi Doodles - it is called Sweet Melody and it even looks a bit like my granddaughter. I coloured it with pencils and cut it with a circular die, adding layers of plain and scalloped circles  in white, blue and kraft. 

For the background, I used pale blue card stamped randomly with musical notation, using Versamark ink. Next came layers of stencilled, embossed, stamped and real music paper and a die cut stave. The matted image topped all these then I added die cut leaves and fabric flowers for a finishing touch.  

I am sharing this with 

Fab'n'Funky - Go Girly 

CD Sunday Plus - Anything Goes 

We love Chocolate Baroque - hand coloured (or paper pieced) image

Crafty Calendar - Anything Goes 

Getting buzzy

 I only started to use stencils a few years ago - you wouldn't know it now from the size of my collection, it almost rivals my collection of stamps! I really love the versatility - stencils can be used in a very CAS way, or in the inkiest, messiest of ways. They can be used with inks, pastes, pints, sprays, glitters and gels. This time I've gone for a very CAS look 

I sponged distress inks in honey, orange, yellow and brown through the stencil then stamped  the bees and sentiment over the honeycomb background and finished off the bees' bodies with a deep yellow pencil. The whole card took about 10 minutes to make, and most of that was choosing the best placement for the stamping. 

I am sharing this with 

AAA Cards - No layers/use hexagons 

Alphabet Challenge - E is for Easy, Simple card

Less is More - your favourite technique (stencilling) 

2 Crafty Critter crazies - Anything goes with a creature

Christmas Three

 Not tree, THREE. Three owl themed cards. I've got a new CD, the first new craft CD I've had for ages. Well, it wasn't strictly new, just new-to-me; I'm in a craft swapping round robin and this was one of the lovely goodies that came to me recently. The CD is Debbi Moore's Shabby Chic Christmas Owls and  for this collection I printed off two design sheets and two backing papers, then mixed and matched the elements. 

For this card, I started with a sheet of kraft card and inked the edges in red. Then I added elements, with  the image matted in red. The holly sprays and sentiment were added with 3D adhesive. 

I am sharing this card with 

Christmas Crafts All Year round - Something beginning with K or L  - KRAFT (well, I did promise not to choose Kings or Lights!) 

Sparkles Christmas - Kraft 

Next I made a Twisted Easel card, using kraft for matting this time and adding lots of red crystal bling. 

I am sharing this with Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - anything goes 

The third card is a slimline card with distressing on the edges and green pearlescent card used for matting. There is a single layer of decoupage to make the owl stand out from the tree behind him. 

I am sharing this with Fezziwig's Festive Frolics - Red and Green 

And now..... drum roll.... all three cards together, courtesy of Collage-It. 

I am sharing the collection of cards with CD Sunday Plus - anything goes using a CD or digi