Festive Fungi

 The other day, Mark came up with quite a challenge for me - as a keen mycologist, he wanted me to make some fungi themed cards for his foraging friends. Fungi themed CHRISTMAS cards. 

Well, mushrooms and Christmas aren't usually a crafting combination that springs to mind, but I had a rummage through my stash and found some lovely fungi themed stamps and combined them with some festive stamps and dies. 

The first card is an absolute snippet-fest! I used snippets of card in greens and brown, plus lots of my white snippets. I cut the pine boughs using a very old Spellbinders die set and the ivy using a die I bought from Joanna Sheen, although I can't recall whether it is her own brand or a Marianne Creatables one. The fungi are stamped with a very old Graphicus set of botanical stamps (now reimagined and sold by Chocolate Baroque under the name Nature Table) and a Hunkydory set that was a magazine freebie 4 or 5 years ago. I coloured all the images with Promarkers and fussy cut them. 

I christmasified it with a holly stamp and sentiment, and added clear liquid pearls for the holly berries, then used Stickles to give a frosty ground for the fungi to grow from and Wink of Stella to add a touch of frost to the cones. 

I am sharing this card with 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - challenge #413

Watercooler Wednesday - All about occasions  

My next card is a cute version. To the same basic elements, I've added a gnome - coloured as a Santa version - peeking over a toadstool. Apparently I'm not supposed to call it a toadstool, I'm supposed to call it Ammanita Muscari. But it looks like a toadstool to me.  

I'm sharing this with 

Passion for Markers - Make it Cute  

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes

On to my third and final card (for now - I am working on more fungi themed cards in a different style) and this is my favourite of the three, even if it isn't quite as festive. I just love the way those Oyster Mushrooms turned out! I tore the top of the tree stump rather than cutting it, to make it look as if the tree had fallen down naturally rather than being hacked with a chainsaw (and anyway I haven't  got a chainsaw). 

I am sharing this with 

Craft Rocket - Autumn and/or Mushrooms 

Retro Rubber - Anything goes  (those mushroom stamps are at least 20 years old, possibly nearer to 25!)