Be careful where you plant your kitty!

 

After all, you want it to grow up big and strong!

This stamp is another from the bargain set I mentioned a couple of days ago. I've coloured this one with Promarkers, and added a background paper printed from a Coosty Creations download, a piece of really cute kitty ribbon from Crafty Ribbons and an adhesive pre-printed sentiment. 

This is another entry into the Cat Lovers Hop at Her Peaceful Garden

And since there's lots of black, I am also sharing at Passion For Promarkers - Purple and/or Black 

The Tale of Tom Kitten

 For my next cat card I've pressed my old faithful Beatrix Potter CD into action. The is a Create and Craft club freebie from many years ago,  and is a sampler from what was, at the time, Crafter's Companion's newly released Beatrix Potter CD. 

I've used two background papers, a border and a decoupage set from the CD. 

I'm sharing this with

The Cat Lovers Blog Hop at Her Peaceful Garden 

CD Sunday Plus - anything goes 

Show us your Pussycats - Furrything Goes 

Black Cat Season #2020CatLoversHop

 I'm not a Halloween fan, but  I'll take any excuse to stamp a black cat! Especially as today is Day 1 of the Cat Lovers Hop over at Her Peaceful Garden - if you'd like to find out more about it, click on the pretty kitty badge which you'll find in the sidebar over there >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

My first card is sort-of Halloweeny - I don't have any Halloween sentiments but I've used the traditional orange and purple colours for the background. 

I smooshed the orange ink onto the card - it was pure luck that splodges the perfect size to spotlight the kitties formed - then blended in the purple to fill the gaps. The stamps are from a set I bought from a cat gift shop that was getting rid of all their craft supplies (foolish people!) and didn't have a brand name on the pack. 

Naturally I am joining in with the Cat Lovers Hop

And I'm also sharing at Sweet Stampin as it's the closest I'm likely to get to a Halloween card! 

Two months today....

 ... it will be Christmas Day. I wonder if we'll be able to have our usual family celebrations, or will we be in lockdown, or something in between? We're making two sets of plans, one for a family Christmas and one for a just-the-two-of-us one. 

Anyway, I've made this card following the sketch at Fezziwig's Festive Frolics and using  elements from Hunkydory's "Wonderful Wintertime" collection plus a couple of die cut corners. There was a border strip left over from another card so I've added that to the inside

 I am sharing this with

Fab'nFunky - Christmas  

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes  

Rudolph Day at Scrappymo's 

Jingle Belles - Not a creature was stirring  

Fezziwig's Festive Frolics - Sketch  

On the right track

 It seems to be a few days since I posted - not that I haven't been crafting, I've been busy getting ready for the forthcoming cat lovers blog hop. Anyway, here is a card that is very much not cat themed and once again uses stamps from the gorgeous Indigo Blu magazine kit. 

I'm sure that, like me, you can't bear to throw away a even a tiny snippet of white card, because it's so useful,  and end up with a boxful of bits and pieces of all kinds of different textures and shaded of white. Try die cutting them to make a W-o-W card and you'll see just how many different shades you have. But once they are stamped, coloured or embossed the differences become negligible so a card like this is a great way to clear some of the surplus. 

First of all I cut a square to fit the card and painted it all over with a matt silver watercolour paint. When it was dry I sponged a hint of black ink around the edges then embossed the whole thing with a cog wheel embossing folder, Cogs & Gears from Creative Expressions. 

Then I stamped all the elements onto snippets of white, coloured in the engine and added a sentiment from the pack of adhesive sentiments I won in the playground recently, and matted the engine onto red card. I did add a few die cut cogs but they pushed it over the border into Too Much Going On so I whipped them off again before the glue dried.

I am sharing this with

The first ever challenge at  the new blog Let's Squash It! , a challenge that wants us all to show more love for our embossing folders. The theme is Geometric and Metallic. 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge 389  

Watercooler Wednesday - anything goes with a masculine twist

Back to the Indigo Blu kit....

 I just can't keep away from it! 

This time I used it to make an envelope style card. 

To make it, I started with two square cards and cut one panel in half diagonally on each, then stuck the two uncut panels together to give a tri-fold card, and ran a dark pink ink pad along the edges. I took a pale pink printed distress effect paper from the kit and a set of Altenew ink pads in shades of pink ranging from a barely-there hint of blush to a deep plummy pink. I cut the paper to a whisper smaller than each panel then blended ink around the edges of each piece and decorated with stamping and stencilling in the various shades of pink. 

Next I made the insert - I cut white card down to a square 1cm each way smaller than the card, punched a border along the top and then stamped the lady, positioning her so that when the card is closed with the insert in place, she will be peeping through the V-shape made by the overlapping diagonal panels. Then I blended, stamped and stencilled all around the edges leaving the area closest to her white to make her stand out, and added a touch of colour to her lips and flowers. 

Finally I stuck the bottom edge of the right hand panel to the centre, to form a pocket to tuck the insert in and added a butterfly to that panel cut from one of the patterned papers. 

I am sharing this with the Butterfly Challenge  where I have used the card fold, and also edges and English Rose. Also with Little Red Wagon - something beginning with B (butterflies) 

Elegant Cranes

 

This beautiful crane image, printed from Joanna Sheen's Oriental Dreams CD, is perfect for the slim cards that are so popular at the moment. I framed it with die cut corners from the X-cut Oriental die set, and added characters cut with the same set. I don't like using characters when I don't know what they say, so I hope I haven't said anything rude! 

When I lived in Hong Kong,  it was fashionable among younger Chinese people to wear t-shirts with slogans made up of random English words, leaving you with the impression the creator had no idea what they are saying. I once ate in a restaurant where a man at the next table was wearing one that said "The harder you pull, the harder it gets. " I found it very difficult to concentrate on my prawn balls... 

I am sharing this with CD Sunday Plus, where as usual the challenge is Anything Goes as long as a CD, USB or download is used.