Blowing in the wind

Here is another card made with the lovely new stamps from the goodies I won from Uniko.

There are lots of different flower heads, all separate, as are the stems and leaves, so they can be put together in an infinite variety of combinations. Here I've used the cow parsley flowers (I know the leaves aren't cow parsley leaves - I claim Artistic License!) and stamped and embossed them in gold over a band made by masking the card and blending Distress Inks into the space. The sentiment is also from the stamp set.

This card is for the Flower Challenge where the current theme is CAS 

Using a crafty prize

I was delighted to win the recent blog hop prize over at Uniko Studio - their entire latest release!

 

A gorgeous selection of stamps, dies and stencils - and of course because it was a blog hop, my visits to the DT blogs mean that I now have loads of ideas for how to use them.

I had the first stamp inked almost before the postman had got back on his bike, using that amazing Christmas collage stamp which combines so many of the elements we associate with Christmas.

The kraft card I used isn't best suited to stamping, even with a platform to help with multiple impressions, but it's nice card to colour on with pencils, which is why I chose it. All the colouring is done with pencils apart from all those tiny dots, which are part of the stamp so stamped in black, but I went over them all with a silver sparkle gel pen, but it only shows when the light angle is exactly right.

I am sharing this with Stamping Sensations - One Layer Christmas
and Sweet Stampin Christmas - Anything goes .

For a little princess

A few months ago I won a large princess crown die and as it is so big, I really wasn't sure what to do with it. However one day during half term I had a major crafting session with my 5 and 8 year old granddaughters. I gave them a 6x6 pad of papers - all pink and girly designs like crowns, unicorns and mermaids, and cut a whole load of crowns using all my snippets of pink and shiny card - I have muscles like Popeye's in my Grand Calibur arm now!

They had a wonderful time combining the crowns and papers to make cards - I wish I'd taken photos of their finished work - but here is the sample I made for them to show them how it could look.

The girls felt it necessary to add ribbons, stickers, bows and bling (and in one case, a tree!)  but I really feel this has so much impact it needs to be kept as unadorned as possible!

I am sharing this with Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge

Oh Christmas Tree at Cardz 4 Guyz

Over at Cardz 4 Guyz we're starting to think about Christmas, and the first of our festive challenges is Oh Christmas Tree, so we'd like to see some Christmas trees on your masculine makes.

 

I based my card on a sketch I found on Pinterest. It's hard to tell from the photo but that background isn't grey, it's a kind of matte silver paper. It's a sheet left over from a pack of "card" I bought on a market stall about 20 years ago - when I got home and opened it, the first and last sheets were card, everything in between was paper! As the market was 250 miles from home, I couldn't really go back and complain.

 

I added some of my sparkly washi tape - and some unsparkly too - and die cut trees and starts. After cutting the trees, I ran them through that swirly Cuttlebug folder that I suspect we all have gathering dust somewhere. If the card had been for a woman, I would have added silver gems in the middles of the swirls but I thought with the washi tape there was already rather a lot of sparkle for a man's card.

 

I am sharing this with

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Food and drink or Anything Goes

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - November

A flurry of feathers

The background of this card is made by stamping all over with small feather stamps in blue and brown. I've topped them with embossed panels of blue and brown card and a flurry of die cut feathers. The  brown and blue are quite gentle, subtle colours in real life - the card is a good match to the stamping - but I took the photo yesterday afternoon when it was very gloomy and I had to use electric light and flash, and they've made the colours look awfully garish. Maybe if I was good at manipulating photos I could get it to look more realistic.

And they say the camera never lies!

I am sharing this with
Allsorts challenge - Blue and brown
Inkspirational - Trend (feathers)

More bleaching fun

The other day I shared a card I'd made using bleaching and pointed out how the combination of thin, absorbent card and fine embossing had allowed the bleach to run slightly beyond the embossed area.

Well having discovered that I decided to take advantage of it and use it in a way that made the most of the "problem".

I stamped the elf silhouette on purple card then painted the moon with bleach, where it seeped out around the edges just enough to provide an ethereal moonlit glow.
While I had the bleach to hand, I spritzed some blue paper with it to  make the background.

I really really REALLY wish I hadn't added the gems.....

I am sharing this, unfortunately with firmly attached gems, with Sweet Stampin where this week's theme is Fairies and Fantasy.

Guy Fawkes Night

Today, November 5th, is Guy Fawkes Night here in the UK, where we have bonfires and set off fireworks to commemorate Guido Fawkes's failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament. (Just imagine the partying there would be if he'd succeeded!)

Of course  Guy Fawkes night is just one of many celebrations all over the world that are commemorated by fireworks, which is why I've chosen this sentiment.

I've made this card for Less is More, where the current challenge is Fireworks -  the bright colours, not necessarily actual fireworks, but given the significance of the day I thought I'd use both interpretations of the theme. I don't have any actual firework stamps, so I've used texture stamps from the Gentleman Crafter stamp set, stamped in bright colours to make the sky behind a die cut city skyline. My husband bought me the die a few years ago - I think it is a Marianne one.