Deck the halls with just one bough of holly!

Boughs of holly are very festive, aren't they? But a whole hall decked out with them is hardly clean and simple, and I wanted to go CAS with this card so that I could enter the brand new challenge called CAS Christmas which promises to be right up my street.

I've used stitched square and rectangle dies and a holly die, which doesn't have any embossed details, so I added a few strokes of gel pen, and a sentiment stamped with Altenew stamps that I won in the Playground recently.

I am sharing this with

C.R.A.F.T. - Christmas 
The Holly and Ivy Challenge - Anything Christmas Goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Santa or Anything Goes
Winter Wonderland - Stitching Real or Faux
and of course
CAS Christmas - Holly

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #105 - Z is for ZigZag

The latest challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is due to be going live just about... NOW. This time our theme is Z is for ZigZag.

I've gone a bit zigzag crazy here.....

The image is a very old stamp from Dimension Fourth, and I've paper pieced the dresses using a sheet of 6 x 6 paper from the Dovecraft Curiosity Corner range. The background is from a 12x12 sheet of the same paper. The kettle and teacup are part of the paper, and the tape measure is cut out from elsewhere on the same sheet. I've added a few stamped tape measure segments and a stamped zigzag faux stitching border. Both are very old stamps I can't remember the origins of.

The sentiment is a Dylusions stamp and I thought I'd had a real stroke of genius by adding the fabric covered brad, but by the time I'd decided it was in the wrong place I'd had to make quite a big hole for the legs so it really had to stay there. I wish I'd actually used it to cover up the woman in the ugly red hat, who really ought to have followed the advice in the sentiment. After all, we all know about women who wear red hats, don't we?

I am sharing this with
A Bit More Time To Craft Extra - Anything Goes

Bunnies in the grass

I made this card using paper and stamps from Craft Consortium that I've had for around three years and really haven't played with often enough! I distressed the edge of the paper and stamped the bunnies onto a die cut circle, colouring them in and adding grass using pencils.  I used a blending stump on the bodies, but quite gently to keep some of the pencil strokes to look like animal fur.

The border is cut and embossed with a very old Marianne Creatables die then I threaded ribbon through it and added a matching bow to the topper.

I am sharing this with

Retro Rubber - sketch













Cuttlebugmania - Ribbons and Bows
Cardz 4 Galz - furry friends
Stamping Sensations - Forest Friends
Addicted to Stamps and More - Make Your Mark
Crafty Creations Challenge - Anything Goes
Creative With Stamps - Bunny   

Mail Whale

This little scene is made up entirely of snippets of a very unusual kind - the insides of junk mail envelopes! They often have patterned insides, most often blue but as you can see here, I found a grey one and I've seen some in orange and red too.

I used my snippets to die cut some waves and a whale, using the X-cut Build-a-Scene Nautical dies, then daubed the upper part of the whale with grey ink to make him look more realistic.

The sentiment is stamped with the brand new Clearly Besotted Pirates at Play set, it had only arrived in the post five minutes before I made this card and seemed to be just right for  it.

I'm sharing this with

Pixie's Snippets Playground - challenge 321
The Male Room - Recycle
A Bit More Time To Craft - Anything Goes
Just Add Ink - Just Add Water

Butterfly thank you

For this card, I used the Tim Holtz number background embossing folder on Core-dinations card and then lightly sanded it, matted it on to Navy then added the butterflies and thank you die cuts, inlaying the letters and flowers in the Thank You but leaving  the leaves to show the yellow card through the cut-out holes.

I'm sharing this with
The Butterfly Challenge where if rectangular counts as Not Square, I've scored a full house of Not Square, Numbers, No Stamping, Navy, Naples Yellow, Napier Green and BUTTERFLIES.
Crafty Sentiments Designs - anything goes
Alphabet Challenge - Your Choice

Just one more drink.....

I stamped and masked the silhouette and sentiment - both from So Suzy stamps,  then used an embossing powder jar tapped on the surface of a red ink pad to create the "glass rings" and stamped the champagne bottle - a very old unmounted stamp - over  the top. I did consider putting the silhouette and sentiment on separate panels mounted over the background, but I wanted the slightly-hard-to-focus effect that sometimes comes along with having had one drink too many!  I think it goes very well with this month's Naughty or Nice graphic!

I'm sharing this with

Naughty or Nice - Drink Up!


Use Your Stuff - Anything Goes

Haute Couture

And this really is "haute", at least when the card is lying flat, because there are so many layers of decoupage!

Actually I think if I make another like this - and the Couture de Jour die cut decoupage pad has four of each design - I will just use alternate layers because the decoupage projects TOO far, even with a tiny amount of gel glue on each layer, making the card unstable and, of course, the postage expensive when the card is sent!

The main motif is the die cut decoupage, mounted on a doiley. I first covered the card in pink patterned paper from the co-ordinating pad, then set a slightly smaller square of a blue patterned paper from the same pad at an angle to it, trimmed flush with the card edges and covered the join with liquid pearls. It is decorated with elements cut from several other sheets of the matching papers.

I am sharing this with

Allsorts challenge - Ladies Only
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper challenge - March  
Shopping Our Stash - National Dress Day
Watercooler Wednesday - Feminine Anything Goes