Die Cut Heart and Three Little Robins

I make a few Valentine cards for my best friend each year.  Here's one for Shopping our Stash "Love Me Do" and Cut It Up "My Heart".

This card is perfect for the Cut It Up challenge as it uses nothing but die cuts.  I have this lovely swirly IO die with hearts in it so thought it would be perfect for the background. I die cut it in gold and added it to a cream card base. Then die cut a heart out of a scrap of Yupo coloured with red alcohol ink and gold foil pressed into the wet sections of the alcohol ink. The sentiment is inside as I thought it would spoil the look of the card if I put it on the outside.

And here's a Christmas card for the ABC Christmas Challenge "A is for Anything Christmas / B is for Bright" (it qualifies for both letters as I have the word "bright" in my sentiment), Christmas Cards All Year Round "Things Starting with A and / or B" (I have birds and the word "bright"), Sweet Stampin' "Bright and Beautiful" (my little birds are so bright and beautiful in their Santa hats, and I have the word "bright" in the sentiment), and AAA Cards Challenge (CASE Francesca's card - I have the same layout with three objects going across a narrow strip).

I had a leftover little strip embossed with a narrow mistletoe embossing folder and thought it would work with the AAA Card Challenge.  I used it to ground three little robins in Santa hats - stamped and watercoloured and fussy cut.  

     

    

  

Supplies for card 1:
Paper - cream and gold cs, scrap of yupo with alcohol inks and foil
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - Memory Box heart die, Impression Obsession background die

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black birds, Art Impressions sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, white linen cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints, narrow mistletoe embossing folder

Masculine with Text and Old and New Supplies

For the Allsorts challenge "For Boys or Men", and for Try It On Tuesday "Add Some Text", I've made a card for a male friend's birthday.

My friend is a huge fan of the Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett, so I found some text written by Beckett on the internet, printed it off, did a bit of extra stamping on it, and sponged it with Distress inks to make it look old.  I added a Tim Holtz paper doll and a sentiment cut out with a narrow strip die, and mounted it on an off-white card base.

Making sure to also keep working on Christmas cards, I did this for Jingle Belles "Something Old, Something New", Shopping our Stash "Out with the Old, In with the New", Penny Black Saturday Challenge "Something New", We Love Stamping "New Things", and NBUS "Never Before Used Stuff".  My new is the Penny Black stamp, my old are my watercolour paints, my kraft cs, and my Glossy Accents. 

 

    

  

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Memory Box sentiment, Tim Holtz Paris postmark, Lavinia plant
Ink - Archival Watering Can, Versafine Smokey Grey, Distress Vintage Photo and Old Paper
Paper - heavyweight printer paper, off white cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - sentiment die, Tim Holtz paper doll

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black birds, Hero Arts sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, kraft and red cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, Glossy Accents

B is for Butterfly and Blue Challenges

Stamping Sensations has a fun challenge - "I Spy something beginning with B".  I've got lots of "Bs" on this card - butterfly, blue, birthday, background technique.  I'm also entering it in the Neglected Stuff challenge as this is one of my favourite butterfly stamps and I haven't used it for ages.

The background is a stencil monoprint, using a stencil with tiny square openings, rubbed with several colours of Distress inks, spritzed with water, and then laid onto a watercolour panel.  When dry, I stamped some very faint text and postal stamps for added texture.  I stamped the butterfly and watercoloured it with the same colours as the background, then fussy cut it, glued its body down but popped up its wings with bits of dimensional tape. 

 

There seem to be a lot of challenges calling for blue this month!  Colorful Options "Blue and White", Inkspirational "Shades of Blue", and Color Hues "Blue and White".  So of course, I had to make a card for them!  And because it uses a leftover snippet from another card, it's going to the Snippets Playground.

Back in September, the Group of Cardmakers played with inlaid die cuts.  The piece I used on this card is the leftovers after die cutting and inlaying the centre of it into an ornament - see the second card on this post.

I simply took this leftover piece, trimmed it with a square die, and added it to a shimmery white card base and stamped and heat embossed the sentiment.

 

   

 

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Penny Black butterfly, unknown sentiment, text, and postmark
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, various blue Distress inks
Paper - watercolour paper, off white cs, 
Size - A2
Accessories - tiny squares stencil

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black sentiment
Ink - ColorBox blue
Paper - white shimmer cs, TCP dp 
Size - 4.5" square
Accessories - Spellbinders square die, ornament die (for the inner circle of the dp), clear embossing powder

Snowman Wearing Red

Peace on Earth's new mood board has four images of snowmen, each wearing a different colour.  I chose the top right hand image as I have a stamp of snowman wearing a Santa hat and scarf, and carrying a holly wreath (and there's holly in the mood board image).

Stamped, coloured with colour pencils, bordered with red, Fun Flock put on the Santa hat brim and pom pom, and glitter put on the snowflakes.

Here's the mood board for inspiration, and there's also more cards by members of our Design Team over at Peace on Earth to inspire you.

Please come and join us!

I'm also linking this card up over at The 12 Months of Christmas "Snow People" challenge.

Supplies:
Stamps - Northwoods snowman, Penny Black sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - white linen cs, red cs, bristol cs for the focal image
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils, Fun Flock, clear glitter, fun foam

Finally, a Post from Me!

It's been ages since I posted.  I've had the horrible flu bug that's going around this winter (even though I had the flu shot in the autumn - but they say it doesn't have this year's variant in it!).  I'm much better but have what my doctor calls the post-viral cough that can last for a few weeks.  So annoying!

But I've got my energy back for making cards and posting so here are a couple.

Cardz 4 Guyz wants a masculine card with a Christmas critter.

My nephew has a ginger cat called Roger.  Roger is a bit skittish and wide-eyed like this image so I'm saving this for my nephew's Christmas card.  Stamped and watercoloured, trimmed with a wonky stitched rectangle, bordered in black, and mounted on kraft.  The beard and Santa hat are embellished with fun flock.

 

Double D wants a birthday card and my cousin's birthday is coming up.

 

I started by putting my wildflower stamp in my MISTI and inking it up with Tombow markers, stamping on the centre of a hammered cs cardbase, re-inking and re-stamping until I was happy with the results.  I then inked up the stamp with Versamark, re-stamped, and added clear embossing powder.

 

I took another piece of hammered cs and cut a piece of masking paper the same size as the hammered cs.  I die cut a rectangle out of the centre.  Then inked up the background stamp with Bundled Sage and Speckled Egg and stamped over the masking paper.  I then die cut a smaller rectangle out of the centre of the stamped section, leaving a stamped frame.  Using dimensional tape, I layered the frame over the wildflower.  Finished by adding a sentiment die cut with a stitched banner.

  

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Tim Holtz Christmas snarky cat and sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, kraft and black cs
Size - A2
Accessories - MFT wonky stitched rectangle die, watercolour paints, fun flock

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Magenta wildflower, Penny Black Enlightened background stamp, Memory Box sentiment
Ink - Distress Speckled Egg and Bundled Sage, Versamark
Paper - white hammered cs
Size - 6x4.25" 
Accessories - Tombow markers, masking paper, Spellbinders rectangle dies, clear embossing powder, stitched sentiment banner die

White Branches

My favourite colour combination is white and blue so when I saw the new Peace on Earth mood board, I was immediately drawn to the top right hand image.  It inspired this card:

I sponged two shades of blue Distress inks for the background.  Then made sure it was dry as I wanted to heat emboss on it.  I was extra careful to cover it all with my embossing buddy, and then stamped and heat embossed the branches and sentiment in white.  I created a frame for it with two stitched rectangle dies, cutting it twice for more dimension.  Assembled everything and I was done.

Here's the Peace on Earth mood board.  Check out what else the Design Team came up with and then we'd love to have you make a card and link it up.

I'm also linking it up at Colorful Options "Blue and White".

Supplies:
Stamps - Magenta branches, Rosie's Roadshow sentiment
Ink - Distress Salted Ocean and Broken China, ColorBox white
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Wow Bright White embossing powder, Lil Inker stitched rectangle dies