Festive Robin

 I am waaaay behind with Christmas card making this year, so I need to make a few quickie ones to boost my stockpile. That's where Hunkydory's kits come in handy - these two cards are made using a kit from a few years ago. 

The first card uses  half of one of the background card sheets plus an image, sentiment and frame from one of the die cut sheets. 

The second uses  the other half of the background, turned sideways, topped with a border from the die cut sheet. I then used a gold frame, the waste from another of the images on the sheet, and stuck a piece of paper of the same design taken from a Hunkydory "Little Book" behind it, trimming away the excess. I decoupaged the robin and foliage from a second sheet of the same design and attached it with 3D adhesive, overlapping the frame where necessary. Then I finished the card with a sentiment and embellishment, the last items left on the die cut sheet, and some teardrop shaped gold gems. 

I am sharing these with 

Rudolph Days (Hooray, it's back!) at Scrappymo's 

Christmas Cards All Year Round - something beginning with R or S (Robins) 

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything goes 

Sunrise silhouette

 I was inspired to make this card by a video I saw on Instagram of a card made using a stencilled sunburst behind a foliage silhouette. Different stamps, different stencil, but the impact is the same! 

I masked the lower part of the card, making sure the sentiment would fit, then stencilled the sunrise above it and stamped the silhouette (a very, very old Trish Bayley stamp) over it. Removed the mask,  ruled a line across the card to ground the image, then stamped the sentiment - a stamp from a useful set I recently won in the Allsorts challenge - beneath the line. By happy coincidence, the sentiment is the right width to make it look as if the plants are springing out of the top of it! 

I am sharing this with 

AAA Cards - no layers (not using the optional twist) 

Addicted to Stamps - die cuts and/or stencils 

Allsorts Challenge - Anything goes/nature

Better with age

 

The latest challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is U is for Ugly. 

I chose this delightfully ugly dog stamp from The Card Hut and teamed it with a Clearly Besotted sentiment that, although not directly saying it, certainly implies ugliness. I gave the dog a background of paper from an old V&A pad that I keep specifically for those times I need some ugly wallpaper on a card (you'd be surprised how often it happens!) and a scrap of woodgrain  paper for a floor.  

A Slide and Lock card

 I love making gatefold cards but they have an annoying tendency to spring open which can sometimes spoil the look of the outside. A belly band is sometimes the answer, but over at the butterfly Challenge, Mrs A has come up with a different solution, a sliding lock that slips over the two "gates" and becomes a feature of the card. 

Full instructions for making the card are over on the Butterfly Challenge blog. I used all the suggested colours, and cut the squares and circles with stitched edge dies so I've used all elements in the challenge this time. Not only that, but apart from the white card and the pink, of which I used an entire 12x12 sheet with no viable leftovers, every other element was made using complete pieces of card and paper from my snippets  box - even that lovely Crafty Individuals paper on the inside which picks up the plain colours so perfectly. NOT A SINGLE SCRAP WENT BACK INTO MY SNIPPETS BOX!!!! I reckon that for me, that is some kind of a record! 

I am sharing this with 

Butterfly Challenge - Spin the wheel with the latter S (all elements used) 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge 412 

Sparkling Congratulations

 

This sparkly card is made using a Uniko stencil and pink and purple glitter pastes, using the pink on top, the purple at the bottom and blending the two together in the middle. I die cut the sentiment in pink, purple and white and stacked the three together so the sentiment has depth, and if viewed at an angle you can see the coloured layers. 

I am sharing this with 

Cardz 4 Gals - use a stencil. 

Color Hues - Purple and Pink 

If age is just a number....

 I love sanding my embossed work, as you've probably noticed, so I was very pleased when the latest challenge at Let's Squash It was Let's Sand It. 

The embossing folder I chose is a Tim Holtz one,  and I think this old Rubber Dance sentiment is perfect with it. 

The black card is from a Core-dinations Black Magic pad, with sheets that are black on one side and a lighter colour on the other, so the black can be sanded away to reveal the colour - and the added perk is there's no need to search around for matching plain card to stamp the sentiment on, just turn over one of the offcuts and you have a perfect match! 

I am sharing this with Let's Squash It! - Let's sand it using a folder with letters or numbers. 

Koala-ty!

My current CD crush is still  Polyanna Pickering's Walk in the Wild, and this is my latest creation from it. 

I printed the image, sentiment and two papers, matting the image on to the dark green paper. Seen up close, the striped paper has a lovely textured look even though it is printed on smooth paper, and I decided to pick up on that textured theme with a piece of card that has a mesh of fibres embedded into it. 

I used a scraper tool to edge all the pieces and inked them in brown before assembling the card. 

I am sharing this with CD Sunday Plus - Anything Goes