Snippet mountain

 Happy Christmas lovely crafters

I hope you've all had a good and restful time. I like this after Christmas time which I find much more relaxing. The only problem will be winding myself back up when I need to get going again. 

 On Christmas eve morning I made a little collection of tags ready for our wrapping session in the afternoon. Better late than never and it all got done in the end. 

I started with this pile of snippets which were all in the heap by my left elbow as I work. The heap contains card, paper, inky offcuts, dies and stamps (when I'm really disorganised) and anything I don't know what to do with. No matter how often I clear it, it always comes back. 

A gloomy picture but you can see they were all inked or stamped scraps and offcuts. 

I spent a happy hour with one stamp set (Creative Stamping from a year or two ago), inks, pens, pencils, a stencil, hole punch and corner punches.

We didn't go for elegant matching tags this year as you see!

Most of the colour was already on the snippets. The yellow candles were my favourite. 

These two also had embossing. I can't quite remember how I did it but I think it was embossing with stencils. Ink card first, then spritz and roll through die cutting machine. 

I really like this tag idea and perhaps I will make tags throughout the year with leftovers, it's a good way of using up those inky snippets. 

I hope this qualifies for Di's Snippet Playground Christmas draw which she is running for 4 Weeks. FOUR! To enter your snippet make needs to be Christmas or new year themed. Thanks Di for this Christmas fun and for running the playground the rest of the year, as well. 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day and don't eat too much chocloate. x 

Cheerful snowman

 Hello lovely crafters

Here are a couple more cards ready for posting. I think I've made enough now. For the past few years, I've made Christmas cards every month but this year life got in the way and I've made most of them in the last few weeks. It's been fun but I'm not quite happy with all of them! Next year it's back to making them through the year...definitely the way forward. 

I've stamped quite a few wreaths this year as they are quick and easy and I love doing them. For variety I've done a couple of stars too. This happy little snowman from Leane Creatif stars here. Other stamps are mostly Card-io plus a few imposters. 

Similar but different. 

I'll be linking these to:

Shopping our Stash - Do you want to build a snowman?

This snowman comes out every year and now I've used the stars and lights from the same set. 

Thank you for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Moody trees

 Hello lovely crafters

My friend bought her first stamps at a craft show recently (my reaction - Oh no what have you done!). So she and another friend came to visit for a stamping party for ideas and encouragement. 

Typically, I didn't manage to make anything good that afternoon until just at the end I inked this sky and stamped on these fabulous Card-io trees. Also new from the craft show. 

It was made in moments by inking the sky, spritzing (rather heavy handedly) and stamping. 

I added the holly so it's not quite so dark and moody

So that was a quick card to add to my stash. Now I need to get them all posted. 

I'm linking this to:

There are fabulous cards in the gallery and I will be taking note of some of the ideas!

Tiny cards

 Hello lovely crafters

I've made some tiny Christmas cards using up snippets of card. The idea was to increase my stash of cards quickly but to be honest I spent so much time faffing around I'm not sure they were any quicker than a large card. 😄

Cube ink pad for size reference. 

Each card is 7.5cm square. 

All the cards are slightly different but use the same (mostly) Card-io stamps. There are a couple of imposters as I like to mix and match. 

The flowers are finished with a tiny drop of Stickles in the centre of each. 

Of course they would also be perfect for gift tags but for that you would need something to wrap! I'll get there and we have kept our gift list short this year to save the planet and our sanity. 

Next week I'll be onto the real door wreaths for customers so I'd like to get all my cards out of the way by then. Only a few more needed I think. 

I'll just hop over to Pixie's Snippets Playground as all the cards here are made from snippets. 

Thank you for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Twofer snowflakes

 Hello lovely crafters. 

 I'm catching up with my Christmas cards, after I checked last month thinking I had a little stash and found 3. 

Here are two more, it's great when you can create 2 at the same time. I wanted to cut this inky piece and use it angled at the top of a card so then I decided to use the remainder on another one. 

I've stamped and embossed Tim Holtz snowflakes and then inked with Brushos. Layered on scraps of blue card and edged with die cut 'icicles'. The snowflakes are also cut from scraps and snippets. 

I'm joining in with Shopping our Stash #459: Triple Threat - use three of something. 

I've used three snowflakes on each and also 3 pearls. Very old snowflake dies, snowflake stamps new last year, greeting several years old plus snippets - good job!

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Twinkle twinkle

 Hello lovely crafters.

Do you spend hours going off on tangents trying to be clever and then it all ends up in the bin. I do. I'd had a session like that then somehow managed to create this card which was the complete opposite of what I'd been trying earlier. 

It came together quite quickly. A few stamps, some basic colouring, a little embossing and some glossy accents. 

I did use a pale blue pen around the stars and stocking for highlighting. 

As I've used fairy lights I can enter:

Who doesn't love all the lights at Christmas?

I may have purchased a stamping magazine accidentally while supermarket shopping the other day. Careless.  So these are all new stamps and I can enter the NBUS Challenge:

For once I'm also posting at the right time to join in with the Rudolf Days challenge. Post a Christmas card between the 25th and the end of each month. 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Rockin' Robin

 Hello lovely crafters

Among all the fabulous challenges which drop into my inbox, every so often there is one which stands out. This was one. 

So even though I was running around packing, watering, planting and cleaning ready to go away last week I was also looking through my stamps to find ones which would work for this challenge. 

Here is the finished card:

I picked this cute Robin stamp, coloured with pencils and the glossied it up with some Glossy Accents which you can just about see here. 

A little bit of a red border was the finishing touch. 

If I hadn't been away I'm sure I would have made more. Being far behind with my Christmas cards, this could be a speedy way to catch up. Such fun!

Thank you for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Butterfly and print

 Hello lovely crafters

Here is a quick post to show this butterfly card which I made using one of my stencil monoprints. In my last post I mentioned that I had enjoyed the technique but couldn't bear to cut the inky prints down to make CAS cards. So here is one using the whole print. The challenge is at CAS Mix Up and my last card is here.

The technique is to ink a stencil (usually direct from the ink pad), spritz and flip it over onto your paper to make a print. Each one is different and you never know what you will get. Some are better than others, of course! 

All I've done is frame the print, add a die cut inked and embossed butterfly and a greeting. Oh and a  few water drop embellishments.

I'm fluttering over to Mrs A's butterfly challenge with this one. 

She does love a butterfly and always has loads of inspiration. For this challenge I've used Wisteria and the butterfly only though there are more prompts you can pick from. Do have a look. 

I suppose I have also used words, though not in a very inventive way.

I'll also skip over to Pixie's Snippets Playground. I've been trying to organise my snippets pile (again). I'm not sure if I'm making progress. 

I've used snippets for the butterfly and sentiment and again have popped the sentiment up with scraps of card. 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Fun with stencils

 Hello lovely crafters

I've had fun with my stencils this week. Following the CAS Mix Up Challenge prompt- this month the challenge is stencil monoprint. 

I'm fairly new to stencils but I Love them. 

The technique is to add ink to the stencil, spritz with water and then turn it onto your paper to make a print. You can sometimes make a second print if there is enough ink left. 

The trouble I had was that I loved each one so much, I didn't want to cut them down to make a CAS card. I have made several cards with the whole sheets. 

Anyway, here is one I managed to cut:

This was the second print from this stencil inking so it's has lovely soft colours. 

I used a piece of textured aqua card I've had for years and then added a die cut flower which is inked and embossed in clear. 

The centre candi of the flower is stamped with a tiny stamp. 

What do I think? Initially, I didn't think all the elements went together. I always have trouble finishing a card to my satisfaction. I can make backgrounds all day long, I have a nice little pile but putting the design together - hard!

But it's growing on me. 

Constructive criticism is welcome. 

I'm also popping over to Pixie's Snippets Playground. I think the inking was done on new card but the flower and sentiment were definitely snippets. I also use scraps to 'pop' up the greeting instead of using foam pads. Two or 3 layers of 'cutting and sticking' usually work. 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Quirky tree

 Hello lovely crafters. 

I was recently having a sort out in my card box so I counted out the Christmas cards I have ready. I thought I had quite a few. 

Three!

Better get on with it then. 

The CAS Christmas card challenge is one I follow every month and this month I've actually made a card. 

I've used a Christmas tree die, cut twice and layered. Dotty background and a Merry Christmas die cut which is also two layers. 

It turned out a bit more fussy than I planned and the red border is wider than I wanted due to the limits of my dies and embossing folders. 

However much stuff you have it's never quite right!

So I'll go and look up a few more challenges for inspiration. 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Botanical prints

Hello lovely crafters.

It's been quite a while since my last post. Summer is very busy here, it's not that I don't have time for cards I just always feel I should be doing something else. So guilt and lack of organisation is the problem. 

Here are some cards I made for the CAS Mix up challenge. 

Flowers being my thing (see the banner on my sidebar),  I wanted to have a go with botanical prints. 

I started with a collection of flowers and some watercolour card. Much mess was made and much wasted card. It's amazing how much goo comes out of a flower. 

However I did find that a viola makes a beautiful print. 

What you see here is the result of laying a viola facedown onto the card. 

Cutting away as much green stalk etc as possible. 

Covering with another piece pf card. 

Rolling through a die cut machine once only! Don't be tempted to roll again. 

Then gently peeling away what is left of the flower to reveal the print. 

Botanical print, stamping, die cutting, droplet accents. 

It's only a shame that no-one would guess how this is made. 

The second card uses Phlox flowers which are still going here even though most others have given up. Again I placed them face down and rolled through the die cutting machine. 

The flowers are actually still on these die cut circles. Peeling them off doesn't give such a pretty look so I left them. Perhaps not quite a botanical print then?

Botanical print, design paper, stamping, die cutting, gold inking on the circle edges.

I'm also popping into Pixie's Snippets Playground as I have used snippets of card for everything. I hope I'm still allowed in after such a long time. 

I now want to go and play with leaves and paint. 

Thank you for visiting, enjoy your day. x