Pink Ink

 Hello lovely crafters! 

In celebration of 10 years of Di running the Snippets Playground and also our beautiful new look, here is a special snippets card. Pink, of course. 

I made this with the first stamp I ever won in the playground. It's a Woodware bubble flower stamp. I've used it often and still love it. 

I stamped and embossed in clear on a snippet of watercolour paper. Spritzed and dabbed pink ink over it and let it spread around. Then, of course as usual, I ironed off the embossing. I added a little Wink of Stella over the flowers. 

I used the greeting stamp which comes in the set as it is perfect for the new playground. - 'Where the sun is always shining!'

Everything is snippets and the base card is a piece I've had for YEARS and found in my January sort out. Win.

Challenges run fortnightly and there are a few more days of this one to help us tackle our snippet mountain. 

I'm also linking this to:

Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Cornflower blue

 Hello lovely crafters!

We're starting a new challenge at Shopping our Stash:

Across the border - use any border die or punch. Dig into your stash and see what you have. 

I've used a pretty lace effect edger die diagonally across the card. 

I started this by using my Inky Doodles stamps to create the pattern on the paper at the bottom of the card. The stamps are Print Backgrounds 2 and layer up to create many different patterns. I've had them for a few years and still love them. They should definitely come out more often. 

I stamped a green and pink grid layer. The pink is faint and doesn't show up here. I added a blue Card-io flower in the squares. 

The  big flower is Little Claire stamped, embossed in silver, inked and cut out twice. With inked leaves from a different nameless die set. 

Love this Cornflower blue colour. 

I hope you will search out your dies and punches and join in with us this fortnight. 

Thank you for visiting, enjoy your day. x

Silver snowflakes and shimmer

Hello Lovely Crafters
Welcome to another month at 52CCT. I am hosting for April and this week I have a sketch for you. 

I hope you have fun with it. You can use different shapes and orientation as long as we can see the basic sketch.

I wanted to use acrylic blocks for inking the squares but the only way this would work sizewise was on a DL card. Often the idea in my head doesn't quite work in terms of scale. 

I smooshed Teal Zeal and Grape Jelly onto a square acrylic block and then spritzed with water. You want some but not too much water or the ink drips off. Then I used that to stamp my squares. I added more colour with a brush where I thought I needed it and also added a tiny amount of Perfect Pearls for some shimmer. Embossing the snowflakes was the easy part. 

You can see a little shimmer here. 

I've used a strip on inked paper at the bottom and then a few gems for accent. 
I've lost the name of the snowflakes but the sentiment is Inkylicious. 

We hope you have time to join in the challenge, you have one week and we love to see your cards. 
I've had no time for crafting in the last few weeks and the next few don't look too good either! Perhaps I can squeeze an hour in one evening before I get withdrawal symptoms. 
Thanks for visiting, Enjoy Your Day. x

Metallic look snowflakes

Our latest challenge at 52CCT is Embossing. Everyone's favourite. You can use heat or dry embossing or both as I have. 

I made this by embossing with a snowflake folder then rubbing on ink in different colours. I can't tell you what they all were but I kept sponging on more until I was happy with the colour. There is definitely some pink, blue and purple. The final layer is silver to give the metallic look I was after.

I do like the mix of colours. 

The embossing folder came with a craft magazine and the sentiment is Inkylicious.

We've had plenty of snow and I really don't want any more. So what I mean is don't let it snow!

We hope you have time to join in. As there are 5 Saturdays in March, you have an extra week to be inspired. 

Thanks for visiting and enjoy your day. X

Frosty blues

Hello Lovely Crafters. I hope you found time for  yourself this week. 

We have a lovely colour challenge for you at 52CCT this week. Myrna has chosen Shades of Blue. Perfect for frosty, wintry scenes or woolly hats and mittens. 

I masked off, embossed some snowflakes and inked the border using Danube blue ink. In the end I only used one pad but managed to vary the shades. Then I stamped over using my favourite crackle stamp and more snowflakes. 

I used a strip of paper for definition and a die cut snowflake which I also inked to match and finished with a touch of Stickles and gem for said sparkle. 

We've had plenty of frost this week for inspiration and even a touch of snow. It was just a sprinkling here, though. 

What do I think?  I think I was rather heavy handed with the darkest blue ink but I love the crackle and the layout. 

I don't have the name of the snowflake stamp or the die but the Crackle is Kaisercraft and the Sentiment Creative Stamping #49.

Do visit the rest of the DT for inspiration and we hope you find time to join in this week and get ahead on those cards. 

Thanks for visiting. Enjoy your day. x

I'm linking this to ABC Christmas - C for Clean and 

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge - anything goes. 

Feathers times two

Hello lovely crafters
It just so happens there is a new challenge on the block. The theme happens to be feathers. I happen to have a feather stamp and it happens to have Never Been Used. This is perfect as the challenge is organised by Darnell. 

The challenge is to make two cards using the same stamp but the cards must be for different occasions. Thus stretching our ingenuity and our stash. 

 Here are my two cards using a feather stamp and sentiments from Ultimate Crafts. 

I embossed the feathers in clear powder. 
I had an image in my head of rich colours blended so I inked over with a mix of ink pads (Danube, Teal Zeal, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves) and a blending tool. Then I spritzed with water hoping for fine droplets. I never learn. I got great  drips but it was done so I went with it. More inking followed.
Then I removed some of the ink on the feathers with water. It didn't take of much so I tried a drop of bleach in the water. You only need a tiny drop and then you'll find yourself adding colour back in again. 
I finished it with some flattened raffia ribbon.
The sentiment was embossed in clear then I coloured the white card with a Pro-marker. Pro-markers colour clear embossing. Who knew? I thought it looked OK so I kept it instead of starting again and having a white sentiment. It isn't really blurred as it looks here. 

I was less pleased with this in general but now I quite like it. 
The feathers are embossed in silver and then painted in with Danube Blue, very dilute, and a touch of Perfect Pearls. I over-stamped more feathers in Cloudy Blue. 
I added a strip of paper for definition and a few gems. 
I'm also linking this one to the Stamping Sensations challenge Cold and Frosty Colours

Twofer is a great idea and is fun to try out a different idea with a stamp instead of immediately putting it away. (I'm sure you don't leave yours out to gather dust and fluff). 

Thanks for visiting. Enjoy your day. x

Playing with ink, water and NBUS.

I've been to a local craft show. I went with a list but, no, of course I didn't stick to it. I did just about stick to the budget I'd given myself though so that's all good. 😊

This first card features a bonus set but look how pretty it is. This is a Woodware set called Dotty Flowers. 

My photographs looked very washed out but I think this is a pretty good idea of the colours if not the sharpness. Taken quickly with my phone as I was wasting too much time fiddling about with photographs. I'm sorry you can't see how pretty it really is. 

What I've done is ink over the whole piece of watercolour paper in shades of pink, purple and blue, then spritz with water. I then inked a little more which gives the water droplet marks a bit of colour which looks pretty cool in real life. 
I stamped the images with Versafine and then went in with a water brush and painted out the ink. This gives a very pretty effect which I don't use often enough.

This picture is really washed out but you can see the water marks and the Wink of Stella added here and there. Having made it I didn't want to cover any of it up with sentiments. 

I'm linking this to Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge. The current challenge is #87 V for vertical and/or Damson. 

I quite understand if you don't think the colour is right, feel free to delete. x

This second card is made using a Hobby Art set called Falling Leaves. Everyone needs a good leaf set and this is everything I wanted it to be and was on my list!

I used the same technique here, inking the panel and spritzing. Then I used the water brush to take away the ink from around the leaves rather than inside them. I love the shades of colour. 
I wish I'd made the sentiment smaller but it's stuck on now!
I'm linking this to CAS Watercolour challenge. Having made the leafy panel I didn't want to cut it down so it's not as CAS as it could be. 

And Happy Birthday - they are celebrating their 1st year. 🎂

I can just get into both of these challenges before they close. 

I'm also hopping over to Pixie's Snippets Playground where the challenge is always to use scraps and snippets. I've used a few here. 

One good thing about a craft show is that having seen all the gorgeous samples you come back inspired. I just need more time to play. 
Thanks for listening to my waffling. Enjoy Your Day. x