All Creatures Great and Small

Good morning, time for a new challenge at Allsorts where I'm your host and my chosen theme is 'All Creatures Great and Small'. There are two lovely prizes of Lavinia Stamps.

Short post, icing on the cake this week, hubby had emergency surgery after routine cataract surgery went wrong and I have ocular shingles so not feeling on top of the World. 

Card below made weeks ago for this challenge and above one of the few samples I had made ready for the new Lavinia Midnight Coven release. Not usually into Halloween but do rather like these and want to play more. Linking to the Animals theme at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.

Entering the above at Alphabet Challenge I for Insects (Bees) and As You Like It Wild Animals, love to watch the antics of the many grey and black garden Squirrel and Just Add Ink colour palette.

Sorry no visits, done a few short ones for DT commitments but do hope to get round to everyone soon. 

Vibrant blooms and Autumn snippets

Morning all, mid way inspiration day at We Love Stamping where we are following Avril's theme of Summer Blooms. Prizes are Penny Black stamps and stencil from Buddly Crafts.

Rather criminal how I created this one but I knew exactly what I wanted as a finished piece but with the exception of Penny Black Natures Jewels all the PB stamps are really old wood mounted ones (Blush, Floral Silhouette and Aspire) and could only be achieve using the spin tool off their blocks, so what did I do? Yes, I carefully peeled all three from the wood blocks and along with Versafine Clair inks created my floral wreath...........then stuck all back onto their wood blocks! Try it on Tuesday's new them is Inspired by a Song so as an opera lover The Flower Duet from Lakmé came immediately to mind. Also entering another at Beautiful Blossoms under A/G this time and In the Garden at Cupcake Inspirations and Off to the Tropics at Retro Rubber.

There's a new Snippets challenge and I have one to share there as well. I've always enjoyed playing with A&C's Crunched Leafdrops and Leafinity Detailed (currently on offer as a set following the second link) and after seeing a card on Pinterest using black for leaves decided to give it a go with the A&C ones.

Autumn with a difference creating the base with A&C Starflight dies, background with Oxides then stamping the leaves onto the base layers and then black card and all heat embossed with detail white EP (no idea why some look red tinged in my photo). A tad busy but went all out with everything on my desk including some scrim I'd just dipped in coffee to colour it and some washi tape. The sentiment is PB Happy Wishes. Classic Designs would like Die Cuts and it's Washi Tape at Girlz Rebel.

And my snippets.

Birthday Poppies

Good morning, time for a new challenge at Allsorts where Lynne has selected the theme of Embossing, it can be wet or dry embossing. Our prize is from Lisa Horton and is the same (as) the set I have used for one of my cards.

In fact Poppy Corner is one of the very first LH sets I bought, well it's Poppies! An arched card and aperture, a trellis using a really old Tattered Lace die placed over a piece of MCS DP. I used Vellum for the Poppies coloured with Oxides through the stencils on LH Ulti-Mate, cut out with the coordinating die, embossed and a simple Birthday sentiment. Beautiful Blossoms have Poppies as their inspiration, Ellies new Garden Part 18 just started, Cut it Up who would like a sentiment added, All About Frames and Garden for Inkspirational.

My second card uses a newer LH set called Red Red Robin, coloured as above, cut with the matching die then embossed and placed over LH Padded Quilt embossing folder. The sentiment is a pretty old wood mounted Penny Black which I believe is discontinued. Linking to the Christmas theme at Krafty Chicks and the A/G option at Can You Handle the Pressure and Christmas Card Throwdown Christmas without Snow.

Fashion icons

It's mid way time at Tag-Along (and ATC's) where Pinky selected our theme of Fashion with a prize of an AALL and Create tag set. 

For my tag I adhered as oddment of MCS DP onto a piece of white card to give it more strength to then cut using using AALL and Create Tag it Yourself. I applied crackle texture paste through a stencil around the focal 1890's lady in hat, some lace, Butterfly stamped onto another snippet and frayed silk ribbon at the top.

My ATC was created with different MCS collections to create a floral frame and the 1950's Dior style fashion icon sized down to fit within the flower and foliage frame. Linking to The Little Things A/G option.

My friend the Robin

Morning all, a Christmassy post! I've not been able to craft for several weeks, but decided something with just die cuts might be less stressful on the recovering neck and arm and came up with the card below for the current Snippets Playground plus above an old make from my files for Chistmas Kickstart's new theme.

It's 'A friend is for life, just not for Christmas' and figured the little Elf and his Robin friend should fit the bill. All stamps are Lavinia and to keep typing to a minimum as that's still difficult, hope I'll be forgiven for not linking each image individually, background is Pan Pastels. Little Red Wagon's theme is to add or use and envelope, mine is stamped with the larger Robin from Lavinia

For the Playground some of my oldest dies, all from Spellbinders except the trellis which is Tattered Lace and had to be just a little stamping, that's the Lavinia sentiment. Just us Girls theme is Die cut week, so linking there.

And my snippets.

 

Dance like no one's watching

Morning all, much to my frustration back to short posts and comments again after Thursday's surgery, but we have a new challenge starting today at We Love Stamping where Avril has selected the theme of Summer Blooms and we have prizes of Penny Black stamps and stencil from Buddly Crafts.

Fortunately made weeks ago using Penny Black Spontaneous Joy, Berry Beauty and Dance, Sing Love (discontinued) repeat stamping the images around a square panel using the stamping platform, inked direct to stamp with Ecoline pens and spritzed with water to build the colour. I then randomly cut out the centre roughly cutting around the images and placed over the sentiment around which stencilling was added. Linking under A/G at Penny Black Saturday and Sunday Stamps.

Also have my card for Card Chain challenge which went to Jo and I received a gorgeous Dog card from Gail which was very timely and brought a smile to my face the day after surgery. I followed the colour options and ink blending. 

Summertime

Good morning, a short post, usually have them written well in advance, seem to have slipped up on this one, explanation further down, sure you are as weary as me with excuses! 

We have new challenges at Allsorts with Sarah theme of Colours of Summer and prize from Visible Image and at Tag-Along (and ATC's) with Pinky's Fashion theme and prize from AALL and Create.

Above using Visible Image Love Life Now, a rainbow effect background inked background then Butterfly stamped first in grey and again in black, the kaleidoscope of Butterflies also stamped in black and the sentiment (looks wonky but straight face on). Linking to Carz4Gals Rainbows theme.

My tag uses AALL and Create's Sirens of Spring, Kraft tags, offcuts of DP, added stencilling, image coloured with Zig Clean Colour pens and flowers from same stamp set on the smaller tag and tied with seam binding rubbed into some watered down Oxides to carry the colour.

A very simple ATC using images from MCS scaled down in size, machine stitching around the edge and a couple of sticker words.

Another for Allsorts using Visible Image Butterfly Ink stencil coloured with pastel shades of DI, then the same stamp set as above and Butterfly covered with crackle glaze. The sentiment is made up of two stamps from VI Colourful Life.

Nearly forgot I also made a bookmark a few weeks ago, both stamps wood mounted, Penny Black (discontinued) Christmas Gorgeous and sentiment another oldie from Art Impressions, stamped and coloured with Zig pens and stencilling in the background. Linking this to Penny Black Saturday challenge A/G.

A tad incapacitated yet again, Cervical Spine procedure went pear shaped last week so aborted due to a bleed, told another cervical microdiscectomy same as May on different discs was only option. To my surprise called in again Thursday and all went top plan, now just the frustration of recovery and limited craft/computer time for a week or two.

Really hope you can find time to join us at both challenges,