It's a new day . . .

 . . . and what will you do with it? 

Whatever you get up to today - I hope you enjoy yourself.

Flushed and still happy dancing from my win over at Allsorts last week (along with my good friend Di) - I've decided to enter this week's Allsorts challenge too! The theme is Wings and/or Tails - and I'm entering an ATC with a silhouette bird on it so that covers BOTH bits of the theme!

First, I cut a 2¼" x 3¼" piece from a larger snippet of watercolour paper that I had used Brusho powder on previously (and which had been sitting around the craft room for far too long)!

I added a die-cut bird silhouette, then simply stamped the sentiment on the watercolour paper. This was mounted to a slightly larger black snippet of card, and again onto a 2½ x 3½ piece of packaging - so I got a bit of recycling done too!

Sunday Snippets!

Hi Playmates!

In my satchel I have a White on White (WoW) Christmas card for my Snippets Playground homework. I'm hoping for extra Brownie points for using the Stampin' Up! "Softly Falling" embossing folder that Miss Di is giving away as part of her challenge prize. Hoping for an A+ for setting a good example!

So . . . I'm skipping over to the Snippets Playground to hand this in. Why not use up some of your snippets and join in too? We're a friendly bunch and there's usually someone around to lead you astray (ahem, mainly ME!).

The Playground Christmas tree is due to be decorated shortly. Dudley, Di and I have been busy stringing up fairy lights all over the place and the Treehouse is twinkling inside and out. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! A Grand Switch On is planned for 1st December - be there or be square!!!!

My snippets homework.

Snippets picked out to use + embossing folder
with the snippet I embossed just before taking
the photo!

Remember to emboss the envelope flap for that extra
little touch while the EF is out on your desk!

I learnt TWO lessons while making this card! The first was that if you intend to die cut something that's dry embossed - do it BEFORE you do the dry embossing! Why? Well, if you do it AFTER embossing, the embossing will be flattened when you do the die cutting! Then you end up spending 10 flipping minutes trying to get the blasted flattened dots to line back up with those inside the embossing folder so you can put it BACK through your machine again to plump it all up!

The second lesson is that if you're trying to save money on your heating bill and are wearing fingerless gloves to keep warm while you craft . . . take them off before using adhesive! 

Why? Well TINY little bits of wool miraculously shed and start sticking to foam pads and the like! You then have to spend time pulling them off, because NOBODY wants a woolly, hairy card do they?!

So there you have it: die cut first, dry emboss afterwards and take off your woolly gloves before using adhesive (or turn the heating on so you don't need gloves in the first place! LOL!).

Happy days!

A new neighbour!

I have a new neighbour, so I made a card to welcome her to the road. 

The details:

1. I stamped the houses (from a 2014 Stampendous stamp set - SSC1218), in navy blue ink, direct to the card front, along with the grounding (a little stamp from an IndigoBlu set) as well as the Woodware sentiment.
2. Onto a piece of card that I'd previously used to mop-up spare ink, I stamped the houses  twice more and fussy-cut them out.
3. One of the fussy-cut houses was glued direct to the card front, over the top of the original image; the other was added on top of that with foam pads to give some dimension.

Sunday Snippets! Shiny new challenge!

Hi there Playmates!

It's Sunday morning and time for a new challenge over at the SNIPPETS PLAYGROUND with yours truly hosting Challenge 441 for the next fortnight.

For my homework, I found a nice grungy square snippet of a gelli print which I mounted onto a contrasting colour. Then I added the sentiment and the die-cuts. The sentiment was punched out using very old SU punches.

The details:

• 5" square card base.
• 3" square gelli print snippet, mounted onto 3.25" square orange snippet.
• White die-cut flourish plus extra leaves cut from white snippets.
• Sentiment stamped then punched from orange and white snippets.

You can order a cocktail at the Playground Treehouse bar and there's often hot, buttered crumpets in the Sunday Morning Breakfast Club - or feel free to skulk about behind the bike sheds with the usual suspects trying to avoid detention! Either way, we'll all be up to no good!

All rounder OLCs!

I recently fell in love with an uber-CAS card designed by Kathy K (see the second card on THIS POST) which I just had to pinch - er, I mean CASE!

With her permission I had a go . . .

I liked them so much I made 5 in total!

Everything was stamped with black archival ink. Once the circles were dry, they were coloured with numerous Distress Oxide inks and a water brush. I used three different Distress Oxide colours on each circle.

I reckon these make fab all-rounder unisex birthday cards (depending on the colours used). Very easy to batch-make as there's only a little stamping and colouring involved! Thanks Kathy!

Wishing you a wonderfully crafty week!

Sunday Snippets!

Hi Playmates!

RESULTS from the previous Snippets Playground challenge have been published HERE, so why not wander over to see who's been showcased and who won the prize?

For my homework this week: I've made two more cards from the lovely "run-off" sheet I've been busy using up. The sheet was made while cleaning off my brayer during a gelli printing session. Guess what? - I still have a little bit of it left for another project or two!

The bottom hill is the run-off sheet snippet, and the
little "tree" is a gelli print snippet.

The heart and the bottom strip of paper are 
from the run-off sheet snippet.

Have a lovely crafty week!

Masculine OLC

Hi Friends

I simply LOVE the little "paint chip" stamp from SU's 'Textures & Frames' stamp set.

I've made a few one layer cards (OLCs) with it, and this one's perfect for a masculine birthday card. I teamed it with two lovely sentiments from Visible Image - one for the card front and the other for the inside.

5" square card - simply stamped

The inside

Thanks for dropping by to take a look at what I've been up to. 
Wishing you a lovely day.