My Ode to Autumn

There is no doubt that Luxembourg is a beautiful country but the Autumns here are truly spectacular!  The drive home today through the forest was breath-taking and this is what I made when I got home - my Ode to Autumn!  I haven't decided whether to put a sentiment on the front or on the inside - I'm thinking "Give Thanks" or "Autumn Blessings".  Driving through that forest today, I truly did feel blessed.  And of course I had to make it a spinner card - Autumn leaves don't stay still do they! 

I was super excited I got to play with this new Tim Holtz Thinlets die set which I bought a few weeks ago.  It is so super easy to layer up the elements - I've only just scratched the surface here!  The first thing I did was raid my left overs box for some Autumn tones and set about cutting some of the lovely leaves and layering the various colours and distressing with some of my favourite Distress Inks. 

I believe the large leaf is a Neat and Tangled Design.  It was a bit tricky as I only have the lacy overleaf, not the solid base leaf.  I cut it from cream card stock and was careful to apply double sided tape the the back of the cut while it was still in the die (and hunted for any stray bits).  I then used the negative to trace an outline onto another piece of card stock and cut this out and stuck it on the back.  I then smooshed it in a couple of different coloured Distress Inks then laid two green overlays on top for dimension.  Otherwise it wouldn't have been robust enough to be a spinner element.  

There are loads of challenges that this card fits!

Firstly NBUS - the Fall Foliage and Maple Leaf Dies had their first outing for this card, so I'm entering the card in the NBUS Challenge #19.

Secondly, loads of Snippets used here so entering Pixie's Playground Challenge #389

The Male Room has the following quote for Challenge #143

Inkspiration has the following Graphic for their current challenge 

Use Your Stuff has following photo inspiration for its current challenge

Double D Challenges has the following Mood Board.  The wood inspired my background as well as the leaves and the colours

The Card Concept has the following inspiration.  I guess my card is Classy and Elegant???  Or maybe Shabby Chic/Vintage???

This week Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is to Layer it Up.  These foliage dies look fabulous with their layers!

Cardz4Guyz Challenge #143 has the Colours of Autumn prompt

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.  If you leave a comment, I'll know where to find you and return the favour!

Love,

Kate

Drifting Snow

The only thing more addictive than playing with Spinner Cards is making them! And I thought I'd try a Christmas version! As an ex-pat Australian, Christmas was never about snowing. We were more used to battling bush fires and heat exhaustion than snow drifts! However, there is something quite magical about a white landscape - the stillness and serenity - especially at Christmas time! And let's face it, we need a little serenity right now!

It's October, so I thought I'd add a little pink to my card as a nod to Breast Cancer Awareness month! Here's a closeup so you see the gold sentiment from Waltzing Mouse Stamps Alpine Christmas set and the layered up snowflake. The woodgrain background stamp was also from Waltzing Mouse.

The large snowflake set from Spellbinders was one of the first die sets I bought. I have other more elaborate ones, but the layering can be more difficult on the lacy dies and for an interactive element, it's best to layer it up to make it robust.

I was inspired by this gorgeous graphic from Timeout Challenge #173

This Wednseday's prompt from Simon Says Stamp is to Layer it Up, which is what I did to that snowflake to make it a robust interactive element.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.  If you leave a comment, I'll know where to find you and can return the favour!

Love,

Kate

Spooktacular Bats

I originally started this for another challenge but ended up putting it aside.  I thought I'd try to resurrect it, changing it to a halloween theme.  No, it didn't start out as a Halloween card, would you believe I was going for a Christmas card - I wanted a night sky for St Nick to ride across!  You can see why I put it aside!!!  For some reason my blending didn't go smoothly - didn't help that I couldn't find my blending tool.  I also used the wrong colour of Distress Ink (meant to use Chipped Sapphire).  I also realised after I had finished that I had forgotten to place a circular mask for the full moon.  Never mind I think the uneven blending adds to the eeriness and the purple looks very Halloween and I managed a faint moon by removing some of the purple ink using some water and a circle negative!

The city skyline was created using a Clearly Besotted die I have had for ages and I'm not sure it's ever been used.  I had a little trouble with it because it wasn't wide enough - normally it's not a problem to partially cut, move it along and cut further.  But not that day!  After the third attempt I decided to layer a few of the failed cuts from the previous three attempts behind a single skyline.  I quite liked the look of this as it gave a bit of dimension to the city skyline - like city blocks I suppose!  However the base line looked pretty uneven and needed to be hidden so I placed a frame over the whole scene. 

I knew I wanted to have bats.  When I lived in inner Sydney, there were dozens of magnificent old fig trees that the flying foxes just loved to feed on.  Flying foxes are huge with a wing span of up to a metre.  They used to make a lot of noise when they arrived and boy did they cast a shadow!  None of my bat dies were what I wanted - either too big or too cute - so I turned to my Cameo and the Silhouette Studio software.  Even with all the cut files available at this time of year, I couldn't find any bats in flight.  However, with the aid of of the transform option in the Silhouette Studio software,  I managed to get the angle I wanted and cut three in different sizes.  There were hundreds that used to come feed in the fig trees near where I lived but I was glad I decided to stick with only three bats for my card - the Cameo was misbehaving (of course) and I ended up having to finish the cuts with scissors.  

I wanted a small, subtle sentiment and didn't have anything appropriate so I created one using Word Art.  While doing this, I thought I'd try a Luxembourgish sentiment as well as an English one and decided on "Schéi Ge-BOO-ertsdag" (Schéi Gebuertsdag is Luxembourgish for Happy Birthday - literally beautiful birthday) and "You're Spooktacular".  Not sure how I'll use the card yet, so I haven't attached either of them.  I coated both sentiments with Glossy Accents and the bats as well not that you can tell from any of the photos unfortunately!

I'm entering the following challenges

Simon Says Layer it Up

The Fusion Card Challenge

{Pin}spirational Challenge #274

Little Red Wagon Challenge #572 - Things Beginning with "B"

613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes with the option of Winged Things

Also sharing at NBUS Challenge #19, 'cos I'm pretty proud of myself for using something that's been in the cupboard for years (also a little embarrassed)!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.  And if you leave a comment  I can return the favour,

Kate

Silhouetta, Gentille Silhouetta

I'm pushing myself to spend more time creating at the moment and less time worrying about the state of the world.  So I've been scouring the wonderful space that is Blogland for ideas to get the old Mojo fired up!  And it worked - there are several challenges out there at the moment that got me thinking and inspired!

Obviously the first Challenge is the TWOFER Challenge!  Except I got a bit carried away and made a THREEFER!   I chose this stunning silhouette (a freebie from a craft mag bought eons ago) designed by Indigo Blue!  As I studied it and considered various layouts,  I realised that it was going to be difficult to make different layouts (a requirement of the TWOFER Challenge I believe) as it basically took up the whole card front!  So I thought I'd stamp it on different media instead, to change it up a bit!

BTW, this Indigo Blue set has been on my "To Use" list for years now and has only just seen the light of day so I would like to enter it in the NBUS challenge #19

I chose an alcohol inked background for my first card.  The colour combination was a no-brainer - it's October and I'm always Thinking Pink in October!  And it also happens that the TIMEOUT Challenge #172 is to make an encouragement card with a twist of Pink.  So I created a background using all the pink alcohol inks in my stash and a little gold and stamped this beauty on top.  Fortunately, I knew from past experience, that I could have trouble getting a clean image and used my TH Stamp platform. 

I knew I wanted to use this Beautiful die from Verve, but I wanted to say more, so I ended up creating this sentiment using Microsoft Word Art.  The pink was a bit washed out, so I went over it with a pink marker before I gave it the Glossy Accents treatment.  The Beautiful got the same Glossy Accents treatment and a little gold was sprinkled on while wet.

I always decorate my envelopes (or at least try to) so I was happy to see that the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is to make a card and matching envelope.   Again, owing to the size of the stamp, there wouldn't be a lot of space for addressing the envelope, so I went with tone on tone stamping, using Pearlescent Orchid Brilliance Ink. 

While the stamp was on the Stamp Platform I stamped it on another piece of card stock, this one highly textured.  It was fortunate that I used the stamp platform, as the only think trickier than stamping on this is trying to photograph it!   I went for a simple "Thinking of You" sentiment from Waltzing Mouse's Big Day Today set.  I thought it might be useful as an encouragement card or even a Get Well Card.

While working on the envelope for the first card, that I got the idea to truncate the stamp.  So I changed the orientation of the stamp and stamped it three times off the page along another piece of textured pink card stock.  This one I made into a penny spinner card using this beautiful Tattered Lace Oriental Butterfly.

While making the Word Art for the first card, thought I'd try another sentiment.  Sympathy cards are always something I need, often at short notice.  I was really being lazy here as I have plenty of lovely sympathy sentiments I could have stamped on black card stock with pink embossing powder, but I quite liked the glossiness of the printed sentiment.

Here's the butterfly in flight!

There are other challenges which happily coincided with my post.   The Pick of the Paperbacks Challenge at The Library had the following inspiration photo - pretty obvious which of these titles reminded me of of my first 2 cards.

613 Avenue Create has an Anything Goes Challenge with the optional twist of "Winged Things" so my Butterfly card will be fluttering over there!

We Love Chocolate Baroque has an Anything Goes Challenge (focal point must be stamping), so I'm entering my trio over there!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit!  If you leave me a comment, I can return the favour 😘

Kate

 

Sparkling Unicorn

This card was a special commission for my son's physiotherapist who is farewelling a friend of hers next month.  They are part of the same horseback archery team and the name of that team is, you guessed it The Unicorns!  Hence the Unicorn and the arrows.  She wanted to let her friend know that the whole team has her back.

Here's a closeup of the Unicorn - he is beautiful, isn't he!  I picked him up a few years ago in Hobbycraft in the UK.  His name is Destiny and he's from Tattered Lace.  I carefully removed the strands of his mane and tail (those that didn't get stuck in the die), placed them on a craft mat and coloured them with pastel colours then reinserted them, adding tape to the back so they stayed put.  I then added glossy accents to his horn, mane and tail and sprinkled a little clear holographic glitter for some sparkle!

Other dies used were Simon Says Stamp Wavy Scallop Stitches (the rolling hills), Echo Park Speech Bubble, Diamond Press (arrows).  I die cut a cloud border and used it the sponge the sky using Salty Ocean Distress Ink.

I stamped some unicorn images on the envelope and inside in pink - so will be adding my card to 

Time Out Challenge #72 where we are challenged and make an encouragement card and optionally add some pink for breast cancer awareness month.  

I want to join the NBUS Challenge for the month of October as well - I did try the Unicorn die once previously but that was over 2 years ago and it did not end well!

I would also like to join the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog where Simon says

 MAKE IT SPARKLE

and I couldn't help but notice a copy of Harry Potter in this photo inspiration at the {Pin}spirational Challenge!

Thanks for stopping by, especially if you take the time to leave a comment!  I love to hear from you,

Kate
 

Ticket to Ride

Our life has returned to a little more normality with the return to school of my youngest son and the return to university of the middle one - after 6 months of getting on each others' nerves!  The panic of March when we were desperately trying to organise a flight home from Scotland before the airport closed down and the hours of zoom meetings that needed to be organized for my youngest sons's teachers and therapists (and the constant disagreements over my qualifications to be his teacher) are hopefully behind us now.  

The current prompt from Double D Challenges - "DON'T FENCE ME IN"- appealed to me, given I once again have some time to myself.  Here's the mood board 

Fences (particularly white picket ones) always look so idyllic and complete a country scene IMO!  I love this MFT Rolling Hills and Fence Set - it's so easy to create a quick scene with a some blue card stock for the sky and some floral DP for a field of wildflowers - just needed to add a bike, a few clouds and a sentiment.

Speaking of the sentiment, we have an Action store where I have been able to get some really useful dies at unbelievable prices.  Take the frame I used on this card, which is the smallest of 5 "ticket" dies (there are also 5 oval dies in the set) for around three euros.  The reason I mention this is that A is for Action, and the current challenge for Just Add Ink is "Just add A".

I'd also like to join Pixie's Snippet's Playground as there were lots of snippets used (and some created for future projects for e.g.. the leftover from the hill cut can be used on the bottom on another card)!

Edited (I don't know how I missed this one, it's one of my favourites) to join Timeout where we are challenged to be Adventurous.  Riding that penny farthing would be pretty adventurous in my humble opinion.

Thanks for stopping by especially if you take the time to add a comment.  I love to hear from you,

Kate