Polar Expressions II

Time for another Holly and Ivy Challenge and time to add another card to my stash.  This is a redo of a previous design from a few years ago.   I cut these two bears (Amy Design Winter Friends) from white card stock and then from white felt and stacked them up so my bears have a lovely fur coat to keep them warm on the long winter nights up at the North Pole.  I added small black circles (cut with various flower centre dies) coated with glossy accents for their noses - I had tried to colour their noses with black markers but that didn't work out very well as you can imagine.  I added depth (or at least tried to) with just a little broken china DI around the edges of the bears and the snow bank.

The shadowed sentiment (Poppy Stamps Proper Merry Christmas) was cut from black card stock, coated with glossy accents and sprinkled with holographic glitter in keeping with this starry night DP panel.

Here's a cloeseup so you can see the details on the sparkly sentiment and the fur coats on the polar bears! 

I'd like to enter the following challenges

Alphabet Challenge Blog - L is for Literature and this is the book cover that inspired my card;

Just Add Ink Challenge #670 - Just Add Wildlife;

Crafty Animals Challenge #76;

Krafty Chicks Challenge #681 - Week 2 Christmas;

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Make it Cute;

The Sisterhood of Crafters - Die Cuts;

Happy Little Stampers September AG with Dies;

Happy Little Stampers September Christmas Challenge;

Merry Little Christmas Blog Challenge #52 - Anything Christmas Goes;

Peace on Earth Challenge #48 - Anything Christmas Goes;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Hoppy Birthday

Challenge #247 has just gone live at Time Out Challenges and it's an Inspiration Photo Challenge!

Here's a closer look at all that Fall Fabulousness!

This challenge is being generously being sponsored by Lawn Fawn and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design team a $25 voucher to their store.  

Our top pick will also be invited to guest design with us at a future date so I hope you will take some Time Out of your busy schedule and come play cards with us!  

Where will our inspiration photo lead you, what has grabbed your attention - I 

can't wait to seeing how you will be inspired!

The autumnal colours, particularly that orange tent were what caught my eye and I pulled out this NBUS Lawn Fawn Acorn House to begin with.   The musical instruments gave me the idea to add a grass hopper from A Bug Deal (also NBUS) because I love the sound of grasshoppers (not too crazy about the actual critters mind you)!  And of course he's going to hop right over that little house ... so I went with a spinner card and a "Hoppy Birthday" sentiment!

I used another Lawn Fawn set (Puffy Clouds Border) to cut some cloud stencils from a sheet of repurposed acetate packaging and used these to create my blended sky then cut a curved spinner channel in this.  I stamped and embossed my grasshopper and coloured him with alcohol inks and added some highlights with a white Posca pen.  Can't you just hear his "wheeee" as he sails over the house?

I cut all the pieces for the acorn house from Bristol Paper and coloured with various DIs.  The Acorn body I coloured with Carved Pumpkin DI and then overstamped it with a woodgrain stamp from my stash.  The door and roof were coloured with Ground Espresso and Gathered Twig DIs and the computer generated sentiment was cut with one of the first dies I ever bought (Spellbinders Small Tag S3) and distressed with Gathered Twig DI.  I coloured a little bit of twine with Carved Pumkin DI and used it to attach the little sentiment tag around the stalk of the acorn.  I also added yellow vellum behind the windows.

The grass was cut from Bristol Paper using another NBUS set (Lawn Fawn Meadow Borders) and  coloured with Mowed Lawn DI.   I cut some leaves using the Acorn House set and blended with Mowed Grass, Apple Red, Carved Pumpkin and Gathered Twig DIs - and yes my fingertips and nails were a lovely mess!  I cut the dinky little keyhole for the door from a teeny snippet of gold mirri card - I now have a reason to keep even the really teeny snippets of gold now!

 

Challenge #247, we're joined by the extremely talented Trina Pham as our guest designer and her blog is well worth a visit as well as those of my talented team mates!

I'd like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #54;

The Four Seasons September Challenge;

Simons Says Wednesday Challenge - Make it Cute is the theme and Lawn Fawn = cute!

Snippets Playground Challenge #462 

- the leaves were cut from a snippet of card stock that I'd blended with various autumnal tones for a previous project and of course there was a snippet of gold for the key hole!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Sweet Christmas Pudding

 If like me you're starting to get nervous about how fast Christmas is approaching, you might like to give your Christmas Mojo a boost with inspiration from my talented teammates over at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge and share your Christmas creations with us as well - we could all do with some inspiration!

This newly acquired Christmas Pudding die (the Greetery) was so much fun I made up 4!   I cut the pudding from kraft card stock, blended Ground Espresso DI, splashed with water and blotted with paper towel.  

The icing layer cut was cut from white card stock and I went over it with glossy accents and sprinkled glitter for sparkle.  

The set comes with a little serving plate, a beautiful big bow and holly leaves and berries.

Just look at all that sweet detail!

 I stamped Christmas Wishes (2 separate stamps from WMS Say it Loud Winter) directly onto some plain white panels.  It was a bit of a pain lining up these tiny stamps but I used a stamping platform so only had to do that once for the four panels!  

The "sweet" die cut sentiment (Love 2 Craft Home Sweet Home) was cut from striped DP and stacked  and coated with glossy accents for some shine.

I do hope you'll join us this fortnight and I look forward to seeing your festive creations in the THICC gallery!

I'd like to enter the following challenges

The Library Challenge #84 - with the following yummy inspiration;

Christmas Craft Creations August Challenge - CAS;

NBUS Challenge #54 - new Christmas Pudding Die Set;

Alphabet Challeng - K is for Kitchen (anything Food Related);

Little Red Wagon Challenge #724 - Small Holly Berries, Large Word Die;

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - anything goes;

Merry Little Christmas Challenge #52 - anything Christmas goes;

Peace on Earth Challenge #47 - anything Christmas goes.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Beautiful Bonsai

 

Challenge #246 at Time Out has just gone live and this fortnight it's an Inspired By Words Challenge with this Chinese Proverb

 “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

An Inspired By Words challenge works exactly as you would expect - you take the words from the featured quote and use them to inspire your creation!   You can use one word, multiple words or just the general idea of the quote and if it's not immediately obvious, please explain how you were inspired!  

We're joined this challenge by the very talented Jennifer Elliot as our guest!  Be sure to check out what she and the rest of my talented team members have made to inspire you.  

Obviously the word "tree" was what grabbed my attention, and I have a few trees in my stash, but decided on this very old Bonsai Tree (Spellbinder D-Lites) it's not NBUS but has only been used once prior so thought it could do with some love!  I cut it from a snippet of DP left over from a previous project and stacked it for dimension.   I was at a loss for what else to add to the card as my mojo is nowhere to be found at the moment!  After staring at it for waaaay too long, this was the best I could come up with - a simple "Hello Beautiful" sentiment (WMS Hello Happy Thanks).  With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight vision, it occurred to me a "HUGS" sentiment would have been a better alternative as this tree just looks like it wants to hug someone don't you think?

I used an NBUS detail plate (Pink Fresh Studio Stitched Ovals) to add a little background interest.  I think it's rather lovely - the stamped sentiment was unaffected by the detail plate and I love the subtle tint of green from the card base peeking through! 

Challenge 246 is being sponsored by Varada Sharma  who has very generously donated two $15 store credits - one voucher will go to a randomly selected winner and the other will be go to our Top Pick as voted by the Design Team!   And as always, our Top Pick will be invited to join us as a guest design in a future challenge.  I hope you'll take some Time Out and join us!

I'd like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #53 - NBUS Sttiched Ovals Detail plate;

Snippets Playground Challenge#461 - Snippet of DP used for the tree;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Sing Joy to the World

Time for a new challenge at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge and time to add another Christmas card to my stash.  If like me you're struggling to find Christmas Mojo in July,  you might like to check out the challenge and see what inspiration my lovely team mates have come up with!   And do please take time to leave them some comment love if you can - we all like to know our efforts are appreciated!

I placed an order with a UK company last month that stocks The Greetery and this"Noted" die set and co-ordinating "Sing a Song of Christmas" stamp set were in that order (along with loads of other lovely goodies I just couldnt resist).   My plan is to try and mock up some other song lyrics using WordArt in MS Word so I can use the stave die for lots of occasions!  I really like how the song title nestles under the stave and wanted to make a Christmas card for my choir director that incorporated the stave, a suitable Carol from the "Sing a Song of Christmas" stamp set and a nativity scene!  The idea was sound, just the over-complicated execution left a bit to be desired!

The rustic log frame (PTI Mix and Match Plaid) was a questionable choice with a scene from Bethlehem!
If I'd gone with a white card base, I might have got away with that PTI frame!

That vellum overlay just caused more trouble than it was worth - but if you're going to use a frame to hide the adhesive needed to attach vellum, at least choose a frame with a decent width to add adhesive to!

 O well we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes (says she through gritted teeth) and I'm sure my choir director will appreciate the love and effort that went into it anyway!

At least the gilding wax at least is growing on me (though I did look like a Bond villain for a bit there)!  In particular, the word "joy" (Greetery Bold Alphabet) really came alive with the addition of gilding wax. 

Challenges I'd like to enter are

NBUS Challenge #53;

Peace on Earth Challenge #46 - Anything Christmas Goes;

Happy Little Stampers Christmas August Challenge;

Make My Monday Challenge - 3 letters in the word joy;

Use Your Stuff Challenge #491 - the gilding wax added a touch of Vintage.

Thanks for stopping by!  Your visits and comments (especially any constructive criticism) are always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Colourful Candy

 

Time Out Challenge #245 has just gone live and this fortnight the challenge is to be

Colourful

and this seemed like a good opportunity to break out this NBUS Pinata set (Year 7 Lawn Fawn)!

The candy was a little bit of work but not as much as you would think!  The three pieces of candy are all on one stamp and the matching die is just one die which lines up perfectly with the stamp!   

The Pinata and candy were all coloured with various colours of alcohol markers and highlights were added with a white Posca pen.

Lawn Fawn are sponsoring this challenge and are offering a $25 store credit to the winner of this challenge as chosen by the Design Team and our winner will also be invited to join us as a guest designer in a future challenge.  

I hope you'll join our Colourful Challenge and I look forward to seeing you in the Gallery.  If you're stumped, my team mates have plenty of inspiration for you and we're joined this challenge by the very talented Fran Wing of Franmade in Oregon!  Do drop by and say hi!

I'd like to join NBUS Challenge #53; 

Colourful Options August Challenge - Rainbow Option;

The Library Challenge #84 has the following book cover for inspiration!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate