Blossom Wreath

 

Challenge #235 has just gone live at Time Out Challenges and we hope you'll be able to take some Time Out and join us again this fortnight!   This time around, we have a photo inspiration challenge for you!

 If like me, you've been suffering from Mojo in Absentia of late, this may very well be the cure!  At first I didn't know where to start - my eye was initially drawn to the bike and the splashes of yellow and green.  Then I noticed the pots and the sign and the box with the blue writing, then the metal canister on the white stool, and the gate and then of course the white, glass-paned door!  And then I noticed the pretty wreath hanging on the door and the lovely loopy 

"hi" 

and that was it for me - I knew immediately what direction I wanted to head in!  Then it was just a matter of how I'd create my wreath and what flowers I'd use!

I used a Charlie & Paulchen die to create the wreath - it's NBUS and I'm on a mission to actually use stuff the I buy, which is quite a task as I have very little self control and keep buying new stuff!  It's actually a coral wreath called "Ozeankranz" and includes a multitude of amazing little sea creatures (including a mermaid) but they will have to wait a while longer to be used!  

For the sentiment, I wanted to emulate the script of the "hi" rather than the actual text itself and this Birch Press Honey Script Thanks was the perfect size for this card front!

The flowers are blossoms from a really old Spellbinders set called Cherry Blossoms - it usually gets an outing at this time of year because below is what's happening outside my kitchen door!

 

As a transplanted Aussie, the seasons in Europe never cease to amaze me!  Miracles like this happen within 2-3 days of when they're supposed to - no matter that the weather has other ideas!

Here's another closer look at our inspiration photo!  How does it inspire you?  Ready to take some Time Out and join us?  I'm really looking forward to seeing your creations in our gallery!  My very talented team mates have plenty of inspiration (should you still need it) and Toni Maddox of Frankie Helps Craft has joined us as our special guest - why not drop by and say "hi"!

I'd like to thank our generous sponsor Doodle Bugs who are offering a $25 store credit to our Time Out Winner as chosen by the Design Team!  They carry most of the popular brands and have years of experience in the paper crafting industry!  

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

NBUS Challenge #48

Cards 4 Galz Challenge #195 - Spring Flowers

Make My Monday Challenge #197 - P is for Pink

Try Stampin' on Tuesday Challenge #599  - Use Large Words or Text

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 I can find you!

Kate

Glory to the New Born King

Challenge #136 has just gone live at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge and here is my DT card!   As usual my team mates have created some wonderfully inspiring Christmas cards so be sure to pop over and check them out!  And of course we love to be inspired by your creations as well!

I cut a nativity scene from gold mirror card (sorry about the quality of the photo) and teamed it up with a panel of musical score designer paper on which I stamped a sentiment from one of my favourite stamp sets (Waltzing Mouse Seasonal Flourishes) - a very quick and simple card!  The inside and envelope are stamped with a Bethlehem scene from another WMS set Seasonal Remedies!  I miss this wonderful stamp company so much especially when I make Christmas cards!  

I was inspired by the ABC Christmas Challenge - G for Gold

and all the green in this lovely inspiration pic from Inspiration Station

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

On Track for a Twofer

Onefer :

I may have already mentioned we have been fortunate to have several Ukrainian women join our choir and I am blessed to call these women friends.  One of them has a young son and he loves cars!  When I found out he was having a birthday, I knew I wanted to make him a card with a moving car.  This Beetle from Taylored Expressions is probably my favourite vehicle - I love the little details it has!  I've used MFT Open Road to cut the little piece of road and channel and MFT Rolling Hills to create the ... rolling hills!  

His mother helped me with the "Happy Birthday Ilias" text in Ukrainian which I printed onto some white card stock and cut with one of the Memory Box Marshamallow Clouds.   I added a little sun so that it's peeking out from behind the cloud (Frantic Stamper Village Sky set) and added a little aeroplane from the same set to complete the scene.  I don't think cars should spin so I added two magnets to the back (side by side) so the car slides back and forth.

He loved it!

 

I'd like to enter this card in the Daring Cardmakers Challenge with the prompt Little Ones

Twofer:

While I had the Open Road and Rolling Hills sets out, I thought I'd use them to create a scene for this little hedgehog - I made it for a project a few days ago but ended up not using it!  I wanted the hedgehog to roll up and down the hill so I used the curved track piece from the Open Road set and tried to match the curvature to that of the rolling hillside.  I added this stacked "sending" sentiment (Simon Says Stamp) and a little cloud and sun (from Frantic Stamper Village Sky).  As I was cutting some of these little flowers for the meadow one of them fell on the Hedgehog and I quite liked the of a flower behind her ear!  I am just totally in love with these Whittle animals from Poppy Stamps - they have such amazing details!  I've coloured this little hedgehog with light and dark brown alcohol markers.  The little eyes and prickles have caught more of the ink and so are highlighted - love the effect!  

I also bought the matching Whittle Wild Animals Sentiment Stamp Set so you can probably guess what's on the inside of the card .....

Yup!  I'm sending hedge-hugs!

I almost forgot to include a video!

This little hedgehog is making his debut here so I'll be entering it in NBUS Challenge #48

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

Blowin' in the Wind

Timout Challenge 234 has just gone live and it's an Inspired By Words Challenge with this quote by Charles Dickens from Great Expectations…

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade”

You can use just one, some, or all of these words as inspiration … we can't wait to see how you interpret them!  You might like check out the inspiration from my fellow DT members and we're being joined this fortnight by Greta of GG Creations!  Why not drop by and say hi! 

Many of these words gave me ideas but in the end I decided on "Sun" and "Wind"!   The "Sun" part was easy but how do you capture something invisible like "Wind"?  And then the idea of a movement caused by the wind popped into my head and then a tumbling umbrella!  So that's where I went with my card!

When I saw Color Challenge PP631 at Paper Players I immediately thought of sun, grass, sky and clouds and that gave me inspiration for setting my blustery scene!  My yellow flowers (cut using Tim Holtz's Funky Foliage) have a slight curve to the left but I've exaggerated the tilt so they too appear to be blowin' in the wind! 

Happily, Simon Says Monday Challenge has a prompt of "Whatever the Weather" so I'd like to enter there.

This umbrella was cut with the Poppy Stamps Raining Frame - its first trip through the rollers for this card so I'd like to enter NBUS Challenge #48

I rummaged through my Snippet Bags (I've started keeping snippets in grocery shopping bags sorted by colour) for the right colour card stock for this project so I'd like to play along with the Snippets Playground Challenge #449.   Here's a photo of the snippets I found to play with (yes I remembered to take a photo of them this time)!  That plaid piece was just wide enough for the umbrella canopy and matched the colour scheme perfectly!

We're grateful to Top Flight Stamps who are offering a $25 store credit to our Time Out Winner as chosen by the design team.  Top Flight Stamps specialize in difficult to find art stamps from around the world - so do check them out if you haven't already!

I found a funny meme on FB the other day and thought of my growing mountain of NBUS!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments always brighten my day and if you do leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and where to find you so we can get to know each other a bit better!

Kate

Brushtroked Butterfly

 

If you read my post yesterday, you'll know I had a spare green and gold butterfly that hadn't worked out.  I decided to do something with it today instead of sticking it in a box where it probably won't see the light of day for a loooong time.  

I started out making a sympathy card and thought I'd go through my very much neglected embossing folders collection for some background texture.  I chose what I thought was a very unremarkable NBUS embossing folder which turned out to be quite lovely when I actually embossed a panel with it.  It's from Sizzix and I think it's called Sparkling but I bought it sooo long ago I doubt it still exists.  My eye was instantly drawn to the small crosses in the pattern which I thought would work rather well for Easter!  And as a butterfly is also a symbol of being reborn, I decided on an Easter sentiment instead!  

I'd like to enter the following challenges

Triple B (Birds, Butterflies and Blooms) Challenge March Challenge (their very first one)!

NBUS Challenge #48 - both the butterfly and ambossing folders are NBUS

Color Hues Challenge #59 

Double D Challenges who have this brilliant mood board - 

I drew mine from the bottom left photo - the door with the gold letterbox and the texture of the old wall

Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies Challenge

who are back after a well-deserved break!

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

Shamrock 60th Birthday

A good choir friend of mine turns 60 later this month and she's also retiring.  She's having a big party and the whole choir is invited so I've made up this A5 sized card so everyone can sign!  She's Irish, and despite living in Luxembourg for many decades now and speaking multiple languages, her Irish heritage is still very much part of her identity, so shamrocks seemed an obvious starting point - especially with St Patrick's Day approaching and the plethora of challenges at the moment from which to draw inspiration.   

 I originally had a cleaner card in mind and cut a shamrock cut from this paper which I was going to use as a spinner element but I was daunted by so much white space - it's an A5 card front so none of my background dies or embossing folders were large enough.   So I changed it to a patterned background and my plan was to cut a golden shamrock but honestly it looked a little too gimmicky for such an important birthday celebration!

So I thought I'd use a butterfly as the spinner element - she loves butterflies!  The first butterfly I cut was a Tim Holtz Brushstroke Butterfly - an NBUS item I'd been dying (excuse the pun) to use!   It looked lovely but it had an awkward centre of gravity and didn't spin very well!  It will have to wait for another day - another St Patrick's Day perhaps because it was cut in green and gold!  Instead, I used this old favourite Tattered Lace Oriental Butterfly die. 

Since I didn't have any gold card stock strong enough to cut it from, I went with green.   A spinning element really needs to be sturdy but I didn't relish the idea of layering a die cut this intricate (and big)! This green card stock is quite thick, so sturdy enough to withstand the rigours of spinning backwards and forwards across a card front.  I then added gilding wax to the butterfly!  Previous attempts with gilding wax were unsuccessful - I had underestimated how light your touch needs to be!  Watching a recent Chrissie Stokes video I realized where I was going wrong and was much happier with this effort! 

 I did look like a Bond villain afterwards through, with my gold finger! 🤣 

Then it was just a matter of sorting out where to put Happy Birthday, her name and a "60" using dies from my stash (the shamrock I used in place of the 0 was a really old punch).  I added a "sweet" (Deco Time) before the 60 - she is after all pretty excited about her upcoming retirement!  I added gilding wax to all these and then glossy accents - I love how the gilding wax has highlighted the embossing on the letters in her name.

The inside is an A4 sheet folded attached to the right side of the card base.  I've added a good luck sentiment and a potted plant - for luck!  I might also add another folded sheet on the other side (with perhaps some school items because she's retiring from teaching) - there will need to be space for 20 + people to sign! 

Here's a video of the butterfly in flight

I would like to enter the following challenges

The Card Concept Challenge #190

Colour Hues Challenge #59

Traumfabrik Challenge #113 which has the movie Luck as its inspiration this month

Double D Challenges which has this brilliant inspiration photo

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

Kate

Revealing Gingerbread Men

Challenge #135 has just gone live at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge and here is my DT card!   As usual my team mates have created some wonderfully inspiring Christmas cards so be sure to pop over and check them out!  And of course we love to be inspired by your creations as well!

This one was a lot of fun!  I cut and stacked up a few cookie jar die cuts from Kraft card stock, stamped "Gingerbread" on the front and then "glazed" it with glossy accents.  I then wrapped a piece of red and white bakers twine around the top and added a few holly leaves.  Even though it's actually a candy jar die, I think it looks like an old fashioned cookie jar and a darned festive one at that!

I then set about creating a little scene for my gingerbread cookie jar - well a pretty yellow gingham table cloth at any rate!  

A die cut "sweet" sentiment above the cookie jar and a stamped "Christmas Wishes" and it could have been complete BUT as you may know by now, I often like to add little surprises on my cards!

So, I stamped this bunch of gingerbread men in the space behind where my gingerbread jar would sit on the table, attached a magnet to the back of the cookie jar and another magnet behind the front panel.  Et voila ... now you can see what's inside the gingerbread jar!  And you have a cookie jar fridge magnet - a card with a gift!

I really should have stamped them on white card stock and cut them out because you can see the table cloth though the colouring!  But I don't have a die for this stamp and I hate fussy cutting.  They are adorable aren't they!  They're from a Waltzing Mouse Stamp set called Chistmas Candy Jar Fillers and the Sweetie Jar die is also from WMS and despite having bought it in 2014, this is the first time I've actually used it!  The stamp set only has individual stamps for the jar and the lid, and I'm not very good at lining up stamped images - esp when they need to be die cut afterwards.  I'm so glad I figured out how to finally put it to use!

O no!  One of the gingerbread men escaped - I doubt I'll catch him now, even if I run, run as fast as I can! 😜

I'd like enter my card in NBUS Challenge #48

I'd also like to enter Krafty Chicks Challenge #653 - it's a Stamp Act Week and for once I've used stamping on this card!

I'd also like to enter the March Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge (hooray they're back)!  I didn't use the candy cane option on my card but this baker's twine is perhaps not a bad substitute!

I'd also like to enter Marry Little Christmas Challenge #48

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

Kate

Elegant Leaves

Time Out Challenge #233 has just gone live and this fortnight, we are challenging you to be

Elegant!  

I immediately thought black and gold and this gorgeous Altenew Leaf Mix Die Set!   I searched through my pads of foiled papers and found this elegant cream with gold stripes.  I cut a stitched rectangular panel then set about cutting some leaves from gold and black snippets and arranging them on the panel. I was able to use some of the overlay cut out pieces to fill in the blank space between the leaves and I used a scattering of faceted black pearls until I was pleased with the layout.  I realised as I was clearing up afterwards,  that the cutout circles from the middle leaf could also have been used - with a few applications of glossy accents they're almost indistinguishable from flat backed pearls and much more post-friendly!  Needless to say I've stored these little circles away for a future project - little black circles always come in handy!!

I needed a thank you card and this small but very elegant little "thanks" from Verve Autumn Thanks (sadly Verve is NLIB) fitted the space under the leaf arrangement perfectly - again cut from a snippet of gold!   I used one the elegant overlay dies from the Leaf Mix set and more snippets of gold to decorate the inside and envelope. 

 What does elegant mean to you?  We’d love to see your interpretation in our gallery!  This challenge is sponsored by Altenew and our winner, as voted by the DT, will receive a $25 store credit.  They will also be invited to guest design with us in a future challenge.  Details are over at Time Out as well as heaps of inspiration from my  fabulous fellow DT members and our very talented guest designer Nora Noll from A Creative Touch.   Why not pop over for a visit with Nora and say hi - you’ll find tons of gorgeous inspiration!

Just a few challenges I'd like to enter are

Paper Players Challenge 629 with the following sketch

Inspirational Challenge #284 - Real or Faux Stitching - my panel has faux stitching

The February Sisterhood of Crafting Challenge - My panel has stripes

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

Kate