Sunday, 6 December 2020

#Elfie

I framed this little elf from Waltzing Mouse Stamps Elf Made with a MFT Precious Polaroid die and added the #ELFIE with letters cut with the Craft Emotions Uppercase alphabet. I wanted to make it look like he was just popping into the picture so stamped him on an angle. I'm not a great colourist, but I can stay in the lines with the help of some fine point tips for the Letraset Promarkers. I kept the polaroid background simple with just a bit of distressing with Broken China DI and added a piece of checked patterned paper behind the polaroid - this paper has a lovely texture as well. I matted this circlular sentiment (Papermania Let it Snow) with one of the Spellbinders Splendid Circles and coated them both with glossy accents and added some splinter glitter (long grain glitter) which I think was a freebie with a magazine many, many years ago.

Double D Challenges has a Santa hat Challenge which I really wanted to play along with and this was the closest I had to a Santa hat!

I was inspired by the colours from this Retro Rubber Challenge #149 graphic and also the panes of the lantern reminded made me think of portrait frames. The WMS Elf Made set was bought in 2014 (I think). Waltzing Mouse Stamps closed their doors in 2018 but the designer Claire Brennan now designs for Gina K. and many of the WMS sets have been re-released under the Gina K label (not sure about this set though)!

There were also elements in this graphic from Fusion Card Challenge - the elf and the candy canes hanging from the canister and the green pom poms.

Jingle Belles want us to keep pushing on with our Christmas cards and have left their link open until Christmas Eve

Fab'n'Funky has the prompt Winter Wonderland - make a Christmas or winter themed card!

Cardz4Guyz has a Traditional Christmas prompt

This Wednesday's Simon Says Stamp challenge is Fun with Dies

The background paper was a snippet from a previous project as was the green card card stock used to cut the letters and the circle frame so I'm playing in Pixie's Snippet's Playground Challenge #392

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!

Hugs and stay safe,

Kate

Friday, 4 December 2020

Bright Lights

When I saw Rainbow Card Challenge #24 I knew immediately what I wanted to do! I have been eyeing this die out of the corner of my eye for a few weeks and wanting to put it to use finally - I think I bought it from Amazon so it's a no-namer, but I liked it because it also has separate bulb cut-outs. I cut two of the main lights in green and layered them up, then a third one and snipped off the bulbs and finally 5 different coloured bulbs. Of course I couldn't resist adding glossy accents to the bulbs! I cut a little Festive Greenery using an old Tim Holtz Decorative Strip Die and hung it and the lights above a Poppy Stamps Madison Window die cut which I inlaid into a panel of patterned paper to give (hopefully) the appearance of wall paper. The card base is navy with silver sparkles so I could save time and not have to create a night sky - I just added some snow drifts and distressed the edges of these with a little Broken China DI.

Here's the photo inspiration for the Rainbow Card Challenge!

I bought the lights die last Christmas but have only just got around to using it, so I'm entering NBUS Challenge #21. If like me you're more likely to buy things than use them, you should seriously check out this challenge - you can enter as many times as you like!

The window and the greenery from this Use Your Stuff Mood Board #411 also influenced my design!

Here are the other challenges I'm entering (click on the subtitle not the photo)!

SSS Wednesday Challenge - Fun with Dies

Cardz4Guyz Challenge #259 - Traditional Christmas

Fab'n'Funky Challenge #505 - Winter Wonderland

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!

Hugs and stay safe,

Kate

Tuesday, 1 December 2020

In an Instant

I decided last week that I wanted to have a break from Christmas cards and make a birthday card. I've been going through all my NBUS and "found" this PTI Shutterbug Set which I bought in 2014 and have finally opened and used!

I thought it might be fun for Timeout Challenge #175 which has the prompt Quick!

Not that it was quick to make! I've been planning it for days - searching for a suitable patterned paper, working out the layout (I missed the Mojo Monday #550 because I dawdled on it) and the best colours to use.

Here's the sketch from Mojo Monday #550 so you can see how I was inspired - I love Julie Tilman's sketches!

I tossed up whether to put buttons, fancy brads, butterflies in lieu of those two stars, but in the end I used two sentiments. The "Say Cheese and Eat Cake" sentiment was an easy choice since I wanted to make a birthday card but the second one had me stumped - until I had a lightbulb moment! What if I used this "Life is all about the Memories" sentiment and made my own sentiment for the pull out tag! Here's the card with the tag pulled!

I created this WordArt using fonts as similar to the ones on the front as possible and created this pull out tag with the sentiment "not the Calories"! I used another NBUS set called Eat Cake from Waltzing Mouse Stamps - the small cake in the set was a perfect fit for the tag. I shortened the tag a little by partially cutting it. I did this for the speech bubbles (Joy Dies) as well so they fitted the sentiments better.

I'm pretty proud of myself - used two NBUS sets and some Washington tape which I've had for years and I think the sentiment I came up with is quite witty! Pity it took me three days (I made two other cards while I was thinking about this one) and I missed the last Mojo Monday sketch for the year!

Here's the other challenges I'm entering (click on the subtitle not the photo)