Merry Monday #148 - Red & Green

The current challenge over at Merry Monday is Red & Green:

Plus, Hazel over at Craftyhazelnuts Christmas Challenge wants us to 'Cut it Up', so I chose die cutting as well as rounding one corner of my card with scissors. And this card is also for Craftyhazelnuts Christmas Challenge Extra for March, where it's always 'Anything goes'. Whilst at it I made two cards the same :)

 I used:

- 6" x 6" white card blank with the bottom right hand corner rounded using Fiskars corner rounder scissors

- a gold gel pen for the cords - I did those first and worked out the positions so that the fir tree bough and the baubles would be lined up properly when they were added

- a plain green snippet for the tree bough, die cut using a Marianne Creatables die 'LR0181'

- baubles die cut from a snippet of red matt mirri card die cut using a Marianne Creatables die 'LR0183', 'dangled' from the drawn cord and a knotted piece of gold lurex ribbon added to the top of each bauble

- sentiment was stamped using Brilliance 'Galaxy Gold' and a sentiment stamp from the Woodware 'Tipsy Tree' set

Two more cards towards Christmas 2015, and three challenges in one go - wahoo!

Di
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Silver Wedding Anniversary

I do love making cards on request, even though Len will be the first to say that I stress myself out wanting them to be just perfect.

This card was made for a friend's husband, they celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary yesterday. And of course, as you probably know, I fret even more over making cards for men! Anyhow, I'm glad to say that Kim was delighted with the resulting card for Graham, her husband:

I used:

- 6" x 6" white scalloped edge card blank (by Craftwork Cards)

- a pre-coloured topper by LOTV, based on their adorable stamp called 'Love Boat' - chosen by Kim when we were planing the basics 'cos she usually buys cards with animals on :). I trimmed it a teensy bit and re-rounded the corners before adding it to a backing of silver mirri card - also with rounded corners

- the number 25 was die cut from a snippet of silver mirri card using a Memory Box 'Classic Numbers' die

- silver mirri card from the snippets folder for the main backing on the card front

- a white layer of card, embossed using a Quickutz 'Diamonds and Dots' folder. This was slightly 'tricky-woo' 'cos it's just an A6 folder and I had to emboss in two passes to create a square - thankfully the pattern repetition, along with the depth of the impression, makes it quite easy to line up  and sort of 'lock into' the embossed design to emboss further down the piece of card for the second pass. The trick is never to actually go over the edge of folder at the point where your patterns will join - have an overlap that allows you to stop short of the folder edge whilst still achieving the additional embossing. Ha! Bet that was clear as mud!!

- Kim had chosen the words, which I produced on the printer, trimmed to size and then layered onto a backing of silver card stock

So, although it took me almost the whole of an afternoon to make, it's a very clean looking card and not a flower in sight - just right for a chap I hope.

Di
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Cuttlebug Mania - Green with envy

We have another fun challenge over at Cuttlebug Mania this fortnight, called 'Green with envy'. This time you have to use monochromatic shades of green with white, cream or black. And please don't let the fact that it's Cuttlebug Mania stop you from entering - just so long as you use a manual die cutting/embossing machine that's fine, and also do remember to say which embossing, die cutting products you used.

Our sponsor this fortnight is Crafty Sentiments Designs - the winner will pick 3 digis and they have some lovely goodies in their shop!

So this is the card I made:

It's for St. Patrick's Day and 'the luck of the Irish' with the shamrock - I didn't have a proper St. Patrick's Day sentiment stamp :)

I used:

- A6 white tent style card blank

- five shades of green card, a few of which were snippets of course

- two layers of green card on top of the card blank.

- one white layer of card stock, embossed using  SU's 'Square Lattice' embossing folder

- next I positioned and fixed the 'Chloe Stem' green die cut in place, minus the head of course, using Collall All Purpose Glue

- the shamrock head was super-easy and good fun to make using Spellbinders Plain and Scalloped Hearts die sets - two layers per leaf then just gently creased down the  centres before fixing to the card using thin small snippets of sticky pads so that the leaves bend upwards a bit

- the 'Good Luck' sentiment was an Elzybells stamp (sadly long discontinued), stamped with SU's 'Wild Wasabi', then punched out using SU's 'Word Window' punch. Then it was layered onto a snippet of green card which had been punched using SU's 'Modern Label' and popped onto the card with a little piece of thin sticky pad at either end

- final touch, a little green gem at either side of the sentiment

Di
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Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 166

A really quick and easy snippets card from me this week:

I used:

- A6 white tent style card blank, bottom left corner rounded using Fiskars Rounder Scissors

- snippet of white card stock, embossed using Nellie Snellen's 'Flowering Spring' embossing folder

- the sentiment (Penny Black's 'dance sing love') was then stamped using Memento 'Gray Flannel' ink pad. Little tip, I checked through my sentiments stamps for a suitably sized one just by holding the embossing folder on top of the stamp to see if it lined up OK

- the embossed panel was then trimmed down, bottom left corner rounded and adhered to the front of the card blank

- a small snippet of pink card was then used to punch out some little flowers with a Tonic punch

- after adding the pink flowers here and there on the embossed flowering branch I just popped a small pearl into the centre of each one

Job done! I first spotted this lovely embossing folder over on one of your blogs but forgot to make a note of who it was (sorry!). And the folder is sometimes referred to as 'Cherry Blossom' BTW - just to confuse things a little :)

OK, straight onto this week's picks:

I do love this adorable scene, made by Diane H. What fun!

I picked this card 'cos it 's another one that made me smile - brought to the Playground by Lynn - I love the balloons tied to the kitty's tail! :) Company for the Playground guard dog perhaps?

On a more serious note, this card made by Liz really caught my eye. A perfect sympathy card and I do so love the alternating rows of coloured spots - some clever paper positioning underneath the die cut I imagine!

This card using the paper tole technique, made by Carol, has been well admired over on her blog - not surprisingly either. So fresh looking!

I think this is such a pretty set of note cards, made by Alison C . For a closer look do hop over to Alison's blog - they're really lovely.

This card, made by Pat, incorporates such a clever trick - look closely at the embossed stars background behind that lovely wreath. Pat only went and made her own embossing plate using acetate! Brilliant idea.

And finally - each week there's at least one entry that stops me in my tracks, this week it's Hazel's brilliant 'onesie' card. I adore it and there's so much detail - right down to adding the little eyelets as 'poppers' on the gusset :)

And we have one new Playmate this week:

Hi there Dora! I do hope you'll come back to play with us again :)

And the winner of last week's prize (the 'Nautical' XCut dies kindly donated by Viv) is:

 Jane (Willis)

This tickled me no end, Jane is a huge fan of XCut dies, and in fact the entry that Mr Random drew was made using a lovely XCut die set! Spooky or what. I still have your address Jane and will post your prize off ASAP this week.

Here's this coming week's prize:

It was pretty obvious really, it's a folder exactly the same as the one I used today of course! A small prize but I think, in this case, small (well, approx. A6 size!) really is beautiful :)

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 7th March. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say 'Yes please' (or similar) in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize.

Mr Linky is below - do please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Di and of course, Parsnip!
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Rudolph Day - February 2015

Well that came round fast, it's Rudolph Day again over at Scrappy Mo's. All you need to do is to make a Christmas card and link into Mo's blog HERE to be in with a chance of winning a really lovely Memory Box die. And this month you only have until tomorrow (Saturday) to join in as it's a 28 day month!

I used:

- 4" x 4" white linen effect card blank

- red tartan paper from LOTV's 'Classic Christmas' paper pad

- snippet of white linen card topped with snippet of green plain paper from the LOTV paper pad

- then on top I just added a pre-made little Scottie dog felt topper with sticky pads (bought just after Christmas in Hobbycraft, their own brand)

I made four cards in total, two with red Scotties on and two with white Scotties on, I changed the backing to red for those, although all four card do have the lovely red tartan paper as the main background. And, as the LOTV paper pad is 8" x 8", I got four cards from one sheet too :)

But, although fine in daylight, when I've taken photos of the cards with the white doggies on you can see the shading of the sticky fixers I used - rather like little sets of underwear - through the felt :) Still, they look OK to the naked (no pun intended!) eye, it's just the camera that's acting like an x-ray machine - so that's another four cards added to the total of 2015's Christmas cards.

And, I'd also like to enter this card into Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge, where this week's theme is 'Feature a Creature' - as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for February, where it's always 'Anything Goes'.

Di
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Less is More - Week 212 - Wings

The current challenge over at Less is More this week is 'Wings'. I did try to steer clear of birds and butterflies but in the end opted for a favourite birdie stamp of mine:

I used:

- A6-ish white card blank, the front portion of which I ran through the Cuttlebug using the SU 'Chevron' embossing folder with the back of the card folded outside the folder (needs must with a little Cuttlebug sometimes)

- then backed the inside of the front part of the card with a piece of plain white card stock to add stability as the breaking down of fibres during embossing can leave a piece of card a bit unsteady on its feet :)

-  the image is from Banana Frog's set called 'Shake your tail feathers', stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and coloured using Whispers pens, then covered with clear 'Wink of Stella'. Sadly Banana Frog ceased trading over three years ago - I loved their crisp designs, sigh :(

- the sentiment of course came from the same stamp set, again stamped in Memento 'Tuxedo Black'

- then die cut the image using a Lil 'Inkers Stitched Rectangle die, and glued it onto a slightly larger rectangle die cut from a snippet of SU 'Tempting Turquoise' card stock

- then added the 'topper' to the card front using thin sticky pads 
Di
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Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge #24

The current challenge over at Mrs A's is, as always butterflies - and this time it's plus R for Ribbon. The challenge closes tomorrow and I was worried I might not manage to make a card in time - but here it is:

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card blank

- a white layer of card stock, embossed using the Couture Creations 'Tied Together' embossing folder

- wrapped a piece of lilac ribbon round the embossed layer before adhering it to the card blank and tied a single little knot of ribbon

- the image is a Penny Black pre-coloured Stickeroo sticker from the 'Language of Flowers' sheet, popped onto a snippet of SU's 'Perfect Plum' card stock. Can I add the little tip (once again) that these stickers really are impossible to shift once they're in contact with card so it's always best to put the sticker onto a slightly larger piece of card and then just trim it down after the Stickeroo is in place

- the sentiment is from the Personal Impressions 'Everyday Words Happy Birthday' set, stamped onto a snippet of white card using SU's 'Perfect Plum' ink pad

- used SU's 'Word Window' to punch out the sentiment and then layered it onto a snippet of SU's 'Perfect Plum', punched using SU's 'Modern Label' punch

- the image and sentiments were adhered to the embossed layer using thin sticky pads

Sorry I'm late Mrs A! Mwah :)

Di
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