Critter birthday in the woods

What an insanely crazy week. Working towards our project's big Quarterly review on Friday, and there simply isn't enough hours in a day for anything else than reports, slide shows, emails and a bit of sleep in between. However, today I decided to finish a card I have been creating bit by bit for the current Lawnscaping challenge "Calling all critters". So I thought the critters would hang out in the forest and have a great birthday party with party hats and cupcakes! I love combining the various Lawn Fawn Stamp set and have used five different sets here, along with some lovely Lawn Fawn patterned papers. And sadly, it's back to writing reports now, any further crafting will have to wait until the weekend. 

I'm also linking up with the Unicorn Challenge where the theme is polka dots and the Critters and Creatures Linky Party where anything goes with a cute critter. 

Card: 300 gsm white card 

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters in the Forest, Critters in the Arctic, Party Animals, Joy to the Woods, Hats off to You and matching dies

Inks and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics

Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka in the Meadow, Let's Polka, Perfectly Plaid

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Frame, Stitched Hillside Borders, Grassy border and Happy Birthday Border 

Smile crocodile!

We are all among friends here, so I'm probably safe in admitting that my craft room is a complete mess. First of all, I dug out some old crafty stuff I had stashed away in the loft as I sold some old, unloved stamp sets, dies and embossing folders on eBay. And the remaining stuff is still lying around, waiting to either be taken to the bin or donated somewhere (any tips anyone, do you get rid of your old crafty stuff by donating to a school, nursery etc?). I have also been so crazy busy at work that I have hardly managed to craft at all, and the few times I have made it to the craft desk, I have focussed all my energy on the process of crafting, not cleaning up. Therefore, this is what my crafty desk looks like at the moment. 

I know I should probably hang my head in shame, but at the same time, it comes with some perks. Like the fact that to make today's card, I could find almost all the stuff I needed on my desk instead of having to go hunting for it on shelves and in drawers. The added perk was that to create the cute croc, I used a scrap piece of card I had coloured for this card. 

As I've had some trouble getting my mojo going lately, I've been eagerly perusing the wonderful challenges and all the inspiration from the wonderful DT's to get going. For this card, I was inspired by the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and the colours over at Color Throwdown. I was also inspired by the CAS Mixup where the theme is Stamping + stencil + your choice (in my case die cutting, smooshing and heat embossing). I also didn't quite manage to get the sentiment and croc to stand out from the background with just stamping in black ink, and when I saw the E is for embossing challenge over at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, a lightbulb went off in my head, and I heat embossed them in black glittery powder which made them pop much more against the background.

Card: 300 gsm white linen textured card, 300 gsm watercolour card

Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka and Perfectly Plaid

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters Down Under and matching dies

Ink and paints: Tim Holtz Distress Ink Mustard Seed and Twisted Citron, Tim Holtz Distress Paints Mermaid Lagoon and Twisted Citron, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Frames and Everyday Sentiment Banners dies, ARTplorations stencil Retro Circles