Snowflake Trio

Pushing on with the Christmas cards! I started with the idea for this design and created the blue card first, but then I thought a really neutral colour scheme could work well. And then I remembered the gorgeous hand-made paper I was gifted quite a while back and which I think is way too nice to actually use. But I did use the corner of a sheet to die cut the beautiful Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes. It looks quite beige in the pictures, but it's actually quite light in colour. I just love the slightly patchy, natural look of the paper and it feels absolutely gorgeous, almost velvety.

I'm linking up this card over at CAS on Friday where the theme is Washi tape and Time Out where the theme is Black, White and one more colour

I'm linking up this card over at AAA Cards where the theme is Mostly White and Make My Monday where the theme is Nontraditional Christmas Colours.

Card: White 200 gsm card, handmade tan paper, light blue shimmer paper, scrip of black card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes, Mini Snowflakes, Scripty Merry Christmas Border

Ink: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake, Tim Holtz Salty Ocean 

Other: Adhesive gems from my stash, Stampin' Up Washi Tape

Winter Birthday

Good morning, I hope it's not as grey where you are as it is here. Although, I'm using they grey and rain as an excuse to not go for a run. I'm telling myself I'll see if it clears out towards the afternoon. But we all know I'll just spend the day in the craft room. But yesterday was about exercise for my body, today is about exercise for my soul. How about that! 

Today's card is a birthday card for a friend who likes snow flakes. She will see it on the blog before it will reach her on the other side of the world, but I wanted to make a few challenges with deadlines soon approaching. This card is inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch and the colours over at Color Throwdown. I was also inspired by the "Be Square" challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and the Winter Birthday theme over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and the Winter theme over at Time Out (with an optional twist of white on white which I obviously didn't take...). Last, but certainly not least I was also inspired by the Snowflake theme over at CAS Watercolour Challenge. Needed quite a bit of inspiration this time to get things going...

I started by creating the background, randomly splotching blue watercolour onto watercolour paper. After drying it with a heat gun I also splattered some darker blues onto the card. I then die cut the background into a square. I adhered the other die cuts and stamped and heat embossed the second word of the sentiment. When I had put everything together I felt the card still needed some little last finishing touch, so I got out my Picket Fence Distress Paint and splattered it over the card (after first covering the top half with a scrap paper to protect the image and sentiment). 

Card: Stampin' Up black card, 300 gsm Daler&Rowney Watercolour paper, scrap of yellow card, white glitter card

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Gansai Tambi watercolours, Tim Holtz Distress Paint Picket Fence

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Party Animal

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes, Mini Snowflakes, Stitched Square nesting dies, CUTplorations Happy Word die

Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

Spritzed Snowflakes

Two blog posts in two days! I'm clearly trying to overcompensate for my absence, but also I want to make the deadline for this week's ColourQ which is imminent.

I was inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch and the colours over at ColourQ. I was also inspired by the current theme over at CAS Mixup which is Stamp+spray+your choice, but then I realised when I had finished the card that I hadn't actually used any stamping at all! Oh well, at least I got inspired to pick up my spritzer and have some fun, which is the main thing. I actually had so much fun I couldn't resist creating another card with the same theme but slightly different, using the positive die cuts instead of using die cuts as masks as I did for the first card. I also got out my very neglected stash of washi tape which was fun, I can't remember the last time I used washi tape on a card (I only seem to use it to stick my dies to any stamped images when die cutting). I'm also linking up with Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge where the theme is masking (first card), HLS Christmas challenge where the theme is snowflakes (second card) and HLS Anything Goes with Dies (second card). Last but not least I'm playing along with Time Out where the theme is Holiday and the optional twist is no stamping and with Crimbo Crackers where the theme is Blue Christmas.

Card: White 300 gsm linen textured card, silver grey card from my stash, scrap of black card, turquoise shimmer paper, 300 gsm watercolour paper
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink Salty Ocean
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes, Merry Christmas Border die, Stitched Rectangle die
Other: Perfect Pearls blue powder, washi tape from my stash

Paint smooshing on vellum

My week of annual leave is sadly coming to an end and it's time to say goodbye to family and head back home. As sad as that is, there is a silver lining to every cloud, and for me it's of course getting back to my craft room! Oh and seeing the Culinary Consultant too. Ok, that might even be the biggest silver lining to be honest, but don't tell him as he would just go getting big ideas about himself. Men... can't live with them and all that schtuff. Anyhow, I have another card I made a while ago that I wanted to share with you before hopefully being able to create something new in the next day or two. 

I had a bit of a mad creative moment the other day, creating several cards in one go, you can see my other similarly themed card here. I got really inspired to do some Distress Paint smooshing and decided to try it on vellum. I loved the look, it looks like stained glass! The paint behaves very differently on the slippery vellum compared to watercolour paper. I die cut a panel from the vellum after it had dried and stamped the sentiment from STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2 and heat embossed in silver. I added two die cut snowflakes I found when rummaging through my stash (yay for using up yet another bit from the stash, every little bit counts!). Super quick and easy. If only I was as good at sending cards as I am at making them...

Also, don't forget that you have another 2 days to join the first ever STAMPlorations CAS challenge, where the optional colour twist is silver.

I am linking up with the following challenges:
Craft for the Craic - January Blues
Fussy and Fancy - Monochromatic 
Craft Rocket Challenges - Clean and Simple
If You Give a Crafter a Cookie - Inspiration Image (see below)
Stampavie and More - Winter
A Snowflakes Promise - Winter
Deep Ocean Challenge Blog - Winter Wonderland

Card: 300 gsm white card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum, silver and white glitter card
Stamps: STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Paints Broken China, Brushed Pewter, Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers and Picket Fence
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles, Stitched Snowflakes
Other: Papermania Silver Tinsel embossing powder

Frozen smoosh

Well, my mojo clearly has realised it's the last day of my lovely Christmas holiday, and I have managed to create not one, not two, not three but four cards today. It just seemed like the good old mojo was in hibernation and now it's back. How great that I'm now in super-creative mode when I have to go back to work tomorrow and won't have any time to craft until next weekend. 

Sometimes it's the smallest thing that kicks off the good old mojo. I was browsing around looking at challenges (isn't it a bit ironic that most challenges are on holiday over Christmas when most people are on holiday and would actually have time to craft. Of course, being on some DTs myself, I'm of course very thankful for the break, but as a participant, I want more challenges, not less, over the holidays!!). Today, it was the Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge that kick started my mojo. The theme for this month is smooshing and I got super inspired and got out my Tim Holtz distress paints and smooshed a big pile of backgrounds, one of which ended up in today's card. The sentiment is from a set from STAMPlorations called Fond Expressions 2, and it's heat embossed in white. The snowflake embellishment is actually from my stash, I made it ages ago using Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes dies and some Ranger Ice Stickles in Coffee Ice. Always such a rewarding feeling when you manage to use up stuff from your stash, isn't it.


I am linking up with the following challenges which inspired this card;
Try Stampin' on Tuesday - sketch (see below)
Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge - smooching
Happy Little Stampers CASE the designer - I was inspired by the smooched watercolour background and the layout with the watercoloured panel surrounded by plenty of white space
Curtain Call - Frozen 
The Shabby Tea Room - Inspiration image (see below)
Paper Sweeties Inspiration Challenge - colours (see below)
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Winter Wonderland

Card: 300 gsm white card, 300 gsm watercolour paper, Hobbycraft 160 gsm ivory card

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress Paints Broken China, Brushed Pewter, Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers and Picket Fence

Stamps: STAMPlorations Fond Expressions 2

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes, Stitched Rectangles

Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Ranger Ice Stickles Coffee Ice, Adhesive gems from my stash

One more snowflake card

I know, I know... Yet another snowflake card. Snowflakes and watercolours have most certainly been the theme for this year's Christmas cards. But I can't resist the gorgeous vibrant colours of Tim's amazingly beautiful inks and I certainly can't resist the Lawn Fawn snowflake dies. I particularly love to die cut them in vellum, as they come out absolutely stunning against the watercoloured background. So here is one more for this year. In fact, the current Daring Cardmakers challenge (use another language) reminded me that I haven't made a Christmas card for my grandmother (who doesn't speak a word of English, so I can't use any of the cards I have made so far as they all have english sentiments). So off I went into the craft room to create. 

Have you put up your Christmas decorations yet? We most certainly haven't and to be perfectly honest, let's see if we get around to doing it at all. Maybe next weekend. A confession that may shock many of you.... I'm not very much of a Christmas person. I love to get the time off work, don't get me wrong, and I love crafting Christmas cards. To be honest, all I want to do is lay down on the sofa with a book and a box of chocolates and not move for the duration of the holidays, not spend my free days like a maniac cleaning the house, cooking enough to feed a small country, and putting up lights and decorations which then stay up until next March as I won't have time to take them down. We have already decided to minimise Christmas presents this year, only something very small and only one present per person. Luckily everyone was being very co-operative, sending some ideas of what they would like to receive, as I rather buy something the recipient wants as opposed to some random stuff. 

Today's card is inspired by the gorgeous sketch over at Retro Sketches, as well as the colours over at Color Throwdown. As I mentioned earlier, I was also inspired by the "Use another language" theme over at Daring Cardmakers. Further, I'm linking up with Make My Monday where the theme is White Christmas, The Glory of Christmas where Anything Christmas Goes, The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers where X is for Xmas (sorry no Snark this time...) and Just us Girls where the theme is Sequins. 

Card: 300 gsm watercolour paper, kraft card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry, Versamark

Stamps: Fiskars Easy Stamp Press Christmas

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes, Mini Snowflakes, Stitched Rectangle dies

Other: Perfect Pearls, Papermania Tinsel Silver embossing powder, silver sequins from my stash

Guest Designing over at The Challenge

As you are reading this I am spending a long weekend with my bestest friend ever. We hardly ever get to see each other after she went back home and I stayed over here in the UK. So right now we are having a girl's weekend in Riga. But I scheduled this post to go live right at this moment as I have a really special card to share today. I was absolutely chuffed to bits when I saw that my macaron card was picked as the winner over at The Challenge a few weeks ago. It's always a thrill to see one of my cards picked as a favourite in one of the challenges, it's just so nice to know someone else enjoyed something you made. The prize you get for winning is the honour of joining the amazingly talented DT as a guest designer. So thank you to The Challenge DT for having me, and for you for popping over to my blog to see my creation. For the next week The Challenge is to create something using the sketch below. So come and join us over at The Challenge to see what the wonderful DT has created to inspire you, and then get creative and don't forget to share your gorgeous creations!

This is such a great sketch as it will really let your imagination run free. I'm not very good with using circles, and I always try to replace them with another shape. I absolutely adore the Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflake and Mini Snowflake dies, and I used them with vellum to create a beautiful snowflake flower. I have to admit that despite a penchant for stockpiling patterned paper, I don't have very much Christmas themed paper. I do have a Stampin' Up set from last year called All Is Calm, and I love the delicate snowflakes and gorgeous colours on it. So I decided to use that for the strip of patterned paper and create a watercolour background using Distress Inks in similar colours. I die cut a piece of watercolour paper using a Stitched Rectangle die and watercoloured an ombre background using Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers and Mermaid Lagoon, splattering some ink onto the background as I went along. I heat embossed the sentiment from the Winter Penguin stamp set from Lawn Fawn in white powder and added a few adhesive gems and finally a dash of glitter using a Wink of Stella pen.

A closer look at the vellum snowflake embellishment. You 
can just about see a bit of the glitter on it, but it doesn't show
up very well in the photo.

I would like to link up my card with the following challenges:

Unicorn Challenge - Winter Theme

CAS-ual Fridays - Snowflake

Make My Monday - White Christmas

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Let It Snow

Time Out - Snowflakes are Winter's Butterflies

Sparkles Christmas Challenge - Die cut

Our Crafty Corner - Anything Goes/Winter

Card: 300 gsm white card, 300 gsm watercolour paper, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum

Paper: Stampin' Up All Is Calm

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress inks in Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon and Peacock Feathers

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles, Stitched Snowflake and Mini Snowflake dies, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, adhesive gems from my stash, Wink of Stella pen

Texure - my (subtle) interpretation and how I finally mastered the spritzing tool

You know that feeling when you have so many ideas, and whatever you try just ends up being a total disaster and you find yourself with a craft room full of discarded bits, die cuts, dies strewn all over the floor and endless stamps spread all over the desk? If not, congratulations. If you do, let me know, I need to know I'm not the only one. Thanks. Anyhow, I proceeded from this state to eating my bodyweight in stuff I shouldn't be eating, and had a huge mug of coffee (only the second time in over three weeks that I broke my caffeine fast). Now my hands are shaking. 

Anyhow, I finally managed to produce a card which I'm not completely embarrassed about. However, I have to admit the inspiration for this card is not completely from my own head. I have borrowed it from this amazing card from Nichol Magouirk. In fact, this is a long story, but bear with me (if not, thanks for visiting, and do come back on another day when I'm not suffering from verbal diahorrea). Anyhow, I saw Nichol's gorgeous card way back last year when she first published it, and I was just blown away by it's amazingness. In fact, it inspired me so much that I went and bought myself the Tim Holtz spritzer tool as I wanted to create the beautiful backgrounds Nichol was showcasing. Long story short, I just couldn't make the spritzer work, at best I could get a few silly dots of colour come out of it, and that was it. So it just got forgotten. Today I dug it out again, as I thought I do have a PhD after all, and what else is a PhD than the ability to go back over and over to things that failed and eventually get them to work. I also thought that a spritzed background would be perfect for the Texture challenge over at Lawnscaping. Long story short, I ended up with the same problem, I couldn't get any colour onto paper. Then in my frustration I managed to somehow move the pen a bit in the spritzer which inadvertently made it pop into that tiny little groove in the nozzle bit that I hadn't noticed before. And then, all of a sudden there was colour aplenty coming out. I had finally mastered the spritzer tool!! I felt this to be almost as big of an achievement as my PhD...

So happily I spritzed the background in all blues, turquoises and greys I could find in my Tim Holtz distress marker arsenal. Great fun! Then I added some water and blue Perfect Pearls into a mini mister and gave it all a bit of a mist for that watery look and a subtle spark. These were my first two attempts at texture in this card, it's the visual texture of the splotchy background combined with the hammered texture of the cardstock. Then adding a bit more texture by cutting the background with a stitched rectangle die. Then for more texture, I double embossed the sentiment with black and glittery silver embossing powder. The die cut snowflakes also have lots of texture, first of all the sparkly and highly textured feel of the glitter cardstock, and I also built the snowflakes in two layers, the bottom being blue card for added texture in the form of height. Last, I created the multi-layered snowflake, and matted everything onto teal card using 3D foam tape. I hope you think this is far enough from Nichol's original card not to be considered plagiarism. And of course imitation is the greatest form of flattery is all I can say in my defence.

Anyhow, that's more than enough from me for now, thank you for reading all the way through to the end. I would like to link up with the following challenges:
Lawnscaping - Texture
House of Cards - Stitch it up
The Friday Mashup - Glitter 
Jingle Belles and Shopping Our Stash - Use something at least a year old (large snowflake dies, spritzing tool)
NBUS - Anything NBUS goes (the dark grey, blue and silver glitter paper, the deep blue cardstock, and that damned spritzing tool. Well, technically I've *tried* to use it before, but as this is the first time I've ever produced anything with it, I would say it counts as NBUS?)

Card: Coloured 240 gsm card in teal, Coloured 240 gsm card Vanguard Deep Blue, hammered 300 gsm white card, multiple colours of glitter card
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods
Ink: Tim Holtz distress markers Blueprint Sketch, Mermaid Lagoon, Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Peacock Feathers, Iced Spruce, Hickory Smoke, Cracked Pistachio, Tsukineko Versamark
Other: Black embossing powder from my stash, Papermania Tinsel Silver embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Stitched Snowflake dies, Mini Snowflake dies

Let it snow in the woods

It's grey and pouring with rain outside. Yesterday was gloriously hot, sunny and wonderful. It was still warm late in the evening when I went out in the pitch black night to get something from the garage. We also finally made good on our promise to buy another tennis racket so we could go playing tennis. There is a free council tennis court about a 30 second walk from our back yard. I can't believe it has taken us two whole years to actually get around to trying it out. But better late than never I guess. I'm quite clearly the worse tennis player, but at least we are having fun and getting a bit of exercise at the same time. 

In addition to a very bad game of tennis, I also had time to put together this card. I stamped the scene using the Joy to the Woods stamp set. I used my Faber Castell watercolour pencils to colour the scene and added some snow using a white gel pen and dotted some Ranger Ice Stickles. I then cut the panel using a Stitched Rectangle die. I embossed the dark blue card with a swirly embossing folder and added the wintery scene. I created the snowflake embellishment using the Stitched Snowflakes dies and added some Ice Stickles. Last, I heat embossed the sentiment from Critters in the Arctic in white onto a purple banner.

The layout of the card was inspired by the current CAS(E) this Sketch challenge. I am also linking up with the Lawnscaping "Embossing" challenge. I would also like to link up with Addicted to Stamps where the challenge this week is "Holiday" and Sparkles Christmas Challenge where the theme is "No designer paper".

Card: Coloured 240 gsm kraft card navy, Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper, 300 gsm white linen textured card, scrap of purple card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods, Critters in the Arctic

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Staz-on, Versamark, Faber Castell watercolour pencils, Signo white gel pen

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Stitched Snowflake dies, Ranger Ice Stickles, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Sizzix embossing folder swirls

Holly Jolly - Snowflakes and Sparkle

We have all heard about Einstein and about his theories that time is relative. Well, I'm no physicist (I did take physics in high school, because I had a bit of a crush on our very cute physics teacher but I wasn't very good at it) but I think we haven't quite been told all about this relative time thing. Sure, time slows down as you approach the speed of light, but I would like to postulate that time speeds up during the summer months. I mean, we are in mid-August already, what's the deal with that? The last three months have just sped by, I am even suspecting we might have been robbed of a few weeks, they may have disappeared down a black hole somewhere. And now, as we approach the dark months, time will again slow down, and it will seem like the darkness and cold is just endless. Winter is, indeed, coming. 

Are you all prepared with a huge whopping pile of home-made Christmas cards already? No? I can tell you that making one card every two weeks for the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge has provided me with a great big pile of Christmas cards already. And there are still many more challenges to go before Santa finally arrives. There is still plenty of time to jump on the bandwagon and ensure that by putting in just a little bit of time every two weeks, you will also be prepared come the Holidays. 

Our theme this week is great to allow many different interpretations. We are challenging you to craft something with "Snowflakes and Sparkles". It doesn't have to be a card, it can be anything as long as it's Christmas related. Our generous sponsors, who have provided the DT with great inspiration images and who will be giving prizes to our winners are Sami Stamps, QKR Stampede and Stitchy Bear. If you need inspiration to get your Christmas mojo flowing, why not hop over to Holly Jolly to see what the DT has created, and please also visit and support our sponsors who make our challenges possible. And don't forget to link up with us so we can see your gorgeous creations. If you participated in our Feathered Friends challenge, don't forget to scroll down from the challenge post to see if you are one of our winners for that challenge.

This time I got to play with the gorgeous Lake Winter digi from Stitchy Bear. I coloured it with my Faber Castell watercolour pencils. Then I added some snow using a Signo white gel pen. To add some sparkle, I added some Ranger Ice Stickles on the snow, it doesn't show very well in the main image but I tried to take another picture that shows it a little bit better. I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed in white. I matted everything onto dark blue card, and added some snow flakes die cut from sparkling white paper for that extra little snow and sparkle.

I am sharing my card with the following challenges:

Winter Wonderland - Christmas song/carol (Let it snow, let it snow let it snow)

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge - Use something old (my Ranger Ice Stickles, and the Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflake dies)

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Anything Goes

Sparkles Christmas Challenge - No Designer Paper

Christmas Cards All Year 'Round - Snowflakes

Crafting With Friends - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

Moving Along With the Times - Snow in Summertime

Card: White 300 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card in navy, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, white glitter card (no brand name, ordered from eBay)

Stamps: Stitchy Bear Lake Winter, Stampin' Up Endless Wishes

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Faber Castell watercolour pencils, Signo white gel pen

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes die, Ranger Ice Stickles, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - Angels or Fairies

I'm very excited as today we have a new challenge for you over at Holly Jolly. This time the theme is Angels or Fairies. We are sponsored by A Day for Daisies, QKR Stampede and Bugaboo. There will also be fantastic prizes for three lucky winners. Everyone has a chance to win prizes as they are randomly drawn. Remember, you have to be in it to win it! The DT will also select favourites who will get a badge to proudly display on their blog. 

The wonderful Holly Jolly DT has a lot of inspiration if you are stuck with a bit of mojo gone AWOL. You can also have a browse on the sponsor's pages to find fabulous digis to work with.

I always love the challenges where Bugaboo is a sponsor as I get to play with the fabulous Stella. This time I used Stella Tidbits Fairy Visit. She is just the best, and I love her in her little fairy costume. Nothing says Christmas like a happy little Stella fairy, right? This time I thought I would try to make a bit of a mixed media tag. The great thing about starting your Christmas crafting early is that you can put quite a bit of time and effort into each piece. It will be November again sooner than you think, and then you have to come up with simple designs for mass production, so the beginning of the year is the perfect time to make your more elaborate Christmas crafts. 

I started by creating the background onto a kraft tag using Tim Holtz distress paints. I dabbed the paints onto my craft mat, spritzed generously with water and swirled my tag in the paint. After thoroughly drying the tag with my heat gun, I used Distress Inks and a star stencil to created the stars in the background. The I used a beautiful Christmas ornament stamp which I heat embossed in gold powder. I coloured Stella with Copics and fussy cut her. I die cut the snowflake and bow from copper cardstock and printed and inked the words for the sentiment. Last I added some ribbon, twine and a bell, and a die cut border to the bottom of the tag. As a finishing touch, I added some Ice Stickles to the Stella's stars and the centre of the snowflake flower.

I would like to enter my tag into the following challenges:

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - Snarker's choice (I chose I is for iconic, because I think by now Stella has made the iconic status in the snarky world!!)

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Something Beginning with B (bow, bell)

Merry Monday - Bows

ABC Christmas Challenges - B is for bows, bunting or baking

Crafting From the Heart - Anything Goes

My Craft Creations - Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - H is for... (Have yourself a magical Christmas)

Sparkle n' Sprinkle - Anything goes with loose glitter, embossing powder or flocking (gold embossing powder christmas ornaments in the background)

Use Your Stuff - Inspired by a song (One of my favourite Christmas songs, Fairytale of New York (you get it, *fairy*tale... hehe) but also the bit where they sing "You were handsome, you were pretty, Queen of New York city)

Incy Wincy Designs - Tic Tac Toe (use a punch (bow builder punch), something that sparkles (adhesive gem), ribbon)

That Craft Place - Anything Goes

Card: Ranger Inkssentials Kraft tag #8, Copper metallic card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Stampin' Up Real Red

Background: Tim Holtz Distress paints Barn Door, Festive Berries, Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar, Antiqued Bronze

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Distress inks Forest Moss, Iced Spruce, Pine Needles, Black Soot

Stamps: Bugaboo Stella Tidbits Fairy Visit, Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes

Colouring: Copics YG13, YG15, YG17, R24, R46, B00, E34, E39, YR00

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes and Stitched Journaling Card dies, Stampin' Up Bow builder punch, Tim Holtz Vintage Lace dies, red ribbon, twine and a bell from my stash, Tim Holtz Stencil Stars, Ranger Ice Stickles Coffee Ice

Rocky and Bullwinkle

I was going to post this yesterday but life interfered. I left work really early to have some crafting time but there was a massive accident on the A14, and I had to make my way home by alternative routes, which of course were totally blocked up. In the end it took me an hour and a half instead of 35 minutes to get home. Sigh. So I didn't quite manage to finish the card yesterday. But it's all done and dusted now, and that's all that matters.

The day after I published my wintery Lawn Fawn card, the Lawnscaping challenge published the inspiration photo below. I immediately wanted to create something similar for the challenge using the photo, so I played some more with the lovely Critters in the Arctic and Joy to the Woods stamp sets. I'm also entering the card over at Daring Cardmakers where the challenge is to be inspired by another card you have made and over at STAMPlorations where the January challenge theme is Stamps and Inks. Last but not least I'm linking up at Love to Create where Anything goes.

I started by stamping and colouring Moose, Squirrel and their Robin friend. I die cut them, and the snowy hills and the journalling card. I used Versamark to ink the snowy hills and added Holographic embossing powder to them. It doesn't show very well on the photo but it's really nice and sparkly. I stamped snowflakes onto the background using Versamark and embossed them using holographic embossing powder, before inking with distress ink. For the background, I used the hardwood stamp and then embossed the sentiment in white.

Card: Hobbycraft 160 gsm cream card, kraft card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods, Critters in the Arctic, Stampin' Up Hardwood

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders, Joy to the Woods, Critters in the Arctic, Stitched Journaling Card

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz distress inks Chipped Sapphire, Broken China, Dusty Concord, Stampin' Up Crumb Cake

Colouring: Copics E09, E29, E34, E39, R24, R46

Other: Papermania Holographic embossing powder