Springtime Tulips

I recently succumbed to some crafting retail therapy and among my purchases were some stamps and dies from Penny Black.

My first make with them used the Tulip Quartet dies.

 

 

Although I cut out all four I have only used two on this card. They were cut out of a cream snippet and coloured with Copics. The trellis for the background was another of my new purchases and is part of theDaffodils stamp set. I used Distress Oxide ink inFrayed Burlap for the trellis and sentiment, which is from Uniko. 

Challenges:

 

Allsorts

NBUS 

Snippets Playground 

Father Christmas for Rudolph Day

Well here we are at the penultimate Rudolph day for 2023! Unbelievable!!! I have used a NBUS stamp which came free last year, I think,with a magazine.

It is a Raymond Briggs Father Christmas and quite a large stamp, I coloured him with Promarkers and drew the border round the edge. The paper is out of my stash and was originally in a Simon Says Stamp kit.

Challenges:

Scraps of Life by Scrappymo

NBUS

Santa for Happy Little Stampers

Having had a break with two birthday cards, I'm back in Christmas mode.  This time I have used another NBUS stamp, this cute Santa from Uniko.

I co;oured him with Copics and fussy cut him, then gave him some HOHOHO's to stand on. This from a different Uniko set which has been used before!

 

Challenges:

Happy Little Stampers - Christmas Challenge 

NBUS

One Layer Christmas

I'm obviously in a Christmas mood at the moment! 52 CCT are asking for one layer cards so it seemed like a good opportunity to use some more of my NBUS stash.

 This is a Gina K set that I think was a Stamptember set from SSS a couple of years ago. I stamped and embossed the trees and sentiment in silver then silver embossed them. I tried doing some shadow stamping on the first one - but that ended up in the bin!

 

Challenges:

52 CCT

NBUS

A Masterpiece for Rudolph!

No not one of mine(lol)! I recently saw a post from Miss Di using the Penny Black Materpieces made Simple toppers which inspired me to get some. The title of them is very apt as they do make simple cards that really are very nice. 

I chose to use a pale blue card with a shimmery gold mat. Very simple. The hardest part was finding a rectangle die that was the same proportions - this was the best out of the many I've got - but is still not quite right. The sentiment was just stamped with gold ink., and I added some Wink of Stella to the snowy bits for a bit of sparkle.

Challenges:

Rudolph Day

NBUS - the topper

Snippets Playground - the mat

Geometric Snippets

I recently bought the geometric builder die from Simon Says Stamp, which I thought would be good for using up snippets and for masculine card. For my first play with it I selected four different coloured scraps of card and cut the die four times.

The came the fun bit, playing around making different patterns with the shapes. When I was happy I stuck them to a square of black card before adding to a white card blank. No sentiment yet till I decide who is going to get it. Obviously this is going over to the Playground. Rumour has it that Sarn is up to mischief over there! And as it was the die's first outing I can join in at the NBUS challenge.

I'm sorry I haven't been commenting much recently or indeed posting either. This is partly due to Christmas preparations, but also because I am having trouble with my wrists, possible tendonitis . I have an appointment with the Doctor on Monday, but I'm not sure how she is going to decide what is wrong with them as it is a telephone appointment!

CAS Christmas - Nativity

This month's challenge at CAS Christmas is Nativity.

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A rummage through my stamps produced another NBUS stamp. This time it is an old SU one. I stamped and embossed with silver on blue card.

I'm also going to share this at Winter Wonderland who want square cards.

Rudolph Day and NBUS

Only two more Rudolph Days to go till the Big Day! I wasnt sure if I would be able to get into the craft room to make a card this month as the builders have just knocked through and it is chaotic to say the least! But I managed it and used a NBUS embossing folder so I can also join in with Darnell's NBUS challenge.

I think it will look familiar to some of you - it's a Christmas version of That Folder! A very CAS card which actually looks better IRL!

NBUS Challenge

The lovely Darnell is celebrating her 5th blogaversary with a special NBUS challenge. You can read all about it here. She has added an optional twist of a new technique -colouring with pencils on Kraft.

This is also a technique I haven't used before either, so had a go. The stamp is NBUS from Penny Black  - Red Blush, the sentiment is from Clearly Besotted and also NBUS. I thought of mounting the panel on red, but preferred it without. I used Spectrum Noir pencils to colour the image.  I'm also entering this over at Winter Wonderland where the challenge this week is Sunshine, Flowers, Romance.

Crazy Birthday!

It was my eldest son's birthday last week and he is interested in birds so his card often reflects this. I decided this year to make it a more fun card with the Crazy Birds.

I pulled out a background I'd made a while ago with brushos and shaving foam. The birds were coloured with Spectrum Noir pencils then cut out with the matching dies. The sentiments are from the coordinating set if stamps which I bought with my gift card from Darnell's NBUS challenge. The birds and balloons all used up snippets of white card so a visit to the Playground is called for!

Less is More Green and Gold and NBUS

Less is More has a colour theme this week of green and gold. My first thoughts were Christmas and set to making a card, but by the time I'd finished realised it wasn't very LIM. So it was put to one side and I started again. This time I did away with the Christmas theme and instead used a very new stamp, it had only arrived in the post an hour previously! This has to be some sort of record for me as new stuff tends to get looked at for a long time before I actually use it! This time I kept it very simple.

The image was stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder then coloured in with Spectrum Noir pencils. I added a little bit of grey shading to the candle to give it a rounded look. The mat was cut with a L'il Inkers die. The stamp is the latest Clarity Stamps club stamp.  After stamping and colouring it I decided it would work well as a sympathy card and these days I seem to need them more often. As well as Less is More I am also entering this into Darnell's 5th NBUS Challenge

and this time she has some fabulous sponsors.