Crafty Retreat

I've just had a lovely weekend at a fairly local Stampin' Up Crafty Retreat with a Christmas theme.  A place came up early last week on Facebook and, despite not knowing anyone going, I decided to go.  What a lovely, friendly group of crafters they were!  It was quite a small group of about a dozen or so which made it  easy to get to know everyone.  We stayed in a little hotel for the weekend and the staff made sure we were well fed!  This is a photo of everything I made, which included another 12 cards to add to my pile of Christmas cards.

The bottles are for display purposes only! 😉

Autumn

A CAS card today, to join in with a few challenges.  I thought this card would be particularly suitable to send to a man.

My card used dies from two Tonic sets and a sentiment from HLS 'Doodled Flowers' set of stamps.  The branch and acorn were die cut using snippets of different shades of brown card.  I used Distress Inks to randomly cover a sheet of white card, before die cutting the leaves.  The leaf die cuts out the veins, so I inked a piece of white card with brown Distress Ink, cut the veins again and inlaid them.  The sentiment is stamped using Versafine 'Onyx Black'.

I am joining in the following challenges:

1. Allsorts Challenge Week 488 ~ Trees and/or Leaves

2. HLS October Anything Goes with Dies Challenge

3. W2CB #58 ~ October Eves

4. MAWTT  Challenge #82 - For A Man

5. Less is More Challenge #381 - Guest Designer CASE Card

This is LIM GD's card I've CASE'd.

Twofer Harvest

As one of the recent winners of the Geometric Twofer Card Challenge, I was delighted to be invited by Darnell to be a Guest Designer for this month's Twofer Card Challenge.  The theme is 'Harvest' which can be interpreted as anything reflective of the fall season: bountiful crops, pumpkins, scarecrows, crinkling leaves, hot apple cider, etc.

For my cards I settled on an old Art Impressions wood mounted scarecrow stamp which I bought on eBay many years ago.

The image is stamped with Memento 'Rich Cocoa' and coloured with Promarkers.  The background is embossed with a Creative Expressions 'Zig Zag Squares' embossing folder.  Three punched leaves finished off my card.

I made an 'Impossible Card' for my second card.  The image was stamped with the same ink pad and again coloured with Promarkers.  The carrots were stamped with a stamp from the Woodware 'Hoppy Bunny' set, coloured with Promarkers and popped up on foam pads to add some dimension.  The patterned papers are from an A4 paper pad, but I'm not sure of the brand. 

This is the side view of the card.  I altered the standard measurements slightly to make the image part slightly taller than usual. 

The Twofer Challenge is open until the 24th October and I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone interprets this theme with all their beautiful creations.

I am joining in the following challenges with this card:

Addicted to Stamps Challenge #167 ~ Autumn Colours

Penny Black and More October Challenge - Autumn Splendour

Double 'D' Challenge ~ Scarecrows and/or Pumpkins

Stamping Sensations October Challenge ~ Shades of Autumn

Moving Along with the Times Challenge #81 ~ Autumn/Fall

Allsorts Challenge Week 488 ~ Trees and/or Leaves

Horsey, Horsey!

A birthday card for my great niece.  I can't believe she's 10 years old already!!  She loves horses and as she's past the fairies and princesses stage I wanted to include a horse.

   At the top of the cream card base, I attached a strip of embossed cream card from my snippets box.  I used a Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die with green card, which I attached over the embossed background.  I added the name with Memory Box 'Parker Alphabet' dies, cut twice and layered to add some dimension.  I didn't have a suitably sized horse die, so I use a Sweet Dixie 'Fairytale Coach and Horse' die.....

.....and snipped off the carriage.  The horse was a perfect size and I inlaid dark brown little pieces in the mane.  Everything, apart from the card base, was snippets so I'll be off to share my card in the Playground.  While I was making the card, I couldn't get the children's song 'Horsey, Horsey, don't you stop....', out of my head.  It was a song my Dad often used to sing to me when I was little.

I am joining in the following challenges:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #336 ~ Use Snippets

Crafty Friends Challenge Challenge #94 ~ Use More Than One Die

Alphabet Challenge ~ N is for Nature - Horse

Create and Inspire Challenge  #77 ~ Anything goes/ optional inspired by a song