Woodland Wonders Birthday

Another birthday card to share today and I really enjoyed making this one with these wildlife wonders that  I carried the scene into the inside of the card.

It's also the start of our blog challenge at Let's Craft & Create and the theme for this month's challenge is to use your punches/dies in your project. As with all our challenges, they are also ATG. 

I have been finding 7 x7" cards a better size card for me to work with when I have to think about sending it in the post as I know that I can make an envelope using my 12x12" card, which just makes it a lot easier.

I used my Dreamees chalk dinky inkies to create the background on the white stamping card base and the cloud stencil from the Dreamees Treasured Stencils set with structure paste.

I die cut the Dreamees Essential Tree die from a piece of their chocolate card that I had leftover from another project and the little flowers from red card. This die set also comes with tiny leaves and little autumn leaves, to cover all the seasons.

The Heartfelt Hedgehogs is another favourite stamp set of mine, retired now and these adorable critters have been stamped onto some Neenah desert storm card that I found, now that was a lucky find!

The young lad I made this card for loves his animals and I have made him a few animal cards in the past and my Dreamees stamps have always been perfect for these cards.

I felt that there was more that I could add and make this birthday card into a picture card. so added the stamps from the Dreamees retired Winter Woodland set. It has the most adorable owl and the squirrel reminded me of the one that visits my garden and hangs upside down on my bird feeder to get the sunflower seeds out..... The same squirrel that has chewed all the features of my wicker owl's face and left it with just a wonky eye ha ha.

I have coloured all these in with promarkers. I needed a tree for the squirrel to throw the acorns down at the owl so used one of the stamps from another retired stamp set Mischievous Monkeys.

A lovely blogger by the name of  Mamawcindy commented about trying to make use of stamps that she had forgotten about and had started making cards with again.  I have been trying to do the same. New products come out all the time as crafting styles, ideas, and inspiration flows and changes, which are difficult to resist at times but I do actually stop and think if I really need it.

Our design team have also been busy this month with projects of their own and there is always lots of fabulous inspiration shared by the crafters on our blog too. If you are interested,  there is a prize for the winning entry, following our theme, and a badge for your blog for the top 3 runners up. Just click on the link below which will take you to our blog challenge. 

Happy Crafting

Festive knit card

Today's card on my blog is the second of the festive card in preparation for the Christmas season and with the last blog challenge of the year for us at Let's Craft and Create we celebrating it with a traditional festive theme.

When I made my card, I had just received my new Autumnal embossing folder by the Dreamees  - cable knit. These 6 x6 3D embossing folders leave a lovely embossed detail to the card and I think this embossing folder is going to be my new favourite as it can be used with so many projects throughout the year.

On my 300gsm card base, I used sage card from the Dreamees followed by some rich colour core red card from my stash, saving the 250gsm cream colour core card for the top. The design of the folder resembles my jumper, so I got the idea to thread a piece of wool through the card to make it look as if the robin was pecking it. (probably not the best choice of colour to photograph).

I used the Little Red Robin stamp set from last Christmas and coloured this little fellow in with my Dreamees watercolour pencils. Adding a little foliage from a mix of a few more past stamps from the Dreamees, the Fall & Foliage leaves stamps and an acorn from the Winter Woodland stamp set. 

I stamped the holly leaves using the Sketched & Shaded Pointy flower stamps using the sparkle 2nd gen dinky inkys in crocodile but as my card is quite dark, it's not very visible in the picture. 

The sentiment has been heat embossed with white embossing powder using one of the sentiment stamps from the Santa Paws stamp set and I have also used the smallest oval dies from the Dreamees Loops & Lace die set.

I had some stitched red ribbon that matched my red card that was just right to sit behind my holly. 

No flowers on this card and I have deliberately kept this one quite simple. As I have a love of nature and I feed the robins that nest in my garden all year round, it seemed very apt to finish this year's challenge including one on my card.

Our design team have also been busy this month with projects of their own and there is always lots of fabulous inspiration shared by the crafters on our blog too. If you are interested,  there is a prize for the winning entry, following our theme and a badge for your blog for the top 3 runners up. Just click on the link below which will take you to our blog challenge. 

Happy Crafting