Christmas Bears and Birdies

So here we are almost at Mid-Summer's day!  It was a grey old one for us and according to Alexa it was 85% humidity!  The sooner I get my fuzzy head sorted at the hairdresser the better ;)  Roll on July!

Anyway, I'm still in Christmas mode, so here's my MFT bears again.  This is version #2 - the first one just had a totally wrong colour theme going but I managed to get my central panel scraped off almost unscathed.  A couple of wee knife marks now hidden with some snowflakes!  I'm hoping for a wee visit to Hobbycraft soon as I'm down to the scrappiest scraps of this silver sparkly card.

• Layout from MFT Wednesday sketch #494
• Pixie's Snippets Playground #380
• Word Art Wednesday #444-445 - anything goes

This Tina Wenke stamp was another of my new purchases.  If I was colouring it again I think I'd do the little birdies a slightly lighter shade of brown, they're a bit lost here.  I added sparkle to the ribbon and fine glitter to the snow and then bigger glitter flakes to the berries, so there's plenty of sparkle!  I think I need a wee 'something' for where the sentiment panel meets the image, I might have a look for a wee holly image or something.

• Moving along with the times #119 - things with wings

Hippo Birthday

Here's a not-so-quick-quickie!  It started off just my hippo, circle and text and just looked too boring (I think it's because my DP is kinda drab), so I added in the hearts die.  Nope still didn't look right.  Added a couple of little punched butterflies.  Hmmm.  Had a root through my stash and found this corner die and that was just what it needed.  I think I'm happy now ;)
Hippo from Gerda Steiner coloured with watercolour pencils.  Clear gloss glitter added to the butterfly, the little heart and toenails.

I've a wee week off work now hurrah, I think the weather is to be half decent so we'll see.  Maybe I'll get the fence painted. Maybe not ;)

• Layout inspired by CAS(e) This Sketch #376
• Sweet Stampin - dies and punches
• Gerda Steiner Share your Designs June 2020
• Craftyhazelnut's patterned paper challenge June 2020

A foxy birthday

Ok so I'm using my tablet for this post and obviously it's designed to be used on modern software and not my dinosaur laptop! It's definitely a bit easier, but I do like to use a keyboard and mouse when I'm posting.  Maybe someday I'll bite the bullet and get a new laptop.

Sorry it's not a great photo of this card, if I remember I'll get my light out and take a better one.

I've used this cutie from Neat & Tangled, coloured with Polychromos. I discovered a really old embossing folder in my stash, it's just a narrow strip really.  Im  not sure why I haven't used it before  but I'll definitely be using it again, I love it!  I've also splattered some pale blue ink to the background but it doesn't really show well in the pic.

• 
  Layout from Freshly Made Sketches #439
• Word Art Wednesday #442/443 - anything goes
• Fab'n Funky #485 - creature feature

Christmas Bears

Oh dear, I'm not loving this new blogger interface!  Maybe it's just because my laptop is so old, but I don't see any editing toolbars at the top.  Might have to start trying to do these posts on my tablet.

I've been on the hunt for some stamps for this year's Christmas cards (and ended up blowing this year's crafty budget in the process!) and one of my purchases was these MFT winter bears.  I've tried to use up some of this DP from a never-ending unloved Christmas pad and made a little matching tag too.  I also bought some fine clear glitter, but when I add it to the gloss on his scarf it's not very sparkly, so that was a bit of a disappointing purchase.

• Christmas Kickstart #32 - care to tag along
• Craftyhazelnut's patterned paper challenge June 2020
• Your Next Stamp #140 - sparkle and shine
• Word Art Wednesday #442-443 - anything goes

A rainbow lion

Evening all, hope you're all well!  We've had a fab run of sunny weather here, but it's all going to change for tomorrow and it feels like we need a good rattle of thunder to clear the air.  A humid 25degrees is the very last thing my fuzzy hair needs!  Poor Rubydoo has just been spending her time searching for shade in the garden or digging out the border to get to the cool soil! Bad girl!  She's off to the groomers tomorrow, I dread to think how much dirt is going to come out of her! At least we'll get our moneys worth out of her haircut!  I'm tempted to ask him to have a go at my own LOL

This little Tracey Hey lion definitely looks like he's been at the hair dye ;)    Coloured with polychromos and some sparkle added to his headband and the markings on his face.  The die in the background is an oldie from Gummiapan that for some reason is seldom used.  My snazzy DP kinda does a lot of the work here and makes it look more complicated than it acutally is!

• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - anything goes
• Craftyhazelnuts patterned paper challenge June 2020
• Sweet Stampers #44 - animals/birds

Some Thank You cards

Hi All, hope everyone's fit and well.  I've been on the missing list recently as I had a request for 60 thank you cards and not much time to make them! I couldn't face doing them all the same, so I made 5 or 6 of each design... some were remakes of my own, some inspired by others I've seen in blogland and then the rest were 'brand new' creations.  I've been spending most of my evenings colouring and then the next night putting them together, I think I'm officially all Thanked out now! I reckon the purple text one in the bottom corner is my favourite.

I've a couple of days off work now and don't need to venture into the bedroom/office till Wednesday :) Our garden centres are now open so hopefully we'll get a wee visit as our borders are a bit sad looking at the minute.  Hopefully it will be less stressful than Tesco's!

Anyway, here's just a couple of the cards I've made...

For this one I used an oldie LOTV stamp, some snazzy DP and a bit of bling and that was all was needed!

• Layout inspired by Freshly Made Sketches #436
• The Flower Challenge #44 - monochrome
• As You Like it - favourite embellishment - that's an easy one, mine is bling!  I use it on most of my cards as it just gives that wee extra touch and have them in all sorts of colours and sizes! 

And here's a real quickie using an old Penny Black image.  I added some stenciling to the background and clear gloss to the snail's shell.  Unfortunately we have plenty of snails and even more slugs (yeuch) in our garden!  They'll be picking their lips waiting on these new plants coming ;)

• CASology #368 - plant
• Cute Card Thursday #635 - critters
• Word Art Wednesday #440-441 - anything goes

Apologies to all my buddies for my lack of visits, hopefully I'll be round for a wee visit soon, socially distant of course ;)

A wee drinkie anyone?

Friday already, so what's everyone's plans for the weekend? Nothing? Nope me neither!
No cocktails for me this evening, but I was inspired to crack the gin open so I've a nice big glass here with lots of ice sitting looking at me and I might push the boat out and have a bag of crisps too ;)

This is one of those nice-and-easy-and-faff-about-for ages type cards! I've used the drinks from MFT and added lots of sparkle to the drink and a bit of glitter to the fruit.  I think the sentiment die might be MFT as well.

• Layout from Inspired by - night night
• Sieze the Birthday #189 - food or drink
• Your Next Stamp #138 - lots of layers