A Sunset Fishing Scene - Masculine Card for Allsorts Challenge

Hello and welcome! It's time already for a new theme at Allsorts challenge, this time our challenge runs for 2 weeks over Easter as we know many of you will be busier than usual and will appreciate the extra time to join us. We have 2 fabulous prizes from Craft Stash to give away this time,  Woodware and AALL and Create stamps.

So for the next two weeks our theme is "Masculine". Hope to see you joining in! 

I decided to create a scenic card using one of my old Flourishes stamps. Unfortunately the company is no longer in business and I purchased this set off eBay a couple of years ago. This is my first time using it. The set is called Kids Play (or kids at play) and the only one I found online is on eBay UK but you never know... it might show up on eBay or Etsy here in the US at some point. 

To make my sky/lake I used a circle die as a mask then inked with  Antique Linen, Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves, Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Saphire Distress inks/oxides. I placed a post it note where I wanted the horizon to be and inked up the sky first. After removing the post it note, I inked up the water in a similar way, and also swiped my Chipped Saphire and Broken China ink pads across the "water". The silhouette image was stamped with Versafine Onyx ink using a stamp platform/positioner. At this point I had already removed the circle mask.

You may like these silhouette stamps:

The sentiment is a new one from Penny Black's newest release - Love Big. It may sound like a Valentine's set but it's not, instead it includes some great inspirational quotes so had to have it. 

My patterned paper came as part of a prize I recently won from entering DL.Art challenge. It came with a paper pack by Simple Stories. Thought this camera themed background paper was perfect to use here as it surely appears that this boy is enjoying a lakeside vacation. 

On the right side I added a notebook die cut. I've had this die for a looooong time from when I was part of the Whimsy Stamps design team, so it's no longer available. Before adhering to the card base, I tied some natural jute twine around the card.

Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you have a Happy Easter! I won't be posting next Saturday as this time the challenge runs for two weeks, but I will be back on the 18th with a new card. 

Products used:

• Stamps: Flourishes Kids at Play (no longer available), Penny Black Love Big
• Inks: Versafine Onyx, Antique Linen, Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves, Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Saphire Distress Inks/Oxides
• Papers: Bristol Vellum, 110lb Cardstock, Simple Stories Patterned Paper
• Tools: Stamp Platform, Whimsy Stamps Notebook die (retired), Ink Blending Brushes 

This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!

Linking up here:

Fab n Funky - Masculine // Mod Squad - AG // Double Trouble Challenges  - Create a Scene // Path of Positivity - Anything Positive Goes // Pammie's Inky Pinkies Challenges - AG // Crafty Calendar - Anything But Squares // 

Always Anything Goes:

Taylor Made Cards 4 U // 613 Avenue Create opt. twist watercolor // Creative Moments // Through The Craft Room Door // The Corrosive Challenges // A Bit More Time to Craft // A Perfect Time To Craft // Classic Design  Challenge * // Crafts Galore Encore // DL.Art Linky Challenge // Love to Craft // QKR Stampede // The Creative Crafters // World Wide Open Design Team Challenge // Lil Patch of Crafty Friends // 

Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday - April Challenge

Hello and welcome to Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday - April challenge taking place right here on my blog! I'm so glad you decided to stop by to check out the new theme and hope you'll join in too! There were some beautiful entries last month, thank you all for taking the time to link up with me, I so appreciate it and always enjoy visiting your entries! Be sure to scroll down to the end of the post to see if you were one of my March top picks!

This Month's Theme:

For the month of April I selected the theme of...............

Animals of Any Kind

image source

As always, the theme is for your inspiration (optional) and all crafty makes are welcome. This doesn't have to be a card, it can be anything creative as long as it's handmade by you! You can find the linky tool at the end of the post.

And here is what I made:

The cute stamp is an oldie from Penny Black (Easter Joy 1936K) and no longer in production. It may occasionally pop  up on eBay or Etsy but probably not many who own it want to part with it. It's just so adorable and fun to color too!

I stamped the image on Canson Montval watercolor paper using Versafine Onyx ink then colored with Zig Clean Color brush pens and a Zig Detailer watercolor brush. The butterflies were done with my new Butterfly die set from Penny Black (Soaring), after die cutting I used Distress inks and blending brushes to give them color. I added a strip of colorful striped paper from my stash and tied some green May Arts jute twine around the card. The Easter sentiment is another oldie from Penny Black. I finished off with some glitter on the butterflies and eggs, mounted onto a retired SU green card stock  and then a white card base.

You may also like these spring themed products:

I will link up here:

Four Seasons Challenge - Spring // Everybody-Art-Challenge - Chicken, Duck or Bunny// Just Us Girls - Egg // Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Easter // Paper Minutes - Easter // Unicorn Challenge - Animals // Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Easter // Path of Positivity - Animals // Pammie's Inky Pinkies Challenges - AG // Sweet Stampin - Use Your Older Stash (everything besides butterflies is years old)

Always Anything Goes:

Taylor Made Cards 4 U // 613 Avenue Create opt. twist watercolor // Creative Moments // Through The Craft Room Door // The Corrosive Challenges // A Bit More Time to Craft // A Perfect Time To Craft // Classic Design  Challenge * // Crafts Galore Encore // DL.Art Linky Challenge // Love to Craft // QKR Stampede // The Creative Crafters // World Wide Open Design Team Challenge // Lil Patch of Crafty Friends // 

Link Parties:

Encouraging Hearts and Home // Thursday Favorite Things // Little Things Thursday

This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!

Last Month's Top Picks

I will continue to add my favorites to the dedicated Pinterest board, but going forward I will once again showcase the Top Pick's creations with links to their individual blogs, which will be removed at the start of each new month's challenge to remain in compliance with GDPR.

Selecting just three is never easy but something that needs to be done and here they are listed in the order of entry.

No. 7 Elizabeth H.  

No. 12 Mummylade

No. 36 Carole J. 

Congratulations!! Well deserved recognition. Your Top Pick logo is below, feel free to post it to your own blogs if you like to :)

Can't wait to see what you will share this month!

A few things to remember:

• You may follow the theme or anything crafty goes.

• You may combine with any other challenges.

• You may use any brand of stamps/digis/products (no company restriction).
• No more than 3 entries per person please - no worries if you end up with more.
• Please do include a link back here to my blog in your blog post.
• Backlinking IS allowed.

Poppies and a French Script - Some of the Things I Love

It's the first Sunday of a new month and that means we  have a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month our theme is "I Love..." and you fill in the blank by showing us on your card or other crafty makes. Hope you will join us as we have 3 wonderful prizes kindly donated by Penny Black.

There are many things I love, today I am sharing that I love Penny Black stamps, Poppies and my very old French Script stamp which I do seem to use all the time (and I still have no clue what exactly the words are!!)

This gorgeous poppy (Brilliant) is from Penny Black's newest release and I just had to have it. Not that I needed another poppy stamp but they are such pretty flowers and I just love the art style of this one. It is rather large, this is an A2 sized card and I even trimmed some of the bottom off to make it fit. 

The background was done with Distress inks with a circle die cut as a mask for a moon (or bright sun). Next I stamped the image onto my new Canson Montval watercolor paper using Versafine Onyx ink then colored with Zig Clean Color markers. The blossoms were stamped a second time on the same type of paper and fussy cut after coloring. I decided to add a little more color to the blossoms so I used some Faber Castell Polychromos  pencils as well.

Related Products:

My French Script stamp is a very old background stamp from Stampin Up. I've unmounted it a long time ago as it's so much easier to use randomly on a card like I did here. I do love my wood mounted stamps and won't ever unmount most of those, but with a background stamp of this size it makes sense. The sentiment is one from another favorite set of mine, Penny Black's Snippet. A strip of dotted paper in black and white finishes off the card.

And below is a peek at our prizes. You have all month long to join us and remember you may enter up to 3 times with a different creation. As we are a stamping challenge stamping (traditional or digital) does need to be the focal point. Hope to see you there!

Thanks so much for visiting!

This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!

I will be linking up here:

• We Love Stamping - Stamp of the Moment (my new PB stamp)
• Penny Black Saturday Challenge - PB Stamps 
• Crafty Calendar - Anything But Square
• C.R.A.F.T. - Inspired by a Movie (Wizard of Oz... the poppy field)
• Krafty Chicks - AG 
• Just Add Ink - Choose Two from Flowers, Paper, Pattern (I chose flowers and french script pattern)
• Crafty Gals Corner - Flowers
• Simon Says Stamp - AG 

Link Parties:

• Sunday Showcase 
•   Inspire Me Monday
• Encouraging Hearts and Home
• Thursday Favorite Things
• Little Things Thursday

Whimsical Hares for Allsorts Challenge and March Card Chain Challenge Reveal Day

Hello and welcome!

I am sharing not one but two cards today as it's the start of the new Allsorts challenge as well as reveal day at the Card Chain Challenge and I am able to combine them in one post this time without causing too much confusion.

First up, at Allsorts our theme this week is Any Real Animal with Brenda filling in as our host. We have a wonderful prize from Lavinia Stamps so hope you will join in the fun, your animals can be cute or not but just be sure to include a real animal (as opposed to mythical creatures) to be entered into the drawing!

This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!

And here is my card using a new stamp set from Lavinia. I've had the Whimsical Hares on my wish list for some time and thought it's time to finally purchase the set. I think my dad will like these hares so I will send this card off to him. 

By the way, if you are in the US you can purchase Lavinia Stamps from Del Bello's Designs. If you shop through this link you should be able to get a $5 off coupon for your order as part of their referral program.

I used Lavinia Stamps: Whimsical Hares, Moon Pods, Lavender and Miniature Bee. They are all available at Del Bello's Designs. Of course if you are in the UK or rest of Europe you will know to get them directly at Lavinia Stamps.

Since it's an Easter card I tried to keep the colors on the lighter side and decided to stamp the hares in gray instead of black which I usually do with Lavinia animals and fairies. I'm not so sure though that I like the gray. But maybe it's because I used a Distress Oxide ink pad (Hickory Smoke) and I know those ink pads are not the best choice to use with Silhouette stamps. 

The background was done by using the negative of a circle die cut, inked with Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn and Picked Raspberry Distress inks and a homemade hill mask. I used a Flourish Stencil for a little interest inside the circle. 

By the way, there are a few Amazon sellers offering Lavinia Stamps as well, if you like the ease of using Amazon .... although I don't think they are included in their "prime" service. They are sold by private sellers including Del Bello's designs.
 

"Happy Easter" sentiment is an oldie from Penny Black, also stamped with Hickory Smoke ink. I decided to add a little more stenciling around the sentiment and stamped the Lavinia miniature bee in the same corner. 

I'm linking this 1st card up here:

• C.R.A.F.T.  - Inspired by a Movie (Hop)  
• Cardz 4 Guyz - Spring // 
• Everybody-Art-Challenge - Spring 
• Make My Monday - Use a Stencil 
• The Four Seasons Challenge - Spring 
• Critter Crazy Challenges - Critters 
• 2 Sisters On The Blog - pastels 
• Bastel-Traum - Spring 
• Country View Crafts' Challenge - Spring  
• The Crafting Challenge - Easter 
• Krafty Chicks - AG 
• Simon Says Stamp - AG
• The Male Room - Animals
• The Card Concept - see below (Inspired by the rabbits, think my card falls into the freestyle collage category, maybe...)

My second card is the card I made for the March Card Chain Challenge. This time my card went to Gundi in Germany. 

Once again we had some challenge options to choose from, there was a sketch, colors, themes, products/techniques. We can choose as many options as we like to but at least one and this time I went with the sketch and colors. At least I tried to with the colors.

Here is the sketch:

And this is my card:

These were the color options. I think I did pretty well although maybe I added too much purple...

The flowers I used are from Penny Black's set Sunny Wishes. 

 

I started out by die cutting some circles and using the "negative" as a sort of stencil I inked up the circles using a green Distress ink. Sorry but I didn't write down what ink color it was. Next I stamped the flowers directly onto the circles and first colored them all with my Faber Castell Pencils but the pink didn't turn out as I wanted it to (because there was green ink on the paper) so I decided to stamp the flowers again using Memento Tuxedo ink and this time I picked some Copic markers close to the pink in the color option given. I fussy cut the large flowers after coloring. 

I added some stenciling on the background using a  TCW Tiles stencil and Tea Dye Distress ink, then heat embossed the sentiment also using Tea Dye Distress ink with detail clear embossing powder. This beautiful sentiment is one from Stampin Up's retired set called Butterfly Basics.  I just love this sentiment and find the message of it full of hope and miracles. 

Before adhering to the base I inked the edges with Tea Dye ink then paper pierced. Glitter was added to the butterflies for a little bit of sparkle.

I have not yet received the card from my sender so wasn't able to photograph to share but it's on the way and I'm sure will be wonderful!

By the way, if you are a card maker and would like to join in this world wide card exchange, you can still sign up for the April challenge until April 6th. 

I'm linking this 2nd card up here:

1. Penny Black Saturday - Use PB stamps 
2. Sweet Stampin - Older stash (all stamps and tools I used are several years old) // 
3. Crafty Calendar - Anything but square 
4. Crafter's Cafe - Flowers  
5. Just Add Ink - Choose Two: Flowers, Papers, Pattern (I chose Flowers and Pattern - stenciled)

Thanks so much for visiting!

Link Parties:

• Encouraging Hearts and Home
• Thursday Favorite Things
• Little Things Thursday