Circles... well just one!

For the Christmas Challenge at Happy Little Stampers this month, the optional twist is to have circles somewhere or other!

I cut a circle from my front panel and looked through my stash of left over  backgrounds for something to put behind it. I came across this scrap of smooshed background which was just about large enough to put behind the aperture and the die cut trees. I played around with the die cut hillside of trees to see which part would look best in the space!

I decided on Gold for the sentiment to reflect a little of the gold glimmer in the background smooshing.

As always, I manipulated the front panel die by extending the cut a little in order to fit British card dimensions!  It's from a Simon Says Stamp double stitched rectangle set!

I love making Christmas cards year round as it's always great by December to have plenty of cards at hand.  I'm always amazed by how many designs I've forgotten about and  that's always a nice surprise!

Sentiment Only

The theme for the CAS Challenge at Happy Little Stampers this month is to simply have a sentiment with no other image!

I went for a bold look with a black card base and a gold die cut sentiment from Memory Box. I toyed with the idea of putting a smooshed background behind the circle but then thought that a few tiny stars might just do the job instead!

I think that this might be a design suitable for a chap!

Do join us with your CAS design!

Happy Birthday Handsome

 

Here is another contribution to the CAS Stencil Challenge.

This time I opted to use translucent embossing paste on dark card stock, with the addition of Gold Glamour Dust.

The stencil is from The Crafter's Workshop.
I thought that the image was a good choice for a chap, which is why I went with this sentiment which was a freebie from a magazine.
The twinkle on this image is really very pretty, but I'm afraid that my photographic expertise isn't sufficient to show it off to its full potential!

Our grandkids have arrived for the weekend so my crafting time is over for the moment!

Elephants

Queen of Bloggers, Darnell has another Twofer Challenge which this time is Zoo Animals.

  

I find these challenges really challenging... which is what they should be I guess.
Here I used some super cute images from Neat and Tangled. They give such a fabulously crisp image. I coloured the elephants with alcohol markers and so decided to cut them out because of colour transfer to the back of the card. 

The square card is to welcome a new baby and the rectangular one for an occasion such as Mother's Day or birthday... where the sentiment is computer generated. It looks to me as though either elephant could be speaking to the other!

The cut outs are mounted on dimensional pads after having finished the edges with an embossing tool to give a more softened look.

Here a little die cutting has been used. Welcome and balloon from Paper Smooches, thread from Memory Box and slatted heart from SSS.

We are just waiting for 2 of our grandkids to come back for the Easter Weekend and tomorrow we're hoping that we can join with the third one for the day! I love seeing them all together!