Rainbow Flower

I love the theme of this week's Wednesday challenge over at Simon Says Stamp - Showers and/or Flowers and had fun today playing along with the challenge. For my card I decided to have silver sequins representing the rain and, as a rainbow is always a great bonus after a shower, made a rainbow background for the card.

Dies - Tudor Rose Collection (Spellbinders), Curvy Leaves (Elizabeth Craft Designs) and Thanks Stamp & Cut (Hero Arts)

I started by applying distress inks (barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, mowed lawn, salty ocean and shaded lilac) to white card, spritzed with water and repeated the process. Once I was happy with the background I matted it top and bottom with black card and adhered it to a white card base. As the background was so colourful I decided to die cut my flowers and leaves from white card. When the flowers were layered, I added a silver sequin to the flower centre.

The sentiment was die cut twice from black card and layered for some dimension. A sprinkling of silver sequins finished the card.

Scrappy Happy Weekend

Over the weekend I continued with the plan to use up more of my card and fabric scraps to make some more cards. I got a bit carried away and made the following four cards plus blocks to go on future cards.

I forgot to take photos of my scraps before I started and I've completely used up some of the patterned paper scraps but I had a little bundle like this put together at the start of the weekend with fabric, card and even envelopes from bills.

My favourite die from WPlus9's Quilt Cuts 2 set is the star die and I used it and the inlaid die cut technique for all of my cards. For the first two cards I used some rainbow coloured fabric which I had left over from a quilt I made years ago.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Scalloped Squares (Spellbinders), Tags & Bookplates (Docrafts)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

Die - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9)
Stamp - It's Your Day (Hero Arts)

I love greens and blues so I have loads of scraps in these colours left over from other projects. In my stash of plain card scraps I have lots of kraft and white so used a combination of patterned and plain scraps to make the following cards.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Scalloped Squares (Spellbinders) and Thanks Stamp & Cut (Hero Arts)

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp) and Tags & Bookplates (Docrafts)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

Whenever I can I like to use recycled materials on my cards and now, thanks to the blue and white patterned insides of envelopes which came with bills, I have some blocks lined up for another card. At least there's some upside to bills;)

Ruffled Flowers

I was sorting out my woodblock stamps and came across a flower I love but haven't used in a while. Since I needed to make a couple of cards I embossed the flowers four times, trimmed them to the sizes I wanted and applied distress inks (dried marigold for the first card and a mix of shabby shutters, salty ocean and tumbled glass for the second one).

Stamps - Ruffled Flower (Hero Arts) & It's Your Day (Hero Arts)
Dies - Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp) & Tags and Bookplates (Docrafts)

The background for this card was made by dragging a Hero Arts mint to green ombre ink pad across white card a few times. After cutting the background into panels I used a die from Simon Says Stamp's Bundle of Stitched Shapes to add the stitch lines. The sentiment was embossed in gold on a die cut from Docrafts Tags and Bookplates die set. A little sparkle was added to the flower with diamond stickles and some gems. I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp's Ombre Challenge.

For the next card I used up scraps of silver glitter card I had left over from making Christmas cards. I just cut strips of the card to go behind the flower and used it for the die cut sentiment too.

Stamp - Ruffled Flower (Hero Arts)
Die - Thanks Stamp & Cut (Hero Arts)

A sprinkling of sequins and gems were added for a little sparkle.

Polar Thanks

I couldn't wait to get my hands on Hero Arts' adorable Polar Set from the Lia Griffith collection. How could I resist a set that includes lots of cute polar creatures along with accessories and other fun images?

To start with I made the background for the penguin by dragging a Hero Arts ombré (mint to emerald green) ink pad across a panel of white card. Once this was dry I added it to my card base and die cut and stamped the sentiments.

Stamps & Die (Hero Arts) - Polar set by Lia & Thanks Stamp & Cut

After stamping and cutting out the penguin and ice floe, I coloured the images with Promarkers. Then to add some sparkle to the floe, I added a coat of diamond stickles to the upper part and covered the whole piece with a layer of glossy accents.

I'm submitting this card into the Happy Challenge over at A Blog Named Hero as this cute little penguin stamp makes me smile and Simon Says Stamp's Use a Stamp Challenge.