Pinspired - Stable Door birthday card

There's probably a more correct name for this - but to me it's a stable door!  The original Pin is here.

Quite tricky to photograph so the full effect can be seen!
I cut an A4 piece of cardstock in half lengthwise, scored at the centre and then carefully cut the top half of the card front off.  Then I used some paper from a 6" pad for the inside and the front, being careful to line up the design so both panels matched.
The flowers are from SU, stamped and punched out.  The card actually sat in my 'to be finished' box for a while, because I couldn't find a stamp which felt right for the sentiment.  Obviously I don't have enough sentiments, after 24 years of stamping....... Hah!!!  Then I was having a bit of a sort out and came across this Woodware one, there are two big stamps in the set and this one looked best. It's now permanently in the stamp bags which comes to every crop with me - can't believe I had forgotten about it!
I really like this, it's a little different and I think it could be adapted quite easily to masculine cards - I'm sure I have just a few cogs and gears stamps just lying around...... LOL.

The same, yet different .....

For these two cards, I used the same stamp, the same inks and the same colour mat.  The difference is that one is stamped on white card and the other on ivory :-)

The image is from Woodware, called 'going to seed', I believe.  It's one of my new favourites!  The background spatters are a Seth Apton stamp and the sentiment is from Stamping all Day.

I'm not sure which version I like best - they both look very effective.

Christmas cards, first batch!

Yes, it's the dreaded C-word...... the first batch made this year, I think.

I made four of these, from one sheet of 12 x 12 paper (Bo Bunny).  I didn't want to clutter up the beautiful background, so kept it very simple with a sentiment tag, stamp is from Stamping all Day.

I like this way of using a busy background, so now I need to dig into my Christmas paper stash to see what other similar papers I have :-)

Distress Oxide birthday cards

I have finally caught up with photographing everything I have made over the last few weeks :-)  These cards are done with Distress Oxide backgrounds.

I used foam blending pads to apply the inks through a stencil, definitely gives a better effect than using a stencil brush.  Then I ran into my normal problem with creating backgrounds - I didn't want to cover it up!!  So I went with a simple die-cut sentiment, but that didn't really stand out from the background.  In the end I matted onto the same colour cardstock as the die-cut and cut a stitched circle as a base for it.  I am really pleased with the effect :-)

The second card is a blended background, over-stamped with a Woodware seedhead stamp in black.  Then I cut into three panels, matted onto black and punched out a sentiment strip.  I am not entirely happy with this one - I think the black mat is a bit harsh and maybe I should have used the same blue as the other card!!!  But it's OK :-)
More experimentation to come!