Nikki and serendipity

Last year (well, that's not so very long ago), I read something about the serendipity technique in an old craft magazine and I thought I might try that using some small scraps. I'm sure there's plenty of information on the Internet, but the technique basically means attaching small pieces of paper scraps to a large sheet and then cutting up the large sheet into squares or rectangles and using those to create a new project. The best results are achieved by combining colours in the same colour range, and it's also fun to stamp onto the large sheet before cutting it up (didn't do so on this project). Most of the scraps for this project are from a piece of gift wrapping paper with many hearts.

I coloured Flower for you Nikki (all cling stamps at half price until 31 Januaray) with Spectrum Noirs and attached it to the "serendipity square" that I matted onto a piece of purple CS. The ribbon and base card are  from my stash and the stamp is from the Clearly Hand-stamped set (Crafter's Companion).

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Penny Black and more - Love and hearts

Crafter's Companion - #20 Love is in the air

Simply Create Too - #5 Love is in the air

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Secret Crafter Saturday - #170 Ribbons

Winter is approachting

According to today's weather forecast, winter is approaching in Western Europe, which means that a lot of people in the Netherlands at least will start dreaming about long hours of skating fun. I sold my skates when I moved to Crete a few years ago, but my Bugaboo snowman is all set to go.

I coloured the image with Spectrum Noir pens and added some pearls (bronze Viva pearl pen) and some glitter glue. The image was cut out with a Nellie Snellen die and inked around the edge with Aged Mahogany distress ink (Ranger). The PP is from a very old paper pad. The swirls were cut out from white CS with my Silhouette and then inked in various ways until I finally achieved a satisfying colour, lol. They now have a deep burgundy/chocolaty colour. The ribbon comes from my stash. I took several pictures, but I couldn't catch the warm burgundy velvet of the ribbon in any way. Maybe I should have tried taking a photograph in the daytime.

The layout is based on this week's sketch over at Tuesday Morning Sketches:

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Sketch #130

Winter Wonderland - Swirls and pearls

Sir Stampelot - Monochromatic

Catch the Bug - Colour challenge

Secret Crafter Saturday - #170 Ribbons

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Under the tree

Woo hoo, another Christmas card in January. I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who already started working on this year's Christmas cards, even though it's still 335 days until Christmas, lol.

I always find it hard to break into a new set of papers, esp. if I like them so much and even more so if these papers are double-sided. Which side to use? For this card I decided to work with the BasicGrey Eskimo Kisses collection, which I've had for some time but have only used on one card so far. All material for this card comes from this BG set, except for the base cardstock (from my stash), the gems (bought at Lakeland's in Edinburgh a few years ago) and some very old Kars fibre. I used foam pads to add dimension to the tree and stopper stickers and highlighted the string of pearls in the tree, the white stripes of the stopper and the strip of PP at the bottom with Sakura glaze pens (white and transparent).

The layout is based on the sketch over at Jingle Belles

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:

CCAYR - Non-traditional colours

Winter Wonderland - Easel card

CCC - #8 Colouring (optional)

BasicGrey Challenges - #61 Favourite things (gems)

Papertake Weekly - Happy highlighting (tree, stopper, blue "berries")

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes