The challenge at As You See It is: Challenge #354 – Dining Al Fresco. These days I’m not into sitting on beaches or on the ground in parks so I chose to keep my design as a more refined way to be outside. It is also our 45th anniversary tomorrow, which we both find hard to believe. I may give this card to my hubby which will make him laugh. Why? Well we usually forget our anniversary on the actual day and it has become a joke between us.

As it happened, I had this frame already cut on my desk because my original thought was to make a tablecloth and add things to it and I had the paper ready. After pulling it out various stamp sets I couldn’t find anything I liked that worked with what I had in my mind so instead I die cut the paper into this frame. Didn’t have time yesterday to do more but today I found this image and decided it would work. The stamp set used is from GKD and I stamped in black and then heat embossed clear. I added the birds by hand after sponging a bit of ink to give the look of sky. The sentiment is from a small YNS set and I cut it with an Infinity Oval from Hero Arts. Went around the edge with a marker and added the tiny heart. The corner hearts are the fallouts that I coloured solid red added a touch of glitter and Nuvo drops for dimension.

I’m actually pleased that I went in this direction rather than with what my original idea, as it has worked quite well and the card is more CAS. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate you and your time.

Dawn has chosen the theme Scenic, for our latest challenge here at cardz4galz. You can create your own scene or use a topper/paper image as you wish.

As I’m playing with my latest items that came as a birthday gift from my hubby, I decided to use one of the die sets in the kit. This is from Spellbinders called Deckside Dreams. It is a cool set. I used mainly oddments of scrap CS for my ship. The background is done with a StampinUp folder, the wave seafoam is from Kokorosa, the fish is a Gummiapan die, sentiment from Spellbinders and the sun is from an unnamed stamp set that I fussy cut. The little seagull uses a hack from Jennifer McGuire that she demonstrated, and it worked so well.

To be honest the fish was added to cover up a small smudge on the ships hull. I had some issues with gluing the stripes and must have gotten some glue there accidentally. Years go I would have freaked to have something like this, today, its a shrug my shoulders event, and what can I do to hide the booboo?

I’m rather pleased with my little scene and love the dimension this die set creates. It was fun to make this one. I look forward to seeing your ideas in the gallery over the next 2 weeks. Have fun.

Thanks for joining me today, I appreciate you and also your time.

Every once in a while a challenge comes up that I already have something done that will work. The current one at Double D is one of those. Their challenge is Bee Happy Challenge and I had been playing with decoupage a while back and had this little image all ready to go. Even the oval was cut as it was left from another project. All I had to do was put things together in a pleasing arrangement.

I used a scrap piece of CTMYH CS that was slightly damaged for my background as it reminded a little of the honeycomb. I used a stamp from an unbranded set to add the sentiment and stamped it onto a piece of CS that I had used to mop up leftover ink. Also used one of the tiny bees in its corner. The 2 bees on the gold piece are transfer stickers and I added the 3 hearts, I think by StampinUP, for interest. Dies used are Hero Arts infinity ovals and a mixed edge rectangle by Essentials. The decoupage is from a kit from Crafters Companion.

Considering how busy I seem to be this week, getting this card done and posted is a nice bonus for me. Thanks for stopping by, you and your time are greatly appreciated.

Our challenge recipe #197 at Double Trouble is to use the spotlight technique. Image following shows the recipe.

The stamp I used is an old unmounted rubber stamp from an unknown source. The square scalloped edge die is from LawnFawn and the small circle is a Sizzix set. Sentiment is from a dollar store Forever in time set. I coloured the image using watercolour pencils using 3 colours, Pink, green and yellow. The tiny gems are from Spellbinders. I used foam tape behind the focal image to lift it from the rest. I think this is a simple but effective card.

We hope you have fun joining in with your own creations and look forward to seeing them in our gallery.

Thanks for spending time with me today. I appreciate both your time and any comments you may leave.