Meet Holly

I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and have recovered from all the indulgences of the season.

Ours was good if hectic with upwards of ten each mealtime but it was lovely to have all the family together for a few days.

I thought I would share a picture of what Santa bought........well she arrived today actually, we have called her Holly, she is a yellow Labrador, seven weeks old and seems to be making herself at home already.

I have been really good over Christmas and didn't even switch my computer on for a couple of days, not that there was too much spare time anyhow but as a result have lots of blogland catching up to do over the weekend.

Sarah at pretty Little Ribbons has a great sale under way on her web site here so do pop over and grab some bargains.

Have a good weekend everyone and everything going to plan I will be catching up with you all shortly.

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Happy Christmas

Good afternoon Peeps.

My share today is my mid month DT piece for Craft a Scene challenge and as our theme is 'Winter Scenes'  I thought it was a rather fitting card for my Christmas post to wish all my blog land friends...............

A Very Happy Christmas

and a

Healthy, Happy and Crafty New Year

I know lots of you will have activities planned over the seasonal period and wish you a wonderful time, but I am acutely aware that there are those not fortunate enough to either have or be near family and friends at Christmas and I hope your holiday period will be peaceful and contented.

It's as plain as black and white

It's yours truly's turn to host this weeks theme at Allsorts and I thought I would get right away from all things Christmas and go with the theme 'It's as plain as black-and-white'. 

This challenge will run for two weeks to give all of the DT a bit of a of rest and of course to give you all a bit more time to enter amongst all the Christmas activities. And as it's a two week challenge there are two prizes so double the chances of winning.

I eventually got my test results, pretty inconclusive apart from confirming I'm not gluten intolerant so ruled out coeliac disease but I am lactose intolerant.......... I could have told them that, I have been since I was nine months old. The GP look quite disappointed when I told him I already knew and hadn't drank milk since I was a baby.

They think it could be some sort of other food or drug intolerance and suggested too many tests to find out for my liking, so at the moment I am going to try listing medications I take, what I eat and so on and see if any pattern emerges. It's all very well playing their game, but it takes too much time for my liking and am hoping that if it was anything too sinister something may have shown up in the tests they've already done.

Back to my DT card and I always liked working in monochromatic colours and especially black and white and for my card I took a piece of gloss card stock, masked the edges and a moon and brayered with black Adirondack ink, gave it a quick coating of black Frantage and heat embossed. I did exactly the same with the butterfly and although the Frantage is much chunkier than normal embossing powder it does give a lovely lustre although you would never know from my picture would you. 

Enjoy your Saturday and hope to find a few moments to join in this fortnights challenge.

A rather blue Chrismtas

Morning everyone, just a mega quick post with my mind month DT pieces for Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More.

My top card has been masked to allow me to create the central scene using Penny Black 4004K Treescape which I stamped twice and added some little deers from Hero Arts K5524, a sentiment and ribbon to finish. The shading has been done with Pan Pastels.

This is one I forgot to post the other day when it went up onto the challenge blog so thought I would share it today as I so love the black Labrador taking charge of the house and snowy garden.............. as they do as anyone who knows Labradors will be more than aware.............. or I could just be honest and say they are plain nosey.

I had been looking for some nice silhouette dog stamps for ages and was thrilled when I found Andover Rubber Stamps, they make stamps of just about every breed of dog you can think of and were even kind enough to make this one as a special order without the oval which surrounded this particular image. They also made me a personalised stamp using the dog you see above for the back of my cards. The other stamps are Stampscapes and colouring and shading done with Pan Pastels.

And before anybody asks......................the above card is from our dogs to other family dogs, I needed several of these and the girls all added their personalised paw prints to the insides......am I mad........... most probably yes !! But it's a happy kind of madness. 

This is another made with the Three Tree Trio from our sponsor Visible Image, stamped very simply with green  archival ink and again some shading with Pan Pastels. The sentiment is Penny Black.

And a final piece using stamps from Chocolate Baroque and you got it.........Pan Pastels.

Have a good Tuesday everyone.

Oh Christmas Tree

Good morning Peeps and thank you for all your lovely messages about Alex's achievement yesterday.

At Allsorts Debs is right into the season with the theme of 'Oh Christmas Tree' and our sponsor this week is my good friend Ruth of A Passion for Stamps so of course I wanted to use one of her images and although her Topiary Tree is not the traditional Christmas tree, it is all dressed ready for Christmas complete with bow...............in fact it's not unlike the one by my front door although mine hasn't got any flowers on it. I coloured the image with watercolours, cut it out and mounted onto a Marianne die oval which I stamped randomly with a Stamp Addicts Christmas background stamp. The DP's are Kaiser Craft and I had to use the Marianne holly die............yet again.

And here's just one more using some of Ruth's beautiful new dies distributed by Tonic Studios, here I have used the Domed Window and Window Box sets, stamped a Penny Black image inside the window and embossed with Frantage aged hunter. The little flowers and leaves all come in the window box set and there are also some matching stamps available which work beautifully with the dies. I can't give you a link to them as yet as C & C had exclusivity on the products for the first month after their November launch, but I know the shops had them on order and I think should be generally available this week.

I hope you all have a good weekend and I imagine there's lots of Christmas preparations going on, but I hope you still find a little time to join in with this weeks challenge.

Rather exciting news

Good Morning crafty Peeps.

We received some rather exciting news yesterday which I am bursting to share but had to wait for it be be formally announced. One of our son's Alex..............the one I shared pictures of here when he did his Olympic volunteer stint and who is an addicted and totally motivated runner..........was entered into the "Runners World ASICS Target 26.2 - the ultimate marathon training and racing experience". 

There were 1,700 entrants, he was short listed to 40 who attended the Boot Camp a couple of weeks ago and heard yesterday he was a winner. So as you can guess we are pretty proud of him..............and we get to go to Paris as well, how good is that

He will be at Asics flagship London store on Sunday for the photo shoot etc., and to collect  the first part of his prize which sounds like rather a lot of running gear to me. In addition he will receive "expert coaching, physio, nutrition and sports psychology advice" and an all expenses paid trip and entry to the Paris Marathon in April and he is also running the Munich one the same month. 

Bad blogger here still I'm afraid, still awaiting on test results which should be back any time now, but needless to say the wait is not helping and I'm still feeling pretty ropey. I can't remember the last time I went a week and made only one card, dreadful admission I know.

The card at the top is one I made a while ago, but as it's Parisian thought it was fitting.

Have a good Friday and weekend.

Wild horses

Good morning Peeps, hope you had a good weekend and got a few things ticked off the Christmas 'to do' list. Welcome to my new followers, it's lovely to have you join in. 

Despite all good intentions I didn't get very much blogging done this weekend and even struggled with my DT rounds, really don't feel much like anything still I'm afraid, but I will get there eventually I'm sure and thankfully this post was already scheduled from here on.

Time for me to share my second DT pieces for Craft a Scene challenge where this months theme is simply 'Winter Scenes' and FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping where our theme is 'A Pocket Full of Posies'.

For my card at the top I stamped the Hero Arts image twice with black archival, but masked out the little deers as I wanted to add the horses instead which are an old Inkadinkadoo set which I've wanted for ages and one of my sons managed to source for me on e.bay recently. I added the colour with Pan Pastels and a little bit of glitter on the snowdrifts. The star is Hobby Arts.

My second piece uses several stamps from FlonzCraft stamped and embossed with detail copper onto a background created with distress ink......picked raspberry, tea dye and Victorian velvet which I spritzed with pearl glimmer mist. The bird and branch is a TH alterations die and the flowers are the same Flonzcraft image which I used around the edge and coloured with the same distress inks and glimmer mist then cut out and decoupaged.

I hope you all have a good Monday.

Glitzy Christmas

It's white and gold plus one other colour at Allsorts this week where the lovely Helene is our host.

Before I tell you about my card I want to say thank you for all your kind messages this week, I'm still not feeling brilliant and not been up to much crafting this week so I'm a bit reliant on 'here's one I did earlier'. I had lots more tests done yesterday, in some ways I am hoping everything confirms the GP's diagnosis of coeliac disease because at least a new diet regime should start to put things right and I'll know there is nothing more sinister going on........ the old mind over matter syndrome again.

So back to my card and I have to admit that gold is not a colour you see often in my crafting although no idea why I don't use it that often. But I enjoyed making this one with lots of gold Frantage both round the edges and on the image itself which is Penny Black 2808L Winter Glow. I find the silhouette style stamps take the Frantage really well and it gives them gorgeous texture. The background is another Penny Black favourite 40-169 which I stamped with Versamark and coloured with Pan Pastels..................... yep, I'm still loving them. The holly is a Marianne die which I embossed here and there with detail gold powder.

I hope you can join in our challenge this week and look forward to seeing your entries.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and manage to keep warm as it looks like being pretty cold and blustery here in the UK over the next few days.

Happy Christmas Candy

Much as I would love to send Christmas cards to all my blog friends, it's just not possible, so I thought instead I would do some Happy Christmas Candy, in fact two, one is mainly Timmy above and the other below a smaller collection of stamps flowers and ribbons.

To be in with a chance of winning all you need to do is:

* Pop the picture of the Timmy candy at the top of this post onto your sidebar.

* Be a follower of my blog......please don't join just for the candy because that's not fair on all the genuine Peeps and I will discount candy follower blogs when I draw the winners.

* Add your name to Inlikz below.

I will draw the winners on 4th January.

Good luck everyone. 

A touch of fantasy

Good Morning crafty Peeps, hope your week is going well.

I think I am finally shifting the dreaded flu and my sugar levels seems to have stabilised, but it seems there's always something new on the horizon and yesterday my GP told me I have coeliac disease, so I came away with yet more pills and it looks like I need to go on a sharp dietary learning curve. Never a dull moment !

I'm not at work today and plan to have a bit of a stamp sort out, I've always kept my stamps stored according to make but it's getting to the stage where my trees warrant a draw their own............ well I'm always the first to admit that I'm a treeaholic.

But before I make a start on my tree reorganisation, I have a couple of cards to share with you. Both are coloured with Pan Pastels, the top one has a mixture of stamps from Penny Black, Inkylicious and Lavinia and the bottom one are all Chocolate Baroque stamps from an Oriental set.

Hope you have a good day and is always many thanks for taking the time to pop in and say hello.

Ribbons and lace

Good morning Peeps, hope everyone had a good weekend and those of you brave enough to attack Christmas shopping had a fruitful trip and didn't get too jostled around by the crowds.

I got a little news to share and you could call it another of my moments of madness, I know it does seem to happen quite often with me, but when Sarah from The Pretty Little Ribbons Shop asked me if I would join her design team it took me a nano second to say "oh yes please". I've always loved her products and buy far more ribbons than I ever need, but that's half the fun isn't it ? 

So today I'm sharing my first DT piece for this months Pretty Little Ribbons challenge where we have the totally seasonal theme of 'Christmas', along with my DT piece for this months FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping challenge where my lovely teamie Claire have chosen the theme of 'A Pocket Full of Poses', right up my street.

Despite working away at Christmas cards for what seemes like an eternity................ would you believe I started making them for Create and Craft for Stamp Addicts programmes in May.................... I still need one the two more, especially those special ones so the card at the top for Pretty Little Ribbons gave me the perfect opportunity to get another one made.

The main image is Penny Black but it's a quite small stamp so I stamped it once to the right and then lined it up and stamped half of it a second time to extend the scene if that makes sense. Simple colouring with Pans Pastels, a Stamp Addicts star and Lavinia stag and a couple more tiny trees. I'm not sure of the make of DP as it's a left over from last year, but I think it's BoBunny. The rich blue seam binding is of course from Pretty Little Ribbons as are the two pearl pins which I coloured with Copics. The pinecones and leaves are a TH alterations die.

My second card above is my Vintage offering using the gorgeous etched rose stamp from Flonz Craft which I coloured with distress markers and spitzed with water before stamping onto a piece of Fabriano watercolour card. The DP's are BoBunny, a piece of embossed coredinations for the base and Marianne die cut roses. The butterfly die is Magnolia and as I said last week as close as I get to a Tilda.

I really hope you'll be joining in with our challenges, there are some fabulous prizes to be won at both.

More trees

Good morning to all my crafty friends, it doesn't seem possible that these are our last monthly challenges of 2012, so where did the year go ?

It appears that all of my DT pieces are rather scenic........... yet again I hear you say, but unless I've got a clear directive I always seem to revert to my comfort zone of creating little scenes with a good few trees thrown in for good measure.

The good thing is I think some of this months themes can be quite easily combined so hopefully I'll see you popping up at several of the challenges this time around.

The top card is my DT creation for Penny Black and More challenge where we have the theme 'It's Your Choice' and it's really quite a simple make, a piece of card stock masked top and bottom, Pan Pastels blended with a masked sun and over stamping in black archival with Penny Black stamps........... all listed on the picture thumbnail links below.

My next piece is the first of my Stamping Sensations DT piece where our theme is 'TreeMendous'........it's not as scary as it sounds as I think everyone has a Christmas tree stamp lurking somewhere..........using the Three Tree Trio from this months sponsors Visible Image who sell a fabulous range of good quality clear stamps. Some soft shading with Pan Pastels, a touch of snow glitter and a Lavinia stag stamp.

The card above is this month DT piece for Craft a Scene challenge, again soft sponging with Pan Pastels, some trees and the little cottage is from this month sponsor Robyns Fetish. 

Phew, nearly there this is my second piece for Stamping Sensations using a gorgeous large tree from Chocolate Baroque, smaller tree which is Stampscapes as is the fence and the little sheep are from Art Impressions which I gave a fluffy coat with liquid applique.

And finally just one more....................... yep, I could make tree cards all week and this is another one using the Three Tree stamp from Visible Image, this time embossed with Frantage plus some more around the edge of the base layer. The white trees were embossed with detail clear and then the whole piece distressed with TH mowed lawn, tea dye and a little over stamping round the edges with some music and holly stamps.

Enjoy your Sunday and thank you so much for dropping by.

Advent

A very good morning to everyone, hope you all had a good week.

So so sorry I've been MIA most of the week, I've been right under the weather with this dreaded flu and as an added bonus it's thrown my sugar levels all over the place as infections tend to do and I've not felt up to doing much at all.

Thankfully most of this post was already scheduled to tell you about our new challenge at Allsorts which has been chosen by the lovely Jo who has selected the very fitting theme of 'Advent'.

My top card is another of the samples I made for a Stamp Addicts Create and Craft TV show. I really love working with the silhouette images, they need so little work apart from a little colour here and there which I added with Pan Pastels. 

My second share is using Christmas Winston from this weeks sponsor DigiStamp Boutique which I paper pieced using Kaiser Craft DP's and added some snow glitter here and there.

Have a lovely weekend everybody and I really hope you will be able to join in our challenges.

Yet more poppies

Good morning everyone, I've been a bit missing from blog land for a few days as I'm struggling with the dreaded flu and as it is normally the case my compromised immune system means it takes me forever to shake it off. So apologies I've been rubbish at visiting lately, hopefully I will feel up to it in a day or so.

But I do have a couple of shares for you, more of the samples I created for the Create and Craft show with Stamp Addicts this coming Thursday at 4pm and 7pm. Don't forget to watch out for the show as I know there will be lots of inspiration from Sarah and Vicky.

Apart from the coredinations die cut frame and swirl and a bit of sanding down, I did little more to the top card as the poppies which I coloured with Copics says it all. The poppies around the side were made using the TH tattered floral die.

It seems ages since I made an easel card so I thought it was time I did, stamped music randomly on the background then stamped the poppy and coloured with Pan Pastels. The base has the smaller poppy stamp which is part of the set stamped with versafine and dusted with the same colour Pans. Some ruffled ribbon, the same swirl and a Magnolia butterfly............... and that is as close as I'll ever get to a Tilda.

Hope you have a good Tuesday.

Troubled skies

It is time for me to share my second piece for the month at Craft a Scene challenge were our theme is troubled skies. 

There are lots of ways you can depict a troubled sky, but for me it immediately said lightning, initially I found it difficult to get the lightning to show up but after the fourth type of white pen it eventually worked reasonably well.

Stamps used are a mixture of Art Impressions, Andy Skinner, Inkylicious, Chocolate Baroque and Memory Box and all colouring and shading has been done with Pan Pastels. 

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everybody.

Bring on the bling and winners

It's all about glitter and sparkle at Allsorts challenge is week where the theme is 'Bring on the Bling'.

I'm not really big into bling and the closest I usually get is a few gems down the thorax of a butterfly although I do rather like my Frantage which I guess is blingy in its own way so that's the basis of my card, along with stamp from this weeks sponsor Flonz Craft.

I stamped the vintage birds and embossed with detail clear and place them inside a spellbinder die from the Chateaux Gates set. I randomly added Frantage around the frame and also the background piece which I also stamped with Baroque corners also from our sponsor. The great thing about Frantage is you can't really go wrong with it in fact the more random is the better it looks. The branch is a TH Alterations die as are the pinecones.

And as promised the four people who have won a set of the beaded pins in my post last weekend:

Eline -Elines Blogg

Laura - Lozadoodle

Lorraine - Colwaters 2

Cebelica - My Little World

Congratulations to your all, please mail me with your full names and postal addy so I can send you gifts off to you.

Have a lovely weekend everybody.

Poppy Passion

Good morning everybody.

Thank you for your very kind comments about my Pan Pastel Q & A post earlier this week and pleased some of you found it useful. I was a tad thrilled to receive a mail from Pan Pastels themselves asking if they could use it on one of their mixed media artist sites, so I figure it must be OK. I think I've answered all your e.mails about them, but if I have forgotten anybody just give me a dig in the ribs to remind me. 

I fully intended sharing a few more cards that I made yesterday using Pans, but the weather has been so atrocious it's been impossible to get decent photos as even in the middle of the day it's been like midnight. So instead here are a couple of samples I made for Stamp Addicts next programme on Create and Craft TV a week today, that's 29 November at 4pm and 7pm.

I've actually had the stamps a few weeks as Sarah gave them to me when I did my last demo there and it's been so hard keeping the poppies in particular under wraps, you know how much I love my poppies and I know it's a passion shared with lots of my crafty friends, so I'm taking no blame if you 'have' to buy them.

The card at the top of my post has been simply stamped twice with black archival ink and coloured with Pan Pastels, Bo Bunny DP. seed beads in the centre of the poppies and some ribbon and bow to embellish.

The second card is a bit of inky indulgence, background stamping, colouring with watercolours and rather a lot of Frantage around the edges, I think this one is Aged Spice. I also threw in a Tim Holt's clock die cut from coredinations and sanded down.

Have a good Thursday and many thanks for dropping in to see what I'm up.