All in the sentiment and Saturday candy

Today it's my turn to host the challenge at Allsorts and I have chosen the theme 'It's all in the sentiment", there are some wonderful inspirational quotes and sentiments available which I love using on my work and hope you will join in this week and show us your favourites.

Our sponsor this week is Nicecrane Designs who I wrote about earlier in the week and I am having great fun working with their latest products. There are links to all the products I have used in the thumbnails at the bottom of the post so you can check out for yourself these and all the other lovely designs.

The top card uses what I think is my all time favourite Penny Black quote which I have simply stamped onto some Teresa Collins DP, a nestie frame and two decoupaged butterflies from Nicecrane Butterfly Twinches sheet.

This second piece is the result of a bit of a play with the Cricut Mini yesterday, the frame and base card being one cut on the machine laid over an image from the Harrison Fisher ladies sheet and another Penny Black image. Some Cheery Lynne leaves and rose made from the Tonic Rose punch and stamp set.

And my Saturday candy is back and this week I have a little collection of nautical inspired crafting goodies to be won, as it's a few weeks since I ran this as I had my Cricut candy running I will quickly run through how it works...............

• Add the Saturday Candy logo to your sidebar
• Be a follower of my blog
• A random winner will be selected from all comments left on my blog between now and Friday, so two comments during the week two chances of winning and so on.
• The winner will be announced next Saturday

I also have another little share using ore of Igancio's images as he asked me a few days ago if I could cerate a collection of bookmarks with his images.

I made these using images from the Victorian Young Ladies, Harrison Fisher and Ladies Hats sheets, such beautiful quality and clarity and for someone like me who can't colour in for toffee absolutely perfect. You can find them here or follow the thumbnail links below.

That's it for today Peeps and hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Victorian Christmas

Morning all, it's a bright and sunny morning here in the Fens again, not over hot but nice and comfy for working.

Now I know this is not the normal me here, but sometimes I like to go a bit girly and this image from Ignacio's of Nicecrane Designs new Victorian Young Ladies sheet really appeals to me and I could instantly visualise a Christmas card using this image.

It's also a first for me to make Christmas cards so early other than those for TV and sample boards, so I think now I have started I really should keep the momentum going and I just might avoid the late November panic.

So to make my card I printed and cut her out and laid her over the Domed Window frame from Ruth's Pick of the Bunch collection which I then layered over a piece of Graphic 45 with a Christmas carol. The poinsettias are also from the same Tonic collection punch and stamp sets and the holly leaves and swirls are Cheery Lynn.

I also have another one using Ignacio's Butterfly Twinchies. I have to admit I wasn't too happy with this one, but he saw it on my Pinterest board and asked me to blog it so here it is. The main butterfly has been printed and decoupaged with three layers, they do lend themselves to this so well, then a smaller one for the base of the easel card. I used the Timmy butterfly border for the top edge and shaded with Pan Pastels, did a little stamping behind the main image and finally printed a couple more butterflies on a small print template, so altogether there are four different ones on this card all from the same image sheet.

Thanks for taking a look and as always I really appreciate your kind comments.

Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Hello all you crafty Peeps, I hope you are enjoying the bank holiday weekend, the weather is a bit of a mixed bunch but at least it's still fairly warm.

A while ago a lovely man called Ignacio invited me to join his design team, it's taken me a while but after he sent me his beautiful butterfly images I didn't need much persuading and I'm very proud to say I am now part of the team at Nicecrane Designs. He is a talented artist and graphic designer and his images and design sheets are in the main Vintage inspired offering beautifully detailed sheets from flowers to butterflies and Vintage fashion as well as many traditional well loved nursery characters.

I thought I would share one of my first makes with you using the beautiful Tortoiseshell Butterfly.....thumbnail link below.......which I printed out twice to decoupage. The background is Dylusions pure sunshine, squeezed orange postbox red plus a spritz of pearl Glimmer Mist. Onto this I stamped Stampendous P107 and heat embossed with detailed gold which I also added around the edges, then added a piece of recycled corrugated which I embossed with Frantage and also embossed some of that onto the thorax of the butterfly.

I will be adding this and some future work to my new Pinterest boards, it's still very much work in progress and I need to spend a bit of time getting to understand it all properly, but I am slowly finding some of my blogland friends there as well.

Whatever you have planned, I hope you enjoy the rest of the holiday Monday.

Cricut candy winner

Hello everyone, as promised I am here to announce the very lucky winner of the Cricut candy bundle and to say thank you all so very much for joining in.

There was no way I could choose the winner myself so I put all the numbers into a hat........well large casserole dish...............a nice orange Le Creuset one actually if you want to visualise the activity..........and asked hubby to pick a ticket and this is what came out...................

********Entry number 51********

who is 

********Kelly********

Huuuuuuuge congratulations Kelly, when you have stopped jumping up and down please mail me with your full name and postal addy. The box is all packaged ready so all I need to do is add your details and arrange for a courier to collect it.

And to all of you who were not lucky please don't despair as I will be resuming my weekly candy on Saturday and I also have a rather nice little bundle of Christmas crafting goodies which I will be offering very soon as well.

A few more days to enter Cricut candy

I am so please that one of my blogging friends just left me a message to say she tried to enter my candy earlier this week but it was closed. 


So I just checked the link and sure enough it had closed itself several days earlier than planned. So in order not to disappoint anyone I have just re-opened it until Sunday and will do the draw Bank Holiday. You can add your name to the link here.

In the garden

It's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Helene is challenging us to use acetate on our work. Our sponsors this week are Crimson Cloud and My Heart Pieces.

I don't have any problems with acetate but photographing it is another thing as most of us know. Unusually for me not a lot of stamping other than the flowers behind the little girl as I wanted to concentrate on the pretty Graphic 45 DP. I cut the fence and flower border section from a piece of the paper and fixed it to the reverse side of a sheet of acetate and used the borders from the same sheet of paper to frame it. Next I cut out the little girl and bird from the shame sheet and placed them over the stamped background, then arched the acetate to create a dome effect over her.

Thanks for popping in to take a peek and hope you have a lovely weekend.

Lovely Lupins

Morning Peeps, it's feeling much fresher here this morning with a nice drop of overnight rain, my in house weather man recorded 1/8 inch so not a lot really and still sticky with overnight temperatures of 17deg.

A warm welcome to my new followers and thanks for all your kind comments on my last post, I had a few mails asking questions about the new machine and have answered best I can. For those of you who entered my Cricut candy bundle I will be doing the draw over the weekend and announcing the lucky winner, so if you have not already added your name there are a couple of days left to do so.

Just a quick card share of one I made yesterday using Ruth's Passions for Stamps new Lupin image, it's one of those she drew after we discussed cottage garden flowers a while back, so thank you Ruth it's beautiful. If you would like to buy it you will find it here. I do love lupins and we usually have a glorious show of them in the gardens but for whatever reason they along with the Digitalis were really poor this year so I can only think it was the long winter and strange Spring we had.

Have a good Thursday everyone and for those of you in the UK, lets hope the weather remembers it's a Bank Holiday this weekend.

Tentative steps with the Cricut Mini

Using: Art Nouveau for leaves and acorns, French Manor for birdcage and Lovely Floral for the sentiment with a background of Dylusions 

Good Morning all my crafty friends, is it just me or is Blogger being a pain this week, it seems so slow and half the time just won't open when I go to peoples blogs, anyone else had the same?

A few weeks ago I alluded to a new machine from Cricut that I had been asked to have a play with, well the machine arrived when we were on holiday and over the weekend I got to have a proper play and make a few cards.

I have to say my initial thoughts are that it punches well above it weight - literally. The Cricut Mini is very streamlined and far lighter in weight than any I have used before, but it's real appeal is the Cricut Craft Room where all your designing is done on a virtual mat on your computer screen. That part is not unlike the Design Studio offered as an add on with all Cricut machines, but the big difference is that you don't need cartridges any more as they are all there in the virtual Craft Room, listed by both name and also with a search facility.....................for example if you want a butterfly, just type that in and it will show you all available and what cartridges that are on.

Using Martha Stewart Elegant cake for leaves, Close to My Heart for 3D flowers and border Celebrate with Flourish for sentiment

It has the weld facility so you can join several letters or elements together to cut as one and a clever text box where you choose your font, type the word and it creates the word/s all lined up accurately to weld if required, click cut and you are done.............those of you who have used any die cutting machine will know that lining up letters can be so frustrating.................and for people with dexterity problem like me it's a godsend. 

I am very lucky that Cricut have given me access to all cartridges so I am totally lost for choice but I am very slowly trying to familiarise myself with what's available and discover exactly how many, but it looks to go into hundreds. What is for certain no matter what you style of crafting there is something to suite.

My efforts so far are very basic whilst I get to grips with the available elements, but I will be sharing many more projects with you as I incorporate them into my daily crafting.

Any questions about the machine please do drop me a mail and I will do my best to help.

Explore, dream, travel

Our lovely Jo is challenging us to use our new crafty goodies on our work at Allsorts this week, I don't think that will be too hard for most of us somehow. Our sponsors this week are Yours and Mine Papercrafts and Whimsy.

I have actually been quite restrained recently and resisted buying too much new stash and I think the last stamps I bought were some sets from Chocolate Barqoue which I have used on this project. It was for a commission for one of my daughters for a TA who was leaving to travel the Far East so the brief was to reflect that part of the world in some way as well as being large enough for all the teachers and staff to sign - about 80 in total so a good volume of space required. As the stamps didn't lend themselves to a really large card I incorporated some internal pages to allow space for everyone to have room to sign.

The background is Dylusions pure sunshine, squeezed orange, lemon zest and postbox red around the edges to add intensity and of course my customary spritz of glimmer mist to blend the colours. Next I stamped images from the Indian Elephant and Indian textiles and across the top the bubbles from the Decorative Edges set, such a lovely set and so useful. The harlequins from the same set were dabbed with gold pearl acrylic paint and stamped randomly holding and bending the stamp rather than using a block. I then bleached out the colours here and there.

I used the same Dylusions as ink to stamp the insterts in order to carry he colours and then made it all into a little booklet with a ribbon tied spine. The sentiments were computer generated.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing all your entries this week.

Retro Roses

Background of Dylusions, Retro Roses stamp set, Dream and Etched Flourish stamps, copper  embossing powder and bleaching

Morning Peeps and thank you for all your kind comments about Eliot on my last post, they meant a great deal to him and me.

The washing pile is diminishing but of course that means the ironing basket is growing and I so hate doing it, but I don't think I am alone in that one. 

And today I should be getting my new pain relief machine which works on a Inferential process, they don't come cheap but I am told they are far more effective that my old machine as they penetrate the tissue rather than the surface. No doubt the physios amongst you know more about it than I do but I gather they are used in hospitals and recently became available for home use. Anyhow I am praying it will give me some pain free periods and help at night.

Retro Roses and A Moment stamps, stamped onto a piece of old book spritzed with Dylusions postbox red and squeezed orange, cut out and decoupaged onto another book page stamped with the same image. DP is Tonic.

Tomorrow on Create and Craft there is a new Stamp Addict programme at 7pm so I thought I would share a few more of the samples I made for the show.

Special Day stamp, Graphic 45 DP and flowers made with Tonic punch and stamp rose set.

Thanks for popping in and taking a look, I always appreciate your visits.

No craft but another athletic achievement

18th placed Eliot at 3am after running 102 miles non stop in 21.17 hours

Hello Peeps, back from our travels after a really great trip and now trying to buckle down to reality with all the washing and 20 deg which is a bit of a culture shock after averages of 40 deg. Thanks to all of you who kindly visited when I was away, your comments really are appreciated and of course welcome to my new followers, it's great to have you here.

Now I know lots of you are expecting holiday photos but alas I have none to share as I forget to pack my camera........how on earth I did that I have no idea and it's still in my desk drawer. I did contemplate taking some photos on my table but decided carrying that around in the heat was not really an option, but hubby did quite a lot of videoing so I might be able to get some stills from that when he edits his footage.

So meanwhile I thought I would share some photos of some of my mega sporty clan, this time it was Eliot in the spotlight doing the North Downs Way 100 race last weekend. It's actually 102 miles which he completed in 21.17 hours and came in 18th..............some achievement and naturally we are so proud of him.

'Team Eliot' plus Bernie and George for added moral support

Due to the gruelling nature of the race runners are required to have a support team responsible for check points and who can run with them during the second half of the race, so Zoe and Alex took on that role running 30 and 22 miles respectively to provide encouragement to Eliot, whist his wife Veronique provided the 'back room' support and also had awesome tops and jackets made for 'Team Eliot'. 

And the coveted belt buckle awarded to those finishing in under 24 hours

Thanks for taking a look and I will be back later in the week with something crafty.

Watch the birdie

A very good morning and yet another of my scheduled posts. We should be on the Amalfi Coast today in Selerno and visiting Pompeii, then tomorrow spending a day at sea sailing back towards Barcelona where we will take the overnight sleeper train to Paris and from there homeward to the UK.

You may ask why the train when it's only a couple of hours by plane to Barcelona, but I'm not keen of flying unless it's the only option, plus the Spanish sleeper trains are really good offering clean en-suite cabins and a traditional meal with wine and breakfast all thrown in the price and the children actually love the excitement of it all. And not a lot different to the cost of flights peak season.

Our lovely Catherine is hosting this weeks challenge at Allsorts and had selected the theme of stitching. And as one of this weeks sponsor is Ruth's A Passion for Stamps it was the perfect opportunity to use lots of her Tonic products. Our other sponsor is a new one Crafty Devils who just happens to sell most of Ruth's products and you can find out more about both on the challenge blog. 

The frame is Ruth's Lily die which I coloured with Pan Pastels whilst still in the die, then laid it over a stamped insert which has one of the birds from the Tonic Watch the Birdie stamp set and the little swirl from the same set. The backing DP is from the Tonic pack from the same Birdie range and I finished the card off with a couple of flowers using Ruth's Tonic Pick of the Bunch Peruvian Lily punch and stamp set.

Hope you all have a good weekend and will be catching up with you next week.

Wings and Things

Yet another scheduled post and today we should be in Athens before sailing overnight to Turkey where we will visit the ancient city of Ephesus and the temple of Artemis which is one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, then the following day we sail to the beautiful Greek island of Santorini.

It's time to share my DT card for FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges where this month our theme is 'Wings and Things'. Lots of lovely inkiness here with a background of Dylusions pure sunshine, cut grass and turquoise. Next I  stamped Flonz butterfly corner around the sides, embossed in gold and added aged gold frantage around the edges. Old favourite TH caged bird makes another appearance and this is also randomly embossed with Frantage and finally three Flonz butterflies and words which are from the dream Stamp Addicts set.

Thank you for taking a peep, see you all soon.

Birds on a wire

Another scheduled post as today we are having a 'sea day' on route to Athens and I imagine it will be a formal evening as they tend to have them on sea days. So assuming I am right we will be donning our glad rags this evening for a formal dinner. I know some of the cruise ships have phased out this formality but as someone who hates dressing up normally, it is a lovely opportunity to do something a bit different.

As it's the first Sunday of the month we have new themes at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More with 'Things with Wings with a Touch of Vintage' and 'In the Garden'.

My Penny Black DT piece at the top may not look particularly garden inspired to some, but where we live it's very rural and looking across the paddocks from the garden this is the view I see............although the hills are a bit of artistic licence as the Fens are as flat as a pancake. After masking the reverse side of a sheet of centura pearl I created the background using Pan Pastels, then stamped the Penny Black flowers cross the bottom and the birds over the sun........I extended the wire using a ruler and fine black pen and stamped a single bird from the same stamp to the right.........hubby named this one "Billy no mates" !

I delved into my stash of reclaimed corrugated to make my Stamping Sensations DT piece and used a nice chunk of it for the backing of my card after giving it a good sprinkling of Frantage aged gold and aged spice. I stamped Hero Arts Dogwood onto a page of an old book and sprayed a second page with Dylusions post box red and squeezed orange and once dried stamped the same image and cut out the flower heads to decoupage. I follow the same principle with the Penny Black butterfly.

I think this month's themes are really lovely ones to play along with and hope you will join in with us.

Patchwork

Morning Peeps, hopefully by the magic of Blogger this is going to appear Saturday morning as we should have sailed overnight from Florence to the Eternal City of Rome, a place I never tire of visiting with all it's beauty and ancient history. 

Anyhow, about this weeks challenge at Allsorts where our lovely Tracy is the host and has some photo inspiration for us, do pop over to the challenge blog to see what inspiration grabs you from the picture. Our sponsors this week are DigiStamp Boutique and Crafty Ribbons.

To me patchwork jumped out of the picture so I set about using the basic square and creating a pattern within it using Graphic 45 DP's. If anyone had told me before I made this that it would take me ages I would never have believed them but for whatever reason I spent the best part of an afternoon on it. I laid the finished panel over an embossed background and added some flowers made using Ruth's Tonic Pick of the Bunch Carnation punch and stamp set.

And I have made a second card using the same patchwork theory from the inspirational picture and paper piecing incorporating the single rose image from DigiStamp Boutique. The DP's are from a lovely 8x8 Nitwits paper pack which was amongst a bundle of goodies a crafty friend sent me for my birthday.............she said she saw them and thought the colours were very me....they are Tracy, thank you so much.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.