Trees, moons and suns

Good afternoon crafty Peeps, hope you week is going well. I imagine those of you in the UK are as fed up with this weather as I am, rain, rain and yet more rain, but there again our friends across the pond are having to contend with sub zero temperatures which can be no fun either.

I thought I had better do a post now as tomorrow being Thursday means my third treatment and judging by the last two a couple of queasy days, so best to get ahead of the game and share some cards I made recently. Just inkyness really, or rather Pan Pastels and a variety of stamps and masks.

See you soon and as always I appreciate your visits and kind comments.

Blog hop day two

It's well known that I don't do cute and sweet very often but I love this baby image from the new Spring release and the sentiment also from the new release is just perfect with it

Another scheduled post for the second day of our Prickly Pear blog hop where we have two awesome $75 prizes to be won and today you should have arrived here from Tracie's blog and move on to Jessica's blog.

And if you didn't visit yesterday's post here it's not to late to pop along so you are in with a second chance of winning one of the prizes.

All the blog hop and prize details can be found here and the Spring release stamps and dies which were showcased at CHA can be found on the store website here. Winners will be announced on the Prickly Pear blog on 2nd February.

Good luck hopping everyone.

A touch of Vintage and $75 blog hop

Morning Peeps, Tracy is hosting this weeks theme at Allsorts and would like to see Vintage inspired work so right up my street and also it's time to start our Blog Hop at Prickly Pear...............all details further down this post.

Our Allsorts sponsors are FlonzCraft and DigiDarla and I have managed to incorporate a sentiment from the first along with leaves from the second. Some Graphic 45 DP..........yes I persuaded myself to cut into another sheet of it......but I do have a second one intact !

I just love this oh so cute elephant and so did my youngest granddaughter who is a real Ellie fan and wanted it on her Christmas card.

And now for THREE DAYS OF HOPPING........all details here........to show you our new CHA/SPRING Releases!  You will want to hop to each design team member's blog each day and leave a comment and we will select our winners to receive two massive $75 prizes randomly from comments left, so the more love you leave us, the better your chances to win the awesome prize packages!

There are some really lovely stamps and dies in the new release which were showcased at CHA, but along with the other DT members I was lucky to get these to play with a couple of months ago and now I can share some of the sample cards I made for the big trade show and company literature.

Our blog hop will go over three days, today being the first so three days of fun for you to join in with and of course those great prizes up for grabs. Today you should have arrived here from Angela's blog and next move on to Jenn's blog. Tomorrow the route will be different but I will be telling you all about that in another scheduled post tomorrow.

And now for a second DT piece for Allsorts.

When it came to this one it was even harder cutting the DP's as they are from the brand new Couture Collection but I have to say they enable you to make a card so quickly incorporating the toppers and matching DP's which are all in the same 12x12 pad. I did a bit of tearing........my that was tough.......used two of the designs and added some lace and feathers.

Have fun hopping and don't forget to check in again tomorrow for another chance to win one of the fabulous $75 prizes.

Nicecrane Valentines - again

Morning all you lovely crafty Peeps.

Popping in with a quick share of a couple of Valentine makes using Ignacio's Nicecrane Design sheets...................and both have been beautifully enhanced with his magical touch.  The top one is from the Amazing Children and the one below the Romantic Valentine 3 sheet, not sure if it's just me but the top image has a rather Shakespearean feel to it, I think it's the little boy and that hat.

Both are quite simple with Graphic 45 DP which I think compliments Ignacio's images perfectly, I made some roses for the top one and used some pretty new Spellbinder corners on the bottom which I rubbed with gilding wax.......thanks for the idea Jo.

You can find links to the Nicecrane design sheets and Graphic 45 DP's below.

See you all soon.

Nicecrane

Nicecrane

Capture the Magic

Craft Fairy

InLinkz.com

Buttons and Bows

It's all about Buttons and Bows at Allsorts this week where our lovely Sarah is our host and our sponsors are Crimson Cloud and Cuddly Buddly.

On the health front can I say a huge thank you for so many lovely messages and mails, if I have note replied to you this week I do apologise but I have not spent too long at the computer yet. As you will gather as I am updating what was a scheduled post that I am at home, I now have to have five weekly treatments and had the first Thursday which made me feel a bit shaky and queasy but onwards and upwards and they are quite optimistic although can't rule out further need for surgery just yet but I am keeping everything crossed.

So on to my first card at the top where I went for a bit of inky indulgence yet again, repeat stamping the copse of trees.......it's an unmounted given to me by a crafty friend for my Birthday a couple of years ago but afraid I have forgotten the make..........with black archival and then adding colour with Pan Pastels, what else I ask ? And of course a masked sun, some birds and red raffia and a button down the spine.

A few people have asked me where I buy this shape of landscape card, well I cut most of my own cardstock myself with the exception on 6x6 square. This shape is basically a landscape A5 which to create I score a sheet of A3 card down the centre (shortest dimension) so you have the equivalent of two A4 sheets but joined to the left and this then cuts into two A5 landscape card blanks. When I make them up into cards I often score and glue a left spine as in this one as it makes the perfect place for ribbon and makes them stand up firmly. You can do exactly the same to make landscape 7x5 cards but there is some waste as you still need a sheet of A3 to get the width.

One more share which is my mid month inspirational card for Penny Black and More where our theme this month is Love is in the Air, still ten days for you to join in and as always lots of fab prizes to be won. I used Penny Black 40-092 All You Need is Love and stamped a second time in red and cut a few of the hearts out to overlay on the black image, created a simple frame using Spellbinders and my current favourite rose embossing folder.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Early Valentine

Morning all you lovely Peeps, hope everyone had a good weekend.

We have still got dodgy phone lines but at least the Internet is working so I am taking the opportunity to post a couple of cards I made for Ignacio from Nicecrane Designs using some of his new Valentine designs. They really are so pretty and have drawn out the less inky side of me to create something girly for a change.

I also want to say a big thank you to Rachel as I won her candy which is a fabulous voucher for Imagination Crafts, how lucky am I as I love their products. And as I said to her I am hoping that's an omen for later in the week, up till now I have tried to keep it all in a box but over the weekend reality dawned and I am feeling a little pessimistic about what lies ahead of me this week, but I guess what will be will be and not a lot I can do to change that.

So onto my cards, you will find thumbnail links below to the Nicecrane Designes used in these two cards, along with the Spellbinders and Graphic 45 DP's which always lend themselves so well to Ignacios's design's. I made the rose on the top card is made from the same ribbon as the bow and the flowers on the second card were cut on the Cricut.

Have a good week everyone and catch up with you all again soon I hope.

Pan Pastels again

Good morning Peeps, what a week it's been as apart from being back and forth to hospital ahead of next weeks op we have had no phones or internet since Monday lunchtime. Scary really as the world grinds to a halt without the technology we take for granted, so since we eventually got the connections back yesterday afternoon it's been heads down catching up with literally hundreds of mails in the office and not a moment to think about blogland I am afraid so apols to you all.

Onto our challenge at Allsorts this week where Wendy would like to see ribbons used in a different way, rather than just bows which is perfect as your sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

I have used Pan Pastels and a selection of Lavinia, Inkylicious, Art Impression and Clarity stamps to create a little scene using ribbon threaded through eyelets down the spine of the card.

Happy weekend all.

Lavender and Lace

Morning Peeps, the first Monday of the month so time for our first new challenge of the year at FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges where our them was 'my choose and I have selected 'Lavender and Lace' , I love this colour although for some odd reason don't use it that often but I always think goes so well with the Vintage feel.

I used a FlonzCraft sweet silhouette image and added Pan Pastels to create a little scene, stamped around the edges with more FlonzCraft stamps, framed the piece with some lace and flowers and added a couple of little butterflies which are also FlonzCraft as is the sentiment.

Amended: Blog Hope changed to January 25th
Also a little heads up that next Wednesday over at Prickly Pear we are having a Blog Hop with two prizes of $75 to be won................last time I was mega pleased as one of my regular blog buddies Sarah was the winner from the comment she left me.

Although I won't be about and in hospital I have scheduled posts ready for 15th and 16th January so do keep an eye out for them, but in the meantime I hope you will help us spread the word and grab our Blog Hop badge to add to your sidebar.

Have a good week Peeps. 

More Nicecrane and Penny Black

Happy New Year and welcome to our first challenges of the year at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More and our themes are Ribbons and Bows and Love and Romance, I am thinking those two could be combined quite nicely.

As Ignacio is our Stamping Sensations sponsor this month I have used one of his new Nicecrane images from the Isoda Koryousia design sheet using three of the images to make a Kinetic card and these Graphic 45 DP's compliment the colours in the images so well. I added some ribbon and thread, some Japanese beads and coins and stamped three sentiments from a really old cube which I think is JudiKins.

For my first Penny Black piece I have gone with gold embossing on black something I don't tend to use very often but quite like the effect of the lovely scrolle heart PB stamp along with the Graphic 45 DP's. The little sentiment is also Penny Black and the hearts Memory Box.

A second one for Stamping Sensations using Ignacio's Kate Greenaway 3 design sheet, I just love piking out those lovely aqua colours.

And just the one more using Penny Black Floral Thread background embossed with detail gold and then inked over with distress inks, some lace, ribbon and die cut hearts plus a FlonzCraft sentiment.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone.

Nicecrane's new designs

Note re Saturday candy: I know I said I would bring it back after Christmas but the hospital have added more tests and MRI's in for the coming week ahead of the 15th so I decided it was a safer bet to just do a larger candy for the month. It's posted at the top of my blog and hope you will all join in the fun.

So now it's time for our first Allsorts challenge of 2014 and our Tracy Mouse has chosen Free and Easy as the theme so it is a great opportunity to get out all those new crafting goodies Santa delivered. Our sponsors are Nicecrane Designs and DigiStamp.

I have used some of Ignacios new designs, the top one using the Magical Names sheet and the one below the new Alice in Wonderland sheet. The photo of the who card is not brilliant so I am including a couple of close ups as well.

I rather like the way the various images allow you to tell the story of Alice's adventure and I thought a concertina book was the perfect way to showcase them

The frames around each photo is an integral part and I added a little distress ink to each and printed a few extra so I could colour them and cut out to embellish the sections and added some computer generated words.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and I hope you will join in our challenge this week. I will be popping in to visit ass and when but this weeks sees the start of renewed hospital visits before the op so it may be spasmodic.

Pan Pastels and trees to start the New Year

Happy New Year everyone, I hope it's going to be a good one for you all.

I thought I would share one of the scenic cards I created just for fun and I thought it only fitting that I kick start the year with some of my favourite crafty things including Pan Pastles, masking, trees and inspirational quotes.

Plus an easel card I made a couple of weeks ago using an image from Nicecrane's new Sweet Birthday design sheet. And according to the press release I received the other day for the upcoming CHA trade show in the States I was ahead of the predictions as yellow is going to be the 'in' colour this year along with vintage inspired bold patterns. So can't wait to see what yummy delights are coming our way this Spring.

The Nicecrane images are beautifully detailed so all I just decoupaged the flower in the little girls hand and made some more pansies using one of Ruth's punch and stamp sets.

Happy New Year.