Late Autumn

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Tracy would like to see 'Colours of Autumn'. Our sponsors are Jiggery Makery and Sizzix.

I so love making Autumnal cards and have two to shares today, the one at the top is a Tattered Lace creation for a Create and Craft TV show a couple of weeks ago using another new set of leaf dies along with one of the new embossing folders.

Whilst on the subject of TL and C&C, have any of you ordered the new Compendium of Crafting which was launched yesterday ? It's not just about die cutting, it's a bumper packed book of crafting ideas and techniques with step by step guides from cards to home decor, mixed media to scrapbooking. I am very honoured to be one of the 20 invited designers included and have several projects in the book. I would share some of them but guess who forgot to take photos before sending off their pieces of artwork !!

So for my first share I used the largest 8x8 folder from the Best Wishes set of four embossing folders and embossed a sheet of cream card and then added liberal helping of gold gilding wax to the edges. The leaves are all cut from a sheet of paper which I coloured with Dylusions before cutting the leaves and acorns. After arranging the on the card I added some berries and bows made on the TL now maker.

My second card is a recent Chocolate Baroque make using stamps from the Autumn Poppy stamp set. I used distress markers to ink the stamps, spritzed with water, stamped randomly and then dragged out a bit of colour using an almost dry brush. 

The sentiment is also from Chocolate Baroque, stamped randomly onto the the central strip which I edges with lace and onto an oval for the focal element. Using the same stamp set I stamped and cut out several leaves from a piece of card sprayed with Dylusions and arranged down the card and a raffia bow.

Have a good weekend.

Lilies and leaves

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where Wendy would like us to use 'At least three dies' on our work. Our prize is from Sizzix. I also have some of the cards I made for today's Tattered Lace Trio's one time only shows on Create and Craft TV.

The card at the top and the one below are two of a set of six I was asked to make specifically for a promotional video using the beautiful new Lily Trio die's and matching stamps set. The Lily die set has three dies graduated in size for perfect decopaging and I have stamped them with the coordinating stamp and then embossed with the matching embossing folder, the Trio's are such clever sets and great to work with. I also used one of the smaller stamps from the set on the blue matting layer. As well as the Lily dies, I have used the Essential Lattice and Meadow Grass and all are cut from the new A4 Ombre cardstock which has been specifically designed for use with embossing folders and dies and is a delight to work with.

This card also fits in with our Allsorts theme, using the Essential Large Hears, Trio Lily, Essential Hearts and Ornate Leaves

And here are a couple more using some of the other Trio sets.............

Using the Autumn Leaves Trio dies which has leaves in three sizes and coordinating stamps plus embossing folder......and Brusho background

Using Love Bird Berries Trio's and matching stamps and embossing folder

Using Woodland Glade Trio's with matching stamps and embossing folder

Happy weekend.

Down your street

Morning Peeps, huge apologies I've not been round visiting, not been at all well this last week, so much so I even asked my teamies at the challenges to help me out with commenting, not something I do readily or very often, but their help has been much appreciated. I am doing my best to get back into things but it seems slow going so please bear with me.

As promised I have some more shares using Baker Ross products along with my mid month creation for Penny Black and More where our Christmas theme is in full swing.

Last Christmas the lady at one of the blogs I visit had made cards for her neighbours with their street name and I thought what a great idea to try and remember. I have a feeling it was Jacee but confess I am not certain so thought it best not to link to her in case I got it wrong (just adding Jacee confirms it was her so many thanks Jacee), but amazingly enough for me I actually did remember and decided to make some for friends and family.

Looking through my stamps I had no problem coming up with a rural scene but nothing for town folk, so have restricted them to a dozen or so who live in rural locations. To create the scenes which are all much the same I used two Penny Black stamps along with the Santa which I think is Hobby Art and sponged the sky and background with Pan Pastles. I added liberal helpings of snow glitter, computer generated the street names, punched them out and painted wooden kebab skewers for the posts. The Ivy is a Tattered Lace Charisma die and finally I printed and cut some little Nicecrane Robins to sit on the sign posts.

And as promised here are the little trees I made using Baker Ross's Polystyrene Cones. I made one into a Santa by priming the cone with gesso and then red acrylic paint and when dry decorating with some furry fabric, a buckle and black card for is belt. On another I used the Gingerbread Foam Stickers and some Christmas glittery garland and for the third I simply used ribbons, doubling them up and fixing in place starting from the bottom and working upwards. The tree in the middle seems to look a tad lopsided although in the flesh looks perfectly straight so can only assume it's my naff photography.

Hope your week is going well and many thanks for your visit today.

Poinsettias

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Tracy Mouse would like us to 'Anything but a Card'. Our sponsors are PPR Papercrafts and Deedes Digis.

Sorry I have not been on my blog rounds for a couple of days, Iv'e been into hospital for the scheduled treatment on my spine, but hope to catch up with you all again over the weekend.

I love making floral wreaths both on cards and as a stand alone piece like this one, the base of which is a rattan circle from Hobbycraft. The Poinsettia's are made with a stamp from Stamp Addicts Christmas range, each one is stamped onto red and heat embossed in gold and layered up to give more depth to each bloom, quite time consuming but worth the effort I think.

After fixing to the rattan wreath I tucked in holly and mistletoe leaves made with Tattered Lace Trio sets which have dies in three sizes and a small embossing folder to add texture to the leaves. Finally a red and white gingham ribbon.

Next I have two little Star Kraft Boxes which were in the box of goodies in my recent delivery from Baker Ross. The size of them would make them perfect for dinner table gifts at Christmas, perhaps with a chocolate or two inside...........or even a ring for those in romantic mode............well you never know !

If you don't know the company you should check them out. I found them many years ago when we used to purchase products for Brownies and school, so when they asked me to do some promotional work for them a couple of years ago I was surprised to see how much their range of products had evolved to now include many items suitable for adult crafters and at very reasonable prices.

I covered both with Artimo Artepatch  papers from the same source, ripping into small pieces and using a wide paint brush fixing into place with Slap it On and it doesn't matter if the pieces overlap as it dried clear, in fact it gives a more interesting finish if pieces do overlap. I then decorated both with ribbon, pearls and a TL Poinsettia. I also have some miniature Christmas Trees which I will share during the week.

My final make uses some pre coloured Poinsettias from Deedee's Digis, one of our sponsors this week and is a drawer box to hold some tea lights, I try and keep one or two of these ready scored so they make up quickly covered in DP's. The stopper is a Penny Black sentiment stamped onto TL ovals. I printed the Poinsettia out several times so that I could cut into some of the blooms to decoupage and arranged with a bow and some TL Charisma Ivy.

Hope your weekend is a good one.

Spring and Summer blooms and a snippet

Hello Peeps, hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was a tad busy craft wise and below is part of the reason why, yep it's another new Tattered Lace release on Create and Craft tomorrow.

All of the cards in this post showcase new Charisma flowers which are part of the new Craftinator, there are other new dies and embossing folders as well, some I will share later in the week for Friday's C & C Pick of the Week. The others have to stay secret for a little longer I'm afraid.

The Charisma flowers are so versatile, each set consists of a CD Rom which has each spray of flowers in a variety of colours along with coordinating backing papers and a matching die.

The card above will I hope fit in at the Playground this week, so long as I am not still in disgrace for smuggling in the Hooch last Thursday.......if I am I shall blame Sarn, it was all her idea and she 'made' me do it, honest she did ! Anyhow the papers on the card above are snippets from my stash, in fact the bottom one is two offcuts and the top piece covers the gap very nicely.

There is now quite a collection of Charisma sets from Spring and Summer flowers to Christmas foliage and flowers and whenever I am working with them my minds goes back to the days when decoupaging was a painstaking and time consuming craft with ever piece requiring cutting by hand. With the Charisma sets all that hard work is removed and it takes just minutes to print out the images and cut all the layers in one easy go.

The pillow box above is also a Tattered Lace CD Rom and has been printed onto card stock with one of the Charisma designs and it folds together in just a minute or two.

And there had to be an easel card and floral wreath, again using coordinating Charisma papers and flowers.

Hope you all have a good week and my thanks for your visit today...............and please keep an eye open as I have some candy to give away which I will get posted in the next day or so.

New products from 'be Creative!'

Using the 'Vintage Collage' paper pad and a button from the coordinating embellishment pack, the butterflies are Tattered Lace Trio's

Morning Peeps, what's your weather like ? It's been pouring most of the night here and showing no signs of letting up, typical November weather really, give me a frosty morning any time as that usually leads to some sunshine.

I received a lovely bundle of goodies from 'be Creative!' at the beginning of the week and was very keen to get stuck in. Their products only launched last month and whilst their website is being completed their Facebook has lots of information. They will be at the NEC on stand F15 and I am hoping I will be able to go on Friday as there have been no cancellations for a hospital bed this week so I am on scheduled for my treatment on 12th November.

Using the 'Summer Hues' paper pad and a Penny Black sentiment

Just one more today and I will share some more very soon.

The 'Summer Hues' papers again along with one of the new sticker borders.......the fence, butterflies and tulips and all ready assembled to fix to your card, along with a stamped sentiment on a Tattered Lace double side stepper

Thanks for popping in today and hope you have a good Wednesday...............if you have the same weather as us it seems like the prefect opportunity for some crafting.

Not added Thursday 5th: I know today is the day to announce the winner of the Tattered Lace goodies, but I have a lengthy two hour dental appointment today and hopefully going to the NEC tomorrow so will announce the winner in my Saturday Allsorts post. Thank's for bearing with me.

Traditional Christmas

An update: For those that saw my earlier post regarding issues with Blogger and loads of silly questions including photo verification ones, it seems that unlike the previous robotic question which you could bypass that won't work with what is happening now. It means I just can't comment on my desktop as it takes forever to get past all the verification questions on each blog I visit, so until I can find an answer I am reliant on my tablet, but that's not user friendly to less than nimble fingers, so please bear with me until I can get sorted.

We have a new challenge starting today over at FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges, this month I selected theme of Traditional Christmas Colours. As always there is a very generous $20 voucher to be won from FlonzCraft.

I stamped FlonzCraft Baroque Corners with detail gold embossing powder around a sheet of cream cardstock and matted on to red. Next I cut out Tattered Lace Diamond Trellis Frame, stamped FlonzCraft Christmas Greetings centrally again in gold and matted onto a red oval.

The Poinsettia spray is from the TL Charisma range and to finish I added an organza bow and sparkly ribbon slide.

Yes Virginia...............

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Festive Floral's and Anything Christmas. And as always there are some fab prizes to be won, at Stamping Sensations there is a great hamper of crafty goodies from 'be Creative!' and at Penny Black prizes from Penny Black, Crafts U Love and Crafty Ribbons.

My top creation is for Stamping Sensations and uses some of the new papers from this month sponsor Be Creative, they are actually the offcuts from another card I made for a magazine article so will fit into this weeks Snippets Playground. I decided on a chipboard frame which I covered in gesso and then some of the sponsors papers. I then used a Penny Black stencil to ink some leaves on both the outer frame and inner section. I added gold Frantage to the edges, stamped a Penny Black Poinsettia twice onto more of the paper, heat embossed with detail gold before cutting out, layering up and adding pearl stamens to the centre. I decided it needed a little something in the corner so printed and cut out a TL Holly corner and cut the top layer of flower heads from the same paper as the Poinsettia and finally added some pearl flourishes.

The sentiment on this months Penny Black piece is a stamp I happened to see on a blog a few weeks back and had to have it, I found the wording just enchanting. It's quite an oldie and wood mounted of course but Google searches drew a blank, so I mailed John at PB Stamps in the States.......I knew if anyone could source it, he could. And sure enough he did and would you believe it only took four days to arrive across the pond......with I might add a few other essentials.

Then I just needed my Virginia and in the back of my mind when I saw the stamp I thought I knew the perfect image in the form of this sweet little Victorian Nicecrane design. I stamped Penny Black Festive Florals in detail gold onto a piece of neutral coloured design paper and did the same with the sentiment which I placed within an oval aperture.

I cut Virginia out twice so that I could shape and decoupage her dress, placed her to the side of the aperture and added some liquid pearls and bow. It's one of those rare cards that I envisaged from the moment I saw the sentiment and it turned out just as I imagined.

My final share today is another for Stamping Sensations using another sheet of paper from this months sponsor, a paper pieced Penny Black stamp, a bit of background stamping, some lace and ribbon and a tiny TL Noel.