Inspired by a yellow Rose and a message from Anfield

Hello Peeps, many thanks for you Birthday wishes, lovely cards and gifts for today.

Unlike most of my recent posts this one is not scheduled and being written from scratch so it will be short as that's about all my fingers can cope with. I've not been able to hold stamps properly for a week or two so it's been rather frustrating, but after opening my Birthday gifts I really wanted to play and decided if I kept it simple and take just one stamp and Brusho's not too much could go wrong.

So my card above is inspired by the lovely Rose received from Tracy and uses the Inkylicious Butterfly received by Sally, thank you both for getting me moving with a stamp again. I am also going to pop to the Snippets Playground with this, I hear there are baby ducks in the pond and might take a few bottles of bubbly up the the tree house, but please nobody let on to Miss Di.

I'm meant to be doing a couple of TV shows for overseas again next week, but as things presently stand doesn't look promising, unless I just stand and talk as I could do that for England.

And one more very special share, a fellow Liverpool fan obtained this for me when he went on a recent tour of Anfield, a personal Birthday message from our very own Tommo.

Happy Monday all and thanks for your visits and kind words, they always mean so much and never more so than when I am under the weather.

Pink skies and magic rays

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where it's my turn to host the challenge and I have some photo inspiration for the theme. Our sponsor is Sizzix. I also have some Chocolate Baroque shares for our 15 minute card posts and one for the June Rudolph Day challenge........I know shock, horror, I remembered well in advance.

I am so sorry that my visits are sparodic, but having a really bad week and again so pleased my DT work and posts are scheduled well in advance and I just need to add a few words here and there. In fact all of the cards in this posts were made weeks ago.

For my top cards I started with a masked sun and used ink dusters and a torn piece of paper and a mixture of distress and dye inks to create the sky and landscape, Inkylicious trees and sentiment and Penny Black bunnies all stamped with black archival ink.

My second Allsorts card is a fairy scene using Lavinia stamps, Pan Pastel and torn paper for the background and sun rays, or perhaps they are magic rays of light as there is no sun or moon in this one, I leave that to your own imagination. The fairies and toadstools are all stamped with black archival and the little flowers at the front and trailing ivy with distress markers direct to stamp.

Please do pop over to the challenge blog and see what my team mates have created and to check out the prize and inspiration photo.

My Rudolph Day card uses an Inkylicious tree scape stamp, I had only used it for summer cards but I thought it would work equally well for winter using the right colours. So I stamped it centrally and then repeat stamped either side to extend the scene, it's a really easy one to do this with as the land line is easy to match up. The colouring is all done with Pan Pastels and I added a few branches and thistles along with two Deer and of course the obligatory glitter and snow.

And here are a couple of my Chocolate Baroque cards, the one above has a background of Pan Pastels and CB Let Your Heart Sing stamped with black archival.

This one features CB Oriental Crane stamped with black archival ink over a Brusho background, some bullrushes and hanging willow catkins from CB Spring Foliage, this is probably one of my most used CB stamp sets as the elements are so useful for adding to scenic cards.

Pan Pastels again, sentiment from CB Words of Inspiration and floral scrolls from CB Butterfly Flourish  which I inked with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping to blend the colours.

Have a lovely weekend.

Twinkle, twinkle......................

Morning Peeps, sharing some Tattered Lace makes from the last few weeks, but as I've not been able to do much crafting or typing as it's so painful with this latest MS flare up it means several of the new dies have already been featured on Create and Craft TV as have the new LED lights used on the Christmas wreath above.

I also have a card for the current Butterfly Challenge which was one I made a few weeks back when I was having an inky session and I think it fits the current theme of Butterfly, oval and/or olive. Using an oval mask I sponged Adirondack purple and DI crushed olive, masking a sun. The grasses are Penny Black Natures Paintbrushes and Aspire and the sentiment Inkylicious. The Butterfly is Tattered Lace. I am also popping over to the Snippets Playground with this one (offcut of very old vellum for the Butterfly), should be fairy safe as I'm not up to creating too much mischief at the moment.

The Snow Globe 2016 and one of the sentiments from the set, LED lights, TL Ivy and a photo of George and Bernie in the snow a couple of years ago. Big as he was Bernie so loved to play and found the snow great fun

The Snow Globe and LED lights again with houses and Santa from another of the new Christmas sets

One of the new Melded dies

The new Snow Couple in a shaker card

The new Christmas Pudding die

One of then new A Little Bit Ditsy frames

Many thanks for taking a peek.

How does your garden grow and an inky tutorial

Good morning all you crafty Peeps, it's a bit of a heavy post this Saturday and I am so pleased that apart from this paragraph it was prepared well in advance as things are so slow going. New pills making me like a zombie and nothing really works too well, suffice to say I have not been able to do any stamping all week which is so b----y annoying as I had an Inkylicious delivery a few days ago. And very limited blogland activity, my apolgies as a few c&p comments are the best I can manage until my hands and arms get working properly again.

Saturday means it's time for our new theme at Allsorts, it's also my turn to share some work on the Stamping Sensations mid month post as well as my Penny Black mid month card. At Allsorts our host is Tracy and she has chosen 'How Does Your Garden Grow' as her them, which if course I love. Marianne Designs are our sponsor.

I used the Tattered Lace Hexagon dies and box sets, starting with the card I created a background with Broshos, Scarlet, Rose Red and Lime Green and let the wet ink run and decided to use it horizontally, then stamped Lavinia Dragon Pods in black archival, bleached out the flower heads and coloured in with purple Brusho's and covered with Glossy Accents. I also stamped a tiny Lavina Fairy onto one of the Pods. After making up the box and inserting a TL lattice panel I decorated with flowers and TL Ivy.

Just one more floral card from a play session I had with my new Altenew stamps, they are so much fun and the colour computations are endless, I used various shades of yellow to build up the blooms and black and grey for the leaves for a different look. The sentiment is a really old wood mounted one that I've had donkey's years, I remember doing a class using it at Ely at least ten years ago and all the ladies at the class were given one as part of the day's activities.

On to our mid month posts at Stamping Sensations and thankfully I did this a ready a few weeks ago. The current challenge for the Design Team is to share either a new technique or one that we enjoy. I have done a mini tutorial so have lifted that post to here and apologies that a couple of the cards may be familiar but they are relevant to the techniques I have used. The Butterfly cards are pretty much the same as one I blogged a few weeks ago, just different stamps and colours but I had some lovely comments and was asked how I created them so it seemed sensible to do a re-run.

There is nothing new about what I am going to share, but I am always reminded that new crafters are joining us and blogland all the time and it's easy to forget that we all started the same way keen to expand our crafting techniques so hope this might be of help to a few of you.

So it's some inkiness as that's what I enjoy most in my crafting activities and I am also rather keen on inspirational quotes so the two have come together on some of today's shares. 

I thought a few photos and a short tutorial might help and apologies to those of you well versed in all of this as it's not my intention to teach anyone to suck eggs ! 

For the Butterfly cards I used two colours of distress inks, although I used both ink pads and distress pens either or will work fine. In addition a black archival ink pad, an acrylic block for mixing the inks and a pipette......you can manage without this and use a wide paint brush instead but a pipette does make life easier. And of course your chosen stamps, I used Penny Black Butterflies, Visible Image quotes and an Inkylicious background.

My starting point is to dab the first colour of ink onto a small acrylic block and add small drops of water and mix so you have a little pool of colour, if using a pipette draw up the liquid and drop randomly holding the pipette 3- 4 inches above your piece of card, that allows the ink to splatter a bit as it lands which all adds to the random look. When doing this I concentrated on the areas to the left of the card as I knew this was where I wanted to stamp, then repeated with your second colour.

If using a brush load it with the diluted paint and flick the wooden stem/handle of the brush with your finger 3/4" above the piece of card. You will get random sized 'blobs' and if any look too wet or intense use a piece of kitchen roll to lift off some of the excess. You might find it helps to have a test run on a piece of scrap card so you can get confident with the process.

Next I took the background stamp and used a black distress marker to randomly ink just a section down the middle and repeat stamped it over the ink splatters. I stamped the sentiment next with black archival ink. The Butterflies are inked direct to stamp........doing this is easier with distress markers but still possible with ink pads, you just need to be careful were you ink, cut our the Butterfly, add wire antennas and fixed to the cards. Finally I matted and layered onto coordinating cardstock and an A5 card.

Here's another, almost the same just different colours and Butterfly stamp.

This card below was one on my Tattered Lace samples for the USA shows back in January but shows a different use of inks which is also great fun.

For this one you will need a selection of distress inks, an actylic block, pipette or wide paint brush (one that will hold plenty of water) and a drinking straw.

Start by stamping or in the case of the above card die cutting the image, inking with versamark and heat embossing with detail clear powder (as in the photo below). You need to do this to ensure your image is water resistant. 

Next follow the same procedure as the Butterfly card at the top of this post to create a watery pain mix, then pick up the colour with a pipette or brush and drip blobs onto the cardstock around your chosen image as below.........one colour at a time works best spacing them out to leave room for more colours in-between. Also you need to be fairly generous with the amount of inky liquid and use rather more than on the card at the top as with this technique you need sufficient liquid ink to move across the card.

Blowing each blob of colour with the drinking straw, gently encouraging the wet ink outwards towards the edges of the card, tilting the card if necessary. Keep repeating with your chosen colours. I used the same inks to add a little colour to the skull, I also finished the Butterfly you can see in the above photo in the same way.

And as my DT creation at the start of the challenge (above) was also inky I will briefly explain how I created the background for that one. 

I used Brushos on this one, sprinkling one colour at a time - here I used Ost Red, Violet and Lemon, spritzing generously with water so there is a visible pool of colour on the card, then use the same straw blowing and titling technique as the skull card. As quite a lot of water is used for this technique I tend to leave each color to dry for a few minutes before moving on to the next. I find this way there is less chance of the colours contaminating one another, you will probably get a little merging where the colours meet as I did with the red and purple but on the whole the colours stay put. 

With any of these techniques, if you find you have more liquid paint on your cardstock than you intended you can easily soak it up by dipping the corner of a piece of kitchen roll into the wet ink............I prefer not to lay the tissue onto the ink as it may well lift off more than you want, also it will take the intensity out of the colour. Of course if you want a paler finish then that is exactly how to achieve it.

And last but by no means least, my Penny Black mid month card using the fab Pop Pop Poppy image and a soft Brusho background.

Many thanks for taking a look and I hope I have encouraged you to get inky !!

Blooms, Butterflies and new family members

My thanks to you all for your kind comments and well wishes yesterday which are all greatly appreciated. It's at times like this when the body is less than willing that I am re-assured my obsession of working weeks ahead with DT projects is a practical solution to dealing with MS. With artwork done and posts scheduled it takes the worry away and leaves me to just add a few words as I am doing here.

Today sees the start of a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is Beautiful Blooms, one that plays right into my hands. As always there is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from FlonzCraft.

I started with a Dylusion background and pearl mica spray. The colours turned out a little more intense than I planned so rather than water them down I used white embossing powder, it's one I don't use that often but quite like how the Visible Image sentiment pops with it. Next I used a Timmy stencil and pearl dimensional paste here and there and then stamped randomly round the edges with a Penny Black stamp using DI Dusky Concorde. I used a Tattered Lace Butterfly Trio stamp and die set again using white embossing powder and the flowers are Heartfelt Creations.

I do hope you will come and join us this month and share your own beautiful blooms.

The above card is one of my Guest Designer cards for Chocolate Baroque which you will find on their blog here today following their 15 minute card theme. I used the beautiful Butterfly Flourish Swirls stamp set, stamping with black archival ink and colouring with Brusho's. I drew a black line around the image, added a few sequins and matted and layered onto coordinating cardstock.

And look who moved in with us yesterday, Anysia and Azaria arrived home with these two sweeties who have been named Jemima and Puddleduck.....................I know that's all one name..............but they were not to be moved on the chosen names. They are Aylesbury ducks, two weeks old and will be almost full grown by twelve weeks and larger than most of the hens.

Happy Sunday all.

Fancy Ribbons

Good morning to you all, well our internet is all up and running again but afraid my visits are still spasmodic, I was under the weather earlier in the week and it seems to have turned into a bit of an MS relapse. So not too much sleep due to the pain, all fingers and thumbs and everything on go slow, so my apologies if comments are a bit short and sweet..........but rest assured I am still able to visually take in your lovely creations.

It's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where Wendy has chosen the theme of 'Fancy Ribbons' which fits in very nicely with this weeks sponsor Crafty Ribbons.

This is a card I made recently for Tattered Lace using the new Victoria Nelson designs, I'm not actually on the CD/paper crafting DT but I think I must have enthused so much over the pretty summery colours and images that I was sent the kit to play with.

The papers were printed from the CD and the focal image is one of the toppers as is the sentiment.  I made the easel card using TL Pin Dot Pearl frames, I think they make such a pretty base cards, matted and layered everything and added some flowers and ruched some ribbon for the easel stopper.

Happy weekend all.

Blossoms and Butterflies

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Feature a Creature' and 'Flower Power' and as usual wonderful prizes to be won at both.

My Butterfly which is from Penny Black is my Stamping Sensation creature, a rather bright and bold creation but it was fun to make. I took a piece of Fabriano 600gsm cardstock and working on a coloured section at a time and allowing to dry in-between, I spritzed liberally with water, shook on Brusho crystals and used a straw to blow the wet colours outwards.

Next I stamped the Butterfly onto a piece of card, coloured with the same Brosho's, cut out and mounted onto the inky background, also stamping the Visible Image sentiment. I added wire antenna to the Butterfly and a few silver sequins.

My Penny Black creation uses all time favourite Dance, Sing, Love along with a new stamp with the lovely name Branch of Grace. I gave the background a light colour wash with blue distress ink and the stamped the blossom inking the stamp with distress markers and spritzing with water before stamping the whole image once and then sections of it to extend the blossoms. The sentiment is stamped with archival coffee.

As always there are lots of super prizes to be won and some great inspiration from my team mates, so please do pop over the the challenge blogs.

Have a lovely Sunday whatever you are up to.

The great outdoors and a few more garden flowers

Good morning to you all, can I first start by apologising for my lack of blog activity this week, we have had internet issues and limited connectivity and e.mail and as a result my visits have been somewhat hampered. Hopefully all will be sorted within the next few days and normal service resumed.

It's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where Tracy has chosen the theme of  The Great Outdoors. Our sponsor is Scrappers Delight and Sizzix.

No secret I enjoy making scenes, especially with Pan Pastels so am in my element with this theme and have two shares. The one at the top had a rather large masked sun and a background created with Pan Pastels and a piece of torn paper to create the hills. I then stamped the bunnies which come from two different Chocolate Baroque stamp sets and Penny Black birdies which I stamped three times and extended the wires with a fine line pen. I added a few stamped CB leaves and coloured them with Spectrum Pencils.

For this one I used a mixture of Sheena, Clarity and Art Impression stamps, stamping the all with black archival and the adding colour with a mixture of Pan Pastels and Spectrum pencils. I'm not actually over happy with the colours, the green is a tad too bright I feel and did intend making another but time got the better of me.

I hope you will join in this weeks challenge and do have a look at the inspiration from my teamies.

And as this weeks theme it all about the Great Outdoors it seemed only appropriate that I share a few more photos of the gardens as everything looks so lovely at the moment, amazing given how cold it's been this last week.

We bought this digitalis from a specialist garden center in Suffolk, such an unusual colour

A bit of allsorts in this bed including some very early cornflowers and Sweet Williams which always remind me of my Granny's garden which was full of traditional cottage garden flowers

I love Phenstemons, these came fro the same Suffolk garden center as the Digitalis above, you don't seem to see them that often but I do hope they make a comeback into the cottage garden

OK, that's about it for now, hopefully the Albertine Roses over the pergola's will be in bloom very shortly and I will share some photos. One of the ladies who visited my last garden photos said the gardens must keep me very busy..............so I had better say it's hubby they keep busy at weekends. I used to love gardening but now am unable to do the bending and the best I can offer by way of help is an hour or two on the tractor cutting the grass - but I do enjoy that, especially on a sunny day, usually followed by a few Wagtails who seem to love hopping around on the freshly cut lawns. 

Happy weekend.