A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

Morning Peeps, I've made a card again !!

Might not sound too amazing but with one arm, shoulder and neck still wonky and full of pain it's a bit of an achievement. It's not am amazing card and has taken me a couple of days but I was determined to get something accomplished on the craft front as I am fast running out of my 'just in case' work.................the last few weeks confirm to me that it's a good principal to stand by and craft for England when I'm OK. 

It's for the current Snippets Playground challenge and also the Butterfly Challenge which is of course Butterflies with Kraft and/or Kaleidoscope, well the latter immediately said a Kaleidoscope of Butterflies to me, so stamping onto Kraft card with Altenew Layered Lilies and lots of punched Butterflies using up glitter card snippets.

My thanks again for all your kind visits when I am such a poor blogger, they all mean so much and do lift my spirits.

Chocolate Baroque 15 minute cards

Another batch of cards made some weeks ago, this time for Chocolate Baroque which you will find on the DT blog here following our twice monthly posts of 15 minute cards.  

Apart from the blue card further down all have been made using images from CB Butterfly Flourish stamp set and I hope show that you can crate very different cards using just that one set.

I stamped the large Butterfly onto a background created by randomly brushing watered down distress inks and then colouring the Butterflies with the same distress inks.

Here I sponged distress inks through a mask made using a sheet of acetate and circle dies, then stamping the little swirls and sentiment which some from CB Words of Inspiration set...........I so love this set and use it over and again.

A simple background using distress inks and a honeycomb mask, the image stamped with black archival is CB Cornflower and coloured in with Spectrum Sparkle pens.

A very simple card here using another of the swirls from the same set, stamping it onto a strip of card using purple archival ink, matting and layering the panel , some ribbon and a few silver gems to carry the silver of the ribbon and matting.

Many thanks for taking a peek today.

Dies, Rudolph Day's and Canine Fashionista

Before I go on to my Allsorts post which thankfully I scheduled some weeks back, I just need to add a few words in the form of an apology and a thank you.

An apology for the faux pas which seem to be a regular occurrence when I try to write a comment on blogs lately. The mind knows what I want to say but with one arm pretty useless too often comments get posted before I get to do corrections. So if you have had a dodgy comment or two from me I hope this goes some way to explain. And the thank you to all of you who still offer kind comments and words of encouragement even though my visits are spasmodic.

Now back to Allsorts where Wendy would like us to showcase our dies using 'more than two'. Our sponsor is Sizzix.

No secret that I like to buck the trend a little...........or perhaps it's just I like to find new ways of using things. Anyhow, this is a canvas I did for Tattered Lace a while back using one of the new (at that time) stencils. I covered the canvas with gesso and then painted with a wine coloured acrylic paint, dried with a heat gun and then added a thin coat of crackle glaze, I've tried so many and always revert back to the Parer Artsy one for both the finished crackles it gives and it's ease of use. Next a layer of a very pale pink acrylic paint and watch the cracks appear like magic.

Once dry I used DI's and a mask made with acetate and a TL harlequin die to add some background interest, then dimensional paste and the TL Keep Calm mask. While it was drying I cut out the flowers and leaves using TL Trio dies and embossing folders along with TL swirls and the Friends word, all of which I painted with the same acrylic paints. Lastly lots of gilding wax and a strip of lace. Six dies in total so I think I have met Wendy's brief OK. |And hopefully by the skin of my teeth I will beat the Playground gates closing, at least being so late I won't be able to create too much havoc.

As always there is so much inspiration from my teamies over at the challenge blog, please do pop over and take a peek.

And I also have one for Mo's current Rudolph Day's challenge, I missed last month as I was away.

Again it's not a new make and one I created back in May for Tattered Lace's Christmas shows on C&C using the 2016 Snow Globe along with the little rows of houses and Santa dies which are also new for this Christmas, some TL Ivy and Poinsettias.

Lastly I thought I would share a few photos of our family friends taken this week................

What all the best dressed labs are wearing this season, or in Holly's case those who have a stitched shoulder due to an injury (still no idea how she did it). A buster collar was not necessary as she can't reach it with her month, but we quickly found out her back leg could, so an old tee shirt seems to be working fine.

Do you remember those tiny ten day old ducks Jemima and Puddleduck back in June here, eleven weeks on and this is what they look like now and they are still far from fully grown.......note the new duck house behind which is located next to the pond............... they quickly grew out of their first house so a new one was necessary but guess what, they spent two nights in there and decided they preferred the big chicken house.

And this is Speckledy, a seven month of Bantam who we rescued from Wood Green Animal Shelter a couple of weeks ago. He has a nice new house as well which he shares in a separate run with two of the hens until he is confident enough to meet the other girls.............but for a bantam he is really rather restrained when it comes to the ladies !!

And finally, a photo I took last evening, our local golf club a couple of fields away always hosts the National hot air balloon competition and for a week we see all the competitors overhead taking part in the daily races. This year there were 20 competitors but I wasn't able to get them all in one shot and it's pretty distant as I only have a bog standard Canon so wasn't able to zoom in, but it's a pretty spectacular sight.

Happy Bank Holiday weekend all.

Fabulous Florals

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week it's my turn to host the theme which is  'Fabulous Florals'................no surprises there I hear you say !! Our sponsor is Marianne Designs. 

It's another outing for my Altenew stamps and a card that is not dissimilar to one I shared a few weeks ago, but at least it's a totally different colour. This time I used shades of pink, the sentiment is also Altenew stamped onto vellum and ribbon tied across the middle. 

As always my teamies have come up with some fabulous pieces of artwork so I do hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and take a peek.

More vanilla Butterflies

Morning Peeps, I have another card for the current Butterfly Challenge following the theme of Butterflies with Vanilla and/or Vase.

Again determined to get something made in spite of this painful malfunctioning body of mine I stuck with inkiness and splatters where you can't go wrong really and three Penny Black Butterflies along with distress inks in a 'vanillar'ish' colour. The sentiment is Visible Image.

I also have my card for our mid month inspirational post at Penny Black and More using the lovely 'Freshly Cut' stamp which I coloured with Spectrum Sparkle pens.

Short and sweet I'm afraid but have to listen to my body in the hope continued rest will eventually improve things.

Dream it

Today sees the start of a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is Resist Stamping. As always there is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from FlonzCraft.

To create my card I started by stamping the lovely Penny Black Poppy stamp with versafine and embossing with detail clear powder. I then sponged DI's fossilised amber, picked raspberry and mowed lawn over the embossed background. The sentiment is from Chocolate Baroque stamped with black archival and finally some black pearls.

I do hope you will pop over the the challenge blog and see the super inspiration from my teamies and also join in with our challenge this month.

And I would love to pop over to the Snippets Playground with this one.

Grungy Flutterflys

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Susan would like to see Butterflies this week. Our sponsor is Stamp Addicts.

This was a fun card to make and created some weeks ago when crafting was still possible, to be honest I am going stir crazy being unable to craft because of the pain and just glad I have a backup of of cards to keep me going for a few weeks. 

I started with a piece of 600gsm Fabriano and lemon and lilac Brusho's which I dabbed as I added the water to keep the colours quite subtle. I took a Timmy sunray stencil and inked through with DI mustard seed and then covered with translucent stencil paste. The Butterfly border and individual Butterflies are all Tattered Lace and cloured with the same Brusho's. A sentiment which as per usual I am unable to identify as it's unmounted, some pearls and coordinating matting and layering.

I hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and see all of the lovely inspiration from my teamies.

Imagine...........

We are literally just back from holiday, we had a lovely relaxing time with perfect weather. A big thank you for your continued support and visits whilst I was missing.

My body had the opportunity to do some healing and although I am still having some severe pain spasms and one arm not working as I would hope, I am praying I am on the way to getting back to crafting and doing the things I enjoy most.

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes at both are nice and easy ones to fit in with your busy summer holiday schedules.....'Anything Goes'.........and as always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both, not to mention fabulous inspiration as always from my teamies.

My card at the top is my Stamping Sensations creation using Altenew stamps and a mixture of distress and dye inks following a design I saw on Pinterest, such a great source of inspiration when the mojo is flagging or totally missing as mine has been at the time of scheduling this post.

I first cut out a 'V' section from the linen cardstock to be used as my top layer and stamped a Inkylicious sentiment with black archival, then stamped the flowers onto a another piece of card to go under the aperture. I used blue card for the bottom mat and strips of the same to slip behind to two cut lines and used foam pads to raise the top layer. A bow and some blue gems to embellish. I have to confess it's the first piece of artwork I have been relatively happy with for weeks and am so hoping by the time this post goes live which coincides with our return from holiday that my mojo will be be back and my body back to something like normal functionality again.

My Penny Black share is a 5x7 canvas, again made some weeks ago, which I coated liberally with gesso and then PVA glue and fixed some plumbers mesh (no idea what it's really called) into the wet glue to achieve a really rough textured background. Next I added inks and Dylusions and rubbed them into the gauze..........this was such a message process but so much fun.............and then added some gilding wax. Next I stamped the Penny Black flowers onto card spritzed with the same colour Dylusions and cut out with the matching PB die. The sentiment is also PB but cut into three, next I added the lace, then the flowers, cord and button and finally a little chipboard butterfly which I painted with Dylusions and stencilled some stripes.

I am popping over to the Playground with the first card (snipped is the piece in the aperture), been a few weeks missing so just hope I don't get detention.

Thanks so much for popping in today and look forward to seeing you over at the challenges. I also hope I will be able to visit some of your this coming week.

Spots and stripes

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Mervi would like to see 'Spots and stripes'. Our sponsors are Digistamp Boutique and Crafty Ribbons. Still on scheduled posts but we will soon be home from our travels and back to reality.

My DT piece is a bit of an unconventional take on the theme, I spent hours faffing with papers...........or was that perhaps stroking.......anyhow I seemed unable to find both spots and stripes that I was happy combining........matching papers is something I always spend far too long thinking about.

Then one Saturday afternoon I had a light bulb moment as you do and the above canvas is the result. It's a 5 x 7 hardback canvas which I painted with acrylic paint and some crackle glaze. Once dry I did some stenciling, first the stripes at the top and then tiny spots, I used the same two stencils on the three chipboard Butterflies which I first painted with the same acrylic paint. I also used a floral stencil to add a bit more interest to the base. Some really old paper flowers which got the same paint treatment and Tattered Lace Ivy cut from grunge paper and again painted. I also gave everything a touch of gilding wax and fixed all onto the dry canvas. The sentiment is computer generated.

Hope you all have a good weekend, I will be catching up with you all during next week.