Old favourites at Allsorts

Morning Peeps, it's Saturday and time for our new challenge at Allsorts. As usual my post was scheduled so adding a note which seems to be a recurring theme and me apologising for my lack of blogland activity. I've not been at all well since what should have been minor surgery ten day's ago, now on my second type of antibiotics to try and bring the infection under control and a reduction in pain. I know my compromised immune system means I take twice as long to heal but I had hoped for some improvement by now and a good nights sleep would be sooooooo nice. C'est la vie!

So back to Allsorts and this week Tracy has come up with the theme of Old Favourites and would like us to use a favourite stamp or die. Our prize this week is ribbons from this weeks sponsor Fantastic Ribbons.

Well those who know me will have second guessed what stamps I would be using so it's no surprise to see Stampendous P107 pop up along with Penny Black Dance, Singe, Love. I created a background with distress inks then used a stencil to add some circles with the yellow ink. Next I stamped Agapanthus Cluster several times with versafine black and also the sentiment and mounted onto a black base card.

And here is the same inspirational quote, this time onto a softer inky background, the corner cut out with a Timmy die and the lovely Penny Black Rose inked direct to stamp with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping. Finally I added some background interest with a diamond pattern stencil to carry the theme of the die.

Happy weekend all.

Butterflies and Hollyhocks

Morning Peeps, it's Saturday and time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Wendy would like to see Butterflies on our creations. Our sponsor is Tattered Lace. 

I also have my Penny Black mid month share, it's a couple of days late I'm afraid, have been feeling pretty poorly since the hospital procedure this week and hoping the antibiotics they gave me yesterday will kick in quickly, I remembered to do the post for the challenge blog but totally forgot about my own.

Both cards are ones I made a while back for Chocolate Baroque programmes on Hochanda but not previously blogged so work nicely for this weeks theme. The top one used the beautiful large Butterfly stamped off the page with versmark and two colours of embossing powder added before heating. I then sprinkled some gold Frantage over the page and again heat embossed then the sentiment embossed with detail clear.

For this one I used Mica powders sprinkled onto a piece of watercolour card and spritzed with water to blend them. I stamped the sentiment with versafine black and the Butterflies stamped onto heat resistant acetate with versamark and heat embossed with detail black powder before cutting out and fixing around the sentiment.

As always my team mates have lots of inspiration to share so do pop over to the challenge blog to take a peek.

And here is my Penny Black mid month share using the beautiful Hollyhocks and sentiment, I stamped the floral image with tea dye distress ink which gives a very soft outline to enable you to colour in without the harsh outside lines.........just a different way of doing it really.

Recent problems publishing comments

Most of us have probably encountered the recent problems with publishing comments when we go to peoples blogs.

Well one of my challenge teamies came across a possible solution whilst she was out in blogland, I have tried it on my own blog and it certainly does seem to make comments much quicker to publish. So this is the information she passed on:

In the settings on your blog select 'posts, comments and sharing, select 'comment location' and from the drop down menu select 'pop up window' then save. 

It's as simple as that. Apparently blogs have 'embedded' as  the default option, but I have tried commenting on my own blog with both options and the 'pop up window' most certainly is much quicker.

As I mentioned above I obtained this info second hand, but I am sure the originator will be happy for us all to share as it will make life much easier for all of us, so please feel free to lift the above and share.

Dreaming of the Beach

A very good morning to you all, over at the Chocolate Baroque DT blog I am sharing some more seaside inspired inspiration from last months Hochanda shows, for ease and because I am having another procedure done at hospital I have literally lifted the post over to my own blog.

The card at the top uses elements from Seashore Scenes and Seaside Dreams stamp sets all stamped in Versafine Toffee. After stamping the sky I coloured with Pan Pastels and also stamped the Seagull image. Next I stamped the shell border onto Kraft card, added some white highlights and used a die to cut the aperture to create the frame.......to do this you first cut round the top only of stamped image then place the die onto the card tucking the bottom section behind the stamping as below and it's always a good idea to fix the dies in place with low tack tape to stop them moving..............

                            

You then have a frame with stamping as an integral part to place over the focal image. Finally I mounted onto a base card and added some string.

The focal image on this one is from Seashore Scenes stamped with Versafine black. I placed a sun mask in the skyline before colouring with a mixture of pencils and Pan pastels, added the sentiment from Seaside Dreams stamp set and also some foliage to the fore on the scene using a stamp from the Silhouette Grasses set.

Finally a CAS style card, I used a circle mark to stamp the Seagull from Seashore Scenes stamp set three times using Versafine Toffee, then used the circle from the mask and placed over the stamping and added some soft shading around the aperture using Distress Inks. The sentiment is from Seaside Dreams stamp set.

All of the stamps I have used can be found on the website here or by following the links above.

Also, here are some of my CAS cards which appeared on the DT blog yesterday.

Have a good Tuesday all and if your weather is anything like ours, inside in the warm is the best place to be.............I checked the long range weather forecast and they promise a glimmer of sunshine Friday so sounds like if you blink you will miss it............roll on Spring.

Down the bottom of my garden

Morning Peeps, it's Saturday again and time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Tracy Mouse is our host and would like us to create without using any design papers. We welcome a new sponsor this week Craft Obsession who are offering a £15 voucher to our lucky winner. 

Despite being a real hoarder and stroker of DP's I don't actually use them as often as I should, but do love creating my own backgrounds be they vivid and inky or softer tones with Pan Pastels which is what I have used on this one along with a circle mask for the moon and torn paper for the hills.

So this is a little scene which if you are really quiet you can spot down the bottom of our garden on misty spring and summer mornings.........honestly !! Well doesn't everyone have Fairies at the bottom of their gardens ?

The arch shaped triptych card has been created with dies and the little scenes made up with Lavinina and Chocolate Baroque stamps. I even added a little mouse for our Tracy as she so loves them.

I added some soft colour with glitter pens to the teasels, blossoms and Fairy wings and tied the three sections together with eyelets and ribbon.

Many thanks for visiting today and I hope you will join in with our challenge this week.

There's magic in the air

It's time for our  new monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Cold and Frosty Colours' and ' Something New'. As always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both so every reason to come and join us. 

My Stamping Sensation piece at the top uses Lavinia stamps, my stating point was the create the moon which I stamped with second generation distress inks. I added the moonrays with a piece of torn paper..........I start at the top sponging each ray and moving downwards as you can then judge the distance between each......if you start at the bottom you are covering what you have already sponged. I then stamped the Fairies with Versafine black and grounded the large one with Pan Pastels and yes you've got it, another piece of torn paper! Next the flowers which I coloured in sparkle pens and finally again using second generating ink I randomly stamped the sentiment which is from Stamp Addicts followed by the leaves across the top. 

The starting point of my second Stamping Sensations creation was to colour the top section of a piece of Fabriano with distress inks and then bleach away some of the colour with a sponge to create the clouds. Next using versafine black I stamped a mixture of tress and leaves using Sutter and Art Impressions stamps, then added some soft colour with Pan Pastels and glitter to give a frosty feel.

My Penny Black share is an inky one, regular distress inks for the background, then some stenciling using a new stencil, three Butterflies from PB Social Butterfly set, all stamped with versafine black and coloured with distress pens the same colours as the background and sentiment from Happy Wishes, I used a post it note to mask so I could stamp the individual elements to break the sentiment into three pieces. Finally some wire antenna for the Butterflies and a few sequins.

Do pop over to the challenge blogs to see the wonderful inspiration my team mates have to share.

Something new at Allsorts and a special bottle of bubbles

Morning Peeps, it's Saturday so that means it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week I Susan would like us to see 'Something New'. Our sponsor is Digistamp Boutique. It's a bit of a lengthy post as I wanted to share one of my Christmas gifts and also a few shares from my post earlier in the week over at the Chocolate Baroque DT blog.

My card at the top uses a new stencil and stamp from Visible Image. I started by placing a circle mask over a square of white card, then the patterned mask on top of that and used Pan Pastels to colour through to create the pattern. I then removed the pattern mask but left the circle on in place and stamped the horse image with black verfine. I stamped then the smaller horses in the set and also one of the sentiments.

My second share started as a bit of an experiment, I wanted to do something using the Black Floral set from this weeks sponsor and playing with it found my programme would allow me to do a drop shadow of the image. So immediately I thought of reflections in water, copied the image three times and printed out. Using Pan Pastels I added water and sky and then used Lavinia fairies, one of which is new (the little pair dancing in the air) and foliage stamps to build up a scene.

I had to share this photos with you, it's a Christmas gift I received from one of our son's and DIL, when they were visiting the Champagne region of France is September, one of the vineyards they visited had hand painted bottles of champagne and when they saw this one they said it had me written all over it.........I wonder why ? And it's a vintage year so a special one to savour when the cork gets popped.

Last but by no means least, here are a few of my Chocolate Baroque makes for the shows over on Hochada a couple of weeks ago, you can find more details on the DT blog here

For all these creation I used I used various elements from Seashore Dreams and Seaside Scenes stamp sets whick you can find on the shop blog by following the links.

This litter box had been sitting in my crafts room for a few weeks since one of my daughters in law 'donated' it to me do I gave it a re-vamp.

I added a few real shells collected in Majorca a year or two ago.

Have a lovely weekend all and keep warm.