Feminine at Allsorts and Butterfly Challenge

Morning Peeps, it's Saturday and time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week Lynn is our host and we are going all 'Feminine' for her chosen theme and Swedish House Crafts are our sponsors. I also have a card for the current Butterfly Challenge.

Again I'm apologising from being missing from blogland, a weekend away was closely followed by what should have been a routine kidney procedure, I say should have been as it all went a bit pear shaped so not had the best of weeks and I'm back in again at the beginning of September.

I'm not convinced I like the top card, I wanted to have a go letting the inks bleed which seem to be so popular to give a watercolour effect but to me the finished article is messy. Anyhow, using my stamp platform I used my normal Distress Markers and water to stamp the Penny Black image and then sloshed.......technical term......... a bit of water around the blooms to let the colours bleed out, as I said I think it's messy rather than attractive!! And my all time favourite PB sentiment.

What with non crafty things taking up my time lately I've not joined in the Butterfly Challenge for a few weeks but was determined to keep my promise and join in the current one where the Butterfly Wheel offers: Key Lime, Kraft, Kinetic, Knots, Kobi (Pink/Lavender), Kobe (Dark Burgundy) and of course a Butterfly or two. And I've got them all albeit the key lime is a tad tenuous just added to parts of the stamped images. The DP's take in the other colours, the base card is Kraft, a TL dies provide the Kinetics, ribbons tied with a knot and Butterflies on the stamps which are both Chocolate Baroque.

This is one of my recent Hochands samples for Stamp Addicts, the show was all about inchies and twinchies and have to say I thoroughly enjoyed working on these samples and I especially love the beautiful Muse image from Judikins. I covered six inchies with G45 papers and stamped onto three of them, mounted all onto the base card and stamped and cut out a Butterfly from the same stamp set.

Happy weekend all and I'm hoping lots of our will join in our theme this time round, remember you have two weeks to enter.

 

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Mid month shares and trying out Arteza brush pens

Morning Peeps, a scheduled post and done in a bit of a rush as I had totally forgotten we are away for a long weekend and the date of our mid month inspiration posts for Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More falls on Sunday.

These three cards were a test run with my new Arteza Brush Pens, I thanked the company for their prompt dispatch and delivery (less than 24 hours which was amazing) and they said they would be very happy if I wrote a review on my blog, so here it is. As is always the case when I do this I write as I find.

The purpose of purchasing was specifically for direct to stamp inking as it's the technique I use much of the time and from which I gain crafting satisfaction. For years I have used Distress Markers, but the price of them has been steadily increasing and when I came to order 16 replacement ones for the colours I use more frequently, the cheapest I could find was £2.50 and on some sites £3.75 and no one site had all the coloured I needed. So I decided to give the Arteza pens a try and bought the full set of 96 for £56.09 (after 15% discount) so amazing value compared with many other similar products on the market.

My thoughts here are based purely on using them as a medium to ink direct to stamp, friends tell me they are excellent for colouring in but this is not something I do often or even enjoy, but I might give it a try to see how they compare. With 96 pens to choose from the colour range is excellent and the set comes with a water brush as well so in terms of value for money can't be knocked.

Now onto using them for the purpose I purchased, early thoughts are that they are not as juicy as Distress Markers and it took quite a few re-stamping's to build up the colour using my Timmy stamp platform, I can usually achieve what I'm after with three or four repeat stamping's using DM's. I started as I always do with laying down the colours on the stamp and giving a good spritz of water for the first stamping, this usually gives a nice spread of colours merging into one another, however with the Arteza pens the colour stayed pretty much where I put it despite the water and was reluctant to move.

I built up the colour with more inking and stamping in the hope the colours would dispersed but they stayed pretty much set in place, the Butterflies below are a good example of what I mean, normally I would expect with the persuasion of water that the two colours will bleed into each so there are no set lines between colours. So in this regard I am rather disappointed but wanted to share the finished projects otherwise there is little point in me writing the review!

But I've not given up on them yet and want to experiment more, I haven't tried them on any of my Brushstroke floral's yet so that will be a job for next week and I will report back when I have played a bit more and hope I can be a bit more positive. I will also give them a whirl creating backgrounds to see where that takes me.

If anyone else has had success using them as I have done and perhaps followed a different process I would love to hear so please do share.

Back to my work, apart from the two smaller Butterflies which are Chocolate Baroque, all stamps are Penny Black as is the die on the Bird card, the sky on the top card was created with DI's and bleach, some decoupage papers and DI's on the tag, everything else was coloured direct to stamp with the Arteza pens.

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Sailing into the sunset and my race heroes

Morning Peeps, back from holiday and in time to tell you about our new challenge at Allsorts where Ellie has chosen the theme of 'Sun, Moon, Stars or Baby'. Our lucky winner will receive a double Hollypond Hill CD ROM set. Again this is a two week challenge during the holiday season.

When I ran regular classes and demos, something I only do now and again these days as my health is unpredictable, I was often referred to as the "Moon Lady" or "Poppy Lady" because invariably I included a piece of work featuring either a sun or moon often accompanied by Poppies as well.

Old habits die hard as they say as nothing has changed and I continue to use both in my crafting regularly. On the above card I stamped the mountains and sea first which are from Stampscapes, placing some torn paper in the foreground where I wanted to create a beach before stamping. Then a sun mask, built up the colour using Pan Pastels, stamped the boat, also Stampscapes and some Inkylicious leaves around the top to frame the scene.

We have been on holiday in the Alps and Alex had a race on the Italian side on Mont Blanc, the 60K Monterosa Est Himalayan Trail endurance race with weather conditions from 30deg to snow and ice at 3000m so we were thrilled that he came 5th in a large field of athletes. And a podium finish as in Ultra races they extend the podium to six. So I thought I would share a couple of photos, the bottom one is at the finish where he looks a bit battered and worn but happy.

And at the same time one of his elder brothers Eliot below was running the Centurion North Downs Way 100 mile race, he's been injured and unable to train properly but still managed 20th place, I don't have a photo of him in that one but this is one taken on day five of the Sussex Marathon Madness event which is in June - yes marathons on five consecutive evenings which he seemed to complete with ease and happy to display all five medals.

Daughter Joy also runs (but she's camera shy), mostly 10k and half marathons although she did do London as did eldest Granddaughter Anysia. And then of course there is Grandson Zachary who took part in the London Triathlon for the second time in July. I don't know where they get all their energy from as every one takes months of training, preparation and dedication but we are super proud of them all.

And at the risk of being super boring, this is a Tweet from the Home Secretary this week, our eldest son to the left who was seconded to the Home Office a few weeks ago as the UK National Mobilisation Coordinator, again we're super proud parents!

Back to Allsorts and my second card uses a mixture of stamps, I know the trees and sentiment are Inkylicious but I have no clue what make the fence is as it's unmounted, but a suspicion it might be Prickly Pear from the days I designed for them. Again the background is Pan Pastels and a mask and stencil to add the sun and rays.

I took lots of photos on holiday but not had time to edit them as yet, we were delayed getting home due to BA's problems this week but were lucky that our flight did at least get air bound eventually, I think it was the last BA flight out of Geneva that afternoon. And to add further delay a lorry ran our taxi home off the M11, fortunately we were OK, it could have been far worse but the driver did a sterling job of controlling the car to prevent us going down the embankment to the oncoming traffic. The lorry failed to stop and seemed to speed up but we got all the details and it's thought he was on his mobile phone.

Have a good weekend everyone and please do pop over to the challenge blog to see the inspiration on display from my team mates.

 

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Joy is a net of Love

Another scheduled post as it's the first Sunday in the month which means new challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Things with Wings' and 'For Boys and Men'. As always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both.

My top card uses stamps from Rubber Dance, this months Stamping Sensation sponsor. I first created the background using Distress Oxides then used a stencil and texture paste to add script which I inked over with the same Wilted Violet DI and stamped some flowers around the edges. The Butterflies are stamped onto vellum and heat embossed with detail white EP and the same ink s used to colour the back before fining in place and adding wire antenna. The sentiment is Penny Black.  

This is another of the new Penny Black release from their Dreaming range called Calm Waters. I used Distress Markers to ink the stamp, Pan Pastels for the sky and Koh-i-Noo paints for the rest of the scene. The birds are from Natures Friends and as I was putting them back in the packet the little Deer fell out so I decided to ass that as well, the sentiment is also PB. 

This one is not me at all, but I figured it's quite a good image for the lads. Stamped and coloured and placed in an aperture and the top layer run through a brick embossing folder to give the impression we are looking through the window at the little lad sitting in his bedroom. The word is made from chipboard letters and the starts die cuts.

Have a good Sunday everyone, I will see you all in a few days when we are home from our holiday.

 

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