Dance like no one's watching

A new month means new challenges at We Love Stamping and Stamping Sensations. At WLS our seasonal theme of Flowers has been selected by Hilary and we welcome Personal Impressions offering a £25 store voucher to our lucky winner. Whilst at SS Carol has selected something equally seasonal with Birds, Bees and Butterflies which happen to feature on the Lavinia stamps as prizes.

For the above card I used Tim Holz French Garden, there is no indication of the type of flowers but to me they look like Peonies so I've gone with a traditional colour for their blooms. An inky background and leaves stamped roughly where I wanted to place the flowers which were stamped onto inked offcuts, cut out and paper pieced. The quote is my favourite from Penny Black and the stitching another TH set called simply Stitches. Finally an envelope to match. I don't have a photo of the offcuts but am hoping I can still pop to the new challenge over at the Snippets Playground, also Ellies Garden Party and new to me Glitz of Art Letters 'F' which of course if my Flowers,  finally Triple B, mine is Blooms.

A Lavinia make using Moss Flowers stamped into a circle, masked and some worker stamps in-between, flowers coloured with pencils, then Twila stamped in the centre and some of the Bees from Bumblehums. To use just part of a stamp place a piece of masking tape over the parts you don't want, ink, but don't forget to remove the tape before stamping....sometimes I still forget and ruin everything. The sentiment is another real oldie wood mounted from PB, I went searching to discover when it was made as I seem to have had it forever, was 2001, the one at the top is newer 2010. 

Festive Friday is celebrating National Honey Bee Day and would like at least three items from their list on entires, I have Flowers, yellow, black and Bees. Tic Tac Toe, my three elements are sentiment, summer and any colour and also Sunday Stamps with a colour palette, three required.

Margo who will be four in a few weeks and Penelope who is seven had their first Gymkhana last Sunday and at another today. Seems rather young to me, I must have been five or six before I started but times move on! We weren't sure how she would take to it, but her face says it all, only downside seemed to be when the judge gave the first rosette to her, she answered "that's not my favourite colour"!! Her Mum was mortified but doesn't think the Judge heard, lets hope not because she may well come up against here again.

Many thanks for your visits, always appreciated and for your kind words about Holly, I will update after her surgery.

Out in the meadow

Good morning, we have a new challenge at Allsorts and a theme of Animals as chosen by Helen. We have two prizes from Lavinia Stamps. 

The scene above is just outside the window (with a bit of artistic licence as we don't have a foal), the mare and foal grazing the paddock under the shade of a tree and some Ducks flying over. I uses Lavinia Horse and Foal, Tree of Hope, Tree Branch, Vine Set, Ducks and Orchard Grass. Elements inks used to build up the background and stencilled sun and rays and a matching envie. I would like to enter this at Crafty Animals challenge.

A masked and inked circle and flowers stamped using various Versafine inks with a Woodland Hare eyeing up the Butterfly. Flowers used are Woodland Fern, Bluebell, Foxglove and Wildflower. I'm hoping my Hare is considered appropriate for Crazy Critters challenge, if not please disregard.

It's also reveal day at the Card Chain Challenge, for once I've got the day right! My card went to my blog friend Greta in the USA, I received a beauty from fellow DT Hilary, photo below. 

I followed (loosely and the green looks rather intensified in the photo) the colour palette of Turquoise, Smoke and Olive and the window option. The focal stamp is Penny Black 40-675 Together, ink applied direct to stamp using my stamping platform and Ecoline brush pens and stamped several times to build the colour.

The garden and greenhouses are producing an abundance of produce so pickle making is well underway along with oodles of pasta sauce and ragout, make two varieties of that, one the Napoli way using San Marzano tomatoes and home made soffritto in preparation above and the bowl at back, the other the Napoli way using Super Roma tomatoes and no soffritto. I make lots of lasagne and cannelloni and freeze down for Winter and of course some get shipped out when the children visit.

Sweet mustard pickle, batch two of the week. There's loads of basil this year for the sauces and ragout, green going well, but the purple seems to be late and not ready for picking yet.

The cooking activity has kept me busy this week for which I've been grateful after the news about Holly which I mentioned yesterday, your kind words appreciated. 

The Grand Tour

Morning all, time for our new challenge at Tag-Along (and ATC's) where Pinky has chosen the theme of Travel and as usual there's the Anything Goes option. We have another lovely set of tag shaped dies to give away to the months lucky winner and as always the three of us will each choose our favourite from the months entries. Even if tags and ATC's are not your things, why not given them a go?

I've decided my couple above are from the Edwardian era, recently married from an aristocratic background and doing the Grand Tour (humour me please!) and currently in the Eternal City which is one of my favourites. 

The base tag is A&C, the stamping various Penny Black stamps and the tickets and elegant couple TH ephemera. Finished with some fancy twine and a bow. The theme at A/G in a Card Free Zone is 'I'd wear that' so think my tag might fit.

My ATC uses images from my Gecko Galz win a few weeks ago. I never fail to think of Princess Diana when I look at photos of The Taj Mahal. She looked so sad sitting there in the red jacket, purple shoes and skirt, her marriage was falling apart which to this day I find so sad and the fact she's not our Queen. There's a new challenge at ATC's around the World so am linking up.

Our Holly is poorly and having surgery on Tuesday. After losing both Daisy and Poppy this year we were devastated this week to discover that she has an aggressive tumour on her chest. She's no spring chicken so surgery comes with it's own dangers, I'm praying it's successful and she can enjoy a little longer with us. 

I'll be back tomorrow and again Sunday, posts like buses this weekend.