No DP's allowed

A very good morning to you all, today at Allsorts it's my turn to host the theme and I would like to see creations that feature no design papers. Our sponsors are my friend Ruth from A Passion for Stamps and another friend Ignacio from Nicecrane designs.

So as I am on the DT for both it means two cards from me. My Nicecrane piece above uses one of the lovely Birds and Blossoms images.............can you tell I am already thinking ahead to Spring............a background of Dylusions, then script and grids randomly stamped, a Timmy clock onto which I scattered some Frantage, dies cut leaves, some twine, hessian and corner embellies.

My Passions for Stamps card uses the pretty Christmas Rose to which I added just a little colour using my Chameleon pens, inked the edge of the card along with some white Frantage, a Penny Black sentiment and some simple matting and layers. Much as I like Design Papers and have some beautiful ones, I think sometimes they detract from the focal image and to me this card demonstrates exactly what I mean.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Purple Passion

At Allsorts this week Tracy is indulging us in her favorite colour with the theme of Purple Passion, our sponsors are A Passion for Stamps and Craft Fairy.

I decided to go inky and give my brayer an airing and created a background with a masked moon and Adirondack inks, then stamped and heat embossed an Indigo Blue tree stamp, added some Passion for Stamps leaves which I spritzed with Dylusions and Glimmer mist and the lovely Blake poem.

Happy weekend everyone.

Blue and brown right down to the finger tips

Our lovely Jo is our host this week and is challenging us to use colours beginning with the letter 'B' on our artwork. Our sponsors are Yours and Mine Papercrafts and A Passion for Stamps.

Also a little reminder about my 5th Blogaversary celebrations, if you don't know about it check out the post here, lots of Spellbinders to be won.

Naturally brown and blue came immediately to mind for my first card for Jo's theme, I love the colour combo that much that I had my nails that colour this time....................my fortnightly manicure is my little treat and I have indulged in quite a few colour combos recently, I rather liked the graduated pink and purple with a bit of sparkle of course, then there were the Christmas snowflakes.......hmmmmmm choices.

Anyhow, on to my card which is a mixture of Sheena, Stampscape and Lavinia stamps all stamped with archival ink and then of course Pan Pastels for the colouring.

And the nails...........pretend you didn't see those short stumpy fingers, like me they are vertically challenged but the nails are all my own !

And a second card using Ruth's Clarkia image coloured with watercolours pencils and matted onto some Spellbinder.................and this is B for Burgundy.

Whatever you are up to this weekend I hope it's a good one.

Snowflakes

A whole week and no post is unheard of I know but things are getting the better of me as no sooner I've had another test done than I get a call summoning me to tell me something else is malfunctioning, as I said to some of my DT girls the other day if I were a horse they would have shot me long since. 

Anyhow enough of that as Helene would like to see 'Snowflakes' on our work at Allsorts this week where A Passion for Stamps is our sponsor.

I have combined Penny Black and Lavinia stamps to create a Wintry scene for the above card and below Passion for Stamps/Tonic lattice window with MB candles and snowflakes embossed onto the background.

I have a Christmas candy running at the moment................see the post above.................so Saturday candy will be back in the new year.

How does your garden grow and Saturday candy

Tracy has come up with the theme of 'How does your garden grow' at Allsorts this week and we have two fab sponsors, A Passion for Stamps and Crimson Cloud .

So two cards for me as I wanted to make something with Ruth's lovely products but I also had the one at the top which I made a while ago with this sweet Art Impression image which always makes me think of the nursery rhyme 'Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow'. I paper piece the little girl and created a little garden scene around her with various stamps and Pan Pastels and made a couple of rolled roses from the same DP using the Cricut Mini Close to my Heart Art Philosophy cartridge - it's so quick and easy to cut as many flowers as you want all in one go.

My second card uses Ruth's Tonic Passion for Flowers Lily frame die and Lily punch and stamp set which compliment each other perfectly and the soft pinks really lend themselves to the Lilies. The background was created with a mask and perfect pearls and the sentiment an unmounted one of which I have no idea of the origin. The frame and Lilies were all coloured with Pan Pastels.

Now for the winners of last weeks candy who is Mags, well done please mail me with your full name and postal addy.

And this week I thought something a bit Christmassy, some glitter, snowflakes, gems and ribbons, same rules as usual....................

• Add the Saturday Candy logo from my sidebar to your sidebar (not this picture)
• Be a follower of my blog
• A random winner will be selected from all comments left on my blog between now and Friday, so two comments during the week two chances of winning and so on.
• The winner will be announced next Saturday

Happy weekend all.

Lovely Lupins

Morning Peeps, it's feeling much fresher here this morning with a nice drop of overnight rain, my in house weather man recorded 1/8 inch so not a lot really and still sticky with overnight temperatures of 17deg.

A warm welcome to my new followers and thanks for all your kind comments on my last post, I had a few mails asking questions about the new machine and have answered best I can. For those of you who entered my Cricut candy bundle I will be doing the draw over the weekend and announcing the lucky winner, so if you have not already added your name there are a couple of days left to do so.

Just a quick card share of one I made yesterday using Ruth's Passions for Stamps new Lupin image, it's one of those she drew after we discussed cottage garden flowers a while back, so thank you Ruth it's beautiful. If you would like to buy it you will find it here. I do love lupins and we usually have a glorious show of them in the gardens but for whatever reason they along with the Digitalis were really poor this year so I can only think it was the long winter and strange Spring we had.

Have a good Thursday everyone and for those of you in the UK, lets hope the weather remembers it's a Bank Holiday this weekend.

Watch the birdie

A very good morning and yet another of my scheduled posts. We should be on the Amalfi Coast today in Selerno and visiting Pompeii, then tomorrow spending a day at sea sailing back towards Barcelona where we will take the overnight sleeper train to Paris and from there homeward to the UK.

You may ask why the train when it's only a couple of hours by plane to Barcelona, but I'm not keen of flying unless it's the only option, plus the Spanish sleeper trains are really good offering clean en-suite cabins and a traditional meal with wine and breakfast all thrown in the price and the children actually love the excitement of it all. And not a lot different to the cost of flights peak season.

Our lovely Catherine is hosting this weeks challenge at Allsorts and had selected the theme of stitching. And as one of this weeks sponsor is Ruth's A Passion for Stamps it was the perfect opportunity to use lots of her Tonic products. Our other sponsor is a new one Crafty Devils who just happens to sell most of Ruth's products and you can find out more about both on the challenge blog. 

The frame is Ruth's Lily die which I coloured with Pan Pastels whilst still in the die, then laid it over a stamped insert which has one of the birds from the Tonic Watch the Birdie stamp set and the little swirl from the same set. The backing DP is from the Tonic pack from the same Birdie range and I finished the card off with a couple of flowers using Ruth's Tonic Pick of the Bunch Peruvian Lily punch and stamp set.

Hope you all have a good weekend and will be catching up with you next week.

In the garden & Saturday candy

Good Morning to you all, thanks for your kind comments this week and being so understanding that I have not been able to blog very much. But I think things are improving with my mobile world and yesterday I was able to go in the garden without everything seeming to be on the move so fingers crossed it keeps that way.

At Allsorts this week Catherine has come up with the theme of 'In the Garden', another one that's played right into my hands. Luckily I created this one a few weeks ago, I usually work several weeks ahead with my DT work 'just in case' and when I have a week like this one I know it's the right theory for me.

And as our sponsor is Ruth from A Passion for Stamps I was able to indulge in some of her lovely stamps and punches. I started with a background of Dylusions and the obligatory spritz of Glimmer Mist to get a bit of sparkle going on, then I randomly over stamped with Visible Image diamond and script stamps and a Penny Black sentiment. 

Next I stamped ivy and fuchsias from the Pick of the Bunch stamp sets, bleached out the colours and then pained Twinkling H2'0's. Finally some lace and ribbon and flowers made with the Pick of the Bunch Carnations punch and stamp set. So a bit of floral inky indulgence which I thoroughly enjoyed.


The winner of last Saturday's candy is Lorraine, congratulations please mail me with your full postal addy so I can post your goodies off to you.

And this week I have a set of Gorjuss girl stamps, as usual a winner will be selected at random from all comments left this week, if you visit more than once then all comments will go into the draw. All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is:

1) Be a follower 
2) Pop the Saturday Candy logo from my sidebar on your own blog

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

A bit more pick of the bunch

Using the Corncockle Punch and Stamp set, Memory Box leaves, Chocolate Baroque Indian and background stamps, Artistic Outpost sentiment, Dylusions and TH birdcage

Good Morning Peeps, hope you are all having a good week.

We still have lovely sunshine here, two days on the trot with my craft room French windows open is unheard of lately, but if the weather man's got it right it will be back to woolies come Friday so better make the most of it I guess.

I really could make card with Ruth Tonic Pick of the Bunch products all day, so as I have quite a few in my gallery though it only right I shared a few more with you before I get my head down and make a start of samples ready for the next Stamp Addicts show on C&C.......some really fabby stamps coming up, can't say more at the moment but I will let you have some sneak peeks very soon.

Using the Rose Punch and stamp Set, Chocolate Baroque Indain stamp set, Memory Box leaves, Pan Patels and a spritz of Glimmer Mist

I know from your messages lots of you have recently bought the Punch and Stamp sets and I just know you are going to have great fun using them, they really have revolutionised the ability to create pretty flowers to embellish our cards........thank you Ruth.

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Creative Card Crew - Handmade Flowers
Die Cutting Divas - Flowers

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Colour
Dream Valley - Things with Wings

Have a good Wednesday and thanks as always for dropping in.

A Passion for Flowers and Saturday candy

Morning Peeps, this week I am hosting the theme at Allsorts and a few weeks ago I asked the DT if they would like a bit of a challenge themselves, well they seemed up for it so I sent them all a little kit of similar goodies to play with and see what they came up with. Needless to say they didn't disappoint..............not that for a moment I ever thought such a talented bunch would and you really must pop to the challenge blog and look what they all came up with.

Here's the kit they all received, the DP's varied slightly but are all DPs' are  from the same MME Bluebell range so colours match and as one of our sponsors this week is Ruth from A Passion for Stamps I thought it a nice idea to send all the DT a die from her Tonic Pick of the Bunch range along with some petals to make flowers from her new Punch and Stamp Range (and yes I did send them all a copy of the instructions).

I used the TH fence and arched window and placed over an image which is one of the stamps Ruth created to go with the dies. I also went for pansie, I've probably said it before but I think the little stamps to go with the petals are so clever and make the pansies so realistic. As I told Ruth, praise indeed from my daughter who's not at all into crafting beyond regularly plundering my baskets for cards, but was very impressed with a card she spotted in my craft room using the pansies.

And the them is simple 'A Passion for Flowers' so leaves plenty of possibilities for your entries which I looks forward to seeing and our sponsors are A Passion for Stamps and Crafty Ribbons.

I also made a second card to use up the last piece of DP from the pad, another of Ruth's dies, an Artistic Outpost stamp, decoupaged the flowers and repeat stamped the little birdies from the bottom of the sentiment stamp to create a row to place across the bottom of the card.

And last but by no means least, here's this weeks candy, a little collection of Spring coloured ribbons, lace and embellishments, as usual a winners will be selected at random from all comments left during the week......... if you leave more than one then you get entered again, simple as that and the only other requirement is that......................

1) You are a follower (candy only blogs will be discounted)

2) Pop the Saturday Candy logo from my sidebar on your own blog

And the winner of the stamps from last Saturday is Chris from her comment on my Thursday post, congratulations Chris please mail me with your full postal addy so I can send your goodies off to you.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Oh Christmas Tree

Good morning Peeps and thank you for all your lovely messages about Alex's achievement yesterday.

At Allsorts Debs is right into the season with the theme of 'Oh Christmas Tree' and our sponsor this week is my good friend Ruth of A Passion for Stamps so of course I wanted to use one of her images and although her Topiary Tree is not the traditional Christmas tree, it is all dressed ready for Christmas complete with bow...............in fact it's not unlike the one by my front door although mine hasn't got any flowers on it. I coloured the image with watercolours, cut it out and mounted onto a Marianne die oval which I stamped randomly with a Stamp Addicts Christmas background stamp. The DP's are Kaiser Craft and I had to use the Marianne holly die............yet again.

And here's just one more using some of Ruth's beautiful new dies distributed by Tonic Studios, here I have used the Domed Window and Window Box sets, stamped a Penny Black image inside the window and embossed with Frantage aged hunter. The little flowers and leaves all come in the window box set and there are also some matching stamps available which work beautifully with the dies. I can't give you a link to them as yet as C & C had exclusivity on the products for the first month after their November launch, but I know the shops had them on order and I think should be generally available this week.

I hope you all have a good weekend and I imagine there's lots of Christmas preparations going on, but I hope you still find a little time to join in with this weeks challenge.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr Blogger

Good morning Peeps and thank you to everyone for your visits whilst I have been without my computer. I'm not sure which way is up still as my craft room is still in disarray although I can see some forward movement and at least I got my computer back into action again yesterday, so needless to say I now have a weeks worth of catching up to do.

And on top of that it seems blogger has decided I have to use the new interface and has removed the option to revert to the old one. Suffice to say I absolutely hate the new interface, there is so much white space coupled with everything being spread around a much wider area that my already dodgy eyes are playing havoc with me and at the moment it won't take much for me to pack up blogging altogether.

So all I can share with you today are a couple of cards made a week or two ago as the uproar my craft room means I haven't made anything for well over a week now.

The top card is a Stamplaot sample and to create the background I use distress inks, one colour at a time onto an acrylic block and spritzed with water to create a random patchwork effect, stamped Woodware JGS273 in vintage sepia and embossed with detail clear and added Frantage aged spice around the edges.

The second card uses one of Ruth's A Passion for Stamps images which has been paper pieced, an embossed panel and a Cheery Lynn lattice panel at the bottom over the matching DP.

Have a good day everyone.

A few more of Ruth's flowers

Poppy digi printed onto acetate, laid over crumpled and inked tissue paper then coloured through from the reverse using Copics. Butterfly from
the fuchsia stamp set.

Good morning to you all, hope everyone is OK and those of you in the UK enjoying a little bit of this late summer sunshine. But it is turning very cold at night and last night it went down to 4° here, so I don't suppose it will be long before the frosts set in.

I'm still working away with Ruth's lovely artwork and I am thoroughly enjoying the versatility of the Pick of the Bunch rubber stamp sets and had a really productive weekend preparing magazine samples using them, but it will be a while before I can share those so in the meantime here are a few of the others I have come up with.

Ivy from the chrysanthemum stamp set stamped and embossed onto heat resistent acetate, fixed over base card stamped with Penny Black sentiment lightly shaded with distress ink

A little update on Buffy as so many of you very kindly enquire about her, she has been quite remarkable the last few weeks but we can see a noticeable deterioration in her the last few days. Although she remains content her tummy is becoming quite distended and as it does her appetite is reducing and I can't help but wonder how much longer she has. Our vet has been so supportive and told us exactly what we need to look out for when 'the time' comes, but it's so hard watching her and knowing the inevitability of her condition.

Single flower from the Rudbeckia stamp set, stamped and masked and surrounding area inked with the same colour and an embossed panel over the top with Penny Black sentiment

Whatever you are up to today, I hope it's a good one and as always my thanks for all your visits and kind words.

Butterflies galore

Good Morning Peeps, time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week it's my turn to host the theme and I have chosen It's a Gift' so that can be gift box, a tag, decorated bag so on and so forth.

I rather like the shape of these octagonal boxes which are really quick and easy to make using a scoreboard, you can find the tutorial I did for them here. The border around the bottom is cut using a spellbinder die which I stamped onto using one of the ivy stamps from the Pick of the Bunch Fuchsia set designed by Ruth of A Passion for Cards.

I coloured the ivy with Copics and inked the edge of the strip with distress ink, then added snails, butterflies and dragonflies from the Rose, Peony and Rudbeckia stamp sheets……you might know as they are all floral that I would get my grubby mitts on all six sets and boy have I had fun working with them. I added a strip of matching braid and created the dome top to the lid using Nesties and adding yet more butterflies and a tassel.

I really hope you will find time to join in this weeks challenge and look forward to visiting you all.

It's absolutely ages since I joined in with any challenges, but I happened to notice a couple on my travels but I thought my box was fit, so here goes:

Moving Along With The Times: Shape Up
Belli Challenge: Winged Things (encouraged to use old embellies - the braid)
Divas By Design: Anything Goes
Ruby's Rainbow: Butterflies

Meanwhile my thanks as always for your visit and I hope you all have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend, lets hope the weather is kind, although it doesn't look too promising judging by the long range forecast.

My Olympic Boy

Using the large Crysanthemum from Tonic studio 
Pick of the Bunch clear stamp set designed by Ruth Hamilton

Good Morning Peeps, at Allsorts  this week the lovely Jo would like to see us all 'Going Round in Circles'........ on our work that is !! And we have two sponsors this week A Passion for Stamps and Flonz Craft.

This post is scheduled as I am off today to a rather special blog girl get together, we have all been counting the days for weeks, so you can bet there will be plenty of chattering, a good bit of eating but I doubt much crafting will happen, but if previous events are anything to go by it will be fun.

And as promised, some pictures of another of our sons who has been involved in the Games as a volunteer.

Here he is at the Games yesterday with one of the Tae Kwon Do medal winners 

Terrance Jennings. He said the medals are really heavy.

And another of him in his Olympic kit.

It makes me so proud seeing him in his kit and knowing he has been part is such a wonderful and momentous occasion. But I really can't believe this is the last weekend of the Games, the time seems to have flown by,  we have been treated to some very special sporting moments. It will seem odd not spending the evening revelling in the wonderful talents of all the athletes and the sheer excitement every time I see medal table, but we do have the Premiership season starting in a couple of weeks as well as the Paralyimpic Games so something new to look forward to. Do you get the impression I'm a bit of a sports freak...........spot on.

Engraved Rose from Flonz Craft Vintage Flower range

For the top card I used another of the lovely stamps from Ruth's super new stamp sets. The stamp sets are excellent value for money, each set has at least two large floral images, several smaller ones as well as complementary leaves butterflies and bugs. They all premiered on Crate and Craft recently and are also being stocked by Coleman's Warehouse at Rushden in Northants, if you are not familiar with them, then where have you been ?

It's an absolute Aladdin's cave of all things crafty and you really do need to allow half a day to see everything. They are open Saturdays and Sundays, have a big demo day the last Saturday of each month with lots of well known demonstrators, plus somewhere for hubby to sit as well as refreshments.

I started by creating resist background using one of the smaller stamps from the Chrysanthemum set, stamp with the versamak, embossed with detail clear and distress using the gorgeous blue and green from the Tim Holt summer collection. My main image is from the same stamp set, inked with the same distress inks, spritzed with water stamped and the colour dragged in a little with a damp paint brush.

A border of lace, some muslin crumpled up, a rose made from punched plain white paper with some glossy accents added for dew drops and three leaves from the same focal image. The butterflies are from the Rudbeckia stamp sheet, inked and stamped with the same distress inks to carry the colourway.

The layout of my second card is not dissimilar to the first but this time using a Floz Craft stamp. They do a huge selection on Vintage style stamps which are right up my street, all have superb detail and stamp out beautifully. I used the same direct to stamp and spritzing technique onto the reverse of Centura Pearl.............it makes a good alternative to watercolour card and works out cheaper, cheesecloth again and a stick pin made from coordinating beads and a memory Box die.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and as always, my thanks for taking the time to visit my little place in blogland.