It's as plain as black and white

It's yours truly's turn to host this weeks theme at Allsorts and I thought I would get right away from all things Christmas and go with the theme 'It's as plain as black-and-white'. 

This challenge will run for two weeks to give all of the DT a bit of a of rest and of course to give you all a bit more time to enter amongst all the Christmas activities. And as it's a two week challenge there are two prizes so double the chances of winning.

I eventually got my test results, pretty inconclusive apart from confirming I'm not gluten intolerant so ruled out coeliac disease but I am lactose intolerant.......... I could have told them that, I have been since I was nine months old. The GP look quite disappointed when I told him I already knew and hadn't drank milk since I was a baby.

They think it could be some sort of other food or drug intolerance and suggested too many tests to find out for my liking, so at the moment I am going to try listing medications I take, what I eat and so on and see if any pattern emerges. It's all very well playing their game, but it takes too much time for my liking and am hoping that if it was anything too sinister something may have shown up in the tests they've already done.

Back to my DT card and I always liked working in monochromatic colours and especially black and white and for my card I took a piece of gloss card stock, masked the edges and a moon and brayered with black Adirondack ink, gave it a quick coating of black Frantage and heat embossed. I did exactly the same with the butterfly and although the Frantage is much chunkier than normal embossing powder it does give a lovely lustre although you would never know from my picture would you. 

Enjoy your Saturday and hope to find a few moments to join in this fortnights challenge.

Majestic mountains

Good afternoon all you crafty peeps, hope everyone is having a good weekend.

It's my turn to share a second piece for this month's theme of Majestic Mountains at Craft a Scene challenge. We've seen some lovely pieces of artwork this month and for those of you for haven't had time to join in yet there are still a few days left, so I really do hope to see you over at the challenge blog.

All my stamps on this one are from Stampscapes, stamped with black archive ink and then coloured with Pan Pastels and as I hadn't done a 'sunray sky' for a while I thought I would throw one of them in for good measure, this was done by sponging Adirondakc dye ink. Which reminds me quite a few people have asked for a tutorial on the sky so I'll do my best to get something sorted as soon as possible.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and thanks for popping in, your comments are always so appreciated.

Social Butterfly

Good morning Peeps, I hope everyone is OK.

I know I've said it before, but I need to say it again as so many of you have sent such wonderful messages to me over the last few days about Buffy..............thank you so very much to each and everyone of you.

It looks like our Indian summer was short lived and we've jumped straight into the middle of autumn and yet more rain. And it's been decidedly cold the last few days, Hubby recorded night temperatures of  '0' several nights during the last week so I don't suppose the frosts won't be far behind.

I've got very little artwork to share, I normally have a reasonable selection in my gallery ready to blog, but the revamp of my craft room along with events of the last week and the loss of Buffy means I've done very little crafting for a few weeks. So the best I have to offer is the one above made quite a few weeks ago which I used yesterday to send to the UK Animal Health Trust to thank them for all their kindness.

The butterfly is Penny Black from their Social Butterfly set and the foliage stamps are a mixture of again Penny Black and Inkylicious and simple inking using TH distress and Adirondack inks.

I'm trying very hard to be positive despite it being hard going still, but I've had a trip out and about in blog land and trying to get my act together. As always, thank you so much for your visits and kind comment.

The great outdoors and a bit of Christmas

It's my turn to spotlight work for this months Craft a Scene challenge where we have an Anything Goes theme with a slant towards the Great Outdoors.

I really am so enjoying being on this DT, I'm always up for creating a little scene as lots of you know, so to be able to have a purpose to get all lovely and inky makes it double the fun.

I started with a piece of Fabriano watercolour card and stamped the hills and trees with black archival ink. Next I used cut and dry to add the water and sky with distress inks, then stamped the sail boat and hot air balloons twice, coloured with Aquamarkers and decoupaged. I also used Aquamarkers to colour in the hillside and sand dunes.

I also have a few shares of some of the samples I have made for Sir Stampalot using some of the new Penny Black Christmas stamps and papers. If you would like details of any of the products I used on these three they are all listed here.

Needless to say soon as I saw the above stamp I also saw hills and the obligatory sunrays, all very easily created with soft sponging and inking.

A little bit of inky indulgence on this one as well, resist stamping and another one of the lovely Frantage embossing powders, this one is called aged spice.

Finally a nice clean and crisp one using some of the new Madison DP's from Penny Black and the sentiment from the same set of the one I used above. 

Whatever you have planned, I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.

My poppy offering

Good morning Peeps, I've been a bit tardy to say the least with my posting this week and am not really sure where the days have gone.

But the weather has been glorious, such a wonderful change and I'm  keeping everything crossed it stays for a few more days. I've been pretty busy this week with Christmas samples for Stamp Addicts and will be sharing some of those next week, also I am such a lucky girl as I am also working with the beautiful new floral stamps from Tonic Studio designed by my good friend Ruth Hamilton which premiered on Create and Craft las week, again I'll be sharing some of those with the very shortly. 

We have been back to the vet with Buffy again today so they can check her out and the good news is that at the moment she remaines stable and the tumour does not seem to have grown any more since her last scan, although her temperature remains high. So the plan whilst she retains her interest in food and life in general........she still regularly rolls into her favourite position on her back, arms in the air inviting the others to play…….is that we continue to play it day by day.

I've been thrilled to bits this week to see so many of you joining in my poppy challenge, I came up with it just for a bit of fun and because so many of us love poppies which are in abundance in the fields and dykes this year, the fact that peeps have joined in and with such fabulous pieces of work has really made me happy. Thank you guys. Don't forget that there is still quite a few more days if you want to join in for a chance to win the £20  Sir Stampalot voucher, details in the post at the top of my blog.

So I thought seeing so many of you have gone to the effort of making lovely pieces of artwork, that it was only right that I made something myself and here it is.

Have a lovely Thursday everybody hope the sun continues to shine where you are.

A bit of sand and water

Hello Peeps, it's time for me to share my very first DT piece for Craft a Scene challenge. Although the new challenges goes live on the first Sunday of the month, I was still on my hols when this months challenge started and didn't even know I was part of the team at that point. But as the Design Team take it in turns to share a second piece on Sunday's following the months theme I have been able to join in this week. 

The June them is 'A bit of sand and water', I think my card is more water than sand, but with artistic licence I am confident there is sand down the rocky bank on the left of the picture ! I used one of my favourite techniques, reverse masking to ink and stamp through the oval aperture using Adirondack due inks and a mixture of stamps (thumbnail links below). I brayered a second piece of gloss cardstock with the same inks as a base for the sentiment and to carry the colour theme. The sentiment is a wood mounted from Printworks which came from Stamp Addicts but I am unable to locate it to add the link, but I'm sure if you give them a call they can advise you if it's still available.

I am sorry I have not got round to visit for a few days, this back but paid to spending too long sitting, but I think the 'fire and ice' regime is working and it seems to be easing a bit, so hopefully I will be back to normal soon. Meanwhile thanks so much for taking a peek, I so appreciate your visits and kind messages and how  understanding you all are when I'm not as speedy as I would like.

I really hope you will join in with this months challenge and get those inks flowing.

I am entering this card into:

Pan Pastels - Anything Goes
Gingerloft - Red white and blue

Puppies and horses just don't mix..............

Morning (edited Monday evening to say it was when I started this post !) everyone, it seems like it's going to be one of those weeks, poor little Poppy was settling in so well until she decided horses looked like a good option for playtime. On a routine 'loo' trip Sunday morning she took off like grease lightening, across the garden through the electric fence, across one paddock, past placid Ben who just watched her and into Heskeys paddock.

Bad move, he's got some Arab in him and dances like a prima ballerina as a normality and as at least two cockerels have discovered to their peril, he hates anything round his feet. One massive yelp and we really feared the worse, but she is one lucky pup. Sunday afternoon was spent at the vets and again yesterday for more checks and they confirmed nothing broken just cuts and bruises, something of a miracle when you consider her size against Heskey. So lots of cuddles as she is feeling pretty sorry for herself, but things could have been far, far worse.

Needless to say no crafting happening here, so my share is one I made a few weeks ago with some basic inking and masking, Art Impression and Lavinia stamps and Adirondack Ink. We have so many rabbits jumping about in the fields the last few weeks which inspired this card.........artistic licence with the sun as that's still is short supply here in the UK.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Pans Pastels - Summertime

Simon Say's - A bit of brown

Thanks for popping in, I am doing my best to get round all my blog buddies, but it's taking time with the poorly furry bundle to look after.

A little candy and Summer florals

Hello Peeps, I have some shares and a little candy for you to win so fingers crossed Mr Blogger will post this for me as requested as I should be on the island of Capri today before moving on this evening to Athens.

Since Ruth asked me to join her Passion for Stamps Design Team last Spring, I have been privileged to work with some stunning floral images all of which she draws herself and below are a selection of cards made with just a few of those images.

And as I enjoy working with them so much I am delighted to be able to offer you the opportunity to win four of her images and a few embellishments which I so love making. This is all you need to do..........................

• Leave me a comment on this or any another of my posts between now and when I return from my hols on 12th June.
• Leave Ruth a comment on her inspirational blog here. 
• And if you would like to display the above picture on the sidebar of your own blogs that would be fabulous. You can link to either this post or Ruth's blog.

I will announce the winner as soon as I can when I get home, good luck everyone and you will find all of  Ruth's images at A Passion for Stamps.

The card at the top uses the lovely Rhododendron image printed onto to some scraps of DP, decoupaged and arranged around a sentiment which I've had for years so afraid I have no idea of the make. Some ruffled ribbon and a few punched butterflies.

My second card is made with the beautiful Lily image, printed onto my favourite Farbriano watercolour card and coloured with watercolour pencils. The two little butterflies are also one of Ruth's images printed out quite small and coloured in. Die cut roses and leaves and a couple of stick pins.

The above card is again printed Fabriano, coloured with pencils and decoupaged flower heads. Next I added the sun mask, lightly brayered some Adirondack ink then sponged some rays from the sun and the same butterfly image as above. And I really should add that the idea for this card was inspired by my mate Jules after she told me her and hubby had just bought some bedding plants which included some Derby Imp fuchsia's and I immediately remembered the beautiful colours of this pretty variety and wanted to reproduce it.

And finally a bit of inking and glitter, the image was printed onto acetate and a piece of double sided adhesive sheet laid over the reverse. Next I crumpled up a piece of white tissue paper, inked it lightly with distress inks, added some glitter then stuck it to the other side of  the adhesive sheet. Finally I coloured the image through the tissue using Copics...............dependent of the ink colours used on the tissue you might need to hold it to a light or window to see the image clearly as you colour................don't be afraid of tearing the tissue, it's amazing how resilient it is.

Thank you so much for taking a look, see you all soon.

Sneak Peeks

By the magic of Blogger........................well I am certainly hoping so as we should be on the way to Paris for a couple of days before we get the sleeper train tomorrow evening to Barcelona to board the boat Thursday lunchtime. And I am secretly hoping, as our train arrives in Barca at breakfast time, we will be able to fit in a quick trip to the Nou Camp, it's the largest football stadium in Europe and each trip before nobody has been interested enough to visit............... or perhaps I am just a real saddo ?

I would like to share some of the samples I made for Stamp Addicts next programme on Create and Craft TV which has been moved forward to Thursday 31st May at noon. I thoroughly enjoyed working with these new stamp sheets, there are some lovely Vintage images along with a sheet of lovely background stamps which also fit the same era really well. I only had a few days to make my samples, had I had longer I could have happily kept going.

The grey and yellow one at the top uses one of the beautiful swirly stamps from the background sheet, which I inked with TH distress markers.......I love how they allow you to colour even the finest detail on stamps without the colours bleeding when you spritz with water, as I did here before stamping. As usual all 'ingredients' can be found on the thumbnails below. I am really into this colour combo at the moment and the card was the perfect opportunity to make another of my organza roses............I know quite a lot of peeps have asked for a tutorial and I will get one done as soon as possible as I realise although they make them on C&C sometimes, not everyone has access to the shows.

My second share used this gorgeous Victoriana lady, she is so lovely makes a card on her own. I stamped the upper section of the base card with one of the background stamps using distress ink and the bottom half some DP and an die cut overlay and some die cut roses and leaves. I stamped the main image with archival sepia and coloured lightly with watercolours.

This card is really quite simple, but the chandelier image makes a statement on it's own.  So some simple matted and layered panels and liquid pearls.

My final card.......................you know there had to be some brayering and inking somewhere, used the house image from another of the stamp sheets, it's quite a large stamp which I stamped with archival sepia again, then added a little scene and a masked sun and path using dye inks and sponged rays of sun.

Thanks so much for calling by and I hope you have a good Tuesday.

Flowers and Footie

Good Morning Peeps, hope you all had a good weekend. At least the rain stopped her for a couple of days but it's back to normal again now and been pouring since the middle of the night.

I had an eventful outing with my new mobility scooter yesterday, we decided it would be sensible to find out exactly how long the battery lasted, I had already used it for a couple of hours last weekend, so set off to Peterborough to do a bit of shopping, upgrade my phone and call into a certain craft shop to drop off some samples and have a coffee..............yes Sir Stampalot of course.

We spent an hour or so in Queensgate Shopping Centre, then headed off across town to the other M&S clothes store. Spent another hour there, hubby went off to another floor to get a couple of new cases and said he would meet me at the checkout. Silly idea, there are five checkouts on the two floors and despite trawling the whole store he was nowhere to be found, at which point the low batter signal came on, so I hastily paid for my goodies and went downstairs to see if he was waiting by the main doors..............sorry it's a long story, hope you are still with me. 

He was nowhere in sight, so next I went to check if he was on the seats outside but came to a halt on the pavement..................you got it, the battery expired. So a quick learning curve on the new phone and I got hold of him and I can only assume he turned into the invisible man as he maintains he was still waiting at a checkout.......in ladies lingerie no less !!!! So the upshot of the story is he had to push me back through M&S, two large cases in tow and leave me at the rear of the store whilst he went back to the other end of town to get the car. At least I know the batter lasts about five hours.

So a few quick shares and I thought I would enter a few challenges for a change. The card at the top is a nice bit of inky indulgence, a mixture of stamps........all listed below, ink dusting for the background and some seam binding. This card is my entry for the following challenges:

Pretty Little Ribbons - Blossoms and Butterflies

Craft a Scene - Spring Flowers
Paper Sundaes - Things with Wings
By the Cute and Girlie - Spring is in the Air

I think the expression on the image of my second card just about sums up our season, somewhat frustrating, but at least we won the Carling Cup so have some silverware on the cabinet and will be in Europe next season. It's one of my recent DT cards for Stamp Addicts using their fun sportsmen stamps. I thought it would be perfect for this challenge:

Pan Pastels - Sports

And finally, one of the sample I dropped into Stampalot yesterday using some lovely new dies and matching stamps which I have been very lucky to be working with the last week, thanks Janice. The stamps are sized to fit the arch doors perfectly, then there is the larger Chateau Gate stamps which also coordinates with the dies, I will share some using that shortly. The vine also come in the set of dies and I made the tiny roses with a punch. I would like to enter this card for the following challenge:

Order of the Opus Gluie - Beyond the Garden Gate

Have a lovely day everyone and thanks so much for visiting me.

Fishing by the moonlight

Good Morning everyone, Saturday means time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week Helene would love to see your cards for the guys.

I have had a inky dabble with my Stampscape images, all items are listed below. I stamped the mountains first, then covered with a mask and, another mask for the moon which I laid part way over the mountains to give the appearance it was just rising then brayered and sponged the sky. Next I stamped the trees and rocks, added the fisherman and some fauna at the front and a bit more sponging to create reflections.

Have a super weekend and thanks so much for calling by.

London 2012

A very Good Morning everyone, the first Sunday of the month means time for new challenges at Stampalot and Penny Black and More and at both we are celebrating the upcoming events here in the UK, the Olympics which is totally global and the Diamond Jubilee of our Queen.

Penny Black launched a great collection of stamps to commemorate the London events and all the stamps I have used for my DT pieces are from that collection.

To create the card at the top I masked a piece of Fabriano watercolour card top and bottom and used ink dusters to achieve the graduated colour and then simply stamped the image and picked out a couple of elements to colour with watercolour pencils.

For my second card I stamped the images and again used watercolour pencils and mounted the three panels onto some red bazzil. The base piece was embossed using coredinations, then sanded down , added some swirls and a flower I made from organza ribbon.

I'm not terrible happy with my third card because I found it so hard to depict the surroundings of St Paul's Cathedral. I looked at loads of pictures I took ages ago when we visited and yes it does have a tree to the left and yes, it does have a wall, but somehow it's not quite right and I have to admit I gave up after the fourth attempt. And of course whilst the spires and parapets are pretty accurate, the front door seems to be missing from the stamp, so this one is very much artistic licence.

I do hope you will join in the challenges this month and show us your version of the London events of Summer 2012.

I am entering the top card into this weeks:

Pans Pastels challenge with the theme Anything Goes

Sitting in a birdsnest

Yeah....................it's not raining this morning and I even caught a glimmer of sun, but yesterday was another real washout and our local tally is near enough 9 inches for the month.

But I had a really lovely surprise to distract me from the rain over the weekend, I found out I had won the challenge over at Pan Pastel, it was my very fist time of entering so call it beginners luck. I've not really entered challenges during the last year since my eyes and mobility decided not to play fair with me and just restrict it to a limited few, so that made the win an added joy and my thanks to the challenge organisers and DT.

So I thought it was only right I entered again this week with one of my recent samples for Stampalot, I think the new La Blanch image is a perfect one for the Springtime theme. The image has been water coloured and some light masking and brayering for the background. I made the rose from a five petal punch and added some beads to a pin to embellish.

All 'ingredients' listed below, but please ask if you want any specific details that I might have missed.

Have a good week everyone and if your not a confident swimmer, make sure you keep your armbands on, you might need to swim home from work or the school run today.

Pan Pastel Challenge - Spring Time

Down the bottom of the garden

I won't say anything more than Morning to you all, as the weather is so atrocious the the word good is far from applicable. Will Spring ever return I wonder ? It's rained solidly for two days now, but will it be the right sort I wonder, as I am told not all is, whatever that can mean.

A really quick share as it's busy at work this morning, so fitting this in with my coffee. Another card using my current favourite fairy stamp Harietta, stamped through an oval mask and shaded with ink dusters. All the ingredients can be found in the thumbnails below.

I am entering this into this months Create a Scene challenge which is 'Silhouettes', it's my second entry and I thought I would stick with the fairy theme.

Hope you all have a good day.

Ribbons and Roses

Saturday Morning means it's time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week my teami Emma has come up with a sketch for us. And our sponsor is the lovely Sarah from Pretty Little Ribbons whose store I stalk regularly, if you love ribbons and pretty embellies then you must check it out.

I have gone floral.......just for a change..............and used Penny Black 4237K Awakening, I think this really is my favourite from the Spring releases and lends itself particularly well to inking with inks and spritzing with water to get that lovely water coloured feel. On this occasion I used my lovely new Distress markers stamping onto Fabriano card. I also stamped the background with Hero Art 2365 Old French Writing.

The Teresa Collins DP is from the new range now in store, I am really liking these as they have a lovely texture as well as being beautifully coordinated making them so easy to work with. I made a couple of roses from organza ribbon, some Spellbinder leaves and a punched butterfly.

Whatever you have planned hope your weekend is a good one.

Fairy silhouettes

Good Morning to you all, I hope you are having a lovely Easter holiday. If you are in the UK then you might well have rain as we do, but what better opportunity than to stay in and craft.

Our internet went down yesterday and this morning is on an off so thought I had better post this quickly before it goes again.

All the goodies I used are below, basically some simple brayering and stamping using the lovely arch dies, I was unable to find them anywhere to give the link, but they are made by Go Create which I bought at Stamperama and I am pretty sure it was from Once Upon a Stamp, so it just might be they are out of stock at them moment as they are not showing on their web site.

I would like to enter this card into this months challenge at Craft a Scene whose theme is 'Silhousttes'.

Thanks for dropping by, I always appreciate your visits so much.

Trying out a new system

Hello peeps, from a wet, windy and cold Cambridgeshire Fens, can't see there's much chance of an Easter like last year when it was barbie time.

This just a really quick experimental post with a different way of detailing the products I have used. It's because so often people mail me and say they like something or the other but can't find it anywhere or not sure what they are looking for. So I am going to try showing little thumbnails of the main products used in each piece I share, with a link to the codes and product details so you can either order from there or alternately know exactly what you are looking for if heading of to the local craft shop.

This one using one of the new La Blanch stamps has been nicely distressed, the very slightest hint of watercolour on the image, hessian leaves which I find cuts beautifully with Spellbinders through the Grand Calibur.

Let me know what you think and if it's more useful to find what you are looking for.

The scene behind my house

Hello all, hope your week is going well. I confess to being a bit tardy this week and not getting a lot done, it's been one of those weeks where the pain has kicked in a bit more than usual and I've not been able to get a proper crafty head on, not least because I've not been able to sit comfy for very long. 

I had a long chat to my physio this morning and she suggested a few things to try until I see her next, but I think we both know it's a bit of a lost cause and I have to accept my mobility is not going back to where it was before this latest relapse. I'm seriously considering a small mobility scooter, it would be much lighter than my wheelchair and might go in the boot of my little MX5 so I can get out and about a bit more without having to rely on others all the time, that's the main problem living in the sticks, you need a car to get anywhere.

Just the one share of a card I created a couple of weeks ago for Sir Stampalot using a new La Blanch tree stamp that came my way after an appeal for more trees when they visited CHA in January. As my mate Sally will tell you, a girl can never have too many trees, a bit like shoes really. I used Adirondack inks watermelon, peach bellini, butterscotch and meadow and archival sepia to stamp the tree and deer's which are Art Impression. The fence, wire and birdies are all hand drawn with a fine line marker.

The scene could be looking up behind our house, although when we see a Monkjack deer, it's usually a solitary one, they are such pretty but shy characters. And that means the birdies are pigeons happily perched cooing away on the wires above the paddocks, it's a sound I love to hear as I sit crafting. It doesn't take a lot to make me happy you see. Although the hills are artistic licence, it's as flat as a pancake here in the Fens.

Enjoy your day, it's looking like sunshine again today.