400th Celebrations and Rudolph is back

Good morning to you all, before I tell you about our special challenge at Allsorts this week I would like to say a huuuuuuge thank you for all your wonderfully kind messages and e.mails of support following my last post, you are all so thoughtful and your words mean a great deal to me.

So into our challenge and Tracy wants us to 'Celebrate' and with a very good reason as well as it's our 400th Allsorts challenge !! I feel so privileged to have been involved with each one and to be working alongside such a super team. So we naturally have a rather special prize for you this week which comes courtesy of Tattered Lace. And as well as the main prize there will be two further prizes, so lots of reasons to join in this week, do pop over to the challenge blog and check out the super prizes and see the super inspiration from my teamies.

I did panic somewhat as I always have a good backup of work for those 'just in case' times, but most of those have been utilised in recent weeks whilst I have been unwell so I was determined to create something new. My card uses stamps from Altenew, they are some I treated myself to way back in the Autumn and they sat unused for ages, so this is their first outing. It took me the best part of a morning and I am not totally happy with it but at least I feel I am easing back into a little craft.

I was determined to be well prepared for Mo's first Rudolph Day of 2017 and had this stored away ready. The image and sentiment are both Inkylicious, I used a mask and white ink to create the focal shape then stamped with coffee archival ink onto the Kraft card and added glitter to the winery scene. And the two narrow white elements are a couple of pieces from the snippets draw so I am popping over the the Playground with this one

Happy weekend all.

Pink October and more Chocolate Baroque

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Mervi has chosen the theme of 'Pink October'. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

It's another outing for my Altenew stamps this one is Peony Bouquet stamped onto white linen cardstock with a a mixture of distress and adirondack inks and a sentiment from Visible Image. Matted onto black card and finished, a really quick and easy card.

I also have some shares of some more 15 minutes cards for Chocolate Baroque which you can find over at the DT blog here along with how I made them.

There is lots of inspiration from my teamies at both Allsorts and Chocolate Baroque so I do hope you will pop over and take a look.

Fabulous Florals

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week it's my turn to host the theme which is  'Fabulous Florals'................no surprises there I hear you say !! Our sponsor is Marianne Designs. 

It's another outing for my Altenew stamps and a card that is not dissimilar to one I shared a few weeks ago, but at least it's a totally different colour. This time I used shades of pink, the sentiment is also Altenew stamped onto vellum and ribbon tied across the middle. 

As always my teamies have come up with some fabulous pieces of artwork so I do hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and take a peek.

Imagine...........

We are literally just back from holiday, we had a lovely relaxing time with perfect weather. A big thank you for your continued support and visits whilst I was missing.

My body had the opportunity to do some healing and although I am still having some severe pain spasms and one arm not working as I would hope, I am praying I am on the way to getting back to crafting and doing the things I enjoy most.

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes at both are nice and easy ones to fit in with your busy summer holiday schedules.....'Anything Goes'.........and as always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both, not to mention fabulous inspiration as always from my teamies.

My card at the top is my Stamping Sensations creation using Altenew stamps and a mixture of distress and dye inks following a design I saw on Pinterest, such a great source of inspiration when the mojo is flagging or totally missing as mine has been at the time of scheduling this post.

I first cut out a 'V' section from the linen cardstock to be used as my top layer and stamped a Inkylicious sentiment with black archival, then stamped the flowers onto a another piece of card to go under the aperture. I used blue card for the bottom mat and strips of the same to slip behind to two cut lines and used foam pads to raise the top layer. A bow and some blue gems to embellish. I have to confess it's the first piece of artwork I have been relatively happy with for weeks and am so hoping by the time this post goes live which coincides with our return from holiday that my mojo will be be back and my body back to something like normal functionality again.

My Penny Black share is a 5x7 canvas, again made some weeks ago, which I coated liberally with gesso and then PVA glue and fixed some plumbers mesh (no idea what it's really called) into the wet glue to achieve a really rough textured background. Next I added inks and Dylusions and rubbed them into the gauze..........this was such a message process but so much fun.............and then added some gilding wax. Next I stamped the Penny Black flowers onto card spritzed with the same colour Dylusions and cut out with the matching PB die. The sentiment is also PB but cut into three, next I added the lace, then the flowers, cord and button and finally a little chipboard butterfly which I painted with Dylusions and stencilled some stripes.

I am popping over to the Playground with the first card (snipped is the piece in the aperture), been a few weeks missing so just hope I don't get detention.

Thanks so much for popping in today and look forward to seeing you over at the challenges. I also hope I will be able to visit some of your this coming week.

More blooms and a snippet

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are nice and easy ones 'Anything Goes with a Stamp and Ribbon' and simply 'Anything Goes with a stamp' and as usual wonderful prizes to be won at both.

For my Stamping Sensations creation it's another outing for my Altenew stamps, the flowers are from the Peony Bouquet and leaves from the Beautiful Day stamp set. I used four colours of distress inks for the flowers and three for the leaves which I stamped on once I had masked the blooms. The tiny flowers scattered around are also from the Beautiful Day set. 

I stamped a Penny Black sentiment onto a piece of torn vellum, tied across some ribbon and fixed it across the stamping, then matted all onto coordinating cardstock.

For my Penny Black card I started with a pieced of 600gms Fabriano and sprinkled Bruso's Scarlet and Turquoise and sprayed liberal amounts if water and moved the card about to allow the colours to blend and dabbed off the excess with kitchen roll to soften the colours.

I then used Distress Markers to ink PB Bejeweled, spritzing with water before stamping and then with a sponge, DI's and a stencil added some background pattern here and there.  The sentiment is also Penny Black which I stamped with Archival black onto vellum. I added two strips of washi tape the then the focal piece which I matted onto coordinating card stock.

I am going to pop over to the Playground with this one as I used a snippet of vellum for the sentiment. Sports day promises to be a real fun event and I am so pleased Miss Di has decided to bring the wheelbarrow race back in, it was banned last year after a bit of an issue with loose knicker elastic, I say no more and leave it to your imaginations !!

Happy Sunday all and please do pop over to the challenge blogs and see the inspiration from my teamies as well as the great prizes on offer.