Favourite seasons

Morning Peeps, time for our new Allsorts challenge and this week Tracy is our host and it's so nice to have her with us as and when she feels up to it. Her theme is 'Seasons' and she would like us to make a creation featuring our favourite season of the year. Our winner will receive some Tattered Lace embossing folders and frame dies.

I hope those of you who had the unprecedented burst of sunny weather enjoyed it, to sit in the garden for lunch in February for several days in a row was certainly a treat and as my in house weather man kept reminding me "make the most of it as it's back to normal next week" and seems he's right.

My problem with the theme is that I love all seasons except winter and out of choice create for Spring and Autumn and as my pre-prepared work is getting low went for a couple sitting in my folder, a tropical summer sunset and an Autumn fairy scene.

The top one has a Pan Pastel background and a mixture of Sutter, Stampscapes and Art Impression stamps plus a little bit of colouring with pencils. The bottom lolly stick creation has a base of Oxides, leaves tamped with Distress Inks and heat embossed mainly with copper embossing powder, the Lavinia Fairy stamped with Versafine and heat embossed with a variety of embossing powders. The sentiment is (I think) from Inkylicious and the Ivy across the top Lavinia.

Happy weekend all and do pop over to the challenge blog to see what season my team mates favour.

 

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A frosty London morning

Morning Peeps, time for our new Allsorts challenge and this week I am your host. The theme I have chosen is 'Winter Sparkle' and this weeks winner will receive a bundle of all things sticky and sparkly from Stix2.

I have created a scene using a few Art Impression stamps, a skyline stencil and a sunray stencil stamping the scene first, adding soft shading with Pan Pastels then using a glue stick through the sun ray stencil, removing it and sprinkling glitter to create the illusion of sun rays..........making sure I washed the stencil quickly afterwards before the glue dried! My thinking it's London on a cold frosty morning but by all means let your imagination run where your mind takes you.

Do pop over to the challenge blog to see the inspiration my lovely teamies have on display.

 

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Baby animals, Rudolph Days and Choclate Baroque

Morning Peeps, this weeks Allsorts theme is hosted by Helene and she would like to see 'Baby Animals'. We have a lovely Rare Earth stamp as our prize. I also have some shares from my post over at the Choclate Baroque DT blog yesterday and one for this month Rudolph Days........ right on the deadline!

It had to be dogs or horses for me so I decided on a foal as my baby animal, it's the time of year where several have been born recently in our area and the are adorable with their fluffy little tails.

There is a real mixture of stamps here, Crafty Individuals, Stamp Addicts, Sutter and Art Impressions. With the exception of the birds I stamped everything into place using a mixture of Archival ink and Distress pens, then built up the background using Distress Inks and Pan Pastels, adding colour to the horses and house using DI's again.

Myself and the team are looking forward to seeing lots of baby animals of all types this week.

My Rudolph Days card used Chocolate Baroque stamps, starting with a masked panel in the centre and then inking the stamps with Distress Markers and spritzing with water before stamping top and bottom on the mask. After removing the mask I stamped a sentiment in the blank panel.

Your will find all details of stamps and products used over at the DT blog here.

And I thought I would share these couple of photos of  Eliot and the medals he won this week. This was last evening on day five with two laps to go.

Lots of you know several of our children (and now our eldest granddaugter as well) are athletic and run marathons and ulta marathons all over the world and we are always so proud of their achievements. Well this week Eliot took part in a contest to run five marathons in five days, all took place in the evening when at least it was a little cooler................I know it sounds crazy, but he succeeded so well done to him, another achievement under his belt.

Just thinking about it exhausts me!! Have a happy and sunny weekend all.

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Forest Friends and Penny Black mid month inspiration

Morning Peeps, it's Saturday so that means it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Tracy Mouse has chosen the theme of 'Forest Friends'. Our sponsor is Tattered Lace and the prizes are sooooooo sweet.

I also have my Penny Black and More mid month inspiration, a day late I'm afraid as I forgot to schedule and yesterday I was 'negotiating' with the consultant about these two ops. I thought we had an agreement on the way forward until he rang me again..............what's all this new hands on business with consultants ringing patients in the evening ? So at the moment not much further forward, he wants to plough on although admitted it could wait until after our holiday. And having re-scheduled from July because of all this faff I really don't want to cancel a second booking and lose our money because of course the insurance won't cover us as it's a pre existing condition.

OK moan over and onto my creations and my card at the top was a fun one to make using a mixture of Sutter, Inkylicious, Crafty Individuals, Creative Expressions and Art Impressions, eleven stamps in total to make a countryside scene. I started by stamping the trees and fence into position, bleaching out some clouds then adding the background with distress inks, then adding the Fox's which I coloured with DI's, Sheep highlighted with white gel pen and finally the greenery and birds.

My second card uses Chocolate Baroque stamps onto a background of Pan Pastels, using an oval stencil to create the focal element and then stamping the scene with the mask still in place.

My first Penny Black share has a Distress Oxide background then a stencil and DI's the add the window. The PB Soft Wings Butterfly was stamped with the same wilted violet oxide ink and heat embossed with detail clear powder then colour added with twisted citron oxide ink. I used PB Twirls to stamp around the edge and PB Iris die to add the flowers. The sentiment is from a new PB set called Happy Wishes................and I am pretty convinced that somewhere in my stash there is an old sentiment set from them with the same name.

Finally another little scene using Pan Pastels and stamps from PB Natures Friends set and Birds on a wire, an oldish wood mounted stamp that I find so useful in scene making.

Feature a creature

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Tracy has chosen the theme of' Feature a Creature'. Our sponsor is Digistamp Boutique and Sizzix and as always my teamies have come up with lots of inspiration to set you on your way.

I do apologise that I've not been out and about in blogland for a few days, the NHS are the culprits and now I am taking a little time to rest.

It's another one that I really enjoyed making, well you know me and scenes. Although we are well onto November now I still couldn't resist a hint of Autumn in my scene which I created with a good number of different stamps........in fact I counted them and seems I used fifteen in total. Once I has stamped everything in place using black archival ink I added the background colouring with Pan Pastels and finally hand drew a fence, something about fences and I always feel a need to add one to a landscape scene.......well how else do you keep the livestock in ?

I have a second make, this is one of my samples for next Saturday's Stamp Addicts Hochanda shows at 8am and 2pm, the Moose I have used on this card is one of the featured stamps along with a smaller version of the same image, some beautiful leaves and if your love Roses then you must not miss the shows...................I will share some more including the Rose closer to the day.

I stamped the Moose twice, coloured with Spectrum Sparkle pens and cut out one of the images to decoupage so he peeps over the Tattered Lace frame. The papers are I believe Trimcraft.

Happy weekend all.

Yet more Poppies, Rudolph Day and Tattered Lace releases

Morning all you crafty Peeps, time for me to share another Guest Designer creation for Chocolate Baroque. As with the last couple of weeks I have written up all the details over at the DT blog here so it seems silly to bore you again with all the information a second time. 

Sorry my visits have been limited, not been a good week or so pain wise and avoiding the computer as much as possible, things can only improve !!

I used a couple more snippets of Fabriano so am off to the Playground where I am hoping for some Halloween fun with the other insouciant playmates. I found a recipe for gooey orange filled cupcakes which should go down well with some hooch up in the tree house, not a word to Miss Di mind you and Parsnip has vowed silence so long as he gets double dibs.

And here is this month's Rudolph Day's card, I am rather impressed with myself this year as I promised Mo I would try harder and apart from when we were on holiday I don't think I've missed a month. 

Looking at my card now the trees all look a bit drunk and at an angle, yet looking at the card itself they seem upright........your gonna have to believe me on this one. Maybe it's the angle I took the photo or maybe it's the north wind blowing !!

Using black archival I stamped a mix of different stamps, Inkylicious, Art Impressions, Lavinia to create the scene, then masked the sun and used distress inks, ink dusters and a piece of torn paper to add colour and finally some glitter on the snowy hills and shy.

And here are a few Tattered Lace makes, I've not done too much lately due to my slow progress on the crafty front, but the lovely wrought iron gates have been released on C&C this week so I am safe to share.

Many thanks for popping in today.

More Autumn

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week it's my turn to choose the theme and I would like to see Autumn inspired work..............probably no surprises there as I always love working with Autumnal colours. Our sponsor is Digistamp Boutique.

I also have a share for the new Butterfly Challenge which I thought I would also pop the above card into the Playground where I've been missing for a week or two. The new Butterfly theme is Checkered and/or Cyan along with your Butterflies.

The starting place for my first card at the top was to mask a central circle and a sun on a piece of Fabriano 300gms cardstock and apply distress inks before removing the masks and then stamping the focal image and the little girl on the swing and sentiment, all of which are Inkylicious. Finally matted and layered onto the base card, a really quick and simple card to create. You will see a few acorns at the front of my photo, this year one of our Oaks has produced literally thousands of them and there is a carpet under the branches which crunch as you pass by to the hens.

My second card has a Pan Pastel background and the scene made with a mixtures of Sutter, Art Impression and Inkylicious stamps and a few hills added again with PP's after the images were stamped.

Now for my Butterfly and Playground share, I started out with an offcut of Fabriano and used distress crayons and water to create the background, next I stamped the Inkylicious sentiment and Fairy and was all set to use a new stencil for the checks but having done so not sure about it, it's called 'houndstooth check'  but doesn't look too much like it to me. I added some glitter to the Fairies wings and around the three little butterflies.

My Allsorts team mates have some lovely cards to inspire you again this week so I do hope you will pop over and take a peek and also join us this week.

Autumn Glory and a special anniversary

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Autumn Glory' and some Colour Inspiration which screams out Autumn, I know they are much the same but it's such a glorious time of year and always seems such a popular theme. As always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both.

For my Penny Black share I used Broshos to create a background and dabbed with a piece of kitchen towel to tone down the colours a little and when dry used a Tinny die in one corner. I then randomly stamped a script background and PB leaves from Nature's Gifts inking the stamp with distress markers. The flowers are stamped with PB Blush and cut out with the coordinating die called Bashful. Some hessian and a button to finish.

For my Stamping Sensations piece I again started with a Brusho background dabbing off some of the wet colour with a paper towel. Using a stencil and grunge paste I added the flourish and when dry sponged some DI. The Butterfly and sentiment are from Inklylicious and the Butterfly coloured in with the same colour Brusho's.

Yesterday hubby and I celebrated a rather special wedding anniversary, instead of a card I made him a wall handing for his office using chipboard hearts, paint and crackle glaze and several Penny Black stamps along with some stenciled wheat.

I'm not saying which anniversary it was, all I will say is it seems a lifetime ago when at seventeen I walked down the aisle with my dear Dad in a dress made by one of the Royal dressmakers......no we weren't rich, my Mum just happened to work with the sister of one and that's how it came about. And much to the horror of my elderly Aunts I had a bouquet of Lilies, I know they are a popular choice now, but back in those days they were for funerals only and not readily available year round as they are now, mine were Longiforum Lilies and had to be brought in from France. Now that we have grandchildren the same age and older than I was then it is quite scary as they seem so young and marriage is the last thing on some of their minds, let alone becoming a Mum at nineteen as I did.

But I wouldn't change a thing, it just meant we did things in a different order to nowadays. At thirty eight soon after being diagnosed with MS and despite my Mum thinking I was mad I embarked on a Psychology degree. Then as the children got older we started to travel to all those distant places we were unable to afford when they were small.

We knew the children would feel a party was essential so decided to explain in advance, much to their disappointment, that we would be far happier enjoying a lovely family meal with immediate family at a nice restaurant and left them to sort that out among themselves. That's eighteen of us in total so almost a party in itself.........the benefits of a large family.

Hope I have't sent you all to sleep and looking forward to seeing all your lovely Autumnal creations this month and as always we have some super prizes to be won.

Chatting in the moonlight

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Kevin has chosen the theme of  'Black and White plus One'. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

I dug out some really old Art Impressions stamps that have not seen daylight for some time and started by masking a moon and lightly brushed some DI to the sky area to give the appearance of dusk. Next I stamped the scene using black archival ink, a few flowers and used the same colour DI to sponge round the lamp and color the ladies dress.

As always my teamies have loads of inspiration to share with you over at the challenge blog.

Dance, sing, love............

I would like to start by saying thank you for all your kind comments and messages of support the last few weeks, it seems like a never ending saga, but hopefully I will get back to some sort of normality soon. 

In my post yesterday I spoke a little about my MS and I was touched by some mails and comments I received as a result, sometimes we can forget that we are not an island and there are others out there coming to terms with a new diagnosis. Here are a few words from one lady's mail to me "Thank you so much for opening up about MS, I was diagnosed in January and it's scary as nobody tells you much about what to expect. I have followed your blog for a long time and know you don't accept the limitations of MS, you continue to inspire me to keep trying even on bad days. Keep up the good work". I did ask the ladies permission to share.

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'One for the Boys' and 'Add a Sentiment' and as always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both.

My Stamping Sensations share at the top uses a real mixture of stamps from Stampscapes, Inkylicious and Art Impressions. I started with a masked sun and then added Adirondack and Distress Inks to create the sky and lake before stamping everything into place with black archival ink.

My Penny Black card is not exactly what I planned but after creating the Brusho background the oranges looked rather like an explosion of fireworks and reminded me of a famous photo of the 1900 Paris Expo with all the exploding lights behind La Tour Eiffel. So I used a Sheena stencil and blue distress inks, then stamped my all time favourite Penny Black quote and PB butterfly which I cut out and coloured with the same colour Brusho's.

My team mates have created some fabulous pieces of artwork to inspire you so I do hope you will pop over the the challenge blogs to see them and of course join us this month.

Dance, Sing, Love

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Feature a Creature and Add a Sentiment. 

The card at the top uses my all time favourite stamp Penny Black Dance, Sing , Love, I use it time and again and make no excuses that it pops so often on my blog as I think it is such a happy and uplifting quote.

A year on and I am still exploring my sewing machine that hubby bought for my Birthday last year and just discovered this pretty embroidery style stitch, it's not an expensive or fancy machine but does have a few nice features. So after stitching around the edges of a piece of cream cardstock I stamped the sentiment and embossed with detail clear powder. The flowers and leaves are Tattered Lace Trio sets which I cut from card spritzed with Dylusions and Glimmer Mist and then stamped the centre's with the matching Trio stamp set. A pretty organza bow made on the Embellishment Attic bow maker and ribbon slide to finish.

My stamping Sensations piece is a Fathers Day card I made for our daughter to give her Dad back in June. I masked the central oval and stamped a variety of stamps from Inkylicious, Lavinia, Art Impressions and Clarity and with the mask still in place used Pan Pastles to create the background of the scene. The poppies were inked with distress markers, the sentiment with archival black and the finished piece matted an layered on to a large landscape base cut from a sheet of A3 cardstock.

I do hope you will join in our challenges this month, as always we have some fabulous prizes to be won.

Just for fun stamping

Happy Monday Peeps, I hope your weekend was a good one, the weather was a mixed bunch here in the Fens and a hard frost this morning, but it's led to some nice sunshine.

A warm welcome to my new followers and a big thank you for all the lovely comments on my recent posts. Quite a few of those have been my Tattered Lace makes, die crafting is a whole new ball game to me but one I am thoroughly enjoying so it is very encouraging to know that you are liking what I am doing with them.

I have not had a lot of time for scenic stamping recently so over the weekend I had a little playand my just for fun session made a lovely change.

I used Pan Pastels for the colour on both cards and a mixture of Sutter, Art Impressions and Stampscape stamps.

Thanks for taking a peek and hope you all have a good week.

Brosho's with a few Pan Pastels thrown in for good measure

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes at both are 'Anything Goes'.........that wasn't actually planned, it's just how it seems to have turned out !

For my Penny Black card it is my all time favourite inspirational quote 2696J Dance, Sing, Love along with Penny Black 2636K Scroll background around the edges, both are pretty old wood mounted stamps. I started with a Brusho background using Leaf Green, Violet and Cobalt Blue which gives out lovely hues of purple as the water shifts the powder and I also used the latter two to colour the flowers which I made using a Heartfelt die and stamp. Some grunge paste harlequins, a couple of die cut swirls cut on the cricut, seam binding and pearls to embellish.

The first of my Stamping Sensations pieces used Silhouette Elephants from our sponsor Little Claire in the foreground and in the background I repeat stamped a really old Judikins cube with the trees and Zebra, the word Serengeti is also part of the same cube. All colouring is Pan Pastels and of course a masked sun on the horizon.

Another Brusho background for my second Stamping Sensation piece, this time I used masking fluid to create a sun and a paper mask to separate the land area before spraying on yellow, orange and brilliant red. Next I rubbed away the sun mask.........I am presently using Pebeo masking fluid and I think it's the best yet. I used Pan Pastels for the land elements of the scene and a mixture of Stampscapes, Sutter, Art Impression and Chocolate Baroque stamps.

Hope you all have a good Sunday and keep warm in this cold and frosty weather.