Getting sentimental

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Helene has chosen the theme of 'Sentiment in Focus'. Our sponsors are Marianne Designs and Baker Ross.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Blogger is still messing with our blogs because I realised a few days ago that at least two blogs I visit were missing from my reading list and I rather suspect there are more I have not yet noticed, so if you think you might be one of them I apologise, just give me a gentle nudge so I can check. I just wish he would leave us in peace and not keep trying to manipulate us in other directions.

This wasn't the card I started with for my Allsorts share, but having received a delivery of new goodies from Baker Ross which included quilling products and pretty Spring coloured papers I was itching to give it a go. I have never done quilling before so took a quick YouTube tutorial and this is what I came up with, no doubt to the experience quiller the shapes are far from perfection but I was quite happy with this for my first attempt.

I made the flowers and leaves first them created a card to go with them using my all time favourite Penny Black inspirational quote, a circle easel card which I always find pleasing on the eye using using Tattered Lace dies and some bright satin ribbons.

I also have a Rudolph Day share, it's a pretty quick and simple make as my mojo and I are not working in tandem at the moment, using a piece of Fabriano I masked the top and bottom and a moon......or is it a sun I wonder............ some Pan Pastels and stamping with a collection of Penny Black stamps. Oh yes and a bit of glitter across the hills.

Do I sound a tad lackadaisical, probably I do, I just can't shift this flu and my appetite and enthusiasm are zero. Plus having worked myself up ready for my procedure at hospital Thursday, I was all ready to leave with my dressing gown and slippers when the phone rang to cancel and have now rescheduled for Monday, so that's not the start of the week I was planning.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Love is in the air at Allsorts

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Wendy is preparing us for Valentines Day. Our sponsor is Lets Create and Baker Ross and I have a make further down this post using some of their products. 

My first Allsorts piece at the top uses an oldish Penny Black stamp over a Brusho brilliant red background, is seems to be one of the few that is restricted to the one pure colour, unlike most that emit many other colours the more water that is added. I used Tattered Lace Pin Dot Rectangles to make a frame and place it over a section of TL Byzantine trellis, a bow, little gem heart and sentiment which is also Penny Black.

I also have a card for the current Butterfly Challenge which this time round is 'I' for inks and a butterfly. My entry is the card at the top and is one of those I made for the recently released Compendium of Crafting. I masked the top and bottom of a piece of Fabriano and a mask for the sun and used DI's and Pan Pastels to create the background and sponged sunrays. Stamps are Chocolate Baroque, sentiment and Butterflies Tattered Lace. The Butterflies are Trios and after cutting them I inked the top section of the matching embossing folder with DI's before running through the e.bosser, then added detail clear embossing powder and heated.

My second Allsorts make using products from Baker Ross is a word book. I started with letters from the Large Upper Case set and covered them with this really pretty colour palette of Artimo Artpatch, after ripping the papers into smallish pieces you just can't go wrong layering them up randomly using the Varnish to fix them and it's fun as well. I used my Zutter to punch holes for the spine and tied with scraps of coordinating ribbon, then decorated the pages with gems, pearls and flowers.

Happy weekend all and keep warm.

Down your street

Morning Peeps, huge apologies I've not been round visiting, not been at all well this last week, so much so I even asked my teamies at the challenges to help me out with commenting, not something I do readily or very often, but their help has been much appreciated. I am doing my best to get back into things but it seems slow going so please bear with me.

As promised I have some more shares using Baker Ross products along with my mid month creation for Penny Black and More where our Christmas theme is in full swing.

Last Christmas the lady at one of the blogs I visit had made cards for her neighbours with their street name and I thought what a great idea to try and remember. I have a feeling it was Jacee but confess I am not certain so thought it best not to link to her in case I got it wrong (just adding Jacee confirms it was her so many thanks Jacee), but amazingly enough for me I actually did remember and decided to make some for friends and family.

Looking through my stamps I had no problem coming up with a rural scene but nothing for town folk, so have restricted them to a dozen or so who live in rural locations. To create the scenes which are all much the same I used two Penny Black stamps along with the Santa which I think is Hobby Art and sponged the sky and background with Pan Pastles. I added liberal helpings of snow glitter, computer generated the street names, punched them out and painted wooden kebab skewers for the posts. The Ivy is a Tattered Lace Charisma die and finally I printed and cut some little Nicecrane Robins to sit on the sign posts.

And as promised here are the little trees I made using Baker Ross's Polystyrene Cones. I made one into a Santa by priming the cone with gesso and then red acrylic paint and when dry decorating with some furry fabric, a buckle and black card for is belt. On another I used the Gingerbread Foam Stickers and some Christmas glittery garland and for the third I simply used ribbons, doubling them up and fixing in place starting from the bottom and working upwards. The tree in the middle seems to look a tad lopsided although in the flesh looks perfectly straight so can only assume it's my naff photography.

Hope your week is going well and many thanks for your visit today.

Rather a lot of Ivy going on

Well it was going to be good morning when I started this post but seems it's turned into good afternoon, but better late than never as they say. And just reading down my post it appears apparent that I have a bit of a thing for Ivy and I won't deny the fact, I always love the way it grows and trails so naturally, not to mention the beautiful variants in colours.

My latest box of goodies arrived from Baker Ross earlier this week and I have had a couple of fun session using some of the new things. The products are from their new Natural rage which has a lovely organic feel to it so very much appeals to me and I have two makes to share in this post, well three if you count my Snippets Playground creation.

For the wreath at the top of my post I used one of the craft wreathes as my base, painted it with acrylic paint (also available from Baker Ross) and added glitter so the little bits showing through give a nice glimmer.

I then arranged fresh Ivy from the garden interspersed with little stones from their river pebbles collection. To carry the natural feel I used some raffia to make a bow and layered it onto an organza bow, all made on the Tattered Lace bow maker. 

I also have a canvas I made for this week Snippet Playground, I played truant last week so I hope I'm allowed in again ? I started by covering the canvas with gesso and dried with a heat gun............yes I'm impatient..........then covered with 'slap it on' and made a sort of patchwork with offcuts of a pretty botanical paper pack a craft friend sent me for my birthday. I covered each piece with slap it on before sticking to the canvas and also gave a good coating to the top as I fixed each piece. 

Next I made a watery mix of acrylic paint using a very pale pink and painted the whole piece, dabbing with a baby wipe where I wanted the images a little clearer. When dry.......yep you got it the heat gun again.......I stamped a flourish around the edge using versafine and embossed with detail gold and then rubbed gold gilding wax. Next I added a bit more interest and texture with a honeycomb stencil and gold paste and finally some tattered Lace Charism Ivy and Delicate Peony Corner. It was fun !!

My second Baker Ross share today uses three of their Wicker Balls which I tied together with some string and then decorated with some Tattered Lace Charisma Ivy, paper flowers and pearls. It was really simple to make and I intend making a Christmas one which I will share in a week or two along with some pine cone and twig makes.............still thinking on that one !

Many thanks for popping in, it's always much appreciated as are your comment.

Lets' play Bingo

It's Saturday morning again which means a new challenge at Allsorts and Tracy is inviting us to play Bingo. Our sponsor this week is Baker Ross.

I have gone with the flowers, ribbons and die cuts line. It is one of my recent makes for Tattered Lace's Create and Craft programmes using the new Shutter dies set, it's a really wonderful set and amazing how you can create a perfectly accurate kinetic card in minutes as all the guess work has been done for you.

I used a cream linen card for the card base and Graphic 45 DP's, using one of the sections with the birds as the focal element. The daisies are all cut from the Tattered Lace Blossoms set, they cut so easily allowing you to double up your paper and cut two or three at a time, making easy work of cutting several. When I have half an hour spare............and believe me that doesn't happen often these days........I cut out a batch of flowers in cream and white so they are all ready to colour with Pan Pastels or distress inks.

The four corner elements have been cut from the reverse side of one of the DP's and a little pearl added to the centers and bows tied on two more of the section.

For those of you who have not found it yet, we have a Tattered Lace blog where you can find daily inspiration and product news as well as giveaways now and then.

A bit of an experiment and a gift basket

Hello Peeps, I hope you are all OK and those of you who have been poorly with all the viruses going round are on the mend.

I had a delivery from Baker Ross this week, it's always a bit of a surprise when they arrive as I never know what's inside so it's lovely rummaging through the goodies. I will be sharing more makes using the new products in due course but for today I have a card which was a bit of an experiment using the Porcelain Paint and a little basket made from the Spring Creativity Set along with Tattered Lace dies.

Being one who likes to experiment with paints and inks I was fascinated to know if the pain could be used on other surfaces........my box of goodies had some lovely porcelain items to paint and that's one of my projects for a quiet weekend.............but today I wanted to get messy. So I brushed ice green, creme, ice blue and receda (an apple green) onto a piece of Fabriano card and blended with water.

Next I scrunched a piece of clingfilm on top and put on the radiator for ten minutes, removed the clingfilm and dried off with the heat gun. Then I simple stenciled the Sweet Poppy stencil with gloss black medium and sprinkled with crystal glitter, when dry I added a piece of the corrugated card from the Spring pack mentioned above, twine, a couple of the brads from the same Spring pack which I coloured black and a butterfly button. I would like to join the current Butterfly Challenge where the theme is A Butterfly and Brads.

The basket shape is one of several pre cut templates in the set which also includes patterned papers, gems, brads, ribbons and some really scrummy coloured corrugated card, great value at £6.99. I also used some of the Pastel Gems, £2.99 for a pack of 36 strips.......that's 900 gems in total in coordinating Spring colours.

The baskets are so quick to make up and I started by assembling the base but didn't fix the handle at this stage. Then using a contrasting colour I cut out three long strips using Tattered Lace Chantilly Swag die which matches up beautifully to cut longer pieces. One strip is adhered round the bottom of the basket using red line tape and the other two to the underside of the handle so the fancy edge shows and then fixed to the base.

I love the little baby elephant dies from Tattered Lace and cut the row of them them out twice in the same contracting colour, separate them and fixed one to each of the six sections of the basket and one onto a little matching gift tag. Finally some gems and ribbons and you have a pretty little basket to fill with sweets or other goodies.

Thanks for popping in to take a peek.

Happy 5th Birthday Allsorts

Using air dry clay, DP's, cardstock and ribbons from Baker Ross

It's our 5th Birthday at Allsorts and we are celebrating !!

And we have loads of prizes from Marianne Designs, Crafty Ribbons, Yours and Mine Papercrafts, A Passion for Stamps, FlonzCraft,  Baker Ross, Scrappers Delight as well as a prize for the winner of the secret words and a prize from each of the DT form a lucky winners from those leaving comments on their personal blogs.

I find it quite amazing that it's five whole years, I have been there from the start and can't quite believe how quickly that time has gone. The fact that we are still going as strong as ever is testament to the wonderful crafters who join every week, not to mention our fabulous sponsors and talented Design Team.

Using Distress Markers and Hero Arts stamp

So as you might guess we are having a Blog Hop and have loads of fabulous prizes to be won both on the challenge blog and each DT's own blogs. Lots of you know the ropes but there are always new crafters joining us so just to confirm you need to start from the challenge blog here then visit each DT's blogs, collect a letter and leave a comment and hopefully you should have arrived here from Helene's blog and hop next to Wendy's blog. Once you have collected all the letters sort them into two words and mail you answers to me. Hopefully by now you know the letter you need to collect from my blog ?

Good luck to you all and here is the prize for the winner randomly selected from comments on my blog.

Early morning Cockerel and some inkiness

It's a scheduled post today so fingers crossed it pops up on time with my Monday Prickly Pear DT card and mid month cards for Penny Black and More and Stamping Sensations.

My Stamping Sensations card is some inky indulgence with Dylusions and Glimmer Mist and Timmy's Papillon stamp set, still my favorite of all his stamp sheets which I used along with a mixture of background stamps and a little Frantage around the edges.

For my Prickly Pear piece I have used the lovely Cockerel or as they call them in the States Rooster GG0197. As you all know I don't do much colouring but managed to coordinate with the Graphic 45 DP's which go perfectly with the image.

Stamped coaster tiles, lantern and bottles all from Baker Ross

My latest package from Baker Ross had some Pebeo paints, tiles, bottles and lanterns and above is what I came up with. I found stamping onto the lanterns a bit tricky due to the shape so I stamped onto some fine tissue paper and then glued that onto the sections and it worked perfectly. The tile on the left has been painted with acrylic pain and then rubbed with gilding wax before stamping with archival ink and the one on the right stamped directly onto the tile using distress markers which I sealed with Slap it On. If you are not familiar with the company do check out their web site, their prices really are very competitive and they offer something for both the card maker and those who like a bit of altered art.

And finally my PB&M piece using the gorgeous Poppy from the Spring 2014 release called Red Tango, some Kaiser DP's which compliment the image perfectly, liquid pearls and some ribbon.

Thanks for popping in, your visits and kind comments are always much appreciated.

Spring Blossoms

Another schedule post with this weeks challenge at Allsorts where it's my turn to host the theme and I thought Spring Blossoms was an appropriate one, not that it's just because I love all things floral of course. Our prizes this week are from our regular sponsor Crafty Ribbons and Baker Ross.

For my card at the top I have used the lovely First Dance lily stamp from the Penny Black Spring releases, along with some softer stamping in the background and shading with Pan Pastels and my all time favourite sentiment stamp, Penny Black Dance.

Most of the products on my second card are from Baker Ross, they sent me a box of goodies and challenged me to see what I could come up with so I thought I would give the clay a go as I have never worked with it before and am really impressed with the rose, leaves and butterfly using molds and covering with gilding wax when dry. I  like the fresh colours of the pretty Spring paper collection which are good value at £5.99 for a pad of 26 24x34cm sheets. I will share more of my makes with their products soon.

I do hope you will join is this week and look forward to seeing your entries.