Springtime

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Anything goes with a stamp and ribbon' and 'Anything goes'......I can see the perfect opportunity for some doubling up here to maximize you chances of a prize.

My Stamping Sensations creation uses a new floral image from Crafty Individuals our sponsor this month, it's a rather busy one for me, but it's slowly growing on me. I used Distress Markers to ink the stamp and a spritz of water stamping onto Fabriano then dragged out the colour a little, but at that point I came to a bit of a standstill and actually left it for a couple of days.

Then I came across an inky background to which I had added some texture paste in the corners and sort of went from there. I randomly stamped some CI dragonflies onto the inky panel and rubbed Pebo gilding wax over the raised embossed areas and also around the stamped piece which I then tucked into two pockets cut in front of the embossed sections. Some flowers, an organza bow and Tattered Lace ivy and finito.

I would like to enter this card into the current Butterfly Challenge where the theme is of course Butterflies plus Texture or Teal, so this has the Butterflies and Texture.

It's another with the lovely Venetian Summer stamp for my Penny Black creation. I've probably said it before but Venice is my all time favourite City and I can't wait till be go there again in July for a few days ahead of our cruise.

My Venetian lady is stamped onto Fabriano, the background is coloured with Pan Pastels and her dress paper pieced. The card base is one of those folds I picked on on the internet which makes quite a nice change, I tend to cut and score several at a time while the technique is fresh in my mind. I have a feeling the DP's are first addition but as they are left over pieces can't be sure. Some ribbons and blossoms to embellished and the sentiment that comes with the main image.

I am off to the Snippets Playground with this one, I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks so I do hope Miss Di will be kind to me and I don't get sent to the naughty corner for truancy. I though if I bake another batch of cupcakes to take up to the tree house like those in yesterday's post it might help my case........not to be confused with any bribery intent of course.........ahhhhhham.

Happy weekend all and hope you will pop over the the challenge blogs and join in this month.

Flowers and a birdie in her hair

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Kath is our host with the theme of 'Red, White and Blue'. Our sponsor is Hobby House.

As some of you will have seen from the dodgy comments I have left the last week or so, I am struggling with my dexterity again and fingers and keyboard are not working as a team so my apologies in advance if my comments are spasmodic, short and sweet or even C&P until it sorts itself out.

This is one of the TL samples I made for one of the USA shows where this particular colour palette was required, red, white and blue is not a colour palette I gravitate to, probably the blue thing again. I started with a piece of Fabriano and sprinkled on ost blue, brilliant red and and just a little black, then spritzed very sparing with water and I wanted to keep the colours isolated rather than merging together as I usually do.

I cut the TL lady die in white, I think she is rather pretty with the flowers and birdie in her hair, then placed over red and cut out around the edge and placed over the oval mats. Some twine, pearls  and rather flouncy bow, I think this one has six of not seven loops both sides, but so easy to make with the TL bow maker.

There is lots of inspiration from my teamies over at the challenge blog so please do pop over to take a look.

Happy weekend all.

Chocolate Baroque GDT shares

Good morning, I am having another Guest Designer spot over at the Chocolate Baroque blog which is always fun as it's a perfect opportunity to get inky with some of their lovely stamps.

As those who know me are aware I am a big fan of Brosho’s and love any Nature inspired images so had a lovely play with these lovely image from the Chocolate Baroque Autumn Poppy set  and Words of Inspiration set, both of which have become firm favourites with me.

I started with a piece of Fabriano 600gsm cold press watercolour card, saturated it with water and sprinkled on Brusho’s Terracotta, Orange and Sea Green to the top half of the card, then twisted it around to get the colours to run down the card. Once dry I stamped the Physalis Franchetii (Chinese Lantern) image along with one of the sentiments from Words of Inspiration set.

The floral husks have been painted with the same colour Brushos and then covered with Glossy Accents. When completely dry the piece has been matted and layered with coordinating cardstock.

My second share uses one of the fairies from Chocolate Baroque June Fairy set as well as the crocus's and trailing vine from the same set.

I started with the reverse side of a piece of centura pearl, masked the sun and created the background with Pan Pastels and used a piece of ripped paper to create the sunrays with distress inks. Next I stamped all of the images with archival black and coloured the flowers in with Wink of Stella pens. I added some liquid pearls and glitter around the vines, matted and layered and added a bow down the side.

Many thanks for taking a peek today.

To see the word in a grain of sand

Good morning Peeps, I hope your weekend is going well.

I've been keeping a secret for a week or two but now I can share and tell you I have been invited to become one of the teamies at Fashionable Stamping Challenges. When Shirley first asked me common sense said no, when I mentioned it to hubby he said why, so of course all reason went out of the window and I said yes !

And here I am with my first DT piece following this months theme of Blue, Yellow and White, how good is that as it's one of my favourite colour combos...........I know I have lots of favs, but this is one near the top of my list. Blue is a colour I rarely gravitate towards as a solo colour, but I do love it combined with either yellow or brown. There is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from our good friend Leo over at FlonzCraft.

My starting place was a square of Fabriano 600gsm card, liberally spritzed with water and Ost Blue and Yellow Brushos sprinkled on and with a bit of tilting side to side allowed the Brushos to run with the water. The Poppy image is from the Autumn Poppy set by Chocolate Baroque and the sentiment Clarity. I heat embossed the floral image with detail clear powder to give a raised border so that I could bleach out the flowers and butterflies which I then coloured in with the same Brusho's and when dry added a coat of Glossy Accents.

I mounted the piece onto some corrugated card and some ribbon to make it into a wall hanging, however I have since changed my mind and it's now mounted onto a card as I have a recipient in mind with a Birthday next month and she loves anything blue.

Have a good Sunday and I do hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and join us this month.

Easter Bunnie, a Butterfly and a Snippet

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Wendy would like to see some Easter creations. Our sponsor is Scrapper Delight and Stamp Addicts.

I have used a frame from Scrappers Delight, stamped a really old Stamps Happen image in the centre and coloured with Spectrum Pencils and added some background with Pan Pastels.

And shame on me as it's a day late my Penny Black mid month card. My starting point was a piece of Fabriano, saturated with water and sprinkled Brushos here and there making sure I retained some lighter areas. Next I used distress inks and a honeycomb stencil to add some interest and then another mask across the top over which I spread grunge paste, removed the stencil and sprinkled with gold mica powder and blasted with a heat gun which intensifies and fixes the gold.

The Butterfly is Penny Black Soft Wings, stamped and embossed with detail gold powder onto an offcut of Fabriano..............it's a tad expensive so I always keep those little pieces.........  and painted with the same Brusho's.  Finally A Penny Black sentiment, again embossed with detail gold and a few pearls here and there.

I am popping over to the Butterfly Challenge where the theme is a Butterfly and Bronze, also the Playground to see if there is any hooch left up in the tree house, although as I am a tad late this week chances are I will need to smuggle in a bottle of my own.

Happy weekend all.

Butterflies, buttons and bronze as well as a snippet

Hello Peeps, hope your week is going well and welcome to me new followers, thank you so much for joining my inky journey.

It's going to be a really short post as doing it from hospital on my tablet and I find the keyboard a real challenge. It's the first time I've tried to do a whole post on it, but scrolling around blogland as you do while waiting for the men in green to collect you and seeing the new Butterfly Challenge knew I had a card that would fit the bill. And I am also popping over to the Playground with it as the Butterfly is a snippet of Fabriano, I'm in dire need of some hooch or even something stronger if there is any still hidden away up in the treehouse. 

The base layer if Fabriano, distress inks and bronze gilding wax, the corner cut with a Timmy die and detail bronze for the sentiment and distressed edges. Some seam binding and Tattered Lace Butterfly covered in the same gilding wax. Oh yes, and a button for the Butterfly's thorax.

Happy Wednesday all and many thanks for your visit.

Sparkle at Allsorts

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where Tracy Mouse would like to see 'Sparkle'. This weeks prize is a pair of tickets to the NEC Hobbycraft show in November.

I have two glittery makes this week and as I have also written up a post over at Tattered Lace Blog for the above card won't bore you with all the details again.

My second make is an inky creation using Brusho's for the background, Lavinia stamps and liberal helpings of purple glitter on the Fairie's wings and fantasy tree.

I wanted a fairly wide spread of colour so spritzed a piece of 600 gsm Fabrinano liberally with water then sprinkled on the Brushos, lilac, yellow and lemon and a bit more water to disperse the colour in some areas. Next I did the stamping using black archival ink, inked all round the edges with DI dusky concord, added the glitter and a bow across one corner with a rhinestone ribbon slide to add to the sparkle.

And a day late my mid month piece at Penny Black and More challenge where our theme of Anything Goes runs until the last day of the month so there is still plenty of time to join in.

And also a day late.................knuckles suitable rapped...........my share from yesterday's mid month post over at Stamping Sensations, this months theme is Sew Special, sewing real or faux or a So Special sentiment, it's been a tad quite at that one so please do pop over and join in.

Happy weekend all.

It's those Brushos yet again

Morning all you crafty Peeps, this week at Allsorts we are getting all romantic with the theme of Love is all Around. We have two lovely sponsors this week, Buttons for Brains and Deedes Designs.

Just to explain my somewhat short or even missing comments on your blogs this week, we continue to have internet problems created by some sort of 'back door attack' on our server, it's all double dutch to me but I do know it's making life frustrating to say the least. As a result we are in the process of having servers changed..............all our internet, web site and mail comes via the office so it's not a quick fix and nothing moves quickly, but I am assured all should be resolved within the next week or so.............which at the moment sounds like forever away.

Onto my Allsorts card and it's another inky one from me or should I say Brusho's yet again, I had a heavy weekend of them a few weeks ago trying out different ways to use them. On the background of this one I soaked the Fabriano cardstock with water, sprinkled on the powders and then tilted the card back and forth so the colours ran and have to say I rather like the effect. Hubby was not so keen and said it looked "out of focus", ah well can't please them all. I then simply stamped Penny Black 3073K Brush Rose, painted the flowers with the same red Brusho colour, a ribbon and thread bow, a little red organzie rose and the sentiment is Penny Black 40-092 All You Need.

I thought I would also share one or two of my recent DT cards which have been on the Tattered Lace blog over the last week. I will have lots more to show you in the coming couple of weeks showcasing the upcoming Tattered Lace 2nd Anniversary releases which will be revealed on C&C from next Friday 13th, make a note in your diary as it's going to be a great week of shows with lovely new products.

All the dies and embossing folders used on these two cards are listed with each card on the Tattered Lace blog. The stamp on the above one is Penny Black and was inked with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping.

The flower on this card was made using one of the TL corner dies, again instructions and products listed on the Tattered Lace blog.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

A hint of Spring

Morning Peeps, time for our February  challenge at  FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges  and this month Shirley would like us to 'Bring on those Spring colours', one that's made for me because it's my favourite season of the year. As always there if a fabulous $20 on line store voucher to be won from FlonzCraft.

Following on from my cards yesterday it's more Brusho's, I am so loving the bright vibrancy of these.......I know it's a bit too obvious, but I figured the only way to get to fully understand their capabilities is to keep playing...........feeble excuse but works for me !!

I used two of the greens and a yellow for the background on this one, sprinkled the powder onto a piece of Fabriano watercolour card and instead of spritzing water used Glimmer Mist Pearl and as soon as the colours started to merge crinkled some cling film over. I left it on a radiator for about about five minutes and when I peeled it off was left with a lovely jewel faceted piece. I paper pieced the 50's Vintage Fashion Girl, stamped some Flonz Grass across the bottom and some leaves from the Large Flower Sheet across the top and added some yellow liquid pearls. The fence was sponged on using a Sheena stencil and the Blake quote is computer generated.

Hope you all have a good week.

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.

Ribbons and lace

Good morning Peeps, hope everyone had a good weekend and those of you brave enough to attack Christmas shopping had a fruitful trip and didn't get too jostled around by the crowds.

I got a little news to share and you could call it another of my moments of madness, I know it does seem to happen quite often with me, but when Sarah from The Pretty Little Ribbons Shop asked me if I would join her design team it took me a nano second to say "oh yes please". I've always loved her products and buy far more ribbons than I ever need, but that's half the fun isn't it ? 

So today I'm sharing my first DT piece for this months Pretty Little Ribbons challenge where we have the totally seasonal theme of 'Christmas', along with my DT piece for this months FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping challenge where my lovely teamie Claire have chosen the theme of 'A Pocket Full of Poses', right up my street.

Despite working away at Christmas cards for what seemes like an eternity................ would you believe I started making them for Create and Craft for Stamp Addicts programmes in May.................... I still need one the two more, especially those special ones so the card at the top for Pretty Little Ribbons gave me the perfect opportunity to get another one made.

The main image is Penny Black but it's a quite small stamp so I stamped it once to the right and then lined it up and stamped half of it a second time to extend the scene if that makes sense. Simple colouring with Pans Pastels, a Stamp Addicts star and Lavinia stag and a couple more tiny trees. I'm not sure of the make of DP as it's a left over from last year, but I think it's BoBunny. The rich blue seam binding is of course from Pretty Little Ribbons as are the two pearl pins which I coloured with Copics. The pinecones and leaves are a TH alterations die.

My second card above is my Vintage offering using the gorgeous etched rose stamp from Flonz Craft which I coloured with distress markers and spitzed with water before stamping onto a piece of Fabriano watercolour card. The DP's are BoBunny, a piece of embossed coredinations for the base and Marianne die cut roses. The butterfly die is Magnolia and as I said last week as close as I get to a Tilda.

I really hope you'll be joining in with our challenges, there are some fabulous prizes to be won at both.

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.

Spring blooms

Well it's still raining here in the Fens and construction of the Ark is well under way. According to my in house weather man who records the rainfall religiously, we've had 7.6" so far this month and it's rained 20 days out of the last 28. Do you get the impression I'm getting paranoid about the weather ? Well probably I am and April will certainly be a memorable month if only for the volume of water that's fallen.

I've been scooter shopping again this week, the mobility kind that is and not getting on too well so far. As we live well out of the village we need to drive to get anywhere, so what they call a boot scooter which break down into 4/5 pieces for transportation is required. All fit into hubby's car OK, but my boot is another matter, the new style MX5 has a more contoured boot and although the inside is just about big enough, the actual aperture is smaller. But I've not given up on the idea and have a man coming out next week to show me a US made one which folds rather than dissembles which may fit my boot, I did say may, I don't want to get my hopes up too much. I'll keep you posted.

Now about my card which is for this weeks  Allsorts challenge, I don't remember the last time I made a shaker card, so it was a nice surprise when Nicole chose that as here theme this week.

Our sponsor this week is A Passion for Stamps so this is a double DT piece really using one of Ruth's new pieces of artwork the beautiful Alstromeria which I have coloured with watercolours in soft lemons on watercolour card. The DP is from one of the pretty new Teresa Collins pads onto which I stamped the Penny Black sentiment.............think it's still my all time favourite sentiment stamp. I cut an aperture in the card blank and placed acetate behind, punched some tiny butterflies from the same DP for the 'shakers' and used double sided foam tape to create the space between the acetate and sentiment. Thumbnail pictures and links to all products below.

Some die cut swirls and border cut from the same DP and finally I threaded some coordinating beads onto a couple of pins.

Hope you all have a good weekend and thanks for visiting, I always appreciate your comments.

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.

A Passion for Flowers

Good Morning Peeps, how's you week going ? Mine is all messed up and I am losing days, it's always the same with bank holidays especially this time of year as no sooner I'm sorted from one another comes along.

Two quick shares before I kick into work proper, both cards using stamps from Ruth's A Passion for Stamps and both making good use of my Spellbinders.

The Alstroemeria image on the top card was printed onto Fabriano watercolour card................I always used 300gsm HP.........and coloured with Derwent's and some Magnolia DP. The Crab Apple Blossom flowers on the bottom card are paper pieced with DP's from stash and on both cards I have used seam binding from Pretty Little Ribbons.

I am entering this into Pretty Little Ribbons April challenge 'To die For'.

Have a good Wednesday everyone.

Penny Black all the way............

 

Can you believe it's April already, for me March seems to have disappeared in a flash but what better start to the new month than some new challenges at Stampalot and Penny Black and More. This is a bit of a long post, but so much to tell you about so hope you can stay with me.................

It's our second Birthday at Stampalot...........yes 1st April to be precise.................and we have a very exciting month lined up, in total there are fourteen prizes up for grabs with a Blog Hop as well as the challenge itself where the theme just had to be 'Happy Birthday'.

To join in the Blog Hope you need to staRt off from the challenge blog here and make youR way down the list of DT's who all have prizes on offfer. To be in with a chance of winning the individual pRizes you need to leave each DT memberR a comment then collect a letter from each, arrange the letters into two words and send your answers to me brenda@ibas.co.uk and a winner will be selected at random from all correct answers. When you arrive at my blog on the Blog Hop route you should have come fRom Clare's blog and make youR way next to Ruth. In case you've not guessed, my letter is 'hidden' in this paragraph and here's the pRize for the lucky person selected from all comments left on this post.

And at Penny Black and More we are getting all cute with the theme 'Oh so Cute', what a toughie for me, but I know so many of you love that theme and create some stunning pieces of work with your pretty images and beautiful colouring so this months it's especially for you.

My card at the top was an 'extra' make as I was totally blown away by the cards Kathy Racoosin made which you will find on her blog here. That stamp Penny Black 3431K Lace Flower was not one I initially bought from the new releases, but when I saw what Kathy done with it I had to have it as it totally lends itself to the technique. In her post Kathy asked people to give it a go, but I felt it only right to ask her before I blogged it and she gave me her blessing, so thanks so much Kathy. I won't bore you with what I did to make the card as Kathy explains it so well in her post.

I added a Penny Black sentiment, Spellbinder leaves, seam binding bow and a couple of roses which I made with some lovely new organzie ribbon from Sarah at Pretty Little Ribbons, the quality is superb with a lovely sheen which picks up the light beautifully when scrunched together in flowers.

My second DT piece for Stampalot uses another of the lovely new stamps from Penny Black 40-099 Black Soft Wings. I must accredit the inspiration for this card to my friend Paula who gave me the will to get my head back into crafting last month when my mojo had gone totally off the boil. Paula does amazing things with inks and stamps and had made the most beautiful tag here which spurred me into action to break open my new Penny Black stamps which had been gathering dust since they arrived. Thanks so much Paula. 

I stamped the edges of a piece of Fabriano watercolour card with Penny Black 3857H Footnote using versamark and embossed with detail clear. I then inked the piece with TH peeled pain and spun sugar and over stamped with Hero Arts 2365H Old French Writing..............I know again.....with peeled paint. I stamped the butterfly out twice to decoupage the centre and coloured with Derwent watercolours. The swirl is an old Inkadinkado stamp and the sentiment Darkroom Door.

Penny Black 40-042 Good Friends forms the focal image of my Penny Black and More DT piece, this was actually a Birthday card for one of my DT's but I know she has received it now so I am safe to share it. The image is coloured with watercolours. The background Bo Bunny DP has been nicely distressed and a piece of cheesecloth which I died with tea to give it a bit of an aged feel, swirls and flowers cut with Marianne dies and the little sentiment comes with the slapstick stamp.

Have a good Sunday everyone and I really hope you will join us in the new challenges this month.