Vintage at Allsorts

Good morning, time for another challenge at Allsorts and this week Tracy Mouse is going all 'Vintage'. Our sponsors are Jiggery Makery and Jessica Lynn Originals.

It's been a fabulous week with our Allsorts Birthday challenge and the winner of the Tattered Lace £50 voucher can be found on my post of last evening on the challenge blog. The DT's offering prizes will announce winners on their own blogs and the winners of my Tattered Lace dies are:

Mrs A (ValeryAnne)

and

Rhonda

Well done to you both, please mail me with your full names and postal addys.

Now onto my artwork, I recall a discussion in blogland a few years ago when it was being debated if Vintage had to be tones of brown and dusky pinks as that seems to be the perceived idea, but I think since that time it's been accepted that Vintage can be any colour, it's more the style of the piece that reflects the style, well that's certainly the road I am going down with one on my pieces today.

So following that principal my first card is blues and greens with a touch of brown thrown in for good measure. It's actually a card I made some time ago for Stamp Addicts but I never did get round to blogging it so today seemed like a good opportunity. 

The background is of course Dylusions and stenciled grunge paste, some random stamping and splattering's of frantage along with SA clock and retro flowers, seed beads in the flower centers and seam binding.

But just in case I made a second card in browns and pinks, distressed the DP which is a piece from my stash and used some hessian across the card. I coloured the lace and seam binding with distress inks, cut two hears using Tattered Lace essential hearts, some roses, pearls and TL Cherish sentiment.

Happy weekend all.

Not a happy camper

Morning Peeps, what a weeks it's been, last Thursday my keyboard broke and we thought it was a simple fix but it turned out my actual computer was very poorly so a new one was ordered from John Lewis but what a mess up that's been and a huge deviation from their normal efficiency. By last teatime it still hadn't been delivered so I rang them only to be told the order had been cancelled but they could offer no explanation how that happened. But that was just the tip of the iceberg as when I tried to re-arrange delivery I was told it had gone up £100 since I placed the order Monday and no way were they prepared to honour the price, to say the air was blue is an understatement.

And this morning I am off to have all my re- tests done and then back next week to get the results and see if the treatment worked or the op is necessary so what with one thing and another it's a really quick share of  a card using Dylusions, Timmy stamps, frantage and a bit of distressing.

Which all means with a very poorly computer my wings are severely clipped and blogging virtually impossible, even doing this post was touch and go so I am so sorry folks that I've not been able to visit.

Retro Roses

Hello all, there's a new Stamp Addicts show on Create and Craft today at 2pm, I have not been able to make much in the way of new samples because stamping is still very difficult, but I do have a couple I made a while ago which I can share with you. 

Just to update as lots of you have very kindly asked me how I got on with my results yesterday, well in some ways nothing new, three herniated disks in my lower back causing the constant pain and sciatica and lots of worn joints in my back and shoulder, the latter causing the cervical spondylosis. But on the positive side after some more blood tests and further MRI they are going to try some epidural treatment, I don't much like the sound of it but if it helps ease the pain has to be worth the discomfort of having it.

Onto the show and my cards, I know Sarah said the stamps for the show had been reduced by C&C, but I think the Retro Heart and Roses at the top is one of those that is still in the lineup. An old book, Dylusions. Frantage, paperpiecing and recycled corrugated form the basis of the card along with the stamp of course and two Lilies made with Tonic's Peruvian Lily set.

I would like to enter the top card for:

Inspired by Stamping - Embossed edges
Fab n Funky - Distressed
House that Stamps Built - Paper piecing

And the second card:

Moving Along with the Times - Anything but square

The blue one uses three of their images stamped and inked through masks.

Hope you all have a good Thursday.

Midnight cats

Monday means time for this weeks Prickly Pear DT piece which this week is Halloween, one that always comes a bit hard to me.

I started with creating my background with Dylusions and a TH clock as a mask, then liberal helpings of Frantage. The Midnight Cats were stamped with versamark and embossed with detail white onto black cardstock and yet more Frantage and purple gilding wax, the I stamped Shawn of the Dead with black archival ink and rubbbed more of the gilding wax to add a bit of shimmer.

Happy Monday to you all.

Wings and Things

Yet another scheduled post and today we should be in Athens before sailing overnight to Turkey where we will visit the ancient city of Ephesus and the temple of Artemis which is one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, then the following day we sail to the beautiful Greek island of Santorini.

It's time to share my DT card for FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges where this month our theme is 'Wings and Things'. Lots of lovely inkiness here with a background of Dylusions pure sunshine, cut grass and turquoise. Next I  stamped Flonz butterfly corner around the sides, embossed in gold and added aged gold frantage around the edges. Old favourite TH caged bird makes another appearance and this is also randomly embossed with Frantage and finally three Flonz butterflies and words which are from the dream Stamp Addicts set.

Thank you for taking a peep, see you all soon.

Stampendous P107

A funny title, but those who know me will probably have a smile as it's my all time favourite stamps that comes out time and again in classes and demos.

I hope you are all OK and a warm welcome to my new followers, this is going to be another short post as although my balance has improved if I sit or concentrate for too long the world still goes on the move so it's  everything in short bursts. As I said last week.......C'est la vie avec MS, but there are those far worse off and I am not complaining just frustrated when my wings are clipped.

My card is one I made a few weeks ago just for a bit of messy fun, the background is Dylusions fresh lime, cut grass and pure sunshine, overstamped with a Visible Image script and Stampendous P107 which I bleached out here and there to add highlight, a strip of old corrugated and some cord and Frantage round the edges. I don't have many Clarity stamps but really do like this inspirational quote and succumbed at Stamperama.

Have a lovely day Peeps.

More dreaming

Good morning everyone, what's the weather like your way ? Still plenty of snow here and schools closed, all that said it doesn't take a great deal to bring the Fens to a standstill as they never touch the single track roads where we live so getting to civilisation is avoided unless essential.

Not too many visits from me the last few days I'm afraid, my MS is having it's seasonal hissy fit and the left side of me is not playing the game too well, so my comments are likely to be short and sweet. Roll on the warmer weather.

Stamp Addicts have two programs on Create and Craft today at 1pm and 6pm so I thought I would share a couple more sample I made, both of these feature the Ironworks background and Dream sentiments.

On the top card I stamp the Ironworks onto the base card using versafine and lightly dusted Pan Pastels over the top. The the lattice die is a Marianne set and I simply stamped the word onto the centre element and embossed with detail copper. The flower is a Spellbinder die and the little leaves and swirl come in the same Marianne set as the focal elements.

I randomly stamped onto the shaped panel of the second card using TH tea dye and Peacock feathers and embossed round the edge with Aqua Frantage. The leaves are Spellbinders, the hinge TH Alternations hardware findings and the rose made from five punched 1.25" five petal flowers.

If you still have snow do take care and keep warm.

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.

Glitzy Christmas

It's white and gold plus one other colour at Allsorts this week where the lovely Helene is our host.

Before I tell you about my card I want to say thank you for all your kind messages this week, I'm still not feeling brilliant and not been up to much crafting this week so I'm a bit reliant on 'here's one I did earlier'. I had lots more tests done yesterday, in some ways I am hoping everything confirms the GP's diagnosis of coeliac disease because at least a new diet regime should start to put things right and I'll know there is nothing more sinister going on........ the old mind over matter syndrome again.

So back to my card and I have to admit that gold is not a colour you see often in my crafting although no idea why I don't use it that often. But I enjoyed making this one with lots of gold Frantage both round the edges and on the image itself which is Penny Black 2808L Winter Glow. I find the silhouette style stamps take the Frantage really well and it gives them gorgeous texture. The background is another Penny Black favourite 40-169 which I stamped with Versamark and coloured with Pan Pastels..................... yep, I'm still loving them. The holly is a Marianne die which I embossed here and there with detail gold powder.

I hope you can join in our challenge this week and look forward to seeing your entries.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and manage to keep warm as it looks like being pretty cold and blustery here in the UK over the next few days.

Bring on the bling and winners

It's all about glitter and sparkle at Allsorts challenge is week where the theme is 'Bring on the Bling'.

I'm not really big into bling and the closest I usually get is a few gems down the thorax of a butterfly although I do rather like my Frantage which I guess is blingy in its own way so that's the basis of my card, along with stamp from this weeks sponsor Flonz Craft.

I stamped the vintage birds and embossed with detail clear and place them inside a spellbinder die from the Chateaux Gates set. I randomly added Frantage around the frame and also the background piece which I also stamped with Baroque corners also from our sponsor. The great thing about Frantage is you can't really go wrong with it in fact the more random is the better it looks. The branch is a TH Alterations die as are the pinecones.

And as promised the four people who have won a set of the beaded pins in my post last weekend:

Eline -Elines Blogg

Laura - Lozadoodle

Lorraine - Colwaters 2

Cebelica - My Little World

Congratulations to your all, please mail me with your full names and postal addy so I can send you gifts off to you.

Have a lovely weekend everybody.

Poppy Passion

Good morning everybody.

Thank you for your very kind comments about my Pan Pastel Q & A post earlier this week and pleased some of you found it useful. I was a tad thrilled to receive a mail from Pan Pastels themselves asking if they could use it on one of their mixed media artist sites, so I figure it must be OK. I think I've answered all your e.mails about them, but if I have forgotten anybody just give me a dig in the ribs to remind me. 

I fully intended sharing a few more cards that I made yesterday using Pans, but the weather has been so atrocious it's been impossible to get decent photos as even in the middle of the day it's been like midnight. So instead here are a couple of samples I made for Stamp Addicts next programme on Create and Craft TV a week today, that's 29 November at 4pm and 7pm.

I've actually had the stamps a few weeks as Sarah gave them to me when I did my last demo there and it's been so hard keeping the poppies in particular under wraps, you know how much I love my poppies and I know it's a passion shared with lots of my crafty friends, so I'm taking no blame if you 'have' to buy them.

The card at the top of my post has been simply stamped twice with black archival ink and coloured with Pan Pastels, Bo Bunny DP. seed beads in the centre of the poppies and some ribbon and bow to embellish.

The second card is a bit of inky indulgence, background stamping, colouring with watercolours and rather a lot of Frantage around the edges, I think this one is Aged Spice. I also threw in a Tim Holt's clock die cut from coredinations and sanded down.

Have a good Thursday and many thanks for dropping in to see what I'm up.

Flutterbys and footie

Quick seems to be the order of the day this week, but Sarah at Stamp Addicts just said it's OK to share some of the work I've done for next week's programme............... Create and Craft 11am through 1pm Monday 12th November.

I'm off to the NEC tomorrow, wasn't planned but hubby asked if I would like him to drive me there so you can guess I jumped at the opportunity. So my scooter is on charge to make sure I've got plenty of 'wheelpower' because although I can walk a while, no way will I get through the morning let alone a whole day without it and a girl has to make the most of things.

Both my cards in this post feature the butterfly set which includes a large and small one, the large one really is quite big but it makes a card on its own and it shrinks down fabulously. And I learned something new as one does..............and that is Pan Pastels work beautifully on shrink plastic and I made several which I will share another day.

The card at the top features lots of inky indulgence using picked raspberry and mowed lawn from the limited-edition summer distress inks and various Frantage colours embossed round the edge. The second card is quite simple with a background resist stamped using the small butterfly and a frame made with some DP's from stash.

Have a good Thursday evening everyone, I plan making a quick carbonara for dinner because footy is an early kick-off tonight as we..............the Anfield Reds of course.........are in Moscow playing Anzhi Makhachkala in the Europa League. 

November themes

The first Sunday of the month again and time for new challenges at Craft a Scene with the theme 'Troubled Skies', at Penny Black and More it's all about dies 'Any Die Will Do' and  in case you haven't heard the news that change is afoot, we have a relaunched challenge called Stamping Sensations, same DT, same great themes and some fabulous new sponsors and this month the theme is 'Traditonal Christmas'.

It's a bit of a photo heavy post so I will try and keep the blurb to a minimum. The card above is the first of two DT pieces for Penny Black and More using Penny Black 4035K Letters and Flowers which I inked with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping on to an oval cut from a new Marianne die which I inked whilst it was still in the die. Bo Bunny DP's, some lace and pearls to finish.

Initially I was a little bit uncertain about the troubled skies theme at Craft a Scene challenge but I knew I wanted to see some lightning, so I started by stamping some Stampscape images then added colour with Pan Pastels and drew in the lightning with a white marker pen.

My second Penny Black and More piece uses FlonzCraft Umbrella Girl which I paper pieced with Penny Black Madison DP's which are also used behind the Marianne dies. The sentiment is also Penny Black. 

Note added: I'll forget my own head one of these days, I need to tell you that both Flonz Craft and Indigo Blue are offering discounts to those who enter Penny Black and More and Stamping Sensations, full details on the respective challenge blogs.

My next piece is using a stamp from one of our new Stamping Sensations sponsors Indigo Blue called Lollipop Three. I heat embossed the image with detailed gold, then created a background using Pan Pastels and added a mixture of frantage colours to the bottom. I know this one is not particularly traditional Christmas, but I base my idea on a visit close to Christmas to the Garden of Gethsemane and the Basilica Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, when at dusk everything looked purple, so you couldn't get much closer to the true meaning of Christmas I figure.

My final piece use a mixture of dies including the new Marianne holly one which I just 'had to have'. Sentiment is another from Penny Black.

I hope you all enjoy your Sunday and that you will join in with our challenges this month.

Colours of Autumn

Saturday morning can mean only one thing, a new challenge at Allsorts and this week the lovely Helene would like to see 'Autumn Colours', a theme I absolutely love as I could work with the gorgeous rich colours of autumn all year round.

It gave me the perfect opportunity for some inky indulgence, first of all I stamped and embossed with detail clear a selection of Hero Arts leaves, this set is two or three years old but timeless. Next I went over the whole piece with distress inks and embossed round the edges with Frantage aged spice and aged gold. The acorns are Tim Holts alterations and the leaves come on the same die. 

I hope you can all join in this week and look forward to seeing your entries, have a good weekend everyone and thanks for popping in.

A tad distressed

Good morning one and all, do we think there is any chance of sunshine here in the UK this weekend ? I certainly do hope so, this ongoing rain is becoming more than a little tedious.

Before I tell you about a new challenge at Allsorts this week, a little reminder that you can win a £20 Sir Stampalot voucher by joining in my little fun challenge which you can read about here. And I really should clarify that although I waffled on about poppies you don't have to use poppies on your card, you can just use the beautiful red colours as inspiration, I realise that not everyone is as fanatical about buying poppy stamps as I am……… and one or two other peeps out there I know….… you know who you are !!

So so back to this weeks Allsorts challenge where Fleur have chosen the theme of 'Distressing', as you can imagine I was quite at home with this one.

We have a new sponsor this week, a New Zealand company Flonz Craft who very kindly provided all of the Design Team with stamps to use on their work, one of those I selected was this pretty bird image and as the stamps as so beautifully detailed I simply stamped with distress inks and pulled the colour out a little. Some nice grungy edges with some frantage powder embossed here and there and I also added some to the TH fence die. The DP is from stash but I think it may be MME.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Go Andy and team GB

It's Deb's turn to host our theme at Allsorts this week and she would like to see Red White and Blue on our work. Very fitting as Andy gets set for what is probably the biggest day of his tennis career tomorrow, how I would like to think this was his year, Wimbledon and his first Grand Slam all in one. Plus Team GB who will be in action very shortly strutting their stuff for the UK and hopefully go on a bit of a medal fest.

I'll be honest and say I find this colour theme a really difficult one to work with, not sure why but it's always been the same. So I thought the best thing to do was to follow my comfort zone and go inky and messy with some favourite stamps. The background was created with distress inks and Glimmer Mists, a clock die used as a mark and inked through, some white embossing and my current favourite caged bird die. The words have been computer generated. All ingredients listed in the pictures below along with links so you can check out exactly what they are. I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Fat Pages with Attitude - Anything goes
Raise the Bar - Red, White and Blue
Penny's Challenge - Red, White and Blue
Perfect Sentiment - Red, White and Blue

Have a good weekend everyone and I hope you get some decent weather, we had solid rain for 24 hours yesterday and the only happy ones were the ducks, but there is a glimmer of sunshine this morning, but I'm saying that very quietly.