Live in the Sunshine

Today sees the start of a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is 'Anything Goes', a nice and easy one over the holiday period when so many of us are busy. As always there is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from FlonzCraft.

I found this heart having a clear out of my overflow craft room........aka one of the spare bedrooms.......so decided to have a play with my new Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Polishes, apparently you can add them direct to wood without a base coat but I had already given the heart a coat of gesso and it blended fine. I used Fern, Aqua, Purple and Gold. 

The polish dries almost instantly so next I stenciled the same polishes over the base and...........this is the really good but about the polishes........you can stamp with it was well so I stamped around the edges with a really old Inkadinkadoo stamp. Next stamped the Heartfelt flowers onto a piece of card coloured with the same polishes, cut them out with the matching die and layered up. The sentiment is from Inkylicious, masking each section of the stamp to get three individual pieces, the wording is too close together to just stamp and cut but it is easy enough to do this way. Finally some lace and pearls and finito.

And with all those snippets I am popping right off to the Playground with this one, Miss Di is still under the weather (get well soon Miss) but you know they say about when the cat is away.............

I do hope you will come and join in our challenge.

Christmas lights, fairies are out to play and a puzzle

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week Helene would like to see Christmas Lights, we have some lovely Christmas dies to be won this week.

Further down you will also find my share for the current Butterfly Challenge, however as it's December and the Butterflies are all in their chrysalis stage, this month is all about Fairies and those magical beings. Also a share of a few of the pieces I made for yesterdays Tattered Lace Pick of the Day on Create and Craft TV.

Now I know you saw one of this a few weeks ago, but in my defense it was a different colour, in fact I made several of these in various colours for our children, I thought they would make a nice change to a Christmas card.

The base is a rattan circle from Hobbycraft and the Heartfelt Creation Poinsettias stamped onto card coloured with Dylsions, heat embossed with detail gold powder and then cut  using the coordinating die before layering up. The sentiment is Penny Black again stamped and embossed onto the same sprayed cardstock. When the Pinflair was set I entwined a string of TL Bright Heart LED craft lights and some strings of Anna Marie pearls and ribbon bow.

For my Butterfly Challenge card I have gone all Lavinia with a Fairy and Unicorn, both stamped in black archival onto a sky created with Brushos and the bottom area coloured with Pan Pastels. Some toadstools, Poppies and branches which are also all from Lavinia. Glitter on the Fairies wings and Poppies and magic dust added with Stickles.

And the Tattered Lace shares, to be honest when the dies first arrived I was a bit unsure about them, but the artwork soon changed my mind as some of the images are absolutely beautiful.

Happy weekend all, I do hope you will join in our Allsorts challenge this week and a heads up that next week we have a rather special prize for our Christmas challenge.

Colours of Autumn

Today sees the start of a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is Autumnal colours - yellows, oranges, reds and greens. As always there is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from FlonzCraft.

Again it's something I made back in the Summer and is another of my 5x7 flat canvases, I find this a great size to work with without being overwhelmed by too much space. The canvas came ready primed so I painted the whole piece with a dark acrylic paint called blood orange, then a thin coat of crackle glaze scraped on with an old credit card and a top coat of a neutral colour. Next some swirls added with stencil and grunge paste which I inked with DI's once dry and stamped around the edges with a Penny Black leaf image and some gilding wax. The flowers are all stamped and heat embossed with detail copper and cut out with the coordinating Heartflet Creations dies and some little Tattered Lace leaves tucked in around part of a Timmy clock die. The sentiment is also Penny Black. Finally a little chipboard Butterfly.

As I used up lots of snippets for the flowers I think it will be OK to enter into Di's Snippets Playground, I only popped in quickly last week to meet up with Parsnip............I'll say no more !

There are some lovely creations from my fellow teamies so I do hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and take look and join in with our challenge this month.

Blooms, Butterflies and new family members

My thanks to you all for your kind comments and well wishes yesterday which are all greatly appreciated. It's at times like this when the body is less than willing that I am re-assured my obsession of working weeks ahead with DT projects is a practical solution to dealing with MS. With artwork done and posts scheduled it takes the worry away and leaves me to just add a few words as I am doing here.

Today sees the start of a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is Beautiful Blooms, one that plays right into my hands. As always there is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from FlonzCraft.

I started with a Dylusion background and pearl mica spray. The colours turned out a little more intense than I planned so rather than water them down I used white embossing powder, it's one I don't use that often but quite like how the Visible Image sentiment pops with it. Next I used a Timmy stencil and pearl dimensional paste here and there and then stamped randomly round the edges with a Penny Black stamp using DI Dusky Concorde. I used a Tattered Lace Butterfly Trio stamp and die set again using white embossing powder and the flowers are Heartfelt Creations.

I do hope you will come and join us this month and share your own beautiful blooms.

The above card is one of my Guest Designer cards for Chocolate Baroque which you will find on their blog here today following their 15 minute card theme. I used the beautiful Butterfly Flourish Swirls stamp set, stamping with black archival ink and colouring with Brusho's. I drew a black line around the image, added a few sequins and matted and layered onto coordinating cardstock.

And look who moved in with us yesterday, Anysia and Azaria arrived home with these two sweeties who have been named Jemima and Puddleduck.....................I know that's all one name..............but they were not to be moved on the chosen names. They are Aylesbury ducks, two weeks old and will be almost full grown by twelve weeks and larger than most of the hens.

Happy Sunday all.

Autumnal colours

Before I tell you about our monthly challenge I would love to know if anyone else has noticed Blogger playing up this last week, I am finding posts of blogs I follow are not coming up on my reading list as normal, some never appear at all and others show up hours after they have been posted ?

Today sees out new monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Warm Autumn Colours and Autumnal Colours.....................ooooops............seems I didn't put my thinking cap on too straight here, but at least it means you can double up your chances of winning a prize by entering into both challenges.

The card at the top features a new release Penny Black stamp which is actually a Christmas one but with a bit of artistic licence has become Autumnal. It's a Birthday card for one of our son's birthday this month, he is a keen surfer and long distance athlete so I incorporated both the sea and countryside.

I inked the stamp with distress markers, spritzed with water and stamped onto the reverse of centura pearl cardstock. I used Pan Pastel to add the sky and sea and a Penny Black sentiment.



The next one is my Stamping Sensations piece using lots of stamped and die cut Heartfelt Creation flowers and Tattered Lace Trio leaves. I used Dylusions to colour the card for both flowers and leaves, then stamped before cutting out, the leaves have also been stamped using the coordinating TL Trio stamp set. The base is another of the rattan hearts I picked up for £1.00 at Hobbycraft and the banner sentiment is the same Penny Black sentiment as the above card and finally some ribbons.

My third piece is another for Penny Black using a fairly new Penny Black stamp called Sunny, so appropriate as I always think Sunflowers are such happy sunny flowers and I always associate them with the glorious fields of them in France at this time of year. I inked the stamps with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping randomly onto a masked Pan Pastel background, a Penny Black sentiment and bow to finish.

Happy weekend all.

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.

Flower Power and a song bird

Flower Power is our theme at Allsorts this week selected by Wendy and we have two sponsors, Scrappers Delight and Whimsy Stamps.

The card base is another using the fancy fold in the tutorial in my post here. The DP is really old which I found in my 'green drawer', the flowers are Heartfelt Creations, so clever and easy to use with a single large stamp for all the flowers and die that matches perfectly making it so quick to create several layered flowers in one go. I stamped the flowers with Adirondack rust ink, ran though the e.bosser using the matching die and added some of the same colours ink around the petal edges. Some leaves and a Penny Black sentiment making it a really quick card to create.

My second card is for this months Chocolate Baroque colour challenge, as lots of you know I only enter the odd challenge so I was super excited to discover I won their last one and have some lovely new stamps to play with. I am not terribly happy with how the colours show up on my photo as despite carefully selecting my Pan Pastle colours the terracotta looks rather pale. I first stamped the Let Your Heart Sing image in coffee archival ink, cleaned the stamp and repeat stamped just a section to extend the branches. Next I masked a sun and created the background with Pan Pastels and sponged some sun rays. The frame is the waste from cutting a Timmy cabinet card which I embossed and coloured with the same PP's. I made a tatty rose and cute a few hessian leaves to embellish.

Have a lovely weekend.

A rather special Anniversary

Morning Peeps, a scheduled post here.........you will see why further down, but it's Saturday which means a new challenge at Allsorts where our lovely Sarah has chosen the theme of  'It's a Stitch Up', our sponsors are FlonzCraft and Marianne Designs.

As you can see I have made an Anniversary card, the colour of the stitching gives it away a little......yes it's for a Silver Wedding Anniversary, a rather special one at that, our daughter and her hubby, how scary is that as it doesn't seem five minutes since their wedding and here they are at their 25th and hubby and I well past our 40th. Their anniversary is actually on Tuesday but I am totally safe blogging it today as she has never taken as much as a quick peek at my blog.......far more important things to do with her time !

Like her Mum she married very young in her teens and also like her Mum did the whole family bit before doing her degree, but it worked well as I was able to look after the children when they were little so she could follow her dream of becoming a history teacher.

She wanted a no fuss anniversary so is she going to get it...................no of course not and this afternoon we are having a rather large party, something I have been planning for months with her children and so far neither her or her hubby have a clue it's happening. There have been lots of clandestine arrangements being made and the last couple of days early food prep like cooking the ham, desserts and finishing touches to the cake either whilst she is at school or at the crack of dawn...............she lives just across the garden you see.

Many years ago before MS took control of my fingers and dexterity I used to make and decorate wedding cakes with delicate sugarcraft flowers, but have not ventured anything more that a Christmas cake for years. However, having looked around for a decent Anniversary cake nothing really impressed me, plus I wanted it to reflect their wedding cake which had sugar lilies, roses and trailing ivy to match the bouquets and floral displays in the Church and marquee. And there had to be lots of  pink, from a little girl she always wanted to get married in that colour and she did, a beautifully made gown of pale pink raw silk an exact replica of a Catherine Davighi gown she had set hear heart on but which carried an unrealistic price tag.

So back to the cake and I decided I would have a go at making the flowers myself, after all as the girls told me, I make paper flowers to go on cards so what's the difference, fair point and I am really happy with the outcome, I will share some photos during the week.

OK, enough rambling and a quick run down of my card to match the pink colour theme, machine stitching in silver thread, Heartfelt flowers......I know they are not lilies but the ivy is there and the pink pearls along with a Penny Black sentiment and some silver flourishes which I distress and inked to tone them down a little. I also made a matching box but forgot a photo of that.

So you will hopefully understand from the above my absence from blogland most of the week, so much shopping and cooking to be done and very little time for anything else, but all should be back to normal next week.

Happy weekend all.

Into the secret garden

Happy Sunday Peeps, time for new challenges at Craft a Scene where we have the theme 'In the Garden', Stampalot we have the theme 'What's your Crafty Passion' and at Penny Black and More  we are looking for Summer Blooms'.

It's a bit of a mega bundle post so you might need a cuppa to get through this little lot, but I will try and be brief.

My card at the top is my Craft a Scene DT piece and one of the samples I made for Sir Stampalot using the Heartfelt matching die and stamp sets and as Heartfelt are our sponsors I thought this fitted nicely. The wall and archway are all one stamp and the little scene through the arch another. The framework round the arch is one of the dies and the trailing vines are two more dies in the same set. I stamped the door element onto the reverse side of the piece of cardstock to give a more realistic feel to the opened doorway. The topiary tree is also in the same stamp set along with two further ones, so really good value for money. I would like to enter this into:

Joanna Sheen challenge - Summer Daze

I ended up making two DT pieces for Stampalot DT as I just couldn't decide, but both have lots of my crafty passions, distress inks, moons and suns and flowers fairies, but then I realised a bit of fantasy was missing, hence the second card with the fairy and butterflies.

The above card incorporates the TH Alterations fence and bird on branch die, over a sponged background stamped with an assortment of floral and foliage stamps. I would like to enter this card into:

Stamping for the Weekend - Show us your style - inking, silhouette stamps, masking moons and suns

C.R.A.F.T - Feathers and birds

Hotshot Crafts - Distress Inks

I have used this gorgeous Stampendous Fairy Queen stamp as the focal image, some background brayering and sponging, decoupaged cherry blossom and Art Impression deer's and flowers to create a little scene. The inks I used on this one are the yummy new set of Timmy's Summer colours, the 'picked raspberry' is a fabulous colour which I used to colour in the Fairy Queen. I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:

Polkadoodles - Fairies and Fantasy

And finally my Penny Black and More piece. When I made this one I was thinking Victoriana and a Cottage Garden feel, I'm not really sure what the flowers are on this stamp actually are, but it's a firm favourite with me. I used distress markers to ink the stamp and spritzed with water before stamping and lightly inking the edges. The piece of cheesecloth was soaked in tea to give it the aged feel to blend with the DP's. 

Thanks so much for taking a peek and I hope you will join in our challenges this month and look forward to seeing what you all create.

Ice Cream

Good Morning to you all, I am hoping my the magic of Blogger this pops up on Saturday as I should be in Katakolon in Greece today. For our new challenge at Allsorts the lovely Emma has some photo inspiration for us in the form of 'Ice Cream Colours', so I've gone strawberry and vanilla with a bit of mint thrown in for good measure.

Before I tell you about my card a little reminder that there is still chance to be in with a chance of winning the giveaway in the picture above. All details on the post below this one.........can't leave you the link as all post the last couple of week are scheduled. 

The soft colour palette and a card that's a little bit different to my norm as it involves a cute style image and some colouring.........an almost unheard of combination from this neck of the woods I know.

My card is one of the samples I was asked to make for Stampalot using the Chateau Gate Dies and matching stamps from Heartfelt Creations (links below to make sure you identify the right set). The window I used here is a square one, so I carefully placed my die on the cardstock so I could run it through the GC twice to extend the size and create a third middle window. 

The image was stamped and coloured twice to decoupage the flowers along the bottom of the window. The background panel was created by inking a Touch of Mica mask with Versamark, running through the GC, then dusting cosmic shimmer powder after removing the mask, this gives a positive an negative finish. Finally a few gems to embellish.

Have a lovely weekend.

Favourite Things

Hello everyone, I am hoping Mr Blogger is still my friend and this pops us as scheduled because I have no way of checking as my lappy is strictly banned from taking holidays and the internet lounge on board is out of bounds to me, plus mega expensive.....champagne is cheaper, so no contest really and you know which one I will choose.

It time for new challenges at Stampalot and Penny Black and More and two really great themes, at Stampalot we have a Bingo theme and at Penny Black and More we are inviting you to show us 'All my favourite things'. The latter one was a real toughie for me because all PB stamps are my favs, I love all thinks inky, easel cards, flowers, butterflies, suns and moons, the list is endless so how on earth is it possible to combine them all into one card ? Well I've had a good try and amazed myself I've got most in there, possibly it's a bit overkill though.

So my Stampalot DT piece is the one at the top following the lilac/turquoise/handmade flowers row. Oodles of inking and grudging here, I started by inking a piece of Fabriano card with the peacock and lilac colours from the new Spring Collection and adding a generous spritzing of pearl glimmer mist. The the real fun part when I randomly added some aged aqua Stampendous Frantage embossing enamel and Frantage mica flakes around the edges, these are really cool and you have to give them a go. I stamped the piece randomly with the TH Papillion set, the butterflies are from the same set, stamped in the same inks and some of the embossing enamel added here and there. The fairy inside the window is by PI, inked and embossed the same way as the butterflies and the window one of the Heartfelt dies..........thumbnail pictures and links to all below.

Mr second card is my DT piece for Penny Black and More, again I used Fabriano for the base and edges it with TH butterfly border die carefully lining up and cutting twice to extend the length. I masked a sun then brayered and dusted Adirondcak inks, created some hills with a piece of torn copier paper and sponged some rays of sun. A mixture of PB stamps, a few butterflies and some ruched ribbon.

I have to confess I really enjoyed making these two cards and could happily make this style all day long.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone, I hope you will join in our challenges this month and look forward to visiting you all when I am back from my holibobs.

Flowers and Footie

Good Morning Peeps, hope you all had a good weekend. At least the rain stopped her for a couple of days but it's back to normal again now and been pouring since the middle of the night.

I had an eventful outing with my new mobility scooter yesterday, we decided it would be sensible to find out exactly how long the battery lasted, I had already used it for a couple of hours last weekend, so set off to Peterborough to do a bit of shopping, upgrade my phone and call into a certain craft shop to drop off some samples and have a coffee..............yes Sir Stampalot of course.

We spent an hour or so in Queensgate Shopping Centre, then headed off across town to the other M&S clothes store. Spent another hour there, hubby went off to another floor to get a couple of new cases and said he would meet me at the checkout. Silly idea, there are five checkouts on the two floors and despite trawling the whole store he was nowhere to be found, at which point the low batter signal came on, so I hastily paid for my goodies and went downstairs to see if he was waiting by the main doors..............sorry it's a long story, hope you are still with me. 

He was nowhere in sight, so next I went to check if he was on the seats outside but came to a halt on the pavement..................you got it, the battery expired. So a quick learning curve on the new phone and I got hold of him and I can only assume he turned into the invisible man as he maintains he was still waiting at a checkout.......in ladies lingerie no less !!!! So the upshot of the story is he had to push me back through M&S, two large cases in tow and leave me at the rear of the store whilst he went back to the other end of town to get the car. At least I know the batter lasts about five hours.

So a few quick shares and I thought I would enter a few challenges for a change. The card at the top is a nice bit of inky indulgence, a mixture of stamps........all listed below, ink dusting for the background and some seam binding. This card is my entry for the following challenges:

Pretty Little Ribbons - Blossoms and Butterflies

Craft a Scene - Spring Flowers
Paper Sundaes - Things with Wings
By the Cute and Girlie - Spring is in the Air

I think the expression on the image of my second card just about sums up our season, somewhat frustrating, but at least we won the Carling Cup so have some silverware on the cabinet and will be in Europe next season. It's one of my recent DT cards for Stamp Addicts using their fun sportsmen stamps. I thought it would be perfect for this challenge:

Pan Pastels - Sports

And finally, one of the sample I dropped into Stampalot yesterday using some lovely new dies and matching stamps which I have been very lucky to be working with the last week, thanks Janice. The stamps are sized to fit the arch doors perfectly, then there is the larger Chateau Gate stamps which also coordinates with the dies, I will share some using that shortly. The vine also come in the set of dies and I made the tiny roses with a punch. I would like to enter this card for the following challenge:

Order of the Opus Gluie - Beyond the Garden Gate

Have a lovely day everyone and thanks so much for visiting me.