Pan Pastels A Winters Tale

Before I say anything else, I want to extend a huuuuuge thank you to everyone for their comments on yesterdays post as well as all the kind mails I received. You can't begin to imagine how much they are  appreciated and although I shed many more tears as I read them, each and every one of them helped me get through a horrid day.

I've got up this morning trying to be positive and although I still feel totally wretched did at least get some sleep last night so set myself the task this morning of trying to discover what blogger had done with all my scheduled posts. But it's still a mystery to me, several posts were scheduled before my interface got switched on Thursday but are nowhere to be found, so I've had to rewrite this one and apologies to all my teamies at Allsorts for being so late this week.

When Emma came up with her theme for this week 'Inspired by a Song' my fist thoughts had to be associated with Freddie Mercury and Queen. I have been a member of the Queen Fan Club for many many years and as far as I'm concerned there has never been another voice in the world of pop to match Freddie's. During the last weeks of his life, Freddie  composed many meaningful and poignant songs and it is one of those that I chose as the inspiration for my card. 

A Winter's Tale is from the album Made in Heaven which was released in 1995 after Freddie's death in 1991. It is said that Freddie's inspiration for this song came during the hours he spent staring out the windows of their recording studio at Lake Geneva. The song is described as having a psychedelic dreamy feel and reflects what Freddie saw out of the windows.

I wanted to create a cold frosty feel and used distress inks and pan pastels for the background, stamped and embossed the Penny Black Winters Ledge image, then added glitter to the branches to give a winter feel. The sentiment is computer generated.

I also made a second card as one of my Flonz Craft stamps kept calling out 'Lady in Red' by Chris de Burg, the song which he wrote with reference to his wife Diane. I have paper pieced the image with Teresa Collins DP's which I also used on the card base, a die cut swirl and leaves and decoupaged flower from the same DP to carry the colours.

Today we are going to have lunch with one of our sons and his family, this is something we've not been able to do during the last ten weeks as it wasn't possible to lave Buffy for very long. In fact apart from basic shopping trips and one to a friend in early August which had been planned for months, we have hardly left the house.

Whatever you have planned, I hope you have a good Sunday and again my grateful thanks to you all for your kindness. 

In Bloom

Don't the weeks fly round, it's Saturday again before I know it and a new challenge at Allsorts where Helen would like to see flowers on our work for her 'In Bloom' theme. Right up my street Helen.

My card is something I made when I was bored one Sunday and I had the urge to make lots of flowers.........as you do. So basically that's exactly what I did using various dies, coloured papers and distress ink to shade the edges, a little bit of quilling...........which I might add is definitely not something I do very often, but I thought it lent itself to the stems rather than more die cut leaves.

I added some pearls here and there and built up the picture onto some neutral coloured DP layered onto the base card.

Have a super weekend everyone.

Meet Poppy, the latest addition to the family

Morning Peeps, it's Nicolas turn to host this weeks theme at Allsorts and she would like us to do some 'Paper Piecing', so one I have really enjoyed doing. But before I move on to that, I would like to introduce you to Poppy, the latest additional to our four legged family. 

She is a ten week old rough coated Parson Jack Russell and the children's surprise Fathers Day present for hubby and my was he surprised when she arrived last evening. Luckily I was already in on the secret and have been covertly collecting things ready for her arrival all week.

She seems to have settled in as if she had been here for weeks and was soon comfortably asleep on Dad's lap after an hour or so's rough and tumble with Pixie who is now six months, whilst the more mature watched on in resigned acceptance that the family has grown again.

It seems to be taking forever to get back into the crafty and blogging mode, holidays are great but I always seem to take ages to get my train of crafty though moving again, so I am hoping this weekend I can buckle down and get those juices flowing again and actually make a card.

As Ruth from A Passion for Stamps is our sponsor this week, my card is a double DT piece using her lovely Orchid image which I have paper pieced with some Bo Bunny DP's. The spotty background was created using a mask which I inked with versafine before running it through the GC, then brushing with perfect pearls which stick to the inked sections and the spots create a resist. Some swirls, flowers and pins and finito.

I would like to enter this card in to the following challenge:

Pretty Little Ribbons - Lots of Layers

Finding her way around

Playtime with Pixie

Happy weekend to you all.

Buttons and Bows

Before I tell you about this weeks new challenge at Allsorts I need to apologise I've been so tardy in my blogging this week, but I hope to get to you all over the weekend. Booking late holidays is great but I overlooked how much I would need to pack in, I've spent extra time in the office getting all my client files up to speed along with some late night crafting to get DT work sorted, but I think I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This week my teami Deb's would like to see Buttons and Bows on our work, how lovely is that. My DT card is one of the samples I made for Stamp Addicts latest programme on Create and Craft using the lovely floral stamp sheets along with Timmy's fab distress markers.........well they are mine really but his great idea.

Yes another of my organza bows, I so love making these, some simple matting and layering and finito. All the 'ingredients' I used can be found below.

Whatever you have planned, I hope you have a super weekend and promise I will get to you all shortly.

Outside my comfort zone

Good Morning Peeps, I hope you all had a good weekend. We had a real mixed bag weather wise again, rain, sun, hail and even a -2 frost Friday night, but hubby got a good few hours in the garden between showers so was a happy camper, which meant plenty of inky time for me.

And I totally forgot the update on my hospital visit, probably because there was little to report, MS is unpredictable and each time there's a relapse some things never go back to where they were before........tell me something new ! Add to that worn facet joints and disc herniation and pain is inevitable and they doubt my walking will improve much. So looks like even more crafting on the agenda. 

A few weeks ago I admired a piece of work that my friend Lee -Crafty Loops had created using the TH birdcage and bird and she immediately offered to send me some ready cut. Panic set in as I really struggle with die cuts as I never quite know where to put them on my work, they usually end up looking like a badly placed afterthought. So for a couple of weeks they sat looking down at me from one of the wall racks in my craft room, all neatly packed in the little bags Lee sent them in.

Then Saturday I decided I had to try and work with them and told myself crafting is all about stretching ourselves. So I decided I would follow my normal inky route doing lots of background stamping and try approaching it that way and bit by bit it sort of came together. I inked the bird and cage and embossed randomly with some vintage embossing powder, made some roses using TH tattered floral die and a punch for the smaller ones, grunged up some lace with distress inks and that was my card. In fact I actually quite like it and made a second almost identical for a friends birthday later this month.

I know I don't often enter challenges, but thought I would enter this into:

Pretty Little Ribbons - 'To die For' - three entries allowed and this is my third, unheard of !

Pan Pastel - 'Add a flower' - a new one for me.

Have a lovely day everyone.