International Women's Day at Allsorts

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Mervi has chosen International Women's Day as her theme. Our sponsor is Digistamp Boutique, we also have another pair of tickets to the Hobbycraft show at the NEC later this month.

I have to confess that I was not over familiar with this annual day so did a bit of research which suggested purple was the colour to follow so downloaded the logo and used as a tag on my card. 

The card base ad box are all made from the Tattered Lace hexagonal set and I stuck with the purple theme. The focal image is an Indigo Blue stamp which I stamped with versamark and heat embossed with purple embossing powder. A few flowers on the images hair to carry the colours of the Daisy centres in the corsage on the box lid, little pearls and some ribbon to finish the card. 

Happy weekend all.

Flowers, dies and punches

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are  Flower Power and Dies and Punches.

My card at the top is my Stamping Sensations make using an Indigo Blue stamps which was well overdue for it's first inking. I started by creating a background with Dylusions and Glimmer Mist, then stenciling with pearl paste medium for the honeycomb pattern and distress ink for the Gothic arch. I then stamped the image into the arch with black archival ink and stamped a second time, cut out the flowers, colured with Dylusions and decoupaged. I am not sure about the origins of the sentiment but I have a feeling it's a Sheena one.

My Penny Black and More piece is one of my recent Tattered Lace makes for Create and Craft. I had a vague idea in my head of what I wanted to achieve and from there on it turned into a bit of a labour of love and took the best part of a day. I also posted it over at the Tattered Lace blog today.

I started by cutting the five squares which are 140cm each and fixing them together with little scored spines cut from offcuts of the same card. I then created the little box again using the score board and made it slightly larger than the size of the squares and deep enough to hold them when folded up.

I distressed all of the edges before adding G45 DP and a coordinating ribbon and bazzil punched with TL delicate flower border to decorate the box and concertina of cards, using the scrip design on the reverse of the cards so the spines were all neatly covered. I then cut six TL essential ovals and decorated with a mixture of Penny Black stamps, TL dies and ribbons.

And I have one more for Stamping Sensations using a Crafty Individual image which I stamped and embossed with details clear powder and coloured with Spectrum pencils and matted onto some Trimcraft DP plus a floucy bow of seam binding, lace and string.

Hope you all have a good Bank Holiday weekend.

Parisian sunset

Saturday morning and time for our new challenge at Allsorts and this week we would like you to share your 'Favourite Things' with us. Our sponsors this week are DigiStamp Boutique and My Mums Craft Shop.

Dilemmas or what, Distress Inks or Pan Pastels, flowers or a scene, well in the end the Pan Pastels won the day along with a Parisian scene and it's another take on the card I blogged last week as I am still in Parisian mode. Again I used the Clarity Parisian mask to create the background along with PP's then paper pieced a lady and grounded her with some darker PP's and a Stampscapes cobble stamp. The Oak branches are also Stampscapes and the grasses in the front are Indigo Blue.

When I showed this one to number one critique his comment was "will she or won't she" when I said will she what he replied "jump", I actually thought it gave the impression she was looking down over the City from a park somewhere on the outskirts, clearly he saw something different to me !

Happy weekend to you all and time allowing will be popping round over the weekend.

Take flight

A very good morning to all, first of all welcome to my new followers and of course all of the existing ones who regularly pop in, I really do appreciate your visits. 

In case you didn't see my post yesterday, I've got some little giveaway's up for grabs, all you need to do is leave me a comment on this or any of my posts during the week and I will be announcing the winners next Saturday.

I've got three shares for you today with my mid month pieces for Stamping Sensations where this month's theme is 'Traditional Christmas' and Penny Black and More where it's 'Any Die Will Do'. You really all seem to be enjoying these themes and we have some fabulous entries at both challenges.

The card at the top of my post uses two of the yummy colours from the summer limited edition distress inks, salty ocean and mowed lawn which I randomly added to a piece of white card stock and then over stamped using the the lacy stamp in blue. Butterfly and sentiment are also Penny Black and you will find all links on the picture thumbnails below. The little faux pearls are dots of cosmic shimmer pearl PVA.

Now a rarity for me, I'm going to join in a few challenges....................

I would like to enter this card into:

Hotshot Crafts - Butterflies

ABC challenge - B is for Butterflies

My second card above has the lovely Ella Bella stamp from Indigo Blue, it's not a Christmas image but I thought with the right colours I could give it a seasonal feel. So I added a few red gems around her, a frame made from coredinations which I ran through an embossing folder, cut out the centre and added lots of Frantage round the edges and finished off with a Spellbinder poinsettia and Marianne holly.

I would like to enter this card into:

Paper Creator challenge which is new - All about Chrismtas

Card Crafters - Textures

My final piece is a fairly straightforward one with a Nesite frame and a Stampendous sentiment, a Spellbinder holly border as is the poinsettia and holly sprig is a Marianne die which I inked whilst still in the die.

I would like to enter this card it to:

Polkadoodles - Square card with round element

Have a lovely Sunday.