Santa's on his way

Morning everyone and firstly my thanks for such kind comments and messages about Holly following my last post.

We have new challenges today at Tag-Along (and ATC's) where Lynn has selected Red and Green as our theme and at Moving Along With The Times it's Santa. Both themes perfect for last minuted gift tags and cards.

Above AALL and Create's Santa called Sack of Joy in a snowy setting and their die Roadway Vistas base die, cut twice, one scored a third of the way down and adhered to the second to create a stand up card. Inkspirational challenge has a moodboard and from that my Santa has holly, Christmas tree and a bauble and hope the snowy elements work at Four Seasons Winter challenge and Santa fits at A Place to Start's Winter things theme. 

My tag and ATC both feature Two Red Robins seasonal dies and matching Reflections, the tag above has a Poinsettia cut out design using a die from Amazon with glitter card behind, Poinsettias and a Robin, also TRR. The Paper Shelter have Gift Tags as their theme and Simon Say's Monday would like to see dies. Poinsettia is the theme at Sparkles Christmas and have lots of them on my tag.

My ATC has an inky background, stamped with a Lavinia background stamp and the various TRR die cuts arranged in the corner. Just Add Ink would like stencils or die cuts, I have used the latter and it's Christmas Time at ATC Around the World.

Tags and Stags

As explained the other day, short scheduled posts, this one for the start of new challenges at Tag-Along (and ATC's) where Pinky would like to see some texture, Moving Along With The Times with a Winter Wonderland theme and by default I'd agreed to help out at Love to Craft and had a card made ready for the A/G theme.

My tag uses TH ephemera, AALL and Create flowers and Butterfly, texture paste and harlequin stencil which is stamped over with text. I would like to enter at the Outlawz Card Free Zone, Creative Artiste mixed media, Colour Dare with shades of orange and Heartsquest shapes cards and tags.

The Penguins are A&C, stamped, cut out and just a little colour, inked background with sparkle texture paste snowflakes stencilled. I've just been alerted that ATC's Around the World would like to see Penguins!

My MAWTT share uses a mixture of stamps from Penny Black, Lavinia and my own Christmas Season stamp set, soft ink blending for the background and lots of sparkly snow.

Finally, for Love to Craft a festive wreath using Lavinia stamps and stencil. The 12 Months of Christmas has a new challenge, this is for the A/G option.

Autumnal colours and a wander round the garden

Good morning to you all on 1st October, new challenges at Tag-Along (and ATC's) and Moving Along With The Times, it's also our Wedding Anniversary, although I'm not putting in writing how many years, I'll let you do some guessing there. Covid jabs today and hopefully a meal out in Cambridge tomorrow instead.

Prize at Tag-Along is from AALL and Create and it's some lovely tag ephemera along with stencil and designer card.

Our theme at Tag-Along was my choice so totally predictable it's Anything Autumn. I'm sure I've said many times before, I absolutely love creating for Autumn, non too keen on the shorter days and chilly weather though. Apparently we are promised a particularly vibrant display of colour this year due to the hot summer weather.

My tag is another tag within a tag, cut twice then another die used to cut an aperture in one and raised over the other with foam tape. Some 'straw' sourced on Amazon and leaves using AALL and Create Leafinately Detailed matching stamps and dies using inky offcuts and seam binding to finish. With all the leafy offcuts I'm popping over to the Playground, I might even share some of the conkers in the photo below with the playmates. Lots of Autumn theme at the moment so sharing at a few, Dream Valley is looking for Autumn colours and Make My Monday's theme is Autumn Festival, Pearly Sparkles is Autumn Leaves and also Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone.

My ATC uses a strip of packing, A&C words and TH Leaf Prints, again stamped onto inky offcuts, cut out and placed over some twine. Finally Fall is the theme at Snarky Crafters and also Four Seasons.

Next my share for MAWTT where our theme is Sentiment in Focus, I paired Lavinia Believe which is a huge stamp with a sentiment from my own Moments set available here which also has believe within it to create a focal sentiment. All stamps are Lavinia starting with the Witch Faba, her Cat from Hocus and Pocus along with Hill House, Fairy Web, Moon, Slender Mushrooms and Maylin. Try it on Tuesday would like to see Animals so my black cat should fit the bill. I think this will fit in at Sweet Stamping Feature a Sentiment and Double D have a new theme of Trick or Treat, also Ellies October challenge.

The last couple of days have been nice and bright and even warm'ish, so a trip round the paddocks and garden was in order to take a few photos starting with a haul of conkers.....old (childhood) habits die hard and I can never resit collecting, we have four Horse Chestnuts, three produced heavily, one has looked quite sad all season. Rosa then thought they made a lovely bed to roll on.

An abundance of Conference and Williams pears this year despite all the fruit trees being pruned hard last Autumn, most have now been harvested and laid up for the coming months. Holly's getting a nice collection of surgery jackets, necessary to cover the wound from her chest op in August, very slow healing where the stitches burst due to pressure from part of the tumour they couldn't remove. But she remains a happy girl and loves these short walks.

An abundance of berries on both the Hawthorn above and Pyracantha below. My Dad always said lots of berries forecast a hard Winter, we shall see.

The remaining outside cherry tomatoes have six plants continuing to produce well, the large San Marzano in the greenhouses are just about finished, has been a real bumper season so they've been gifted far and wide, family, Vet, nail bar and I've frozen down enough sauces and spag bols to feed the village.

And finally a beautiful and very large cobweb which stretched right across one of Margo's swings, Monday was very wet followed by a bright morning and mist so the spiders work was evident everywhere.

It would be lovely to see you at both of the challenges so hope you will come join in.

Last Minute Christmas

Our challenge at Allsorts this week is hosted by Debs who is mindful that there will be lost of us who still need to rustle up a few Christmas cards so she had given us the theme 'Last Minute Christmas' with an eye on quick and simple cards.

So my card is just that. The DP is Nitwits which I used for the background and to stamp trees from Hero Arts CL459 which I cut out and added with foam pads, a border punched with Martha Stewart embossed scallop, a stamped greeting, cord and lace. This card is also for the following challenges:

Penny's Challenge - Merry Christmas

Moving along with the Times - Lots of spots

Stampin' Royalty - Winter holidays

My second share is a bit of a quick and easy one.......I always grab the brayer when time is short and is created a background so quickly and being I am obsessed with masked moons, here's yet another. After adding the mask, I stamped Judikings 2240G (stars) using versamark frost to provide a resist, then brayered taking the ink from just the blue end of Big and Juicy waterfall.

The main image is Lilac Lemon Designs from Crafts and Me, stamped and embossed three time onto linen cardstock with versafine black and embossed with detail clear then coloured with Copics, adding liberal amounts of glitter and some blue foiling to her dress collar and hat feathers. A border using MS eyelet lace, pearls and ribbon to embellish. Oops, nearly forgot, the sentiment is Penny Black 2905H. This card is for the following challenges:

Crafts and Me - Moody blues

Gingersnap - White glitter

Alphabet - G for Glitter

Fairy Fun - Use a star

Stamping B's - Use a star

Lots to Do - Glitz

All aglow

Good morning everyone, time for a new challenge at Allsorts where Helene would like us to 'Light up the Night'.

Afraid my blogging is still restricted to short five minute bursts so I've not got very far in visiting you all. They tell me resting my eyes especially from the computer screen, is the only cure as far as the muscle imbalance goes, so I have been testing their theory all week and doing what I am told. Although nothing was stopping me from my demo day at Stampalot today, even if it's more talk than demo and we are off shortly........hubby is driving me as I dare not test my eyes that far. The Ultimate Rubber Stamping event is becoming a regular in the crafty calendar and always great fun.

I confess to a huge blast of inspiration from Barbara Gray on this card. I always find her inspirational and her use of the Clarity Stamps lamp post and lady really cast a spell over me and this is my take on what she did.

I started by inking the lamppost and lady, with the lady stamped a second time onto some scrap DP. I used a very large makeup brush to swirl Adirondack archival black in circles round the lamp to give the impression of fog, then sponged some Tim Holtz mustard seed to create a glow from the oil lamp. I added some JudiKins snow glitter and a couple or corners.

I added a fence using Art Impression F3047 and leaves using Art Impression F2055, Lavinia fantasy houses, but I just inked the tops of these stamping off first so I ended up with a mist rooftop look in the background.

My vision if this card is a lady on Christmas eve, just leaving Church after midnight mass looking into the village in the distance.......I've never made any secret that I like in a fantasy world have I ? This card is also for the following challenges:

Cupcake - Light it up

ABC - Ice is for ice and snow

One more share using Sweet Pea Poinsettia Fairy. Another easel card stamped and embossed image, coloured with Copics, decoupaged and glittered wings, a Spellbinder frame, Magnolia DP, flowers and lace. This card is for the following challenges:

Flutterby Wednesdays - Open

Sweet Pea - Silver, purple and white

Moving Along with the Times - Someone special (For a Granddaughters Christmas birthday)

Stamp Insanity - Lace

CRAFT - Christmas Birthday (see above)

Let it Snow

Mojo missing...............if found please return a.s.a.p.

Oh my goodness, it's hard going no inspiration and Mr Mojo nowhere to be found. Last night I must have spent an hour looking at a collection of lovely new stamps from Teresa at Crafts and Me and nothing gelled. As they were all fairies something is definitely not right.

But before I launch into my cards, I want to say a big thank you to Bee Crafty for selecting me as their winner last week, this is a fairly new challenge so do check it out, they have a super sketch this week and fab prizes. And also the girls at Creative Cottage who selected the card I made for my Grandson as one of their Top 3.

So here are my meagre offerings from a Mojoless craft room. The fairy on the card above is Sweet Pea Hiding, equally as lovely as all the others and I just feel I have not done her justice. She is coloured with Copics and her wings decoupaged and glittered. The DP is Magnolia, Martha Stewart punched snowflakes, ribbon and a flower. This is for the following challenges:

Crafts and Me - Dreaming of a White Christmas - snowflakes

Creative Cottage - Untraditional Christmas

Charisma Cardz - One for the girls

Ladybug - Sketch

My next card, also one of last evenings efforts, uses Hero Arts F5075 Sparkle Poinsettia, inked with Tim Holtz dusky concord and bundled sage and spritzed with water before stamping. The DP is My Minds Eye and the flower is mounted onto a 'doily' cut using the Magnolia die - this is a half circle and takes a bit of getting used to lining up, but once mastered worth the effort as it is so pretty. I tend to cut several at a time once I get the technique going. Some adorable lace which was part of a prize and a single flower and pearls to embellish. This is for the following challenges:

Delicious Doodles - Anything goes

Bee Crafty - Sketch

My final card is a Stampalot sample which I shall be delivering tomorrow.........I have prepared instruction sheets for making a tri fold card which will be available at their Third Ultimate Rubber Stamping Day on 4th December 10am through 4pm with free eats and drinks all day. I will also pop the instructions on my blog shortly.

I masked a piece of cardstock to create a moon by sponging distress inks, then stamped Art Impression U1562 Rooftops which I coloured with TH ink and added a liberal amount of glitter to the rooftops. Through the moon I stamped Magenta 02045-6 Santa......this is a silhouette wood mounted stamp and if you go looking for it you will see the actual image is straight, but I 're-assembled' it to curve the sleigh. The DP is October Afternoon and he snowflakes a Martha Stewart punch. This card is for the following challenges:

Scrapbook Sisters - Let it Snow

Simon Says - Let it Snow

ABC - I is for Ice and Snow

Moving Along with the Times - More than one fold

Slow going in craftland

Good Afternoon everyone.

This enforced resting thing continues.......grief it's so alien to me, but this battered body of mine is still yelling at me "not enough energy". If I need any more convincing it takes me half a day to make a card then I'm shattered and I've not really done anything. So still not blogging and visiting folks, just the essential DT comments and that's about it which means I really, really need to say such a very special thanks to those of your that have still bothered to visit me, despite my lethargy.

A couple of cards - a couple of days worth of effort, how sad is that I ask you.......if I was teaching class at this pace they would all need to sleep over to get everything completed at this rate.

The first one is a sample for good old Stampalot......they are coming Janice, honest they are......using another of the lovely new stamps Magenta 42067M floral silhouette stamped onto a background of Glimmer Mist lemon zest and pearl and Hero Arts S3516 silhouette grass stamped with Tim Holtz scattered straw. The strip across the top is stamped with Hero CG222 music, the DP is Crate, lots of distressed edges, ribbon, buttons and beads added to embellish. This card is for the following challenges:

Crafts and Me - Easel card

ABC - Distressing

Flutterby Wednesdays - Wings and buttons

Cute Card Thursday - Tweet and Flutter

Paper Sundaes - At least three embellishments

My second card used lots of Art Impression stamps, a background brayered with Big and Juicy waterfall and a masked crescent moon.......I thought it was time for a deviation from a full moon ! Some DP from stash, punched leaves, lots of glitter on the trees and snow and a rather soggy flower which got 'Daisy'd'......she's so helpful in the crafting department. So it's a bit flatter than when it started life, but with some glitter it looks OK'ish. This card is for the following challenges:

Moving along with the Times - Christmas

Christmas Cards - Christmas trees (mine are still growing)

Glitterbabes - Anything goes

For fun Challenges - Glitter it up