Nicecrane Valentines - again

Morning all you lovely crafty Peeps.

Popping in with a quick share of a couple of Valentine makes using Ignacio's Nicecrane Design sheets...................and both have been beautifully enhanced with his magical touch.  The top one is from the Amazing Children and the one below the Romantic Valentine 3 sheet, not sure if it's just me but the top image has a rather Shakespearean feel to it, I think it's the little boy and that hat.

Both are quite simple with Graphic 45 DP which I think compliments Ignacio's images perfectly, I made some roses for the top one and used some pretty new Spellbinder corners on the bottom which I rubbed with gilding wax.......thanks for the idea Jo.

You can find links to the Nicecrane design sheets and Graphic 45 DP's below.

See you all soon.

Nicecrane

Nicecrane

Capture the Magic

Craft Fairy

InLinkz.com

Happy 4th Birthday Allsorts

Well it's arrived, our fourth Birthday at Allsorts and it's frightening how quickly that time has passed by.........my Gran always used to say the years go quicker once you pass twenty one and being a good few past that now I have to say she is probably right.

So in time-honoured tradition we are having a blog hop plus are lots of prizes to be won this week from our sponsors who are: PPR Crafts, Crimson Cloud, Digi Darla, Pin and Tack, A Passion for Stamps, Stix2 and Pretty Little Ribbons.

They could only be one theme this week really which is Happy Birthday and for my card I used Spellbinder dies, Pick of the Bunch Peruvian Lily Stamp and Punch set, Memory Box leaves and the embossing folder which came with my e.Bosser........... yes I succumbed to one in the end and am finding it a great piece of kit.

On your blog hop journey you should have arrived here from Tracy's blog and go next to Tracy Mouses's blog, but should you get lost along the way you can always go back to the challenge blog and start again. I will be selecting a winner from all the people who call in on me this week and leave a comment and here's the prize for that person.

The letter you need to collect from me is hopefully pretty evident in this post so have fun hopping and wishing you all a lovely weekend.

So much to tell you I nearly for got to announce the winner of last weeks candy and that lucky person is Emily, please mail me so I can post your price off to you.

Have fun with our Birthday celebrations and hope you have a lovely weekend.

Sew special

Good Morning Peeps, it's the first Sunday of the month which means time for new challenges at Stamping Sensations  where we have the theme 'Embossing and/or texture' and at Penny Black and More it's a bit of a double take 'Sew Special' and can be something for that special person, have some stitching, or even both.

For my Penny Black DT piece I have used the gorgeous PB Venetian Summer stamp coloured with watercolours. The backing DP's are My Minds Eye and I made the roses from the same using the Tonic Rose punch and stamp set and the leaves are a Memory Box die which I recently had from Coleman's Craft Warehouse for some sample cards.

I would like to enter this card into:

One Stop Craft - Flower Power
Crafters Circle - Buds, blooms and blossoms
Jellypark Friends - Girly
CRAFT - A stitch in time

As Tonic are our sponsors at Stamping Sensations this month I had a real dilemma what products to use as being on Ruth's DT I am lucky enough to own rather a lot of them. I dabbled for a week or so and made a couple of cards that ended up in the bin then I had the germ of an idea in the middle of the night.............as you do when the pain is keeping you awake, but it was productive time as I came up with something I am actually reasonably happy with now it's finished.

I bought a couple of shadow boxes at Stamperama which were in the cupboard taking up space, this one is 8x8. I started by coating it with gesso followed by a mixture of gold and beige acrylic paint, just adding it randomly here are there until the gesso was covered, then overstamped both the outer frame and inside aperture with a mixture of background stamps.

Next I made three roses from some music score using my Tonic Rose punch and stamp set and whilst they dried stamped some ivy (Chrysanthemum Pick of the Bunch stamp set) butterflies (Rudbeckia stamp set) and large leaves (Lily stamp set) on to brown and ivory bazzil. Once I had cut them all out I dipped all including the roses into UTEE in the melt pot and when cooled arranged them into the frame.

Needless to say I had great difficult taking photos as no matter which way I turned the shadow box I go reflection from the glass, but hopefully you can get the general idea.

I would like to enter this piece into:

Country View - How does your garden grow
Oozak - Earthtones
Eclectic Ellapu - Anything goes

I have another share for Penny Black and More using a FlonzCraft 20's lady image. Lots of background stamping with several Penny Black stamps over Dylusions, the lady was stamped and then bleached out. The sentiment, sadly long since discontinues is Penny Black as is the butterfly and I added some stitching around the sentiment to tie in with the theme.

I would like to enter this into:

Heck of a Challenge - Fashion
Fashionable Stamping - Anything goes

And finally before you all fall asleep on me this really is the last one, another for Stamping Sensations.

Just a little pretty fussy creation using Tonic Peruvian Lily stamp and punch set...............if I am honest this set really is my favourite one, some new Spellbinders and Teresa Collins DP, so quick and easy to make but I think rather pretty with those lovely flowers.

I would like to enter this card into:

My Time to Craft - Sentiment as focal point
Southern Girls - Sentiment of quote

I am really hoping you will join in our challenges this month, as always we have a fabulous collection of prizes at both and I can see plenty of scope to combine the two challenges if you wish.

Enjoy your Sunday and as always thank you so much for your visits and kind comment.

Spring blossoms and blooms

Good Morning all you crafty Peeps, another scheduled post with our new challenges at  Stamping Sensations where our theme is 'Special Occasions' and at Penny Black and More where we have 'blossoms and Bows'.

My Penny Black and More DT piece which is the top card is an order from my daughter for a leaving card for a teacher colleague and she specifically wanted me to use this PB sentiment, it had never occurred to me before to use it for that type of card but it is actually quite appropriate. She also wanted a simple but stylish design and a large card as all the Humanities department need to sigh it, so it's a 10x10 with a matching box.

I started by stamping and embossing the PB blossom stamp and then cutting round some of the blossoms so that I could place them over the edge circle nestie to they stayed intact before cutting the aperture. The background is shaded with Pan Pastels and the PB sentiment stamped and embossed in black. I added a little colour to the image and then some small punched flowers and as it's a 'special' card used swarovski crystals in the centres.



I have two DT pieces for Stamping Sensations, the first above uses lots of lovely poppy stamps, the one in the aperture is Penny Black and the ones around the frame which I stamped and then cut round so they go into the frame is a Clarity stamp, one of the very few from them that I own but this one was a must have. The flowers are all coloured with Pan Pastels and the sentiment is computer generated.

My second Stamping Sensation piece is a bit of die and flower indulgence really. The base piece is embossed with one of the new A4 size Spellbinder embossing folder which are so useful without all the faff of lining up patterns with the smaller ones.

The central mats are more Spellbinder dies (details to all on the thumbnail links below) and the flower made with Ruth's Tonic Pick of the Bunch stamp and punch set.

I really hope you will join in with our challenges this month, as always we have some fabulous prizes on offer.

Venetian memories and winners

Good afternoon Peeps, I was going to do this post earlier, but Blogger really has got a hissy fit on him and didn't want to play nice so I have been trying on and off ever since to get this posted.

I received my packaged from over the pond and at last got my grubby mitts on some of the new Spring release Penny Black stamps and just had to use the one above called Venetian Summer 40-217, as Venice ranks in my all time favourite places in the world. No matter how many times you visit it still holds magic and excitement.

Now I would like to say the scene reminds me of our last trip there a few months ago, the image of St Marco is the background is right, the gondolas bobbing up and down on the Grand Canal spot on and so is the lovely blue sky and with a bit of imagination I can see the restaurant right on the canal bank where we had lunch one hot and sunny day...........how sad am I as I even remember we had carbonara and a bottle of Prosecco............but that's where the fairytale ends as no way did I look anything like as elegant as the slender lady of fashion in the foreground...............I can but dream !

Anyhow, I still thoroughly enjoyed the couple of hours reminiscing whilst I coloured the image with Pan Pastels and watercolour pencils and mounted it on to some Magnolia DP and made a couple of Marianne Flowers and some spellbinder leaves. And it seemed only right that to embellish it I threaded a pin with a couple of the Murano glass beads I bought in Venice.

And it's also time to disclose the names of the winners which came out of the hat for my colouring candy.............

Sharon

Iruha

Nikbee

Sussie

Bunny

Congratulations to all, please mail me with your full names and postal addys. Should any remain unclaimed by midnight Saturday 9th I will re-draw and mail or leave a message for the new winners.

Thankful always for visiting and your kind comments which always mean so much.

Foxes, fur and feathers

Morning everyone, time for our new monthly challenges............would you believe I had my post all ready to go for a good couple of weeks ago, then for reasons known only to Blogger it totally disappeared so this is a bit of a hasty one.

At Stamping Sensations our new theme is Fur and Feathers, at Penny Black and More we are going Pink, Pearly and Swirly and at Craft a Scene we want to see lighthouses in Let Your Light Shine.

The card at the top is my fur offering using a gorgeous new stamp from Sutter Stamps..............my plan to refrain from any new stamps for a few months lasted zilch seconds and I have to say I love this one. It is coloured with Pan Pastels with a little shading with watercolour pencils.

And a rarity for me as I am entering some challenges:

Pan Pastels - Animals
Raise the bar - Animal Attraction

The pink card above is really quite a simple one using dies, ribbons and lace and a Penny Black stamp for the focal sentiment.

Next my feather offering using a Crafty Individuals stamp and the same colouring system as the top card. I kept the colours and embellies rustic to compliment the image.

My lighthouse scene uses an Art Impression lighthouse, Sutter Stamps waves and rocks and cloud cumulus from Stampscapes and you got it.......Pan Pastels.

And finally, a really simply stamped card using a Penny Black sentiment and a baroque corner from Flonz Craft, some pearls and ribbon.

Have a good Sunday everyone, I am slowly getting round to everyone, only short comments so far but I'm building on it.

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.

Fairies at the end of the garden

Good Morning to you all and I really must start by welcoming my new followers this week, it's lovely to see you and thank you all so much, I always love reading your comments and I do try to get round visiting when I can, even if sometimes my wonky body won't let me do that as often as I might like.

As some of you may have seen in my last post, yesterday I had a surprise trip to the NEC. We were there bright and early for when it opened but by linchtime I was shattered and ready for home, although not without a good haul of goodies. If you're reading this Sal, then I confess to a couple more tree stamps..........as we both agree, a Treeaholic girls can never have enough of them.........some Lavinia stamps along with a few more Panel Pastels, rather a lot of card stock, some more Imagination Crafts stencils and glitter as well as a few Christmas presents.

I have to say though that in some ways I found it a little disappointing, it's two years since I last went and I found this time there seemed to be an awful lot of paper products and the like and rather less stamps than I remember before. And as I said to hubby on the way home it must be a sign of age as I was utterly disappointed to find not a single wood mounted stamp.

So now for Allsorts this week where my lovely teamie Tracy is feeling 'Young at Heart', a theme that can be interpreted in so many ways.

I dibbled and dabbled what to do and in the end I decided on a LOV fairy one of my bloggy friends sent me for my birthday, thank you Tracy,  I figured anyone of my age who still believes in fairies has to be a little bit young at heart still............well doesn't everyone have them at the end of the garden ?

I coloured the image with watercolours, the DP is from stash which I think might be Bo Bunny, a Nestie frame and die cart flowers and leaves, liquid pearl fairy dust and in one of my favourite colour combos.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Butterflies galore

Good Morning Peeps, time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week it's my turn to host the theme and I have chosen It's a Gift' so that can be gift box, a tag, decorated bag so on and so forth.

I rather like the shape of these octagonal boxes which are really quick and easy to make using a scoreboard, you can find the tutorial I did for them here. The border around the bottom is cut using a spellbinder die which I stamped onto using one of the ivy stamps from the Pick of the Bunch Fuchsia set designed by Ruth of A Passion for Cards.

I coloured the ivy with Copics and inked the edge of the strip with distress ink, then added snails, butterflies and dragonflies from the Rose, Peony and Rudbeckia stamp sheets……you might know as they are all floral that I would get my grubby mitts on all six sets and boy have I had fun working with them. I added a strip of matching braid and created the dome top to the lid using Nesties and adding yet more butterflies and a tassel.

I really hope you will find time to join in this weeks challenge and look forward to visiting you all.

It's absolutely ages since I joined in with any challenges, but I happened to notice a couple on my travels but I thought my box was fit, so here goes:

Moving Along With The Times: Shape Up
Belli Challenge: Winged Things (encouraged to use old embellies - the braid)
Divas By Design: Anything Goes
Ruby's Rainbow: Butterflies

Meanwhile my thanks as always for your visit and I hope you all have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend, lets hope the weather is kind, although it doesn't look too promising judging by the long range forecast.

Heavy Metal

Helene is hosting our theme at Allsorts this week and would like to see 'Heavy Metal, but this can be just a charm, so for my metal I made up a stick pin with a metal butterfly on the top and also found a pretty little metal corner in my stash.

As Flonz Craft our our sponsors again this week I have used another of their images and I have to say I think this one really is my favourite from those I selected. I stamped the image twice onto a black and a pink DP and paper pieced the dresses and coloured the faces and arms with Copics. The background DP is Echo Park, a Cheery Lynn die, some feathers and a rose made from sheer ribbon.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and thank you for popping in, as always I value and appreciate your comments.

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.

A challenge for the DT

Saturday morning is upon us again which means it's time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week it's my turn to host the theme and I thought I would thrown a little twist on things and set the DT a challenge of their own. I sent them all a little kit of bits and pieces which you can see below. The DP's varied slightly but all came from the same colour family, apart from that everyone had the same.

And the challenge for all you lovely crafters is to take inspiration from the kit and/or one of the DT's cards and tell us in your post what you opted for.

I was unusually frugal with my DP's and gutted the hidden section on the top card so I could made a second one and I also cut the TH clock in two so I could use a piece on both.

I created a nice messy background for the top card using distress inks then over stamped with a selection of stamps (listed below), inked the birdcage and stuck a piece of one of my three sheets of DY over the bird and cut it out. The butterflies are cut from the same DP as are the roses and border on the second one.

Have a lovely weekend and I hope you will find time to join in with this weeks challenge.

Flowers to brighten the day

Morning Peeps, so what's this weather all about ? We saw a glimpse of sun Saturday and ever since nothing but rain.

The meadows have grown like triffids, but it's just too wet to get the hay cut, last year it was the opposite, no rain so it was sparse. Bit it still ends up with the same result, the price of hay going through the roof. At this rate it will cost more to feed the horses than the family.

Since our holiday crafting has been on real go slow and my mojo is nowhere to be found, the few bits of crafting that I have managed to complete are DT pieces so not for sharing yet, so these are a few samples I have made for Ruth, A Passion for Stamps which I had not blogged before. You will find all of Ruth's lovely images here. 

For the card at the top I printed the image into printable acetate, then laid that onto one side of a piece of double sided adhesive sheet. But before doing that I prepared the reverse side of the adhesive sheet by laying on a piece of tissue which I first scrunched up, inked with distress inks and added some glitter. The roses were then coloured with Copics thought the tissue...........if you place it against a light or window you can see the image clearly and don't be afraid of tearing the tissue, it's very resilient.

The blue card has a background created with a mask, I inked the mask with versamark, laid a piece of card stock over then ran it through the Grand Calibur, removed the mask and brushed perfect pearls to reveal the pattern. The image is paper pieced with BoBunny DP, a bow made from seam binding and a little chipboard bird which I inked with distress inks.

My final share is another paper pieced card using snippets of DP, over a background inked with distress inks and stamped with a script stamp and some random inking using a piece of sequin waste.

Hope you have a good Wednesday and if you are in the UK, don't let the rain get you down, perhaps we will have Summer in December ?