In Stitches

Good morning Peeps, Saturday again and it's yours truly's turn to host this weeks theme at Allsorts which is 'In Stitches', so that means I would like to see some sort of stitching either real or faux on your work.

And before I go any further I have to say please don't look too closely at my stitching, a certain puppy called Poppy decided the wiring to my machine looked like a good past time and although hubby managed to mend it for me, if not working quite as it should and missing stitches here and there.

As Flonz Craft are a sponsor this week I have of course use one of their lovely images and again paper pieced at the stamps lend themselves so well to this technique, plus of course I can't colouring in for toffee. The  DP's are again Teresa Collins, I really love these papers they have a lovely texture to them, are double sided and so many have beautiful vivid colours totally appeal to me. I added a Marianne flower and swirl.

I'm looking forward to coming to visit all your entries, I really hope you can find time to join in.

Spring blooms

Well it's still raining here in the Fens and construction of the Ark is well under way. According to my in house weather man who records the rainfall religiously, we've had 7.6" so far this month and it's rained 20 days out of the last 28. Do you get the impression I'm getting paranoid about the weather ? Well probably I am and April will certainly be a memorable month if only for the volume of water that's fallen.

I've been scooter shopping again this week, the mobility kind that is and not getting on too well so far. As we live well out of the village we need to drive to get anywhere, so what they call a boot scooter which break down into 4/5 pieces for transportation is required. All fit into hubby's car OK, but my boot is another matter, the new style MX5 has a more contoured boot and although the inside is just about big enough, the actual aperture is smaller. But I've not given up on the idea and have a man coming out next week to show me a US made one which folds rather than dissembles which may fit my boot, I did say may, I don't want to get my hopes up too much. I'll keep you posted.

Now about my card which is for this weeks  Allsorts challenge, I don't remember the last time I made a shaker card, so it was a nice surprise when Nicole chose that as here theme this week.

Our sponsor this week is A Passion for Stamps so this is a double DT piece really using one of Ruth's new pieces of artwork the beautiful Alstromeria which I have coloured with watercolours in soft lemons on watercolour card. The DP is from one of the pretty new Teresa Collins pads onto which I stamped the Penny Black sentiment.............think it's still my all time favourite sentiment stamp. I cut an aperture in the card blank and placed acetate behind, punched some tiny butterflies from the same DP for the 'shakers' and used double sided foam tape to create the space between the acetate and sentiment. Thumbnail pictures and links to all products below.

Some die cut swirls and border cut from the same DP and finally I threaded some coordinating beads onto a couple of pins.

Hope you all have a good weekend and thanks for visiting, I always appreciate your comments.

Ribbons and Roses

Saturday Morning means it's time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week my teami Emma has come up with a sketch for us. And our sponsor is the lovely Sarah from Pretty Little Ribbons whose store I stalk regularly, if you love ribbons and pretty embellies then you must check it out.

I have gone floral.......just for a change..............and used Penny Black 4237K Awakening, I think this really is my favourite from the Spring releases and lends itself particularly well to inking with inks and spritzing with water to get that lovely water coloured feel. On this occasion I used my lovely new Distress markers stamping onto Fabriano card. I also stamped the background with Hero Art 2365 Old French Writing.

The Teresa Collins DP is from the new range now in store, I am really liking these as they have a lovely texture as well as being beautifully coordinated making them so easy to work with. I made a couple of roses from organza ribbon, some Spellbinder leaves and a punched butterfly.

Whatever you have planned hope your weekend is a good one.

Lattice work

Good Morning Peeps, is it raining in your neck of the woods, it's been pouring here and the wind's blowing a gale, whatever happened to Spring ?

I have a couple of shares both along the same lines. One of the great things about being on a design team is that you see so much inspiration on your rounds and last week I was totally blown away by Hussena's beautiful card which was one of my Allsorts Top 5 entries. I was itching to try out the lattice technique so mailed Hussaina to ask if I could case her card and she gave me her blessing, so I must thank her for the inspiration for the two cards in this post.

After cutting the aperture the thin strips of card......I used linen cardstock.........were stuck to the reverse and mounted onto foam tabs to raise the front element. The flowers on the top card are paper pieced using the lovely Lily stamp are from A Passion for Stamps (direct link below), die cut leaves, swirls and butterfly and little wire swirls.

My second card is made in exactly the same way, but this time I tried using a piece of DP behind the lattice panel and made roses from coordinating DP and the leaves were lightly inked whilst still in the die.

Have a good day whatever you have planned and thanks so much for dropping by.

My challenge........

Using the new Teresa Collins DP's, Penny Black stamp inked with 

Tim Holtz distress markers, Spellbinder edgabilities 

and Fleur de Lis and Hobby House pearls

Good Morning Peeps, how's your weekend going ?

Mine has been pretty quiet so far, seems to be the story of my life nowadays and it's really cramping my style not being able to walk far, but I have started the ball rolling to get some sort of lightweight scooter and might even share a picture shortly.

Meanwhile I have been busy working away at some cards as I was set a challenge by Janice at Sir Stamplaot to get into action with the new Tim Holtz Distress Markers along with some of the other new goodies now in stock.

The Penny Black stamp is inked with Tim Holtz distress markers, Teresa Collins DP, 

Penny Black sentiment and Hobby House pearls which I think are 

fabulous value at £1.45 a sheet.

Since I started using the thumbnail system below it's really opened my eyes to just how many different things we use in making each card, no wonder we all run out of space.

I think I am most excited about the distress markers, they come in all the same colours as the inkpads so you can blend everything perfectly. One of my favourite stamping techniques inking the stamp and spritzing with water before stamping and for me this is when the new markers really come into their own as you can colour the smallest elements without bleeding, if you look at the card above you will see I even managed to get some blue into the middle of the leaves and it stayed put.

Penny Black image again coloured with Tim Holtz distress markers, 

some soft sponging using the same colour distress inks and some punched butterflies

Have a good Sunday everyone.