Inky fingers again

Good Morning all, a rather early post before work as I wanted to share this and I think I should be safe now as the card should have reached it's destination.

My good friend Sally very kindly presented me with a set of Inkilicious stamps when we met up at Stampalot last week for the blog girl classes. Sally explained the reason behind the gift was that she knew I was in need of more trees and an excuse to get inky.........as if, but thanks so much for the kind gesture. So of course I set to work and created a few cards.

This one uses just two coloures of Adirondack dye ink, sunset orange and hazelnut. A brayered sun of course, trees from the Inkilicious set, a little fence and some Art Impression sheep. I sponged some rays of sun coming down the hill, although they don't show up too well on the photograph.

And one more share of one I did a while back, again brayering and stamping poppies from Hero Arts CL449. The small piece with the Penny Black 2905H sentiment was created by laying over the main piece to line up the masks, then brayering using the same masks to carry the flow of the hill and sun.

Thanks for visiting and hope you all have a good week.

A Passion for Stamps

Hello peeps, how's everyone doing ?

The weather this weekend has certainly been pretty typical for British Bank Holiday hasn't it, but it's provided the perfect opportunity for some crafting without the pull of the garden. We had a bit of a bash yesterday for the girls birthday which is actually today and tonight we are going to Jamie Olivers Italian restaurant in Cambridge as an extension to the birthday celebrations, so really looking forward to that.

Ruth at A Passion for Stamps has created some lovely new floral images so I have been having a little play. The one above is a Nasturtium and I have coloured it with Aquamarkers in the traditional orange colours that we used to have in the garden, some DP from stash that matched rather well and a border cut with Spellbinder Fleur de Lis.

My second share is using the new Thistle and I just love this one and of course I had to colours do it in purples, again with Aquamarkers, although I know you can get hybrid varieties in other colours nowadays. I embossed the two panels with a cuttlebug die adn some corners using Spellbinders Parisien accents.

First day at school

We have a new challenge for you at Allsorts where Fleur has chosen the them 'Starting School/back to school'. Now I know there are loads of lovely stamps out there that fit this theme perfectly, but none are here in fantasy land, so I was a little bit stumped.

After much head scratching I decided to use one of my Sarah Kay images, she is a bit of a Country girl and has no school uniform and unsure what to expect on her first day at school, so is taking a rather large picnic basket to share with her new friends and some flowers for the teacher.........................I know, fantasy kicking in big time.

I coloured her with Copics , used Doodlebug DP from which I made the pom pom flower, added some swirls cut with a Sizzix die and added a computer generated sentiment.

Enjoy the weekend whatever you have planned.

La Blanch in the meadow

Hello peeps, scheduling this one as I wont be about for a day or so due to a hastily arranged 'secret mission'............can't share details for a bit yet I'm afraid............. but it's very crafty.........so a really brief post with a share I made for this weekends Christmas launch at Sir Stampalot.

Now I realise this one's not actually Christmas, but when the new Le Blanch stamps arrived at the shop I couldn't resist a couple more of that fabulous floral stamps, this one is called simply 'Meadow Flowers' and is available here.

I distressed a piece of Fabriano watercolour card with TH sage and rusty hinge then stamped Hero Arts silhouette grass using TH tea dye. Next I inked the main stamp with Aquamarkers and spritzed with water before stamping, then added a little more colour here and there with a paintbrush. I was really pleased with how the colours worked on this one and felt it needed little more than simply matting up onto the base card.

Catch you again soon.

Brayers certainly rolled.............

Well, what can I say !!

A really fabulous weekend in the company of seventeen lovely crafty girls at Sir Stampalot and wow, what fabulous work they all created. Lunch was pretty good as well and two of the girls played right into my hands with cheese scones.................as Dorcas would say "cheese scones are my one weakness" (I'm in Lark Rise to Candleford mode there).

Several had their own brayers and would you believe five were still in the box and had never seen the light of day, but I managed to change all that. There were one or two horrified faces when I went through the projects they would be making and especially the little scene with a brayered background and lots of Art Impression stamps.

But each and every one of them created the most beautiful scene................. and of course masked suns and moon as well.............. and already I have spied some popping up in blogland. In fact they all made three cards using different techniques with the good old Speedball plus several other less challenging pieces.

So a huge thank you to all of those who joined me, it was great fun and a pleasure to work with each and every one of you. And thanks to Andy and Janice for putting up with the giggles and girly chatter.

And I am pleased to say my eyes behaved themselves and didn't play up once all weekend, I'm feeling a bit jaded today and know I need to take it easy for a day or so, but so pleased I was able to do the full weekend with my crafty friends.

Two card shares, the top using Stampscape stamps and the one above using Hero Arts dogwood, but forgive me not going into detail on them, have a bit of a manic Monday ahead of me.

Have a good week everyone and thanks for dropping by.

In the frame

By the power of Blogger, at least I really hope so because I scheduled this well ahead as I will be teaching all weekend at Stampalot. More of the special Blog Girl days and lots of new faces from as far afield as Australia via Newcastle, as well as some familiar ones as well, all of whom I am so looking forward to seeing.

Lots of laughs, lots of chatter a lovely buffet lunch.....did I forget anything ? Oh yes and a bit of inky crafting.......and brayers will roll, although they don't all know that yet !

On to our new challenge at Allsorts where I have chosen the theme "You've been Framed", basically I would like to see you incorporate a frame somewhere on your work.

I did have two DT shares but now it's three as I thought I really should have one with Molly as our sponsors are Sir Stampalot who are giving away two Molly stamps to the winner of this weeks challenge. And it does have a little frame as Molly is painting a picture on her easel. I have paper pieced this one using some of the super Scribble Scrabble DP's. You can find all the Molly Blooms stamps here.

My second card is using Ruth of A Passion for Stamps Cosmic flower which you can buy here. I love to paper piece this image and have used Bo Bunny DP for both the flower and the frame which is cut with a Nestie. The little row of butterflies is the border/bar code edge of the sheet which I thought was too pretty to throw away. The sentiment is computer generated and I tied some of the lace and made up a pin with coordinating beads.

And finally my third share uses Penny Black 4039K Candid, stamped twice and decoupaged and framed with a nestie. The DP is Bo Bunny and the scalloped border EK Success.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Hairy bikers meet the secret garden

Morning folks, hope your week is going well.

Play here was interrupted by bad light yesterday when my vision went AWAL for a couple of hours, happened before but still scary stuff, but seems to be back to normal this morning, so will share what I intended to yesterday.

I was totally certain after seeing a lovely card Janice made last week that I definitely needed the TH fence and chains, although I am yet to be convinced that heavy grunge fits with my floral style.................so lets pretend the chain open the door to the Secret Garden.................well there has to be a bit of fantasy in there !!

The image is one of the gorgeous new La Blanch stamps called Wild Flowers which I stamped onto Fabriano watecolour card and coloured with Aquamarkers. I cut the fence and lock from Coredinations purple cardstock, inked with versamark and embossed with TH distress powder milled lavender..................after recovering the contents of the pot from my trouser legs and desk........no idea how that happened.

My second share is another Stampalot sample using one of the new Christmas stamps from Hero K5524 Winter Scene. I brayered through an oval aperture using the Speedball and Adirondack denim dye ink, then stamped the scene in black archival ink and added corners and border punched with Spellbinders Parisian Accents.

All of the new Christmas stamps and goodies will be on sale for the Christmas launch over the Bank Holiday weekend, lots of demos lined up including Lindsay Mason on Sunday 28th August.