Happy Everything poetry

Today sees the start of our new monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Pretty in Pink and So Sweet.

What can I say by way of explanation I wonder, as I was supposed to be showcasing some of the new Penny Black Happy Everything stamps which was fine, but me being me I was so excited by all the lovely floral stamps..................including a beautiful Poppy............ in the new releases that all of those I chose had flowers or swirls. I know, no surprises there.

So you can see my dilemma and it's a rather tenuous link to the theme, if occasionally I navigated my head I might have had some stamps that actually fitted the theme more appropriately. Anyhow, after much though I came up with the idea of  poems which had the words 'So Sweet' and the one above is by Robert Bridges and perfect.

I printed the first verse onto cardstock then spritzed with Dylusions Melted Chocolate and Vibrant Torquoise plus Glimmer mist and used three of the new stamps, 4383K First Dance, the lovely Lily which I embossed with details copper, 40-128 Twirls around the edges and part of one of the sentiments from 30-229 Special Wishes in the little label plate. I also did a bit of random inking. with a wire effect stencil and this is what I ended up with.

The background of my Stamping Sensations DT piece is also Dylusions, Pink Bubblegum, Cherry Pie and Pure Sunshine and the inevitable spritz of Glimmer Mist to bleed the colours. Next I stamped the Indigo Blue Ella Bella image and randomly stamped with swirls and text and finally added some harlequins using a mask and texture paste. A sentiment, lace and a rose to finish.

And as a contrast a much less inky creation using the Twirls stamp set again and a little bit of Shakespeare which is probably one known to most of us. I inked the slapstick image with Distress Markers, printed the quote onto white cardstock before embossing with the folder which came with my e.bosser and added some ribbons, a quick make compared with the other two.

And just the one more which fits both themes, this time with the Poppy stamp called Red Tango 4373K. I used a honeycomb stencil for the background, then stamped the Poppy stamp over it and again twice more cutting out sections of the second two, coloured with distress inks, inked over with Versamak frost spritzed with Glimmer Mist pearl and moulded into shape whilst still wet and decoupaged. The best wishes sentiment is from another of the new PB sets and the verse from the Herbert poem computer generated.

And by sheer coincidence...............and it is as it never occurred to me when I asked for the colour............. this fortnights nail colour is a rather bright pink, or to give it's proper name Radical Raspberry with a coat of glitter on top.

I do hope you will join in our challenges this month and as always we have some awesome prizes to be won.

Penny Black

Penny Black

Penny Black

Penny Black

Dylusions

InLinkz.com

Spring is Coming

Morning all, time for our next challenge at Allsorts where our host this week is Tracy Mouse who has come up with the lovely theme of 'Spring is Coming' which is that right up my street. Our lovely sponsors are one of our regulars Digistamp Boutique and Classy Crafts who we welcome for the first time.

I love making tri fold cards and the Britannia trellis die makes a perfect fancy top, the Daffodils and Tulips and both Penny Black stamps and the Violets from Stampendous, all stamped onto a Spellbinder frame and coloured with watecolour pencils. The sentiment is computer generated and it's all tied together with seam binding.

And a second one just because I love Springtime cards, this time using a new design sheet from Nicecrane Designs...............direct links in the thumbnails below. I wanted to use the daffodil vase but the blue of the vase threw me a bit when it came to matching up, but after a long rummage through my DP drawers I found a piece of Kaiser DP which matched perfectly, just proves never throw the odds and ends away. The little row of butterflies was along the edge of the paper so I cut it off and laid it over some lace and added a die cut corner and some pearls.

Nearly forgot about the Country Living Spring Fair tickets, Zoe is the name out of the hat, please mail me with your postal addy so I can get your tickets posted to you.

Happy weekend everyone.

Penny Black	Stampendous	Nicecrane	Britannia dies
Marianne designs	Craft Fairy	Craft Fairy	s/binders

InLinkz.com

Spring Craft Fair tickets to give away

My share of the week with my favourite Stampendous P107, lots of ink, grunge paste and frantage

Good morning Peeps, it's been another busy week for my fifth blog celebration with so many more beautiful entries. Still a week to go until I do the prize draws so time for you to join if you have not already done so or to enter a second time.

Before I go on to this week Favourite 4, I have two tickets to give away for the Country Living Magazine Spring Fair and I will select a winner from the comments on my blog between now and Friday and announce the winner on Saturday.

The Country Living Magazine Spring Fair offers ideas to get you inspired with ideas for your home and garden with an array of carefully selected exhibitors, from small producers to craftspeople from across the British Isles. It offers a Crafting Workshop:  With knitting, stitching, needlework and papercrafts. There is a late night Gala Evening on Thursday 20^th March where the Fair is open until 9pm and you can shop whilst enjoying complimentary wine, full details here.

So her are this weeks Top 4 as selected by our voting panel.........for those of you who missed the last two weeks, the panel consists of some my grandchildren and myself because I just couldn't choose from all the stunning entries alone.

Dora

This one was an instant hit with the farm scene, like the gold highlighting as well

Debbie

The panel liked the Spring daisies and I have to agree

Sharon

The panel like this Penny Black stamp from their Birthday cards so had to be in

SheMe

Fairies and little girls just go together don't they

Thanks for popping in, sorry we couldn't choose all your entries but that doesn't meant I have not enjoyed looking at every single one of them and appreciate you joining in the fun.

Monday Prickly Pear and Nicecrane shares

Photo beautifully enhanced by Ignacio

Good morning Peeps, hope you all had a good weekend.

As it's Monday it's my day to share this weeks DT piece for Prickly Pear and Nicecrane Designs and also one using the Cricut Mini which I confess I have rather neglected recently.

Lots of you have asked how things are health wise, well it's limbo land time at the moment, I now have to wait four week to see if the treatment did what they hoped or find out what comes next, so still a waiting game. No fun, but not a lot I can do about it.

So now for my cards, I have been such a lucky girl getting to play with Ignacio's new Spring designs and it's been a real treat as I love this time of year and never fail to be amazed by Nature and how everything bursts into life as if by magic. And in stark contract to last year when everything was very late, this year looks like being ahead of itself. You really do need to check out the new designs here.

For the top one I printed one of the Nicecrane Vintage Flowers images twice, cut out and decoupaged, cut a fancy oval with a die, placed some cord inside the oval and layered over a stamped sentiment, the backing DP is BoBunny..

My Prickly Pear piece uses Graphic 45 DP's,  I stamped three small panels using just the floral section of the Boot Flower stamp and coloured in, the sentiment is also from the Spring releases and some ribbons and lace to finish. All the Spring release stamps are available on the store website and extremely good value for money.

I love this bird and blossom image also one of the new Nicecrane Spring designs, teamed it up with an embossed and gilded background, a Penny Black sentiment and some added blossoms and ribbon to compliment the ones on the image.

My final card has a base created with the clever cut and weld facility on the Cricut Mini which allows you to make custom borders such as this one and your imagination is the only restriction. It's still available at lots of places for £99 so a great deal. I kept the card fairly simple, punching the corners of the image with a butterfly punch and matting onto coordinating cardstock. The border butterflies and dragonflies are shaded with Pan Pastels plus a couple of die cut ones.

Hope you all have a good week, scary to think we will be into March in a few days but hopefully Spring will be close behind.

Nicecrane

Nicecrane

Pan Pastels

Cricut

Craft Fairy

InLinkz.com

Ladies Day

Morning all, it's my turn to host our new challenge at Allsorts this week and I have chosen the theme of 'Ladies Day', basically something for a special lady be it Mothering Sunday, a Birthday or indeed so many other occasions. Our sponsors this week are Crimson Cloud and FlonzCraft.

Two cards from me this week, the one at the top using images from the Vintage Fashion Magazine design sheet from Nicecrane Designs. I fell in love with this sheet as soon as I saw it and knew exactly what I would make with it. The top of the three panels were cut and embossed with some dies I bought at the NEC made by Britannia Dies and other than that just matting and layering and some feathers, lace and ribbons to embellish.

The second card is another along the same lines as a Penny Black one a few weeks ago masking through an arch aperture but this time creating a New York styline using Pan Pastels to create the backdrop to the paper pieced Flonz Craft image.

I do hope you will join on our challenge this week and look forward to seeing all your creations.

Happy weekend all.

Flonz

Nicecrane

Craft Fairy

Pan Pastels

InLinkz.com

This weeks top picks

Another one using my favourite stamp Stampendous P107 along with Pan Pastels and Lavinia stamps

Afternoon Peeps, after a reasonable day yesterday we are back to the rain and murk, the poor bulbs and shrubs in the garden don't know if they are coming or going, yesterday it actually looked and felt like Spring and hubby even took an hour out of the office to prune and tie the raspberries, just as well as he would get drenched today.

It's time to share the favourites from the last weeks entries to my 5th Blog celebration, again some really stunning creations and I feel privileged to be able to look at them all. It seemed to work nicely last week with the grandchildren helping me out..............and spared me the touch job of having to make such hard decisions alone..............so we are employing the same little voting system this week.

If you have not already joined in I hope you will find time to do so, or of course you can join in a second time, you have until 5th March to be in with a chance of winning some of the fabulous spellbinder dies.

So here we go..............................

Ann

Needless to say the girls loved the shoe and as our 'voting panel' is mainly female it was a hit

Desire

They are intrigued by the clever embellishments and I rather like the colours

Julie

Another firm hit with all and guess what they want to do now ?

Pat

The fairy house was very popular with our female voting panel

I hope you enjoy looking at these fabulous creations as much as we did and just because your was not there doesn't mean we liked it any the less, they are all awesome.