Bobbly Flowers and a blue hat

Using: JJ 0038 May your Life,  FF0104 Wheat, EE0103 Flourish, CLR051A Blobby Flowers,  GG0082 Delphinium, PPRS D015 Blobby Flower Die, PPRS D045 Flourish Die

It's a bit of inkiness for my Prickly Pear DT share this week and one I really enjoyed creating. I started with Dylusions and Glimmer Mist onto the reverse of Centrua Pearl, sponged some sunrays using a mask and randomly stamped with a number of Prickly Pear stamps including the lovely sentiment and then from another piece of card also sprayed with the same mediums made some flowers using the matching stamps and die and swirls using the new swirl die.

My Nicecrane DT piece this week uses another new design sheet called All Season Hats, I made a stepper card, some scraps of DP and overlaid them with trellis cut from linen cardstock using a Cheery Lynne die. Some rolled roses, feahter and a beaded pin in coordinating colours.

Happy Monday all. 

Just the one layer

This week at Allsorts the lovely Jo is challenging us to make a one layer card and our sponsors are Craftbag.

I love making this style of card using Pan Pastels, masking a section in the middle and round the edge of the reverse side of a piece of Centura Pearl and stamping the scene which in this case is repeat stamped with a Clarity stamp for the focal element then adding the PP's. The faux layer effect is achieved simply by using Copics and a ruler, I find it easiest to start from the outer edge and work inwards.

And another using exactly the same technique but this time using Chocolate Baroque's lovely Tuscany image and sentiment.

Happy weekend all.

Blossoms

It's time for a new challenge at FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges where our them is Summer Blossoms, what a lovely easy one as we all love our flowers. And as it's Monday I also have my Prickly Pear and Nicecrane DT shares.

For my top card I have used a number of FlonzCraft stamps, Etched Rose and leaves, Buttertfly trio, small butterflies sheet and Floral Butterfly corner and sprayed them all with Dylusions before cutting out and decoupaging. Graphic 45 DP and TH weathered clock cut from Coredinations.

I am again entrering the Butterfly Bingo Challenge (after totally messing up yesterday's one - need more practice) and following the line of Butterflies, Dies and DP.

This one is probably the most difficult card I have ever had to make, when my latest DT package arrived from Prickly Pear I looked at this sentiment and lovely as it is wondered what on earth I could manage to do with it.

Using: GG1096 Loyal Companion

After thinking about it for a few days I decided I would make a card in memory of my lovely Buffy. The design and colours of the card, little UTEE fob and glazed flowers were inspired by Pere Lachaise in Paris, for those not familiar with it, it's the largest cemetery in Paris set on a hill with views of the City where many famous people are buried .......Sarah Bernhardt, Chopin, Colette, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf to name a few........although it is a cemetery it is unlike most and more of a tourist attraction with beautiful marbles, many flowers and ornate glazed photos to commemorate those buried there.

Finally my Nicecrane share is another using the elegant A Dream of Fair Women design sheet........can you tell I really like these, along with Graphic 45 DP's, a bit of paper folding, ribbon and flower.

Happy Monday all.

Some of my favorite things

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Animal Antics and Use your Favorite Stamp.

So for my Penny Black piece I had to go with my all time favorite Penny Black stamp 2695J Dance, Sing, Love along with two favorites from the 2014 Spring releases 4373K Red Tango and 40-282 Twirls, although as you can see my Poppies are blue so I figure they must be the Himalayan variety which are the National flower of the Kingdom of Bhutan which is a land locked Country sitting at the far eastern end of the Himalaya's..........so endeth today's Geography lesson !! The background is Dylusions and Glimmer Mist, a bit of bleaching here and there and a touch of grunge paste and decoupaged Poppies.

Although I rarely enter challenges these days, I have been wanting to join in with Mrs A's new Butterfly Challenge who this time have the theme of Butterfly Bingo and I have gone with the the row, butterfly, wet embossing and flowers.

This one is a rather tenuous link to this months Stamping Sensations theme....two very tiny birds in the sky and butterflies on the embossed panel - not strictly animals I know, but I did want to share a card using a Crafty Individuals stamp as they are our sponsors this month.



My second Stamping Sensations piece is a collection of stamps from Lavinia.......the larger than life bunnies to the fore...... plus some Inkylicious, Sutter and Stampscapes and good old Pan Pastels for all the colouring.

Have a good weekend everyone, hope the sun is making an appearance for you.

Footie Birthday card

Sarah is our host at Allsorts this week and would like to see cards 'For the Guys' our sponsors are Cuddly Buddly and Digistamp Boutique.

So it seems only appropriate that my DT piece is the card I created for our youngest son whose Birthday it is today...................Happy Birthday Alex.

Like me he is a keen Liverpool supporter and I thought this design which I came across on Pinterest would fit the bill perfectly. I have used my Sizzix hexagon die, it's one I bought some time back but not found too much use for it so far, but it works perfectly for creating the football effect on this card. The white section are embossed with Swiss dots, some little banners, a computer generated sentiment and a football button.

Happy weekend all.

Inky Flutterbys and cute dogs

If you are on the Allsorts Birthday Hop, it's the post below this one.............

Butterflies 2 LT001A clear set, Delphinium GG082, Wheat Stalks FF0104, JJ038 May Your Life, FF0018 Live, Dance, Laugh

Again I must thank you all for your kind comments and mails asking how I am, truth is there is still an awful lot going on and to take in and at the moment I don't feel able to open up about it, so please bear with me as in time I am sure I will come to terms with everything.

I have gone all inky for this weeks Prickly Pear DT piece, or rather pieces as I have made a set of butterfly cards using a number of stamps all listed above with direct links to them. My background is created by masking the sections I want to colour on the cardstock, applying distress inks to an acrylic block and spritzing with water before stamping the whole block on the Farbiano watercolour cardstock. The more water you add to the blocks the better the inks blend and bleed over the sides to give a more random look. Unless you want your images to pop outside the box as I did for part of the one on the left, do your stamping before removing the masking tape.

And I have three Nicecrane pieces to share with you after a weekend of some crafty time.

The first above uses another of the lovely Dream of Fair Women designs along with Graphic 45 DP's.

I printed the image onto some new linen cardstock and am really pleased with the finished result.

The one to the left uses three images from Ignacio's new Cute Dogs here, I just love the sleepy dog in the last photo.

And finally an Oriental  one using the new Japanese designs which you will find here.

I thought lilies would go rather well and made two using Ruth's Tonic Punch and Stamp Lily set.

Happy Monday all.

Happy 5th Birthday Allsorts

Using air dry clay, DP's, cardstock and ribbons from Baker Ross

It's our 5th Birthday at Allsorts and we are celebrating !!

And we have loads of prizes from Marianne Designs, Crafty Ribbons, Yours and Mine Papercrafts, A Passion for Stamps, FlonzCraft,  Baker Ross, Scrappers Delight as well as a prize for the winner of the secret words and a prize from each of the DT form a lucky winners from those leaving comments on their personal blogs.

I find it quite amazing that it's five whole years, I have been there from the start and can't quite believe how quickly that time has gone. The fact that we are still going as strong as ever is testament to the wonderful crafters who join every week, not to mention our fabulous sponsors and talented Design Team.

Using Distress Markers and Hero Arts stamp

So as you might guess we are having a Blog Hop and have loads of fabulous prizes to be won both on the challenge blog and each DT's own blogs. Lots of you know the ropes but there are always new crafters joining us so just to confirm you need to start from the challenge blog here then visit each DT's blogs, collect a letter and leave a comment and hopefully you should have arrived here from Helene's blog and hop next to Wendy's blog. Once you have collected all the letters sort them into two words and mail you answers to me. Hopefully by now you know the letter you need to collect from my blog ?

Good luck to you all and here is the prize for the winner randomly selected from comments on my blog.