Spring Daffodils, Violets and Lilies

Good morning, it's Saturday and that means a new challenge at Allsorts and this week I am the host and there could be only one theme at this time of year which is 'Spring is in the air'. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

It's another of my favourite panel style cards for the first, masking the top and bottom of a piece of Fabriano and also a mask for the sun then Pan Pastels to create the background. The stamps are all Penny Black and inked with Distress markers and spritzed with water before repeat stamping across the panel. I also added a few blades of grass along the bottom using a Stampscape stamp.

And it wouldn't be Spring if I didn't use my Stampendous Violet stamp. Violets always have a special meaning for me at this time of year, I went to the small village school.....less than 20 pupils aged between 5 and 11.....a C of E school which meant the Rector had a strong presence in our education. The school was.........in fact still is although with a few more pupils nowadays.........in a little lane with just a farm at the end of the lane, the school, Church opposite and Rectory next door..................and to paint the scene properly the Hoops public house next to the schoolhouse !!

Early every Mothering Sunday morning the Rector used to take the pupils to the hedgerows along the fields behind the farm where I lived and we would pick Violets and tie them into little bunches and each of us would give our Mothers a bunch at the Sunday morning service.

When I moved to our current house thirty five years ago I dug up several of those violet roots and they continue to flourish in my garden, they have self set all over the place and really need thinning out, but they look so pretty under the shrubs.

Another fond memory is that as pupils of a C of E school so close to Cambridge we were offered a very special privilege, every December we were all taken to the Kings College Chapel Carol Service, I often watch it on TV now and have fond memories of those days.

OK, enough nostalgia and some shares of some of the new Tattered Lace dies that are coming up on Monday on Create and Craft TV.

This one uses another of the new melded dies, I cut one side of the aperture and then reversed the die to create the aperture, coloured the butterflies with Wink of Stella pens, mounted over a piece of textured card and added a TL sentiment.

I used the matching border die on the insert of the card to carry the Butterfly theme and colours.

For this one I used the same melded Butterfly die along with the coordinating oval die to create the aperture. The rose embossing down the side and in the centre are both folders from one of the new TL embossing sets called Love Birds Berries. The Lily and Ivy come from the new TL Floral Layers, they are part of the Charisma range with a CD Rom to print out the blooms which consist of Lilies, Roses, Daisies, Sunflowers as well as leaves and Ivy and all are absolutely beautiful. The matching dies fit the printed out blooms perfectly and there is never and horrid white lines around the edge. I can't believe how realistic the Ivy is. 

Have a lovely weekend.

Butterflies, buttons and bronze as well as a snippet

Hello Peeps, hope your week is going well and welcome to me new followers, thank you so much for joining my inky journey.

It's going to be a really short post as doing it from hospital on my tablet and I find the keyboard a real challenge. It's the first time I've tried to do a whole post on it, but scrolling around blogland as you do while waiting for the men in green to collect you and seeing the new Butterfly Challenge knew I had a card that would fit the bill. And I am also popping over to the Playground with it as the Butterfly is a snippet of Fabriano, I'm in dire need of some hooch or even something stronger if there is any still hidden away up in the treehouse. 

The base layer if Fabriano, distress inks and bronze gilding wax, the corner cut with a Timmy die and detail bronze for the sentiment and distressed edges. Some seam binding and Tattered Lace Butterfly covered in the same gilding wax. Oh yes, and a button for the Butterfly's thorax.

Happy Wednesday all and many thanks for your visit.

A Spring Day

We have a new challenge starting today over at FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges, this month our theme is 'Lots of Layers'. As always there is a very generous $20 voucher to be won from FlonzCraft.

It's another Brusho playtime from me, first I used masking fluid to mask the bottom of the skyline and sun, then when dry which only takes a few moments I used Brushos Ost Blue and Lemon with liberal sprays of water and let the colours drain down the page. Next I rubbed away the masking fluid and stamped Flonz 50's Fashion Girl onto the card base and again onto a scrap of paper, beached away the colour from her face arms and legs, coloured with pencils then paper pieced her dress. The sentiment is also from Flonz and finally I added a few grasses and leaves around the edges.

Hope you all have a good week.

Flowers and more flowers

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Flower Power and Feature a Creature, I am thinking both will be popular choices.

All of my cards feature new stamps from the So Special 2016 Spring Release from Penny Black, I know I am biased when it comes to floral and Penny Black but I think this release has some of the most beautiful stamps I have seen recently. So I was super excited when my deliveries from Penny Black and John at PB stamps arrived a couple of weeks ago.

My top card is my Penny Black DT creation using the beautiful Geranium called Light Touch. It's a pretty large stamp and with the pretty Butterfly needs little more with it.................the Butterfly is my creature. I machine stiched the edges of a piece of Fabriano card, inked the stamp with distress markers, spritzed liberally with water and stamped to the left of the card.

Once dry I flicked some watery colour using the same ink around the image.........to do this I simply scribble a little ink from a distress marker onto an acrylic block, water it down and using a fine paint brush flick the watery colour onto the card..............if the colour is too intense for what you want just dab lightly with a piece of kitchen towel to tone it down. The sentiment is also Penny Black and I simply finished the card with some matting and layering and pearls.

I made a set of cards for my first Stamping Sensations offering using another of the new Penny Black stamps called Bejeweled, I think this looks rather like a Chrysanthemum. I used exactly the same inking process as the card at the top and just finished of each one slightly differently, one has flicks of colour added, one some soft stenciling and the third a border drawn in with a pencil.

My third piece is a tent card, I like this shape for a change and using an A3 piece of card and a score board you can makes two nice sized cards much cheaper than buying ready scored packs. I covered the front and inside with Be Creative Vintage Collage papers and gave the edges a bit if inky treatment. I then cut an aperture in the from and added a Tattered Lace pearl edge frame. The sentiment is from Inkylicious, heat embossed with detail copper powder and another Tattered Lace die used to cut the mat.

The pretty flower is made from some satin ribbon I picked up at the Thetford show the other week, you cut a length of seven petals, pull up the thread which is already running through the top of the ribbon and you end up with the flower which can then be coloured with inks, pens or whatever - I used distress ink and water. A bow in the centre and a tag which came with the papers onto which I stamped a Penny Black sentiment and embossed with copper to match the focal quote.

International Women's Day at Allsorts

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Mervi has chosen International Women's Day as her theme. Our sponsor is Digistamp Boutique, we also have another pair of tickets to the Hobbycraft show at the NEC later this month.

I have to confess that I was not over familiar with this annual day so did a bit of research which suggested purple was the colour to follow so downloaded the logo and used as a tag on my card. 

The card base ad box are all made from the Tattered Lace hexagonal set and I stuck with the purple theme. The focal image is an Indigo Blue stamp which I stamped with versamark and heat embossed with purple embossing powder. A few flowers on the images hair to carry the colours of the Daisy centres in the corsage on the box lid, little pearls and some ribbon to finish the card. 

Happy weekend all.

Getting sentimental

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Helene has chosen the theme of 'Sentiment in Focus'. Our sponsors are Marianne Designs and Baker Ross.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Blogger is still messing with our blogs because I realised a few days ago that at least two blogs I visit were missing from my reading list and I rather suspect there are more I have not yet noticed, so if you think you might be one of them I apologise, just give me a gentle nudge so I can check. I just wish he would leave us in peace and not keep trying to manipulate us in other directions.

This wasn't the card I started with for my Allsorts share, but having received a delivery of new goodies from Baker Ross which included quilling products and pretty Spring coloured papers I was itching to give it a go. I have never done quilling before so took a quick YouTube tutorial and this is what I came up with, no doubt to the experience quiller the shapes are far from perfection but I was quite happy with this for my first attempt.

I made the flowers and leaves first them created a card to go with them using my all time favourite Penny Black inspirational quote, a circle easel card which I always find pleasing on the eye using using Tattered Lace dies and some bright satin ribbons.

I also have a Rudolph Day share, it's a pretty quick and simple make as my mojo and I are not working in tandem at the moment, using a piece of Fabriano I masked the top and bottom and a moon......or is it a sun I wonder............ some Pan Pastels and stamping with a collection of Penny Black stamps. Oh yes and a bit of glitter across the hills.

Do I sound a tad lackadaisical, probably I do, I just can't shift this flu and my appetite and enthusiasm are zero. Plus having worked myself up ready for my procedure at hospital Thursday, I was all ready to leave with my dressing gown and slippers when the phone rang to cancel and have now rescheduled for Monday, so that's not the start of the week I was planning.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Flowers and fantasy

One of the cards Nancy had on the launch show of the fabulous new Floral Layers products. There is a clever spray called Terial Magic which changes the composition of fabric so it can be run through the printer, the beautiful flowers printed onto it which in turn can be cut with the coordinating dies. If you have not watched one of the shows then you really need to as this is something very different.

Good evening Peeps, it's a rather rushed post as I am a tad late with some of these samples and by the same token might be a bit early with others, truth is it's been a rather hectic week or two with the Tattered Lace 3rd Anniversary celebrations.

So it's going to be a few photos........and I've had to pinch a couple of those from TL as I didn't get as far as taking photos of some before they had to go off for the shows. Do you get the impression I'm losing the plot......you may well be right as I am still struggling with flu and it's knocked me for six as per usual and my head is anywhere but on my shoulders.

This one is for tonight's show when the new foiling system is being launched, aptly named ' The Midas Touch', the silver foil was laid onto one of the adhesive sheets and then cut with one of the pearl dot frames. The rest of the card is pretty straightforward.

The Unicorns which are also making an appearance this week and of course a background of Pan Pastels.

The silver foiling again on both the little die cut tress and the ornate pin dot heart, I did remember to photograph this one but it was a real pain getting a decent shot with the shine from the silver.

Many thanks for popping by and enjoy the rest of the week, I will be missing from blogland for a couple of days as I have a hot date with the NHS !