Purple Geranium

Well guess who forgot to prepare their mid month Penny Black and More post ?

I scheduled the one for the challenge blog and totally forgot to do my own, so I'm afraid it's going to be very short and sweet as this morning my shoulder and arm don't want to get going so typing is rather painful. I am going to pop over to the Playground with this one as the tags are made from offcuts.

The team have come up with some more beautiful creations so do pop over and take a peek.

Chatting in the moonlight

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Kevin has chosen the theme of  'Black and White plus One'. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

I dug out some really old Art Impressions stamps that have not seen daylight for some time and started by masking a moon and lightly brushed some DI to the sky area to give the appearance of dusk. Next I stamped the scene using black archival ink, a few flowers and used the same colour DI to sponge round the lamp and color the ladies dress.

As always my teamies have loads of inspiration to share with you over at the challenge blog.

Butterflies and flowers

Morning Peeps, it's Chocolate Baroque share day again, you will find these cards and also the lovely creations made by my teamies over on the DT blog here. Further down you will also find my share for the current Butterfly Challenge where the theme is Lavender and /or Letters along with your Butterfly and I was quite chuffed that I managed to get all elements into my piece.

I would also like to welcome my new followers to my inky world and also thank everyone for their kind comments on my Autumnal canvas in my last post. I am pleased to report that there is a bit of crafting going on, it's pretty slow going and stamping is still difficult so I bought some distress crayons last week as I can't really go wrong with inky creations..................OK, it's a pretty lame excuse to explain why I succumbed but they are fun and the colours so beautifully intense.

The one above is not unlike one I shared a few weeks back but this one of course has CB stamps, the ones I used here are the butterflies from CB Butterfly flourish and sentiment from CB Pretty Poppies stamp sets. The background is stenciled with DI's and a bit of inky flicking as well.

A pretty simple on here, a die cut TL oval into which I stamped CB Cornflower which I again coloured with Spectrum Sparkle pens................yes I am using them rather a lot but anyone who knows me is aware that I am not a colourist and I find these quite east to blend without spending ages at it. I also did a bit of ink flicking in the background.

My final card uses images from CB Oriental Crane stamp set which I stamped with versafine and heat embossed with copper embossing powder, cut into squares, matted and layered with some red gems dotted here and there. I also ran some score lines down the leading edge.

And the above is my entry for the Butterfly Challenge, my starting point was a 600gsm square of Fabriano and a background created with a mixture of Brushos and Distress Crayons and liberal amounts of water to push the colours around. When dry I stenciled some circles and overstamped with a really old Hero Arts stamped called Old French Writing................it's so old and used the code has long since gone but it's always been a favourite in class and the name stuck. 

I then used a Sweet Poppy stencil twice, first time I inked through with DI's and the second a mixture of translucent paste and acrylic pain to which I added some glitter. The Butterfly is from Chocolate Baroque, cut out after stamping and coloured with the same Brusho's.

Many thanks for taking a peek everyone.

Colours of Autumn

Today sees the start of a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is Autumnal colours - yellows, oranges, reds and greens. As always there is a generous prize of a $20 shopping voucher from FlonzCraft.

Again it's something I made back in the Summer and is another of my 5x7 flat canvases, I find this a great size to work with without being overwhelmed by too much space. The canvas came ready primed so I painted the whole piece with a dark acrylic paint called blood orange, then a thin coat of crackle glaze scraped on with an old credit card and a top coat of a neutral colour. Next some swirls added with stencil and grunge paste which I inked with DI's once dry and stamped around the edges with a Penny Black leaf image and some gilding wax. The flowers are all stamped and heat embossed with detail copper and cut out with the coordinating Heartflet Creations dies and some little Tattered Lace leaves tucked in around part of a Timmy clock die. The sentiment is also Penny Black. Finally a little chipboard Butterfly.

As I used up lots of snippets for the flowers I think it will be OK to enter into Di's Snippets Playground, I only popped in quickly last week to meet up with Parsnip............I'll say no more !

There are some lovely creations from my fellow teamies so I do hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and take look and join in with our challenge this month.

Anniversaries and Special Occasions

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Kath has chosen the theme of 'Anniversaries and Special Occasions'. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

This was a commissioned card back in June with the brief of not too fussy and some lilac ribbon to reflect the bridesmaids dressed. I used a Tattered Lace pin dot heart and a smaller plain one which I embossed and layered with foam pads. The sentiment is computer generated and I added some flowers, TL Ivy, pearls and lilac and silver ribbons.

My teamies have come up with some super inspiration as always so I do hope you will pop over and take a peek and of course join in the challenge this week.

Dance, sing, love............

I would like to start by saying thank you for all your kind comments and messages of support the last few weeks, it seems like a never ending saga, but hopefully I will get back to some sort of normality soon. 

In my post yesterday I spoke a little about my MS and I was touched by some mails and comments I received as a result, sometimes we can forget that we are not an island and there are others out there coming to terms with a new diagnosis. Here are a few words from one lady's mail to me "Thank you so much for opening up about MS, I was diagnosed in January and it's scary as nobody tells you much about what to expect. I have followed your blog for a long time and know you don't accept the limitations of MS, you continue to inspire me to keep trying even on bad days. Keep up the good work". I did ask the ladies permission to share.

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'One for the Boys' and 'Add a Sentiment' and as always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both.

My Stamping Sensations share at the top uses a real mixture of stamps from Stampscapes, Inkylicious and Art Impressions. I started with a masked sun and then added Adirondack and Distress Inks to create the sky and lake before stamping everything into place with black archival ink.

My Penny Black card is not exactly what I planned but after creating the Brusho background the oranges looked rather like an explosion of fireworks and reminded me of a famous photo of the 1900 Paris Expo with all the exploding lights behind La Tour Eiffel. So I used a Sheena stencil and blue distress inks, then stamped my all time favourite Penny Black quote and PB butterfly which I cut out and coloured with the same colour Brusho's.

My team mates have created some fabulous pieces of artwork to inspire you so I do hope you will pop over the the challenge blogs to see them and of course join us this month.

New Beginnings and NBUS Bumble Bees

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Tracy has chosen the theme of 'New Beginnings'. Our sponsor is Digistamp Boutique.

Thanks to all of you for bearing with me and putting up with rather short or c&p comments, I find that way I can at least keep up with what you are all up to without stressing my body too much. I am back at hospital this coming week, not that I imagine for a moment they have discovered a miracle cure for MS and think more likely it will just be another juggle with my meds.

It's funny when I look back to when I was first diagnosed almost 30 years ago, when I asked why I got so much pain they said it was nothing to do with MS, how their thinking has changed because now it's an accepted and probably expected part of the condition. And over the course of time new drugs have become available that do go some way to alleviating the excruciating muscle spasms.

But what never seems to change is that each time I have a relapse, although symptoms improve in time, I never get quite back to where I was before a relapse and there has to be an acceptance of a slow deterioration................that acceptance is the hardest bit. But I count myself fortunate as there are so many far worse off than me.

Anyhow, onto my card which is a new baby one I made a few weeks back, it's not a theme I am ever comfortable with but I did rather like how this one turned out despite it having no stamping. I cut squares of coordinating Trimcraft DP's, fixed them to a white backing and machine stitched around the edges before matting onto the base card with some more of the DP on the bottom section and a strip of lace. A TL sentiment, some pearls and a bow. I am popping over to Miss DI's Snippets Playground with this one.

My teamies have some lovely inspiration to share as always so I hope you will pop over to take a look and of course join us this week.

And I also have a card to enter into Darnell's NBUS challenge - Never-Before-Used-Schtuff, I've had lots of nudges from some of you guys out there........yes, you know who you are ! I came across this cute little Tattered Lace Bumble Bee the other day, all nicely packaged from when I apparently forgot to use him for one of the TV releases earlier in the year.

So a very simple card........still has to be that way until I can get crafting properly again, I sponged a honeycomb background using DI's and a Timmy stencil, stamped an Inkylicious sentiment and cut our and coloured three bees. Finito, I did say simple.