Autumn Glory and a special anniversary

It's time for our challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Autumn Glory' and some Colour Inspiration which screams out Autumn, I know they are much the same but it's such a glorious time of year and always seems such a popular theme. As always there are wonderful prizes to be won at both.

For my Penny Black share I used Broshos to create a background and dabbed with a piece of kitchen towel to tone down the colours a little and when dry used a Tinny die in one corner. I then randomly stamped a script background and PB leaves from Nature's Gifts inking the stamp with distress markers. The flowers are stamped with PB Blush and cut out with the coordinating die called Bashful. Some hessian and a button to finish.

For my Stamping Sensations piece I again started with a Brusho background dabbing off some of the wet colour with a paper towel. Using a stencil and grunge paste I added the flourish and when dry sponged some DI. The Butterfly and sentiment are from Inklylicious and the Butterfly coloured in with the same colour Brusho's.

Yesterday hubby and I celebrated a rather special wedding anniversary, instead of a card I made him a wall handing for his office using chipboard hearts, paint and crackle glaze and several Penny Black stamps along with some stenciled wheat.

I'm not saying which anniversary it was, all I will say is it seems a lifetime ago when at seventeen I walked down the aisle with my dear Dad in a dress made by one of the Royal dressmakers......no we weren't rich, my Mum just happened to work with the sister of one and that's how it came about. And much to the horror of my elderly Aunts I had a bouquet of Lilies, I know they are a popular choice now, but back in those days they were for funerals only and not readily available year round as they are now, mine were Longiforum Lilies and had to be brought in from France. Now that we have grandchildren the same age and older than I was then it is quite scary as they seem so young and marriage is the last thing on some of their minds, let alone becoming a Mum at nineteen as I did.

But I wouldn't change a thing, it just meant we did things in a different order to nowadays. At thirty eight soon after being diagnosed with MS and despite my Mum thinking I was mad I embarked on a Psychology degree. Then as the children got older we started to travel to all those distant places we were unable to afford when they were small.

We knew the children would feel a party was essential so decided to explain in advance, much to their disappointment, that we would be far happier enjoying a lovely family meal with immediate family at a nice restaurant and left them to sort that out among themselves. That's eighteen of us in total so almost a party in itself.........the benefits of a large family.

Hope I have't sent you all to sleep and looking forward to seeing all your lovely Autumnal creations this month and as always we have some super prizes to be won.

Re - Run

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Helene has an inspired theme for us...........'Re-Run', she would like us to case the work of a previous DT make. Our sponsor is Sizzix.

I have cased Helene's card from November 2014 which you will find here

Helene's card

My trees are part of a much larger Penny Black collage stamp so I inked just the trees with distress markers spritzed with water and stamped adding some splatters by flicking a paintbrush loaded with a watery mix of the same colour DI's. I didn't have spotty ribbon so used some olive coloured organza and a Penny Black sentiment.

Thanks for the inspiration Helene I enjoyed making this one.

Poppies again and Chocolate Baroque shares

Morning Peeps, hope you are all having a good week. Can I first welcome my new followers and also thank you all for your encouraging comments on my last post, clearly I am not alone in my dislike of repetitive card making.

Today we are sharing more inspirational fifteen minute cards over at the Chocolate Baroque DT blog. Sometimes it's quite refreshing to make less detailed cards and it also allows you to see stamps in a totally different light. As I have quite a few cards to share I won't go into detail as you will find that over at the CB blog, but please do mail me if you have any specific questions.

That's it for today, many thanks for taking a peek.

A Snippet and Rudolph Days

Morning Peeps, just popping in with this months Rudolph Days challenge share and also one for this weeks Snippets Playground.

My Rudolph share at the top is one of a batch of 50 cards made for a local accountant, all done and dusted some weeks back when crafting was less painful. I have to confess that although I do the odd wedding and Christmas order I don't do't go looking for them as I find it so repetitive and bore very quickly. The main image is an old Hero Arts stamp and the sentiment Penny Black.

My Playground share, a pretty simple make with minimal stamping as that remains problematic one armed, an oddment of pink DP, a die cut TL Butterfly, flowers, seam binding and a snippet for the tag which is a Penny Black stamp.

Many thanks for popping in today.

Newsprint and white butterflies

Good morning to you all and a big thank you for your lovely comments about my Penny Black card in my previous post.

It's time for our new challenge at Allsorts and Annie would like us to use some Newsprint on our creations this week. Our sponsor is Scrappers Delight. 

I also have a card for the current Butterfly Challenge which really was a challenge this time round, as well as Butterflies they would like to see White on White and/or Wire. 

For my Allsorts creation which as with most recently blogged creations was made weeks ago when mobility was better, I decided to stamp the newsprint using a rather old Hero Arts stamp, it's a huge wood mounted one, using coffee archival ink and thne distressing the panel to give an aged feel. Next I used a Penny Black flower inking the stamp with DI's and spritzing with water before stamping. Two Penny Black Butterflies coloured with the same DI's and a really old sentiment which I purchased in America years ago.

I do hope you will join us this week and also pop over to the challenge blog to see all the inspiration from my teamies.

Now for my Butterfly share, white on white always scares me somewhat and I always dread taking the photos as it's so hard to show the detail. So as stamping remains difficult I decided on inkiness again as you can't really go wrong and started with a piece of 600gsm Fabriano which I liberally coated with gesso, then added a piece of crushed tissue to give some texture before using stencils and two types of white textures paste, plain matt and pearl.

Then once dry it was just a matter of arranging the focal element made up of a piece of hessian, die cut honeycomb pattern, Tattered Lace Lilies and Ivy, a stamped sentiment, two Butterflies and of course some wire which I twisted into a circle and placed behind the Lilies.......although it doesn't show up too well on my photo it is there !

Have a lovely weekend all.

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.