There's Magic in the Air at Allsorts

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week it's my turn to choose the theme which is 'There is Magic in the Air'. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons.

Before I tell you about my card, I need to let you know that on 21st May it will be our 7th Birthday at Allsorts and we will be having a bit of a celebration and a rather special prize, please feel free to grab the logo below and share on your own blog to help us spread the word.

My starting place as usual with my scenic cards was a piece of Fabriano, this one is 300gsm which is a nice weight for dry mediums which in this case are Pan Pastels. I masked a rather large moon and applied the PP's to get some background colours, then stamped the images into place, with the exception of the castle which is a pretty old wood mounted stamp with no name, all are Lavinia. After stamping with black archival ink I added more PP's to ground the fairy and behind the castle. I also added some shading the to castle itself, again with PP's. Some glitter, matting and layering and a coordinating ribbon.

There is lots of Magic in the Air over at the challenge blog so please do go check out what my teamies have made.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Springtime

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are 'Anything goes with a stamp and ribbon' and 'Anything goes'......I can see the perfect opportunity for some doubling up here to maximize you chances of a prize.

My Stamping Sensations creation uses a new floral image from Crafty Individuals our sponsor this month, it's a rather busy one for me, but it's slowly growing on me. I used Distress Markers to ink the stamp and a spritz of water stamping onto Fabriano then dragged out the colour a little, but at that point I came to a bit of a standstill and actually left it for a couple of days.

Then I came across an inky background to which I had added some texture paste in the corners and sort of went from there. I randomly stamped some CI dragonflies onto the inky panel and rubbed Pebo gilding wax over the raised embossed areas and also around the stamped piece which I then tucked into two pockets cut in front of the embossed sections. Some flowers, an organza bow and Tattered Lace ivy and finito.

I would like to enter this card into the current Butterfly Challenge where the theme is of course Butterflies plus Texture or Teal, so this has the Butterflies and Texture.

It's another with the lovely Venetian Summer stamp for my Penny Black creation. I've probably said it before but Venice is my all time favourite City and I can't wait till be go there again in July for a few days ahead of our cruise.

My Venetian lady is stamped onto Fabriano, the background is coloured with Pan Pastels and her dress paper pieced. The card base is one of those folds I picked on on the internet which makes quite a nice change, I tend to cut and score several at a time while the technique is fresh in my mind. I have a feeling the DP's are first addition but as they are left over pieces can't be sure. Some ribbons and blossoms to embellished and the sentiment that comes with the main image.

I am off to the Snippets Playground with this one, I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks so I do hope Miss Di will be kind to me and I don't get sent to the naughty corner for truancy. I though if I bake another batch of cupcakes to take up to the tree house like those in yesterday's post it might help my case........not to be confused with any bribery intent of course.........ahhhhhham.

Happy weekend all and hope you will pop over the the challenge blogs and join in this month.

With a cherry on the top

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Helene has come up with the theme of 'A Cherry on Top' and would like to see cherries or fruit on our work. Our sponsors are Digistamp Boutique and Sizzix.

I can tell you this one caused me no end of problems, do I have any stamps with fruit, well of course I don't, I did think I had one with pears on it years ago but it's nowhere to be found so I moved on to plan B to make some cupcakes with cherries on the top. Having made them I wasn't very happy with the outcome of the icing as my hands were having a dodgy day, so it was back to plan A and I bought a cute critter Penny Black stamp which has a strawberry on it..................which has now moved on to a crafty friend who I know for sure will get far more use out of it than I ever will.

But then the panic set in as it meant colouring in, I have made hundreds of Penny Black cards over the years but I believe apart from the odd hedgie baby card this is the first one with critters. So I set about colouring the image with distress inks using a Dove blender pen and made it into a circle easel using TL dies. And after ages searching I found a little strawberry stamp, I have no idea how I came by it but stamped it out three times and cut out and used them as the stopper along with the sentiment which is in the same stamp set as the main image.

And here are the cupcakes, they might not look too good but they disappeared pretty quickly so must have tasted OK.

My teamies have made some awesome creations so please do pop over at the challenge blog to take a look.

Happy weekend all.

Spring bunnies and birdies

It's time for another share of  one of my GDT cards over at the Chocolate Baroque blog. I also have a a couple of shares of Tattered Lace cards that will be coming up over the nest few days at the live C&C programmes from the Crafting Live Belfast show.

It's a Spring inspired creation using Pan Pastels, toadstools from the Autumn Poppy stamp set and one of the rabbit images and pussy willow from the Glorious Spring stamp set.

I started with the reverse side of a piece of centura pearl, masked a sun and created the background with Pan Pastels. Next I stamped the images, rubbed out the Pan Pastels from the toadstools and coloured them in with Spectrum pencils. The sunrays were then sponged in with Distress Inks and some extra shading added beneath rabbit and toadstools to ground them.

These gorgeous birds are part of a new Charisma release, as with all the Charisma range there is a CD with the images in several colurways along with matching backing papers and dies to cut out the image, a close look at the birds beaks shows just how clever and precise the artwork and dies are.

For this one I created a simple background with distress inks.

Have a good Wednesday all and many thanks for popping in today.

Flowers and a birdie in her hair

Good morning to you all, it's time for our new challenge at Allsorts where this week Kath is our host with the theme of 'Red, White and Blue'. Our sponsor is Hobby House.

As some of you will have seen from the dodgy comments I have left the last week or so, I am struggling with my dexterity again and fingers and keyboard are not working as a team so my apologies in advance if my comments are spasmodic, short and sweet or even C&P until it sorts itself out.

This is one of the TL samples I made for one of the USA shows where this particular colour palette was required, red, white and blue is not a colour palette I gravitate to, probably the blue thing again. I started with a piece of Fabriano and sprinkled on ost blue, brilliant red and and just a little black, then spritzed very sparing with water and I wanted to keep the colours isolated rather than merging together as I usually do.

I cut the TL lady die in white, I think she is rather pretty with the flowers and birdie in her hair, then placed over red and cut out around the edge and placed over the oval mats. Some twine, pearls  and rather flouncy bow, I think this one has six of not seven loops both sides, but so easy to make with the TL bow maker.

There is lots of inspiration from my teamies over at the challenge blog so please do pop over to take a look.

Happy weekend all.

More Poppies

Morning Peeps, it's time for my second share as this month’s Guest Designer over at Chocolate Baroque and today I have a canvas. I also have a couple of shares of cards I made for their new regular posts showcasing cards made in less that fifteen minutes.

My starting point was an 8”x8” canvas which I pained with white gesso and when dry dabbed DI’s Tumbled Glass, Fossilised Amber, Twisted Citron and Cracked Pistachio onto a large craft mat and spritzed liberally with water before dragging the canvas through the wet liquid. I dabbed here and there with a piece of kitchen towel to soften the colours as I wanted a fairly soft and muted background.

Next I made a mask with a piece of acetate and Tattered Lace dies, laid it to one side of the dry canvas and applied Grunge Paste through the apertures and some ‘blobs’ of paste to represent clouds...............in hindsight not sure that part works. When dry I rubbed Gilding Wax around the edges of the canvas and over the Grunge Paste.

Using Archival Watering Can ink I stamped a Poppy from Chocolate Baroque Pretty Poppies stamp sheet, sentiment from the Words of Inspiration set and berry leaves from Autumn Poppies set. Next I coloured the Poppies, leaves and berries with the same colour DI’s and added some gold beads to the Poppy centres. Finally a strip of lace under the Poppies.

And rather belatedly here are my shares from Friday's CB inspirational post, it's a new regular feature showcasing cards that can be made in fifteen minutes of less. My spotlight Poppy card above uses one of the images from CB Pretty Poppies stamp set, simply stamped in back, then one of the flower blooms stamped again, colours with Spectrum pencils cut out with a Tattered Lace circle die and mounted in place. I also added a little background interest with a stencil and DI's.

The set of three cards really were extremely quick to make, for each I dabbed three colours of DI onto a craft sheet, spritzed with water and pained very randomly onto Fabriano, then stamped with quotes from CB Words of Inspiration and Pretty Poppies stamp sets.

Many thanks for popping in today, your comments are always much appreciated.

More florals

Good morning Peeps, a really quick post with my mid month Penny Black card.

Again I have used the beautiful Passionate image coloured inked with Distress Markers and spritzed with water before stamping onto a piece of card which I machine stitched around the edge. A Penny Black sentiment and finito, as I said a really quick post.

The challenge runs until 27th April so still plenty of time to join in to be in with a chance of winning one of the fab prizes.

Hope you have a good week.