Late daffodils

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's time for another Tic Tac Toe challenge! There's loads of lovely inspiration on today's board so I do hope you'll want to come and join in with us :)

 

I've opted for the diagonal from top left - Flowers/Free/Die Cuts and made a belated birthday card for a pal whose birthday had disappeared under a load of random boxes in my chaotic little brain - aargh!

 

I started with Altenew's Daffodil Delight embossing folder, positioning my card panel in the folder at an angle and using my squidgy mat to avoid hard lines. I then decided to cut the panel into a tag with a nesting arch die from The Greetery which flattened my embossing a little but hey ho! Next time I will die cut first and THEN emboss!

I'd used watercolour paper as my panel so I could use my Arteza watercolour brush pens to colour the image - yes I managed to plan ahead for that bit! The watercolouring is what is called 'loose' when the professionals do it but that when I do it is probably more accurately described as 'messy'!

 

The little tag was stamped with a sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Greetings and cut out with a circle punch. I used a couple of small punches to make a hole and a hole strengthener, then threaded some yellow ribbon through it and secured with glue dots. Finally, the tags were attached to a card base.

Okay, so now it's your turn! Here's how to play: First, hop over to the Tic Tac Toe blog to check out the amazing inspiration from my team mates; Next make your own creation using the suggestions from a row, column or diagonal on the board; Finally, use the Linky Tool at the bottom of the challenge blog and share your creation with us - we can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

Jaydee's challenge at The Paper Players this week is Clean and Simple spring flowers, and I have used the fresh green, yellow and aqua colour palette at The Color Throwdown; I'm also visiting Can You Handle the Pressure as I used an embossing folder and am joining in with the All Occasions challenge at Krafty Chicks with my belated birthday card.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

After mentioning how fluffy Lulu is getting, I thought you'd like to see 'before and after' photos of her:

 

Here she is in November last year, looking very thin and short haired, and with no 'feathers' on her legs. 

 

 

And here she is yesterday, out on what I call 'a walk' but that the girls have decided is 'a rabbit hunt'!  Look at those floofy pantaloons and that luxuriant tail! What a beauty!

Sending hugs,

Springtime balloons

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I have new babies in my head at the moment and a combination of that and some of my favourite challenges produced this card:

 

It's not a new idea - I know The Greetery has a stamp set featuring flower-filled balloons and SU once had one filled with stars; but it was fun to come up with my own version using the Balloon Bash stencil from Uniko and some flowers and leaves from Stampin' Up and Waffle Flower that were out on my table. I started by stenciling the taller balloon in yellow ink and masking off the outer section with a sticky note mask. I was then able to stamp the flowers and leaves. Next came the pink balloon which I positioned over the yellow one. I sponged the ink very faintly where they overlapped so it would look as if the pink balloon was behind the yellow one. Again, I masked off the outer section and stamped flowers and leaves inside the balloon, using second and third generation stamping for a more faded look. 

 

The balloons were cut out using my sharp paper snips and I tied little cotton bows to the bottom of each. To assemble the card I die cut a white panel with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and attachde it to a card front. Finally, I stamped a sentiment in grey ink and popped the balloons up with dimensional pads.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in at Allsorts where Mervi's optional theme this week is Balloons, Cupcake Inspirations where the beautiful inspiration photo set me going and Day of the Month Card Club where they want to see us use Two of Something; my colour palette came from Color Dare #597 and since Color Hues have also got a Pink and Yellow theme this fortnight, I'm linking up there again.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I'm posting this photo especially for my pal Gundi at Papierelle. She is on the design team of Day of the Month Card Club challenge so she will hopefully be amused at seeing double!

 

My little twins - but which one is which?! Lulu is getting so fluffy these days that I sometimes get them mixed up!

 

Gundi has a pair of gorgeous dogs herself and if you like hearing about Eva and Lulu, you're sure to enjoy the antics that Kaito and Kamo get up to! Gundi is also a wonderfully creative crafter who makes cards and other fabulous projects so do go and check out her blog HERE - you'll be glad you did!

Sending hugs,

An Oxide Experiment

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I had some time to play today so I brought out my new distress oxide inks, a present from my youngest son. He is not only very good at getting me to waffle on about my latest craft enthusiasms, but is also a total nerd who became very excited himself when told about the reactive nature of these hybrid inks!

 

I know I'm late to the distress oxide party but I was particularly excited about the opacity of the ink. It means light colours show up on darker card, and this card was an experiment to see what would happen if I used the inks with a stencil. I chose a dark yellow card for my background panel and blended Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry inks into Uniko's Gerbera stencil. I added Squeezed Lemonade to the seeds in the flower centre and also sponged a little round the edges of the panel.

 

After that, I masked the flower and added some stamped lines (but wish I had used a tone on tone dark yellow instead of the black!) The sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said fits nicely in the lines though :) Before mounting the panel on a card base, I sponged Spun Sugar ink round the edges of the card front. The card was embellished with some delicate iridescent sequins from SU.

 

CHALLENGES

I used Hannelie's Yellow and Pink palette at Color Hues so I'm linking up there; also at the Stencil Fun Challenge where there's an optional theme of Spring/Flowers; The Sisterhood of Crafters' latest challenge is Showers or Flowers which amused me :D

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Drier weather has come at last and I am giddy with it! The golden girls and I are able to do longer walks and there's no need for any spa baths or even foot baths. What more could we ask for?

 

Perhaps, says Lulu, we could get a real puppy...? Don't tempt me Lulu, don't tempt me!!!

Sending hugs,

The accidental card

Hello, crafting friends!

 

We're halfway through our challenge at The Flower Challenge and we'd love to see your card in the gallery! Layers are the theme this month.

My card was a total accident! For another project, I'd cut a panel with a cover die called Country Garden by Gemini. It needs a shim but I'd forgotten about that, so had ended up with an uncut version. My Arteza watercolour brush pens were (as usual!) out on the table so I amused myself by using some pretty spring colours with a little water and a paint brush to colour the image. It was just ordinary card stock so I wasn't expecting it to work, but I quite liked the result and it was just right for layering.

 

I used a small flower die to cut daisies out of snippets of white card. These were layered over the largest flowers and I found enamel dots in different colours and sizes to decorate the other flowers. The panel was then attached to a card base.

My final layer is a frame from the UFO box which had been cut from white card with a double stitched rectangle die. I backed the frame with foam tape for a bit of extra dimension. The sentiment is from MFT's All Occasion Sentiments, stamped on a snippet of white card, cut out and popped up on dimensional pads.

 

Okay, so it's your turn! My talented team mates have made some gorgeous cards to inspire you and you'll find them over on The Flower Challenge blog post. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post too and can use it to share your own layered floral creation with us. You have until April 25 and we can't wait to see what you make!

 

CHALLENGES

I'm off to The Snippets Playground with this card! Sorry I didn't take photos of my snippets because I didn't know it was going to be a snippets card but the floral panel was a rescued failed die cut, the frame was a left over, and all the other elements were snippets of white card.

AND IN OTHER NEWS 

Lulu is in the doghouse! We'd had a locksmith round and I asked him if he'd make a fuss of the dogs before I shut them in the kitchen while he got on with his work. Once Eva knows who is in the house she is fine, and Lulu took her lead from Eva so there was no barking at all. When the locksmith left, I released the dogs and praised them for their excellent behaviour. I then got on with cleaning the living room. I wanted to give it a good sweeping to get rid of any dog hair, so I popped the pups out in the garden so they wouldn't walk in the sweepings. But twice in a row proved to be a step too far for young Lulu...

 

... and she had started digging a hole before I noticed and was able to stop her! Very frustrating but totally my fault for pushing her further than she could cope with. She will now need to be supervised carefully in the garden so that behaviour is not repeated. Sigh!

Sending hugs,

Inspired by primulas

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I have been looking after a friend's cat while she (the friend, not the cat!) swanned off in search of fun and sunshine. To welcome her home, I arranged a bunch of spring flowers and made a card to go with them. I was short of time, so this is a very quick but cheery card, just right for the back-from-holiday blues.

 

I reached for a retired Stampin' Up set called Bloom by Bloom, which I've never inked up. It is absolutely perfect for quick stamping! The large flower reminded me of the bright pink primulas which come out in my garden at this time of year, with their happy yellow centres :) I stamped a pattern using a group of three of the flowers to anchor it, and positioned a bold sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's Perfect Sentiments in the centre.

 

The panel was trimmed to size with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and I mounted it on a Bermnuda Bay panel cut slightly larger. This was attached to a card front and decorated with a few matching gems.

CHALLENGES

The bright colour palette is from Claire's challenge at the Paper Players this week; I'm also linking up at Little Red Wagon where Kate wants us to be inspired by a photo (see In Other News below); and, since this set is seeing ink for the first time, I am visiting Darnell's NBUS Challenge. 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have a really tiny garden but I take great pleasure in it. It has a tiny patch of grass, just big enough for a pair of golden retrievers to sunbathe on, which I 'mow' with a little handheld electronic gadget. I don't like the look of naked fence, so I have grown ivy up the fences which attracts loads of little birds for feeding and nesting. And there are flowers (although never enough!) which brighten my days throughout the year :) There's the bright pink primula which inspired today's card and which was one of the first things I planted 23 years ago when we moved here. 

It has self seeded and the one in this photo has settled on the edge of the gravel path. It's not the ideal spot as we trip over it on the way to the water tap, but I thought it was so friendly growing there, close to the house, that I've let it remain.

Sending hugs,

It's a wonderful life

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Lorraine at Allsorts Challenge has chosen a theme very close to my heart this week: For the Love of Animals. "It would be great to see entries with the animals we have as pets," she says on the post. Say no more Lorraine, I need absolutely no encouragement!

 

As a golden retriever owner, you'd think my shelves would be groaning with retriever stamps, but no. Stamp manufacturers don't seem to understand that these are the best dogs in the world (this may actually be just my own biased opinion!) and golden retriever images are sadly few and far between. I do have a Penny Black set though, called Doggone Sweet, which does represent my pair of rascals pretty well! 

 

 

The dog nearest the hedge is Eva. At nearly ten years old she is the sensible one of the pair and occasionally demonstrates this. She has no toys near her - we, the humans, are her toys! She plays us for fools all day long, taking breaks for well-earned snoozles. If we aren't available, Eva does like to tear apart a toy sometimes, imagining herself to be a great huntress, and if we have guests she likes to rummage about in the laundry basket and parade through the room showing off our oldest underwear!

 

We adopted Lulu last year. She was four years old and will be five in June. She still behaves like a puppy despite my efforts to train her to be a Grown Up Lady Dog. She expends a lot of energy chasing things and trying to communicate her urgent desire for snacks, so she needs plenty of naps too. She loves a ball and her little plushie toys and uses them as a comfort blankie when she gets confused about life. Her sleep style is pretty much always on her back with her paws all over the place. Both dogs' hobbies include getting wet and muddy, snacking, rolling in nefarious stuff and pretending they have no idea what 'No' means.

The card is very simple: edges of card base masked off with low tack tape; dogs stamped and masked; sky and foreground sponged in; hedge and trees stamped with retired SU sets; masks removed and dogs coloured and detail added with ink and paintbrush. The sentiment, from an old Clearly Besotted set, was chosen with a chuckle - there aren't any days that aren't wonderful in these dogs lives. The worst that happens is that Mum goes out for an hour or two to replenish stores of Meaty Chunks and Fishy Treats!!

 

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Allsorts but also Stamping Sensations, where I've been inspired by the spring mood board, and We Love Stamping where the theme is also Spring. Double D's challenge this month is Cute Little Animals and although I explained to the golden girls that they are NOT little, they insisted that they are extremely cute and practically handbag dogs, so I'm joining in there too ;)

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I've been very light-hearted about the dogs but when Lulu came to us, she was very stressed, had lost a lot of weight and was really scared to be in new surroundings. She had begun to be reactive around other dogs and had to be toilet trained all over again. She didn't want to let me out of her sight and barked her head off if I left the house. She slept on the bed right from the beginning and would wake multiple times in the night whimpering. I would just cuddle her until she fell back to sleep. Eva is not a dog that likes to be in close contact with other dogs but gradually, she began to help to comfort Lulu. They bonded on our daily long walks which really helped Lulu to unwind and let go of her fears. This is a (very bad, sorry!) photo of her in the early weeks cuddling up at night with Eva and with a stuffed toy as her comfort blankie.

 

Today, she has put on weight and become beautifully fluffy! She knows our routine and is no longer stressed. We have just come back from a long walk and she has swum and fetched sticks from the river and frolicked about with Eva. We met several dogs and she greeted each of them calmly with a friendly wag and a sniff. On the way back I bumped into a lady I know with a lab and a wolfhound, and we all walked back together while the dogs sniffed and played. I am so proud of Lulu's progress and of Eva who has helped to rehabilitate her sister.

Thank you for reading my ramblings about my beloved dogs! Sending hugs,

Floral notes

Hello, crafting friends!

 

There's a new colour challenge in Blogland! It's called AAA Colourful and is the sister challenge to AAA Cards and AAA Birthday which we all know and love. The challenges start mid-month and close on the 14th so there's time to join in. Come on you crafters - let's show some support!

 

I missed the first challenge but here is the mood board for this month and I couldn't resist these gorgeous colours. Here's what I made:

 

There was a discarded piece of white card that had been die cut with an Arch die on my table, so I stamped it with Waffle Flower's Poppy Hawthorn stamp set which was also out on my desk. (Do you think I should clear up?!) I coloured the flowers with Arteza  watercolour brush pens (also out on my table!!) and left the panel to dry.

 

Meanwhile, I trimmed a piece of Stampin' Up gingham DSP to size and glued it to a card base, adding a coordinating strip of card on the top. The dry floral panel was stamped with a sentiment and a line and secured to the card front with dimensional pads.

CHALLENGES

I'll be linking this card up at AAA Colourful :)

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Eva has disgraced herself I'm afraid. We went for a walk at a location we haven't been to for a long time and she was so excited she had a little roll in something very foxy indeed. The drive home was a little er, 'fragrant' and I don't think my OH will be coming out with us again for a while! After a full shampoo and blow dry, normal nasal service was resumed, but Eva looked like this:

 

Sending hugs,

Special Delivery

Hello, crafting friends!

 

A rummage in my card drawer revealed that I have no baby cards left and I am going to be needing some by the summer! After a further investigation in my stash, I came to the conclusion that I needed some new stamps! The beautiful Waffle Flower set I used today was a bargain find and I am delighted with it! Come and see:

 

The set comes with a solid background and some stamps to fill in the gaps, which makes it very versatile. I used Spun Sugar distress oxide ink for the background - a stamping platform is a must for even coverage here! - and coloured in the flowers and leaves with Arteza brush pens and a white Posca acrylic paint pen.

 

The adorable little bird was stamped on a snippet of white card. I added details with the paint pen and a black fineliner, then fussy cut him and popped him up on dimensional pads. The card was finished with some pale green enamel dots.

 

I can't wait to play with this set some more!

CHALLENGES

Krafty Chicks latest challenge is to use Stamps so I'm linking up there; I was inspired by the pastel colour theme at Colourful Options - I adore a pastel colour scheme! Triple B are celebrating Blooms Birds and Butterflies as usual, so I'm joining in there as well. Special Delivery is a new stamp set to me so I shall pop over to Darnells NBUS Challenge with this card :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS

After a lovely walk in the sunshine today, the golden girls and I were able to relax in the garden for a bit. Eva is my cover girl today and what a beauty she is!

 

She is the sweetest girl who loves people and other dogs and makes friends wherever she goes. She has enjoyed her training and is pretty reliable now - in fact it's hard to remember that when she was Lulu's age, she had only just settled down from being a terrible wild puppy!

Sending hugs,

Playing with layers

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome back to The Flower Challenge where we are going for layers this month!

 

 

I'm not usually very comfortable with lots of layers, but I've gone all out on this card with a layered background and a spring bouquet layered up with foliage and flowers!

 

The design started with a neutral background, layered with a strip of an ancient SU paper. I trimmed this to size with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and stamped the bottom corner with my sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's Perfect Sentiments.

 

The bouquet was made up of the Greetery's Inside Out foliage dies, cut from black card; and the Wildflower dies, also from the Greetery, cut from white card and coloured with inks and daubers and coloured pencils. I glued everything in place and finished with a rustic twine bow.

 

Okay, now it's your turn! Do hop over to The Flower Challenge blog won't you - there is some incredible inspiration from the design team! When you're ready to share your own design, you can use the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post. Do make sure flowers are the focus of your design and have fun creating!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Seize the Birthday where Linda has chosen the Topping of Spring Floral. Also Addicted to Stamps and More where the challenge is to Use Dies and/or Stencils.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

There's lots of talk about spring but, after a reprieve of a day or two, the rain and the mud is back :/ But the golden girls don't mind a mucky walk and they get to have a spa treatment or two afterwards before a cordon bleu dinner in the Kitchen Restaurant and relaxation in The Lounge Area.

 

Lulu wonders what happened to those cucumber slices for her eyes...? You ate them Lulu!

Sending hugs,