A Winter thank you

Hello, crafting friends,

 

Welcome to a new challenge at The Flower Challenge! For November we'd like to see your floral thank you cards:

I do like to have a little stash of wintery thank you cards ready to send after Christmas. This one uses a new-to-me Altenew set called Hope and features what looks like a camelia - which always seem such magical flowers, blooming like hot house flowers but in the depths of winter!

 

The layered camelia and leaves were inked up with distress oxide inks and fussy cut. I teamed these with winter foliage and berry stencils from The Greetery's Banner and Bough set, stenciling directly onto a thick card front. I added fir branches using the coordinating stamp set, then glued the flower in place. I love how the pink flower really pops against the dark blue greens!

 

To create a frosty look, I used a pale blue-green ink to sponge round the edges of the card front and stamped more fir branches over the top using the same ink. A tiny sentiment from Clearly Besotted finished the card.

 

Do hop over to The Flower Challenge blog and check out the amazing designs my team mates have come up with to inspire you! You can enter your own card from there using the blue Linky button at the bottom of that post. We're looking forward to seeing what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up over at Allsorts' Magic of the Season challenge. Brenda, who organises this long-running challenge, has just announced some changes to the format and is looking for new design team members. Do hop over and check out the details HERE.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Firework season has descended upon us again. Pretty sparkly stars bursting in the sky are lovely and often don't come with loud noises - and of course you can draw blinds and curtains if your pets are averse; but can someone please explain to me why people are attracted to what sounds like the noises of war complete with exploding bombs, and gunfire? Also, why do these seem to get louder every year? Poor Eva had a tough time of it on Saturday but Lulu, who is very sensitive to voices or the sound of cars outside, was quite calm through the explosions. She didn't like seeing Eva so frantic though. There were more fireworks yesterday too and this will go on for another couple of weeks until we can finally relax until new year. 

 

Sending hugs,

The colours of a winter morning

Hello, crafting friends!

Fancy a little colour inspiration? Well it's time for a colour challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches and I can't wait to see what you make of them! Julie is our host this month and she has come up with this gorgeous combination:

It reminded me of a morning sky and prompted me to create a watercolour blend with the blue and pink.

TIP: When making a watercolour blended background, paint the area of the watercolour paper you want to colour with clear water to start with. When you paint your ink over the water, it will stay in the wet area.

Once my background had dried, I inked up a stamp from Corner Bouquet by Stampin' Up with my grey and stamped the image in the corner.

To finish my card I added a Clearly Besotted sentiment and added a few sequins.

Are you ready to join in? Hop over to the CAS Colours & Sketches challenge blog to see my teamies' fabulous samples and inspiration from special Guest Designer Valérie too. When you've created your card, you can link up there too - but remember, we are a CAS challenge so we like to see plenty of clear space and minimal layers!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking my card up with Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge where Anything Goes; I'm also joining in with Just Add Ink where the challenge is to Just Add A Blended Background.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

So it's Shrove Tuesday today (also known as Mardi Gras.) Apparently people all over Britain like to indulge in pancake racing, where they run races with a frying pan in their hands, flipping a pancake as they run! I can tell you that I have never in my life seen a pancake race and of course this year is unlikely to be the year I do! On the other hand, I've seen lots of people eating pancakes with every sign of enjoyment and look forward to indulging in a spot that myself later on today!

Sending hugs,

Autumn beauty

Hello, crafting friends!

One of the great pleasures of autumn is seeing the leaves turn into beautiful ambers, reds, golds, tans and every shade in between. You do get a lot of wind and rain but every now and then Mother Nature seems to take a breath, and the sun comes out, and you get to see the glowing colours of autumn against a pure blue sky. That's what inspired today's card:

I started by sponging some Tumbled Glass distress ink onto a card panel and stamping leaves from WPlus9's Modern Roses over it. The panel was trimmed to size with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle.

The leaves were stamped again on some offcuts of card stock, coloured with alcohol markers in shades of orange and each individual leaf cut out. The leaves were then glued over the stamped leaves on the card panel - this makes them really pop against the background. I added a bit of detail by clapping wet hands over the panel and, when it was dry, stamping a sentiment from Clearly Besotted and some blue sequins.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Inkspirational, where I was inspired by the leaves against the sky in the inspiration photo; Color Hues, where the colour duo this fortnight is Orange and Blue; and Watercooler Wednesday where it's Karen's turn to host the Occasions challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Thank you to everyone that has been lovely about Eva. She is definitely on the mend. The swelling on her ear flap is beginning to come down already and doesn't seem to bother her at all - she doesn't scratch or paw at it or shake her head. Her ear infection seems to have cleared nicely too although I will continue to monitor her ears.

Getting wet is not the best plan for Eva at the moment but the weather can be pretty unpredictable here. Here she is with her pal Jasper after an eventful walk in torrential rain with an added thunder storm! Those ears had to be extra well-dried today!

Sending hugs, 

A corner of autumn leaves

Hello, crafting friends!

I've no idea why the autumn has been taking its time to arrive but the leaves are beginning to turn now and the wind is picking up so I daresay things will start moving along quite quickly now. That was enough to inspire me to do a little autumn crafting anyway!

I got my Reverse Confetti Fall Foliage set out for this CAS little number, stamping some of the leaves on scrap card stock and colouring them with a mix of Spectrum Noir and Stampin' Up alcohol markers. 

The leaves were fussy cut and arranged on the corner of a panel trimmed with a Heffy Doodle stitched rectangle die. I added a simple thank you sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Elegant Butterflies before attaching the panel to a card base.

CHALLENGES

I was inspired by The Sisterhood of Crafters, where the theme is Autumn Inspiration and by the beautiful colours at CAS Colours and Sketches. This simple card has a masculine vibe so I'm also joining in at Watercooler Wednesday where Heidi's challenge is Anything Goes With A Masculine Twist.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

In this action shot (!) of Eva having an enthusiastic roll, the leaves are actually dead ones from last year that the wind is flushing out.

Eva is fine with that. She would prefer a dead bird or something to roll in but hey, she'll take whatever there is!

Sending hugs,

A cup of thanks

Hello crafting friends!

I was lucky enough to win a card challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches last year and am delighted to join the team as guest designer for the month of January *skips about happily*

Here's the challenge for this week:

A gorgeous colour combination that I would NEVER have thought of! Here's what I came up with:

It's a 'cup of thanks' card using an intriguing little set from WPlus9 called Hello and Thanks, which contains lovely words, a cup, flowers and little birds. I always love a versatile set with loads of elements like this :)

I made a little surface to rest my cup on using Hardwood (retired) by Stampin' Up. The cup and saucer were stamped in grey, coloured with Spectrum Noir markers, cut out using sharp paper snips and glued to the surface.

I wanted the flowers to be the focus so I stamped them in black ink before colouring them and fussy cutting them. They were attached to the top of the cup using dimensionals. I slipped a little thank you tag underneath, tied with a piece of Bermuda Bay bakers twine.

To complete the card, I matted the panel onto Bermuda Bay card stock and attached it to the card base.

CHALLENGES
The sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch was my starting point for this card so I shall link my card up there.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My youngest son went back to uni yesterday so the house seems very quiet with the family gone off to their various lives, and it's fairly quiet on the dog front too. But it's all good because I'll have time to give my house a bit of love this month as well as crafting my socks off!

What do you have planned for January? Are you off on your holidays to find the sunshine? Perhaps you're starting a new job or have signed up for a health and fitness regime? Or maybe you're doing nothing but crafting and you don't even care!! Let me know in the comments below!

Hugs,

Pansies on centre court

Hello crafting friends!

The trouble with autumn is that it's not long before it morphs into winter and when it does, we lose most of the flowers. What is a girl to do? Well, this girl nips over to Clearly Besotted to add to her collection of their beautiful flower stamps! Come and see:

This gorgeous image is from Pretty Pansies which I spotted in the Sale section (along with two other beautiful floral sets which may or may not have found their way into my basket!) I had great fun colouring the flowers and leaves with a mixture of Spectrum Noir and SU Blendability pens. The best thing is that winter flowering pansies come in all sorts of colours so the fun isn't going to stop here!

I fussy cut my pansies, decorated them with gold thread and mounted them on a trellis-style designer paper. Actually, when I say 'trellis' I realise it's more 'chain link fence'... but that's fine, they can be tennis court pansies! The card was finished with a sentiment from another Clearly Besotted set, Elegant Butterflies.

Jen Mitchell's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was calling me this week, so I shall link this card up there.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

A few other houses in our area revealed spooky and scary decorations this morning when I took the dogs out. Eva knew there was something not quite right about those cobwebby hedges and gave an 'aroooo' before we disappeared into the fields! 

Thanks for coming to visit me today. I shall be back soon :)

Hugs,

Crafters really are the best!

Hello crafting pals!

Back in the summer, my lovely Blogland friend Sylvie sent me some stamps by Crafty Individuals, a UK stamp manufacturer I'd never come across before (do pop over and have a look at their blog!). Naturally, I settled straight down with some of the stamps to make a card to say thank you! Come and see:

These flowers from CI-293 are so unusual. They come on a large sheet that you can separate into individual stamps and what I love about them is that the designs come in several sizes - always so useful.

I used coral colours to stamp the flowers onto a card panel. I also stamped them on scrap card so that I could punch the centres out with a circle punch and pop them up on dimensionals.

I added another smaller flower from the set between the large blooms, and gave all the flowers pairs of leaves from Flower Arrangement by Clearly Besotted (retired). Lines were scored below the flowers to ground them and I added a Clearly Besotted sentiment (from Elegant Butterflies). The card was finished with some coloured gems, some dots stamped with a scoring tool, and a length of coral twine tied up in a bow.

Thanks again Sylvie for your lovely gift. I adore these stamps!

I'm linking this card up with The Flower Challenge where this month Anything Goes!
Edited to add: Er... no I won't. I've only flippin' well missed the deadline - again!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Now that the cooler weather has settled in, I'm finding it hard to find something to wear. Do you have this trouble? This kind of weather must have happened before, so what did I wear then? This happens to me every time the seasons change! I think I might have to keep some kind of clothes diary - it's not as if I don't have a wardrobe groaning with clothes!

If you have the answer to the clothes conundrum, do let me know in the comments below. And how about Crafty Individuals? Have you come across their stamps before? Are you a fan? I'd love to hear what you think.

Hugs,

Hello, old friend

Hello crafting friends!

When I returned to stamping after that four year break, I SO missed my library of stamp sets. I loved making today's card because it uses a stamp set I adored. It disappeared, of course, in The Great Stash Cull but, recently, a kind, kind lady sent me a box of goodies that she 'didn't need any more' (bless her generous heart!) and there it was: Sheltering Tree. It was like re-uniting with an old friend. Come and see:

This is a long, tall, thin card 8 cm x 20.5 cm (8" x 3 1/8") an unusual size for me but I had an envelope that size! I used a mask made with circle punches and sponged with Crumb Cake ink to make a sort of fantasy landscape background.

When it came to stamping the trees, I wanted smaller ones towards the top to create a sense of perspective. So I used a Soft Suede marker to ink up only the inner part of the tree image and stamped that at the top; the next tree was inked up with the same marker, covering slightly more of the tree; then, finally I was able to stamp the full-sized tree in the foreground.

The leaves are a separate stamp and I did exactly the same thing, using a variety of rust and brown markers. Some of these leaves look green in the photo, but they are actually added with a gold marker and add a pretty glow in real life.

The panel was finished with a pretty sentiment from Clearly Besotted and then matted onto Cajun Craze card stock before attaching to the card base.

(Click here if you'd like to see other cards I made using Sheltering Tree - quite a trip down memory lane!)

I was inspired to make this tall skinny card when I saw The Paper Players' challenge this week; I kept the colour palette to the browns and rust colours of this month's Rainbow Card Challenge,  so will also be linking up there.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
In case anyone is wondering how my youngest son is getting on at uni, he has sent me photos of how he's made his room look fabulous - he really has a talent for this :) He added that he didn't have time to chat as he was going to a party! I don't think I need to worry too much about him, do you?!

Thanks for popping in today. Do you have a favourite stamp set that you'd hate to lose? Do let me know what it is in the comments below!

Hugs,