Fingers crossed

Hello, crafting friends!

It's Mothering Sunday in the UK today so I hope those who are celebrating will be spoilt :) Now, what would I like to do today? Hmm, maybe a little crafting...!

I've spotted some 'lucky' and 'green' challenges around Blogland so that's what's been on my mind, and I thought it would be the perfect moment to reach for my new Caring Hands stamp set by Waffle Flower. I stamped the crossed fingers hand, coloured it with alcohol markers, then added a lucky four-leaved clover from a very old Clearly Besotted set. Once I'd added a stem with a marker, I cut the whole thing out and attached it to a pale green circle layered with die cut vellum hearts

For the background, I used Background Builders Classics by Uniko to stamp a diagonal pattern onto a card panel in shades of green ink. I trimmed this to size with a Stitched Rectangle die by Heffy Doodle, then added my hand circle. Finally, I stamped a good luck sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks, snipped it out, and popped it up with dimensional pads.

CHALLENGES

I've used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches, flipping it upside down, and the theme of luck at CASology. The photo at Inspired By also helped with the luck theme and I've stretched out the green rainbow into straight lines! The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is Just Add Green, which I have done :) I shall also share this card at NBUS, the place to share our Never Before Used Schtuff! Thank you to all these challenges for entertaining me for a couple of hours!

AND IN OTHER NEWS 

It's been a difficult weekend with my little Eva. When she was a pup she was quite anxious so I had to train her to overcome her fears one step at a time. I often forget now that she ever had these kinds of problems but every now and then, something triggers her. Fireworks is an obvious one, but a strong wind often makes things seem alive and that can worry Eva. Yesterday, we were walking past a building site where there was a fabric barrier, and a gust of wind sent the fabric billowing out in front of us. Poor Eva tried to drag me into the road to get away from it and has been quite jumpy ever since. We will need to return to training for a while.

Sending hugs,

Hello there autumn!

Hello, crafting friends!

While romping about in the countryside with Eva, I'm definitely seeing some beautiful coloured leaves swirling about and lots of bright berries too. Very inspiring for cards!

The panel on this card started off with the Birch Trees stencil from Funky Fossil. I held it over a scrap of card stock and used a pale orange alcohol marker to add colour. While the stencil was still in place, I over-stamped the colour with a tree from White Christmas (retired) by Stampin' Up.

When the stencil was removed I coloured the trees with alcohol markers and added detail with a black fineliner pen. Then came the fun! I chose some tiny leaves from an ancient Clearly Besotted set called Flower Arrangement and stamped them in gorgeous autumnal colours. When those were done, the panel was trimmed with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die

I stamped a few more of the leaves directly onto the card base, using the panel as a guide. Then I stamped more of the leaves on scrap card, cut them out and popped them up for a bit of dimensional interest. The sentiment is from WPlus9's Strictly Sentiments 2, cut out with a stitched rectangle die.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So happy that this card was the Diamond Winner at Color My Heart Color Dare  and a Librarian's Choice at The Library Challenge!

CHALLENGES

I was inspired by a few of the many autumn-themed challenges out there! The trees and falling leaves were from the Library Challenge's fabulous book cover; the colours from Color My Heart Color Dare's stunning inspiration graphic; I fell in love with the sketch from Fab Friday; and I made an autumnal scene as per this month's Autumn Glory theme at Stamping Sensations.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The leaves are beginning to drop now, and some of the trees are looking very autumnal, but you can see from this photo taken this morning...

... that there's still a lot of green around. Eva, who was on Squirrel Patrol, had scampered on ahead and had disappeared around that corner; I called her and am delighted to report that her recall was absolutely spot on - which is quite impressive under the squirrelly circumstances!

Sending 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,

King of the autumn leaf pile

Hello crafting pals!

Autumn has not so much snuck up on us as barged through the door without so much as a 'by your leave'! Ok then Mr Pushy Autumn, you have inspired me! Come and see what I've made:

Just look at that bold cockerel! I begin to understand where the term 'cock-a-hoop' comes from now - he is definitely pleased with himself at being king of the leaf pile! He's from Hen Pecked, a set bursting with hens, chicks and other useful images, and is made by Artistry Inc Ltd, a small company based in Leeds.

I stamped him on thick cardstock and coloured him in with Spectrum Noir markers. To make the leaf pile, I drew a sloping line under his feet with a fine liner and sponged autumnal colours under it. The leaf pile and the cockerel were cut out together and I then stamped leaves over the sponged area. Those leaves are among my most used stamps I think! They're from a retired Clearly Besotted set, Flower Arrangement, but there are lots of sets around that include small leaves like this.

The sky was sponged into a masked off area on the card base before adding the most 'cock-a-doodle-doo' sounding sentiment I could find! Finally, the cockerel and his leaf pile were attached using dimensionals so that he could stand even prouder!

It wasn't just Mr Autumn that inspired me today. I'd been having a stroll round the internet and had wanted to join in with LeAnne's 'Down on the Farm' challenge at the Paper Players. While I was visiting her blog, I spotted a new (to me) challenge, Inspired By, with the most gorgeous inspiration photo. I had also noted that The Male Room was looking for autumnal cards so I shall enter this card there too. 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

My oldest son has come to visit - yay! He did tell me he was coming but, in the time-honoured way of young men, was unable to tell me exactly when! He strolled in yesterday evening, surprising Eva and me. Eva wove around his legs trying not to jump up, making ecstatic hen noises as she does when her special people come home. I was rather more restrained, settling for a big hug and a kiss on the cheek - but I was just as delighted!

Thanks for visiting me today :) I think the summer is over in the UK. I'm off to see if I can remember where I put my woollies! See you tomorrow,

A bit of Christmas dating

Hello crafting pals!

You know when you find something in the crafting cupboard and immediately think of something to do with it? That's how today's card came about! Come and have a look:

So that's the card. And this is what it looked like before it developed into a proper grown up card:

Not ALL that exciting! The idea was to turn it into a significant Christmas date...

... which I did using a (very useful) retired Stampin' Up stamp set called 25 Days. The star was stamped twice, once in Garden Green and once in Crumb Cake inks. I cut the number 25 out with a circle punch and popped it up on the fussy cut star. The bold 'W for Wednesday' was inked up from the word 'twenty' and stamped on blue card, then glued over the original W. I highlighted the word December with a pale blue alcohol marker.

And then I thought of making a little snowy scene inside the 'wreath'.

I made a mask using a circle punch and also used a post it note to mask off the snowy foreground while inking the sky. After removing the post it note, the trees from Stampin' Up's Waterfront set were stamped in the circle mask, and snow added with a white gel pen. The wreath was turned into a berry wreath with a flower centre from a retired Clearly Besotted stamp set, Flower Arrangement (I seem to use these flower centres all the time but you could also use an eraser on the end of a pencil.) Adding tiny stalks and highlights on the berries makes them look more like berries! The card was finished with a faux button and a bakers twine bow and a sentiment from White Christmas.

Once I'd found the Project Life card, what really set me off making this card was the challenge at Jingle Belles, where the challenge is to include numbers, or to feature elements from The Twelve Days of Christmas. I'd really like to have done 3 French Hens or 7 Swans a-Swimming inside the wreath but will have to get myself hen and swan stamps first!

I shall also enter the card into Crazy Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge where 'Anything Goes, with an option to use something beginning with S' - there's snow and a star on my card :)

Is it me, or have I been rambling on for hours? Hopefully you've had a nice nap now and have woken refreshed - all part of the service!

Hugs,

Snippety splits!

Hello crafting pals!

I've been busy using up some of the left over snippets and am feeling quite smug! Here's what I made today:

You may recognise some of the essentials from this card (scroll down past challenge image) but it's taken on quite a different look hasn't it?! I'd stamped and fussy cut far too many of those pretty flowers (from Stampin' Up's Soft Spring) and it would have been a shame to waste them. I even rescued a ruined card base, sticking an off-cut of Pink Pirouette card stock to the front.

Do you like the split in the front? I was inspired As You See It, where the latest challenge is called Split Decision and this is the sketch:

I flipped the sketch, angled the horizontal element a little and took the split part of the title literally, stamping an old Clearly Besotted sentiment in the gap. The edges were finished off with a scored line.

The best part of using all those snippets, of course, is that I'll be able to skip over to Pixie's Snippet Playground where I'll be able to say hello to the playmates and Miss after a long time away. Will bring Eva with me - nothing in the Rools about whether we're allowed big floofy puppers with us and Eva wants to just CHECK to see if anyone has any snax she can share and also say a gentle hello to Dudley!

Thanks for rootling about here today and I hope to see you again soon!

Hugs,

Clearly Besotted with flowers

Hello crafting pals!

Today, I'm excited to join in with a challenge I've never come across before - The Flower Challenge. Florals are right up my street so I'm in!

This week's challenge is to use your favourite flower - and that was challenge enough for me because I love all flowers! But the sponsor this week is Clearly Besotted, a lovely tiny UK-based stamp and die manufacturer, and since I now own one of their older sets, Flower Arrangement, I went with that :) Come and see what I made:

I chose a couple of friendly-looking daisies, stamping them randomly in a circle to form a wreath using Stampin' Up Pumpkin Pie and Crushed Curry inks. Granny Apple Green leaves were stamped between the flowers to fill it out and different sized black centres added to the flowers. 

The flowers were clear-embossed to make them lovely and glossy and I used the emboss-resist technique to ink in a background. I'm not going to lie - it looked awful! I wasn't going to waste this project though, so I tried fussy-cutting the wreath and laying it against a blue card base which looked much cleaner!

The sentiment is from my favourite Alte&New Birthday Greetings. I doodled a banner round it and snipped it out, tucking it under one of the leaves and decorating it with an extra daisy. Enamel dots were added to some of the flowers for extra detail :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Yesterday, at the supermarket with my youngest son, I spotted a guy who had been a volunteer at the local pantomime along with us. I chattered away, finding him strangely unresponsive, about how much fun it had been at 'the panto' and finally he thanked me in a heavy teutonic accent and moved away. "I don't remember him being German," I said thoughtfully, turning to my son and finding him rigid with open-mouthed horror. I'd got the wrong person of course - so now there is an anxious German man wandering around our town, thinking I must have been admiring his trousers or something!

Thanks for dropping in today. I'll be back soon with more crafting fun!