Reddy for spring!

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I am currently filling the house with bright spring flowers in an effort to pretend winter is over. It helps! Potted hyacinths and daffodils are filling the rooms with their fresh scent and I have vases of tulips too. Which brings me to today's card:

 

How amazing are these tulip dies from the Greetery?!

 

I cut them from watercolour paper and coloured them with my Arteza watercolour brush pens. 

 

To display my tulips, I stamped a red gingham panel using a Kaisercraft stamp, drew some stems using one of the Arteza pens and positioned the flowers and leaves. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I glued everything in place and finished with a pretty birthday greeting from the Greetery's Arched Sentiments, stamped and die cut.

CHALLENGES

I used Jen B's fabulous sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to create this card. I flipped the sketch - I hope you can see how I used it! I'm also joining in with Seize the Birthday where JoAnn's Topping is Use Red as the Main Color; Lorraine has chose Spring as her optional theme at Allsorts and I'm sending my tulips along there; I've not used my Tulips die before so will take it for an airing at Darnell's NBUS Challenge where it's all about Never Before Used Schtuff!

 

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I am more than ready for spring I can tell you! Here's a rare sighting of the Blonde Bombshells in all their pristine fluffiness:

 

Needless to say, this photo was taken at the beginning of our walk. See all that mud behind them? A few frolics later and that mud will transfer itself to my girls and they will turn into a pair of Grubs! Luckily there is a clean stream at the end of this walk so we will swap muddiness for sogginess!

Sending hugs,

Time for some good news...

Hello, crafting friends!

Yes, I have some happy news to share with you today: I have been invited to join the talented design team at the Tic Tac Toe challenge! For those of you that haven't come across it before, it's a weekly challenge which inspires you to create using options on a tic tac toe board. It's great fun and winners get the chance to become a guest designer, so do come and play along!

It's not actually my turn to submit a design team sample this week, but I can't resist playing along anyway! I chose the bottom row: Doily/checks/ice cream (see challenges below for the full board.) 

Everything I used for this card was found in the snippets box! The doily had been hanging around for ages but I cut the good bits out of it and used it to peek out behind my background layer which had been stamped with Gingham by Kaisercraft for some project or other, but not used. The ice creams were a little bargain I picked up at Hobbyycraft for just pennies! I stamped and cut them out of very small snippets of card stock, and decorated them using markers and a little heart. 

Finally, I added a sentiment from  Clearly Besotted's Sweet Berries, stamped in versamark on black card stock and heat embossed in white, then snipped into a banner.

CHALLENGES

I'm playing for fun at the Tic Tac Toe challenge *waves hello to my new teamies*; I'm also linking up with The Snippets Playground, where we must make a card using off cuts and scraps (everything on my card was a scrap from my snippets box except the card base; I'm also joining in at Addicted to Stamps and More where they're celebrating Any Occasion.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When my children were growing up, an ice cream parlour opened in our little market town. I am a huge fan of good quality ice cream - and the lady that ran this establishment made the ice creams by hand, using organic milk and cream, fruits in season and other luxurious flavourings. They tasted SO good! The children and I used to make an outing of it; we'd walk down to the town, spend what seemed to be hours choosing our flavours, then walk down to the river to eat our ice creams while chatting and laughing in the sun. Such good memories! 

Sending hugs,

The Gardening square metre

Hello, crafting friends!

Since the weather isn't enabling me to get out into the garden, I've decided to do some gardening in the Craft Square Metre instead! 

It's a bit early for an apple crop as we're still at blossom stage, but I wanted to give some love to this apple branch from Apples and Pears by Clearly Besotted. I stamped it in green ink, watercoloured it, left it to dry  and then fussy cut it. The background was made in the same green with a mix of stamping (from Stampin' Up's Waterfront), ink blending and watercolouring. 

When it was dry, I added a gingham border with Kaisercraft's Gingham. Under that, I glued a piece of red card stock and embellished it with a strip of patterned green washi tape. The panel was cut out with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and the apple tree glued over the top. In all the excitement, the top left hand corner got damaged so I added a photo corner style trim with the washi tape and I think I got away with it! 

The sentiment is the Thank You Border die from Lawn Fawn, which I trimmed down for a different look. To finish the card, I knotted some twine round the card and made a little tasseled end, and added a tiny die-cut heart to the gingham.

CHALLENGES

Festive Friday are celebrating National Gardening Week and I have chosen plants, green and twine from their inspiration list; I was also inspired by the mood board at Create A Smile so I'm linking up there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

This card feels as if it was made by someone else! I normally make quite CAS cards but this one seems to have a lot going on. Do  you ever find that you've made something completely out of your normal style?

Sending hugs,

Hearts and flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

I think I'm preaching to the converted here when I suggest that an hour or two of crafting a day keeps the head doctor away! Card challenges are particularly fun because it's great to have a few rules and boundaries to keep us on your toes. And they often lead us down paths we may not have taken left to ourselves.

When I came up for air after making this card I was quite astonished at how it turned out! I wouldn't necessarily have chosen red and purple together but I love it - they were colours in the inspiration photo. It wouldn't have come naturally to me to place the flowers there but the sketch suggested it. Silver sequins? A nod to the silver heart in the inspiration photo. 

The background was made by positioning Stampin' Up's retired Hardwood stamp on the card base in my stamping platform. I inked the stamp up and then sponged away the ink where I didn't want it, which is what has given this fade-out look. I still don't have any heart dies (!) so I just drew a heart, cut it out and stamped it with Gingham by Kaisercraft.

The flowers were cut with small flower punches then coloured with alcohol markers. I paired them with a die cut from the Holiday Foliage die set by Flora and Fauna. The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted's Blossoms in Bloom.

CHALLENGES

I just can't resist the inspiration at Inspired By these days - thank you ladies! - so I'm joining in there. I used Heather's intriguing sketch at As You See It to arrange all my elements so I'm linking up there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It snowed at the weekend, much to Eva's delight. Golden Retrievers were bred as gun dogs in the highlands of Scotland. They have double coats to insulate them and webbed feet for swimming, and think nothing of being out for a day, splashing in and out of the freezing rivers and streams to retrieve birds (or sticks in Eva's case!) 

Sadly Eva has a very silly owner who would rather not be out in the snow for the day, and is inclined to set off home after only an hour or two...!

 

Sending hugs,

A rummage through the snippets box

Hello, crafting friends!

I don't know about you but it feels like ages since I looked at my craft stash. I decided to make cards to thank friends and relatives for their gifts but my mojo appeared to still be in festive mode and thought we should have some more of those nice chocolates and watch a film instead! It was tempting, but I told Mr Mojo that we'd do nothing of the kind, reached for my snippets box and tipped out the contents.

And there we are - instant inspiration! It's always such a good idea to have a play with all those things you stamped and coloured but then didn't use, or the things that were trimmed off things you did use, or the embellishments you die cut but then went with something different instead... Here's what I made today:

A collage of (from left to right) a piece of card snipped off a stitched die cut frame, a trimming from card stock that had been stamped with Gingham by Kaisercraft, a small strip of striped green paper and two skinny strips of Christmas paper by Stampin' up, and finally, a 'ric rac' that was the lucky result of some die cutting with Lawn Fawn's Wavy Borders.

After attaching everything to the card base, I added a popped up sentiment from Hello and Thanks by WPlus9 that I'd once stamped and fussy cut but never used. There were two die cut silver snowflakes in the box too and I used those embellished with clear gems.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

Thrilled to see that my snippety card won a diamond award at Color My Heart Color Dare!

CHALLENGES

This is my entry for the Grand Prize Draw at the Snippet Playground where Miss Di is doing a sterling job of brightening the end of this unpleasant year. I'm also going to link up my traditional Christmas colours with Color My Heart Color Dare 423.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We've had a restful and happy Christmas with excellent food (although perhaps a little too much of it!) A certain young lady became rather excited at the present opening and offered to help everyone unwrap their gifts. Fortunately, before things got out of hand, she was given her own present. She spent some delightful moments savaging the wrapping before discovering a plush tree trunk with little squeaky animals inside. Pulling the little animals out of her tree stump kept her bus all through Singing In The Rain after lunch!

Sending hugs, 

Christmas with a crunch!

Hello, crafting friends!

Today I'm showing you one of the cards I made but couldn't share until it had arrived. This one was made for my daughter and her partner and I'm happy to say it made them smile!

Aren't these the cutest gingerbread people? They're from Mama Elephant and I just couldn't resist them! I made a background on the card base with my Gingham byackground stamp by Kaisercraft, adding some fade out stencilling using the Knitted stencil from Funky Fossil.

The plate of gingerbread people and the separate biscuits were stamped in light brown ink, coloured with alcohol markers and fussy cut. I glued the plate to the card and popped the little gingerbread people up on dimensionals.

The card was finished with a sentiment made from two stamps in Stampin' Up's Merry Christmas to All. I am increasingly drawn to sentiment sets that enable me to mix and match words and fonts :)

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with Chocolate Baroque's Anything Goes challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We've been talking about Christmas advertisements in our family. OH mentioned there had been a lot of CGI adverts recently and I said I thought that they were a very successful way for companies to get the attention of families. Kevin the Carrot was one of the most successful campaigns for one of the supermarkets, I added, and the company even got to sell merchandise every year on the back of it. "Kevin the Carrot," said OH. "Is that a CGI ad?" We all stared at him. " Oh no," said my daughter with a deadpan expression, "I think they hired an actual carrot for that one!"

Sending hugs,

Truly grateful

Hello, crafting friends!

Although we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK, I personally think that gratitude is a brilliant idea any day of the week or time of the year. But today's card was made for all my crafting pals in the US, many of whom will be having a scaled-back version of Thanksgiving this year. Thank you for always being there to make me gasp with your talent and smile with your fun :)

I started this card by cutting a card panel with a Heffy Doodle stitched rectangle die and stamping the bottom third with the Gingham stamp by Kaisercraft. The gingham was topped with a lantern from a new stamp set by Reverse Confetti called... yes, you've guessed it: Lanterns! 

I stamped one of the candles from the set inside the lantern, then made a mask to cover it up so that I could blend some ink into the background, using a circle stencil to create a glow from the flame. Once the mask was removed, I coloured the candle and lantern using alcohol markers.

The Lanterns set contains a Christmas and an autumn arrangement and I chose the autumnal one with its leaves and pumpkins. It was stamped, coloured and fussy cut and then I popped it up on dimensionals in front of the lantern. The finishing touches were the sentiment from Reverse Confetti's Fall Foliage, and the hearts, which came from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

Delighted that this card was the Diamond Winner at Color My Heart Dare :)

CHALLENGES

I used the gorgeous autumn colour palette at Color My Heart Color Dare 421 where I chose all the colours except Desert Rose. I'm also linking up with Make My Monday where the challenge is Thankful and joining in with Heidi's Occasions challenge at Watercooler Wednesday. I shall also share at NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) with the lovely Lanterns stamp set.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I started a gratitude journal about five years ago while recovering from illness and have been keeping one ever since. Before I settle down for the night, I go back over my day and write a list of all the things I'm grateful for, ignoring anything that hasn't been so great. I highly recommend this habit - especially during the uncertain times we are living in now - as it's a way of focusing on all that is good in our lives. A warning though, I started with a tiny notebook but now regularly run out of space in my  A5 page-a-day journal!

Thank you for visiting me today! Sending hugs,

Lavender notes

Hello crafting friends!

The sun is back out and I've been back out in the garden, surrounded by flowers, so naturally it's a floral card kind of a day today! Come and see:

The lavender certainly isn't out yet in my garden but I was feeling a bit of purple so I went with these flowers from Stampin' Up's Soft Spring, which I turned into lavender sprigs by leaving out the leaves. (I don't know what flowers they're supposed to be but those leaves are definitely not lavender!)

It's a layering stamp set, so I inked up the flower part of the outline stamp with a purple marker and stamped it, adding the infill stamp over the top using a stamping platform. I drew the stems with a green marker and then cut the sprigs out.

For the background I went for a bit of grey weathered wood, using Stampin' Up's Hardwood, stamped off the edge of a card panel. Above that, I attached a snippet of card stock stamped with Kaisercraft's Gingham in purple ink. The lavender was arranged in a little bunch and I added a die cut bow from MFT's Birthday Cocktail set. The sentiment is from Simply Said by Clearly Besotted and I added three tiny little white hearts underneath.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
So pleased this card was a Top 3 Pick at Double D!

CHALLENGES
I was totally inspired by Double D's wonderful mood board and the theme of Lavenders, Lilac, Purple. I'm also linking up with Stamping Sensations, where the theme this month is Say It With Flowers.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My youngest son is staying with us during lockdown but spends most of his time working on his university work and his portfolio. He does his exercising in the afternoon, taking Eva with him for extra walkies :) On his return today, he had a look at today's card. "You probably won't like that one," I said. "It's not really your thing!" But he is always encouraging. "I love the purple!" he said. "And I like the picnic cloth pattern!" It took me a moment but, bless him, that's his way of saying gingham!

I hope you are keeping safe and well.

Hugs,

Look - no hearts!

Hello crafting pals!

I like the idea of sending love via a piece of folded card stock, but I know that not everyone is a fan of hearts or cute images. I've had an idea about that though - come and see:

This is the card that blows a raspberry in the faces of the cute valentine! (Sorry, couldn't resist!) To start the card off I stamped an off-cut of card stock with the Gingham background by Kaisercraft and glued it to a card base. Next, I stamped the raspberry image from Clearly Besotted's Sweet Berries twice on a card panel, and had fun colouring it with alcohol markers. I trimmed the top and bottom of the panel away and attached it to the card base, allowing some of the leaves to overlap the gingham.

The sentiment comes with the berry set and the shape of the raspberries made a nice area for stamping it. Oh dear, it's a pretty cute sentiment isn't it, so it looks like I've undone all my good work!

I didn't want to detract from the image with any embellishments but, to ground it, I embossed a straight line on the berry panel and drew a line either side of it with a ruler and a black fineliner.

CHALLENGES
There's a new Make Your Mark challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More so I shall link this card up there; The colours come courtesy of this week's Paper Players challenge and seemed so perfect for this idea - although the Rich Razz looks quite purple in my photos, so perhaps the fruit is some kind of mulberry/ raspberry cross...?!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I think I'm going to draw a line under today. First Eva put a muddy footprint on a throw before I could ask her not to, so I had to do an extra wash; then later, when we went for our main walk in the flooded fields, I discovered my beloved Sealand wellies had a hole in them at the ankle so I had to walk with a soggy sock; in the afternoon, I made a mad dash to an upcycled furniture shop in a nearby town, only to find that the info on the internet was wrong and they closed earlier than stated.

On the other hand, I read somewhere that it's not our right to be alive every day, so each day we wake up is a gift. That certainly puts it into perspective! Compared to the alternative, it's been a BRILLIANT day!

How has your day been?

A farmhouse Christmas

Hello crafting friends!

I'm thrilled to bits to be Guest Designing at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown today! YAY! *pops champagne corks, blows party hooter*

This weekly challenge is here to inspire you to create four Christmas cards a month for the whole year. Just think... no last minute panic! It really flexes your creative muscles too - which leads me on to today's challenge:

Make a festive card using the colours White, Yellow and Brown. Well, I've got to be honest, this colour combination didn't exactly yell Christmas at me but I had a little think and this is what I came up with:

It's a Christmas card with a farmhouse feel! The bottom of my panel was stamped with Kaiserkraft's Gingham using Stampin' Up's Early Espresso ink, a lovely dark brown. I shaded where the candle would be with a pale yellow pencil to give a nice glowing effect.

The candle image is an old one from Alota Stamps, which is sadly no longer trading now. I stamped it with Crumb Cake ink, then coloured it with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers in shades of yellow and brown, before fussy cutting it and popping it up on dimensionals. The fir branches were given the Wink of Stella treatment to add a bit of festive sparkle.

When I came to the candle, I coloured the whole lot in a pale yellow, then used a clear blender pen to 'lift' the colour from the wax.  I love the effect this creates - look! here's another version in blue :)

To finish the card, I added a sentiment from Endless Wishes (retired) by Stampin' Up, then mounted the panel onto deep yellow card stock before attaching it to the card base. And for the final touch, a sprinkling of gems, coloured with a dark yellow alcohol pen before attaching to the card.

CHALLENGES

I shall also link this card up with Happy Little Stampers Christmas challenge where it's Anything Goes (with the optional extra theme Trim the Tree.)

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Driving home at around dusk yesterday evening, I was amazed by the full moon - one of those huge orange ones. And when I got out of the car, I saw that on the opposite side of the sky, there was a bright star that looked actually star-shaped.

Did you see it?  Now, if I was the kind of person that believed in these kind of things, I'd predict that something pretty special was going to happen!

Hugs,