21st birthday arches

Hello, crafting friends!

 

You know that moment when you realise you have to get your niece's birthday card in the post straight away and then you remember it's her 21st birthday... eeek! Well, you know my mantra: When in doubt, reach for the stencils!!

 

The Greetery's beautiful Mistletoe Arches layered stencil set has done sterling service in the Craft Square Metre with wedding, sympathy and birthday cards as well as the Christmas cards it was designed for. So why not a 21st birthday card?! After stenciling the arches, the sentiment was put together with a couple of stamp sets from Uniko and some dies for the 21st bit.

 

This photo was to try to capture the different colours and textures of gold. The leaves were finished with Wink of Stella gold, and the berries a deep gold using a marker. The 'fabulous' was heat embossed in gold and the '21st' was cut out of sparkly gold paper.

Hope she liked it!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Allsorts where Lorraine has chosen the theme Anything but a Square; Inkspirational has a Use Stencils challenge this month as does Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Goes; I'm also joining in the Happy Little Stampers Birthday challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

At the bottom of the fields behind our house there's a hedge and, for those in the know, a little hidden archway in it. The arched tunnel leads to quite a steep bank and down to a stream - one of Eva's favourite places to play! It's getting harder for the old joints, but I can still duck through the archway and navigate the bank, hurling myself across the stream at the bottom and up the other side. This is a short cut to the park with its enticing river and means Eva and I don't have to pound the pavements through the town to get there the conventional way! But that archway gets overgrown so, the other day, I performed the annual clipping to ensure we can still get through. That evening I was out with friends and at some point in the evening, while pushing my hair back, brought out a twig!! Honestly, I remember the days when I could still scrub up reasonably well for an evening out!

 

Me on an evening out!

Sending hugs,

Spring flowers for Mothers Day

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome back to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge! Today, it's my turn for the privilege of coming up with a board to inspire you 8 different ways :)

 

There's a real spring vibe about the board because I'm so excited about everything coming up in the garden! I went for the diagonal from bottom left: Use a Stencil/Flowers/Sentiment to create a card for Mothers Day which is coming up in the UK on 19th March.

 

I got out some favourite spring flower stamps from Clearly Besotted and used masking techniques to create the flower grouping. I watercoloured the flowers, adding detail with coloured pencils when the image was completely dry.

 

To finish, I positioned an arch stencil from The Greetery over the group and sponged blue ink through it. Once the stencil was removed I stamped the greeting in soft grey ink and added clear dots for that 'fresh as the morning' feel!

 

Okay, so now it's your turn! Which row or column will you choose? Or are one of the diagonals calling to you? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog to check out the amazing inspiration from the design team. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your own creation with us. I'm looking forward to seeing how you use my board!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up at We Love Stamping which has a Spring is in the Air theme this month; also Hand stamped Sentiments where I used the pretty sketch; I'm also joining in at Retro Rubber where Anything Goes using stamps older than a year (the tulips and daffs were released in 2018 and the blossoms in 2019.) And I'm going for the Anything Goes option at Allsorts this week.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Sorry I've been a bit AWOL recently. What with regular visits to the dentist with my youngest son, wedding planning and sorting out Eva and her pals' social lives, I've been the busiest of bees. My allotment is calling for attention, the garden needs a good tidy up and as for the house - well, shall we say that a spring clean is definitely on the cards!! And talking of cards... I have a few made that need blogging and am trying to come to terms with some new technology. Help! Whelm is happening!

 

Perhaps I should take a leaf out of Eva's book and have a relaxing spa day...?!

Sending hugs,

The Wedding arch

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I am continuing to be besotted with my Mistletoe Arches layered stencil set from The Greetery and after making a birthday card, a Christmas card and a sympathy card with them, have turned my attention to weddings! We went to a wedding this weekend, and the invitation we received for it used these gorgeous colours!

 

I started by stenciling the leaves onto a panel and trimming it to size. Then, after positioning the arch mask in the middle with temporary glue, I sponged the dark purple ink very lightly in from the edges. I replaced the arch mask with the arch stencil and sponged a light purple ink into it. When the stencil was removed, I was left with a paler purple arch with a thin white line around it, which really adds to the impression of dimension but without any bulk.

 

I stamped one of the sentiments from The Greetery's Arched Sentiments set inside the arch and added a stamped, gold-embossed and die cut sentiment from the same set. Finally I added the berries using the stencil and a gold pencil, then shaded with a gold marker and added white dots for extra detail.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with the 700th challenge at Allsorts Huge congratulations to Brenda and the team there. Such an impressive milestone! The theme is Let's Celebrate - Any Special Occasion, and there are prizes so do join in!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Everyone seems to be gearing up for halloween in my neighbourhood. I do not enjoy this 'celebration' in the slightest but I did see some things in a shop window that gave me a good chuckle:

 

Click on the pic to get the details! I hope they give you a laugh too!

Sending hugs,

An arch of sympathy

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I hope you're having a great weekend and are ready to join in with another clean and simple challenge at Addicted to CAS :) Vicki is hosting this week and she has chosen Sympathy as her code word. 

 

If you've visited my blog any time this week, you may have noticed that I'm completely obsessed with my new Mistletoe Arches stencil set from The Greetery... and yes, I'm still using it today!

 

The full arch is a bit full on for a CAS card, so I just taped over the lower parts of the stencil and just inked in the top of the arch (if you try this, use low tack tape and be very careful when removing it so that you don't damage your stencil.)

 

I chose blue and grey inks and stamped the beautiful sentiment from Waffleflower's Lighthouse stamp set in black. Finally, I stenciled the berries using a silver pencil and added details with markers.

Okay, it's over to you! Do hop over to the Addicted to CAS challenge blog to check out the gorgeous samples my teamies have made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your own creation when you're ready. Don't forget to keep your card nice and clean and simple with lots of nice clear space - but above all, have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up at the Happy Little Stampers challenge where Anything Stenciled Goes; and also Less is More where there's a Recipe challenge and the theme is Use a Stencil.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I love it when people add seasonal touches to their shops and cafés. This little door mat appeared outside one of my favourite cafés this week.

Sending hugs,

Singing under the mistletoe arches

Hello, crafting friends!

 

If you were here yesterday, you'll know that I have developed a mad passion for a new stencil set! I've already used it for an autumn birthday card HERE, and today it's taking an outing as it was intended - on a Christmas card!

 

I'm using the Mistletoe Arches stencil set from The Greetery and this time I wondered if I could stencil the arch using coloured pencils. I can tell you that it IS possible but NOT recommended; the the pencils need to be sharp but they wear down really quickly in the stencil. It also takes a lot longer than using ink and dauber! I do quite like the look though.

 

The stencil set includes an arch and I used it to sponge in a pale blue background in the centre of the leafy arch. I layered over a die cut musical stave and notes, added a die cut 'joy' above it and a stamped sentiment under it following the curve of the stave. These new dies and sentiment stamps are going to get loads of use - I love the movement they create on a card front.

 

Snippets were used in the making of this card and I have a tip for you:

 

You can die cut bits from the centre of panels you want to use for matting and when you place the smaller panel on top, no-one would ever know! Double the snippets! Cunning eh?!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with Rudolph Days where we make a Christmas card on the 25th of each month; I'm also joining in with the Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Stenciled Goes; The theme at Addicted to Stamps and More has come round to Die Cuts and/or Stencils so I shall link up there; I'm off to The Snippets Playground too where we share cards made with snippets; The Noted die set and the curved song title sentiment set are being aired for the first time so I shall nip over to Darnell's NBUS challenge to share them there!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I am lavishing attention on this beautiful lady this week.

 

Shhhh! Don't tell Eva!

Sending hugs,

Autumnal leafy arches

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Isn't it wonderful when a craft item arrives in your craft room and the ideas for using it come flooding at you? All I need is a bit of extra time to get them onto paper! The item in this case is a layering stencil from The Greetery called Mistletoe Arches. It's designed to  be used for Christmas cards but...

 

... I saw no reason that it shouldn't turn up on an autumn birthday card! I started this card by masking off the edges of a card base with low tack tape, stamping a background with a woodgrain background stamp and sponging yellow ink over the whole thing before removing the tape.

 

The next step was stenciling the arch over the background in layers using autumn coloured inks and adding detail with markers. The sentiment was made with two stamp sets from Uniko.

 

I added a little bird from The Greetery's Robin and Wren stamp set, stamped and fussy cut and attached to  the card front.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with Brenda's Colours of Autumn challenge at Allsorts; also Four Seasons challenge where the theme is Anything Goes Fall; I'm delighted that Darlene and Diane have also started their new Stencil Fun Challenge and am linking up there too; I'm playing along at Happy Little Stampers Birthday Challenge too where Anything Goes; This is the first outing for the Mistletoe Arches stencils so I'm playing at Darnell's NBUS challenge where we show off our Never Before Used Schtuff.

 

Also, a heads up: Allsorts are celebrating their 700th challenge this Saturday 29th October and there are prizes aplenty to be won! See you there :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS

On Saturday, OH decided it was time to curb the enthusiasm of some ivy in our back garden and Eva was delighted when she saw him getting out ladders and tarpaulin. She sees her role as general helper in the garden and this is exactly the kind of job she feels is her forté.

 

Here she is shredding some bits of woody stem - but wait, it appears to be raining leaves and Eva is quickly becoming the Incredible Disappearing Dog!

 

Sending hugs,