Moving house with lots and lots of love

Hello crafting pals!

My lovely daughter and her partner have been staying with us for a few weeks but now they've found a flat. They moved in yesterday, so of course I must get busy with a new home card!

I looked at this week's Less Is More for inspiration, but the challenge is stencils on a one layer card and I don't have any stencils...

... but then, in an astonishing coincidence, while looking for something completely unrelated, I found a little pile of stash I thought had gone, and amongst it was a set of two stencils! So I made this card:

This card required all sorts of masks! I had to mask off part of the house before inking it up so the side of the house didn't interfere with the sentiment. I also made a stencil for the bushes, using circle punches and post it pads, then had to mask off the house and road while inking the bushes with a sponge dauber. Everything had to be masked so that I could use the heart stencil!

Most of this (apart from the bushes) was coloured with my ancient Blendabilities, many of which have dried up now. I want to replace them with something refillable (I don't like the thought of all those plastic pens in landfill) and with more colour options to improve blendability. Other than Copics (which I can't afford) does anyone have any suggestions? I've been looking at Spectrum Noir - does anyone have any thoughts on those? Are they good?

Everything I used today was Stampin' Up: The house and the 'new home' part of the sentiment is from Holiday Home (retired); the 'Happy' part of the sentiment from Painted Glass; Hearts and Stars decorative masks (retired); Blendabilities (the old 3 pen set markers).

Would anyone like to see the stash I found in the back of a cupboard?

My scoreboard, with diagonal, metric and decorative plates, Stars and Hearts masks, Crystal Effects (I was wishing I had some of that just the other day!), some pretty, glittery bakers twine, and some gorgeous, faceted silver sequins (LOVE them!) This adds a whole new dimension to the phrase 'shop your stash' doesn't it? I feel as if I've won the lottery! But, *cue Twilight Zone music* WHAT were they doing there...?!

Thanks for coming to visit me today. I can't wait to see what you've all been up to!

Hugs,

Painted Glass and Painted Petals

Hello crafting friends!

I love it when you tell me about new challenges and I can never resist them, so I've gone a bit challenge-tastic today! First let me show you the card I made:

Arty huh?! That's because I had a look at the CAS Mix Up Challenge and got involved with inky paper towels, splattering water and washi tape (the background), heat embossing (the sentiment), stamping and doodling (the leafy stems), and fussy-cutting, stamping and colouring with alcohol markers (the butterfly). I'm exhausted - but mostly because of tidying everything away!

I used Cucumber Crush and So Saffron re-inkers to soak my dampened paper towel and smooshed it around some card stock. Splattering water about added texture. Once dry, I stamped the leafy stems from Painted Petals (retired) and doodled extra leaves with a blender pen and ink. The panel was then trimmed and edged with washi tape. The butterfly, in a interesting coincidence, is from Painted Glass, a gift from my bloggy pal Em *waves gratefully*.

There has been some brilliant inspiration in Blogland - like this great sketch from CAS Colours and Sketches (which I tipped upside down.) And Seize The Birthday got me going too, with the 'use a butterfly in a way outside your comfort zone' topping. I never use alcohol markers and can't believe these 5 year old, neglected blendabilities were still working!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
It's been another very wet day here today - I think the British Isles are catching the tail end of someone's tropical storm. I took the pups out for a heart-pumping walk by the river in the rain. I say 'walk', but in fact I was the one doing the walking; Eva and her bestie Henry preferred to swim alongside me. It obviously wasn't wet enough for them!

Thanks for joining me today.