September sunflowers

Hello, crafting friends!

 

September has arrived in a blaze of sunshine and there's a fab new Flower Challenge for the month!

 

We are going back to basics with stamping this month and I couldn't be happier: stamps and ink are my happy place :) Here's what I made:

 

The sunflower stamp is from Clearly Besotted's Sending Sunshine. I stamped it in pale yellow ink and covered it with a mask made from a sticky note. The jar came next. It's from The Greetery's Just Mason Around and is a 3 step layering stamp which produces a lovely glass effect. I made another mask with a sticky note and covered the jar. Leaving both of the masks in place, I set to work on a background. The ground was stamped with Stampin' Up's Hardwood background stamp and I covered that up to stencil above it with Funky Fossil's Brick Wall stencil. The stencil was removed and the brickwork sponged with brown ink for a more subtle look.

 

All the masks were removed at this stage and I coloured the sunflower bouquet using alcohol markers and coloured pencils. The acid yellow daisies are to be seen everywhere in the countryside at the moment so I teamed the darker sunflowers with these. To finish, I stamped a couple more of the daisies, fussy cut them, coloured them and glued them to the ground for balance before attaching the panel to a card base.

 

Okay, it's your turn! Here's how to play: first, hop over to The Flower Challenge blog to check out the beautiful inspiration from my team mates; second, make a card featuring one or more stamped flowers as the focal image; third, share with us using the blue Linky button at the bottom of the post. We can't wait to see what you come up with!

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with the Sunflower theme at Double D and at Triple B with my yellow blooms; I'm also playing at We Love Stamping where Lorraine's challenge is to include a Handcoloured Image.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

What lovely sunshiney flowers sunflowers are!

 

Great for hiding behind too. By the way, has anyone seen Lulu?!

Sending hugs,

Autumn sunflowers

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome to another fun challenge at Tic Tac Toe! Betty has come up with a board that will cover any halloween cards you may be making but that may also inspire you for autumn birthdays, thank you cards and note cards.

 

I've chosen the middle row for my note card, Orange/Free/Fall Leaves, choosing an older favourite stamp from Clearly Besotted called Sending Sunshine.

 

Using diluted ink, I painted a pale orange background on watercolour paper. When it was dry, the flowers and leaves were stamped in a neutral ink and coloured with oil based pencils. I smeared the edges of a card base with orange ink before attaching the panel to it. I could've added an orange card mount but this technique gives the same effect without any bulk.

 

I stamped a sentiment directly on the panel using a stamping platform but, can you believe, it went wonky! I think I may need to book myself in for an eye test as this seems to be a recurring event for me!! Anyway, I rescued it with a strip of black card and a block sentiment from Uniko glued ever the top.

Okay, it's over to you! Which column or row will you choose? Or will you opt for one of the diagonals? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge blog and check out all the wonderful inspiration from my teamies. 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. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

It's always lovely to celebrate a challenge's birthday and this month marks the 6th birthday of The Flower Challenge - congratulations to Viv and her team! The theme this month is Use A Sentiment; I'm also linking up with Allsorts where Lynn has chosen Gardeners' Delight as her theme; I'm also playing along with the Octoberfest challenge at Double D where I think my sunflowers qualify as an October motif; and there's an Any Occasion challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More so I'm joining in there too.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The Golden Girls have been having fun together again! Here they are at a kissing gate - you know, the kind that you hold open halfway so that the dogs can wind their way through.

 

Well, Lulu was adamant that she was not going through that Bad Gate at first! "No," she said. "If I go in there, the gate will close on me and I will probably DIE!!!" We solved the problem by having Eva model the through-the-gate action to get Lulu wanting to follow, and then I coaxed her through, getting her nose to follow my fingers that were holding a morsel of cheese. "Absolutely NO!" she said. "Not even if you ARE holding cheese... mmmmm, oh all right then!" and she whisked through :)

Sending hugs,

Using up the odds and ends

Hello, crafting friends!

In the whirl of activity that is my August, I found a tiny window of crafting opportunity to join in with some favourite challenges! Come and see:

I started by stamping a large image from Clearly Besotted's Sending Sunshine onto a scrap of card. The sunflower was watercoloured to look like a pink daisy and cropped down. I fussy cut part of the edge before adhering it onto some striped paper and trimming it into a twinchie using a stitched rectangle die. The striped background was a small off-cut of some paper that was a freebie in a Stampin' Up Sale-a-bration promotion earlier this year. 

The sentiment, from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks, was stamped on an off-cut of card left over from using the same stitched rectangle on another project. It meant that I could position it over the twinchie and it would look as if it had been stitched into the paper. The other edge was trimmed into a ribbon tail. I finished with an assortment of enamel dots, gems and sequins chosen to coordinate with the colours.

CHALLENGES

I'm playing along with Seize the Birthday where the topping this time is Stripes; I used the gorgeous yellow and pink colour duo at Color Hues so I'm also linking up there; m flower is watercoloured so I'm also joining in with Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge where Anything Goes; Everything on my card is a snippet except the card base so I'm whizzing off to the Snippets Playground to have a go on the roundabout before jumping back on the merry-go-round!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Apparently the word daisy derives from 'Day's eye' because the flowers open in the morning and close at night. I like wild daisies best, which usually have white petals with a yellow centr but you do also get pink petalled ones. According to floriography (the language of flowers) daisies mean Loyalty - and I can tell you that the daisies on my tiny patch of lawn are certainly very loyal indeed. I can never bear to dig them out though, I think they're such friendly little flowers :)

Sending hugs,

Chalk it up

Hello, crafting friends!

Here's a simple little card I started last night and then finished in daylight when I could actually see!

I've used the chalkboard technique, choosing a sentiment from Concorde & 9th's Beautiful Branches stamp set and heat embossing it in white on black card stock. To get that 'rubbed out' look, I used my embossing buddy liberally and rubbed it into the black card stock with my finger.

I gave my blackboard a frame using two Heffy Doodle stitched rectangle dies, then added some greenery from Reverse Coinfetti's Fall Foliage and some pretty yellow daisies from Clearly Besotted's Sending Sunshine.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So pleased this card was chosen as a Watercooler Rocker!

And it was a winner at The Card Concept - woohooo!

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in with Less Is More's Chalkboard Technique challenge and was also inspired by the beautiful inspiration photo at The Card Concept. I chose the green leaves, the yellow flowers and the blackboard to make my Clean and Simple card. I'm also playing along at Watercooler Wednesday where it's Kath's All About Occasions challenge 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I was looking on Pinterest at the kind of blackboards people put outside pubs and shops and some of them really made me chuckle. I'm sharing them here because don't they say laughter is the best medicine? You're welcome!

(Source: Pinterest)

Sending hugs,

Sunshine flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

I've been as busy as a bee over the last couple of days and crafting has had to take a back seat. I did find time to do a little colouring though while on a coffee break and today I got the job of figuring out what to do with it!

This is the image, from Sending Sunshine by Clearly Besotted, and I just love it for late summer! I chose semi-coated cardstock and coloured with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. It's trickier on shinier card stocks but I quite like the ability to layer colour and the slight sheen you get. As long as you give plenty of time for the colour to dry, it doesn't smudge. This is what I did with my coloured image:

I spent a little time making a mask by stamping the image on a couple of sticky notes stuck together and cutting it out. With the mask in place, I stamped Stampin' Up's Hardwood background stamp on the bottom third of the card using Cajun Craze ink. Over the top, I blended Pear Pizzazz and Bermuda Bay inks gently upwards and outwards.

Here's a very bad photo to show yyou how sparkly those sunflowers are thanks to the magic of a Wink of Stella pen! To finish the card, I gave the wood part of the background some darker shading with alcohol markers and added a sentiment from Stampin' Up's Painted Petals.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So delighted to see this card chosen as one of the Artist Picks at Hand Stamped Sentiments!

CHALLENGES

There were lots of challenges to inspire me with this card: wonderful mood boards at The Double D Challenge and Handstamped Sentiments and a gorgeous colour palette at As You See It. The sparkle of the sunflowers was prompted by this month's Flower Challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

There are no wonderful fields of sunflowers here but there have been whole swathes of poppies this year and I did manage to snap my gorgeous girl with a glorious background of them.

Hope you've had a great weekend!

Sending hugs,

Sunshine in a flower

Hello crafting friends!

Did everyone else eat their body weight in pancakes yesterday? Oh... just me then! Anyway, never mind about flat things, it's tall things I've been trying to think about  this week. I've finally come up with sunflowers - they're tall aren't they?! Come and see what I've made:

My sunflower is from Sending Sunshine, one of my collection of Clearly Besotted florals. I stamped the sunflower cluster in dark yellow ink, coloured just one flower with alcohol markers and fussy cut it. After cleaning the stamp, I stamped it again using green ink, coloured the leaves and fussy cut those too.

On a card panel cut out with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die, I drew a line with a green alcohol marker to represent a stalk, adding a darker line for depth. The sentiment is from the same stamp set - isn't that a lovely font?!

To assemble the card, I attached the card panel to a card front, added the leaves, layered the flower over the top and trimmed the overlap. I finished by dotting the flower centre with a versamark pen and heat embossing it with clear embossing powder.

Thrilled that this card won a CASology Honourable Mention!

CHALLENGES
The reason I was racking my brains about tall things is that it's the cue word at CASology this month; I'm also linking up with Seize the Birthday where they want to see lots of white space, and Festive Friday (for the second time) and I've chosen Green, Brown and a Birthday Sentiment from the inspiration list. Edited to add: Oops, I did it again - too late for Seize the Birthday! Think I need a spreadsheet or something to be more organised!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
When my daughter was little, she used to play at a neighbour's house where there was a little girl her age. One spring they were apparently playing shops in the garden and using dried food items such as pasta and sunflower seeds and later on that year, sunflowers grew there. My neighbour couldn't understand where they'd come from as she had certainly not planted them, and it was only when the girls were much older, and talking nostalgically about the games they used to play, that she realised what must have happened!

I've had unexpected plants grow in my garden that must have blown in as seed from a neighbours garden, or been dropped there by a bird. How about you? Any wonderful surprises?

Hugs,