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,

Left overs for Mothers Day?

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Today I decided to tip out my scraps box! I wanted to make a mothers day card and, after a little rummage, selected these items:

Those watercoloured flowers were left over from THIS box card which I made for a lovely friend of mine last year. Later on in the year, I bought the pads and mats that would enable me to use my dies to emboss. I used one of the Nordic Frame dies from The Greetery to see how it worked and this embossed panel was the result. It has been sitting in the snippets box ever since but was perfect for the card I planned today. Here's what I made with my snippets:

I started by masking off the bottom of the embossed panel and sponged a little blue ink above it to make a background, leaving the negative space as a 'ground'. The bottle, from The Greeteryy's Bottled Up, was stamped on the snippet of white card, cut out and glued onto the panel.

 

I fussy cut the flowers and leaves and arranged some of them over the neck of the bottle, popping the front daffodils up on dimensional pads.

 

I couldn't for the life of me find a mothers day sentiment in my stash but then I had a bright idea - the magazines would be full of adverts for mothers day! Sure enough, I found a white on black mothers day text, cut it out, mounted it on black card and added a pink, die-cut 'happy' using a Lawn Fawn birthday die. Clever huh?!!

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

This card won March's Flower Challenge! I felt very honoured!!

CHALLENGES

The Flower Challenge has a fun challenge this month - to make a card featuring flowers and to Use Scraps. My card was made with snipppets apart from the card base so I'm linking up there, and also with The Snippets Playground where all cards entered must be from snippets. I'm also joining in at We Love Stamping where Anything (stamped) Goes with optional Spring theme; also Stamping Sensations where we are invited to Stamp Something For Spring. I'm also linking up with a new-to-me challenge called Four Seasons where Anything Goes Spring.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I do love dear old England with its silly weather! Two days ago Eva and I were drenched with torrential rain every time we went out but today, spring has definitely sprung. It was so hot that Eva, who is still sporting a winter coat, spent a lot of time reacquainting herself with the river.

 

She was with a friend, a cheerful black lab named Otis, who is a genius when it comes to finding balls in the river. No ball today but he DID manage to come out with this squeaky carrot which he generously shared with Eva!

Sending hugs,

A box full of spring

Hello, crafting friends!

A lovely crafty friend of mine was celebrating her birthday this weekend and I wanted to make her something a little bit special. This is what I came up with:

I've been admiring the MFT Outside The Box dies (wistfully, from afar!) The cards they make don't have the extra flaps of the traditional box card and I like the simplicity of that. This is a square version I made manually (just until I can convince my bank manager that the dies are essential!)

I cut and scored the box and inserts (and I've put the measurements at the bottom of the post in case you fancy having a go.) All the outside panels of the box were stamped except the tallest panel which was left blank for a message - but the INSIDE of that panel was stamped. I used a neutral ink and a variety of flowers from Clearly Besotted which were then watercoloured in pastel shades.

For the background, I washed in a sky and suggested grass with brush strokes. The grass treatment was also given to the inside of the box and to the inserts, front and back. When everything was dry, I assembled the box with strong double-sided tape, spacing out the inserts evenly.

I stamped, coloured and cut out more of the flowers and glued them to the inserts. I thought a bird might enjoy nestling in there so I added the branch and one of the birds from Stampin' Up's Birds and Branches.

Hmm, bit tricky to post, you may be thinking... but no,  it cunningly folds flat!

Here are the measurements:

For the inserts:

Cut 4 pieces of card stock 1" high x 3" wide (2.5cm x 8.5cm)

Score at 1/4" and 2 3/4" (1cm x 7.5cm)

For the box:

Cut a piece of card stock 4" high x 10 1/4" wide (10cm x 26cm) 

Score and crease at 2 1/2", 5", 7 1/2" and 10" (6.5cm, 13cm, 19.5cm and 26cm)

Turn the card stock 90 degrees and score down the length of the card stock at 2" (5cm)

Cut away the shaded areas as below.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Just Add Ink where they theme is Just Add 3D; I'm also squeaking in at the last minute at The Flower Challenge where the theme is Pretty Pastels; We Love Chocolate Baroque has a Springtime theme so I'm joining in there;  Addicted To Stamps and More has a theme of Birthdays so I'm playing along there; and I'm also linking up with Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The sun continues to shine here and I've done some extra long walks with Madame La Floof. I've also indulged myself in another great pleasure - curling up with a good book in an armchair in the garden, surrounded by spring flowers and nesting birds. It's been like a little holiday :)

Sending hugs,

Watercolour daffodils for Easter

Hello, crafting friends!

Welcome to another fabulous colour challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches! YoonYoung is our host this month and she has chosen a colour combination that is a favourite of mine :)

Where I live in the heart of England the spring bulbs are blooming, so I was inspired to get out the Spring Daffodils stamp set by Clearly Besotted.

I've been practising watercolouring lately and one thing I've found is that you don't actually have to use the finest (and most expensive!) watercolour paper as long as you're quick and don't use a lot of water! I've made a one layer card out of 300gsm thick card stock and I didn't get any pilling at all and there's no bleed through either.

I stamped the image in Stampin' Up So Saffron ink, masked off the flower heads and the border, and sponged in a ground using grass from Funky Fossil's Scenic Borders stencil. Once the mask was removed, I coloured the flowers and a bit of background before adding the sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Easter Party.

So how about you? What do these colours bring to your mind? As always, the team is here to inspire you - just pop over to the CAS Colours and Sketches site to see their fabulous creations as well as a beauty from this month's special guest PJ :)

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Allsorts where Helene wants to see a stamped image on our cards; I'm also joining in at Inspire Create where Anything Goes and Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge where Anything Goes; and last, but not least, I'm playing along with We Love Chocolate Baroque where the theme is I Love... I love this colour combination, spring flowers and one layer cards!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Have you ever wondered why flowers never seem to last long when they're in a vase with daffodils? Well take a look at this graphic by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest:

And there we are - everything becomes clear! I will never put a murderous daffodil in a vase with another flower again - except possibly an iris!

Sending hugs,

Delicate daffodils

Hello crafting friends!

Despite everything that's going on in the world, Mother Nature is ignoring everything and continuing to work on her glorious spring display. The early bold yellow daffodils are giving way to more delicate varieties that have been inspiring me. Come and see:

I've coloured Clearly Besotted's Spring Daffodils with bright yellows and oranges several times this spring (here and here for example) but this time I heat embossed them with white embossing powder and coloured them, with warm centres and ethereal looking petals, using Spectrum Noir alcohol markers.

If you were here on Wednesday, you'll know that my new white cardstock turned out to be some kind of weird half coated stuff. You can't stamp on it or colour it as it just smudges, but I was able to take advantage of its slippery quality to sponge an inky strip on the front of a card base I cut out of it.

After fussy cutting my daffodils, I arranged them on the strip in three clusters and finished the card with a blocky sentiment from Uniko.

CHALLENGES
I was inspired by the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches with its three stacked elements, so I'm joining in there. I shall also link up with The Flower Challenge where the theme is Spring/Autumn flowers, depending on where you are in the world :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
It is beautiful spring weather here in the heart of England, and I'm really hoping people will heed the advice to stay at home. I've been trying to get up as early as possible to take Eva out for a good walk as the amount of people out and about is making me anxious. Runners in particular don't seem to understand that 'at least 2 metres away' makes even more sense when you're panting heavily, not less...

... except this panting runner of course!

Hope you are keeping safe and well.

Hugs,

The colours of spring

Hello crafting friends!

It's my third week Guest Designing with the talented ladies at Just Us Girls and it is such a pleasure! I was bowled over by all the fabulous techniques you used for last week's Black Background challenge and really enjoyed popping over to visit you all. This week, there's a fabulous colour challenge:

You can use any shade of yellow, blue and green! What do these colours say to you? They yelled SPRING at me, so out came the spring flowers:

I chose tulips and daffodils from Spring Tulips and Spring Daffodils by Clearly Besotted and used the flowers from Stampin' Up's Soft Spring to make Muscari. Parts of the stamps were inked up with a green marker and stamped along the bottom of a card panel, finishing by turning the stamp upside down and using the stems as 'grass'.

A little Shabby Shutters distress ink was sponged over the stems and then the flowers were coloured with alcohol markers.

I searched high and low for a happy mother's day greeting - I swear I had one! - before giving up and making my own from other sets, using a stamping platform and some sticky notes to mask parts of the stamps off. To finish, I sponged in a 'sky' with Tumbled Glass distress ink then used a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die to cut out the centre of the card before replacing it.

Now it's over to you! What will you create using these colours? The regular team at Just Us Girls have got loads of wonderful ideas to inspire you - pop over to have a look and you can link up there too :)

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
What a lovely surprise to find that this card won an Honourable Addict award at Addicted to Stamps and More!

CHALLENGES
I'm also linking my card up with The Flower Challenge where it's Anything Goes this month; with Stamping Sensations where the theme is Spring Flowers; and with Addicted to Stamps and More, where I'm playing along with this month's Anything Goes challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
For those of you that think I'm getting a bit ahead of myself with this card, Mother's Day is on March 22nd in the UK this year. It is always celebrated three weeks before Easter Sunday and is linked to the Christian festival. It was called Mothering Sunday and was all about returning to the 'mother church' (the one you were baptised in or your local parish church) before it became associated with the idea of honouring mothers. Read more about it here including why it was also named Pudding Pie Sunday in some areas, or Sunday of the Five Loaves - and possibly still would be in this house if we could actually buy any food from our local supermarket!

Stay safe and well, and I'll see you soon,

A bunch of daffodils

Hello crafting friends!

I have a quick, seasonal note card to show you today. Come and see:

The stamp I chose is from Spring Daffodils by Clearly Besotted. I stamped it onto a card panel cut with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die and coloured the flowers with alcohol markers.

Yellow, orange and green is such a fresh colour combination for spring, don't you think? And yes, it IS a spring card - I refuse to have anything more to do with winter!

The blocky sentiment (from Simply Said Blocks II, Uniko) has been stamped in a stamping platform to get a really good solid black. I cut it out and mounted it on strips of coloured card stock the same size.

So pleased to have been a winner at CAS Colours and Sketches with this card!

CHALLENGES
This week's colour palette at CAS Colours and Sketches is a favourite of mine so I couldn't wait to get going with it! I was also inspired by the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. That semi-circular shape immediately made me think of these daffodils and I really loved the strips at the bottom of it.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
The latest in the saga of the broken oven is that I made a lovely slow cooker tarragon chicken yesterday and a nice spicy stove-top chilli this evening which will stretch to tomorrow. But then I nipped into the supermarket on autopilot to buy something for a busy Friday evening and fell at the final fence... And there are now pizzas in my fridge! Can you grill a pizza?!!

Help!