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,

Tulips from middle England

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Are spring flowers bursting out all over your area? They certainly are here and I am loving the display and discovering something new in the garden every day. Today's simple one layer card was inspired by that:

Although I don't have a walled garden myself, I've always loved the look of sun-warmed brick as a backdrop for flowers. For this card I stamped the tulip image directly onto a card base, using a barely-there green, and coloured them with coloured pencils.

 

The tulips were covered with a mask made with a sticky note so I was able to stencil a background using Funky Fossil's Brick Wall stencil. When the mask was removed, I stamped and heat embossed the friendly sentiment from Uniko's Floral Vines over the top.

 

THIS CARD WON AN AWARD

Delighted that the team at Just Add Ink voted this card their winner! 

CHALLENGES

There are two challenges asking for favourites this week - The Alphabet Challenge, where Helen is inviting us to use a favourite colour combination, and As You See It where the challenge is to use our favourite spring flower. I like almost ANY colour with green so I've opted for orange and green, and I love ALL spring flowers but have chosen tulips this time! I'm also linking up with Just Add Ink where Kerry has chosen the theme of Just Add Masking, and Allsorts where Brenda's topical theme is Spring is in the Air.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I'm not the only one enjoying the spring flowers...

 

... although I suspect that a boy dog has maybe left a Special Message on this little clump of daffs!

Sending hugs,

Tulips in the grass

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's a wonderful Thursdayy for crafting and I hope you'll come and join me because I'm hosting the inspiration board at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge today!

 

I've chosen spring-like elements to cheer us all up but as always, you can use them as starting points for your own ideas. My card is full-on spring as you can see:

 

 

I made a background on a card panel by sponging pale green ink into the grassy area of Funky Fossil's Scenic Borders. I also sponged a bit of pale blue at the top of the panel to give the impression of a nice warm spring day - I can't wait for one of those!

 

I used flowers from Spring Tulips from Clearly Besotted. They come in one clump on the stamp but I used a neutral waterbased marker to ink up the bits I wanted and stamped them in three groups, colouring them with coloured pencils and adding grass and leaves. The panel was trimmed to size but I accidentally made it wonky! To save it, I trimmed it down to correct it, mounted it onto a pink layer and attached it to a card front, adding a few gems for a bit of sparkle.

 

And now it's your turn! Which row or column on the tic tac toe board inspires you? Don't forget you can use the diagonals as well! My team mates have made some beautiful samples and you can see them here at the Tic Tac Toe challenge site. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and can use it to link your own creation up with us. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Allsorts where the challenge is to fill in the blank - I love... This cards uses Sponging, Masking, Stencilling, using only part of a stamp and colouring with coloured pencils, all  of which I love! I'm also joining in at Retro Rubber where there's a fun sketch. The Spring Tulips stamp set was released in March 2018. I'm playing along at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge too, where the theme this month is Inky.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

There's been nothing spring-like about today - Eva and I have been hailed on twice! Roll on the spring!!

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,

Rabbits and tulips

Hello, crafting friends!

Watercolouring has become more and more appealing to me, especially now I've found that I can paint directly on the card bases I bought from Hobbycraft recently, without any bleed through! I had so much fun making this simple daffodil card a week or two ago I decided to CASE my own card and give it a different look.

I masked off the edges of the card base and stencilled in some grass from Funky Fossil's Scenic Border stencil as I had done before. Instead of the daffs, I chose another Clearly Besotted set, Spring Tulips, stamping them in the green ink. I quickly gave them a lick of watercolour and left the card to dry.

Meanwhile, I stamped two of the bunnies from The Craft Consortium's English Garden stamp set and watercoloured them. When they were dry, I added detail with a fineliner and painted fluffy white tails with some white acrylic paint (sorry the texture doesn't show in the photos but they do actually have the floof factor in real life!) To finish the card, I removed the masks from the now dry card base, stamped a sentiment on it and attached the bunnies.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge where anything goes; also The Rainbow Challenge where the colour this month is Definitely Daffodil; The theme at The Sisterhood of Crafters is Easter/Spring and at Try it on Tuesday it's Hello Spring, so I'm playing along there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I spent a few productive hours sorting out my airing cupboard last week. I store my bed linen there and there is quite a lot of it! While folding the sheets I remembered a time my youngest son made me laugh while helping me bring the laundry in from the line. He was supposed to be handing me the bed linen in size order. "That's a King," I pointed out when he was supposed to be passing me a Double. He reverently put the sheet down, bowed low and made a flourish with his hand. "My Liege," he said solemnly.

Wishing you a very happy weekend,

Easter tulips

Hello crafting friends!

Aren't spring and Easter cards fun to make with all those gorgeous colours and spring images! We were planning a lovely family get-together this year but sadly that's not going to be possible, so I shall be spreading some love by post instead.

This card was mostly made from bits and pieces from the snippets box. The tulips (Spring Tulips by Clearly Besotted) were a practice piece, using watercolour crayons and a bit of water; I just had to add a sponged sky and die cut it with a stitched label die from The Works.

The label turned into a tag with the addition of hole reinforcer made with a couple of circle punches. I tied it up with some 'ribbon' which was die cut from a snippet of designer paper using a die from MFT's Birthday Cocktail.

The tulip tag was mounted onto a pink panel, also from the snippets box, that had been cut with a Heffy Doodles stitched rectangle die. Before attaching it to the card base, I added a greeting from Lawn Fawn's Easter Party and a sprinkling of gems.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD
So pleased this card got a special mention at Inspire Create!

CHALLENGES
I shall be linking this card up with The Paper Players, where Joanne has come up with a Tic Tac Toe challenge this week - I've chosen the Pink, Spring, Patterned Paper line; I'm also playing along at As You See It, where there's a fun card recipe and you have to add all the elements to your creation; Easter is the theme at Inspire Create and I'm joining in there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
One of the things I love about my little dog Eva is how she joins in with the family. When we stood on the doorstep to applaud the heroes of our NHS last night, she came out too and bunny hopped as we clapped. She potters about with me in the house, fetching the mail, proudly handing me socks and smalls as I load the washing machine, and 'helping' in the garden. She has also learned that the sigh I make when I sit on the sofa with a cup of tea means contentment and she makes the same noise back at me. She is truly my golden treasure.

I'm trying to post more pictures of Eva while we're living with this horrible virus because they say looking at photos helps people deal with stress and anxiety. You're welcome!

Hugs,

Tiptoe through the tulips

Hello crafting friends!

It's the last Saturday in March and my month as Guest Designer with Just Us Girls is drawing to a close. There's just time for a last hurrah though and this week's challenge is a wonderful inspiration photo:

What do you think? I loved this picture and was inspired by those bright tulips and the curve of the tree, framing the blue of the sky. Here's what I came up with:

I started by masking of the edges of my card base and sponging distress inks over it. When I removed the mask, I had nice crisp edges and the basis of my scene.

I wanted to introduce the idea of an arching tree and came up with stamping the branch from Concorde and 9th's Beautiful Branches onto a card panel and trimming away the inside part. I attached this to the card base on dimensionals. Do excuse the blurry tulips in my photo - I wanted to show you how it frames the sky!

But what about those tulips? They're from Spring Tulips by Clearly Besotted and were stamped, coloured with alcohol markers and fussy cut - that was quite a labour of love I can tell you! I added one of the blocky sentiments I love so much - a birthday one from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks.

What a lot of fun I've had at Just Us Girls! They're such a friendly bunch and there's so much talent on the team. Do go and see the amazing projects they've created to inspire you and enjoy joining in and linking up with this challenge :)

CHALLENGES
I shall link this card up with The Sisterhood of Crafters where they're celebrating Spring; and also Double D Challenges where the theme is Welcome Spring; and Crafty Cardmakers where Spring is also the order of the day!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I'm finding the news so grim these days that I have to limit myself to a short catch up once a day. But I love hearing uplifting stories about how people are helping each other and how they are learning to cope with life confined to quarters. Some people are more suited to this than others and I can tell you that my daughter and her partner, who live in a flat in London and are working from home, are coping very well. They are sociable people but have overcome their isolation by setting up virtual pub quizzes, movie evenings and board game evenings with their friends. Resourceful eh?

I have another Guest Design post today so be prepared for me to ping into your mailbox again! There will be a cute picture of a fluffy pup in that post too! (Yes, I know, I'm shameless!)

Stay safe and well.

Hugs,