Shiplap and Roses

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I can't tell you how delighted I am to join the team at The Flower Challenge where many of my heroines of craft are creating effortlessly beautiful cards month after month! For this first challenge of the year, the theme is to incorporate a heart somewhere on your floral card.

 

It's coming up to that time of the year when we share the love, so I made a masculine valentine :)

I started with a wood plank background, sponging a variety of neutral inks onto an offcut of white card and cutting with The Greetery's Shiplap die set. I laid the planks out on a piece of copy paper, and glued them in place, before trimming to size with a stitched rectangle die by Heffy Doodle.

The single rose bud is from a Studio Light Bible Journalling set, and the leaves from WPlus9's Modern Roses. I stamped them, coloured them with coloured pencils and fussy cut them. I added them to the shiplap, glueing them together as a single item, then stamped the 'with love' sentiment from The Greetery's Tagged Elegance. To finish, I stamped a row of hearts using a much-used stamp from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks, and embellished with a pair of enamel hearts.

Now it's your turn! At the Flower Challenge we want to see cards featuring flowers so don't forget to make them the main focus of your creation. Do hop over to the challenge site to check out the amazing inspiration on display from my talented team mates, and when you're ready to link up your own card, you'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the challenge post. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm frolicking over to Darnell's NBUS Challenge as the Shiplap die and the Bible Journalling set are Never Before Used Schtuff! The team at As You See It want to see our new craft stash too, so I'm linking up there; Triple B have an optional moodboard for February but your card must feature a bird and/or a butterfly and/or a bloom.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The golden girls and I had quite the eventful walk yesterday afternoon. We'd been careering about in the countryside and were just coming back, tired but happy, when suddenly a herd of 5 Muntjac deer shot out from the shelter of a hedge almost right in front of us. The pups' eyes were practically on stalks! They shot off in hot pursuit of course and my heart was in my mouth; I know Eva wouldn't be able to get near them but Lulu is FAST! However I can (with relief) report that she is not as fast as the deer and soon turned back, panting hard and with tongue lolling. The girls trotted home shoulder to shoulder, presumably having convinced themselves that they were marvellous hunting dogs, and did justice to large bowlfuls of meaty chunks before settling down for a nap.

Sending hugs,

A burst of stenciled leaves

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome to another challenge from Tic Tac Toe, where inspiration comes 8 different ways! Elizabeth has come up with a great board today:

 

I couldn't wait to get going with the diagonal from top left: Stencil/Free/Foliage because I'd been thinking about combining a few of my stencils to see how it worked out. Well it came out like this:

 

I started off with the Flower Bouquet Builder stencil from MFT, selecting a few different flowers and berries and inking them in a random pattern. The leaves are from the Greetery's Berry Branch stencil. I positioned the larger leaf around the flowers and sponged colour into it. At this point I brought out my coloured pencils and added more intense colour and detail to the flowers and leaves. I wanted the illusion of lots of leaves in the bouquet so I picked some other leaves from the Berry Branch stencil and stenciled them in a paler green so they looked as if they were behind the first leaves and flowers.

 

For further depth, I used Funky Fossil's Fancy Trellis as a background, masking off the bottom of the card and sponging blue ink outwards and upwards to a fade. The sentiment is from Tagged Elegance by the Greetery. To finish,  I stenciled a single flower on a snippet of card and fussy cut it, popping it up on the card, and added some enamel dots.

Okay, so now it's your turn! Which row or column will you choose? Or are you going for one of the diagonals? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe blog to see the amazing samples the team has made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and can use it to share your own design with us. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at the Stencil Fun Challenge where the optional theme is Fall, but Anything Stenciled Goes; I'm also joining in with Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Stenciled Goes; and also playing along with Addicted to Stamps and More where it's the turn of the Any Occasion challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I walk and board a selection of gorgeous dogs. I'm not supposed to have favourites but if I did happen to melt at the sight of a certain little golden girl called Lulu, who could blame me?! 

A pair of Grubs! Lulu (left) and Eva (right)

Sadly, Lulu's family have had a crisis, are having to move away and are unable to take their girl with them. I didn't hesitate to offer her a home. I have adored her since the day we started walking together, and Eva and she have always got on well together - often behaving like naughty twins! Luckily OH (perhaps knowing that there would be no peace until he agreed!) gave the go ahead and she will be coming to live with us properly next month after an easing-in period of extra walks, sleepovers and vet visits. Hurrah!!

Sending hugs,

A gothic thank you

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I had time to make a quick card this morning (yay!) and decided to make a floral thank you card for my stash. As I rummaged through my floral stamp collection, I came across Happy Succulents by Uniko which, ironically, I bought to make sympathy cards as I thought the image was quite sombre. I've happied it up today but I think it's turned out to be the kind of thank you card I might send to a goth! What do you think?

I used Stampin' Up inks, sponging in a rough background with Pool Party and stamping the floral image in Shaded Spruce. The outline parts of the image were coloured with coloured pencils and I added detail with black and white markers.

 

The curvy sentiment is new to me and is called Tagged Elegance from the Greetery. When I'd finished the card, I thought the background sponging was a bit too similar to the colour of the image so I added a little soft shading behind the central flowers with a dark violet pencil. That gave it a bit more oomph!

 

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at The Paper Players where Joanne has a CAS challenge going on and wants to see us use One Image Only on a card; I'm also playing along at Allsorts where it's the challenge's 14th birthday - wow, what a milestone! They're celebrating with champagne and prizes (ok, maybe not champagne) and the theme is Absolutely Anything Goes - including (I hope) gothic thank you cards! I'm also joining in at Stamping Sensations where the theme is Anything Stamped Goes with optional Add a Stencil.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's swimming season!! Not for me I hasten to add - we don't want to frighten the horses do we?! - but for Eva. In the photo below, she has been for a walk and a swim, returned home and eaten some Meaty Chunks to keep her strength up, and is now wondering, via the medium of a Paddington Bear Stare, whether there are any of those tasty chews going.

 

I had better add, in the interests of full disclosure, that swimming season in her first eight years was all year round. I realise that I am a rubbish dog trainer and that Eva is an excellent human trainer - a lowering thought.

Sending hugs,