Cabana Wood

I'm sorry for the quick post tonight, but the day has flashed past, and the light is now fading. Here is the card I made earlier

I stamped the blue wood background and mounted it on some cabana card, adding the frill at the top that was wrapped with bakers twine. I stamped the flower on white card, and coloured it with my AP and markers. It was fussy cut and decoupaged in the centre, with added gems, and some leaves. The finishing touches were the sentiment and butterfly.

I am entering it in these challenges :

The sketch is from

Try Stampin on Tuesday,

the colours from Fab Friday

and Seize the Birthday

have the topping of 

TWINE or STRING                                           

Supplies :

Card - Coastal Cabana, Whisper White, and base FMS

Stamps - Hardwood, Blended Bloom, Express Yourself, Papillion Potpourri, and Stippled Blossoms

Inks - Black Archival, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, and Crushed Curry

Tools - Aqua Painter, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Fiskars Scissors, and Elegant Butterfly Punch

Extras - 3D Pads, Bakers Twine,  and Gems

I promise my regular followers that I will not use the Blended Bloom in my next post!........I can not promise the same of my AP as that seems to be permanently attached to my right hand.

Please come by again soon, bye for now

Sleepy Owl

Another week begins, and after a lot of rushing about today, I finally found time for a quick crafting session and made this sleepy Owl card ( sorry about the photo, I couldn't get my flash to work!)

I will be submitting it in to these challenges


CAS Colours and Sketches had this sketch,

the colours are from Sunday Stamps,

and Make My Monday had the theme of 

      OWLS

Supplies
Card = Black, Whisper White, Melon Mambo, Coastal Cabana, and base FMS
Stamps = Fine Feathers and Simply Sketched
Inks = Coastal Cabana and Black
Tools = Owl and Bird Punches, and Fiskars Scissors
Extras = 3D Pads and Gems

Be Back soon

CAS Leaves

My card today is a CAS one for two challenges


The first is the sketch from Clean and Simple,

and the second is CAS Colours and Sketches with these colours

Here is what I made

I randomly stamped leaves and splodges on some strips of silk card, and staggered them on a white base, and added the sentiment label on 3D pads.

After making the card, I wasn't sure if I liked it, so I added a thin black line around the edges of the strips so that they were more defined. Even now I'm not sure which I like more. What do you think?

Supplies :

Card = Clarity silk, and white base FMS

Stamps = French Foliage, and Fiskars

Inks = Certainly Celery, Calypso Coral, and Rust Adirondack

Tools = Big Shot, and XCut Nestabilities

I'm off to see my sister and the kids this afternoon, so no doubt I'll be playing Super Heroes or Dinosaurs

Bye for now
                                   

Baroque Best Wishes

Yaaaaay!! I've made a card and it's still daylight!!!

Just for two challenges today, firstly at Pals Paper Arts where they have these colours for us,

and again over at Addicted to Stamps where we are required to Make a Mark with marker pens.

So without further a do, here it is

I have used my SU Write markers to colour the rubber stamps before stamping onto the white card, and then using the Big Shot to cut the Nestabilities Labels, and mounting them on 3D pads. The finishing touch was the addition of white pearls to the centres of the small flowers, and three under the sentiment.

I love this stamping technique as several colours can be used in one go, instead of several times with the different colours and the hassle of trying to match the designs up. A little tip with a larger stamp ( such as the flourish in this SU set) is to huff a breath on the stamp to moisten the whole design before stamping onto the card, as it can take a while to colour the stamp, the starting point can dry before the final detail is reached.


Recipe :                                  
Card = Real Red and White card FMS
Stamps = Baroque Motifs,Fresh Vintage, and Fiskars sentiment
Inks = Real Red, Primrose Petals, and Pool Party
Tools = Big Shot and Nestabilities
Extras = 3D pads and White Pearls

 Thanks for dropping by and I hope to be back soon.

Neopolitan Mothers Day

I hope I am successful in submitting this card on time to the 2 challenges I've chosen to create for!!!


My card is in the colours of Neapolitan ice cream, as this is what I thought of when I saw the photo inspiration at Stampin Royalty #110 




and the layout follows this sketch at Mojo Monday

Here is the card I came up with

Recipe :

Card = Pretty in Pink, Melon Mango, Soft Suede, Whisper White, and cream card from my stash

Stamps = Upsy Daisy, Fiskars and Papermania

Inks = Melon Mambo, Blushing Bride, and Soft Suede

Tools = Big Shot, Nestabilities labels, Cottage Floral embossing folder, and Stamp-a-ma-jig

Extras = Ribbon, 3D pads, and Gems ( added to vowel i's in text after photo taken!)

I hope you like it?

I'm off to link it before my time runs out, so TTFN



Baroque Motif

I've had a spare hour this afternoon to try to get some housework done, but, oh dear, I only got as far as my craft table, and that was SOOOOO messy that I had to tidy it up!!!.....And somehow, my laptop got turned on and found its way to the Less is More challenge???? Then, I don't know what happened but red and orange inks fell onto my stamps?!...............there was nothing I could do but make a card to save wasting the inks.

This was the result and I'll be linking it to the LIM red and orange colour challenge

The red swirl is enhanced with orange stamped flowers with punched centers ( placed with help of my Stamp-a-ma-jig), and the punched butterfly with the flower stamped on its wings.The sentiment finishes off the diagonal direction of the design across the face of the card.

Recipe : Card = Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White

Stamps = Baroque Motifs and Verve

Inks = Real Red and Peach Parfait

Tools = Stamp-a-ma-jig, SU Butterfly Punch and Fiskars small flower punch

Extras = Red gems

Thank you for dropping by today, and I hope that I can find the time to do some more crafting this week, as I've really missed getting covered in ink and double sided tape.

Hope to see you soon



Free birds

It's a funny old day again today, sunny but very windy..........still the rain is staying away so that's something I suppose!!

Today I've made a card that I'll be entering in for 2 challenges. The first over at the ColourQ challenge  gave me the colours to use, and the second at

 Cas-ual Fridays has a quote as
the inspiration in honour of one of their DT partners, Julie Ranae, who has had to endure extensive dental surgery.









So here is my card, and then I'll tell you how it was put together

I started by cutting 2 large ornate labels in the BS, layering the white on top of the brown, and then stamping the bird cage on the white with Versamark and heat embossing it with black powder. This was placed on the right of a white card. Next, using the Stamp-a-ma-jig, I stamped the blossom branches in green on the card and stuck on punched lilac flowers where the blooms are.

One escaped bird (facing right) was stamped on some brown card in black, the other (facing left) was done by inking up the stamp and rolling over the image with a brayer, and then rolling the transferred image onto the card, this results in a mirror image of the original.

Here is a close up of the birds, and they were stuck on with 3D pads for extra dimension.

The word 'smile' ( just for Julie) was written on some white card and again cut into a label and layered on a brown label, and a flower and leaves were added before it was also stuck on 3D pads.

Recipe: Card = Chocolate Chip, Wisteria Wonder, and Whisper White
Stamps = Papermania Tweet, and SU Garden Silhouettes
Inks = Versamark, Basic Black, and Pear Pizzazz
Tools = Stamp-a-ma-jig, Big Shot, SB Labels nestabilities, Fiskars punch, Speedball Brayer, and Heat gun
Extras = Black embossing powder, 3D pads

Well what a day I've had!!....... there must be something in the water as it's not only Julie, but my poor friend Pat, who had been up all night with terrible toothache. So this morning I took her to the emergency NHS drop-in clinic for some treatment. After waiting for what seemed like a lifetime, she was seen, and it turned out that she has an abscess under her tooth and is now on anti biotics.

I hope to have a restful day tomorrow and get chance to craft, so enjoy the rest of the weekend and I'll be back soon.

Thanks for dropping by, and I'd love to receive any comments if you have the time to write one.

Monotone Steam Punk

Well its the weekend again, and in between chores I've sat and done a little bit of crafting.

I've been pondering over the theme of Steam Punk again for the Make My Monday Challege. I'm not sure why my brain goes blank at the thought, but it does!!!! Anyway, this week it was Monotone aswell, so off I went surfing the net for some downloadables, and after picking through some weird pictures I found some images that I could play with.

After getting covered in black ink and embossing powder, this is what I came up with.

So I started with a white square card and sponged the edges with black ink. Then I tore a square out of the engineering instructions that I'd printed from the net and sponged the egdes again. On another peice of card I printed some cogs, a bird, a hot air balloon, and a man with a tank on his back???, and some cogs. All of these images were sponged, and the cogs were covered in Versamark and heat embossed to make them look more metalic, take a closer look at them

The balloon was raised on 3D pads, and the words 'inspire' and 'wonder' were heat embossed. The word 'discover' was also treated the same way, but it was cut out and placed over the background and the man. A metal washer was coloured black and stuck in the birds beak, and the finishing touch was a cut out cog placed in the bottom left corner and in the middle of the card front.



Recipe : Card = white from my stash
Ink : Adirondack black and Versamark
Stamps = Fiskars
Tools = Heat gun
Extras = 3D pads, Internet downloads, washer, and black embossing powder

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you've liked what you've seen

Steampunk ATC

Yaaaaaaaay,   OMG !!!!!  I cant believe it...........................I made top 3 over at      Make My Monday challenge  again, and I won their monthly prize of Candy.

Thank you so much DT, and a very big 'thank you' to Suzanne for the candy she donated.....not wishing to make you all very jealous, here's what the lovely prize was with the DT Congrats card

I must say Hello and welcome to Lindsay a new follower, and I hope you like some of the things you see on my blog

I'm sorry that I've been AWOL since Sunday, but you would not believe my bad luck this week. Before I bore you with my woes, I'll show you the only thing I've managed to craft so far this week.

Over at   Make My Monday challenge  their theme this month is Steampunk. I am so far out of my comfort zone with this genre it baffled me for quite a while. This week its all about an ATC, so I thought as it's small ( and I've got to start somewhere) I'd give it a go, and here is the result

I started with a cream ATC sized card and covered it in a Vintage French Automotive patterned paper. On this I stuck a torn picture of the French Auto club poster after sponging the edges with distress ink.
I then added a female image and 2 old Vintage racing cars. A wooden cornice was stamped and heat embossed, as was the word 'discover', and some little metal cogs were added to give the ATC some dimension. I hope you like it?

Recipe : Card = Cream from my stash
Inks = SU Basic Black, Versamark  and Tim Holtz Tea Dye distress pad
Stamps = The Paris stamp from French Foliage, Strength and Hope, Fiskars
Extras = Design papers I've had in my stash for years, Black embossing powders, and little cogs I found in the garage??


Now the boring details of my bad week. ( please skip the next rambling paragraph if you don't want to be bored rigid)

Monday was not good as I was still feeling frail after my treatment, and was a weak as a kitten. Then it all started going wrong on Tuesday when I got stung by a wasp right in my cleavage. Not only this, but it stung me while driving and I flicked the body away but didn't see where it went, so I stopped the car and got out ( almost getting knocked down by a speeding motorbike) shaking my top in order to find the angry insect, but to no avail. On arriving at my friends a few minutes later, I again was searching my clothing outside her house and spotted the wasp...................OMG, it had fallen between my boobs and was buzzing angrily at me from the bottom of my bra!!!???  So picture this.........there I was clothes awry with my hand down my bra retrieving this insect with a tissue, when my friends husband came out to help carry my craft bags in!! I could have died with embarrassment on the spot! Anyway, then satisfied that my attacker was now dead, I went in and sat gossiping and drinking coffee as usual for a Tuesday, all the while the sting was getting more painful and becoming a red inflamed lump. ( I must explain here, before you think me a terrible drama queen, that because of my  RA treatment I have no natural immune system, and my body cannot fight infections OR STINGS like a normal person). As the day went on the lump got bigger and more painful, so when I got home I saw my neighbour Gordon ( my elderly neighbour whom I take shopping every Tuesday ) and blamed him as he has a wasps nest in his garden. However, while stood talking to him I saw some wasps fly to and from my roof!!!  cutting a long story short, there was a very large nest in MY loft, and when my step dad Dave, got up there to see what was going on, he got attacked by a swarm of the insects, but luckily not stung. So pest man was contacted and Monty shifted off to mums so he wouldn't get stung, as by now they were very annoyed that someone had disturbed their peace. Wednesday, the pest man did his thing with his powder ( and I now need a bank loan to pay his bill) and I went off to my sisters to fetch mum. En route, I stopped at my friends in Worcester to give her some stuff that I'd ordered for her online ( she's a technophobe and wont touch computers) and while reversing off her drive, my car had an argument with a little low wall, and lost!!! AAAAAARRRGGGHHHH.  Yesterday I went back to hospital to see the Rhuematology practice nurse and it was confirmed that my treatment is no longer effective, so I am having to start a new IV drip from USA as soon as possible, so I'm waiting for an appointment!! Then lastly, this morning I see that there are still wasps going in and out of my loft so the pest man has got to come back, but cant until Monday, so no windows open and no going out for Monty unless he needs to ( do his business, that is). My lump has gone down now but has left a big bruise which looks like a love bite and is more embarrassing then the red lump!!!!!

Phew, that took some typing!!

I'm going for a lie down in a dark room now, and hopefully I'll be back in the crafting saddle soon.

Thanks for dropping by

Less is More Growing Green

Today the Less is More Challenge is Button or Ribbon (or plurals thereof).

I dipped into my ribbons bag and found my delicious thick velvety purple and lilac ribbon which came off a beauty set several Christmas's ago, and that was my starting point. Out came the Growing Green set and 'Hey Presto!' this card came into its own.

The opposite corners of the 6" square card were rounded, and the leaf sprig stamped on it in Certainly Celery. The small flower was stamped twice on spare WWhite card in Orchid Opulence, and blended with an aqua painter ( I've been calling this tool a water pen, but there you are..you learn something new every day!) and the centers dotted with Crushed Curry. The pointed flower was stamped twice in Rich Razzleberry and again blended before being layered on top of each other. These were then stuck over the leaf sprigs and the bow added, before some extra stems were drawn in CCelery coming from under the bow.

Recipe: Stamps - Growing Green

             Inks - Orchid Opulence,Rich Razzleberry, Certainly Celery,Crushed Curry

             Card - Whisper White

             Stash - Ribbon

 

I hope you like this simple little card as much as I do.

Thanks for dropping by, and I love it if you do come by again soon

Neapolitan inspired

Well it's Scorchio again today,so I'm in my usual position in front of the TV watching Wimbledon, but in an attempt to keep cool I bravely ventured out to the garage to the freezer ( something I don't do very often  due to all the huge hairy spiders that live in there!!),where I spied my inspiration for the colours in  today's challenge over at Clean and Simple Stamping.

Neapolitan ice cream brown,pink,and cream.

I started with a vanilla card from my stash,and then used some SU Chocolate Chip card (which I passed through the BS in a Cuttlebug swirl embossing folder) and Apricot Appeal to make the central panel which was edged with a MS punched   border. My BS and dies again came into use to cut the two smaller flowers and six scalloped circles to make the chrysanthemum out of SU Pretty In Pink.The cream flower centers were punched in SU So Saffron,and topped with gems.The Fiskars sentiment was stamped in CChip.

Take a look,and please let me know what you think

Well that's me for today,tomorrow is coffee and crafting at Jacqueline's so I may have done a card, or I may not have had the time!!!!...............please pop back to see if I was successful.

Thanks for all your lovely comments over the last few weeks, I really do appreciate the time you fellow crafters take to voice your opinions on my work.

Enjoy the sun and the tennis if you can.

Stampin' Royalty Challenge

This is the sketch for this weeks Stampin' Royalty Challenge.                 Luckily I made my entry last night as I've had a nightmare of a day today. It didn't start too well when I went back to sleep after feeding the dog at 6am, and it's felt like I've been trying to make up for lost time all day. As well as this I've lost my mojo and have no creativity in my brain what so ever, and cant even match two colours together. I hope it will come back soon, as the last time this happened it went on for months and nothing could inspire me!!!!!!! Fingers crossed that over the weekend it will return.   

Anyway,this is what I came up with.   After making the cards for the OLW at Simplicity, I was missing my BS, so just had to get it out and cut some labels and flowers for this one.

 Recipe : Card stock is SU Whisper White,Lavender Lace,and Orchid Opulence

 Stamps : SU Curvy Verses

 Inks : SU Orchid Opulence

 Tools : Big Shot & dies, Martha Stewart and Fiskars punches

 Extras : Patterned paper,ribbon bow,and gems from my stash

Today has not been a good day............I've been out all morning, and then went rushing to mum's to water the garden pots and conservatory plants to get home for the tennis.....well,what is it they say "More haste, less speed"!!!!!, never a truer word was spoken.As I'd turned the outside hosepipe water on (which is controlled by a stopcock tap in the new extension being built) and walked back outside through the extension and conservatory to do the watering, the nozzle at the end of the hose was turned off,so the pressure built up in the pipe causing it to blow its connection at the inside tap, pouring gallons of water into the new extension which had become the dumping ground for garden chairs etc. and building equipment. By the time I'd realised why there was no water coming out of the hose and had gone back inside the place was flooded............I could have cried.
Some of the building supplies stored in the extension were too heavy for me to move so I could only mop up what I could reach.I'm praying that this predicted heatwave will happen tomorrow so it will help matters before the folks get back on Sunday evening.

Sorry for ranting and moaning,but now I've got it out of my system I'm starting to feel a bit better.

I'm still finding my way in this blogging lark,and this morning my friend Jacqueline has shown me how to do the labels and blinkies etc, so I hope I can catch up with things over the weekend and make my blog more appealing.

As always, thank you so much for dropping by,and I hope I haven't scared you away.
Hope to see you again soon. Bev.x

One Layer Wednesday Card

Today I've dabbled with the idea of a one layered card, which to start with I found quite daunting and had to put my Big Shot and dies out of sight for awhile. I looked at the inspiration on the Simplicity blog for some time before an idea came to me.

With the weather being quite gloomy at the minute, the bright colours I saw in this picture cheered me up considerably, and have put me in great spirits for Wimbledon. I see another afternoon of sitting on the sofa crafting in front of the TV again!!! Good job I did my chores this morning isn't it?


Anyway, this is the card I came up with

I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to reposition the branch for the lower bow, and just the end of the main stem to elongate the first stamped image.It's a little fiddly with my Arthritic hands but worth it in the end I think.

Here's what I used to make it :

Recipe : SU Whisper White card stock

              SU Garden Silhouettes, Woodware Butterflies stamps, and Fiskars sentiment

              SU Yo Yo Yellow,Crushed Curry,Certainly Celery,and Sahara Sand inks

Thanks for looking at my blog, and if you can please leave me your thoughts as I love to hear what other crafters think of my work.

Here is a different colour combo while I've been playing with the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig,is it better than the yellow?

Enjoy the tennis,and I'll be back tomorrow with the next challenge card I'm working on.

Bev.x

        

Brayered card

Today is overcast but there's no rain...Yay!, so I've been catching up with my overflowing linen basket and doing the washing. In between loads I've quickly made a card for Clean and Simple Stamping challenge. I used a piece of 4 1/2" X 6 1/2" silk card stock ( from Barbara Gray of Clarity Stamps) and brayered it with Adirondack inks in Pesto,Butterscotch,and Espresso. This was stuck onto cream card from my stash,and the same card was used in the central panel which was stamped with the dry grass stamp from SU Garden Silhouettes,and sentiment from Curvy Verses, in Rust Adirondack ink. The corners of the silk card and stamped panel were punched with MS corner punch.

The brayering didn't turn out how I'd planned, but I still like the effect,What do you think??

Got to pop to Mum's now as their off on a Barge holiday and I need to get my ' To Do' list for while they're away.

Hope to be back again soon.Thanks for dropping by

Bev.x

Die cut flowers x 2

Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by.

What a busy day I've had,flying around like a headless chicken finding something for my birthday on Thursday ( subtle aren't I !!), why does the time fly when you're having fun spending other peoples money??? Anyway, tired as I am I just had to see  what the Make My Monday challenge was about this week ( only their 2nd challenge since starting up, but well worth a look) and the topic was Die cut flowers. I also popped over to the Mojo Monday challenge and their sketch also had flowers in it, so,I

thought I'd try to combine them both.                                                      I used the sketch as my starting point, and on a white card from   my stash I stamped Inkadinkado flourishes on it with SU Rich Razzleberry. With a MS punch, I shaped the top and bottom of a piece of RRazzleberry card and wrapped a broad ribbon from my stash around it.My trusty Big Shot was then used to cut a SB square in RRazzleberry and Orchid Opulence, 2 OOpulence flowers and 1 RRazzelberry flower ( all the flowers consist of several layers which were shaped before sticking together,and the centers were finished with a Fiskars punch and a gem.)The Woodware sentiment was stamped  in RRazzelberry onto WWhite card mounted on more RRazzelberry card.  I hope the card will fit both challenges,what do you think???

                                                 

I'd better go now as I need to pack my crafting stuff together for Jacqueline's club in the morning, we're making Tri shutter cards, and I've promised not to talk too much so we can actually get some crafting done!!!!!

If you can, pop back tomorrow to see if we manage to complete the task!!

Thanks, Bev.x

DIY Embossing Folder

Nice Duck weather again today!! so I'm just going to have to have another crafting play day..........this is one of the benefits of living alone I love !!

Anyway,I saw this technique on UTube a few weeks ago and just had to have a go.
First I got a piece of cardboard that was parcel packaging I had saved from awhile ago( about double the thickness of a cereal box),and cut it to 12"x15" and folded it in half. I then used a small butterfly punch to cut lots of shapes and stuck them to one side of the card with a glue stick.

The width of 6" is as wide as the platform for the Big Shot,if your embossing unit is different you may need to adjust the width to fit your machine.

Once the glue had dried I sandwiched some SU Real Red card in between the folder with the butterflies on the bottom, and put it through my Big Shot.The first attempt wasn't very good as the card was quite thick,so I put it through again but used the Tan Embossing mats in the sandwich mix and it came out a treat. See here

I then made a card using a large label BS die to cut the butterfly embossed card, and mounted it on a cream card from my stash that had been stamped with the flower from Organic Grace in Crushed Curry.I used a white gel pen to add some faux stitches and wrapped a ribbon from my stash around the bottom half of the label (I forgot to say this was done before it was stuck on the card, sorry) adding a bow to secure the tag printed with a CCurry Woodware sentiment. I them stamped a CCurry butterfly from Inkadinkado and stuck it above the ribbon,finishing it off with some gems for the body and white gel pen to draw some antennae.Take a look

I would think you could do this with any punched shape, so I would be interested to know what you have used if you decide to give it a try.

Good luck and enjoy playing because I certainly did.............Monty wasn't too impressed though as I was taking up quite a bit of his side of the sofa!!

Thanks for dropping by and hope you'll come back again soon. Bev.x