Difficult Time

Today's card is for 2 challenges.

The first is for Mojo Monday where they have this sketch

and the second is Color Throwdown where they have these yummy colours




I've made it with Angela in mind, my friends 91year old Mum who has just started Radiotherapy and is feeling really low. I hope it cheers her up a bit

 

I used my SU Strength and Hope stamps as when I purchased them the price included a donation to Cancer Charity. The green panel was made by using a border die in the Big Shot and turning it around to do the same again on the other side of the card. The butterfly was stamped, cut out and raised on 3D pads, as was the Hope stamp.  

Recipe : 

Card = Certainly Celery, Pacific Point, Whisper White, and White card base FMS

Stamps = Strength and Hope, Vintage Vogue, and Whimsical Words

Inks = Tempting Turquoise, Pool Party, Elegant Eggplant, and Certainly Celery

Tools = Big Shot, Nestabilities, and Borders die

Extras = 3D pads, and Ribbon

I'm stuck in all day today waiting for an engineer to service my central heating boiler, so what else can I do other than crafting??

Thanks for looking at my blog today, and enjoy your weekend.

Blue Christmas!

This afternoon, in between putting my decorations up, I took a break to have a coffee and finish the card I started yesterday.

My card is for the Pals Paper Arts challenge, and their theme is something for "Puttin' on the Ritz" with extra sparkle, shine, or decoration.

I thought of putting some "bling" on a Christmas tree, but as I don't have one in the form of a stamp, I decided to make one out of the scroll in the SU Strength and Hope set.

This is how it turned out

I started by stamping the whole scroll in Versamark on navy card and heat embossing it with a silver pearl powder. Then I reduced the size of each scroll the higher it went, till the fourth and last scroll was just the heart and leaves.

The BS was used to cut labels from the stamped navy and silver cards, that were then layered. I rounded the corners of a square cream card and a matt of pale blue card that had been wrapped with silver and navy ribbons was added, onto which the stamped panel was placed on 3D pads for added dimension. The finishing touches were the sentiment stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with silver powder, and the addition of clear gems to the tree and the "i" in Winter.

Recipe :

Card = Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, and Silver and cream cards from my stash

Stamps = Strength and Hope and sentiment from my stash
Inks = Versamark
Tools = Big Shot, Nestabilities labels, and Heat gun
Extras = Ribbons, Silver and Silver Pearl powders, and gems


Thanks for looking at my blog today and I'd love to see what you think.

Oh, and a big "Hello" and "Welcome" to my new followers, thank you for your support.

Autumn Leaves

No time for crafting today as I'm busy, busy, busy, but here's a quick card that I've made for my favorite challenge blog Make My Monday. The theme is still Autumn and this week they're looking for Autumn Leaves.

This is my card, what do you think??

It started with a square cream card that had the center masked out with a Post It note. I then took some skeleton leaves and pressed them onto some ink pads to coat them with colour, and then I randomly placed them around the edges of the card and rolled over them with a brayer to leave the veins design on the card, and then the leaf removed. Another leaf stamp and some splats were also added before the Post It was removed and a wavy line drawn around the inside of the leaf frame. The sentiment was stamped on the bottom of the center panel ( with the aide of my Stamp-a-ma-jig ) and a brown butterfly added above it stuck by its body so that its wings are dimensional ( the antennae were drawn on the card with a marker.)

Recipe :

Card = Whisper White and cream card base from my stash

Stamps = French Foliage, Strength and Hope, and Verve

Inks = Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Soft Suede, Crushed Curry, and Adirondack Rust

Tools = Speedball Brayer, Post It note and Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Extras = Skeleton Leaves

I hope to be back soon, but if not, I'll wish you all a good weekend.

Thanks for dropping by

Rose Easel card

After such a bad week, what a lovely relaxing afternoon I've had !.

While the rain came down outside, I've sat vegging out in front of the TV with a nice Cappuccino and a bar of Nutty chocolate, creating a card for a friends birthday next week.

And Yes, I've made it with a challenge in mind, using the colours set by  the Simply Stampin challenge #23

She loves roses so here's the result ( sorry about the picture quality but it's so dark outside )

and here's a close up of the base

I started with a white square card and scored the front in half diagonally, and on the bottom triangle layered it with white, purple, blue and again white card. The top white card had been stamped lightly with some script and splats, and 2 leaves, before the edges were sponged with blue. This process was repeated for the base of the card except for the leaves. I then stamped 8 roses on some pink card and cut them out making 4 smaller for the centers of the flowers raised with 3D pads. Three roses were placed on the front in the left hand corner, and another on the base panel in the right hand corner.I then stamped 2 butterflies using blue and pink onto white card, cut them out, and placed one on the front and one on the base. The antennae were drawn with a pink marker. The base panels were wrapped in pink and purple ribbon with a bow, and a stamped panel with Just for you sentiment added with 3D pads to keep the easel up.

Recipe : Card = Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Melon Mambo, and Lavender Lace ( I haven't got any Perfect Plum )
Stamps = French Foliage, Growing Green, Strength and Hope, and Just Believe
Inks = Melon Mambo, Bashful Blue, and Elegant Eggplant
Extras = Purple and Pink ribbon from my stash ( the pink is from the Make My Monday candy prize )

As it's a Grand Prix weekend I hope to be on the sofa tomorrow, but the race will have to be recorded on Sunday as I'm off to my stepsister, Cassy's in Market Harborough.

I hope you all have a good weekend and I'll see you next week.

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

Mojo #204 and Simply Stampin

Hi everyone, I have two questions for you this afternoon; first, can you believe that it's Thursday already???, and secondly, why do we keep loads of junk ( some say treasure ) in our cupboards?????

When Mum asked if I had anything for this weekends car boot,I didn't think I had much, but then, you open cupboards you haven't been into for ages, and there smiling at you is some hideous ornament you don't remember buying???!!

Anyway, enough of that for now, and onto more important things..........Crafting!!

This afternoon I have combined two challenges, Mojo Monday # 204 with this sketch, and then colour combo from Simply Stampin challenge

I started with some Pretty in Pink card which I triple stamped in Early Espresso with the text, splats, and leaves from French Foliage. I roughed the edges with my scissors and then inked them with EEspresso before matting it onto a Whisper White card.

Now, I've been suffering from BS withdrawal so I just had to get it out for today's project. I used WWhite for a scallop circle and 2 creeping vines, Pacific Point for the corner flourish, two flowers, and a strip that was put in a  Budding Vine embossing folder, EEsspresso for a label, and PiPink for 2 small flowers.

All together the card looks like this

On the PiPink matt, I placed the PPoint corner flourish and strip of embossed card. I then placed the 2 ( lightly sponged ) creeping vines horizontally across the middle of the card before placing the EEsspresso label on top with 3D pads. The scalloped circle had its edges sponged and stamped with a Verve sentiment in EEsspresso, and before it was put away I used it to stamp the butterfly from Strength and Hope, and 2 leaves from French Foliage onto WWhite card. The leaves and flowers were placed on the circle leaving room for the butterfly under the sentiment. The finishing touches were the gems from my stash for the butterfly's body and flower centers.

Phew, it doesn't look like it, or sound like it, but it has taken quite a while to combine everything, so I hope you like it.

I may not get chance to be here blogging tomorrow, so I hope you all have a good weekend and I'll see you soon.

Clean and Simple Best Wishes

Well here we are again at Sunday. Just where does the week go???

I'm in my usual seat for the afternoon ( It's the Hungarian GP and it's raining so should be exciting!!) and I've just looked in at the Clean and Simple challenge and today there is this sketch.


I immediately knew where to start as this morning I've found some lovely ribbon in one of my drawers in the study while I looking for something else ( isn't that always the way?).

So, I started with a 6" white square card, and cut a matt out of light blue card that is faux leather effect, both from my stash. I wrapped the navy and gold ribbon around the matt before sticking it down. I then cut the flag out of SU Night of Navy and added a band of the leather effect card at the top of it after using a MS punch on it. I then stamped the Woodware sentiment in Versamark on the flag and heat embossed it with gold powder, and I did the same with the moth from Strength and Hope after stamping it onto some NNavy card and then cut it out.

Here is the end result, have a look

While dog sitting yesterday I tried to take a photo of the three mad dogs romping around in the garden, but I ended up only catching the end of a tail or just a head. Eventually I waited for them to stop for a breather and got them to sit nicely together.

And then lie down, well except Jasper as he was too busy watching a squirrel

What the photos don't show is how wet and slobbery the long fur is around Monty's neck where Duff and Jasper had been grabbing him. It sounds bad, but they loved every second of chasing each other round in circles, and if dogs could smile you would see that Monty is grinning from ear to ear with sheer pleasure.

That's it for today, and thanks for dropping by.

Vintage Best Wishes

Hi everybody and thanks for dropping by,

I'm sorry that I've been off line for so long,but I will be back at the weekend ( it's only the British Grand Prix isn't it!!) and I have been missing getting mucky with inks and making a mess over the lounge.

Anyway,while I'm temporarily back in the land of the living,and as I messed up last weeks entry for the  Make My Monday Challenge I thought I'd better have a quick go at this weeks before I go back to bed and run out of time for submitting. The theme is Vintage

and has to incorporate three of these four colours, so as SU Tempting Turquoise was out on my table, I decided to use that with the cream and blue.

First I made a 5" x 5" square card of SU Whisper White and sponged around the edge, a border of SU Chocolate Chip. ( I've nearly used all my WW so may invest in a different colour!!?) I layered on this some brown card from my stash that has a shimmer of gold through it ( not easy to see in photo). I then used some SU Tempting Turquoise and some Very Vanilla layered on top of each other with the edges again sponged, and finally the top right corners torn off.Using SU CChip, I lightly sponged the VVanilla and stamped it with the flourish from SU Strength and Hope set after stamping it several times on scrap paper first so the image looks faded and old.I then wrapped these  two layers in twine before sticking down on the card. I made a 'Best Wishes' tag in the same way as the card base and tied it with the twine.The last thing was to stamp the butterfly ( or Moth ???) in TTurquoise on VVanilla and cut it out,sponge its edges,draw its antennae with Soft Suede marker and stick it down along its body so that its wings are dimensional. 

Sorry, another Senior moment...........I prattled on about it and not posted its picture, so here it is!!

I will now link this and go back to bed to sleep my treatment off.

Hope you are all well out there, and I'll see you in a few days.

Tri-Shutter Card

Today was our Craft group meeting round at Jacquelines house and we were making Tri-shutter cards.She had done all the hard work and produced instruction sheets for us, but trust me to be difficult.....I needed to make a 60th Birthday card for my Step dad Dave, and had decided to use SU Bliss and Strength and Hope stamp sets ( no surprises there!) so required a slightly bigger card.With adjustments made I used some tan card from my stash as the base,and matted and layered this with SU Bashful Blue and Apricot Appeal.As well as the 2 stamp sets already mentioned I borrowed Jacquelines long flourish from  SU Vintage Vogue, and stamped them all in Adirondack Butterscotch ink.

What do you think?









The camera makes the ink look yellow,but I can assure you its a tan/orangey colour so does match the tan card base. (Honest)

After stamping the moth on the two end panels, I stamped them again on more card and cut them out to stick on top to give them some dimension ( you can just see this on the front panel).The words and figures were from Woodware,and the small corner flourish I've had for years and cant remember where it came from ( it was probably eBay as that's where I do a lot of my shopping as it saves me trudging around the shops in pain with my RA...and sometimes you get a great bargain!!!)

Today required a small amount of concentration so it made quite a change for us to actually get something done,but I'm sure we'll make up for it next week!!

Well that's it for today,and I'm going to busy over the next couple of days so I'll be back soon.

Thanks for stopping by and for you kind comments. Bev.x

In the Frame

Well no change in the weather today, but I've had plenty to do. I've done all my housework ( which included washing my bedroom rug,as poor Monty had been sick after chewing a stick....Thanks Mon!!) and you'd better sit down for this news.........I've cooked a Spag Bog for my tea tonight ( I even chopped real carrots, onions, and plum tomatoes to go in a Dolmio sauce!!! I know, wonders will never cease).
Once all this was done,I didn't feel at all guilty in sitting and crafting in front of the tennis. I did manage to find the time to pop over to Less is More  challenge where the subject is "In the Frame", but also in one layer.

This is my take on it.....first I made a 6"x6" square SU Whisper White card (seems to be my favoured size at the moment) and masked off a 3" square in the centre with post it notes.I then used SU Chocolate Chip to stamp half of the trees from the large stamp in SU Lovely as a tree. I then drew round a penny on a Post It and cut it out for a mask for the moon, over the sky area I sponged Bashful Blue and then Sahara Sand,trying to leave more blue around the moon to hint at its brightness. Using Gable Green I sponged the grass and suggested the shadows of the trees and beams of moonlight on the grass with Always Artichoke. I used the edge only of the tall tree to make hedges, the distant ones in Choc Chip,and the foreground ones in A Artichoke. The trees are highlighted with a white gel pen where the moonlight falls on the branches (difficult to see in photo,sorry ).After peeling off the Post its, I stamped the flourish from SU Strength and Hope around each side to suggest the frame.

I am pleased with the result,but seem to have as much, if not more, ink on my fingers than the card!!.

I hope you like it too, and have a moment to leave me your thoughts.

Tomorrow I'll be back with something that I've been playing around with that could save you some money!!!

 Bye for now, Bev.x

Blue Birthday

My second card of the afternoon  is this one
which I am entering in to the CAS-ual Fridays challenge following their sketch

I have turned the image 180* with a SU Bashful Blue scalloped circle done with SB nestabilities and then embossed with Cottage Floral folder placed at  the top ( I dont know where I'd be without my trustee Big Shot!!).The same blue card was punched with MS and layered on top of some navy blue card from my stash also punched.The moth and 'H' of happy birthday are from Strength and Hope and are stamped in Brilliant Blue,the rest of the greeting comes from Woodware.

That's me for the day,so please come back soon to see what else I've been up to. Thanks for dropping by,Bev.x

Thank You card

This card was inspired by the challenge on Splitcoast stampers, but I made it for my friend Jacqueline's grandfather who has emptied his garden pond and given me his fish,I hope he likes it.
I have used chocolate chip card stock and ink, with background paper that I was given as a present,and used my other favourite SU set Strength and Hope.

Jacqueline ( THANKFULLY) is hoovering over my shoulder as she is there if I need her expertise to upload this card as I am flying solo on this one!!!!!!

Clean & Simple.

The challenge this week at Clean and Simple is a sketch

For my card I used the retired Stampin' Up set Inspired by Nature - take a look

The stamp was inked using marker pens - Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo and Certain Celery. The moth is from the new Strength and Hope set and is stamped in Bashful Blue.
Thanks for looking - if you have the time please leave a comment I really appreciate every one - Bev x.