Stamping and Colouring on Vellum at Back to Basics

This time at Back to Basics we would like to see some stamping and colouring on vellum.
The stamping is often done in white, to give a parchment craft effect, but I've recently seen several projects using gold embossing instead, and decided to give that a try.

I stamped and embossed the partridge in a pear tree image, a stamp that came with a recent issue of Creative stamping, using gold ink and gold detail embossing powder. Then I used Promarkers to colour the vellum on the reverse side. As you can probably see, the alcohol pens don't blend as well on vellum as they do on normal papers. 

I embossed the holly frame onto the card front and lightly sponged it with green ink, filling in the holly berries with a red gel pen, then used invisible glue dots specially made for vellum to attach the vellum panel.

Paint it Black

Having just posted one song-inspired card for the Allsorts Inspired by a Song Challenge,  here I am with another, rather off-the-wall one.  You can blame my Facebook friends for this - they dared me to make it!

The other night I was thinking about what to make for the challenge as I drifted off to sleep  - and woke up next morning with an earworm of the Rolling Stones song "Paint it black". So I jokingly posted on Facebook my idea of making an all-black card, and several of my crafting friends dared me to go ahead, so here it is:

 

I used Versamark ink and clear embossing powder for the sentiment, so it really is just a shiny version of the same shade of black as the inside.

 

But open the card and....

 

I covered the left inner panel with white card to give the sender somewhere to write.

April Showers

I've used a Clearly Besotted stamp set for this card - I masked off the umbrella and part of the card directly below it and then stencilled and sponged the rainy sky around it.

I am sharing this with
Sweet Stampin - Whatever the weather
Allsorts - Inspired by a song   (actually I know of TWO songs called "April Showers)

It's Rudolph Day

Happy Rudolph Day! And it's the last one of the year, because the 25th of next month is Christmas Day itself.

What could be more fitting to use for this month's card than the set of stamps I won in the September Rudolph Day challenge?

How did we manage bold, solid stamps like this in the days before stamping platforms? After stamping the baubles, I doodled in hanging threads using a glitter gel pen.

As well as playing along with this month's Rudolph Days  challenge at Scrappymo's I am sharing this with Less is More where the challenge is One Layer - Holiday.

Rudolph the VERY red-nosed reindeer

We've all seen them (or been there) in the run up to Christmas - red-nosed, hungover, bobble hat askew, bottle in hand, staggering through the park at dawn after a rather-too-good party the night before! But did you know reindeer do it too? Well, this one obviously does!

The reindeer and his hat and bottle are stamped and cut with the stamps and dies that came with a recent issue of Creative Stamping and I've used papers from the same issue. The sentiment is from the same set of stamps, cut with one of my trusty old Spellbinders labels dies.

I am sharing this with
Alphabet challenge - reindeer
Jingle belles - festive food and drink
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes   

RECIPE: Onion Loaf

Last year a branch of Miller & Carter opened near to us and I love eating there. I'm always fond of a steak, but what makes Miller & Carter stand out for me is the accompaniments, especially the wedge salad, that I've never had anywhere outside the USA before,  and the onion loaf which I've never had ANYWHERE  else.

On Friday night we were having steaks at home, so I googled to see if there were any "fakeaway" recipes for onion loaf out there. I found several, although they all seemed to be clones of the same one, which makes industrial-strength quantities and uses pancake mix. Pancake mix? There's no way I'm letting that darken my doorstep! So I had to make my own recipe up.

The resulting dish is much lighter and crisper than the M&C version, so I didn't succeed in actually recreating the recipe, but it's also very, very delicious. You'll probably need to go out for a 10 mile run to work off the calories though!

I used a smallish onion and it made enough for 4-6 Miller & Carter sized portions or 2-3 greedy person sized ones.

You will need
1 onion
1 egg
50ml milk
1 mug full of self raising flour
seasoning
oil for deep frying

Start well in advance - peel the onion, slice into rounds about 5mm thick and push out into rings. Beat the egg and milk together and place in a wide, shallow bowl. Add the onion rings and mix well so they are all costed in the mixture. Allow to stand for at least an hour, turning the rings in the mixture from time to time so they all absorb some of it.

Heat the oven to 220 C (200 fan), 450F, gas mark 8. Line a small loaf tin with non-stick paper.
Heat the oil in a deep fat fryer (I don't have one so I used a deep wok) and while it is heating, put the flour into a large plastic bag, add about ½ teaspoon each of salt and pepper and shake well. Then lift the onion rings out of the soaking liquid and drop them into the bag. Squidge it all around (that's a technical term, you know) until the rings are coated in flour then deep fry a few rings at a time until crisp and golden, draining them on absorbent paper as you go along.

When all the onion rings are cooked, pack any you have managed to protect from being snaffled (they ARE very tempting and will draw everybody into the kitchen) loosely into the lined tin and bake for about 15 minutes until really deep golden and crispy and lightly holding together.

I think to make it more like the dish I was trying to copy, I should have cut the slices thicker, cooked them for less time before putting them in the tin, and then pressed them down to stick together. However I actually prefer my version - they came out like a Western version of onion bhajis. I might try varying the seasoning next time I make this recipe - some hot smoked paprika in place of pepper would be incredibly yummy. I can just imagine a plate full of that with some aioli to dunk the rings in.

Blue and White at CD Sundays

Our latest challenge at CD Sundays is a colour challenge - Blue and White.

It's a colour combo that always makes me think of the Willow Pattern, and I've used a paper and topper from Joanna Sheen's old CD "Oriental Dreams" that reminds me very much of the Willow Pattern design.

I've added a die cut Oriental scene -  the die was a gift but I think it is also a Joanna Sheen one - and used matting and peel offs to "frame" the image. Incidentally if, like me, you have a huge stash of old peel offs from when they were popular 15-20 years ago, take great care if and when you decide to use them. I found that some of mine have gone very brittle and tend to break up when you remove them from the backing.

Incidentally did you know that the Willow Pattern itself isn't actually Oriental, although it is clearly inspired by it? It originated in England in the mid-19th century.

What a contrast....

... from the very masculine card I posted earlier. This card is anything BUT masculine!

Purely by coincidence, it's also made with Hunkydory products, although these are ones that have been in my stash for a couple of years. I've added ribbon, pearls and gems from my stash to make this very girly and luxuriant.

I am sharing this with
The Butterfly Challenge where I have used the segments Jade and Jewels (plus of course the essential butterflies!)
Cardz 4 Galz - Flutterby

More vintage cars

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed some vintage transport themed Hunkydory  product, and of course I still have lots left over, so when my husband asked me to make a card for his car-mad brother, they were the ideal supplies to use.

This is a large 8" square card to give plenty room for the three toppers. I'm fascinated by the prices - so different from today - and the top speeds - really not far different from today.

I am sharing this with Kath's Masculine Anything Goes Masculine challenge at Watercooler Wednesday. 

RECIPE - Jugged Beef with Dumplings

Today I have revived a very old recipe. This was first published in a 1937 book called Economical Cookery. I've mentioned the book several times on this blog, and a few years ago wrote a post all about it and its suggested menus.

With the weather turning chilly, it's time to start thinking about warming casseroles and stews, so I've adapted the Jugged Beef recipe from the book to suit more up to date ingredients, measurements and oven settings. It still has that hearty, warming, traditional taste though - even if it doesn't look terribly pretty! I've still used the technique in the book of browning all the meat at once, something we are often advised against, and not frying the onions at all. It seems to work just as well as my usual, more washing-up intensive, way!

To serve 2-3, you will need

400g diced braising steak
4 rashers streaky bacon
2 small onions, sliced.
1  rounded tablespoon of plain flour
25g butter or lard
rind and juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly
2 bay leaves
1 sprig  thyme
leaves from 1 stick of celery, or a small piece of the stalk
4 cloves
a 3cm length of cinnamon stick
water or beef stock
seasoning

for the dumplings: 60g self raising flour and 30g shredded suet

I like to use a cast iron casserole dish for this but any flame proof casserole will do, just check a lighter weight one regularly to make sure it isn't boiling dry.

Put the lemon rind, herbs,  celery, cinnamon and cloves into a piece of muslin (actually I use a J-cloth, and despite what Bridget Jones experienced, it doesn't turn anything blue) and tie with string to make a sort of  giant bouquet garni.

Heat the oven to 160 C (140 Fan), 325 F, gas mark 3.

Cut the bacon into bite sized pieces and place in the cold pan, then heat it over moderate heat until the fat runs out and the bacon starts to fry in its own fat.

Toss the beef in the flour and seasoning, then add it and the butter to the pan, reserving any remaining flour. Cook until evenly browned, turning occasionally but not stirring hard.

Reduce the heat to low and dust in the leftover flour. Pour over water or stock to just cover, add the herb and spice bundle, add the lemon juice and onions, cover, bring to a gentle simmer and place in the oven for around 2 hours.

45 minutes before it is due to be ready, mix the flour and suet together with a pinch of salt and add just enough water to allow you to roughly shape it into 4 balls.

Remove the dish from the oven and discard the bag of herbs and spices. Mix in the redcurrant jelly, stirring until it has melted into the gravy. Place the 4 dumpling balls on top and return to the oven to finish cooking. Some people like to leave the lid off while dumplings are cooking, to brown them on top, but I think they come out lighter if they are covered.

Serve with good old fashioned winter veg, as befits a winter stew!

Now, let's have a look what the book suggest as tomorrow's menus for the day, shall we?


Breakfast:
Cereal
Fresh fruit
Fried liver

Mid-day meal:
Grilled herrings
Mustard sauce
Potatoes
Pancakes

Evening meal:
Curry Soup
Steak and kidney hotpot
Parsnips
Chocolate
Pineapple Pudding

Feeling full yet?

Hello, stranger!

Yes, this is actually ME and not a pre-scheduled post, it must be about 10 days since I last posted apart from my DT posts, as I've been away to visit my Mum and the stress of the visit left me in a not-very-good place for crafting, with my mojo completely AWOL. Anyway, I decided to ease myself  back into the game with a very quick and CAS card.

I used the SU Cookie Cutter Christmas stamps and punch to make my Santa, gave him a "valley" of black and red spotty washi tape to stand in and finished off with a sentiment stamped with the Father Christmas stamp set that came with the current issue of Papercraft Essentials.

I am sharing this with
Allsorts Challenge - CAS Christmas
Addicted to stamps and more - Clean and simple
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - something beginning with H  (Ho Ho Ho)
Fab'nFunky - Christmas
CAS  on Friday - Use washi tape
CAS Christmas - Santa 

Christmas Critters at Cardz 4 Guyz

Christmas is only just over a month away now, so at Cardz 4 Guyz we're giving you a cardmaking nudge - this time we'd like to see Christmas Critters on your cards.

I've used a stamp, die and papers that came with a recent issue of Papercraft Essentials.

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers challenge #123 - Home

It's new challenge day at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers and today the theme Edna has chosen for us is Home.  She obviously thinks there's no place like it...  just look at those ruby slippers!

I've managed to find a sweet little house stamp that has been lurking, totally NBUS, in my stash for years and years - I have no idea where it originally came from but the size suggests it was either a magazine freebie or a Studio G stamp.

I've simply teamed it with a brick-wall stencilled background and a sentiment I created on the computer.

An easy easel card at Back to Basics

It's time for our new challenge at Back to Basics and this time we would like to see a simple easel card. Don't forget that as we are a technique challenge, the subject matter can be anything you wish!

And this time I wished..... PIRATES.

I printed a "treasure map" from a CD and distressed the edges and added to the top and bottom panels of my card. The cute pirate, sentiment, treasure chest and barrel are stamped with a Clearly Besotted stamp set and I've finished it off with a few bright stickers.  To make the stand, I scored a 4.5cm piece of card, wide enough to hold the images,  at 1, 2, 3 and 4 cm  then stuck the narrow flap inside the first panel to form a square tube. Sticking the base of it down to the card means it will fold flat when the card is closed, and stand up to act as a stopper for the front panel when it is open.

Rumble in the Jungle

I was asked to make this card for a 2nd birthday. I've never met the child in question but I know that she comes from a family of animal lovers - and that EVERY two year old is a cheeky monkey!

I used the Woodware Jungle Pals stamp set, which I've had for about 10 years,  and teamed it with some giraffe print paper plus ribbon and a chipboard number which are all about 7 years old. On the inside I've used another VVOS (very very old stuff) stamp to stamp Happy Birthday. In fact everything about this card is older than the recipient will be on her birthday! Which makes this perfect for the middle column of the tic-tac-toe at Shopping Our Stash this week.

Round and Round

I'm sure when the team at Twofers chose their theme this month, they were trying to point us towards Christmas cards, because the word prompt is WREATH.

So, being a stubborn type, I couldn't make a Christmas card, could I? Instead I dug out a very old stamp (it's marked 1998), the Stampendous "Rose Ring".

and now a closer look at them:

This one I stamped in Versamark ink and heat embossed with silver powder. I actually intended doing the stamping in silver too, I opened a brand new silver ink pad but although it coats the stamp easily enough,  when I stamp it, the image doesn't transfer to the paper. I don't know what's wrong with it so I think I'll have to try it with a different stamp and possibly return it as faulty. Anyway, that's by-the-by, the silver wreath has the calm, elegant look I like to use on sympathy cards so I used a simply sympathy sentiment in the centre.

I am sharing this with
Less is More - metallic


Now on to the next one - same stamp, same layout...

… but this time stamped in Black Memento, coloured with Promarkers and matted with red to match the roses, with a birthday sentiment in the middle.

I am sharing this with
Allsorts challenge - Poppies or the colour Red

REVIEW: making masculine cards with Hunkydory

You can't have failed to notice how often, over the years, I have used Hunkydory products in my creations. They produce a huge range of papercraft supplies, and their pre-printed and pre-diecut toppers with co-ordinating paper and card are great because they are perfect for beginners to use in simple cardmaking and yet versatile enough for more experienced crafters to make more complicated designs. I often use them for fancy-fold cards, so I can concentrate on the card shape and have the artwork all ready to add.

So I was delighted when Hunkydory asked me to review some of their products and allowed me to choose some items to review. All my current Hunkydory supplies are very feminine and floral so I decided to try some of their masculine products for a complete change. Many crafters find it hard to make cards for men, and Hunkydory have a lot of products to help with that.

The items I chose were the A4 pad and topper deck from the Planes, Trains and Automobiles collection  and, to use for matting alongside them,  the Colour Families Paper Pack in brown.

All I've needed to add, apart from adhesive and card blanks, is a few brads and some candi.

For me the topper pack is the real star attraction - it contains 54 heavyweight card toppers featuring various cars, planes, ships and planes, all in a vintage style with details of each one. There are several of each design (I didn't stop to count, and being a patience player my first action was to shuffle the cards as if they were a deck of playing cards!). The artwork is stunning and the cards themselves good, sturdy, high quality cards that give a luxury feel to the finished card. And an extra touch that I love - on the car cards, it tells us the original price of the car. How times - and prices - have changed.

The A4 pad is designed to compliment the toppers, with double sided papers to work with the land, sea and air themes. It's unusual to find papers that are A4 rather than square, and as a cardmaker rather than a scrapbooker I often find 12 x 12 papers don't cut into convenient sizes without a lot of waste. I really love the designs, especially the collage ones which remind me of the cigarette cards that my Dad used to collect as a boy in the 1930s. However the semi-gloss papers are shinier than I am used to and, having had issues stamping on glossy paper in the past, I'm reluctant to try stamping on them. I got around the stamping issue on the card I wanted to add a sentiment to, by digging out my old peel-off greetings. I notice that Hunkydory sell a book of die cut sentiments which I think would be useful with this glossy paper.

Each theme section of the papers includes a scene - rail tracks, mountain roads, sky or sea, and this scene is a full A4 sheet. While it can be cut up into smaller sections and still look beautiful, few crafters regularly make A4 sized cards and it seems a pity not to have the chance to use the whole scene, so I'd have liked to see one or two sheets in the pad show a pair of A5 scenes side-by-side as well.

Finally the Colour Families paper - this too is semi glossy, so presents the same challenge to stamping, but it die cuts absolutely beautifully! Being thinner than cardstock, you need to add a piece of scrap paper between the die and your cutting plate, otherwise the die can get embedded in the cutting plate (don't ask me how I know that) but you can see from the tiny teeth on my die cut cogs that the paper comes out of the die cleanly and easily without bending or tearing.

Disclaimer - I was sent these products to review but all opinions are my own, and with lots of paper sand toppers left you are going to be seeing a lot more makes using them over the next few months!

Bleached Geisha

This Oriental Lady stamp is at least 20 years old, she came in a grab bag I bought so I don't know what brand she is. I stamped her onto pink card and then used a waterbrush filled with bleach to remove the colour from the skin areas - oooh that naughty lady isn't wearing anything under that scarf!

The background also uses bleach, it's a scrap left over from a previous project. The dark blue card has been sprayed and splattered with bleach, and where the bleach has landed, it has produced an aqua colour. It's always a good idea to test a scrap of your card before using bleach - sometimes it makes no difference at all, sometimes it goes completely white and sometimes you get a surprise. I've seen one green card that turned red when bleached!

I've added some candi, a silk butterfly and a piece of origami paper that picks up the pink of the topper, the blue of the background, the red of the butterfly and the ochre of the matting paper.

I am sharing this with the Butterfly Challenge, where my original idea had been just to use the colour rose, but it sort of evolved as I went along when I realised I only had one silk butterfly left and it wasn't the pink one I'd thought it was, and I appear to have used all three of the challenge colours. My candi is round, I have repeated the row of three dots at the top and bottom of the card and the blue layer is recycled from a previous project, so I think, possibly rather tenuously, I have snuck into the "all seven elements" category, quite by accident!

I am also sharing with Just Us Girls where I've been able to use my bleach in two different ways.

Going up the walls!

You know when you are feeling stressed or angry, people sometimes say you are "going up the walls"? Well, I reckon this kitty is doing exactly that!

And look where it's got him - he's torn the wallpaper, and now he's hanging on by his claws! I won this stamp set in the Snippets Playground so it seems highly appropriate that I should use them for a snippets make. I chose scraps that resembled wallpaper and floorboards, and stamped the cat and claw marks on the wallpaper so I knew where to tear, then stamped the cat again on a snippet of white and fussy cut it to stick it over the one on the wallpaper. As well as positioning the claw marks, it also meant I didn't need to try to fussy cut the whiskers!

As well as sharing this in the Snippets Playground, I am sharing it at Shopping Our Stash where the challenge is It's Raining Cats and Dogs.

Winter Wonderland at CD Sundays

Our latest challenge at CD Sundays is "Winter Wonderland" so it could be a Christmas card or one suitable for a winter birthday. I think my card would work well for either.

I used a paper and topper from the Joanna Sheen "Victorian Christmas Cards" CD set, and stamped a sentiment using a recent magazine covermount stamp. I offset the sentiment to display more of that beautifully atmospheric silhouette tree.

REVIEW: Lavender & Lovage: A culinary notebook of memories & recipes from home & abroad

If you've ever searched the internet for recipes, you may well have visited the blog Lavender and Lovage, where Karen Burns-Booth writes beautifully about food, travel and food-related travel, as well as producing regular recipes.

Karen has now written a book, a collection of recipes and writings about her food and travels. It will be available in Kindle format  and print version on November 13th, and her publisher kindly sent me an ARC so I could review it. (Note - if you go to Amazon to check out the print version and it says "out of stock", just ignore it and order anyway, apparently it is printed to order and that makes the Amazon system think there is no stock).

 

This is a book to sit down and savour - the writing is beautiful, reminding me of Nigel Slater or Elizabeth David, the kind of writing that makes you undecided as to whether you want to grab your pinny or your passport. Recipes are interspersed with anecdotes, memories, photographs and menus reproduced from places she has visited.

 

The recipes themselves are from all around the world, from the many places that Karen has lived or visited, and they all have one thing in common - they are uncomplicated yet delicious, the kind of foods that people eat every day somewhere in the world. Yes, this is a book for reading, but it is also very much a book for cooking from and even a beginner cook can tackle most, probably all, of the dishes. There are no cheffy, showy, inaccessible recipes here, just lots and lots of good, wholesome food.  Many of Karen's travels mirror my own experiences, for instance she too has lived in Hong Kong and  the book includes a recipe for Chow Fan, a comfort food I turn to time and time again. Recipes also come from France, USA, Spain, South Africa and Southern American countries, yet none of them requires exotic or hard to find ingredients.

 

Karen's world includes Britain - the book includes some of our traditional regional recipes that are in danger of dying out. I was particularly pleased to see the recipe for Yorkshire Corned Beef Pie. Although I am from Lancashire myself, it brought back memories of the delicious "Meyt'n'tater" pies of my childhood. Nowadays when I go back home to visit, I sometimes buy a pie to try to recapture that taste, but the mashed potato has been replaced by mechanically sliced potato, the potatoes and onions have not been pre-cooked and the corned beef has been replaced by grisly cheap mince, and not much of it. So that really HAD to be the first recipe  I tried from the book.

 

I knew I'd picked a winner when I smelled it cooking - it smelled just like the bakehouse that my grandmother worked in in the late 1950s, where we would go to meet her from work at lunchtime and she would bring out piping hot pies for us to eat in her house, just across the street.

 

 

Just look at that crust! And at the well-packed filling, just crying out to be served with some beetroot and quick-pickled onions (which it was, immediately after this photo).

The recipe was very generous too - I halved the 6 person quantity and used a smaller pie plate, but there was still plenty to serve two of us twice over, and that was without the traditional accompaniment of chips. (We were big carb fans ooop north in my childhood, we'd have had bread and butter as well, and washed it down with sugary tea. Remind me again why I'm diabetic?)

I couldn't judge the book by just one recipe, though, could I?  Another that caught my eye was Turkish Lentil Soup. I've been on the lookout for the perfect Turkish Lentil Soup ever since my first trip to Turkey, about 10 years ago. I was going away  for a girly break with a friend. The flight was delayed by several hours so we arrived very late at the hotel but they'd kept some dinner back for us and welcomed us with a steaming bowl of delicious lentil soup. If I'd been less exhausted I'd have asked for the recipe there and then, but now I've got it! This is exactly the soup I've been looking for.

Do excuse my photo, I'm not the kind of skilled food stylist that Karen is! But I know what's good - and this soup is very, very good and one I will make many times more. The final touches of chilli and lemon are absolute genius and turn a very, very simple to make soup into a special but sustaining treat that is guaranteed to warm up the coldest, dreariest day.

I'm really enjoying this book and will be cooking many more recipes from it. Now, having apologised for my own photography skills, here by contrast are a couple of examples of Karen's own work, and if they don't leave you craving for breakfast or Welsh Rarebit I don't know  what will!

RECIPE: Spicy peanuts

These nuts are a delicious and easy alternative to offering salted peanuts as a nibble with drinks, but a warning - don't make more than you need, thinking you will keep some for another day, they are so moreish you'll just keep eating them until they are gone!

Use the red or pink skinned peanuts for this, or at this time of year you could even buy peanuts in their shells and have fun shelling your own. Note that if you are buying them in a supermarket, they are often MUCH cheaper in the Asian foods section, and if you are lucky enough to have an Asian shop (Chinese or Indian, they both tend to stock them) nearby they will be cheaper still.

For each 100g of nuts you will need:
a little oil - I like to use Chinese peanut oil but any mildly flavoured oil will do
1 clove of garlic, finely crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp chilli powder (or to taste, we like them quite hot and buy very hot chilli powder)
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the nuts over medium heat until the skins start to split and slightly brown. Toss in the cumin seeds and garlic and fry for a further 1-2 minutes, then the chilli powder and fry for one minute longer.

Allow to cool and add salt to taste.

That's all you need to do!

More encaustic painting

Do you remember a few days ago I shared two cards made using the encaustic painting technique, that I had made for the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers?

Well, I mentioned in my post that once I get hold of my waxes and iron, I tend to get a bit carried away, and here is another fairy card I made using the same technique.

This time I kept to purple and turquoise, the colours I think of as "fantasy colours" and finished the fairy off with a little glitter and a simple stamped sentiment. You can read more about the encaustic wax technique on my original post .

I am sharing this with
Fab 'n' Funky - Fantasy Figures
Watercooler Wednesday - anything goes feminine

Golden Thank You

I've got several sentiment stamps that are so big they don't really work with an image, and I usually use them in a very CAS way but this time I thought I'd add interest in the form of a background.

I used Brushos to make a watercolour background then when it was dry, spritzed with a gold mica spray. The sentiment is heat embossed onto this in gold.

I am sharing this with
Use Your Stuff - Give Thanks
Little Red Wagon - Just a sentiment

Lots of Poinsettias

I just wanted one poinsettia - but I got a bit carried away with my Brusho backgrounds and ended up making four, so instead of just one CAS card, which had been my original plan, I made  two, the second one not being at all CAS.

Here is my first card - I made Brusho backgrounds with red and green powders sprinkled into watercolour paper and spritzed with water, then stamped the poinsettia onto the red and green backgrounds, then fussy cut both images, cutting away the leaves of the red to just leave the bracts, then paper-pieced the red onto the green.  The centre is made with gold Liquid Pearls. I am sharing this with

CAS Watercolour - Christmas florals and greenery

The Flower Challenge  - A special occasion


I used the rest of my Brusho backgrounds to make three more of the poinsettias, as above, to use for this card.

The lovely embossed holly frame uses a Card Making Magic embossing folder. The middle poinsettia is placed on foam pads to raise it slightly above the other two.

I am sharing this one with
Jingle Belles - Mele Kalikimaka
Stamping Sensations - Get Ready For Christmas
Crafty Calendar - Paper piecing