Saturday 30 June 2018

Over the Hill at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers

Edna must be feeling her age this time because our theme at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is "Over the hill"



I've used an image and very appropriate sentiment from Bugaboo stamps


I used a very light wash of watercolour for the hill and sky in the background then coloured Stella and her cake with Promarkers, adding Glossy Accents for her spectacle lenses.

I am sharing this with
Just us Girls - Wild card week - anything goes

Bicycle, Butterflies and a Blooper

I really fell in love with the photo inspiration at Just Add Ink this week


 - so  much so that rather than being inspired by it, I have more or less CASe'd it! I've tweaked it so that it also fits the Butterfly Challenge


Simply by turning those lovely trailing roses into vines, a roosting spot for a flurry of vermilion butterflies!



I started off by stamping the background with vine leaves, a Rubberstamp Tapestry peg stamp, in two shades of green. Then I put it through a stone wall embossing folder -  and here's the blooper - I put it in the wrong way round, so the stamped side came out on the wrong side of the embossing! However I still really liked it, and thought if I'd done it the right way round the vine leaves could have come out looking more distorted than they do this way, so I decided to still use it. OK bulging cement isn't authentic - but then neither is a trailing rose made out of vine leaves and butterflies!

I added a die cut sentiment and lots and lots of punched butterflies.

Thursday 28 June 2018

Crocodile Dundee

As soon as I saw the current challenge at The Male Room I knew exactly what I was going to make - but I've only just had the chance to make it!


The theme is "Inspired by a Film Title"  and I instantly thought of Crocodile Dundee, which gave me a chance to use the crocodile stamp and sentiment from a lovely old Woodware stamp set. I added some punched leaves and a frame made by nesting two Gummiapan stitched rectangle dies.

I am also sharing this with AAA Cards - Use a frame

Late for Rudolph Day

Oh dear, I'm late for Rudolph Day this month, because on the 25th I was away at my Mum's, with neither internet nor my crafting goodies. Anyway I'm home and playing catch up now,  so I've had to combine several challenges for this card so that I don't miss too many - I know a lot of challenges are low on entries at the moment and I do love to show my support for as many of my favourites as possible!


For this card I had a rummage through my bits box, where I keep all those stamped images, die cuts and backgrounds that didn't quite make it onto the card they were intended for, and came up with lots of Christmassy bits including these two stamped and punched gingerbread men and a die cut snowflake. (Yes, red snow, why not? It's reflecting the light from Rudolph's nose, so there!)

A few pieces of washi tape, a sentiment stamped with an old Studio G mini set and hey presto, and almost instant Christmas card!

I am sharing this with
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Use some washi tape or anything goes
Less is More - Bits Box Item
Scrappymo's - Rudolph Days
Fab 'n' Funky - Quick and Easy Christmas  
Winter Wonderland - Square Cards Only

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge 474 - Thank you

It's my final week as guest designer at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge  and this time the theme is Thank You.

Our sponsor is QKR Stampede and the winner will be able to choose 5 digital images.


The image I have used is called Apple Blossom Label.


I printed the label three times  then stamped the sentiment on one of the layers. I coloured  the corner spray with Promarkers then cut part of the image out on the two unstamped labels and used it to layer over the first one with 3D adhesive. 

The pretty background paper is a double sided sheer from Craft Consortium's English Garden range, using both side of the sheet.  

Wednesday 27 June 2018

We all scream for Ice Cream!

It's a real scorcher here in the UK, with temperatures in some places topping 30 Celsius, so naturally our thoughts turn to ice cream. Especially as we can't turn to cold fizzy drinks for much longer as they are apparently running out of fizz to put in them!


The stamp set I have used is an old red rubber one from the Happy Hoppers range - I stamped the image, sentiment and two heart embellishment strips from it. Everything else comes from the Craft Consortium "Candy" range - a 12" and 6" square pad, both of which I have almost used up.

I am sharing this with
Allsorts challenge - Sweet Treats
Cardz 4 Galz - Sunny Summer Days
Make my Monday - Ice cream
Sweet Stampin - Food, Drink or both  
House Mouse and friends - ATG or back to school  - a new challenge to me, thanks Barbara for the recommendation

Spotlighting at Back to Basics

Our 6th challenge is starting now at Back to Basics and this time our theme is spotlighting. This is where you stamp a large image in a single colour  and just colour a part of it, often added as a raised layer over the original.

Spotlight Technique
Lots of samples on Pinterest here
Tutorial  - You Tube Here


It's not a technique I have ever used before and I found it hard to choose a suitable stamp, but digging around some of my older stash I found this lovely Crafty Individuals stamp and chose to spotlight one of the butterfly quadrants. There's so much going on in the image that I thought it best to keep the rest of the card very, very simple with just a small sentiment and no other embellishment.

 I am sharing this with Crafty Creations Challenge - Anything Goes 

Tuesday 26 June 2018

What a hoot!

I've been away to my Mum's for a few days, which is why I've not been posting or commenting much. Right now I'm still feeling a bit exhausted so my imagination is at a bit of an ebb, but I'm trying to get my crafting mojo back.

A few months ago I bought a couple of Polyanna Pickering CDs and they game with a bundle of die cut toppers, featuring owls and wild animals. I hadn't used any of them until I saw this week's inspiration photo at Just Us Girls.


So here is my take on it


I used a topper and "wood" strips from one of the sheets and added background paper from my stash, and then to echo the pineapple and greenery I raided the snippets box and die cut some pine cones (which always remind me of pineapples - I suppose that's how they get their name) and assorted foliage from the odds and ends I found there.

Thanks to all those snippets, I am also sharing this in the Snippets Playground.

Sunday 24 June 2018

Things to Eat at CD Sundays

It's my turn to choose the theme at CD Sundays, and I've picked Things to Eat.

It's Barbecue season  but doesn't it always seem to be the case that the day you've planned one, it decides to rain? This card is aimed at those stalwarts who go ahead whatever the weather.


The image, which is lightly decoupaged, is from the CD "The Best of La Pashe 2014", as is the grassy background, and the fire paper is from the La Pashe CD "Something for Everyone". Those brilliant embellishments are from a goody bag sent to me by a friend - they weren't in their package so I don't know what brand they are - but aren't they wonderful?

I'm sharing this with the Alphabet Challenge - The Great Outdoors  (although that poor chef looks as if he doesn't think it's all that great at the moment!)

Thursday 21 June 2018

Summer at C.R.A.F.T Challenge

It's time for my latest GDT post at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge and today our theme is Summer.

The sponsor for this challenge is Digital Delights who will be giving a $5 gift voucher to the winner. 


The image I have used is called Patchy Bear. I have coloured and fussy cut the image and created a beach scene from snippets of card.

 


That cute beach towel embellishment was from a pert-used sheet of stickers a friend passed on to me. I die cut a sunshine, added a stamped sentiment from a Gruffles set and seagulls and starfish from a recent Papercraft Essentials cover gift set.
The sunshine is cut using a piece of vintage style metallic card and a die from the Dies R Us "Out of this world" set.

I am sharing this with
Dies R Us - Summertime Fun 

Wednesday 20 June 2018

Happy anniversary

This is the card I made for my younger daughter and her husband for their anniversary


I used my Grand Calibur and a Santoro folder to dry emboss the background and stamped and heat-embossed the sentiment using a Clarity stamp club stamp from several years ago. I coloured it in with my daughter's favourite shade of green, and her husband is a Beatles fan so the song title "All you need is love" is very appropriate for them.

I am sharing this with
Shopping Our Stash - She's a Craftin' machine (none of my machines are neglected but I used my heat gun and Grand Calibur)
Use Your Stuff - Inspired by a song

Teeny tiny stamps

For this card I've dug out my old Rubberstamp Tapestry stamps - nowadays they are sold under the brand name Card-Io and are tiny clear stamps, but back in the day when I bought mine, they were mounted on long wooden pegs.


I combined stamps from several different sets and stamped them using the separate colours from a couple of Kaleidacolor pads.

I am sharing this with

Inkspirational - Use Small stamps


The Flower Challenge - use any previous challenge - I've used challenge 3 - Use an older stamp or die

Tuesday 19 June 2018

Happy birthday Lara

Yesterday was the 9th birthday of our granddaughter Lara and here is the card I made for her.


Being a summer birthday, I've used lots of bright summer colours and flowers - and featured one of Lara's hobbies, tennis. I was delighted to find this Lili of the Valley digi called "Annabel tennis" as she is wearing denim dungaree shorts which apparently are what every 9 year old girl is wearing at the moment. According to Lara, anyway! I've added background papers from my stash and flowers cut with a die set that a friend bought me for my birthday last year - I'm afraid I don't know the brand as there was no name on the packaging.

I am sharing this with

A bit more time to craft - Anything Goes
Cuttlebugmania - Summer 
Sparkles Monthly Challenges - Lets be pretty  

Metallic madness at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's time for our new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz and our theme for you this time is Metallic Madness.


For the "pegboard" I inked the raised dots of a Swiss Dots embossing folder then used it to emboss a piece of kraft card, so the black dots formed indentations, then "aged" it a bit by smudging with a bit more black ink. The other part of the "workshop" surface is silver mirri embossed with a hatched design. I added screw head brads to the pegboard part.

The tools are cut with a scrap of matte silver card - they are a set of First Edition dies. The proportions are wildly different aren't they? If the drill and spanner were scaled down by the same amount, it would take half a dozen strong men to lift the spanner! The sentiment is made with a Dymo label machine - I really had to do it that way as my Dad was a frantic Dymo labeller and absolutely everything on his tool bench had at least one label, so the sentiment is a tribute to him!

Monday 18 June 2018

A stamp is for life, not just for Christmas...


The stamp I've used for this card is very much NOT a Christmas stamp, but I've often wondered whether it would work as one if coloured in suitably festive colours. I reckon with the addition of a Christmas sentiment and some bling, it just about works! The wreath stamp is a very, very old Stampendous stamp called Rose Ring, which I coloured with Promarkers, and stamped words from a Uniko Christmas sentiment set in the centre.

I am sharing this with
52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Wreaths
Just Us Girls - Red, Black and one other Colour

Twofer Trees

… and trees for two, Yew for me, and me for Yew....

Right, having given you all an unexpected ear worm, on with my entry for this months Twofers challenge, where the theme is TREES.


You may have read about my UTEE saga that meant my first attempt to create an entry for this month's challenge was a dismal failure as I killed my poor stamp after making just one card. So I dusted off another old favourite tree stamp and started again. The stamp is All Night Media "Winter Trees"  and I've had it for about 20 years.

I use it most often in sympathy cards, because of the simplicity of it, and having unfortunately needed to make several sympathy cards recently, it was the first thing that sprang to mind.


I don't like fussy, ornate sympathy cards, I prefer simple, calm designs, and  this stamp is perfect for the purpose.

And of course being a winter design, the stamp is perfect for Christmas cards too. Here I have recreated the view from my childhood bedroom on Christmas Eve each year. I always SWORE I could see Santa flying over the treetops in the lane across the field from our house!


I masked a space for a "window" and filled it with sponged blue Colour Cloud blending ink, then stamped the tops of the trees along the bottom of the window, stamping again either side without reinking the stamp. Then I stamped the Santa silhouette above it - the stamp was a gift from a friend, so I don't know the origin of it but I think she got it with a magazine. I removed the masking, ruled a "window frame" and then finished the sky with starlight from a silver glitter gel pen. In the photo it just looks like grey dots but in real life it has a pretty twinkle.

The sentiment is stamped with a Uniko stamp set.

Sunday 17 June 2018

Bee-lated birthday

I'm loving the fashion for bees in crafting so you can imagine I was absolutely thrilled to win a lovely prize from the Hochanda Facebook page - three sets of stamps, three sets of dies and a 12 x 12 pad from Heartfelt Creations "Sweet as Honey" range.


This is their first outing - I'm sure they will be used many, many more times.


I cut the background, topper panel, ticket and sentiment from the pad and stamped the beehouse, bees, honey pot and stirrer, cut them out with the matching dies and then coloured them with pencils. I think at last I'm getting the hang of pencil colouring and these are going to be great images to practise my skills with, as they are really too detailed for any other medium.

I am sharing this with
Allsorts - Use at least two dies
Little Red Wagon - To Bee or Not To Bee 
Watercooler Wednesday - All About Occasions
 

Saturday 16 June 2018

Q is for Quote at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers

It's time for our new challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers and this time Edna would like to see a quote on your work.



I've used a quote from Douglas Adams - I don't think it's actually from one of his books, it's something he said in real life.


The background is made with brushos, stamped with a starburst from the Gentleman Crafter's stamp set  and a Paper Artsy stamp, and the three face stamps are very old unmounted stamps I got in a grab bag about 20 years ago - don't you think the statue on the top right looks JUST like the kind of person you would want to poke away with a stick? He looks as if he has just smelled something really nasty.

Now let's see what quote YOU use - and you may be crowned Queen or Princess of Snark.

I am sharing this with
Country View Challenges - The written word

Cheeky Robins


For this card I have used the Memory Box "Happy Christmas" die and, once the die cut was attached to the card front, stamped robins from a Woodware set to look as if they were perching on the sentiment.
Because I wanted to stamp them directly onto the card front, I coloured them in with water based markers but now I'm wishing I'd used Promarkers and then lined the inside of the card.

I am sharing this with
Winter Wonderland - Christmas Birds
Crafty hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Non traditional colours or Anything Goes

Friday 15 June 2018

Two salads for summer

We've had a few warm days this week - in fact mark is already beginning to worry about how dry the garden is getting - and warm days call for special salads.

My first is an American Classic - Cobb Salad. We first had this on holiday in San Francisco, and have re-created it at home many times since.


Underneath all those goodies  there's a very deep layer of shredded Iceberg lettuce, although Cos or Romaine  would be more authentic. It is topped with rows of sliced avocado, cold  roast chicken, lambs lettuce (because we had no watercress), boiled egg, diced tomato, crumbled blue cheese, finely chopped chives and parsley and crumbled crisply grilled streaky bacon.

The dressing, served on the side and tossed into individual portions at serving time, is made from
60ml red wine vinegar
80ml light olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper
all whisked together and then 30g of finely crumbled blue cheese worked into it at the last minute.
The high vinegar content gives the dressing a lovely sharp tang although if you are a fan of the classic 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar dressing it might come as a bit of a shock to the system, so taste it before serving and whisk in more oil if you really feel the need.

Now my second salad, which is a substantial side salad. I served it with a South African curry but it would be equally at home with a barbecue or a Mexican dish.

This was a "fridge raid" salad - I found a stump of cucumber, one large tomato, half a red onion, a rather sad looking lime that was turning brown at the edges and the parsley and chives left over from the Cobb Salad which we'd had the day before.


I chopped the tomato, cucumber, onion and herbs and tossed them with a drained tin of sweetcorn and a small  very finely chopped red chilli, then dressed the whole thing with the lime juice.

I think I'll call this Spicy Sweetcorn Salad and share it at Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews.

Thursday 14 June 2018

Butterflies in the round


Are you impressed with my marbling? That took skill, that did..... the skill required in rummaging through my 6 x 6 pads to find a Stampin' Up pad that I knew was in there *somewhere* that featured several designs of marble printed paper. What a cheat I am! But I do love that paper and I've had it for long enough now that I can start cutting it up and not just save it for stroking purposes.

I used two circle dies to cut the  mint green frame, which I raised with foam pads, and then cut the sentiment (I think it's a Spellbinders die) and the butterflies from moss green card and the flower from a leftover corner of the mint green. The butterfly and flower dies are both upper layers of Dovecraft layering die sets.

The finishing touch is pearls - lots of them - added with Liquid Pearls.

I am sharing this with
Butterfly Challenge - The letter M. I have used mint green, moss green and marbling.
CASology - Pearl 
Cuttlebugmania - Frame It!
Crafty Calendar - Three of Something (butterflies)  
Cardz 4 Galz - Pretty & pearly

Christmas at C.R.A.F.T. challenge

I'm still guesting over at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge and this week our theme is Christmas and our sponsor is Lacey Sunshine Stamps  - one winner will be able to choose three images from the store.


The image I have used is called Sheldon C. Turtle's Christmas Gift 

 
I used a Spellbinders  die to cut out the image and coloured it in with Promarkers, adding Stickles to the fur trimmings on Sheldon's outfit and glossy accents to the water and bubbles. The papers are from my stash and the snowflakes are stickers from Lidl.

I am sharing this with
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Winter Fun
Christmas Crafts All Year round - non-traditional colours
The Holly and The Ivy - Anything Goes Christmas

Wednesday 13 June 2018

With friends like this.....

we all have a friend like this, don't we? If you can't think who it is, it's probably you. Or me!


The image and sentiment are stamps from SoSuzy and I used a gel pen to colour in the lady's jewellery and a deckle edged ruler and fineliner to add a border.

Why do I find one layer cards so much easier to make when I'm not under any pressure to stick to just the one layer?

I am sharing this with
Less Is More - Friendship
Crafty Creations Challenges - Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations - Anything Goes

Out in the forest

.. you don't usually see red, orange and yellow fir trees.


However I rather like them. This stamp is an old PSX one of a single tree (sad story coming up) which I stamped across the card, starting with red in the centre - yes, it does look as if I need a new red ink pad, doesn't it? And being a wood mounted stamp, I couldn't just stamp over and over with the Misti until it was bold enough -  then moving out through orange to yellow.

I drew in borders with my finest fineliner to keep it to a one layer card, then stamped the sentiment using a magazine freebie stamp.

Now the sad story.... this was going to be one of my two cards for the Twofers challenge, as well as for the challenges I made this particular one for. My second card was to include a UTEE panel with the tree stamped into it. But when I stamped my tree into the hot UTEE, it set solid into it and wouldn't budge, and when I tried picking the enamelled part off I found much of the rubber broke off with it. Both the stamp and the UTEE powder are around 20 years old, so it could be that the rubber of the stamp was starting to perish or it could be that something in the powder had changed with age, but whichever it is, I've had to say a sad farewell to a much loved stamp and of course now I can't use it for my second card for twofers, so it's back to the drawing board with that challenge.

However, coming back to this challenge. I would like to share it with
52 Christmas card Throwdown - Yellow, orange and red
CAS Christmas - Masculine

Heat Embossing at Back to Basics

It's time for challenge #5 at Back to Basics and this time we would like you to use the technique of Heat Embossing.


I made an inked and stamped background and only embossed the dragonfly to make it really show up against everything else. Most embossing powders give a raised and/or glossy finish but I chose a holographic powder which I used over black ink. This doesn't give a raised line, what it DOES do is give the most amazing sheen that appears to change colour when you look at it from different angles. The colour change is hard to capture in a photo but this close up gives you some idea of the glinting iridescent effect - very much like a real dragonfly glinting in the sun!

 
The dragonfly stamp was bought for me by my daughter when she was living in San Francisco, so it must be between 10 and 12 years old, and the various plant stamps are all from a Graphicus sheet that must be around 20 years old.
 
I am sharing this with
Craft Rocket - Happy Birthday 
Retro Rubber - Anything Goes  
Stamping Sensations - Anything Goes 
Love to Craft - Anything Goes 
Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes   

Tuesday 12 June 2018

You are wonderful


I've gone ultra-CAS with this card - the background panel is a Uniko stamp of geometric shapes - not sure what I'd call them. Trapeziums? Irregular quadrilaterals? Truncated triangles? My maths teacher days are far, far behind me.... Anyway, I coloured the "shapes"  in the colours of the rainbow, leaving out indigo because I can never make that out as a separate colour in a real rainbow. I reckon they only put it there so they could use the mnemonic "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain"  and have a word for every letter.

Just as an aside, that is presumably a completely British mnemonic - one that's particularly easy for me to remember as I'm a Lancashire Lass and the Wars of the Roses may have been  more than 500 years ago but they are still fresh in the collective memory of many Northerners. So, my friends from the rest of the world, how do YOU remember the order of the colours in a rainbow? I'd love to see some of your mnemonics for them.

And.…. whoosh.... back to the card. The sentiment is stamped with some stamps I won in the Playground a couple of years back. I didn't use them much at first because as you can imagine, they are quite hard to get a really clean impression with unless you have a stamping platform. But now I have one, I can do the two or three impressions needed to get a really clear, bold finish. I fussy cut the text and popped a bit of 3D adhesive behind it to make it really pop from the background.

I am sharing this with

Addicted to CAS - Rainbow
AAA Cards - Geometrics

Monday 11 June 2018

On the Prosecco!


I'm not sure I'll ever tire of this stamp of a boozy girls' night out, that was a covermount on a recent issue of Making Cards magazine. This time I've teamed with a sentiment from the same set and have stamped wide borders on the background card using stamps from the latest issue of Papercraft Essentials, with the bubbles finished with Glossy Accents.

I am sharing this with
Allsorts Challenge - Ladies' Night Out (although how ladylike these three will be by the end of the evening is open to question!)
Watercooler Wednesday - anything goes feminine