Build a bouquet

Morning all,I hope you all had a good weekend. I've been very remiss and haven't said thank you to all my followers, it means a lot to have you following me and I love reading all your comments, so thank you very much. 

I was very very naughty watching Fran from Stampendous on telly the other day and so I got the stampendous build a bouquet stamps from hixxysoft the other week, they actually sent me two sets by accident but I was a good girl and returned the other set to them!

I settled down at the weekend and stamped them on watercolour card in black archival and then had my first go at using my distress reinkers as watercolours to colour them. I then fussy cut the elements and built them up into bouquets as the name suggested! I used the inspiration on the packet as a guide for the colouring. The set comes with a clear plastic "stencil" which is the inside and outside masks for the stamps which I think could be really useful.

I saw my GP first thing and I have now started my new painkillers. It's the small things that make you smile, the new tablets are deep purple, my favourite colour! Hope you all have a great day and that the weather is kind to you today x

Just because...

I threatened on Friday to show you my random colouring in if I managed to make it into anything. I was watching create and craft the other day when they were flogging watercolour pencils and so decided to drag my tin of pencils that I've had for about 20 years out of the cupboard and have a go.

I stamped the clarity bird in black archival on water colour paper and had a play. I obviously have no patience as I didn't always wait for the card to dry and so had some bleeding over the lines. Trusty scissors to the rescue!

In order to make it into a card I used a 6x6 card blank and a snippet of shaving foam and reinkers background that I'd used on another card (need to wait to show you that one!) I stamped the branch that came with the bird on the paper and coloured it in. I used a bit of gold mirri left over from another card (see tomorrow's post) to back it. I added the bird with foam tape to add a little dimension. After making the card I decided the bottom right was a little bare and so holding my breath I stamped a lili of the valley sentiment there.

I'm surviving with the pain at the moment, keeping focused on something rather than just watching TV helps as does ice cream! Little Ava is stable today, although still very poorly so your good thoughts must be helping, thank you.

I'm taking this card over to Snippets playground as the background and gold card are from the scraps pile.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Oldie Friday

I'm joining Erika once again for Oldie Friday. Just as well really as I'm not really up to crafting today. I have chronic pain from my neck problem and have been having hideous side effects from my current pain relief. In order to switch to a different one I have to wean myself off my current one over a number of weeks. We're now at the point where in a couple of days I will just be on co-codamol rather than the stuff out of the controlled drugs safe in the pharmacy and boy can I feel it! It feels like someone is stood on my shoulders and is trying to twist my head off, whilst someone else has me in a very very tight bear hug crushing my back. At least I still have my vivid imagination! 

Enough woe is me, if anyone has any spare prayers or vibes please can you send them to my forum friend who has a 20 month old daughter with Charge Syndrome, Ava. Ava is in intensive care at GOSH and is in a medically induced coma due to her body being taken over by an infection. Her parents have been told to expect the worst sadly.

Right after all that, back to my oldie post. I think I made this card about 3 years ago from a Docrafts Hot Diggity Dog kit, with a few added flourishes and flowers made with my favourite punches from the coordinating papers. As you can see I still love my faux stitching all this time later!

Hope you all have a great weekend, I may be back with some colouring I did the other night as a distraction if I can turn it into something presentable.

February ATCs

These are the ATCs I made for the craft telly forum ATC swap. Our theme this month was February and whatever that means to you. I decided to focus on leap year and so made these very simple ATCs of bunnies playing leap frog. I coloured them in with my trusty copics using the warm grey and cool grey tones. I used spellbinders ATC dies to cut out the image and a base of Kraft card. Despite using wet glue, I still managed to glue the image on at an angle. Typical!

What's on your workdesk Wednesday.

I'm joining the lovely Julia for our weekly nose at everyone else's crafting chaos ( I can hope that everyone is as chaotic as me right?).

On the kitchen table today you can see that I've been doing some stamping with a cute lili of the valley bunny stamp which I've been making into ATC's for a swap by masking off part of the image. My EK tools scissors are in evidence - they are my absolute favourites for fussy cutting, I love them far too much! The cardboard box on the right contains my set of 48 distress reinkers that Hubby bought me for Christmas (I know, so spoilt right?). On the left hand side in front of my cut n boss machine is my bargain of the weekend. Hubby wanted to get some electronic bits on Sunday and the shop, just happens to be round the corner from Inspirations in Preston, the craft shop owned by Hunkydory. In the shop they have a section for create and craft returns. 3 for £10. I got that whole brick of 3 packs (one pack is trying to make an escape bid on the top) of adorable scorable 300gsm patterned card in a mix of florals and knitted designs for just £10! They even threw in a free gift pack with some stickers, card, toppers and inserts when I got to the till. All Hubby's fault of course! Have a great Wednesday x

Love card swap

I'm sharing the card I made for the craft telly forum February card swap today. The theme this month is love. I was inspired by Mrs Duck who makes amazing paper flowers, I cheated and used a job lot of paper roses I got cheaply off eBay! I used a clarity stencil and applied cosmic shimmer sparkle paste through it. I didn't cover the heart centre well, hence I needed a cover up. Initially my thought was to use red roses but I didn't have enough and so I used cream ones, but I think I prefer them. A bit of gold mirri to layer it up and a cream card base and job done. I hope you have a great day, thee is beautiful sunshine here at the moment, so I'm off out for a wander.

Keep swimming!

I decided to join in the Simon says stamp Wednesday challenge this week where the theme is shake it. This inspired me to make my first ever shaker card. In hindsight trying to create a small fishbowl shaped shaker pocket for my first attempt wasn't the best plan. After 4 attempts I got something that although not perfect at least keeps the sequins inside! I'm now coveting the WRMK fuse tool. The fish bowl set is from Simon says stamp. I'm still not happy with the overall composition of the card, but at least it's finished!

Less is more - texture

I thought I'd join in this week's Less is more - texture I used cosmic shimmer texture paste in polar white through a Clarity stencil and when it had dried used a pale blue copic to add some definition. I thought it would make a great sympathy card to add to the box (needing too many of them at the moment). A little bit of silver mirri and a sentiment stamp from Kaisercraft finished it off. Hopefully the second picture shows the texture more, I also made the card blank out of linen card. It is straight in reality honest!

Easter batches

More batch card making to share with you today. The images are Anita's decoupage from a kit I bought on Create and Craft. The embossed white cards came in the kit, as did the plain purple/lilac ones but I embossed them using some embossing folders. I haven't added a sentiment so that they could be used for other occasions if required.

I'm hoping to get some crafting done this afternoon. I refuse to be beaten by my shaker card and I have a couple of ATC's and a card to make for a craft swap that need to be in the post by the end of the week, so I shall hopefully share something with you tomorrow. Have a great weekend and keep warm and dry.

Oldie Friday

I'm joining Erika again this week for Oldie Friday where we show old makes. This was a card I made for a locum at work a few years ago who was leaving and going back to work with the army rehabilitation service. I used a Mo Manning digi stamp coloured with copics and lili of the valley papers, Kraft card, bakers twine and a sentiment from Craftwork Cards. Apologies for the rubbish photo.

I'm pleased to say that my cold is finally on the way out. My crafting has suffered, don't ask about the three failed shaker card attempts! I've spent a while doing some fussy cutting of Hunkydory little books to make some toppers today whilst waiting for the vet to phone. My beautiful little bunny Bramble has been in for a dental, x-Rays and bloods under general anaesthetic today, fortunately she seems to have come through it all okay and I can pick her up this evening. I think we'll keep her indoors tonight with Parsley so it'll be heating off in the kitchen later. I'll have to stick to fussy cutting on the sofa as the table will be out of bounds. Have a great Friday.

What's on your workdesk Wednesday

I'm joining the lovely Julia again for What's on your workdesk Wednesday the one day of the week where we get to play "Through the keyhole" and guess, "who crafts at a desk like this?" In the case of my desk a very messy crafter obviously! As you can see I've spilled over onto the chairs and the floor as well. Things have been a bit abandoned as I'm still fighting off this cold, so apologies if I don't get to visit you until later in the week as I'm feeling grotty - I thought you were supposed to feel better as the days passed?

I mentioned yesterday that I had made my card out of some precoloured stamped and die cut images. You can see on the desk how I like to fill a sheet of card with stamped images and sit and colour them in and then have a die cutting session ready to make into cards later. Saves on buying colouring books! I've been using my copics to colour at the moment. It really does make a difference as to the card/paper you use to colour on. I tried clarity stamping card but found that I was getting a lot of bleeding round the edge of the image. I'm currently using some 300gsm Kanban stamping card that I've had for years. I also have some white and cream stamping card that Mel Heaton was praising on create and craft a couple of years ago that works well. Not sure what I'll try when they run out, fortunately I have a small amount *wink* stashed away at the moment. Right, off to find the cough syrup now, have a great Wednesday everyone.

Boo! Or who let that bunny out?!

I thought I'd share with you today a card that I made from my bag of left over coloured (with copics) and die cut images. The gnome is from The my favourite things "you gnome me" set and the bunny is a left over from my Christmas cards - Lawn Fawn "Snow days" I used paper from a lili of the valley pad and layered it all up with my favourite tattered lace pin dot squares. I love the way the gnome is so startled, makes me smile every time I look at him. I'll have to find a sentiment to add to it - any ideas?

Hugs

Okay, I admit to being naughty and buying this Tonic die when it was half price last week. I needed some more support type cards to keep sending them to my two internet friends who are having a rough time and so this fits the bill. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I cut the die out of a DL card blank leaving the die in the card. I then die cut it out of pink card and used the verso edge die to cut it out. I layered the pink over the card blank and added clear wink of Stella over the letters to highlight the hugs. The second image might show the sparkle more clearly.

I used 2 flower punches that I got from Lakeland years ago when they sold crafting stuff to make flowers out of the scraps of background papers that I used yesterday to make my batch cards. I added a few gems to accent the flowers and dotted them around the edges.

I'm going to take this card over to Snippets Playground as the flowers were made with snippets. I've heard rumours that Miss is away and Sarn is in charge so should be fun over there!

More batch making!

Gosh, there was absolutely nothing on telly last night was there? Fortunately my copy of Cardmaking and Papercraft was delivered yesterday and contained a free Hunkydory kit. I settled down at the kitchen table with some card blanks, ribbon, gems and flowers and got sticky! Couldn't believe it when I looked at the clock and it was 10.30pm! I had a productive evening though, even if I have to spend today tidying up. It's amazing how the backing from double sided tape goes everywhere but in the bin. Hubby is off to a beekeeping meeting today, so I've been abandoned to watch repeats of Amazing Wedding cakes and curl up on the sofa and nurse the cold that I've woken up with. Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day!

Bee mine

A quick valentines card that I made for Hubby this morning. I saw this Avery Elle set last year and knew it would make the perfect Valentine, not that we usually bother. I stamped and die cut the image and coloured them in with my trusty copics. Used some blue cardstock and my tattered lie pin dot squares on a 4 inch square Kraft card blank. I used 1mm mounting foam to add all the elements. I stamped the main image again in red ink and cut out the heart and added it over the black heart on the image. 

Oldie Friday

I'm joining  Erika again for Oldie Friday where we share makes from times gone by, when there were fields rather than houses and you could buy the Dandy and a quarter of cola cubes for 20p. Okay, maybe not that far back, but I made this card approx 3 years ago for a colleagues daughter who had just had a little boy. I think the layout was cased from lili of the valley galleries and the main image is lili of the valley. The baby grow stamp was a magazine freebie. I think the papers came from a mix of CDs. Think I got a little carried away with the faux stitching - something's don't change!

I'm also sharing the cupcakes that I was asked to make for his christening. Yep, his Dad is a Liverpool supporter!

Space...

I saw that the latest challenge over at Fab n funky this week is "The Space Race" so I thought I'd join in as I had some coloured in "aliens" from Clearly Besotted still lurking in my stash from making another card.

I stamped the woodware sentiment stamp on both matt black card and silver Miri card and heat embossed it in silver. Top tip - don't heat from the back on Miri card and heat it for as little time possible or the top layer bubbles up. I got it right on the third attempt! I fussy cut the silver sentiment out and stuck it over the sentiment on the black card so the "movement lines" showed. I cut I out with a tattered lace pin dot rectangle and then trimmed a silver mat to fit. I stuck it all together using 1mm foam tape for the aliens, space ship and planets on black pearlised card that I folded to make an A5 base. Finally I added a few papermania glitter dots to act as stars. I think it makes a cute birthday card, thanks for the challenge to inspire me to use up those pesky aliens before they try to invade!

Do crafts folk floral

Been doing some batch card making today. I bought the Docrafts folk floral collection from C&C ages ago and decided that I better use it up! I made 8 cards yesterday and these 6 today. Everything is from the kit apart from the 6x6 craft card blanks and a bit of gold Miri card. Quick and simple, but great to add to the card box, which is looking a little empty at present.

Apologies for the rubbish picture, as ever I used the top of the cooker as the rest of the place is covered with craft stuff. I had to hold the camera up over the cooker, hindered by the fact that I had the top oven oven as I was grilling some bacon that was on its use by date, so we can have it tomorrow. Does that count as multi tasking?!

Hang in there again!

As there was nothing on the telly last night, I did a little mess making or crafting as it is also known!

I've had this wooden mounted Penny Black stamp in my stash for years and thought it would be good for making some uplifting cards! I did the usual stamp in memento tuxedo black and coloured in with copics. I used my tattered lace pin dot and pearl dies to mat and layer up the card. The image and sentiment (from Heatfelt Creations Sugar Hollow range) are raised on foam tape. I did consider making a computer sentiment such as "here's some extra support for you" but the computer is soooo far away,  upstairs and everything!

I originally was going to add flowers to the card but felt it didn't really need them, so whilst I was at it I made another one! Hope you!re all staying warm and dry x

Ahoy there!

This is a card that I was asked to make for a colleagues granddaughter who is in the sea cadets.

I used a lili of the valley image coloured in copics and a memory box die to give the idea of waves. The sentiment was from Joanna Sheen and I used the matching alphabet to add the name as requested. Can't remember the make of the anchor dies, possibly Marianne, but they finished off the corners nicely.

I had a lovely surprise when I looked on the Stamping Sensatioms Challenge blog to discover that my   Hang in there card was one of their top 3 picks! I guess everyone loves an owl or two at the moment!

Winter weather ATCs

I'm sharing with you today the two ATCs I made for the craft telly forum ATC swap. The theme was "winter weather". In hindsight I should have chosen something with umbrellas and welly boots given the weather we had, but I went with the traditional view of winter. I had great fun staining my fingers blue playing with a blending mat, blending tool and my distress reinkers. I used cosmic shimmer polar white paste through Simon says stamps falling snow folder and then added some layered die cut snowflakes (joy dies??) in mirridazzle. A couple of bits of bling and job done.

Another sympathy card

It's not been a great start to the new year, this is the second sympathy card I've had to make this year for someone who has lost her husband.  I used a lili of the valley stamp and coloured it in with my spectrum pencils. The blue looks a bit dark on the left hand side and I've taken some of the colour off with a rubber since photographing the card. The sentiment is from the same set as the other sympathy card I posted. I can't claim to be deeply religious but I know the recipient finds her faith a comfort and so I thought it appropriate. I used the tattered lace rectangles and pearl rectangles as they were still on the table and mounted the image on 1mm foam tape to add a little definition. I used the left over scraps of stamping card and purple card from the previous sympathy card and so I think I might take this card over to Snippets playground as I need a go on the swings to cheer me up!

Poppy Birthday

So this is the finished poppy birthday card. Mum won't be pleased as it will be a large letter stamp as it's 8x8, and so I added a bit of dimension to it too.

I'd stamped the poppies in archival ink, tried distress ink which although I preferred the vibrancy I preferred the crisp image with archival inks. I'll just have to buy a brighter red than red geranium. I had experimented with adding iridescent medium over the poppies which adds a silver shimmer, but I felt it knocked back the vibrancy of the red even more. I trimmed the image with tattered lace essential rectangles and backed it with red card and the tattered lace pearl rectangles. I matted and layer up the red and white background layers with some 1mm foam tape and added a strip of red ribbon with red liner tape. The sentiment is from lili of the valley and I used spellbinders ovals and scalloped oval nesties and foam tape to add it to the card. A quick bow on the ribbon stuck on with glue gel and job done.

With Sympathy

Apologies for the rubbish photo, it was taken at 6.30 in the kitchen with a bulb missing out of the light fitting! I had to photograph it on the kitchen table as my usual photography space (top of the cooker) has a spag bol in progress.

I found out today that my boss's dog had passed away last week, so I wanted to whip up a quick card to let her know I'm thinking of her. I struggled to find dog stamps that weren't too happy looking, but eventually found these that were a freebie with a craft magazine some time ago. I used Simon Says stamp stitched rectangles and the sentiment stamp I think is Kaisercraft. The frame is actually more of a dark purple than it looks in the pic. Right spag bol calls!

What's on your workdesk Wednesday

I'm joining the lovely Julia for what's on your workdesk Wednesday again this week. Evident on my desk is my black Sizzix stamping mat covered with some copier paper to protect it along with some post it notes I was masking with. Just above it are the fruits of my labour(!) the poppies stamped with two clearly besotted stamp sets (yes, I have a slight addiction to them). Mum saw a thinking if you card I'd made with them and asked me to make a birthday card for my Aunt who loves poppies, so I've been experimenting. The pearly looking bottle next to the stamping mat contains iridescent medium which I was playing with adding to the poppies. You might just be able to make out a couple of stamped and coloured images in front of the TV that are waiting to be made into cards and a bit of the usual chaos that seems to follow me about! Hope you all have a creative Wednesday.

Yet more owls!

I hadn't realised that I had an owl addiction until now! I remembered that I hadn't shared with you the card I made for the November craft telly card swap. The theme was autumn. I know it's winter now but the wind whistling round the house reminded me of this card!

I used the tattered lace pop up box die as a base and embossed the panels with the freebie wood grain folder that came with the Crafters Companion magazine. The branch die is from io and the owls and fox are cottage cuts dies. I used a mix of papermania cardstock and coredinations and a Tim Holtz foliage die for the leaves. I used the Simon says stamp falling snow stencil and creative expressions polar white sparkle paste for the night sky. As ever the only clear space in the house to photograph it was on top of the cooker...

Hope you all stay safe and warm today.