Just a little note.....

To say hello again, it's been a busy couple of months and now I've looked to my favourite card challenge for inspiration. And its a colour challenge of green and blue over at LiM......so here's what I came up with....

I wanted a watercolour effect for this stunning flower, but, I have tried and tried and Im not very good with water colouring, so, I decided to stamp the image with some greenyblue watercolour which I mixed myself (I can manage that heehee!) I then Loosely painted with a small brush over all the image then I used a deep blue ink pad to stamp the image again over the top...I covered part of the image and overstamped in the blue again some leafy outlines to give a hint of foliage. A computer generated sentiment added a bit of dimension.  

Hope you like the effect.....

Autumn.......

And what beatiful weather we are having, I'm still clinging to some of my summer wardrobe fab!

 For my card this week I decided to go monochrome with black and white with just a tiny pop of autumnal colour and a beautiful PP sentiment.  I printed the sentiment and used a leaf stamp between a couple of post its to keep them in a columnar effect, embossing them black to give a bit of depth and shine and painted a tiny bit of colour to one of the leaves. I then added a couple of embossed lines to define the column shape...hard to see on the photo, sorry, but they are there at different heights.   I will add my card to 2 challenges Less is More and Fusion

you can see the embossed lines on this picture....just about!

Something shiny...

Don't you just love a bit of sparkle or shine, I most certainly do. So a quick post for a couple of new challeges at Less is more and Fusion.

After a lovely week in the Dordoigne visiting lots of lovely places including Carcassone, Albi etc etc I have had a week of fighting off a cold so back to myself this week.  And here is my card......very difficult to photogrsph shiny stuff or is it just me...

Still loving vellum so I decided to soften the leaves cut from gold mirri card by adding a vellum banner simply heat embossed with white for the happy birthday. I added a fussy cut vellum flower also white heat embossed and coloured from the back with some pearlescent bright pink so that it too was delicately shiny, although I had added a trio of tiny clear sequins  I wanted to draw the eye round the card so added some tiny gold dots around a few leaves.  Sorry about the red look of one of the bottom leaves on the close up it's just a reflection

oh christmas tree....

Christmas....!

Well,  after a busy but fun summer with my daughter, son in law and 3 grandaughters staying with us for 5 weeks, I havent had the time to blog so who do I turn to for inspiration.....Less is More of course,  my favourite challenge...

...not that I havent been craftily busy when I've found an odd hour or so. I completed my first full size sampler patchwork quilt which our beautiful funny animal mad butterfly Fay  ....  

I think the butterflies loved Fay as much as she loved them,

 ...  quickly decided was to be hers.......goodness knows how my daughter managed to fit it into one of their suitcases but she did!  We had a fabulous summer touring and staying at home making tons of jam, chutney, picallilli not to mention all the roasted and frozen tomatoes and other veg

oh and I also made 50 Save the Date cards for a Bride who wants quirky invitations...to include.sheep and hessian...I have a couple of ideas though...Watch this space haha..

Here is my first card and the challenge at Less is More is Green and Gold, hence I immediately thought aha , I could do with making a start on my Christmas cards, so this is my first, I hope you like it.....It is made from a die cut which I coloured gold with my krylon pen, the background is a piece of watercolour paper painted with blue and yellow to get different shades of green and fussy cut to fit the tree shape, I then die cut some leaves in vellum and coloured them gold, a vellum gold embossed sentiment and a few gold and green sequins to finish.

With love......

And a rose....stamped along with some leaves from an Altenew set I love.

Using a favourite technique I stamped ink pads onto a glass surface and mixed them myself with a little water to get the shades I wanted and then painted the ink onto the stamp..

I cut the stamped piece in 2 and added an overlay of vellum as I wanted a soft gentle look, stitching the vellum  onto the base cards with my sewing machine, a simple die cut love sentiment coloured with my gold leafing pen finished it off. I hope you like it....

The challenge I have entered this card for is.......Less is More

Delphiniums....

..one of  only a couple of stencils I own, and as the garden is looking so beautiful with delphiniums, poppies, daisies and lots more, it was quite easy to come up with an idea, several messy cards later (I suspect we've  all been there haha)!

I decided my stencil strip needed a base layer so just painted a strip of cardstock to match the stencilling, which I did with with my stamp pads blended on a piece of glass with a bit of water added. The poppy was stamped separately and a bit of fussy cutting later was added on top of the background. I had a wishing sentiment ready however the card looked too busy with the sentiment so I left it out......Adding to two challenges here at LiM and here at aaacards

Sunset

That's  the colour challenge this week over at my favourite challenge blog LiM and as it's  a friends birthday this week I thought I would take the opportunity to say Wishing ......you a happy birthday, using some Kraft card, a Wishing stamp and some flowers stamped and embossed in gold and watercoloured with ink from a couple of new inkpads I have just bought in lovely 'sunset shades!'  I then cut out the flowers and arranged them behind the banner, a couple of sequins to finish and here is my card.

Sunbirds and.....

Waterfalls are my inspiration for this weeks challenge over at LiM which is one layer with a focus on water...mmm had to get my thinking cap on for this one which I found quite difficult....until,  I was looking through my photos and a little sunbird caught my eye, and, we had seen him near a waterfall! Problem solved....

I used a waterfall embossing folder and had an old sunbird type of stamp(SU I think. It has markings on it which is why it looks crackly when stamped not solid.?) & my lovely flower stamp perfect... Stamped and heat embossed both in gold & coloured the flower brightly as that is what attracts the birds...added a few little drops of gloss to the flower like waterdrops off the waterfall.  Enjoy x

African Butterflies....

Opposite colour's  of the colour  wheel that's the LiM Challenge

 So, having just returned from a wonderful trip seeing many amazing places in South Africa, and many, many beautiful birds, animals and butterflies, people  etc...who could resist the challenge, a little late but here is my take on the challenge, using various shades of bright blues and yellows I went for some bright big and small African butterflies And a PP sentiment....

Shades of.....blue!

Colours can be challenging in themselves, but to incorporate a CASE'd card at
LiM where I chose Sarah's card to CASE, a colour Fusion challenge  and an anything goes plus a sketch challenge at Uniko  and an around the world with Altenew ......challenges indeed this week...and bonus of all a little photo from  one of our trips to see our daughter in the UAE, inspiration indeed....

I also decided to give my sewing machine an airing with some lovely new silver thread I recently bought....just because...as we crafters do! AND this was my first attempt at proper watercolouring, so not so perfect but oh did I make a lovely mess, used up a lot of paper and had loads of fun, especiaaly as one of the paints was a lovely shimmery silver! Not a good photo as the silver shimmer on the bottom flower looks a bit gold instead of silvery....never mind. I used silver to emboss the flowers and the die cut heart I placed over the stitching so that just a little peeked through....

Here is my card for three challenges this week..

Hello....

Says this gorgeous giraffe digi from here isn't she sweet, and there are lots more .
The LiM challenge   this week is one layer and the subject is add an animal......and immediately I pictured this little giraffe peeping out from the top of the trees collecting the flowers on the way...

I

I simply sized the digi to what I had in mind, printed her and then used some new cats eye colours I bought recently (which have a lovely sheen/shimmery effect to them) to colour various leaf stamps, I then overstamped some flowers and a couple of tiny leaves onto the tiara of flowers rather than colour them in as I wanted to tone them all in and thought this effect might give a more dimensional look.......I liked the black and white look so left a lot of the giraffe uncoloured............

Also entereed into AAA challenge here

Hope you love her as much as I do.....

Woohoo......

A little late, but there it is my very first badge of honour for my little ones card ....thank you LiM ladies.

A little late because I was enjoying time with my daughter and grandchildren in Dubai and I had such problems with my Tablet...not least because it decided to translate everything to Arabic!  But I'm back on track now and very proud of my little badge which I display with pride (after an hour or so of trying today duh!)....

This weeks challenge over at LiM is a colour challenge using the colours Yellow and Green very spring like and what a lovely day it's been today, this morning I decided as a treat to take my 3yr old Grandson off to the local Safari Park where we had a lovely time, watching all the animals and sea lion and bird of prey show...

For my card this week I have used a new stamp I received only yesterday, I love this fairly new company and have treated myself to a few of their stamps as I find them a bit different and very versatile,  if you fancy a peek you can find them here. This card is for my Aunty who at 84yrs young has decided to move to a bungalow which will make life a bit easier after a mild stroke, she also  looks after her husband at home who has altzheimers,  she is one of those amazing carers both  young and old we hear of these days.......

One layer love....

The challenge over at LiM this week is one layer  and love.  

ATCAS is a new challenge for me and this  card seems to fit well with this weeks challenge Mask!

Being our wedding anniversary this card is made with love and full of love and I tried for a two dimensional panelled look by using 2 of my old  favourites, the bird cage is embossed in copper for a vintagey feel and the butterflies in my favourite pink and orange..I also felt it was too busy for a sentiment but I'm sure the butterfly background words are of love and affection!  My husband loved it anyway haha....

Just had to show a little photo of the gorgeous craftilicious ceiling of paper cups and saucers, tepots etc where we were taken for an anniversary breakfast and the scrumptious cake (sorry its sideways on!) made by my daughter and one of our grandaughters! Thirteen unlucky...not for us we married 44yrs ago on Saturday 13th Feb..

Happy Birthday

to Less is More who are celebrating 4yrs of blog challenges and inspiration. Well done x

The challenge at LiM is pink and grey what a beautiful colourway to work with...I made a simple card with a copics coloured coral vellum fussy cut flower and another heavyweight white flowe stamped and embossed in white then coloured in two shades of grey and adhered them both loosely over some dark grey ribbon recycled from a xmas gift! , as I felt the look was quite dramatic I decided not to add a sentiment but let the card speak for itself.

After a few days in beautiful Shropshire, now feeling relaxed, I wish I'd  had my camera with me though..?. we saw some amazing little hedge sparrows feeding in the hedges along our walks and lots of beautiful lambs in the fields. ...hope you like my card this week and thank you for stopping by to take a peek....

Gold.....

 And glitter is the theme for the Altenew challenge and an inspiration photo..


I dont actually have any frame dies so decided to improvise as I thought a round frame would work best with this lovely stamp, I just used a couple of circular dies for the frame and embossed the left over centre panel to add some dimension...I love white on white CAS, so simply stamped and heat  embossed the motif flower in gold onto vellum and loosely adhered it around and through the frame and another in white, that one I coloured in deep pink on the reverse and cut just a small section to overlay on my gold flower, a little die cut 'joy' sentiment colored with a gold leaf pen and added so that it sort of floats and glows rather than glitters... over the frame to finish it off......hope you like my card, thank you for stopping by to take a peek And apologies about the shadows on my photography!! Enjoy

Little ones....

Whoops don't  know what has happened to my original photo, BUT if you scroll down I have been able to add it again, but not get rid of the no entry sign!!! Apologies.....

is the challenge this week over at LIM and I decided to use one of my lovely little rose stamps again and use a little corner of my card, leaving lots of white to make a CAS card. To set the flower off I backed it with a bit of machine freehand sewing in a circular motion to compliment the shape of the flower, to finish I simply added a lovely little PP sentiment, hope you like.  

The new love in my life....

 

...............................is Vellum !!  oooh I have come to love this beautiful and versatile paper, especially with Kraft card, and I love a challenge well a card one that is..so I am entering this card for LiM challenge which this week is a sketch.

 

I was lucky to be pointed in the direction of a great little stamp site last week called Uniko Studio, the Chrysanthemum stamp is gorgeous and I couldn't believe they had such a beautiful Poinsettia stamp.... which is what I used for my 2014 Christmas cards and I had searched everywhere for a suitable one!  However, I did spot this gorgeous delicate flower digi in the Saturday Freebies, (would love it as a stamp so versatile) which I have used today!

A little close up of my card...

I used a script embossing folder on a cut to size piece of vellum,and rounded off the edges and adhered with vellum glue dots to a Kraft card.

 The flower I played around with till I got it to the size I felt was just right, printed it a few times in grey...for a softer look, on a sheet of vellum...and did a bit of cutting.  I did initially  use a versamark pen to outline the edges of the flowers and heat embossed in white before cutting but I decided the look was not quite as delicate as I would have liked, a bit clumsy ( the pen nib thickness, not me!) on such fine lines.  I coloured one of the flowers on the reverse placed them both on and around the scripted vellum and cut the the love sentiment again using vellum, a few toning pink and white sequins and a sparkly to finish.


My beautiful 10yr old Grandaughter has broken her foot, so this card is for her as she loves the garden and flowers ....and bugs and creepy crawlies!.  I have to just tell you ..she broke her foot playing Rugby at playtime in school with the boys.... who were tackling very gently (her words!) haha     

 

 



Hello again..

A look at the LiM challenge always my favourite, was just what I needed to get me thinking again and the challenge....a card for a friend, perfect. As suggestedby one of my lovely comments I have also updated this post to include Uniko...will be returning to have another look at some of their lovely stamps, and also CASology

 I stamped these lovely garden roses which use  3, 4 or 5 stamps for each one (and take a little practic!) in various shades of magenta to orangey pink and cut a tag from vellum which I overstamped with the skeleton outline of a couple of the roses just in black, to finish I die cut the lovely hello sentiment and tried to sort of float it over the vellum.

 If you have found your way here...I hope you like my card..........and to finish a little close up of the vellum tag and sentiment....I really must do a bit more photography research HA!

Happy to be back

A very simple and CAS card made by stamping in and embossing in white on vellum, the flower was then coloured quite simply on the reverse for a subtle effect and adhered with sticky dots. The happy is die cut in vellum too...simples and ImI'm happy with the clean soft look of this card, hope you like it too if you've found your way here...

2015....

And a return to blogland after a good

few months absence, such a lot happening in 2014 including a bad back...but perhaps now I can get back on track with a little snippet of our christmas colours...love them and would love to replicate them in a card ...perhaps one of these days,...