Spring Poppies and Saturday candy

Good Morning to you all, time for another challenge at Allsorts and this week Sarah is cooking up a 1,2,3 recipe for us.

But before I tell you about my card I want to let you know about my new Saturday giveaways. When I had my craft room spring clean last month I came across quite a few brand new items that I have never used and I figure probably never will...............impulse buys that seemed a good idea at the time. And realistically there is no point in hoarding when somebody could put them to good use.

So every Saturday I will post a new crafty item and announce a winner the following Saturday from all comments left during the week, if you leave more than one then you get entered again. Simple as that and the only other requirement is that......................

1) You are a follower (candy only blogs will be discounted)

2) Post the logo above on your sidebar

Here's what' up for grabs this week, a set of Hero Arts stamps:

Now onto my DT card and I admit that I was a bit weary of the brief as I don't often mix two different DP's and apart from flowers and leaves and the odd pearl or gem use few embellishments, so I am hoping this will fit the bill. I masked the top and bottom of the reverse side of a piece of Centura Pearl..............I tend to use this a lot for my inky projects as it's so much cheaper than my favourite Fabrinano watercolour card....................but gives equally good results.

Next I sponged Pan Pastles, red, orange, yellow and brown, masking a sun of course...........have to have one of those............the repeat stamped one of the new Spring stamps from Penny Black 4308K Field of Poppies. I coloured the flowers with the red Pan Pastel and the stems and corn with watercolour pencils. I mounted onto some red and black DP's and added three butterflies as my embellishments and liquid pearls for their flight path.

And here's one extra card using the Etched Rose stamp from FlonzCraft who are one of you sponsors this week, the other is My Heart Pieces.

I hope you will be able to join in our challenge this week and will pop in and see you all, meanwhile have a lovely weekend everyone.

Flower Power

It's all about flowers at Allsorts challenge this week as my teamie Tracy wants to see some 'Flower Power' and we have two prizes on offer this weeks from The Ribbon Girl and My Heart Pieces.

Although it doesn't show up to well on my photograph, the Kaiser DP is a lovely shade of sage green and cream and works really well with the pretty Marianne dies. It's really quite a simple card as the intricacy of the dies needs little more, so I just added some flowers and swirls which are also a Marianne die and to lift the background some dots of liquid pearls.

Whatever your plans this weekend, I hope it's a good one and thank you as always for your kind visits and comments.

Floral Bloom

How's everyone's week going, well I hope ?

I'm back as promised with a couple more shares of samples I made for tomorrows Stamp Addicts programme on Create and Craft at Noon, this time using the Wildflowers stamp set and the Floral Bloom stamp which is a particular favourite of mine.

The top card was created by masking a piece of watercolour card, the shading the aperture with distress inks and ink dusters. The image was then stamped over, slightly off set with the masking tape still in place.

The second card was created with a mixture of different Spellbinders and the dandelion stamped onto a circle of shrink plastic.

Hope your day goes well.

Quintessentially British

Good Morning Peeps, hope you all are all having a lovely bank holiday weekend.

My new set of wheels got an outing Saturday when we spend a lovely couple of hours at a local garden centre, bought a few more shrubs for the garden..................it's a bit like Pandoras Box, we can always find a hole for a dozen or so and still there is room for more. 

I though I would share a couple of samples I made for Stamp Addicts new programme which you can see on Create and Craft this Thursday 10th May at Noon. I have been working with the Wildflower set and this new Time for Tea set, I will share a few from the wildflowers tomorrow.

You can find all the stamp sets on the What's New section of Stamp Addicts web site by clicking on the thumbnail links below.

Have a good day everyone and as always thank you so much for popping in to visit.

Beautiful new digi image printed on vellum

Hello all, another scheduled post as I don't anticipate being allowed to cut and run from hospital for a couple of days, but I really wanted to make sure I shared this beautiful Christmas Rose from the pen of my friend Ruth. You will find it here at a Passion for Stamps.

It is such a delicate flower and as they are usually white, sometimes with a ting of pink and with a yellow centre, vellum immediately came to mind. So with detail clear embossing powder at the ready, I printed the images off onto Pergamano and tossed the powder on as it came through the printed and hey presto, it worked a treat.

All I did the was colour with Aquamarkers on the reverse and run a ball tool over the back and quite like the soft feel of it. I printed out a second image for the top card and cut out just the flowers, used a Spellbiner frame, the border is also from Spellbinders, the holly motifs set, the DP Nitwits and I added some Liquid Pearls to the flower centres. 

The second card is also on vellum and coloured the same way, I used an old JudiKins stamp on the base card and cut out the image with Nesties Fleur de Lis square.................yep, the vellum did tear, hence the seam binding bow and pin.......what do they call it, a 'happy accident'.

Do pop over to Ruth's store as she has several new Christmas images.

Blossoms and Blooms

Hello all, hope you are all having a good Tuesday.

My latest crafty exploits have been my attempts to prefect the tunnel card, well at least my version. A long way to go still but they say practice makes perfect so two for the price of one her. At least it's given me the opportunity to get some of the long overdue samples done for Sir Stampalot in the process and the second on also fits this weeks new ABC challenge with theme theme T is for.

The first one uses an unmounted Magenta set CS-043 which has some really lovely corner elements as well as flowers and fauna. I cut an aperture in the front of the card with Nesties through the Big Shot. I used the same piece for the dangling element but cut it a size smaller then stamped with versamark black and embossed with detail clear and coloured with a mixture of Copics and Marvy pens, stamped the flowers a second time coloured and spritzed with Glimmer Mist pearl and decoupages. I fixed the main image in place with an eyelet and jump rings. The DP is Kaiser and that's about the card really, oh and some dots of liquid pearls, but actually quite quick to make.

My second card.........sorry the piccies a bit dark despite sunshine and taken in the garden on the gazebo steps.........was created in exactly the same way, but this time I fixed the main image to the rear section of the card. The image is Hero Arts S5362 Dogwood which I absolutely fell in love with when I saw Lynda using it on some of her wonderful artwork........I'm sure they kept this stamp hidden from me at Stampaot because I really had not seen it before, but Janice soon put things right, hence the samples.

The flowers are decoupaged after stamping onto some Kaiser DP, which I also used to cut the corners with a Sizzix die and the spotty revers on the back of the card. The thank you sentiment is Art Impression G463 which I fixed onto one of the inside folds.

In the pink

Good afternoon everyone, would you believe this card has been in the making since about 8am, some days it seems the faster I try and work the slower I am. But at least after a really hard frost again the sun is shining now and it is quite Spring like.

My card follows the great sketch at Stamping for the Weekend and the really pretty colour combo at Penny Black of 'Pink, Green and Yellow'.

Instead of working from my image backwards as I usually do, after a rummage through the 'pink' drawer I worked forward from the Doodlebug DP which has all three colours required. My image is Penny Black 3949 H Poppies, which I stamped several times so I could decoupage the flower heads and coloured with Copics.

The mats were all cut with Nesties through the Big Shot, the border is Martha Steward doily lace........I love this one, but it's a pain in the bum to punch with so I rarely use it. Despite all my efforts with foil, silicone paper and even some punch lubricator it just don't like to play ball with me. The little circle sentiment is from Hobby Art A4981 which I tied with ribbon so it dangles and finally I added some yellow pearls, punhced leaves, trirled up wire and Liquid Pearls to the flower centres.

Keep it Simple

So how simple is simple ? The new challenge at Cupcake is "Keep it Simple" and I am really hoping this one will fit the bill, no embellies, pretty border punches or ribbons just some strightforward inking and stamping.

The card is one I made for The Stampman using the new Kay Carley Funky Flowers stamp sheet which the lovely Jill sent to me recently. The stamps are so pretty and detailed I felt they needed a simple approach to show off the lovely images.

For the background piece I stamped randomly with one of the single flower heads using versamark and embossed with detail clear. I then applied Tim Holtz worn lipstick and dusky concord using a blending tool to reveal the images then spritzed with water and Glimmer Mist pearl.

I used the same inks to create a background for the main image again spritzing with water and GM to bleed and blend the colours. The main image was then stamped using versafine black and clear embossing powder.

I stamped the flowers heads of the main image onto crystal shrink plastic and placed the shrunk pieces in the centres of the large flowers and to finish added some white Liquid Pearls and a couple of Swarovski crystals.

Passion for Promarkers

The colours to be used at Passion for Promarkers this week are "Ruby and Gold with the added twist if jewels and gems".

This card is I admit, very similar to one you may have seen before, but it is different, just a style I like and find I return to ........ at least it's not Agapanthus Cluster yet again ! Seems every time I use my new promarkers I find out something new about them. When I do this block background using Hero 2545 I usually use either Marvy pens or distress ink then spritz it to give the watery effect I like to achieve. So as I wasn't sure if this would count as another colour, I decided to see how it would work with promarkers and it did ........ instead of adding the colour to the stamp first, I spritzed it with water first then randomly added gold promarker into the water, stamped quickly onto linen cardstock and hey presto - it worked !

My main image Penny Black 3815J was stamped over the background with versafine sepia and embossed with detail clear, then coloured in with the two permitted colours and diamond glazed.

To achieve the scallops round the edge I used a acetate template cut on Cricut plantin schoolbook and chalked. The vellum was punched with Martha Steward doily lace, ribbon added and a stick pin using beads etc., from Spellbound. Finally, liquid pearls and some gems to embellish.

Penny Black, Cupcake and Rosie Dees challenges

Good evening peeps, it's a bit warmer here today but no sign of the sun, I live in hopes flaming June will arrive before 1st July.

I wanted to follow my butterfly theme so had a firm idea of what I wanted to do for this weeks Penny Black challenge which is to use embossing on your project and prepared a piece last night which I ran through the Cuttlebug using old writing folder, spritzed liberally with Glimmer Mists key lime, pineapple and gold, sanded down when dry and added more gold. Then this morning I saw that Rosie Dees challenge was Pink and Lime and Cupcake's a lovely sketch, so time being at a premium, all three have all come together rather well in one project. Think I can let on that this will be my last entry for Rosie Dees as I have been asked to join their DT.

My pink and lime DP is Basic Grey and stamps Penny Black 3864F and 3868J. The butterflies have been stamped using Stayzon timber brown onto acetate and a piece of glittered pink vellum, cut out and layered adding wire antenna and liquid pearls to the thorax. The flowers have been stamped onto the same vellum, cut out and again liquid pearls added. Circles were all cut using nesties.

ABC challenge

Now some of you will say I've made this one before, so what's new. Truth is, it is very similar to some I've made in the past, but when I saw the theme for the ABC challenge this week which is "S for Summer", I knew exactly what I wanted to make - simplicity in pinks, greens and roses which to me epitomise an English Summer ........ well apart from the rain that is.

My main image is Penny Black 3815J stamped in versafine black and embossed with detail clear. The background has been stamped with a Hero block stamp H2545, inked only in places with Hero blossom ink, spritzed with water then stamped to achieve a patchy background. Coloured with Marvy pens and diamond glazed. The pink mat was run through the Cuttlebug using Swiss dots.

I chalked all round the edges of the card using a piece of acetate cut as a scalloped border on Cricut Plantin. Made the stick pin up with beads and accessories from Spellbound Bead (link on my sidebar), added some ribbon and dots along the scallops using Liquid Pearls.

Paper Makup

This weeks challenge over at PMS set by Lisa McKinney is to use watermelon, apple green and black and or white in your project. These stamps are new to me as they only shipped from the States a week or so back, so this is the first outing for 'Swirly Buds', a set of five stamps.

I used three of the stamps to create the main image and also the tiny individual leaf, stamped with versafine black and embossed with detail clear. The main cardstock has been run through the cuttlebug and the mats cut with nesties. Liquid pearls have been added to the leaves to carry the watermelon colour and ribbon and staples to embellish.

Dragonsdream Tag it on and ABC challenges

Motoring this monring, four challenges sorted, just need to write them up and post.

My first is for this weeks TIO where Ali has set the challenge "Rhubarb Crumble and Custard - use pink (for the rhubarb) yellow (for the custard) and texture (for the crumble) You must use at least one stamp and 2 embellishments. When I read this first thing this morning all I could see was a plateful of crumble and custard had wondered how on earth I could depict that, two espressos later (that's the only way I can kick start my day) I read the task again and the idea came together.

The challenge over at ABC this week is "N is for Not a Card", so i thought my tag would qualify there as well,

The bottom section of my tag was run through the cuttlebug to achieve the texture element. I stamped Hero K5162 with brilliance orchid and poppy and highlighted the flowers with yellow liquid pearls. I took a look at the rhubarb in the garden and cut leaves on the cricut to loosely reflect what they look like and coloured with brilliance thyme and ivy. Added ribbon plus a brad and some staples as my embellies.