Vintage

My third and final card of the day has a vintage theme to it.

I started by choosing a Vintage French Rose stamp by Inkylicious.  This seemed like a natural choice and I love the way it looks with the splash of red colour on the rose which I water coloured with Impress Old Rose ink. I coloured the background with Ink Dusters using the same colours as I had used on the main focal image. I then used various different stamps from the Inkylicious Elements 1 set stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa.  The two exception were the stamp and the butterfly which are by Artemo.  The butterfly was stamped in black and coloured using chalks. To finish the card, I tore around the edges to give more of a distressed and aged look and I then coloured round it, first in Distress tea die, then in Memento Rich Cocoa. I really enjoyed myself making this card as I love using inks and I have to say that I'm pleased with the end result.

Beside the Seaside

This is my second card of the day.  Making this card brought back wonderful memories for me.  My Aunt and Uncle lived in Christchurch in Dorset.  Mum, Dad and myself would visit them every year and we would always spend a day at Boscombe and take a stroll along the pier.  I used to love spending the day making sand castles and eating ice cream.  My dad would sit in his deckchair with his trousers rolled up and so I always think of him when I'm using this stamp set (U-Mount Create-A-Scene Unmounted Stamp Set - Seaside.) The blue background card was stamped in Memento Desert ink using Inkylicious Seascape Memory stamps.

I used Ink Dusters to colour the sand, sea and sky with the following inks:

• Impress - Cerulean Blue
• Distress - Stormy Sky
• Memento - Desert Sand                    

I stamped the pier and other images using Versafine Onyx Black and then water coloured them using various inks.  I ensured that the guy in the deckchair had a little more pink on his knees and tummy to show his sunburn! I finished the card by using Woodward Fluffy Stuff to create the sea foam.

The Dog Wants A Bone

Hello my friends.  I hope that you're all enjoying the weekend and have had time for a little crafting along the way.
I have three cards to show you today and this is the first:

The dog is an Anita's stamp that I stamped in Distress Walnut Stain ink and then pulled in the colour with water and a paint brush. The darker areas are water coloured with the same ink.

D is for Doily

Hello my crafty friends.  I'm here today to bring you a card that I've made for the Butterfly Butterfly Challenge.  Their theme this time is 'D is for Doily.' I have to say that this one had me stumped for a while.  I bought a pack of heart shaped doilies from Joanna Sheen about three years ago and I have to confess that I've never taken them out of the packet, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. Doilies for me; conjure up images of lace and fussiness and so I decided that I would make a fancy card, rather than just a plain one.  There's a lady I know who will be seventy seven in July and so I had her in mind whilst making this card as it's just the sort of thing she loves.

I started by die cutting the background in pale peach card with Spellbinders Elegant Labels Four and then mounted this onto a darker peach card to make it stand out more.  Butterflies and flowers are a match made in heaven, so this was the way to go but the card was still lacking something. I decided to use a spellbinders leaf die to add a contrast of colour with the green and I was then much happier with the end result. The butterfly die is by Memory Box and the tag is by Spellbinders.  The card was mounted again onto white card to match the doily and birthday greeting; and then finished by adding pearls.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, hopefully with some sunshine :)

Happy Birthday

I Stamped the Forever Friends teddy on white card and then I coloured him with chalks.  After using an oval die to cut out my patterned paper to make an aperture, I then cut stamped and cut out the present in matching paper before adding it to the image. I punched out flowers to make a border that matched the ribbon on the present. The card was then finished by matting and layering in matching colours.

I think I can say that we've definitely made the most of this Bank Holiday weekend.  My Hubby and I had another lovely walk this morning. We managed to walk seven and a half miles/12K today.  Needles to say, we've spent the rest of today relaxing!  The swans and their signets were close to the bank today so I managed to get a couple of photographs on my phone:

 

I had a lovely surprise when we got back when I found that I'd had an 'Honorable Mention' on the 'Merry Monday' blog challenge for the card that I entered yesterday (Bare Trees).  I'd like to say a big thank you to them for the mention.
Wishing you all a lovely evening and I look forward to catching up with some blog reading over the next week :)

Bare Trees

Well, it looks like I'm on a blogging roll today.  I've made this card for the 'Merry Monday' card challenge and their theme for this week is to make a card using non evergreen trees, so here's my interpretation:

I started by masking off the snowy area and the sun; and then I coloured the background with Ink Dusters to create a sunset effect. The inks that I've used are:

• Distress - Dried Marigold
• Adirondack - Lemonade 
• Memento - Teal Zeal

The stamps are Bare Trees and Silhouette Deer by Inkylicious.
I may be back again tomorrow but if not, I hope the sun shines for you :)

Things with Wings

Hello, I hope you are all enjoying today.   My Hubby and I went for a lovely long walk before breakfast and I have to say that nature always seems to be at it's finest early in the morning.  We saw two swans and their four very fluffy signets, gracefully making their way across the water, it was such a beautiful sight.
I spent lots of  time card making yesterday and here's the result:

I got some new stamps a couple of weeks ago from Inkylicious and it's the first time that I've really had chance to have a good play with them.  Out of all the different types of card making that I do, I love getting out the stamps and inks most of all.
I used a piece of silk art card and started with yellow ink first of all before masking off the sun. I then used several other colours to complete the background.  As I quite often have a problem with ink smudging on the art card, I decided to heat emboss my main image of the fairy and the toadstool.  I used a black glitter embossing powder to give it some sparkly magic. The Dandelion stamps at the bottom of the card are by Lavinia and all other stamps used on this card are by Inkylicious.
Inks used:

• Adirondack Lemonade
• Adirondack Peach Bellini
• Adirondack Raspberry
• Adirondack Pool
• Versafine Black Onyx
• Impress Olive Green

The card was completed by adding punched out butterflies. ready made flowers and die cut scrolls by Marianne.  I'm really happy with how the card turned out.

Heavy Metal Butterfly

Well here we are again with another long Bank Holiday weekend.  That means lots more time for crafting so I'm really happy about that:)
I had a lovely surprise on Thursday when I saw that I'd come third in the Top Three of the Butterfly Challenge, so I'd like to say a big thank you to Mrs A for choosing my card as one of her top three and congratulations to all the other winners.  I love making cards with butterflies so this challenge is right up my street. Their next challenge is to make a card with a butterfly using a doily somewhere on the card, and I have to say that I'm finding that one more of a challenge and so my work is in progress and I hope to show you that in a later post.
This card is for this week's Less is More challenge which is to use some metal on the card.

I had a look around and found a pendant which I thought would be perfect for this challenge. I ended up having to mount the butterfly with silicone glue as it was quite heavy and wouldn't stick with anything else. I'm still having to work really hard on these challenges as I'm always tempted to keep adding more!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I hope to be back with you very soon :)

Butterfly Challenge

Evening all.  This is just a really quick post as I don't have much time over the next couple of days and I wanted to enter this card into the Butterfly Challenge before the deadline on Wednesday.  The card has to have a butterfly on it and J is for jagged edge on this challenge.  Here's the card that I'm entering;

I coloured the card using: Impress; Mustard and Tangerine and Adirondack; Butterscotch inks. I then stamped on the calligraphy which is from The Stampman Nautical set and then I heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. Next, I tore around the image and also heat embossed the edges with the same embossing powder.  I finished the card off with a die cut Marianne butterfly which I also embossed with the same gold embossing powder. I used Ink Dusters to gently brush round the edge of the card with Distress Tea Dye ink to finish it off with a more distressed look.
In other news, the 'Race for Life' went really well and I hope to be back at the weekend with photographs of the event.

Here Comes the Sun

Hello my friends. It's been a very busy week here with lots of gardening, walking and card making, so all in all, life's good.  I'm doing the 5K Race for life tomorrow with my Daughter and my ten month old Granddaughter, so really looking forward to that and it will be great to have three generations of our family taking part in such a worthy event.  I recently lost a very special friend of mine to cancer and so I'm doing the race her name this year.  I'm sure that she'll be looking down and cheering us on.
On to card making now, the first card I want to share with you is one that I've made for this week's Less Is More card challenge and their theme for this week is Hello Sunshine.

If I'm honest, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to come up with a card on this theme, so I had a look through my stamps drawers and found a really old stamp by ALL NIGHT MEDIA called Celestial Sun. I thought the stamp would be perfect but it just didn't look right stamped on it's own as it looked lost, so I decided that I would mask off half of the card and create some sun rays.  I did this using Impress Lemon Yellow and Adirondack Peach Bellini inks.To give a clear impression on the sun stamp, I used a detailed black embossing powder and then coloured the image with red and orange Spectrum Noir pens. I used Spellbinder Labels One to mount and layer the image and then used a black dividing strip along the center of the card to match the mount and the border.  One of the things that I'm really loving about the card challenges is that it makes me move out of my card making comfort zone.  I would have never dreamed of making a card like the one I've done today but I'm really pleased how it's turned out.
The second card I want to share is one that I've made for my Brother's birthday in a couple of weeks.

I've made it using the Wetlands set by Stampin Up.  It's such a versatile set and fabulous for making male cards which can sometimes be a bit of a struggle.
Well, that concludes today's offerings.  Hope to be back with you soon :)

April Win

As most of you will already know if you've read my earlier posts, that I was lucky enough to come first in the April challenge over at Stamping sensations.  The prize was a fabulous £40 store voucher from PDA. They have a fabulous selection of goods at their on line store, so if you haven't been there already then it's worth having a look.  I've been in communication with Elena at PDA and she's been absolutely wonderful to deal with.  The crafting goodies that I chose have now arrived with me and so I thought that I'd share them with you today.

Enjoy the rest of this lovely sunny day and I hope to be back soon.

Peaceful Sea

Hello friends and followers, I hope you've all had a lovely weekend. I've just got back from a walk with my lovely Hubby to a local county park. We were up early this morning so we thought we'd blow off the cobwebs and make an early start. The weather is looking good today and the sun is shining, so lets hope it lasts.
The card that I'm posting today is one that I've made for the Less is More challenge.  It's a one layer challenge and the focus is on water.

The stamps that I've used are by Inkylicious and the inks are Memento Desert Sand and Rich Cocoa, Impress Pale Aqua and Stormy Sky Distress Ink. I started by using Ink Dusters to create the sea and sand,  I then wet the duster and dragged it across the sea as this makes the water look more realistic than just having a solid colour. The Windswept stamp and sentiment were added and I gently dusted round the edge of the top half of the card in Pale Aqua to create a soft border. I did add small touches of Stickles Crystal Ice glitter glue to create glints on this sea but unfortunately; this doesn't show in the photo. I'm quite pleased with the outcome as I think the colours work together really well. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll be back soon :)

Flower Power

Here's my second card of the day.  It's one that I'm entering in the Stamping Sensations monthly challenge and their theme this month is 'Flower Power.' 

The main stamp that I've used is one that I've had for many years by 'The Stamp Man.'  It's from the Aspects of Design range (Gardening 3.)  I used to love calling in their shop in Skipton and getting lots of crafty advice from Jill. She always made time to put the kettle on and took time show me the latest inking innovations, such a lovely lady. After stamping the main image in Memento Rich Cocoa, I then used a variety of tiny stamps by Art Impressions and Flower Soft to colour around the trellis. The door is water painted using Garnet by Impress. The sentiment is also by the Stamp Man. As this month's challenge is called Flower Power, I thought I'd finish by adding some roses. I made the large one using Spellbinder's Rose Creations and the small ones were ready made.  The green leaves and tag are made by using Spellbinder dies. Well, that concludes my offerings for today so thanks for joining me. Enjoy the rest of the long weekend :)

Opposite Colours

Hi everyone, I hope that you're all enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend.  I've had a much needed tidy up in my craft room, mainly because I didn't have any room on my desk and I couldn't find anything.  Once that was out of the way, I then got on with making my first card of the day for the challenge over at 'Less is More.' Their theme for this week is 'Use opposite ends of the colour wheel,' I decided to use cerise and lime green.

 The image that I've used this week is the Cornflower Panel by Inkylicious.  I bet you can see a pattern forming here as I'm an Inkylicious addict!  My last order was despatched on Friday so I can't wait for the new stamps to arrive.  The image was stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black and then water coloured using Adirondack Raspberry and Spring Green by Impress.
I hope to be back later in the day with my card that's currently in progress for the new Stamping Sensations challenge.