A sneak peek and True blue

Hi there. Hope you are having a lovely weekend. I am enjoying a cuppa in the garden in between playing with new stamps from Inkylicious. some gorgeous scenic stamps and vintage stamps too. I will treat you to a couple of sneak peeks.

Hope you will tune in next Sunday (26th) at 11 am to C&C to watch.

Now, onto my true blue creation. 

I was having a little clear out of paper and found some that I had sprayed with crafty notions colour sprays in shades of blue. I then over stamped it with music and notes before stamping and embossing the guitar in white. Main image stamp is from the Stampman. It was pure chance that I spotted the theme at Allsorts this week was true blue, so I am entering this card there. Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments. I will be back soon with more sneak peeks and inkyness.

Three commisions

I have been asked to make some unusual cards recently, and thought I would share them with you. My first card was for the wedding anniversary of one of my colleagues, for her to give to her hubby. The request was for a scene like Wells-next-the-sea, strawberries, champagne and a caravan! The caravan was a clip art image on the insert, and the scene was a Sheena stamp, along with a seascape created with my ink dusters. I was quite pleased as I created the scene from memory and then did a Google image search for Wells. Not a bad likeness! The champagne bucket is from Digistamp Boutique and the strawberry was a freebie from here.

Next I was asked for a wedding card with skeletons on it! The invitation was black with a pair of skeletons on the front which said 'Till death do us part', and my friend wanted a card following the theme, so this is what I came up with. Not something you get asked for every day!

Finally a very plain more mainstream wedding card for a male colleague. The sentiment is one from the Inkylicious set call 'Simply Said'. This set is just so useful, I haven't put it away since I got it! I must make an effort to use some different embossing folders  - I do have more than one, honest!
I am busy making samples for the next Inkylicious show. The stamps are absolutely gorgeous, and I can tell you it will definitely be worth tuning in to Create and Craft on Sunday 26th May to watch Deby demonstrating with the new stamps. I am still pinching myself that I am so lucky getting them before they are released!
Thanks for all your lovely comments. I hope I will manage to visit you all very soon. Thanks for looking! 

Some quick masculine cards

I needed a couple of cards for male birthdays and there were none left in my box, so I settled down with some Inkylicious stamps and Kaleidacolor Creole spice and came up with this:

The cogs stamp on the background is one of the twinchie stamps that Inkylicious have just started selling and I can see it is going to get loads of use! It goes so well with the vintage car, too.
Next I needed a birthday card for my nephew, who really loves his football. My Hubby supports Mansfield Town, and as they have just been promoted, it seemed only fitting that the card should have a bit of a Mansfield theme to it!

The footballer was a freebie stamp from a magazine (Creative Stamping) and the footballs used for the background are from a Daisy and Dandelion set. I am entering this into the challenge at Allsorts this week where the theme is any sport.
Finally here is another card using Inkylicious stamps and Kaleidacolor ink pad, this time 'Fresh Greens'

Skeleton Leaves and Simply Said were the stamps sets used here. There is another Inkylicious show on create and craft coming up on Sunday May 26th, so make sure you tune in!
Thanks for looking!

A lovely walk and a bit of extreme lying down!

 We had a fabulous walk today. The weather was glorious and the wild flowers were breathtaking. We went to Linacre reservoirs near Chesterfield again. I have always visited there in the Autumn, but never in Spring before. A friend had said there were lots of bluebells there, so we thought we would check it out.

First of all we came across thousands of wood anemones, and this was where I started my extreme lying down. I am using a phrase introduced to me and Meg by my niece. For those of you who aren't familiar with the pastime, it is where you lie down with you camera to get a real close up, but show the surroundings out of focus (depth of field comes into it somewhere! - Thanks Faith, was struggling to find the words!). I'd better show you some of the pictures.

 What the photo doesn't capture is the way they seem to shiver in the breeze. Such beautiful delicate flowers.
Next we saw dog-violets.

Judging by the number we saw and the number in our garden I think it must be a good year for violets!

 There was a carpet of wood sorrel on the north side of the reservoirs, and quite a few lesser celandines as well.

 By one of the inlets there was an abundance of Marsh Marigolds too.

 

We saw some places where there were blue bells coming but not out yet, so I took a photo of some new beech leaves

Finally we found some bluebells that were out.

  I will leave you with a very subtle portrait of my hubby,

and a portrait of Meg

Hope you enjoyed our walk as much as we did! Thanks for looking!

Stamping Sensations embossing and texture

Good morning and welcome! It is the first Sunday of May and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. Our challenge this month is to use Embossing and Texture and our Sponsors are Tonic Studios. For my card this month I used our lovely Ruth's stamps from the Tonic Pick of the Bunch Rudbeckia stamp set, along with the Tonic simplicity doily square die. I coloured the flower with promarkers and dusted with Tea Dye distress ink. The dry embossing was done with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and again dusted with tea dye DI. I added a little bit of stickles to the butterfly and the flower centre.
Do pop over to the challenge blog to see the lovely creations from my teamies and find out how to enter.
There is an awesome prize from Tonic too. Feast your eyes on this!

 Thanks for looking!

Last of the Inkylicious samples

Most of my remaining samples use the lattice background or the Almanac background. For this first one I swirled distress ink pads in mustard seed, spiced marmalade, worn lipstick, shabby shutters and broken china onto my large inky mat. I sprayed it with water and then placed some watercolour paper on top. when it was dry (and ironed so it was flat) I stamped the background with versamark and used gold embossing powder. The little circles were filled with diamond stickles.

A simple wedding card, using silver embossing powder, distress stickles and spun sugar and antique linen distress inks.

This simple sympathy card was stamped in memento black and coloured with a range of pastel promarkers. I cut a frame using Go Kreate arched window dies. The dots of liquid pearls finished it off.

Very similar, but this time I used some tree stamps to create a little scene.

I realised I had created lots of very feminine cards, so I thought I would try and use the almanac background to produce some more masculine cards. There are lots of different inks and sprays on this one! The embossing folder is a Darice one and the leaf die is sizzix. I don't think this one made it onto the show, but my Tag Bag did!

This  tag bag was made from 2 large tags and some concertina folded card, and I got the tutorial from here. The inkylicious large tags are ideal to make little gift bags with.

Lots of walnut stain and wild honey Distress ink on this one, as well as some gold mica sprayed on the Marianne die cut. I didn't spot this one on the show either.  I hope you have enjoyed looking at my samples as much as I enjoyed making them. Thanks for looking!

Worn paint backgrounds

 Hello! I am here with more Inkylicious samples, this time using the worn paint background. My wooden picture frame was painted with Gesso then dusted and stamped with spring distress inks. I also used silver embossing powder. I am entering this into the latest challenge at Allsorts where the theme is anything but a card.

This was dusted with peacock feathers and festive berries distress inks.

 I will let you into a little secret - this one didn't make it to Deby as I manages to spill a cup of tea on it! It was dusted with barn door, wild honey and spiced marmalade distress inks. The stamping was done in Adirondack espresso

More spring distress ink and gold sparkle wow embossing powder.
There are still more samples to come.  I am going to try and put the remaining samples into one post  very soon!
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments!

Vintage florals from Inkylicious

 Thanks for all your lovely comments about Sunday- much appreciated! I hope you managed to enjoy the show, even though it didn't get it's second airing at 11 pm. As promised here are my samples using the new Floral Etchings stamps from Inkylicious. My first uses chipped sapphire distress ink, a variety of spellbinder dies and some card candy. the damask background got used again too!

 Next up I stamped on watercolour paper with versafine sepia and coloured with distress markers and a water brush.

 This one was stamped on silk art card and coloured with distress markers. I dusted tea dye on the panel and Victorian velvet and bundled sage on the base card.

 More distress markers and silk art card, and over a piece of crumpled sprayed paper ...

 The silk art card again, and this time I coloured the stamp with my distress markers.

 Now I think this one is my favourite, in fact I am going to make another to hang on my wall! I think Dawn Bibby liked it too!

Finally another one layer clean and simple study in Versafine Olympia green.
With quite a lot of these I used the worn paint background-I will be back soon with my samples using it. I LOVE it - such a versatile stamp!
Thanks for looking!

Today is the day!

 Warning! Picture heavy post!
At 5pm this afternoon I will be sat in front of the TV cheering on Deby as she appears on Create and Craft with some new stamps from Inkylicious. She will be working with the presenter Dawn Bibby.  Today I am going to show you some of the cards I made using the Damask Background and a variety of stamps from the new A4 sentiment stamp sets. I will try and give a bit of info for each card, but if there is anything you want to know just leave a comment and I will get back to you. The first card was made using some paper that I had sprayed with walnut ink and some mica powders; card stamped and dusted with Victorian velvet, tea dye and walnut stain DI and flowers made with spellbinders rose creations and a woodware fern punch.

  I used Broken china and Tea dye DI for this one, and Brass sparkle Wow embossing powder.

 Cranberry Adirondack ink for this one, Die is Marianne designs, punches from ek success and woodware.

 DI in festive berries and peacock feathers on silk art card then over stamped with black archival ink.

 Spun sugar, Victorian velvet and Tea dye distress inks on this one. The roses are a Marianne Die and the leaves are a woodware punch.

 More Adirondack Cranberry...

 I used Versamark, stamped on black card and brushed with mica powders. The panel was dusted with the spring range of Distress inks

 Finally a one layer clean and simple card. The panel was masked off before dusting with dried marigold, spiced marmalade and fired brick distress ink. With the mask still in place I stamped the damask background in versamark and dusted with gold mica powers. Here is a close up so you can see the shimmer.

 The faux stitching is done with distress markers using the fine end.
Well, thanks for looking and for leaving a comment. Hope you enjoy the programme. I will be back with vintage floral samples very soon.