Rudolf Day for March

Here are my cards for Sarn's Rudolf Day this month. For the first I used Inkylicious Black Forest stamp, stormy sky distress ink and my ink dusters. I added some glitter and squeezed in a sentiment (Woodware) which looks a little straighter in real life! You know when you wish you hadn't put it there, lol! The papers are snippets from my snippet drawer and have been there forever!!!

My second card features a cute Digi mouse from Digistamp Boutique, coloured in with promarkers and backed on some snippets of digi papers printed out a very long time ago! The papers were from Funky Fairies, and I am sorry to say  are no longer available. The circular sentiment is from Little Claire.
As they both use snippets I am also taking them over to Di's snippet playground.
It is Saturday, so I should have been able to photograph them in daylight, but we spent this morning planning a school trip at Rufford Park, then carried on to see my dad this afternoon. It was such a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed the fresh air!

 It was sunny and warm, and there were so many birds in the trees. Unfortunately I wasn't quick or talented enough to capture them on my camera!

 

I think we will have to go again when the bluebells are out, judging by how many are here! We saw 4 or 5 great spotted woodpeckers chasing each other amongst the tree tops and heard the cries of a buzzard overhead too.

 I really hope it is as good weather when we take 60 children on Thursday! Thanks for looking and I hope you have a wonderful Mother's day - what a shame we have to lose an hour on the day most of us would like an extra hour in bed!

Snippets, Butterflies and Stitching

Over at Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge the theme is stitching this fortnight. I am afraid I missed last time, but I was determined to have a go this time. I have been sorting out my snippets and found a pile of bits in citrus colours. I used my spellbinders nested pennants dies and cut out a whole load of triangles.

I used various gelly roll pens to put faux stitching around the  various shapes and topped it all off with a hero Arts butterfly, glittered and embossed. I had a bit of a rant about glitter containers whilst I was doing it - why put a sprinkle top onto a pot of fine glitter? it means you can't put excess glitter back into the same pot without trying to remove the lid and spilling even more!!! Okay, rant over!
You have probably noticed that I used lots of snippets for this, so I will also take it to Miss Di's snippet playground where I got showcased for my scene last week.
Thank you for all your lovely comments recenly. I am sorry that I only manage to get to visit at weekends at the moment. I seem to have so little time for anything other than school stuff. Feel free to skip to the bottom of the post now to avoid my second rant!

I hope you don't mind but I am going to share another rant. On Wednesday I will be on strike for the third time in my 24 years of teaching (I have another 20 to go before I can retire). I am not striking because of the money or pension I will eventually receive. I am striking because I care about children. I believe children have the right to be taught by someone who is fit enough to do it, including demonstrating forward rolls, skipping and kicking footballs (I won't be at the age of 68). I believe children need to be taught by someone who is enthusiastic about what they are teaching, not feeling constantly bogged down by the ever changing requirements. I believe children at 5 and 6 have a right to be able to play and have fun at school, and can learn important social skills that way, like tolerance, empathy, acceptance of diversity (Sadly lacking in the government). I want the opportunity to spend some time with my own child and share the same holidays. I believe every child should make progress at their own level and pace, and not have to learn things like times tables before they learn to tie their laces. I believe children have a right to an education that nurtures them into a fully rounded healthy individual who isn't considered to be a failure, and is able to enter adulthood without fear, anxiety, anger and intolerance.  Einstein was so right and Michael Gove is so wrong!


 Thanks for looking, and apologies if the teacher's strike affects you. I hope you understand why we are doing it.

Inspired by a photo

Some time ago I found this photo on Pinterest and popped it in my Tree Folder for future inspiration. (Please do take a look at it.) I was intending to try and recreate it soon after, as some of my fellow pinners did, but I ran out of time as usual. I was lacking in the mojo department and went to my pinterest folders for inspiration last night, and when I clicked on this one Mr Mojo leaped out and just about bopped me on the nose! Okay, I will show you! Here is the main image created on silk art card.

I used  my ink dusters, Adirondack inks in sunset orange, sunshine yellow, peach bellini and slate. I also dusted and stamped with memento tuxedo black.There are just three Inkylicious stamps used for this (Black Forest, the birds from Windswept, and Bullrush).  I added a few details with a fine black pen and a white gel pen. I have taken a whole load of photos and the colours look different in every one! I didn't use any blue or purple ink at all!
Here is the whole card.

I took this one by the front window. I left the top left of the base card blank so I can add a sentiment later - it might become a father's day card yet!
And here is the one I took by the back window...

I think this is probably the most accurate colour-wise.
I matted and layered the main image onto some A6 sized scraps of paper that I found in my snippets drawer, so I will take it to the snippets playground and get some fresh air with Miss Di and the girls!
Thanks for all your lovely comments last week. It was a very busy week, but I am hoping things will slow down from now on. Off out in a little while to see Science on Stage which Meg is singing in again this year. 
Thanks for looking!

Diamond Wedding

One of my colleagues asked for a Diamond Wedding card for her parents. Her only suggestions were 'not cute or cuddly and a bit religious'.
This is what I came up with...

 The background was made using Inkylicious lattice background and pearl embossing powder. at the corner of each diamond I added diamond stickles. The church is from a Hobby Art Scene it set, coloured with distress markers and stamped onto a nestie dusted with tea dye distress ink. The sentiment was computer generated.
Here is a close-up of that background

Many thanks for all the lovely comments I have received recently. One day soon I will hopefully get a bit of time to have a good look around blog land, but I need to get next week out of the way first. I have my class parents evenings on Monday and Wednesday, a twilight course till six on Tuesday and Meg's parent's evening on Thursday! That is a lot of talking!!!
Have a good week, everyone and thanks for looking!

Pretty in Pink at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month, and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month our theme is  

Pretty in Pink

I am sure most of you realise that I don't tend to do 'pink and girly', in fact I very rarely use pink on it's own, and wasn't sure what to do, but then it came to me! I made a scene in lots of different shade of pink! I know it is a bit unusual, but I think it works okay!  I used my ink dusters and a range of pink inks, namely Adirondack shell pink, Mountain Rose, Cranberry and Watermelon, Impress cherry pink, and memento Lilac Posies. All stamps, ink dusters and mountain /valley stencil are from Inkylicious..That is a lot of Pink ink that I own!!!  If you haven't seen ink dusters before take a look at my ink dusters page which you will find the tab for under the title of my blog.

We have a great prize on offer this month (all three pictures), donated by Stix 2 and the Stamping Sensations DT, take a look!

We hope you will come and join in with the pinkiness over on the challenge blog! Do take a look at my teamie's wonderful and inspiring creations too!
A quick wave and welcome to my new followers. Thanks for joining me on my blogging journey. Thanks for looking!