Rudolf Days for March

Hi there! How is everyone doing? I have sent off all my samples for the next Crafty individuals show and now I am just catching up with a few bits and bobs here in blog land. We are observing social distance rules, exercising regularly and only braving the supermarket once a week. Crafting, gardening and crochet with local walks and a bit of karate practice is seeing me through. The only thing that is being curtailed at the moment is baking, due to panic-buying, stock-piling nicompoops (Don't get me started!) Hope you are coping okay.
Anyway, now is the perfect time for preparing for a handmade Christmas, lol. Many friends will be receiving a crocheted gift, and of course we can get on with Christmas cards. Without further ado, here are my two cards for the Rudolf Days challenge this month, both using a woodware wreath stamp that I had for Christmas.

They were both coloured using watercolour pens (a mixture of Zig and Arteza) with added dots of glitter glue and liquid pearls. The design papers were from a pack I bought from the works, as were the stitched dies.
Do pop over to Maureen's blog to take a look at the inspiration there.
Thanks for looking!

A digi from Dora

It is time to showcase another Digi from Dora. Our DT theme this month is farms and horses. I used this lovely horse image, printed on to kraft paper and coloured with my arteza professional colouring pencils. A bit of Mulberry paper and some old designer paper from my stash, with a spellbinders die cut to finish it off.
You can find Dora's digis on her blog here.
I'm entering this in the current challenge at Allsorts where the theme is creatures from the animal kingdom
Thanks for looking!

Mid month post for Stamping Sensations

It is mid-way through March (Where did that go?) so time for our mid month inspiration for Stamping Sensations where the theme is Spring Flowers. For my card I used stamps and dies from Thirsty Brush, our lovely sponsors this month. I gold-embossed the stamped images and painted the flower with cosmic shimmer pixie powders made into a wash. The sparkle is gorgeous! I do hope you get chance to enter the challenge.
Thanks so much for visiting my blog and leaving comments. It all feels a little bit surreal at the moment with everything that is going on. I hope you can find a little bit of calm in your crafting, and that if you are having to self-isolate that you have plenty of supplies to keep you going and are well enough to craft. Stay safe and lets hope it doesn't last too long.
Take care friends  xxx

Very different for me!

A few weeks ago I did a workshop at PDA, Langley Mill with Suzanna from Belle and Olive. Suzanna is a textile artist who specialises in all things vintage. We tea-dyed, stamped on fabric, sewed and embroidered. I didn't finish mine in the 2 hours we were there, but brought home my pieces thinking I'd like to add some more colour. After playing around for several days with distress ink and other scraps of paper and fabric, here is my finished piece.

I have to admit that I hadn't done french knots for about 25 years, but it didn't take me long to get back into embroidery. I cross-stitched lots around the time Meg was born, but used to find I'd wake up with painful hands the morning after an evening of cross stitch. I'm happy to say I have been able to do this with no problems.
I decided to try something similar with my own stamps and opted to use one of the small fennel stamps from Woodware.

 I found an off-cut from some shorts I made and used tea to dye it. I then stamped in versafine clair and used a mixture of normal embroidery silk, metallic embroidery thread and seed beads to add to it, which you can see here.

 A bit of mulberry paper, old music, lace and a kraft notebook finished it off.
Thanks for looking!

March Challenge at Stamping Sensations

Good morning, It's time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations and this month we are looking for

****Spring Florals****

As the title suggest we would love to see your stamped creations that reflect the theme. I am sure you will come up with lots of fabulous designs. My card this month features stamps from our spensors this month, Thirsty Brush. The sets are called Calm Circle (flowers) and Modern Floral (words) I stamped in Versafine Clair and coloured with Arteza watercolour brush markers. 

Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image which reflects the theme as the focal element of your artwork , this means:

Stamping must be the central point of attention and interest

Our prize this month is from  our new sponsors, Thirsty Brush.  Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous creations from my talented team mates and more details of that prize! Thanks for looking!