Rudolf day for June

Back in May I got this gorgeous birthday card from my lovely friend Lesley, using a stamp from Honey Doo Crafts, a company that I hadn't really looked at before...When I did I spent quite a bit!!!
One of the stamps I bought was this one, which I have used to create three cards for Scrappy Mo's Rudolf days this month.
First up I used wow brass embossing powder on burgundy card...

Next up I tried it with flutter glu and flake...

Finally I tried flitter glu and flake again, but managed to get a smudge of something on the card and it looked a mess. I decided to cover it in different colour sprays including sparkly ones to cover the mess and create this one...

A reasonable save I think ;) Note to self - flitter glu and flake gives good resist with colour sprays like dylusions!
Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's and take a look at the fab inspiration and prize. Not sure if I will manage to join in next month  - might be without computer (still on XP here), but I will try and do extra for August if I don't join in.
I will leave you with a few photos of the birds in my garden.

 Goldfinches...

 Love this one!!!

 A great tit...

 and a very noisy baby starling taken by Meg - he was so loud he woke her up!
Thanks for looking.

Punches and Dies at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations- our first challenge of 2015 !

After all the seasonal festivities I hope you are all set for some crafting, and if Santa was kind with the crafty goodies what better opportunity than to give them their first outing with this months theme..........

********Dies and Punches********

With such a vast selection now available I don't think there are too many of us who don't have at least one or two in our crafty arsenal, so we hope lots of you will join us this month and get those dies and punches into action.

 I used a framelits iron work die that I picked up as a real bargain! The central panel was stamped with tiny text (Inkylicious) in tea dye distress inks. I then used flitterglu and Chocolate box mega flake(indigo Blu) on the flower(inkylicious). I used the same gilding flakes on a strip of double sided tape down the left hand side

Now onto the prize.We have the perfect prize of a great collection of Sizzix dies as well as a pretty collection of ribbons to add the finishing touch to your artwork.

 How cool is that? Looking forward to seeing all your fab entries! Don't forget to pop over to the challenge blog and see my teamies' wonderful creations!
Thanks for looking!

Some Birthdays in December

I seem to know lots of people with Birthdays in December, so I am taking a break from making Christmas cards to catch up with birthdays!

The first is for my dear friend Kate, and is a bit of an in joke as we both call each other Dragons at work! The stamp is from Wild rose studios and coloured with Derwent Aquatone pencils. The paper is from Pink petticoat.

This next one is for another friend at work. This is the 5th 40th birthday on our staff this year! This is a chocolate Baroque stamp coloured with promarkers, with the papers from the Artylicious Essence of Nature cd rom.

 

This is another Artylicious papers and chocolate Baroque stamp, but this time I used  Flitterglu and Brighton Peer flakes, which I think go beautifully together!

Finally I have made a card using a Peerless designs cd called Word Play. I bought this cd at Doncaster as I immediately thought of our friend Mark, who loves the Beatles and Formula 1, and it has design sets for both! There are also several other designs suitable for men. This is his birthday card for this year. Well, a rather eclectic mix I think you will agree!

  Sorry I haven't been around much this week. I have been feeling very under the weather with an upper respiratory tract infection. The hacking cough, which is in it's third week, is leaving me exhausted. I have been at school though as I couldn't desert them for Panto week. The sickness bug hit some of the cast too, and there was one night that staff had to take over the role of the town crier and Baron Hardup mid performance, as they sat round the back with a bucket! After all the Drama and coughing I have fallen into bed about 2 hours before I would normally go, so computer time has been minimal. I will try and catch up with you over the next few days, when hopefully I will be feeling better.

Thanks for looking, and I hope your Christmas preparations are going well!

What's my Crafty Passion?

Good Morning and welcome to the first Sunday in the month, in other words, time for another Stampalot Challenge. For July we are asking 'What's your Crafty Passion?' Well, where do I start?!

Distress inks, tree stamps, Hero Arts leaf swirl and old French writing to name but a few. Here is a close up of that old French writing that I stamped in versamark and brushed with mica powders...

The tree(Indigo Blu) was stamped with flitterglu and then covered with gilding flakes.

Another crafty passion I have is floral stamps, so I made a second card featuring a Penny Black floral stamp called Dreamy, Hero Arts friend definition, and the gorgeous new summer set of distress inks. I used my ink dusters over the embossed image to blend the three inks together before stamping the friend definition with shaded lilac DI from the spring set. The prize this month is this rather lovely set of goodies.

 Pop over to the Challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous creations of our lovely Design team, and then create something to show us your crafty passion.

Thanks for looking!

Half term - Yipee!

Hi there!
First of all can I say a big thank you to all the peeps who have visited me recently and left lovely comments. Much appreciated. I am not at work for a week now, so I will hopefully find a bit more time to play and visit blog land. I'd also like to say welcome to my latest followers.
Top of my wish list this half term was to find time to have a play with my flitter glu that I won from Samuel Taylor's in their April challenge. I also won some lovely Yorkshire Dales mega flakes, which are glorious shades of green with hints of gold and bronze. After a longer than usual Karate Class (2 full hours - Sensai lost track of time!)  I came home, had my tea and began to play, and this is the result.

 I used a mixture of distress inks - bundled sage, Victorian velvet, tea dye and wild honey (I was inspired by the fabulous birthday card I received from Lisa - thanks my friend!). The stamps were from Inkylicious and were stamped in the same distress inks and versafine onyx black. I sprayed with a little glimmer mist too. The Hero Arts butterflies (Been using this a lot recently!) were my mega flake experiment.
The flitter glu is incredibly sticky stuff and dries tacky, so concentrate on getting it off your stamps ASAP, I managed to do this by having a little pot of warm water there to drop my clear stamp into as soon as I had used it. If you don't manage this you will definitely need the glue remover. This sounds a bit scary, but don't be put off as the results are stunning!

As usual the photo isn't as good as in real life, but you can just see a hint of the colours. The little sponge buffer that came with it really brings out the shine too.
Here is my other butterfly.

Over the years I have bought several products for use with gilding flakes, and never had a great deal of success, but I do rather like this stuff! It stamps well, showing lots of detail and is easy to use, not requiring a heat gun. I would recommend the Indigo blu easy peasy stamp cleaner for getting sticky off, and not just on your stamps too. I managed to get some on my fleece which didn't come off in the washer, but did come off with the solution.
This thank you card is heading off to Samuel Taylor's store, and I will be back after some more experimenting and playing. Thanks for looking!