Another card for the playground

After a very hectic week, I am staggering back to blogland with a final entry for Di's snippet playground challenge. 

Is this a bit bright for a Friday night?! I loved the colours in the topper, which is another from Nicecrane designs. You can find this on the colourful nature Collage sheet, which I love! I found a snippet of yellow card that matched the yellow Hammer and the blue snippet was the right shade of stormy sky. To dull down the yellow a little I over stamped it with the worn paint stamp from Inkylicious in Stormy sky DI. Two more snippets to mat and layer and a snippet of ribbon too. This is my third time in the playground in a fortnight - put the flag out Miss Di! Fingers crossed that I am in with a chance of winning that water drops stamp! Thanks for looking!

More Christmas Cards

Inspired by this card by Heather Telford, I decided to have a go at making some similar Christmas Cards using Inkylicious tree stamps from the set Simply trees. I am continuing to try and use up lots of my white snippets too.

I began by dusting the linen card stock snippets with tumbled glass, faded lilac and spun sugar distress inks. A bit of teal zeal memento may have snook in too (my current favourite colour!). After a few attempts at embossing with different embossing powders, I decided I liked the silver sparkle (Top and bottom cards) better than detail white.

I added a few lines of Crystal Stickles and a sentiment. that's three more made! This is my second entry to Di's Crafty snippet challenge this fortnight. Hopefully I will get another one done before the close on Saturday so I can be in with a chance of winning some stamps by Ryn!
Thanks for looking!

Quick one layer Christmas cards and new Inkylicious stamps!

If you are looking for ideas for Christmas cards, then there are some new stamps from Inkylicious that are perfect for quick one layer cards.

 The branches, baubles and pine cones are all on a little plate called 'Winter spruce' and the 'Merry Christmas 08' is a single stamp.

I've stamped with Memento and Distress inks, as well as dusting with them on these cards. The Music Background stamp (also Inkylicious) provided a great vintage look in Antique linen Distress ink, as did the tiny script stamp above.

 Look out for these stamps and loads more at All Pally, Hobbycrafts Exeter, GNPE Harrogate, Stamp Magic Doncaster and Hobbycrafts Glasgow and NEC on the Inkylicious stand.
Bearing in mind the cost of postage I am making a whole load of these, along with some simple tree/ snow scene ones like this:

 Teal Zeal and Grape Jelly Memento inks were used with my ink dusters on this one. If you are off to Ally Pally this weekend have a wonderful time! If not, happy crafting wherever you are. Thanks for looking!

Poppies For Stamping Sensations

Hi there! It's my turn to provide some mid-month inspiration for the Stamping Sensations challenge, where the theme is Poppy -inspired. For this card I have used another Poppy from Chloe's stamps, our sponsor this month. The poppies were coloured with Distress markers and the stamens were accented with a black gel pen. I created a background with my ink dusters, memento and distress inks, along with a bird and a grass stamp from Inkylicious.
Pop over to the challenge blog to find out which crafting items I would take to my desert island!

Three Snippet makes

When I make square scene cards I often end up with lots of strips of silk art card where I have cut them off an A5 piece to make the square. I thought I would have a little play with wetting my ink dusters and see what combinations I could come up with.

On each of them I used just two stamps, Willow twigs and the birds from Windswept, both from Inkylicious. I did use black soot distress ink on this last one, but all the others were from residual ink on the dusters and water. I also added some dots from glitter glue or gel pen on each one.The mats were from my snippet box too, so I think these qualify for Pixie's Crafty Snippet playground this week! Thanks for looking and I hope you managed to stay warm and dry today!

Nicecrane Designs

After seeing Brenda's post here and Lynne's post here, I thought I'd better go and check out Nicecrane Designs...what a lot of gorgeous images there are! I spent a bit, but the lovely Ignacio gave me some freebies too. They are instant downloads, so very quick and great when you want a card in a hurry!

The images on these two cards are from a sheet called 'Colorful Nature'. I just loved the vintage feel and the gorgeously crisp images. I know I love stamping, but using images like this still means you can stamp the background or base card. I used the worn paint stamp and the delicate vine from Inkylicious. The inks were bundled sage, shabby shutters and rusty hinge DI, with memento olive grove to stamp the vine. The various scraps of paper and card used to mat and layer were all from my snippets drawers, which are very full at the moment!
I am entering these into Di's crafty snippet challenge (Sorry I have been away so long!)

Second Video Tutorial

Hi There! I am back at work and feeling my age this week, lol! Teaching year 1 is rather tiring at the moment! After lots of editing by Megan, here is the finished video tutorial for the Pine and Lake scene I made recently, which looked like this.

My finished card second time round is very slightly different from the first, but not far off! I hope this video shows clearly how ink dusting on Silk art card is not as difficult as some would have you believe, and also how to use wet ink dusters to create a water effect. With four ink pads, ink dusters, three stamps and some water you too could make a scene like this!
Let us know what you think and if you do have a go then please pop it on your blog and link back here, leaving me a comment so I can come and have a look. Thanks for watching and for all your lovely comments. If you have any requests for future tutorials you could let me know those too. 

Poppies at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! I really can't believe it is September already! Our new theme at Stamping Sensations is 'Poppy Inspired' and we chose this lovely photo taken by Brenda as our inspiration.

We are sponsored this month by Chloe's Creative Cards and I have used one of her stamps, 'Poppy Border' on my card.

I made a very simple stepper card, and added a scene behind the poppy border using my ink dusters, and stamps from Inkylicious (Poppy Lea and Delicate Vine). Here are a couple more views of it.

Now, on to the prize. Feast your eyes on these super goodies...

 

Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous inspiration provided by the multi-talented DT. Hope you get the chance to enter this month. Pop back soon as I will be posting my second Ink Duster tutorial this coming week. Meg filmed it last week, and has been busy editing it. Back to work for me since Friday - wish me luck with my new class - it is a long time since I last taught year 1s! Thanks for looking!

My new favourite ink combination!

After all those gorgeous sunsets in Wales (see this post), and more in Scotland when I went to visit Lynne last weekend, I had to have a go at seeing whether I could recreate those colours. I opted for Memento inks in Grape Jelly and Lilac posies with some Lemon yellow Impress ink on silk art card. This is what I came up with.

 I stamped the Inkylicious 'Tree of Life' in Black Archival and used the tree roots to make the border. The sentiment is from the set 'Sentiments one'.

This next card uses the largest of the Northern Pine set,  Birds from Windswept and a sentiment available soon!  The images were stamped in Memento tuxedo black. Below the masked area I used a wet brush  over the dusted inks to give the impression of water. It looks better in real life than on the photo. This might be my next video tutorial I think. Let me know what you think.
Thanks for looking, and enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend x
Edit: You can find a video tutorial to make this card here.

Red Poppy

After my blue poppy on Tuesday I thought I would share this red poppy I coloured in a couple of days ago.

The Botanical poppy from Inkylicious was stamped in Archival black ink and coloured with Distress markers in shabby shutters, crushed olive, chipped sapphire, fired brick and barn door. I then coloured around the image with a mixture of weathered wood and antique linen distress markers. I added a bit more shading around the edges by dusting with tea dye distress inks and an ink duster. I added a layer of green card, stamped with the tiny script stamp and edged with the tree of life stamp. The base card was stamped with the worn paint stamp and bundled sage distress ink. It is such a gorgeous image to colour I can see me using it lots!
Well, we have been celebrating here as Megan has done incredibly well in her GCSEs, and we are so proud of her. She really deserves those results as she has worked so hard. I would like to congratulate all those teenagers who got their results this past two weeks. I really hope you got what you needed to follow your dreams. Too many times these days we hear such derogatory comments about young people, and it is so wrong! It is time the government stopped bagging our teenagers too, by saying that their exams are so much easier than ours were. Give them some credit for working hard! Right, I will climb down from my soapbox and get on with the housework!
Enjoy your bank holiday weekend and thanks for looking!

Blue poppy

I have seen lots of stamping and colouring on Kraft recently, so I thought I would have a go with the beautiful botanical poppy from Inkylicious.

I coloured the poppy with my watercolour pencils and then used my water brush to blend. The base card is stamped with worn paint background in tumbled glass Distress ink and then dusted with walnut stain. I stamped flourish 2 with walnut stain distress ink too and added a sticky ribbon (free with a magazine many years ago!)
As this poppy stamp is new stash, I am entering it into this week's Allsorts Challenge where the theme is 'use your new stash'.
Thanks for looking!

Holiday Wildlife

Thought I would share a few pics of some of the wildlife we saw whilst in Wales. The first three photos are from our trip to Ramsey Island.

 a seal, red deer,

and choughs.

Next a Heron and a Curlew.

And finally some insect life taken on a footpath near lake Vyrnwy. A Ringlet and a grasshopper.

 This little fella was named Jim by Megan, and he enjoyed a bit of sunshine whilst sitting on her jeans!

After a while we persuaded him onto my finger before he was encouraged back into the undergrowth!

Thanks for looking!