Rudolf day for May and In the Pink

 It is time for another Rudolf Day over at Scrappy Mo's, and for this month I have gone with two digis. The first is a freebie I found online by Inger Harding. You can find it here. The papers are from my stash and the base card was stamped with a holly border stamp from Inkylicious in old paper distress ink.

 My second card is another digi, this time from Digistamp Boutique. The embossing folder is by Sheena Douglas and I used another snippet to make the bow and fake ribbon. Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's and take a look at the inspiration and lovely prize. As I have used snippets on both of these I'm taking them to Miss Di's Snippet playground, where there is more lovely inspiration for using up those snippets

When I saw the Challenge at Allsorts this week was 'in the pink' I had the perfect card for it. I am god mother to a lovely young lady who has pink hair from time to time! It is her birthday this week, and when I saw the digi from Lavinia it reminded me of her so much! Take a look and see for yourself!
All of the digis in my post are coloured with Be Creative Markers and a range of glitter glue and liquid pearls. The papers on the pink card are from PDA, and the bright pink ribbon was a gift from a friend.
I hope the bank holiday weekend brings you good weather and the opportunity to do what you love. Hoping to do some serious gardening myself.
Thanks for looking!

A taste of Africa

After seeing Emma and Deby of Inkylicious on Hochanda last week, I got my ink dusters out to have a play, and decided to use the Serengeti sets of stamps.

I used memento inks and a mountain valley stencil to create the scenes. For the second one I put a few dots of clear stardust sakura pen for stars in the sky. I used white gel pen to highlight the stamped images.

I'm entering this second one into the current challenge at Allsorts, where the theme is Happy Birthday.

I used the off-cuts from the first card to make my last card, and think it might be the best of the lot! Definitely as far as the white pen goes! I am taking my Elephants to the snippet playground as I used snippets. Don't let the elephants near the hooch, Sarn!!!!
Thanks for looking!

A New Design Team

I am delighted to tell you that I have joined my lovely friend Dora's DT for her digi blog, Doortje-digis shop. I used Dora's beautiful Rosebay Willowherb in the foreground, coloured with Be Creative alcohol Markers. Behind I created a little scene of hills and mountains behind using inks, ink dusters and stamps from Inkylicious. I used tartan papers from Craftwortk Cards and some ribbon from my stash.
Do take a look at the digi shop. There are lots of beautiful digis there.
Thanks for looking!

A card, a walk and a milestone!

 I hope you are all well and enjoying the warm weather! I can't believe the difference from a week ago! I am sharing a card I made using an indigo blu stamp and distress inks in fossilised amber and abandoned coral. I am taking this to Miss Di's playground, as I every bit of card I used except the base card was snippets. The stamp was one of four bought for me by a good friend for my (50th shhhh!) birthday last week. We started the celebrations last weekend with a lovely walk around Langsett Reservoir...

 and ended up as Banks End Cafe for lunch and a pudding (Jam roly poly and custard was just the ticket, lol)! At the time there was still snow on the hills and we wrapped up warm. Don't you just love their polka dot wall?

 My celebrations continued with a visit to a craft shop, another tea room and my Karate grading this weekend. I may be doing a pretty good impression of a beetroot, but I was awarded my first Kyu (brown belt with two black tags). The next time I grade it will be for black belt. I also got a lovely surprise as Meg and her boyfriend, Grant came down from Sheffield to support me. Here I am below with Sensei Alex, Meg and Sensei Richard

 The guy on the left here is Sensei Karl, who is the Area Sensei, and Sensei Richard is from my Dojo. I think they find the height difference amusing too! Everyone here has played a huge part in my karate journey and I really appreciate their help and support over the years.

Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments.

Same stamp and die, different looks

A couple of weeks back I had a lovely parcel arrive from Justin and Gordon at Be Creative. It had the new wonder crystals (embossing crystals) in it and I just didn't have time to play! I managed some time last week and this is what I came up with.
The scene behind the trees was created using inkylicious stamps and ink dusters. I then cut the tree die from a wonder sheet. I peeled one side of the wonder sheet off and covered it in the crystals before heating. Once melted the crystals are so flexible. I then peeled off the backing and applied over the scene.  I wouldn't have thought of doing it that way round but it worked a treat and meant no buckled card from the heat underneath! The base card was covered in Be creative paper from the Nature's portrait pad. I rather liked this, so decided to have a go with a different colour scheme.

For this one I stamped the base card with leaves. I think this colour for the silver birches might work a bit better over a dark blue or purple scene.
Then I tried purples and peaches...

 The papers behind this one are from an Artylicious CD from Chocolate Baroque. The small leaves are a Joycraft die and have been rubbed over with gilding wax.
The crystals are lovely to use and with all of these gave a great coverage with one sprinkling. You won't need to triple emboss with them. Double embossing will be thick enough.
I am still experimenting, and will try to show you more soon. Look out for the crystals on the Hochanda website and at shows. More colours will also be available soon.
Thanks for looking!

May Challenge at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. Our Theme is Anything goes, so a nice easy one for you and we are sponsored by Crafty Individuals. The Usual rules apply, you can enter up to three times, combine with other challenges, use any make of stamp......but can I please remind you we are a stamping challenge and stamping must be the focal/predominant element of your work. Conventional rubber/acrylic stamps and digital images are acceptable, but pre-coloured digital images and toppers are not. For my card I used two Crafty individuals stamps, CI-430 and CI-387. The background was stamped in Stormy sky and dried marigold DI. I stamped the main image on to silk art card with Archival ink and coloured with distress markers and a water brush.

Crafty Individuals is an exciting web based venture into the creative world of crafts and altered art products and produce an eclectic range of unique and top quality art rubber stamps, cutting dies, masks/stencils and paper craft products. One very lucky winner will win a £35 voucher to spend in their store.
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the fantastic creations by my lovely teamies. There are some absolute stunners this month! With a theme like anything goes, it would be rude not to join in, lol, so I'll look forward to seeing all your lovely creations! 
I'm entering my card into the Crafty Individuals blog challenge too, where the theme is anything goes as long as you use one Crafty Individuals product .
Thanks for looking!

Rudolf day for April

Happy Rudolf day! I managed to make two cards this month! Both cards used stamps from Inkylicious. The first using a white tag and card, inked with Memento Paris Dusk. I covered the base card in panels embossed with a Sheena embossing folder.

My second card used the faux vellum technique, dusting white ink onto craft card. The edging thistle is a hobby art stamp from the Highland cattle set and I added a tartan ribbon to continue the Scottish theme.
Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's blog and take a look at the wonderful Christmas cards there! Thanks for looking and for all your wonderful comments. Hopefully I will manage some time in blogland this weekend. I am giving myself some me time :-D

Another walk in Ploughman's wood

Warning, Photo heavy post! Are you sitting comfortably? Ploughman's Wood is a Wildlife Trusts nature reserve a couple of miles from our house. We sometimes go there just for an hour and a short walk. I know there are Bluebells there, so we made our way with my camera. Here are a few of my photos

 The blackthorn was beautiful on the walk from the road...

 There was a carpet of bluebells as soon as we entered the wood.

 There were also wood anemones in both white...

 and various shades of pink

 We were accompanied by the song of robins, great tits and chiffchaffs.

 We also heard green and spotted woodpeckers

 In some places the wood anemones looked like snow!

 We also saw cowslips,

 primroses...

 and lots of Greater Stitchwort

 I hope you enjoyed joining us on our little walk.
Thanks for looking!

Inky backgrounds

 As I said in my last post, I decided to take a trip to PDA Cards and Craft to escape the quiet house...several pounds later I emerged clutching a stack of card, some stamps and a couple of ink pads. I didn't find all the Woodware stamps I was looking for, but I did find Large Fennel, which I used on the first two cards. I now need small fennel too, having seen the samples the ladies there had made.

When I got home I thought I'd better clear a bit of the mess on my table and found some lovely bits of card coloured with Distress ink re-inkers and a water spray. If I remember rightly I used squeezed lemonade, seedless preserves and either ripe persimmon or spiced marmalade. I lay the card onto the inky wash and keep alternately spraying with water and laying on snippets of card.  The first card on this post was probably the last spray of the inks before it got too pale for me. I found one last bit  which was an almost perfect fit for this inkylicious picture perfect stamp

I'd mounted this one on the card before I decided it needed a hill in the background, so masked the rest of the card and added a hill with ink dusters. Unfortunately I managed to get a smudge on the white base card, but a well places die cut leaf soon covered it up. All stamping was done with Versafine black and then embossed with clear embossing powder.
Do you want to see what else I have been doing for the past couple of days?


These are Rhubarb and Ginger Muffins, and finally...
Soda Bread!
The Chocolate cakes raised £28 for Karate class trophies and medals this week. I was very happy with my soda bread and have decided to venture further into making bread not using a bread machine.
Thanks for looking and feel free  to help yourself to a cake  - all calorie free, lol!

A Squirrel Card

Whilst photographing the Squirrels last week (see previous post), I remembered that Dora had borrowed my photos from a previous visit to draw some digis. She very kindly let me have them, so I had a lovely half hour colouring and making this card. If you fancy it, you can purchase the digi from Dora's digi shop.

I coloured it using Be creative markers. For the squirrel I used natural oak, light orange and yellow ochre. Mixing the light orange and yellow ochre produced the lighter shade. I used some Be Creative paper too. The little die cut leaves are a Joy crafts die that I absolutely love. The brown card and the gold paper are oth snippets so I am off to Miss Di's snippet playground with this. 
The house is feeling rather empty as Meg returned to uni on Sunday and I still have a week of holiday. I am thinking I will take a trip to a craft shop to take my mind off it, lol! I particularly need some of the lovely whimsical flower stamps from the woodware range. One of them has my name on it, quite literally! Thanks for looking! 

Red Squirrels in Scotland

Meg and I had a lovely time visiting Lynne last week. On our last day we visited Eskrigg Nature reserve, a red squirrel hot spot...

 We had a chuckle at this one...

 who finally emerged from the peanut store.

 Some were a little more refined in their dining habits!

 Some liked to make the other squirrels jump with Jack-in-a-box type moves!

 Some tried to blend in with the trees, keeping a close eye on us humans...

 I think this is my favourite shot of all the ones I took (96!) 

 And finally, this little fellow was eager to pick up the food that others had dropped on the floor. 

 It was so lovely to spend a very quiet couple of hours in the company of these delightful creatures (Meg and Lynne included!)
Thanks for looking!