September at Stamping Sensations

Good morning, It's time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations and this month we have some photo inspiration for you with some pretty colours that can range from bright to pastel, it's very much down to you which ones you choose to work with, or you may want to go floral inspired by the lovely Iris.

I used both for my inspiration and came up with this...

I coloured the iris stamp (Hobby Art) with distress markers in peacock feathers and picked raspberry and then used a water brush to spread the colour, adding a little glitter glue. I  created an inky panel for the base card using dylusion sprays, distress oxide ink in broken china, a stencil, a crafty individuals background stamp and another Hobby Art stamp. It sort of evolved as I went along, and I was reasonably pleased with how it worked out!

Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image, sentiment or quote as the focal element of your artwork. You can enter up to three creations but please note: If we do not comment on your entry it will be because it does not follow the theme, qualify under our rules, or because we are asked to sign in or provide additional data to comment on third party hosts particularly Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Splitcoast. We do not want to be rude but we do want to be fair to those who do follow the rules.
We have a lovely prize of Hero Arts goodies this month and a second prize of ribbons too. 
     
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the gorgeous creations from my multi talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your great entries!
Thanks for looking!  

Coastal Scene

I stamped and water-coloured this scene whilst on holiday and it has been waiting patiently to be turned into a card. I used the Hobby Art Coastal walk and seashells set, and my colouring was inspired by the scenery we saw from the Pembrokeshire coastal path. Here are a few photos...

A walk around the Marloes peninsula was so good - great views, lovely sea and sands, lots of wildlife and wildflowers and the sound of the sea!  We took a boat trip round Skomer and were lucky enough to see seals, porpoise and dolphins! I took hundreds of photos, but these were the best!

 I am back at school and the children start tomorrow, so probably not going to visit blogland again until the weekend.
Thanks for looking!

A wonderful day of Owls and Eagles

Meg bought me a bird of prey experience for two for my birthday. We booked it to take place in August so Meg could be there too. Steve came as an observer and chief cameraman (apologies to him that forgot to change the watermark!)  It took place at Thorseby Courtyard in North Notts with Hawks of Steele. What a wonderful time we had!

 We met a lanar falcon,

 the cutest boobook owl,

 A barn owl,

Sooty is a baby great grey owl.

 Karl flew Sooty between our heads and he was totally silent!

 Our favourite though was Rambo, a golden eagle weighing 7 1/2 lb (just a little more than Meg weighed when she was born) and quite a weight sitting on your wrist. He was magnificent!

Thanks for looking!

Rudolf Day for August

It's past the 25th of the month so time for Rudolf day for August. I managed three this month, Woohoo! All are stamped with Hobby Art stamps onto watercolour paper and coloured with Distress Markers, zig clean color markers, watercolour pencils and a water brush. I completed the colouring on holiday, then turned them into cards when I got home. All three have been generously coated in a variety of glitter glues. The greeting on the ones below is a very old one from Stamporium.

These two are similar, but not identical. The top one was coloured with the zig clean color markers and the lower one with watercolour pencils. I added highlights with a white gel pen

Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look. It is the best way of keeping up with making your Christmas cards.
I am back to school next week. In sorting out my classroom on Tuesday and officially on Wednesday. Where did those 4 weeks and 4 days go? I am hoping to squeeze in a little more crafting before I go back, but need to get my planning sorted first.
Thanks for looking!

More cosmic shimmer playing

Hi there! It's time for a new mid-month theme for our inspiration posts over at Stamping Sensations, and we are looking at 'something new I've tried recently'. 

I decided to go with Cosmic Shimmer Pixie Powders, which I have shown you a smattering of before. Just in case you didn't see my last post, the pixie powders are like brushos in that they are in powder form, but they are mostly just single colours and pearlised so they have an amazing sheen. They come in a fine tipped easily squeezable bottle like the ones stickles come in but bigger, and depending on how much you tilt it more or less comes out. You can give it a light tap or squeeze it. The colours are lovely and vibrant, but turn pastel shades with more water, rather than going muddy. They are also water soluble so can be mixed with water to make a paint. I've used them for the background, to splatter and as a paint on this next card, using Hobby Art Dandelion Wishes stamps. 

 

The paper that you use them on does affect how they react, and I did find watercolour paper or cartridge paper worked best. I used the pixie powders like brushos on the other cards.

I stamped various stamps from Woodware and Inkylicious in versafine black and clear embossed over it.

This last one does look a little muddy compared to the others, but I had swooshed it on the mat to soak up some excess first.
Thanks for looking and I do hope you have had the opportunity to enter at Stamping Sensations this month.

With a number

Hi there! The current challenge over at Allsorts this week is to use a name or a number on your card.  Here is the card I made for Meg's boyfriend on his 21st. I used stamps from Honey Doo crafts and watercolour markers. The background paper was from Craftwork cards tartan pack. the sentiment was computer generated (Can't believe I don't have a 21st stamp!)

My second card was a commission from a friend who wanted a 50th birthday card for a Francophile who loves flowers. This is what I came up with. The background stamps were Waltzing Mouse ones (no longer available) The sentiment is from Little Claire, the Eiffel tower was a do crafts stamp and the leaves are from Inkylicious.  The background was created with ink dusters.

I added prima flowers and dots of liquid pearls. All dies are spellbinders.

Thanks for looking!

Harbour Villages

Good Evening! As it is the summer holidays I've taken inspiration from some of the many places we have visited over the years and created some scenes. For both of my cards I have used the Hobby Art set 'Harbour Villages'. The first also includes the Seashells set too. In each case the stamps were stamped onto watercolour paper in versafine ink and coloured with Zig clean clean color markers and Distress markers, with a waterbrush. Both backgrounds are made with an Inkylicious stamp and ink dusters. A few spots of  brass liquid pearls finished them off.

One of my friends says they remind her of the North Yorkshire coast, the top one Staithes and the bottom one Whitby. Do they remind you of anywhere?
Here are a few photos of picturesque village scenes from our holiday in Pembrokeshire.

There will be more to come soon!

August at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the Month and time for a new Challenge over at Stamping Sensations! This month's theme is.....

***Anything Goes*** 

As the title suggests we want to see your projects featuring stamping. I have used Gummipan feather stamps (Available from our sponsor this month) and a sentiment  from Hobby Art. I used a kaleidacolor ink pad called Calypso.
I made a second card using the same design...

This time I used a sentiment from Inkylicious and the Cappuchino Kaleidacolor ink pad. 
Our Sponsors this month are a relatively new company called Swedish House Crafts. They are very friendly and reliable, run by crafters for crafters. I ordered several Gummipan stamps that arrived promptly and are unique designs and good quality red rubber. Several of their sentiments made me laugh out loud! 
 Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the gorgeous creations from my multi talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your great entries but please note: if we do not comment on your entry it will be because it does not follow the theme, qualify under our rules, or because we are asked to sign in or provide additional data to comment. We do not want to be rude but we do want to be fair to those who do follow the rules.
Thanks for looking!

Janie's flowers

With all the beautiful stamps that Hobby Art have produced recently I had to have a play with some of my purchases as soon as as I could! I opted to play with Janie Burnett-Bleach's Floral mix set. For the first card I used my inktense pencils - a birthday present from Steve. The poppy on the far left is decoupaged and added with 3d glue (shhhh, it is hiding the bodge I made of colouring it the first time round 😂). I also added a few highlights using a white gel pen. It isn't perfect, but I was reasonably pleased with it in the end. I am entering it into the current chalenge at Allsorts where there is photo inspiration of poppies!

My second card uses stamps from the same set. This time I painted the flowers with distress oxides. I placed a mask over the centre and dusted tea dye distress ink over it. The sentiment stamps are also from Hobby Art. I added dots of perfect pearls to the flower centres and around the circle to finish it off. I made a better job of the masking this time too!

This is such a beautiful set, and I am sure I will be playing with more of the stamps soon!
I'm off to enjoy a Saturday night doing absolutely nothing, lol. Hope you are having a great weekend!

Rudolf day for July

It's past the 25th of the month so time for Rudolf day for July. Here is my offering. I stamped the berry branch stamp (inkylicious) in olive grove memento ink then used 3 colours of liquid pearls for the berries. The greeting is from a Honey Doo set and the snowflake on the base card is from Crafty individuals.
I've not managed a second card this month I'm afraid, but I will have 3 for next month.
Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look. It is the best way of keeping up with making your Christmas cards.
Thanks for looking! 

Krafty cottage

Here is a card made with the Hobby art Old Barn stamp set. I was trying to get a sepia effect with zig clean color markers, but I might have been better using distress markers for a more vintage look. All images were stamped in versafine vintage sepia. I also used the wheat stamp from the 'In the Cornfield' set on the base card, colouring it with coloured pencils.
If you haven't tried Hobby Art stamps, then I can highly recommend them! They are exceptionally good quality, excellent designs and lots of them work so well together, especially the scene-it stamps. My collection is growing and I have had to extend it to a fourth folder recently! I can also tell you they have amazingly good customer service too. It really is like shopping with a very good friend! They have a super talented design team too, and there is lots of inspiration in the gallery on their website.
I will leave you with a photo of me with Jenny, taken at Doncaster in June. She is a really lovely lady.

Three days left until we break up for the summer. Soooooo tired! Thanks for looking!

Open Garden Scheme

A couple of weeks back I remember I told you I had visited a couple of gardens that people had opened to the public as part of the National open Garden scheme. This is where they open their gardens and charge a small fee for opening which goes to a charity. Many sell plants and have refreshments on sale too.

All of the photos here were from the first garden we went to, just a short walk from our house. They have a smallish plot, but it is on several levels and is chock full of wonderful plants, particularly Clematis, Roses and Hosta.

I took rather a lot of photos of these two entwined clematis

This stunning apricot rose had a wonderful scent too - quite spicy

I rather liked this geranium - such delicate colours

This clematis head was huge!

I loved the sunny faced pansies too.

It was a very enjoyable afternoon!
On the way back, Steve and I talked about our own garden and thought about what we had seen. In both gardens there were definitely not enough bees! Our marjoram is flowering at the moment and is a mass of bees. It is good to know we are doing our bit for the bee population. If I could have my own 'collection' of plants, I think I would choose something like Lavender - beautifully scented and a haven for bees.
What would you choose?