More shades of Autumn - a few photos

 On our last day of our short break in Wales we went to Pistyll Rhaeadr, the highest single drop waterfall in Britain. We parked by the Tea rooms at the bottom and climbed the steep path to the top of the falls. It doesn't take too long, bit I was glad of my monopod /walking pole as it was quite slippery in places. I chose three photos from the walk and have put them in order of my own preference. I love the contrasts on this first one.

 The second is the view of the Waterfall from the other side of the valley. I stood just to the right of where the water falls from.

This is looking in the other direction down the Valley. The bracken definitely makes the grass look greener.

 Now I don't post many photos of me, but as someone who really doesn't like heights I was very proud of myself standing upright just there! That water to my left is the edge of the waterfall.

                                
                    
Thanks for looking!

Autumn leaves

Here are a couple of cards made with some new stamps from inkylicious. The stamps are called Autumn Leaves and come as one large stamp in one set and three smaller stamps in the other set. For my first card I stamped the leaves and coloured with Zig clean colour markers before cutting them out and covering with Modpodge. I used one of the new inkylicious stencils in the background and attached the leaves with 3d glue.

The second card was stamped and heat embossed using brass embossing powder over an inky dylusions panel.
There is plenty of inspiration for Autumn themed cards out of doors at the moment and the sycamores are particularly colourful this year.

These photos were taken near Lake Vyrnwy yesterday. The colours were amazing! Thanks for looking!

Rudolf day for October

 Hi there! Sorry I haven't been around much! I'd intended to post a couple of cards after my visit to Doncaster, but it took a bit longer to get home than anticipated. To cut a long story short, I broke down quite dramatically (and expensively) outside the Dome and had to be towed home. We finally got our car back on Saturday. You don't realise how much you rely on the car until you are without it, and also how much longer it takes on public transport! Anyway here are my cards for this months Rudolf days. I used some of my goodies from Doncaster, a new stamp from Inkylicious called Evening walk. The snow on the first is fluffy puffy stuff, and the background is memento grey flannel ink.

The ink on the second card is Memento Paris Dusk and the snow is white gel pen and gellyroll star dust.My third card is something completely different. The sentiment is an inkylicious stamp, but the background is an Imagination Crafts stencil and sparkle medium over an inky dylusions background. It is very sparkly and the colour comes through the sparkle medium too!

 Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's Rudolf day challenge on her blog and join in the fun getting ready for Christmas in plenty of time! Theres some great inspiration from Mo and the DT too.
We had a lovely time at Stamp Magic, despite the car, and enjoyed meeting up with crafty friends. I don't normally have much luck with selfies, but for once I was quite pleased with this one which features 3 members of Stamping Sensations DT. I think you can tell how much we were enjoying ourselves from those smiles!

 

Thanks for looking!

A Pink Birthday

A dear friend bought me some beautiful floral layering stamps from Studio Light and a little while ago I made her Birthday card with them. It was a great opportunity to use my Stampers friend from Be Creative to line them up and I was very pleased with the accuracy I managed. I used memento inks. The sentiment is from Hobby Art. I added some spots of glitter glue, wanting it to look like dew...might have been better with glossy accents thinking about it now 😉
As it is Think Pink week at Allsorts, it was the perfect opportunity to post it. Lynne, Audrey and I are off to Stamp Magic tomorrow and will be enjoying a crafty moment or two this evening. Hope you have a wonderful weekend too!
Thanks for looking!

October at Stamping Sensations

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

********Autumn Glory********

So as the title suggest we would love to see all things Autumn, be it trees and flowers, Autumnal scenes or you may wish to use a favourite stamp and use all those lovely rich colours that we associate with this time of year. Our Sponsors this month are Stamp Addicts who manufacture their own branded rubber stamps which frequently feature on Hochanda TV as well as exhibiting at craft shows across the UK. It seemed only right that I used the scenic stamp set from Stamp Addicts for my first card. It is such a versatile stamp set and can be used for all different seasons. I have used it to make snowy scenes too. The leaf stamps are from Hobby Art and the sentiment is from Inkylicious. The extra leaves I stamped made another card, along with the lovely Autumn quote also from Hobby Art. All colouring was done with Distress markers and Zig clean color markers

 

Our lucky winner this month will receive a £25 store voucher. 

 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.

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! 

Rudolf day for September

Here is my Rudolf day card for this month. I have only managed one again I am afraid, so I will attempt to do three next month. Especially as I will have half term.Anyway, enough waffling. My card was made with a digi from Dora, which you can find on her blog here. Dora's digis are a delight to colour - I used alcohol markers to colour this one.
The papers are from Craftwork Cards and the snowflakes are a lawn fawn die. The ribbon is silver, not that you can tell in this light!
Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look at the lovely creations from her and the Design Team
Thanks for looking!

Another Harbour and a thing with wings!

Here is another harbour scene using Hobby Art Stamps. Centre front is a cheeky seagull, keeping his eyes peeled for any unsuspecting passers-by with chips or an ice-cream! I used Lakeland Inktense pencils to colour it . The outer edge of the base card was stamped with Inkylicious splatter effect stamps and Bahama Blue memento ink. I also added a few blobs of Be Creative Teal Emerald glitter glue. With the seagull I think it qualifies for entry to Allsorts this week, where the theme is 'Things with Wings'.
Apologies that I haven't posted for two weeks. I came down with a very nasty cold last weekend and didn't feel like doing much for about four days. Feeling much better now though. Now Steve has retired there are lots of things he is doing around the house. We have just had a weekend of moving a single bed to his Dad's flat and a rather heavy double bed back to ours. Next I need to do a bit of rearranging of craft stuff so we can fit a keyboard in the front room. I may need a craft retreat once he starts sorting the loft!!!
Thanks for looking and I hope you have enjoyed some sunshine this weekend. I will be back next weekend with a new theme for Stamping Sensations and hopefully to join in this months Rudolf days before that!

Distress oxides!

Have you had a play with Distress oxides yet? I have just purchased the second set and I love them! It is so nice to have something so different to experiment with. Here are a few cards I have made with the backgrounds I have made. The first was done with a bit of smooshing and spattering. Stamps are from Hobby Art. I painted with the inks to add a bit of colour and also added a little glitter and pixie powder to highlight the plants. As this one used snippets left over from other cards I'm off (shamefacedly) to Miss Di's snippet playground with it. Hopefully they will remember me and let me in!

The butterfly card was made using blending with a sponge, then splattering with water, left over ink and glimmer mist, adding a touch of gold sparkle. The Butterfly is an inkylicious stamp.

Finally, this was a smooshed background splattered with water, then stamped over with regular Distress inks for the leaves. The border down each side is from Crafty individuals and the rest of the stamps are from Inkylicious. In all cases I stamped the main images with versafine black and for the first two I clear embossed them.
Sorry I have been a bit quiet in blog land. I am back at work and working on a magazine commission as well. I probably should have said no, but it all adds to spending money for Doncaster in October😁😁😁
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments. I really do appreciate them all!

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!