A Wedding

Yesterday my lovely niece was married. She is an ecologist and a bit of an expert on Dragonflies. I knew straight away which stamps to use when I started making her a card. The Hobby Art dragonflies were coloured with zig cleancolor markers and I added a little gelly roll sparkle pen and glossy accents to the eyes. When the eyes were dry I painted over the dragonflies with glossy slap-it-on from Indigo Blu. The reason I went for the two products is that they have different levels of shine. The background was created with ink dusters and then stamped with hobby Art wildflowers and dotted with white and stardust gel pens.

Here is a close-up of those eyes and the detail of the wings.
And here are a few photos from the big day...

Thanks for looking and please leave some love on my mid month inspiration post from yesterday too!

(Anyone would think I was on holiday - two posts in two days, lol)

Mid month inspiration

The challenge at Stamping Sensations this month is to use your current favourite stamp. As we are being sponsored by the lovely Bibi at Rubber Dance, I thought I would use this beautiful cat stamp to give a little more inspiration. Again I created the background on the base card by sponging oxide inks through a Bee Crafty Mandala stencil, then used alcohol markers to colour in coordinating colours as a background for the cat.
Do check out the other mid month inspiration over on the challenge blog, and pop back soon as I am hoping to share another creation tomorrow too!

Anniversary

Steve and I have just celebrated our 29th Wedding anniversary and this is the card I made for him. The moon, sentiment and leaves on the base card are all from Inkylicious and the Hares and Grasses are from Lavinia. I added a few highlights with a white gel pen. I'd better start thinking now about next years  - this was very last minute and I wasn't sure if it was dry when I put it in the envelope!
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments.

August at Stamping Sensations

It is the first Sunday of the month and time for our August challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month we have a lovely theme....

********Anything goes using your current favourite stamp********

I always have great difficulty choosing a favourite stamp and it does tend to vary from week to week. My project this month features a new-to-me stamp from our sponsor, Rubber Dance. I love Hedgehogs and this little guy was a must as soon as I saw him! He is called Handsome Hedgehog and is available here. The base card was coloured with Distress Oxides through stencils from Bee Crafty.

Even though it is an easy theme, we need you to play by the rules:

Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image which reflects the theme as the focal element of your artwork , this means:

Stamping must be the central point of attention and interest

 We are pleased to welcome Rubber Dance as our brand new sponsor this month, with a fabulous £25 store voucher for our lucky winner. There are some wonderful stamps on the website, and I will definitely be purchasing more!
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous creations from my talented team mates, many featuring Rubber Dance stamps!
Thanks for looking, and I look forward to seeing your entries.

Happy Rudolf Day with Christmas foliage!

Good Morning! I had a lovely evening playing with my new Christmas foliage stamps from Hobby Art to celebrate breaking up from school 😃 last weekend!
 For both cards I stamped the square of Kraft card with the stamp in olive ink and coloured it with watercolour markers. I used Candied Apple oxide ink to colour the yew berries and a white posca pen to colour the mistletoe berries. I stamped the same stamp randomly over the base card in Memento desert sand and added a very old sentiment from Woodware.  

Now normally I stop at two cards, but as I only managed one last month I carried on. I was tidying my table and I found an inkylicious twinchie with two little sprigs of Christmas foliage on it. It called out to be made into a wreath, so I used more Kraft card and stamped the holly sprig in lucky clover distress oxide. I added stickles and liquid pearls, and a sentiment in Candied apple Distress oxide. It was okay but I could do better...

Next I tried again, stamping the  holly six times around the circle in Iced Spruce distress oxide, then six times with the lucky clover. I was happier with the result this time. I added a variety of stickles and liquid pearls

As my title says, I am entering these into the Rudolf Days challenge over on Mo's blog. Mo has made some fabulous inspiration so do pop over and leave her some love. I am really looking forward to hearing all about her cruise around the UK.  

In the Garden

Just a quick reminder that there is still a little time to enter the In the Garden challenge at Stamping Sensations this month. I made this card for one of our Site managers at work. We have an allotment with a shed, and I really wish it looked as well organised as this one! .
The stamp set is from Hobby Art and will definitely come in useful for cards for my Dad too.
I am slowly but surely tidying my craft table and discovering all sorts of bits and pieces. Thanks for looking!

A Little Owl

The theme for July over at Penny Black and More is 'things with wings', so the perfect opportunity to share my latest lolly stick wall hanger. The stamps are a newish set from a Hobby Art, designed by Janie Burnett-Bleach. I stamped in Versafine onto watercolour paper, coloured with Zig clean color markers and fussy cut before mounting onto the lollystick base with 3d glue gel. I used glossy slap-it-on from Indigo Blu to give the leaves a bit of a sheen. I do like the slap-it-on as the sheen is not as glossy as glossy accents, so perfect for realistic leaves. I used glossy accents on the eyes, and a bit of starlight paint on the moon.
Do let me know if you start getting bored with my lolly sticks 😉. I am holding a stall at the local arts festival next weekend and will be interested to see if they sell. This one will end up on my kitchen wall if it doesn't.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments. A week and a half to go at school before we break up. Fingers crossed that Ofsted don't call before then. TTFN

In my Garden...

This week's challenge at Allsorts is 'In my Garden' so I thought I would share a monolith I made a couple of weeks ago for my stall at Gedling Arts festival on 21st July. The apple blossom, bee, ladybird,  caterpillar and Chaffinch are all easy to find in my garden, although the apple blossom has become small Bramleys now.
The stamps are all from the same set, called Birds, bugs and blossoms from Hobby Art. I coloured them with zig clean colour markers. The MDF monolith was from Visible Image.
Do pop over to Allsorts and take a look at the fantastic inspiration from the DT.
Thanks for looking!

July at Stamping Sensations

It is the first Sunday of the month and time for our July challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month we have a lovely theme....

********In the Garden********

My project this month features stamps from our sponsor, Crafty Individuals, and the base of the wall hanging is a piece of recycled Amazon packaging painted with Imagination Crafts Starlight paints. The flowers were stamped on to watercolour card and coloured with watercolour markers and a white gel pen

Even though it is an easy theme, we need you to play by the rules:

Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image which reflects the theme as the focal element of your artwork , this means:

Stamping must be the central point of attention and interest

 We are pleased to welcome back Crafty Individuals as our sponsor this month, with a fabulous £25 store voucher for our lucky winner. There are some wonderful new stamps on their website
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous creations from my talented team mates, many featuring Crafty Individuals stamps!
Thanks for looking, and I look forward to seeing your entries.

Rudolf day for June

 The end of the month is later today so I'm here for a last minute entry for Rudolf Day  over at Scrappy Mo's. I have created a holly and ivy card using Hobby Art stamps. Just the one card this time. Sorry it is so quick a visit. I will be back tomorrow with my stamping Sensations DT piece. Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look at the fabulous inspiration from her and the DT.
TTFN

A little bird...

Here is another lolly stick wall hanging using hobby Art stamps by Janie Burnett-Bleach. I panted and stamped the background then stamped the Bullfinch (It looks like a chaffinch in the set, bit if you stamp in a pale ink it is easy to change the marking to suit the species you want) , twig and ladybird on to watercolour paper. I fussy cut and added with 3d glue. A bit of glossy accents finished it off.
I hope your weekend is going well. We had a lovely belated father's day visit from Meg and Grant. I also finished my reports and the magazine commission I've been working on and a couple of birthday cards for people at school. I'm feeling happy to tick so many things off my to do list. Next week is stupidly busy at work so I might not be showing my face in blog land until next weekend.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments x

Lolly Stick Wall Art

After seeing Sandra's (Sandma Cards) wonderful lolly stick wall art as a sample for the last inkylicious show, I decided to have a go myself. I've been posting plenty of them on facebook but realised that I hadn't put any on my blog yet, so there are a few to see.

Here is how I secured the back and how to hang it

Each plaque is made by sticking large lollysticks together using hot glue. I painted them with either black or white acrylic paint then used ink dusters and inks over the paint. With the black one I used oxide inks and colourbox white pigment ink. For the white ones I dusted with distress inks and used watercolour markers, as well as stickles.   For all of them I used inkylicious stamps, ink dusters and stencils. If you want to know more feel free to leave a question and I will get back to you.
It is report writing season so I am spending all my spare time on those. I hope I will be able to see the wood for the trees by the end of the month and get more time in blogland after that.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments xxx