I'm here - honest!

How quickly is this week going?  I can't believe it's Thursday already. Well, here is my 'red' card for this week's Allsorts challenge. Hope you like my interpretation! Stamps for the main image from the Hobby Art Tuscany set and the sentiment is an old Elusive images stamp. I coloured it with aqua markers and distress inks. The paper is one I have had a while and it was just a scrap so not sure who it is by. 

Yesterday I had a fabulous day with Lisa Jane, Lynne and Megan at Batley. We spent a while in Inkylicious where the lovely Deby demonstrated her fab beach scenes just for us. Needless to say I did add to my stash rather! I came home and had a little go myself and this is the result.

Not bad for a first attempt, but I'm not sure the photo does it justice! I'm entering this into this Month's By the Cute and Girly where the theme is the Sea (Thanks Lisa!). All stamps from the Inkylicious seascape memories set and I used my ink dusters too. After craft shopping we had lunch and then had a wander round 'the Mill' shopping village. It was a great day and we will definitely be doing it again - might need to save up first though! 

I have finished off a couple of cards today and made some scones too. Whilst we were on holiday I bought some rhubarb and ginger jam, so we made ginger scones to go with it...  

There is nothing quite like a warm scone. Thanks for looking!

Back from my hols

Firstly can I thank all those lovely peeps who have left me comments over the past fortnight. Sorry I haven't returned them, but I've been enjoying a little break in the depths of Suffolk. I saw my first marsh harriers and bittern at Minsmere, along with butterflies, deer, hares, green woodpeckers, kestrels, buzzards, terns, gulls and avocets to name but a few. Anyway, here are a few photos I thought I would share with you.

I'll hopefully catch up with you over the next week, as well as making some cards from the images I coloured whilst I was away. Yes, I took my aqua markers with me, but I missed my distress inks!!!

A bit of Lavinia

 Now my friend Milena has received her birthday card, I am safe to post it. Back in June I went to Stamp magic at Doncaster and bought a pile of Lavinia stamps. I bought the cat and the owl with Milena in mind as I know she loves both.
I began by using promarkers to make the background like I have seen done by Nikki Hall of Polkadoodles fame. You can see an example in different colours here. then I used chipped Sapphire distress ink to make the surface of the water. All of the stamps are by Lavinia, although it was the owl, the cat and the water lily that were my most recent purchases. I made the reflection of the cat and the ripples nearest the cat with a black promarker. In hindsight I would use a finer tipped marker to do this, although it didn't spoil it.
Finally I added a few spots of diamond stickles in the sky. I will have a brayering session to use these stamps again very soon, but I was quite pleased with the promarker background on this one.Here is a close up of the glitter glue and background.

Thanks for looking!

What ever you fancy at Sir Stampalot

This month at Sir Stampalot we have a theme of 'Whatever you fancy' . For my DT card this month I used one of the new Woodware singles stamps - a rather lovely rose available here. A bargain at £3.99 I think you will agree.

The background was created with Wild Honey and Victorian Velvet distress inks, over stamped with Old french writing (Hero Arts) in the same colours. The label and corner die (Spellbinders) were cut from ivory pearlised card. The rose was also stamped onto the pearlised card and given a hint of colour using sponges and the same distress inks. I stamped the rose three times, decoupaged it and used pinflair glue to glue it some dimension. The stem was painted with shabby shutters distress ink. The sentiment is from
Rubber stamp tapestry.
Now, on to the prize...

What a lot of lovely stash! 

Make sure you are in with a chance of winning it by entering a card, but do make sure you stick to the rules and don't enter more than 6 challenges including Sir Stampalot with that project. Well, thanks for looking and please go and visit the challenge blog for more fabulous inspiration!

Cute!

 

Here is a card I made recently for a friend of mine. This is 'Milton with a daisy' (Wild Rose Designs), and although he is a bit too cute for my liking I know my friend will love him.  I have watercoloured him with my aqua markers. Although I love my promarkers, I am getting more and more into watercolouring. The papers were some that I bought from funky fairies when the they were closing down. I do love these two colours together! The lace was a donation from my lovely friend Lynne - Thank you! I thought it matched perfectly.

A few hours in the garden

 

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the garden that I took today between little showers. It was so lovely to be out there with all the scents and colours.

 

The insects were very busy and I was pleased with the wide variety of bees and hoverflies that I saw.

The veg plot is a little overgrown, but the beans and peas are full of flower and we have a good harvest of turnips. The rhubarb always gives us a good crop, and the apple tree is laden this year. Lets just hope the Bramleys don't go through the roof of the greenhouse!

I have recently registered our Garden on the 'Big Wildlife Garden' website. Our vegetable production has been a bit hit and miss over the past few summers, and we were getting a bit depressed with it, but by registering our garden and looking at what we are doing for wildlife has made us look at it all from a different perspective. Insect life and bird life in our garden is thriving, and I am sure some of this is down to the herbs and native plants we have. All I'd like now is a resident hedgehog!

Less is More - circles

Well, I'm almost as late as I was last week with my less is more entry! This week the LIMettes need to come up with something with circles on it. Here is mine

I went for a selection of Waltzing Mouse stamps and citrus colours of memento ink (Cantaloupe, pear tart and tangelo). Reminds me of sliced limes, lemons and oranges!

Thanks for looking. Hopefully I will manage to visit you and comment before the weekend x

A Wedding and an Anniversary

I've been busy making a whole host of cards for colleagues at work. A couple of birthdays, three people who are leaving and a wedding that will be happening over the summer. Here is the wedding card. I used Bearly Mine designs vintage lace papers, A Waltzing Mouse frame stamp, some punches (Woodware and Martha Stewart) and dies(Marianne Designs), some pearlescent beige brilliance ink (Embossed with clear embossing powder) and some Tea Dye distress ink.

The subtle colours on the papers don't show up on the photo, but they are beautiful! I'm entering this card into these challenges:
Allsorts - Free and easy July
Moving along with the Times - My favourite things (Roses, Tea Dye distress ink and anything with a vintage feel!)
Simon says Stamp and Show - Embossing

My second card is one I was asked to make for a couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. My friend had seen a card I had made with the lovely 'Jack and Ginger' image by Mo Manning and asked if I could use that. This is what I came up with.

 

I coloured it with promarkers and added a panel of pearlised card that I dry embossed in a diamond pattern and added gems. Not sure if I have gone a bit overboard with the bling, but 60 years is some going these days! Well, I'd better go. Thanks for looking!

Better late than never!

Here is my rather late entry for this week's less is more where the theme is 'legs' and 'one layer'. I used post its to mask off an area of card and then used my ink dusters and distress inks to create a landscape. I stamped it with the tree (Making tracks, inc.) and the stag (Stampscapes). The trees needed a bit of water brushed over them to give them more definition. The sentiment is from Personal Impressions. This one is for my Brother-in-law, whose birthday is at the end of the month.
Only a week left at school now, and I can't tell you how much I am ready for a holiday, but I wish I could hang on to the wonderful class I've had. This year has flown by far too quickly!

Some surprises in my garden...

When I got home tonight I sat by the patio doors looking out at the bird feeders. I sat with my camera next to me as we had some lovely visitors to our bird feeding station yesterday. I wasn't disappointed.First came the sparrows...

 

Then the goldfinches arrived. There are at least five that I could see today, and some young ones too. These two are adults (not the best photo I'm afraid)...

Then three young long tailed tits arrived! Two flew back to the trees very quickly, but this little fella hung around for ages!

I'm no expert, and these aren't the best photos, particularly being taken through glass in the rain, but I'm so happy we are getting some different birds and so close to the house too. All I need to do now is find a way of deterring the neighbourhood cats - any suggestions?

Less is More - shades of blue

 Here is my card for this week's less is more challenge where the theme is shades of blue - right up my street! I used my ink dusters and a set of stamps from Inkylicious called Flight of dreams. I used big and juicy waterfall  for the 'dusting' and majestic blue versafine for the stamping. I love the effect with the ink dusters, and I will be practising more with them as soon as I get a bit more time.I'm also entering this into the Allsorts challenge this week where the theme is 'Free and easy'.
We had a beautiful day for our school summer fair yesterday, but when I got home I was shattered! I spent Friday evening baking cupcakes (forty five in 3 different flavours) and Saturday morning decorating them before selling them and lots of others on Saturday afternoon. It was a huge success and we raised lots of money for school. here is a photo after we'd sold a few.

Whilst I'm showing you some photos from yesterday I thought I would share with you a photo of our greenhouse on the school field.

It is made from pop bottles and bamboo canes with a wooden frame. you can find instruction of how to make one here. We have six tomato plants in there and they are doing very well! To the right you can see our raised beds - one per class. We should have a good crop of potatoes very soon, our herbs are looking  great and next year we should have some rhubarb too!
Thanks for looking!

July Challenge at Sir Stampalot

Good morning and welcome to this months challenge at Sir Stampalot.This month we decided to ley you have a bit of a free for all so the Challenge is Anything Goes.

I used one of the new Molly Blooms stamps (Flake-tastic Molly) and one of the older ones (Dandelion clock flower) to make the frame, with Distress inks in Victorian Velvet and Wild Honey. The background scene was stamped with the Hobby Art Scene-it clear set called Harbour. All stamping was done with versafine black apart from the frame and all colour was added with distress inks, either sponged or watercoloured and aqua markers. I cut the frame with a Go create die called Large Frames Frilly #5.

As you will see from the super inspiration on the challenge blog, we are all using Molly Blooms stamps showing you just how versatile the new Molly Blooms Summer 2011 collection is, just right for all those Summer creations. You can find all the stamps used in this card at Sir Stampalot waiting to make their way to your craft desk.

And as you might expect, this months fabulous prize has several of the new Molly Blooms stamps along with lots of other summery crafty goodies to keep the lucky winner occupied for days.

 Even if you are not into cute there are lots of great stamps to create scenes with, like the tree-house, daisies and beach-huts.
I do hope you can join in with us this month. Just remember  - only combine your creation with 5 other challenges - that's six in all. Thanks for looking and I will look forward to visiting you!