June Challenge at Stamping Sensations

Good morning! This is the first Sunday of the month and so time for a new challenge over at Stamping Sensations. This month our theme is........................

******Dies and Punches******

We still need to see a stamped element but this can be combined with whatever dies and punches you would like to use.
 Here is my card

The flower stamp is from Little Claires and the sentiment is from Inkylicious. I stamped the background with the inkylicious worn paint background. The dies are from Marianne designs and spellbinders. The inks are Adirondack Eggplant and Pool. I coloured the flower with promarkers and added colour to the card and die cuts with my ink dusters.

We have a fabulous prize from.............

Tonic Studios who are this months sponsor are synonymous with quality and precision cutting products from scissors to punches, guillotines to dies. During the last year they have extended their range of products to high quality clear stamps  and very recently released their own design papers. Their products are available from many High Street craft stores and frequently feature on Create and Craft TV. And here is a photo of that prize:

 

What an amazing prize it is! As this goes live I will be getting ready to set off to Doncaster to Stamp Magic, a show I really love! 

Hope you get the chance to join in with our Challenge this month. Please pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the wonderful inspiration created by my fab teamies!

Thanks for looking!

Stamp Magic Time!

So who is going to Doncaster to Stamp Magic tomorrow? I will be there, but on my own as Lynne is not able to visit this time, and Meg is deep in revision as her A levels start on Monday. I have already made my shopping list and am very excited to see some different exhibitors this time. I will of course be visiting the stalls of all my favourites like Inkylicious,  Inky Doodles and Little Claire.
No doubt I will bump into some lovely friends. Drop me an email if you fancy saying hello.
My card is made using Inky Doodles stamps, promarkers and ink dusters.
Thanks for looking!

Where has the week gone?

I have had a week off work and it has flown by! I have been busy making but unfortunately I can't show you most of them until August! What I can show you is a cake and a card I made for my lovely God-Daughter who was 24 this week.
The cake was a Carrot cake...

 I adapted the recipe and left out the nuts, decorating the top with some golden sugar sprinkles on the cream cheese frosting.
Here is the card...

Most of the stamps on this scene are from Lavinia Stamps. The cat is so much like one of my god daughter's cats! I created the background with my ink dusters and Distress inks in squeezed lemonade, Dried marigold and Shabby Shutters. I also used memento inks in rose bud, olive grove and tuxedo black.
We have a very beautiful kitten who has begun visiting our garden. It has no collar, so no bell, and is stalking the birds. I will have to resort to the squeezy bottle of water soon as I do not feed my birds so they can end up in a cat's stomach, however pretty he is! If you own a cat, please make sure there is a bell on their collar to at least give the birds a fighting chance, especially at this time of year with so many fledglings around. Please excuse me mentioning this, but I put the same effort into looking after my garden birds as many people do into looking after their pets, and I have seen quite a few casualties recently.
I will leave you with a photo of one of the Dunnocks that lives in our garden and has been very busy this week, flying backwards and forwards taking food to the nest.

 Thanks for looking!

Rudolf day for May and Creative Stamping issue 25

Hi there! I have made three more very CAS cards for Rudolf day this month. I stamped the wreath (Penny Black) using bundled sage Distress ink and added some dots of 3 different liquid pearls. The reason I placed the sentiment off centre is because I managed to smudge the liquid pearls with the side of my hand - one of the issues of being left-handed. I think it was a happy accident though!

My second attempt I managed to get things unsmudged, square and central! the sentiment is a tiny one from Hero arts. I used memento cottage ivy ink for this one.

My third card is stamped in cracked pistachio distress ink and the berries are a mixture of liquid pearls and Spun sugar distress stickles. The sentiment is from Honeydoo Crafts.
Check out the challenge at Scrappy Mo's and get yourself organised for Christmas! It's only May and I have 15 cards done already. Most of mine so far are one layer and 6 inches square or less. Be aware that a 7x7 card is classed as a large letter, as it is fractionally too big in one direction to fit the slot, and there is a £1.11 charge for the recipient if you put the wrong stamp on. Don't you just love our postal service?
On a happier note, if you get Creative Stamping magazine you may have seen my latest cards for them. It was a fab colour scheme and I got a bit more freedom to use other stamps (I chose lots of Inkylicious ones) as well as the free ones. Here are a few ...

 If you want to know how I made them you can check out the magazine.

Thanks for looking!

Another garden visitor

I wasn't really lying down all week after the Pink of Monday! It was the run up to half term and SATs week for year 2, so things were busy at work. Anyway, I have spent the day pottering and visiting my Dad before getting started on another commission for Creative Stamping magazine. Issue 25 is out next week, with my previous commission in it and I am looking forward to seeing what you think! Today though I have some photos from the garden again.

Here is another visitor to the bird feeders this week. She has had a busy year so far, planting a conker in every plant pot in the garden and relocating half a dozen daffodils from a pot to under a shrub!
Elsewhere in the garden we have the Lily of the Valley in bloom...wish I could share the beautiful perfume with you too!

I will be back on Monday to join in with Scrappy Mo's Rudolf Days Challenge.
Thanks for looking!

Not my colour!

Our Mid month Challenge for the DT at Stamping Sensations is to choose our least favourite colour and create something using that colour. I have chosen to use  pink! I never wear pink myself and I remember getting very cross in Mothercare when Meg was a baby, as half the store was pink and half was blue, with no other colours available! Fortunately there seems to be more choice now. The shade of pink I like the least is what I call Barbie Pink. If you have ever walked down that isle at Toys r Us you will know what I mean! Anyway, back to my card.

As we are being sponsored by Crafty Individuals this month I thought I would use their stamps for my card. First I stamped a flower from CI 206 in picked raspberry distress ink all over a 7x7 card. I then stamped around the edges with the same ink using CI 116. Next I dusted some more picked raspberry around the edges. I embossed a square of pink card with Victoriana cuttlebug embossing folder and distressed with white ink. Taking a piece of the same pink card, I stamped C1 134 using versafine black ink and embossed with clear embossing powder and heat set. Then I matted this onto some silver mirri card and layered onto the embossed pink card...and now I am going for a lie down!

 Thanks for looking and don't forget you still have time to enter our floral theme over on the challenge blog!
If you fancy seeing something more calming then scroll down and take a look at the robin I photographed yesterday ;)

A Robin is not just for Christmas!

Bobby the Robin was being particularly obliging, posing for me today...

What a handsome little chap he is! I will be back tomorrow with some mid month colourfulness for stamping sensations. Thanks for looking!

A baby card or three

I needed a baby card for a colleague a little while ago, and I happened across these stamps as I was wondering what to do. They are Visible image stamps that I treated myself to a couple of years ago and I hadn't got round to inking them up. Now I don't normally do pink, but the recipient does, so I used Spun Sugar Distress in and memento rosebud for the sentiment. The Die is timeless rectangles. I dusted middle of the die and the hands panel with Spun sugar and added faux stitching round the base card with a distress marker.
I then went on to make a blue and a yellow version...

 

using Tumbled Glass and Salty ocean Distress ink...

 using Memento dandelion and peanut brittle inks. In real life this one looks much more subtle! I was so busy I forgot to take photos of these until after dark today.
I will leave you with a few photos from the garden today...

 A Californian poppy,

 A blackbird,

A cream spot ladybird,

 A male house sparrow

 and a wood mouse at the 'all you can eat bird food buffet' (sorry he is a bit out of focus)!
Thanks for looking!

A Walk in the Woods

 Grab yourself a cuppa and a chair. This is a picture heavy post!
This afternoon Meg, Steve and I went for a wander around Ploughman's Wood, a small but beautiful local nature reserve about ten minutes drive away from home. I took my camera (okay, I have hardly put it down since I got it!) and took quite a few photos!

 We went to see the bluebells, which were beautiful

 as were the wood anemones...

 There was also a lot of greater stitchwort and the hawthorn was just coming out too.

 In the woods the lesser celandines were like little stars shining.

We also heard lots of skylarks, saw yellowhammers,

 several large bumble bees

 and some tiny spiders. This last photo was taken by Megan and she managed to capture the webspinning in progress.

It was such a lovely afternoon, and we will definitely be going for a stroll around there again soon.Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Flower power for May at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. Our theme this month is Flower Power and our Sponsors are Crafty Individuals.
Here is my card.

I used the springtime background papers and CI 395 along with Distress inks in Mermaid lagoon, abandoned coral, fossilized amber and cracked pistachio. I ink dusted the background first, then stamped the flowers. After that I used a fine paintbrush and water to remove some of the colour so the daisies appear white, blotting with a paper towel as I went along.  I added a punched flower (tonic) and some fern leaves using a frantic stamper die, oh yes, and some glitter. 

The prize this month is a wonderful £35 voucher to spend with Crafty Individuals. Check out the online store as they sell such an amazing range of stamps, dies, masks and other goodies too. I love it all, and you couldn't meet nicer people than Jean and Malcolm! 

Do pop over to the challenge blog to see the wonderful inspiration from my very talented teamies.

As this goes live I am putting the last minute preparations in place for a bit of a party this afternoon. We are entertaining family and friends to celebrate Meg's 18th. Do help yourself to a piece of cake! 

 Lets hope the weather is good enough to venture into the garden, as we might not manage to fit them all in otherwise! 

Thanks for looking! 

Snap Happy!

With the good weather last week I spent half an hour after getting home in the garden several days. I have had a new camera (Sony cybershot HX300), so where better to put it through it's paces than in my own back yard!

I exercised the macro first, and that seems pretty impressive, focussing less than half an inch away! Then I tried the zoom...

I might need to get my tripod out for full zoom to get a clearer picture, but considering these last four are all through not so clean double glazing without a tripod I am pretty happy!
I will be back tomorrow with my Stamping Sensations challenge post.
TTFN and thanks for looking!