Pastel colours

 I needed a birthday card for a colleague and I was feeling a bit uninspired so I took the layout I had for this card and adapted it with different colours and stamps. I stamped the base card with one of the Inkylicious twinchie stamps, a daisy, in spun sugar, tumbled glass and shaded lilac Distress ink. I then dusted some silk art card with the same colours. I stamped the main image (woodware) and sentiment (Inkylicious) in Memento Grape Jelly ink.

When it was all dry, I added stickles and dots of gel pen to the flowers/ seed heads.
Thanks for looking. Sorry I haven't been around much in blog land. I am looking forward to a long weekend and some surfing time! 

A couple of snowmen with snippets

 Here are my cards for this month's Rudolf Day and this week's Snippet playground. Both feature a digi which I think was a freebie from Cuddly Buddly ages ago. Not sure it is still available. I coloured it using promakers. I found some snippets of Christmas papers and trimmed them into a square. I then added some stitching and dots with gelly roll pens. Unfortunately, I managed to get three red dots on the side of my hand (I am left handed and always smudging things!) which I transferred to a random place on the base card, hence the random dots everywhere! IRL the colours match way better than in this photo!

I managed to do the faux stitching on the second without mishaps and left it at that, lol! Hope the girls are all okay in the playground. It is a while since my last visit. I will take a big bag of toffees to share. So pleased Parsnip has got over his embarrassment of the rabbit ears!
Do pop over to Sarn's blog and Di's blog to take a look at their fab creations.
Thanks for looking!

Puffins!

I realised that I haven't posted Meg's Birthday card yet, and luckily it has birds on it, Puffins to be exact - great for a couple of challenges!

The rocky ledge stamp is from Stampscapes, the puffin is from Crafty Individuals (CI - 349) and the grass, flying birds and posts are Inkylicious stamps. I created the background for the scene using my ink dusters and a mixture of memento and distress inks, and coloured the puffins and ledge with distress markers. I also drew the shadows of the posts with an antique linen Distress marker. Although you can't really tell in the photo, I used diamond stickles for the breaking waves. Meg loved it. Puffins are such wonderful birds, and one of her favourites.
Here is a close up

I am entering this into Allsorts challenge for this week where the theme is Birds and feathers, Fashionable stamping Challenge, where the theme is Flying things and My Time to Craft where the theme is Up, up and away.I am also entering this into the Crafty Individuals challenge for April where the theme is Nature's Beauty
Thanks for looking and I hope you had a good Easter. Back to work for me tomorrow. 

Inkylicious Willow Trees

If you went to Ally Pally and stopped by the Inkylicious stall you may well have seen this gorgeous tree stamp. I love it! It is so delicate and beautiful. I have been playing with it for a few days, and I can see it will be used lots! For my first card I ink dusted the base card in dandelion, lilac posies and tuxedo black Memento ink. I then did the same with a silk art card panel, masking off a moon/sun. I stamped the tree and added spots of quickie glue to all the buds on the branches before sprinkling with irridescent glitter. Here is a close up.

I then stamped delicate vine in black onto the base card to form a sort of frame adding some punched flowers with liquid pearl centres. I think it needs a sentiment top left, but can't decide which one to use yet! All suggestions welcome!

My second card is a one layer card. I masked off a panel that I dusted with Adirondack inks in mountain rose, slate, black and denim, masking a moon. I removed the masks before stamping the tree and added spots of star dust stickles. With this sky I was trying to recreate a sky we had during that smoggy week we had at the beginning of April. I may well try that sky again with a pinker sun next time.
If you need this tree, keep an eye on the Inkylicious Website or look out for Inkylicious at Stamp Magic, Doncaster Dome on 8th June 2014 or Summer Crafting, Doncaster Race course on 12th and 13th July.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments!

Warning! You may put on weight just looking!

When I asked Meg what she wanted to do for her birthday she said 'Karate', so as her birthday falls today we are both going to her regular Thursday class. We aren't going empty handed though...
Meet the Banana Cupcake...

...a light banana sponge topped with cream cheese frosting, dried banana chips and a drizzle of toffee sauce! New for me, next is the Rolo Cupcake...

 ...a chocolate sponge with a secret caramel centre, topped with chocolate and caramel frosting and a rolo! Adapted from this recipe( I left out the chopped rolos from the cake mix and added 25g more flour). Only taking 11 of these with us as we had to test one! Here are the rest though...

Finally we have the 'Death by Chocolate Easter cake' which carries the warning 'Consume at your own risk!'

This cake is being raffled off to raise funds for the Karate Club, and has already raised about £30! Hoping for a few more ticket sales when they see it for real tonight!
I have inhaled rather a lot of icing sugar and all I can smell is chocolate - can sugar get into your blood stream through inhalation?! I hope not!!!
Right, I'd better go and finish cleaning up - enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for looking!

Ivy wall playtime

I've had a bit of a play with Inkylicious Footprints on our hearts and  Ivy Wall. I began by stamping it in Memento black onto silk art card, along with the sentiment. I coloured it with distress markers (rusty hinge, antique linen, peeled paint, pine needles, crushed olive and weathered wood) and a water brush. I should probably have used an archival ink, as there was a little bleeding of colour from the black ink, but it isn't obvious. I dusted the rest of the panel with rusty hinge distress ink and ink dusters and popped it on the front of a 5" x 7" card.
I am entering this card into a few challenges
Sister act Challenge - Anything goes
Vintage stamping challenges - Anything goes
Lexi's creations - Focus on the sentiment
Thanks for looking!

A couple of evening scenes and some photos

I needed a few cards in a hurry at the end of term, so I reached for my snippets of silk art card and made two quick evening scenes with ink dusters and Inkylicious stamps. I used Memento Grape Jelly and Lilac Posies and a water spray. After it was dry I added the stamped images and white gel pen. Here is a close up of the panel.

The second panel was much the same, but this time I put it onto a square card. As these were both made with snippets I will take them to Di's snippet playground. Hope the sun is out!

We have just returned from a few lovely days in Scotland with Lynne. (If you pop over to her blog you will see the gorgeous guest DT card she has made for Mrs A's butterfly challenge.) We had a wonderful time - just what was needed at the end of a long term. Here is a photo taken at Grey Mare's Tail nature reserve.

I don't know why, but I am still surprised at how much taller than me Megan is now! The view from the hillside on the right was wonderful!

I will finish with a photo of a red squirrel taken at Eskrigg Nature reserve near Lockerbie.

 Thanks for looking, and for your lovely comments.

Last minute entry to the Butterfly Challenge

Here I am flying in to bring a last minute entry to Mrs A's Butterfly challenge where the theme is to use yellow. The butterfly is an Inky Doodles stamp and the flower and sentiment are from Inkylicious. I used distress and kaleidacolor ink both on the stamps and with my ink dusters. I also used versamark on the glossy panel before dusting it.
Thanks for all your fab comments. I promise I will be visiting around blog land very soon, as I break up for Easter Hols on Tuesday! Thanks for looking!

Dies and Punches at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month we want you to get out your dies and / or punches and have some fun! Don't forget to include some stamping too.

For my card I used an asymetrical border die from Marianne designs, 'Wonderful Locket' spellbinder Die-D-Lites die, the Britannia rose leaf die and an E K Success flower punch. I stamped the base card with my worn paint background stamp from Inkylicious, in faded lilac distress ink. the sentiment is also from Inkylicious. The flourish stamp is from Waltzing Mouse. The background paper has been in my stash for so long I have no idea where it came from! I added some stardust stickles along the edge where the die leaves an embossed pattern.

 I also added gold liquid pearl centres to the flowers. Here is a close up.

Most of the card used for this project was bought at PDA Card and Craft who are our wonderful sponsors this month. The winner will get

How cool is that?!

Do pop over to the challenge blog where you will find a wonderful selection of gorgeous projects from my wonderful teamies and more detail of that wonderful prize. Thanks for looking!

Rudolf Day for March

Here are my cards for Sarn's Rudolf Day this month. For the first I used Inkylicious Black Forest stamp, stormy sky distress ink and my ink dusters. I added some glitter and squeezed in a sentiment (Woodware) which looks a little straighter in real life! You know when you wish you hadn't put it there, lol! The papers are snippets from my snippet drawer and have been there forever!!!

My second card features a cute Digi mouse from Digistamp Boutique, coloured in with promarkers and backed on some snippets of digi papers printed out a very long time ago! The papers were from Funky Fairies, and I am sorry to say  are no longer available. The circular sentiment is from Little Claire.
As they both use snippets I am also taking them over to Di's snippet playground.
It is Saturday, so I should have been able to photograph them in daylight, but we spent this morning planning a school trip at Rufford Park, then carried on to see my dad this afternoon. It was such a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed the fresh air!

 It was sunny and warm, and there were so many birds in the trees. Unfortunately I wasn't quick or talented enough to capture them on my camera!

 

I think we will have to go again when the bluebells are out, judging by how many are here! We saw 4 or 5 great spotted woodpeckers chasing each other amongst the tree tops and heard the cries of a buzzard overhead too.

 I really hope it is as good weather when we take 60 children on Thursday! Thanks for looking and I hope you have a wonderful Mother's day - what a shame we have to lose an hour on the day most of us would like an extra hour in bed!

Snippets, Butterflies and Stitching

Over at Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge the theme is stitching this fortnight. I am afraid I missed last time, but I was determined to have a go this time. I have been sorting out my snippets and found a pile of bits in citrus colours. I used my spellbinders nested pennants dies and cut out a whole load of triangles.

I used various gelly roll pens to put faux stitching around the  various shapes and topped it all off with a hero Arts butterfly, glittered and embossed. I had a bit of a rant about glitter containers whilst I was doing it - why put a sprinkle top onto a pot of fine glitter? it means you can't put excess glitter back into the same pot without trying to remove the lid and spilling even more!!! Okay, rant over!
You have probably noticed that I used lots of snippets for this, so I will also take it to Miss Di's snippet playground where I got showcased for my scene last week.
Thank you for all your lovely comments recenly. I am sorry that I only manage to get to visit at weekends at the moment. I seem to have so little time for anything other than school stuff. Feel free to skip to the bottom of the post now to avoid my second rant!

I hope you don't mind but I am going to share another rant. On Wednesday I will be on strike for the third time in my 24 years of teaching (I have another 20 to go before I can retire). I am not striking because of the money or pension I will eventually receive. I am striking because I care about children. I believe children have the right to be taught by someone who is fit enough to do it, including demonstrating forward rolls, skipping and kicking footballs (I won't be at the age of 68). I believe children need to be taught by someone who is enthusiastic about what they are teaching, not feeling constantly bogged down by the ever changing requirements. I believe children at 5 and 6 have a right to be able to play and have fun at school, and can learn important social skills that way, like tolerance, empathy, acceptance of diversity (Sadly lacking in the government). I want the opportunity to spend some time with my own child and share the same holidays. I believe every child should make progress at their own level and pace, and not have to learn things like times tables before they learn to tie their laces. I believe children have a right to an education that nurtures them into a fully rounded healthy individual who isn't considered to be a failure, and is able to enter adulthood without fear, anxiety, anger and intolerance.  Einstein was so right and Michael Gove is so wrong!


 Thanks for looking, and apologies if the teacher's strike affects you. I hope you understand why we are doing it.

Inspired by a photo

Some time ago I found this photo on Pinterest and popped it in my Tree Folder for future inspiration. (Please do take a look at it.) I was intending to try and recreate it soon after, as some of my fellow pinners did, but I ran out of time as usual. I was lacking in the mojo department and went to my pinterest folders for inspiration last night, and when I clicked on this one Mr Mojo leaped out and just about bopped me on the nose! Okay, I will show you! Here is the main image created on silk art card.

I used  my ink dusters, Adirondack inks in sunset orange, sunshine yellow, peach bellini and slate. I also dusted and stamped with memento tuxedo black.There are just three Inkylicious stamps used for this (Black Forest, the birds from Windswept, and Bullrush).  I added a few details with a fine black pen and a white gel pen. I have taken a whole load of photos and the colours look different in every one! I didn't use any blue or purple ink at all!
Here is the whole card.

I took this one by the front window. I left the top left of the base card blank so I can add a sentiment later - it might become a father's day card yet!
And here is the one I took by the back window...

I think this is probably the most accurate colour-wise.
I matted and layered the main image onto some A6 sized scraps of paper that I found in my snippets drawer, so I will take it to the snippets playground and get some fresh air with Miss Di and the girls!
Thanks for all your lovely comments last week. It was a very busy week, but I am hoping things will slow down from now on. Off out in a little while to see Science on Stage which Meg is singing in again this year. 
Thanks for looking!