Last minute creativeness!

In a bid to enjoy my last day of holiday till 23rd December, I've done quite a bit today. I watched a couple of hours of Sheena whilst marking some books, (Love the new lakes stamps), finished some planning, tidied my desk a little, made a Carrot cake to take to work tomorrow and made a couple of cards for work mates birthdays next week, oh and did a roast dinner too.

Sheena did a sky using these colours of distress inks this morning, so I thought I'd have a go and used some Lavinia seed heads instead of trees. There is quite a bit of glitter on this one, but you can't really see it in the photo.
My second card is very different, with a Bugaboo digital image coloured with promarkers and used some scraps of papers that have been hanging around on my desk for ages. As it used scraps I'm entering this into Jules's crafty snippet challenge.

The flowers and leaves were also punched from snippets. Well, I'd better go. Thanks for looking! 

A bit of fresh air and more craft shopping!

Yesterday, Steve, Meg and I went for a walk in the woods.

It had started off a bit misty, but the sun came out and the colours were amazing. It seems to be a good year for berries...

and the sun made them look as if they were glowing. 

The woods seemed alive with bird song and we saw this little chap. (If you can help me identify him I'd be grateful. I thought he might be a black cap, but when he turned he had a little dark patch beneath his beak, which makes me think he is a marsh tit or willow tit, maybe)

There were also some majestic hogweed seedheads, often covered in spider's webs.

I love Autumn! 

Today Meg and I went to Sir stampalot for the demo day. It was great to watch all the ladies demonstrating brayering, stamping, paper piecing and a wide variety of ink techniques. It was particularly lovely to see Brenda and Chris, and also to meet a few more faces from Blog land like Penni - very nice to meet you and hope you didn't have to stop for any trains on the way home! I even managed to exchange a bag of our Bramley's for a box of splendid plum tomatoes from Eddy,  Brenda's Hubby.

It was a fabulous day, and the cherry on the cake at the end of it was to see a red kite as we were driving home! I stopped to let an ambulance out of a side street on the outskirts of Helpston and there it was flying in front of us, with that magnificent forked tail! I am sure our facial expressions were not particularly appropriate to the ambulance driver as we whooped and cried 'Red Kite'! Unfortunately my camera was in the boot of the car, so here is a photo of one I took on holiday (in captivity).

Well, thanks for reading my ramblings. I'll be back with a card or two very soon!

Purple mood

Well, as well as tidying my workspace a little today, I've been ink dusting with egg plant (not something you say every day!). I decided to only use one colour after seeing Deby from Inkylicious demoing yesterday. Meg and I had a fabulous time at Doncaster with Lynn from Crafty Linby. There was lots of  inspiration, some of which I will hopefully get around to soon, but here are today's purple creations.
Firstly a tag showing the Inkylicious Santa's sleigh that is available in my Blog candy. The trees are also from an Inkylicious plate called a winter's tale.The night before Christmas text is also from Inkylicious.

Next I made another tag using the Silhouette Town stamp - another one I'm giving away as part of my blog candy. A tiny bit of purple twilight Adirondack crept in on this one to give the impression of approaching dawn.

I added a bit of fine glitter to both. After that I went on to try the same technique with a stamp I treated myself to from Stampalot when I was last there - Penny Black 'berry red, snow white'.

I added a few trees to the hills in the background and glitter to the berries. Well, I'd better be off to bed. Thanks for looking!

A couple of Birthdays

I'm nipping on here very quickly to show you a couple of Birthday cards which have now reached their destinations. The first is for my lovely friend and colleague, Jenny. We have been working together in the same class since September, but have known each other for years, and she certainly doesn't look fifty! The image is from Bugaboo and has been coloured with promarkers.

My next card is for my dear friend Lynne, and I know she has received it and her Birthday was yesterday.

It is a stepper card featuring a Sheena stamp with sentiments from Hobby Art (The landscape..) and Waltzing Mouse (With love). The main image was watercoloured with distress inks. I used 3 different nesties label dies and a Martha Stewart punch. I rather like this colour combo. Reminded me of heather moorland so perfect for this scene.
Thanks for looking!
Before I go I need to let you know I'll be offering some blog candy very soon as today is also my third bloggerversary. I will put a post up at the weekend although you might have to wait until I've been to Doncaster to see goodies!

Stamptacular snippets!

Hi There! I am getting to be such an infrequent blogger these days. However, half term, Doncaster stamp magic (23/10) and the 4th Stampalot Ultimate rubber stamping Demo day (29/10) are all coming up, so I'm looking forward to finding lots and lots of inspiration!
Anyway, here is my first offering for today...

I managed to use up all the scraps of paper left over from my boxes I made for cookies and cupcakes (post before last) and came up with this. The cake stand stamp was a freebie from the front of the magazine 'Quick cards made easy' and the sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse. The roses are cut with a Marianne design die and here is one in close up.

The papers are the 6 x 6 pad from Kaiser Craft called the Devonshire collection.

I'm entering this into Jules's craft snippets and Stamptacular Sunday, where the theme is  'You choose!' It would also be very suitable for the Food glorious food theme at Sir Stampalot this month - there are still a couple of weeks left to enter and a great prize on offer!

My second and third offerings are cards requested by colleagues. A baby girl card...

The paper is from Bearly Mine designs and the baby digi is from Squigglefly, coloured with promarkers. I love the fact that this image could be a boy or a girl.

Finally a digi hydrangea from my friend Teri at Delicious Doodles.

again coloured with promarkers. The paper is from an Artylicious CD - Seasons Greetings, but I'm sure you will agree not particularly wintry!

Thanks for looking and I will hopefully get round to visiting you all soon!

I think my Mojo is back!

I've had a funny old week so far. It has been very busy and I haven't really sat down at my Craft table until this evening. This afternoon I went to a funeral and got there rather early, thinking it would take a good half an hour from work, when it was about fifteen minutes. I drove past some beautiful woodland and parked by some silver birches. Just sitting in the car and enjoying the colours gave me a real sense of peace. Glad I stayed in the car though as it was freezing when I got out - definitely Autumnal! This evening I have given myself time to craft and come up with this.

Stamps - Inkylicious
Inks - Adirondack dye
Technique - ink dusters
plus white gel pen

I wasn't sure if it needed anything else, like a sentiment top left. I even tried some punched leaves down the right hand edge, but in the end I left it just as it was.
There seem to be lots of Autumn themed challenges at the moment. I'm entering this card into:
Moving along with the times - Autumn leaves
Stamptacular Sunday - Photo inspiration
Thanks for looking!

Food glorious food at Sir Stampalot

Hi There! It's the first of the month again and time for a new Stampalot challenge. Our theme for October is 'Food, glorious food!'. Well, you know me and baking, so I set to and made...

A cupcake box! How do you know a cup cake will fit in it?...

Look carefully...

And there it is!
Now, I'm afraid I got a bit carried away, cos I went on to make...

A cookie bag as well! The gorgeous papers that I used for both of these projects was a 6 x 6 pad from Kaiser Craft called the Devonshire collection. I also distressed all the edges with walnut stain distress ink. I used a variety of nesties and the Hero Arts leaf flourish, along with waltzing mouse stamps on the cookie bag. My rose was made using Brenda's tutorial and the leaves are a woodware punch.
After that I still didn't stop, but made just a couple of tiny additions...

The stamp is a Paula Pascual one from the filled with flowers set (£4.99 - an absolute bargain!) and the nestie is Blossom 3, stuck onto a cocktail stick.
And finally the prize...

What a lot of yummy goodies, eh?

Do pop over to the Challenge blog to see my fellow teamies fabulous creations for lots of lovely inspiration!
Thanks for looking!