Keeping Calm and Carrying on!

When I was clearing my craft space to find the ants the other weekend I found a couple of union flags I had stamped and coloured with promarkers. They looked a bit messy, so I added a bit of distress ink and used the picket fence distress marker over the white bits too. I mounted this one on a scrap of gold card and added the sentiment from the same Crafty Individuals set as the flag.  To finish it I added three gems in red white and blue. That sentiment was how I was feeling at the beginning of SATs week. I'm happy to say that half way through I am feeling rather more optimistic! Hoping to be doing a happy dance come the weekend. Looking forward to Friday, when I will be free to visit more peeps. Thanks for looking!

Craft a scene with Spring flowers

This week is the last week to enter the Craft a Scene Challenge for May where the theme is Spring flowers, so I thought it was time to get my skates on! I  managed to catch a few minutes of Deby from Inkylicious on C&C this afternoon and was inspired to create this:

All of the stamps are from Inkylicious, although I spotted a few more I will be investing in very soon! I used a range of Adirondack inks, my ink dusters, some stickles and a ribbon. The die used to cut the main panel was from Go Kreate. This photo looks a bit bright, taken outside, but the colours are more lifelike than the one taken in the shade.
See for yourself

Too much blue, but take some out and the green goes yellow. Light can be a pain! Here is a close up to show the detail on those stamps.

 I hope you have enjoyed the sunshine. I finished my marking and enjoyed a bit of time in the garden too. Thanks for looking and I hope you have a good week.

A birthday card for someone special

I have been working on my God daughter's twenty first birthday card for about a week in every spare moment I have had, and finally it is finished!

She will be away from home having a holiday by the sea with three friends, so when I saw this stamp and papers from crafty individuals I had to have it, especially as the second girl from the left looks just like her from the back! I added the bunting (Whimsy stamps and Whimsy Dies) and added a few stamped shells (Crafty Individuals) on the base of the easel card. It was really easy to match up the colours of the beach huts/ papers with the bunting by using distress inks in Fired Brick, scattered straw, faded jeans, worn lipstick and bundled sage.

The challenge at Allsorts this week is to make a Birthday card for someone special, so I think this qualifies. The challenge is only a part of their third Birthday celebrations, which includes a blog hop and lots of prizes too.
I am not sure if I will get round to the hop as I am marking SATs at the moment.
Thanks for looking!

Another snippet make

Well, I have managed to get out to play twice in one week! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it is Di's crafty snippet challenge, where many of us relive our childhood whilst using up our snippet mountains!  I am here with a card for a friend's daughter. I can't believe she is three already! I found this fabulous stripy paper in my snippet box and thought it was perfect for a little girls card. The rosette was made from another snippet, and the ribbon was a scrap barely long enough to go across the card. The image is a digistamp from Mo Manning and I LOVE it! It reminds me of Meg when she was about five. I coloured it with promarkers and finished it with a sentiment from Waltzing Mouse. The flower is a die cut bought in a pack before I had a cuttlebug (yes, that long ago!)

Right, I've found a spacehopper in the shed. If I can only work out how to blow it up with the bicycle pump I'll bounce my way round the playground!

Less is More - Babies

Oh my goodness! Where did last week go? I can't believe it is a whole week since I last posted. I have been busy making cards for friends and family which I will post soon. When I saw the theme for Less is More was babies I was very happy, as one of my colleagues on Mat leave went into labour on Friday, so I'm hoping she has had him by now! I really can't get used to how everyone seems to know for definite whether they are having boys or girls these days. Anyway, I made two CAS cards.

The first features a gorgeous Digi stamp from my mate Teri at Delicious Doodles, coloured with promarkers and matted onto some papers from my snippets drawer. The sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse. Very simple.

For my second card I stamped a scrap of white card with a gingham stamp from Waltzing Mouse with broken china DI, layered it onto some white card punched with a Martha Stewart border punch, and added a digi image from Squigglefly, coloured with promarkers. I added a bow coloured with broken China Distress stain, a button and a Sizzlet die cut sentiment. As this has a button and a bow I think it is eligible for Allsorts this week where the theme is Buttons and bows.

Both of these cards used up snippets, so I'm entering them in Di's Crafty snippets challenge. I'll be off to the playground with them and some chocolate limes as soon as I have finished here.
Finally I will leave you with a photo of the latest babies on the river near my Dad's house - nine cygnets...

 all being protected by Mummy and Daddy swan. A good zoom is essential!

Thanks for looking!

Less is more - one layer and 3 stamps

Hi There
It has been a bit of a topsy turvy weekend, so I'm later getting here than intended. There I was Saturday afternoon starting my LIM card and suddenly it was walked over by an ant! I cleared my craft space and found one more, removed the packet of boiled sweets and sat down to craft again. Five minutes later there was another! I've still not found where they are coming from, but I have spent some time crawling round on my hands and knees!
Anyway, I finally finished my card for this weeks Less is More challenge.

I have to admit I was inspired my my lovely friend Sylvia, to get out my Indigo Blu stamps. All of these are from the Poppy Meadow plate except for the butterfly that was from a set of butterflies I picked up in Tescos a few years ago. I added a bit of distress inks in Crushed Olive and Tumbled Glass with my ink dusters, and added some colour to the butterfly with aqua-markers, before covering it in glitter.
I have emptied my craft space a further twice today, chasing the elusive blighters, and found them very distracting, hence just the one card! However, it was not all bad, as I was delighted to discover I have won some flitter glu and Yorkshire Dales mega flakes  in the Samuel Taylor April challenge. That definitely made my day! Right, off to lay some traps and peer at the skirting boards!
Thanks for looking!

A snippet make

I'm back again with a quick snippet card for Di's crafty snippet challenge. I delved deep in my snippet draw and found scraps of these papers from Pink Petticoat.The border across the middle is pearlised and all one colour(Honest!). That was a sample that came with my latest parcel from Dies to Die for.
The frame around the main image is from Waltzing Mouse, stamped in Versamagic Tea Leaves, and the thistle image is from Chocolate Baroque's Wild meadow themeplate. I coloured it with promarkers and finished off with a sentiment from Waltzing Mouse.
I'm off to the playground to see if anyone wants to play cat's cradle, armed with a bag of cough candy (the stuff that looks like fudge and rots your teeth very quickly, not the orange boiled sweet ones). See you there!

Two very different colour challenges

Hi there!
The long weekend was great! I got to finish preparations for work, have half a day in the garden, see some friends and make three cards and two cakes too! I wanted to join in with Less is more where the challenge was to use yellow. I had been meaning to try the sun rays technique that I saw used by Glenda Waterworth some time ago and came up with this:

 I used squeezed lemonade and wild honey distress inks with my ink dusters and some masking to make the rays. The main image is a Chocolate Baroque stamp and the sentiment and border are from my new Waltzing Mouse stamps. I used a Wild Honey distress marker to do the faux stitching and a die from Go Kreate.
I hope that is enough white space for you ladies.
I couldn't let my mask go to waste so I used it again! This time I coloured the stamp with distress markers in wild honey and peeled paint. I used the same colours as last time for the rays, but added a bit of Brushed corduroy to the yellow soil. Not strictly yellow, and no white space so not really eligible, but I thought I'd show you anyway!

The sentiment on this one is from Waltzing Mouse too. After that I decided to have a go at Allsorts challenge this week where the theme is black and white.

The lace and pattern stamps are from the Waltzing Mouse French Country set. The sentiment and circle border are also from Waltzing Mouse.Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments xxx

Monarchs and Medals at Stampalot

Hi There!
It is the First Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Sir Stampalot. For this month our theme is Monarchs and Medals, as here in the UK we have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee closely followed by the London Olympic Games very soon. The shops seem to be filled with all sorts of patriotic paraphernalia, so it seemed only right that we enter into the spirit of things!

Here is my card. I used an 8 x 8 base card and stamped it with a music background stamp. I ran some red card through the cuttlebug in my Victoriana embossing folder and rubbed over with rub and buff. I added some blue patterned paper and bunting (free with Crafts Beautiful magazine). The Union Flag and the crown are both Crafty Individuals stamps CI- 334

The flag was embossed in pearl gold embossing powder and then coloured with distress inks. I did three in all (Fired brick, Faded Jeans and Tea Dye) then cut them out and decoupaged them. 

I stamped and gold embossed the mini crown and added a few spots of red glitter glue.
Now what is the prize I hear you say. Well, in keeping with our theme there is a whole host of gorgeous goodies...

I do hope you will join in with your Jubilee and Olympic themed cards. Pop over to the Stampalot Challenge blog and check out the DTs fabulous inspiration!
Thanks for looking!

A little share

Hi There!
Yesterday it was my birthday and I had to share my card from Meg. She spends a lot of her spare time drawing and so she came up with this, lol!

she scanned it into the computer and coloured it with promarkers. Can you see my cuttlebug in the middle there? I think I'd better go and tidy up a bit now!

Blog Hop Winners!

The winners of our Stampalot Challenge Birthday Celebrations have been announced! To see them all, go over to the Challenge Blog, where Brenda has all the details.

And I am delighted to announce that the Blog Hop winner for my blog is

Claveh

Congratulations, Claveh, hope you enjoy your prize! Just send Brenda an email (her address is on the Challenge Blog, here, and she'll post it off to you.

Many thanks to everyone who took part for making our birthday celebrations such a success, and we hope to see you again each month at Stampalot Challenge.

A couple of cards that are snippet makes

Here are a couple of cards I have just finished off, and are eligible for Di's crafty snippet challenge. The first is for the son of a friend of mine. I can't believe he is 18 already. He is a travel loving, trumpet playing rugby player, and you can't find those all together on a card in the shops!

The bunting is a set of Whimsy stamps, the music background and dotty stamps are from Inkylicious and the trumpet and rugby ball are clip art. the snippets are the scraps of brown and the green panel behind the trumpet.
Bless him, he needed a suit to go for an interview and the only suit he had was a scuba diving one! The rest of his wardrobe is jeans, so hopefully this grungy card will go down well! The background was created with distress inks in brushed corduroy and broken china.
My second card is for the niece of a colleague.

this used up quite a lot of snippets, including a piece of ribbon, some scraps of black and some more Pink Petticoat paper. The lovely key charm was copper coloured originally, but didn't look right so I coloured it with a silver leaf pen. The dress is made using a set of artistic impression stamps and was inspired by one in Meg's wardrobe!
Sorry if I gave the impression a couple of weeks ago that I had used all my snippets (can you hear my hubby laughing hysterically?!) I had just used up those particular papers - there is a good few kilos left to go!
I'm off to the snippet playground with both of these, my skipping rope and a bag of cherry lips, but you won't catch me sitting on the swings after all the rain we have had! I'm hoping the duckpond hasn't turned into a lake! 
Thanks for looking!