My Favourite Five Creations of 2013

 

I am joining in with Debby's top 5 creations for 2013 again this year. It always so much fun reminding ourselves of the years projects, and it is so good to look back at things we are proud of. Here are mine, although it has been a mammoth task to whittle it down to five! 

I have thoroughly enjoyed the creative side of 2013, and here are just a small selection of projects I have loved making and sharing.

First up is a seaside scene using a mixture of Inkylicious and Stampscapes stamps. My original post about it is here.

 Second is an altered box that I made for the Inkylicious Create and craft shows in May and June. I was tickled pink when the cup of chance got demoted and my box was used to put emails in instead!

My third card is this one, for which my wonderful daughter filmed and edited a 'how to' video on youtube which you can find here.

Fourth is my personal favourite from this year, and was the subject of my second you tube video. I just couldn't part with this one and I was delighted when I found a square frame to fit it in Tesco a couple of weeks ago!

This autumnal scene was a birthday card for my dear friend Lynne and is my fifth and final card. It started life on a smaller card here, but it didn't look right so I used a bigger card and came up with this instead! What a great year I have had and a big thank you to all those people who have helped me to achieve more than I would ever have dreamed of!
I hope you all have a wonderful New Year  and that 2014 brings plenty of opportunities to be creative and everything you could wish for. Big hugs to you all! Do pop over to Debby's blog and take a look at her wonderful top 5 too.
Thanks for looking!

Brown and turquoise snippets with my new die!

Well, I hope you have all had a wonderful couple of days. Today (Boxing Day) was our family day and I did Turkey with all the trimmings and then a rather large buffet with home made bread for tea. Now they are all returned home, I can have a play with my new goodies that Santa brought!
I'm here with a card for a couple of challenges,
Allsorts - Brown with turquoise/blue/aqua
Pixies Crafty snippet playground
I have used my lovely new Chloe's stem (Thank you, Lynne!) with turquoise snippets from my drawer. They are all shades of turquoise as this angle shows

I stamped the frame with the butterfly script background stamp from Inky Doodles, in vintage photo distress ink and dusted with tea dye distress ink. They are all assembled (not very carefully with some slapdash gluing!) on a Kraft card.
I am off to the playground with some wood, nails and a hammer, to see if Mr Len and Miss Di need some help securing a few things. I hope they manage to not have anything else blow away over the next few days. Hope they both stay dry too. I have to say my heart went out to all those people who didn't have power on Christmas day. I am sure we could all cope with games of cards by candle light, but the cooking side of things I would have struggled with.Gammon cheese and crackers would have been our Christmas dinner.
Thanks for looking and I hope you have managed to have a wonderful Christmas despite the weather.

Merry Christmas!

Fancy a mince pie? go on, you know you want one, and there are no calories in them whatsoever, lol! Thought I would just pop on and wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I have baked gingerbread, apple muffins and mince pies, as well as cooking the gammon today, and amazingly I finished all my Christmas cards before Christmas Eve!
Here is Steve's card.

I used Inkylicious trees and twigs and a clarity stamp duck. I dusted the background with Memento Inks (Dandelion, Bahama blue and Danube blue). The papers are from the Artylicious Seasons Greetings cd. Hope Santa brings you everything you wish for and you are blessed with good health and happiness this festive season.

Hope you all have a Wonderful Christmas!

            Sally x

Christmas and Birthday Scenes

Here is the Christmas card I sent to Brenda this year. I know she has received it so I can post it now! The base card was stamped with a Visible Image background stamp, Gaudette. The main panel was stamped on glossy card stock using a combination of memento Grape Jelly ink and Adirondack Pool. the trees are Inkylicious Black Forest and the stag is from Stampscapes. I used my mountains and valleys mask and ink dusters to create the snowy drifts and I pinched together the ink duster bristles to make the tree shadows. I finished it with ribbon and a sentiment from craftwork cards. Sorry about the awful photo. I don't see the house in daylight until the weekends at the moment.

My second card is for a friend for her birthday. For this I dusted the middle background in impress lemon yellow ink then added Memento Bahama Blue and Danube Blue each side of the yellow. I stamped the inkylicious grasses and seed heads (Build a meadow) in Danube blue and added a few silver gel pen highlights and stickles. I do like these colours, although again the photo doesn't do it justice!
Thanks for looking!

A great idea for children's cards

Hi There! A couple of posts ago I said I was going to share our class christmas cards with you. Bearing in mind there are thirty 5 and 6 year olds in my class it is a mega production line and needed a few days!

The snowman is made from equal quantities of shaving foam and PVA glue, sprinkled with a little clear glitter. We spooned it on to two circles drawn onto the card. This needed to dry for a couple of days to be certain. It takes on the form of something like polystyrene packing sheets and it is lovely to touch! Slightly springy too! We then threaded pipe cleaners through the card to make the scarf, drew the hat, buttons eyes and mouth, and stuck a triangle of orange felt on for the carrot nose.

I just love how they all have different characters, depending on the sighting of the eyes and the direction the nose is pointing! I found the idea for the snow effect paint recipe here via pinterest. I realise it is a bit of a picture heavy post, but I love them all!

I have just realised that we did do one other thing to them yesterday after taking the photos - we stuck some matchsticks on for arms. These covered up where the shaving foam mixture had run as it wasn't totally dry when we hung them up!!!

We also managed to cover lots of the science curriculum with this activity discussing and exploring properties of materials.

Thanks for looking!

Yet more Christmas cards!

I'm dashing into blogland with more Christmas cards. I have managed to make quite a few cards this weekend and a few even tie in to some challenges too!
First up I have snowflakes (and owls) for the challenge at Allsorts this week.

The stamp is from Little Claire's and it is coloured with promarkers and stickles. The snowflake paper was a freebie from 'Quick cards made easy', I think. I used a spellbinders die and a craftwork cards sentiment to finish it off.

My next is very similar, just a different colour way and papers were from a 12 x12 pack I bought (possibly dovecraft?) that I don't know if I will ever see the end of!!! Poinsettia die is from Marianne designs and the leaves are a Britannia Die from Pink Frog which I bought at Doncaster. These are both stamped last-minute Christmas cards that will be stuck in envelopes and posted as soon as the glue is dry! I am entering them into the challenge at Sweet Stampin'

Next I have another Nicecrane Robin from the Christmas birds sheet. I've added some glitter, some snippets of DP and some snippets of pearlescent card. Again the sentiment is from Craftwork Cards. I think the Holly DP is from an Artylicious cd from Chocolate baroque, but this is a bit left over from last year.
All three of my cards are using up snippets so I'm taking them to Miss Di's snippet playground, where someone got a bit excited with the chestnut roasting and set fire to the bike shed! Off to see if I can help sort it out. Thanks for looking!

Snippet christmas cards

 I was having a rummage through my 12x12 sheets when out fell a plastic pocket full of Christmas snippets that I had forgotten about! I think I printed some of these from a Joanna Sheen Victorian Christmas cd and others from an Artylicious cd at least 3 years ago! there were just snippets left, so I set too making a few more christmas cards.

 The robin on this one is from Nicecrane Designs. I love the subtle pastel colours.

This last one is another using the Joanna Sheen cd  snippets. Right! I am off to the playground with these to escape from the mess for a bit. our living room looks like we have been burgled by fairies - a complete mess with a faint dusting of glitter! I hope Miss Di hasn't confiscated the eggnog as I am in need of a strong one! One more week to go at work and I will be sharing our class Christmas cards very soon, as you will love them! Fake snow made with PVA, shaving foam and glitter!!! Sounds messy, eh? Wait till you see them!
Thanks for looking!

Anything but Christmas!

 Thanks for all your lovely comments last week. It has been a busy time with our school panto. Dad went to the hospital on Wednesday, but they decided not to operate as they think the pain is more likely being caused by a trapped nerve than by his hip, so they gave him his breakfast and sent him home! He is in good spirits and has an appointment for a CT scan to see if they can find the exact problem.
We have had a great day today, celebrating Steve's Dad's 93rd birthday. We were joined by the youngest member of the family, young Elliott, who is just 7 weeks old which meant there were four generations present. here are the oldest and youngest together.

On to my make for this weekend. The theme at Allsorts is 'anything but Christmas'. I am still making Christmas cards, but I needed a few calendars too, and wanted to experiment with an idea I'd had. I've made a few easel card style calendars and have seen ideas for post it note holders, but wanted to combine the two and still leave space for a picture. Here is my attempt at doing this - not perfect by any means, but I am quite pleased with it!

The scene was created using ink dusters, Inkylicious stamps, a white gel pen and Memento inks in dandelion yellow, lilac posies and grape jelly. The nesties are the spellbinders timeless rectangles using the largest one. I used a calendar tab from a set I won on Sarn's Rudolf day challenge.
I  would have liked to add something just above the calendar, but then it would have been really hard to post, so I left it as it is.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments. I hope I will get round to visiting you all over the coming week now panto is over and I will be home by 5.30, rather than 8.30!

A bit of Free and Easy Stamping

Good Morning and welcome. it is the first day of the month and the beginning of a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. Our theme for this month is Free and Easy, so you can chose what ever you like for your project this month.

I have chosen to make a one layer Christmas card in non-traditional colours, using one of Visible Image's lovely stamps, who are sponsoring us this month. This is one of the Tree Trio set. the borders are Debbie Moore stamps and the sentiment and star are from Woodware.   I used Adirondack inks with my ink dusters to make the scene, and stamped the star in versamark before brushing with mica powder.

I took this second photo in artificial light to show the sheen of the mica powder.
My second card is another one layer card for a lovely lady who is a reading volunteer at our school. I was inspired by the autumn colours we saw last weekend, in fact I am altogether still in Autumn mode and suffering from Christmas denial, lol!

 For this I used Masking tape, Kaleidacolor Autumn leaves ink, ink dusters and the inkylicious skeleton leaf set.
Now onto the prize. Feast your eyes on these gorgeous stamps! A wonderful and very generous prize! 
 
Do pop over to the challenge blog to see the wonderful inspiration from our amazing DT.
I hope you are all better prepared than me for the next few weeks. I can't believe there are only 25 days to go! Dad goes for his second hip replacement on Wednesday, so I am going to be toing and froing for the next few weeks. Hoping they find an alternative to surgical stockings this time! I will leave you with a couple of photos from the drive home from dad's yesterday.

It was a quite spectacular sunset. Can you name those ink colours, Lynne and Brenda?! Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments.

Sneaking into the playground

Well, I'm sneaking into the playground with a card made with a few paper snippets (Pink Petticoat)  and some very old ribbon. Sorry I haven't been here for a few weeks. I was writing lines - 'Must try harder', lol!
Hope I can managed to boost the numbers this week for our Miss Di, who has reached the Milestone of Head teacher for 100 playtimes! I am afraid I have left it rather last minute to pop into the snippet playground too!
Hope you like it Miss Di. I based it on one of yours from the summer
love, hugs and thanks for looking!

                          Sally x

Last Rudolf Day

It is the last Rudolf Day before Christmas and to be frank I am approaching headless chicken stage now! It is only my second time entering and I've got no where near enough cards yet- I am hoping to join in way earlier next year! Keep nagging me Sarn! Do pop over to Sarn's blog and have a look at her fabby makes
Here are my offerings - 2 CAS single layer cards, now postage is so expensive for anything else!

 First one features an Indigo Blu stamp, stamped and embossed with Kaleidoscope embossing powder. The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards.  The holly leaves are from Inkylicious and useful for hiding finger prints, lol! Take a closer look at the sparkle and shimmer!

Next I went for more traditional colours...

The second card is made using Inkylicious stamps from the Winter spruce set. I used a strip of masking tape to make the border across the middle and stamped the sentiment (woodware) in memento Rhubarb Stalk (yes, it isn't straight, but IRL it isn't quite that wonky, lol!)
Thanks for looking

Autumn in the garden and a walk

Our beech hedge in the garden was at it's best last weekend, and on Sunday I was tempted out with my camera to try and capture the colours, even though it was a dull day. It is also at this time of year that the Castor oil plant flowers with these beautiful cream lacy pompoms.

I spent a while trying to capture the flowers (in focus) with the colour of the beech hedge behind it.

My Sally Holmes rose has a last bloom too. It always amazes me that it can flower for so long (5-6 months).

 

As the weather stayed fine we decided to take a stroll in Thieves Wood, near Mansfield in the afternoon. Put on a scarf and come with us.

It was great to get some fresh air and enjoy the colours of the leaves, but there weren't many fungi this time.

Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for looking!

And the winner is...

Whoops! I forgot that it was today I was drawing the follower candy! I can't believe it is 23rd November already!
Anyway, withoput further ado the winner of my blog candy is...

                  Paula (PEP)
Congratulations Paula. Please email me with your postal address so I can mail them off to you.Thank you to all who have let such lovely comments too. Wish I could give you all something!
Hopefully I will be back with a card or two soon, as I have a stack of birthday cards to make for December.

More Follower Candy and last week's winner

 This candy is now closed
Hi There!
I have not had a moment this week, so blog land has had to take a back seat for a few days. Thanks to all the lovely people who commented on my last candy. The winner is....
                                    Sue's Crafty Corner
Please get in touch, Sue and I will send your card and stamps as soon as I get your address.
There is one last lot of candy. This time I have three stamps for you

The same rules apply as before. You need to be a follower through Google friends connect (Not Blog Lovin') and you must leave a comment. This candy will be open for two weeks.
Here is the card I have made to send with it

You really don't want to know how much of a 'save' this was, lol! At one point I said to Meg that I thought I should give up! There is no sentiment as yet, but I may pluck up the courage and add one later, hopefully without dropping anything or getting it upside down!
Thanks for looking!

Nicecrane Christmas Cards

I've been busy with some of Ignacio's Nicecrane Christmas images. I am really enjoying stamping the backgrounds and base cards. this first one is stamped in Sweet plum Memento ink with a range of Inkylicious stamps and one of the Christmas winter scenes

My next two are both from the Christmas birds set, again using inkylicious stamps for the background and spellbinders dies ( Timeless Rectangles and opulent ovals)

Finally I tried another of the Christmas scenes with a mixture of Inkylicious  and Waltzing Mouse stamps  with distress inks

Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments!