Vintage snippets

I have seen some lovely vintage cards using Kraft recently, so thought I would have a go too. I had several snippets of floral papers lying around, so combined them to make this:

The papers are mostly from Pink Petticoat, the pinches and dies are from Tonic and the stamps are an Inkylicious butterfly and a Dog Rose from Innovative Stamp Creations, both coloured with promarkers. I aged the edges with Tea Dye DI and some piercing.

 I used some gold tulip paint and some mini roses to finish it off. I am entering this into the following challenges:
Allsorts - Vintage
By the Cute and Girly - Vintage
Di's Crafty Snippet Playground - this card is virtually all snippets. Sorry I've not been here Di. I've been away so long you probably thought I'd run away with the fair, lol!
Update on Dad, despite having got a bit confused during the night as to which side of the bed to get out, he is sounding much more chipper and enjoying the footy. Thanks for all your good wishes.
Thanks for looking x

Less is more - a touch of red

Happy Mothers day everyone. Hope you are having a great day. I have had some lovely crafting time this morning and  managed to come up with a couple of cards for the Less is More challenge.
First up is a long thin card (A5 folded lengthways) stamped with a set called tranquil by ISC.

Initially I made it without the sun (or is it a moon?), but I couldn't resist adding it. I'm also not sure about the red flowers at the bottom, but it looked a bit strange without them.
I had been playing with those roses again and there were three red ones on my table, so I quickly embossed a white card, punched the edge and embossed some lines in the gap. This then is my second card.

I was going to put a sentiment on it, but in the end I didn't. What do you think? thanks for visiting x

I've been inspired by Allsorts!

Here is my entry for this week's Allsorts Challenge where I've take my inspiration from a beautiful bracelet belonging to Emma. The circle of the bracelet and the variety of the butterflies really drew my eye, so hopefully I've done a decent job in interpreting it. The background is stamped with a mixture of Crafty Individuals and graphicus stamps, and the butterfly is from Innovative Stamp Creations. I used bundled sage, tumbled glass and peeled paint distress inks, then embossed with silver over the top. The butterflies I coloured with watercolours and then sprayed with creative colour sprays, attaching to my easel card with 3d glue. I managed to find a few minutes this morning to take a photo of it out in the garden in my skimmia japonica.

I took another inside to try and capture a bit of sheen from the creative colour sprays on the butterflies. Thanks for popping by!
Edit: I've just found out that Emma has chosen this card as one of her top five. Thanks Emma!

Tuesday Taggers - Memories

Our theme at Tuesday Taggers this week, chosen by our lovely teamie Michelle is Memories.We are being sponsored by The Craft Barn this week, and they are offering a fabby prize of a £15 voucher to spend with them.. As my memory isn't very good most of the time, I've made myself this little post it holder/ notebook.

The butterfly stamp is from Innovative Stamp Creations and the flourish is from Crafty Individuals. I used Antique Linen, Tea dye and rusty hinge distress inks. The sentiment on the tag is computer generated.

The leaves are punched and I coloured the prima flower with DI too. I sprayed the flower and the butterfly with Gold creative Colour Spray (Craft Notions). Thanks for looking and I do hope you can join us this week!

Tag you're it is back!

The challenge blog Tag you're it! is back. Their DT have produced some stunningly beautiful tags too. It is ages since I entered a challenge with a tag - not since I joined the DT on Tuesday Taggers in fact!
So here it is. Made with distress inks sponged on to a satin finish tag. I used faded jeans, tumbled glass, spun sugar and worn lipstick. The willow leaves are a lavinia stamp and the rest are from an Innovative stamp creations plate called tranquil . I wasn't sure about whether to put flowers or a bird 'on the bough' which is the theme this week. My decision was made for me when I dropped the flower stamp, all inked up on the bottom of the tag! Don't look too closely, lol! Thanks for visiting!

Mmmmmm...Distress inks

I've spent a bit of time playing with distress inks, because there were two things I wanted to do this holiday. I wanted to make a shaped easel card, like Debbie's and I wanted to make some backgrounds like Paula's. I've been admiring  Debbie Dolphin's shaped easel cards for some time, and in honour of her getting on the front cover of craft stamper I thought I'd better pull my finger out! If you don't know of Paula's blog get yourself over there as she is one mega talented lady. I regularly drool over her wonderful creations. Anyway, earlier in the week she posted this and this. I loved the blue, gold and yellow combination, and was inspired! I'm not sure if mine has worked, as my background is rather busy, so I kept my focal points to a minimum. I stamped the script and daisies (graphicus) in black versafine, then embossed the flashy floral (inkadinkado) in gold, along with the butterfly (I.S.C.). The base card was coloured with distress inks in Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire, Mustard seed, scattered straw and rusty hinge. As I've used no patterned papers I'm entering it into this weeks Allsorts challenge. It also has a ditressed feel, so I'm entering it into the Simon Says Stamp Challenge.  Thanks for looking!

My First Guest DT slot!

Here are the tags that I've made for my first guest DT slot which is with Tuesday Taggers. The theme this week is Tag it with Birds. I've done these on shiny card stock and stamped first in versamark with the Hero Arts leaf flourish. I then used a circular mask and applied distress inks. The first has the flourish stamped again in Tea dye distress ink and highlighted with white gel pen. the second has a Lavinia stamp (vine) stamped in majestic blue versafine. Both tags feature birds and branches from the Tranquil plate by Innovative Stamp Creations, stamped in black versafine. I had such fun making these. My fingers went from looking like I chain smoked to looking like I'd bruised them very badly! I got a funny look at the till in Sainsburys!
It is such a lovely theme so why don't you pop over and have a go too?

Father's Day Cards

This first one is for Steve's Dad. It is very similar to one of the panels I did for my Dad's 80th card, which you can find the details of here.
The second card is for my Dad. I don't own this stamp, but Lynne K very kindly let me stamp a few using hers! It is from Innovative Stamp Creations and I think it is called 'a walk in the woods'. I coloured it with distress inks in shabby shutters, tea dye and peeled paint.

Hope she likes it!

A workmate asked me to make a 60th birthday card for a friend. I asked for some ideas as to what she liked. She said she trusted me to do my own thing, as she loved all the things I have made for her before. Her parting comment was 'She makes a lot of cards herself'. Oh boy! Where to start?!!! Anyway, after much thought here is the finished article. I only hope it lives up to her expectations! The rose stamp is from Innovative Stamp creations friendship plate. The seedhead stamp is from Stamp to your Art's Content. The tag had direct to paper chalk ink in burnt sienna, with a few sprays of creative colour sprays in bronze, gold and Jaffalicious. The paper was from K and co.

Zindorf - inspired

It is the school holidays, so I allowed myself some time to play last night. These are the results. Michelle Zindorf had made several cards using the ISC friendship plate, so I had a look and came up with these. The swirl on the first card is from Crafty Individuals, and the background was done with Distress inks in Antique Linen, Tattered Rose, Tea Dye and Worn Lipstick.

This card uses Antique Linen and Tea Dye on the face and the embossed card (Cuttlebug Swirls folder). A touch of tattered rose on the lips and Broken china on the eyes finished it off.

Playing with my brayer

I had really good intentions of tidying my table, but had to have another go with the brayer before I put it away... five cards later, there wasn't any time left to tidy! I won't bore you with all of them, but here are two. The first was the last one I made with the dregs of ink still left on the brayer. The stamps are from the ISC tranquil plate. I extended a few of the branches with a marker pen. It was partly inspired by D.K. Fisher's photo here

The second card features one of my all time favourite stamps from the Artful Stamper. I brayered the background of both with Kaleidacolor Calypso. I ran my brayer over a sheet of scrap paper first for this second one. the colour is still quite intense, but I do like colour! I coloured the leaves with metallic gel pens. the background paper is made with creative colour sprays from crafty notions.

Blue butterfly

I bought a value pack of cream cards and and found about half had some red and brown fibres in them that were rather ugly. I wasn't going to throw them away, but I needed to find ways of covering up the fibres. I decided to spray the entire card with creative colour sprays (Crafty Notions). I used some Twiddley Bitz (also from Crafty Notions) as stencils and sprayed over them too. The stamp is the butterfly from the ISC friendship plate, which I embossed with clear embossing powder over black ink. I painted it with more creative colour sprays. The ribbon is from crafty notions, sold as Sari ribbon, and the three little beads are 'rainbow drops' (again from crafty notions).

What a week!

It has been a very eventful week at work, with governors meetings, work scrutiny (we looked at every child's English books right across school) and lots of staff succumbing to the tummy bug going around. I have been working late and not managing to do much, craft-wise. I was getting stamping withdrawal, so last night I stayed up too late, stamped this and have just finished putting it together. It uses 3 stamps from my mother's day present, the ISC Friendship plate. I coloured the whole thing with Distress inks in worn lipstick, broken china, tea dye and antique linen. I didn't quite get the shading right on her face, but I think she will do. Thanks Megan, I love my present! The frame was made using my labels 1 nestabilities. That face makes me feel so serene and destressed!

Happy Mother's Day

This is my Mother's Day card from Megan. It is an inverted pyramid card. I was very impressed! I was even more impressed when I opened my present. Look what she got me! It is the Innovative Stamp Creations plate called 'Friendship'

I've have had a very relaxing day, watching Meg and Steve wash my car. Meg made my lunch and then we popped round to see Steve's parents. Meg has also helped prepare the veg for tonight's roast dinner. I am blessed with a wonderful daughter!