Green fingers and gardening...

I made this card for my SIL to give to my nephew for his birthday. He has been enjoying his garden recently. Stamps are all from Hobby art and are watercoloured with brush pens. the base card was inked with distress oxides and stamped in versafine clair.
I'm entering it into the Boys and Men challenge over at Penny Black and more and Anything goes at Allsorts. I'm taking it to The Male Room too where the theme is 'in the garden' ( thanks for letting me know, Faith x).
Hope you are all okay. I am fine, if a little green around the edges due to an accident with my brushos!!! I went to pull out the pin on the lid and the entire lid came off. I thought I'd cleaned it all up, but I keep discovering more. It mixes really well with handcream to give an all over green tinge, and I must have sprinkled a minute amount on the bath mat when I went to wash my hands again, as when I got out of the shower this morning I noticed green footprints. I managed to rescue the card I was making, but whether I can rescue the bath mat remains to be seen😂😂😂. Remind me never to try shampooing the craft room carpet!
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments

Rudolf Days for March

Hi there! How is everyone doing? I have sent off all my samples for the next Crafty individuals show and now I am just catching up with a few bits and bobs here in blog land. We are observing social distance rules, exercising regularly and only braving the supermarket once a week. Crafting, gardening and crochet with local walks and a bit of karate practice is seeing me through. The only thing that is being curtailed at the moment is baking, due to panic-buying, stock-piling nicompoops (Don't get me started!) Hope you are coping okay.
Anyway, now is the perfect time for preparing for a handmade Christmas, lol. Many friends will be receiving a crocheted gift, and of course we can get on with Christmas cards. Without further ado, here are my two cards for the Rudolf Days challenge this month, both using a woodware wreath stamp that I had for Christmas.

They were both coloured using watercolour pens (a mixture of Zig and Arteza) with added dots of glitter glue and liquid pearls. The design papers were from a pack I bought from the works, as were the stitched dies.
Do pop over to Maureen's blog to take a look at the inspiration there.
Thanks for looking!

February Challenge at Stamping Sensations

Good morning, It's time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations and this month we are looking for

****Feminine****

As the title suggest we would love to see your stamped creations that reflect the theme. I am sure you will come up with lots of fabulous designs.

My first card this month features gorgeous stamps and stencils from our lovely sponsors,  Bee Crafty. I stamped the gorgeous flower from the XL ladybird set and masked it off, then sponged wilted violet, peacock feathers and blueprint sketch distress oxide for the background. I placed the mandala 4 stencil over the right corner and sprayed with water, blotting after a few seconds. I then did this again over the flower image. I took off the mask and coloured the image with arteza brush markers, but felt it needed more dimension, so I stamped the flower twice again, added a leaf and coloured them, cutting and layering with 3d glue gel. 
I stamped the sentiment in versamark and embossed with white embossing powder, then stuck to the card.

 My second card this month fatures a gorgeous Digi from JMC designs, who are providing us with an additional prize to our main sponsors. This is Cosmo Polly, although I may have forgotten to add the cranberry juice, lol. I really don't know anything about cocktails. A G&T is the most exotic thing on my radar!
 Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image which reflects the theme as the focal element of your artwork , this means:
Stamping must be the central point of attention and interest

Our prizes this month are A £25 voucher to spend at Bee Crafty and a whole collection of JMC digis! Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous creations from my talented team mates!
Just a quick mention whilst I am here to let you know that my first DT cards for Crafty Individuals will be on Hochanda on Tuesday at 10am and 4 pm. There are some stunning stamps to feast your eyes on! Thanks for looking! 

January Rudolf Days and a digi from Dora

 Here we are galloping at speed towards the end of January and I almost forgot Rudolf Days! I have two cards that I made earlier that are ready in my box for Christmas 2020 though. The first is a very simple one using a Crafty Individuals image from one of their minature collections called Merry Christmas. I stencilled the background using a Dreamee's snowflake stencil. This literally took less than 3 minutes, lol. My sister-in-law asked for some Christmas cards that were 'simple' and easy for me to make for next year, so this will be for her to look at next time we meet up.

 My next card was stamped with Hobby Art stamps and coloured with arteza brush pens. Don't you love their expressions?
A huge thanks to Maureen for running Rudolf Days again. Hopefully I will be more organised next month. Do pop over to Maureen's blog for some Christmas Inspiration.

Whilst I'm here I will share with you a DT card featuring one of Dora's gorgeous digi stamps. I don't know about you but our snowdrops are on the verge of coming out and we saw some in full bloom the other day. It does seem a little bit early to me, but they are a perfect image for a winter birthday. You can find Dora's digis  and some more beautiful work from the DT on her blog here.
 Thanks for looking!

Stags galore!

I was lucky enough to get the Crafty Individuals Stag for Christmas and it was my first stamp to get inked up. I started off with a 15cm candle...

Then I made a card...

And finally I made a second card with a bit of a Scottish theme, with Burns Night in a couple of weeks

Here are links to the stamps used:
   Stag CI-526
   Baroque splatter script CI-430
   Large Elegant swirl CI-182
   Paisley swirl background CI- 435
The stags were coloured with Arteza brush pens and dots of gold liquid pearls were used to add a little dimension.
Thanks for looking!

Mid month inspiration for Stamping Sensations

Here is my mid month inspiration for Stamping Sensations where the theme is 'The Earth laughs in flowers'. The stamp is from Honey Doo crafts and was another birthday present from my hubby. It comes with a fabulous sentiment about repotting. I stamped the base card with the same stamp in Memento Desert sand, adding a bit of colour wash to it with a paint brush. I coloured the main image with Arteza brush pens.
 You still have plenty of time to enter the challenge, so do pop over to the challenge blog for more inspiration. Don't forget to check your entry against the challenge rules!
Thanks for looking!

Stamping Sensations for July

Good morning, It's time for our July challenge at Stamping Sensations and this month we are looking for

 ****The Earth Laughs in Flowers****

 As the title suggest we would love to see your hand stamped creations showing us beautiful flowers. I am sure you will come up with lots of fabulous and colourful designs. 
My card features flower and grass stamps from our wonderful sponsors this month, Crafty Individuals. They were coloured with Arteza watercolour brush pens.  I used a sentiment from Hobby Art and distress inks to create the background. Our prize this month is a £25 voucher for the Crafty Individuals online store. There are so many gorgeous products to choose from too!

Please ensure you check our challenge rules before entering, it may save you embarrassment and make sure your entry receives comments from the team and is entered into the prize draw. We run our challenge for fun in our spare time. It is your responsibility if entering to make sure you check our challenge rules.

Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the gorgeous designs from all my talented teamies! They really have made some wonderful cards again this month! 
 

Thanks for looking!

Pastel Colours for Allsorts

This week's challenge at Allsorts is to use pastel colours. I used my gelli plate and oxide inks to make the paper using a Honey Doo stamp called repot rose. It is one of those gorgeously simple fine-lined stamps that make a beautiful card.  I then stamped the image onto watercolour paper and coloured with my Arteza brush pens, adding a little glitter glue in the centre of each flower.
As I got home from work on Friday my next door neighbour was waiting for me and asked if I could make her a 90th birthday card for her mother-in-law. I invited her in to take a look in my box to see if any were the sort of thing she was looking for. This is the card she chose, so I added a 'Happy 90th Birthday' sentiment to the front and another sentiment inside. She was delighted with it. I'm looking forward to using my gelli plate a lot more in five weeks time! I've written 21 reports now, so only 8 more to go, then I will enjoy reacquainting myself with my craft table.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments.