A digi from Dora and a walk in the woods

A couple of years ago Dora drew this digi (Flower 7) from one of my photos, after a walk to look at the bluebells in Ploughman's Wood.  We had a lovely walk there again on Friday and so I thought I would use this digi for my DT card for her this month. I printed the digi onto Kraft and coloured it with my Arteza pencils. I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I teamed it up with some crafty individuals paper and then stencilled the base card with distress inks through a Bee Crafty D'inkable. The sentiment is from Hobby Art, and I added a few drops of liquid pearls. You can find Dora's digis here.

Here are a few of the photos I took in Ploughman's Wood on Friday, featuring the beautiful Wood Anemones, including a few pink ones. 

And of course a few bluebells too...

Beautiful nature, beautiful weather and the signs of spring definitely put a spring in my step! 

Thanks for looking! 

Last minute Rudolf day and a digi from Dora

 Hi there! I am flying in last minute with a single offering for Rudolf Day. I'm afraid that the end of February has crept up on me as always. 

Here is my Christmas card made with Inkylicious stamps, a circle stencil and lots of nuvo drops, liquid pearls and stickles. 

Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look at the Christmas cards on display this month. 

Here is my latest of Dora's wonderful digis - a gorgeous bunch of Daffodils, coloured with pencils, simply die cut and placed over a stencilled background using distress oxide inks and a Bee Crafty mandala inkable. 

It has felt very spring-like here over the past few days we had a walk on Friday and saw lots of catkins and some pussy willow as well as crocuses and a few early daffodils. I hope you have seen some sunshine too.

Thanks for looking! 

                   Sally x

Ladybirds and Daisies

Over at Allsorts this week there is a theme of Blossoms, butterflies, bugs. I have had a bit of a trawl through some of my very old stash this week, and from some of it came up with this. The stamp is Penny Black Lazy Daisies, stamped onto watercolour card and coloured with zig clean color markers. I have always loved this image. It reminds me of those warm spring days where suddenly there is a ladybird everywhere you look in the garden! The paper was from a very old Provo Craft Bitty Scrap pad - all blues, greens and purples, and I loved every one. What you can't see is the shine on the ladybirds and the shimmer on the centre of the daisies, from a gelly roll glaze and a gelly roll stardust pen. I also added the white marks on the ladybirds' faces with a white gel pen.
I am also entering this into the Penny Black and More challenge, where the theme is Spring.
I hope you are having a good week and thanks for your lovely comments.

Spring Flowers

 Here are my DT cards for Dora this month. Our theme was spring flowers and the magnolia and snowdrops are some of the first spring flowers in the garden. My card was made with  digis drawn by Dora, which you can find on her blog here.

I coloured both with alcohol markers and used papers from the Dovecraft Bohemian pad. Tag sentiments are from Craftwork Cards.
We had a lovely Burn's Night supper last night and did our bit for citizen science with the Big Garden Birdwatch yesterday morning. We got 13 species in an hour, but no starlings or sparrows at all! There is still one more day to join in if you can. We learn so much about our garden birds when we do. It is the first time Steve and I have done it together, now he has retired and is home on Saturdays.
I have finished Steve's Birthday card and made 2 baby cards for colleagues at work today which I will share with you in due course.
Thanks for looking and I hope you have had a wonderful weekend.

Moonlight, Willow trees and a walk

Since I got my Inkylicious Moonscape stamp and mask I have been playing with it quite a lot! For this scene I used memento inks in Elderberry, Lulu lavender and Cantaloupe. I stamped the moon in lulu lavender then masked it and dusted the cantaloupe ink over the area. I then continued to dust with the lulu lavender and the elderberry ink. After removing the mask, I dusted the moon lightly with lavender and cantaloupe ink in a circular motion, giving it a pink tinge. I added the hills with a mountain valley stencil and stamped the willow trees (also from inkylicious) in Elderberry ink. Finally I added spots of clear stardust gelly roll pen to the trees and their roots and stamped the birds. This was such an easy card to make and I am very pleased with the result.
Before I go I will share a few photos. Meg came home for a few days and we went for a walk in Derbyshire - the Tansley and Matlock area. There was beautiful sunshine and lovely scenery along the Lumsdale Valley.
Here are a few photos...

Signs of Spring from Dora's digis

Here are two DT offering for Dora's Digis which are here on her blog. I coloured them with Be Creative Alcohol markers. The background paper for the first was in my stash for many years and there are only snippets left of them now. They were double sided too. The ribbon was the last bit of some that I received from a friend.

My second card features Dora's daffodils which I used to frame an ink dusted  scene stamped with Card-io stamps. The papers are from a Craftwork cards 8 x 8 pad of non-traditional tartans.
I'm off to the Snippet Playground with the first one, and hoping Miss Di doesn't put me in detention, lol.
You will be pleased to know I am well on the road to recovery and have been able to return to work. I think I have also caught up on sleep I had been missing 😊😊😊
Dora has some gorgeous digis and these would be perfect for a Mother's day card (It is a week on Sunday here in the UK)
Thanks for looking!

Rudolf Day for March

Here are my cards for Sarn's Rudolf Day this month. For the first I used Inkylicious Black Forest stamp, stormy sky distress ink and my ink dusters. I added some glitter and squeezed in a sentiment (Woodware) which looks a little straighter in real life! You know when you wish you hadn't put it there, lol! The papers are snippets from my snippet drawer and have been there forever!!!

My second card features a cute Digi mouse from Digistamp Boutique, coloured in with promarkers and backed on some snippets of digi papers printed out a very long time ago! The papers were from Funky Fairies, and I am sorry to say  are no longer available. The circular sentiment is from Little Claire.
As they both use snippets I am also taking them over to Di's snippet playground.
It is Saturday, so I should have been able to photograph them in daylight, but we spent this morning planning a school trip at Rufford Park, then carried on to see my dad this afternoon. It was such a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed the fresh air!

 It was sunny and warm, and there were so many birds in the trees. Unfortunately I wasn't quick or talented enough to capture them on my camera!

 

I think we will have to go again when the bluebells are out, judging by how many are here! We saw 4 or 5 great spotted woodpeckers chasing each other amongst the tree tops and heard the cries of a buzzard overhead too.

 I really hope it is as good weather when we take 60 children on Thursday! Thanks for looking and I hope you have a wonderful Mother's day - what a shame we have to lose an hour on the day most of us would like an extra hour in bed!

A bit of Spring

I hope you have had a lovely Mother's Day. I certainly have. I have spent most of the day Crafting with a regular supply of cups of tea and other nice things!

I have finished my DT pieces for a couple of months and had a bit of paper left over from one of my Gelli plate designs. It made a lovely CAS card, but needed a little extra, so I stamped the Indigo Blu hares (Craft stamper freebie) and dusted a background of rolling green hills behind them. I used Crafty individuals large elegant swirl to make the background, and a small text stamp from Inkylicious.  I realised this fit perfectly for this week's theme of Spring at Allsorts Challenge, so am entering it there. I have also had a lovely play with my new pearlised acrylic paint colours (Sapphire, Amethyst, Emerald Green and Blush)  and my Gelli plate. Here are some of the papers from this weeks play.

The first of these was made with a couple of stamps from the Chocolate Baroque set 'Peacock Glory'.
The second and third I made using the Hydrangea set by Inkylicious and Art Impressions serpentine background. I am rather looking forward to using these! Only three shares from my gelli plate, but another 26 papers! The photos really don't do them justice either. Thanks for looking and enjoy the rest of Mother's Day.

Spring colours at Sir Stampalot

Good morning and Happy Saint David's Day! It is 1st March and time for a new challenge at Sir Stampalot. This Month the theme is Spring is in the air and is a colour theme. You need to use blossom pink, fresh green and yellow on your project.

I created the background using shaving brushes and distress inks in Spun sugar, Wild honey and Crushed olive. I stamped Hero Arts Friend definition in Spun sugar over the top and added some sponging through sequin waste using spun sugar and wild honey. The main panel was cut using a Go Kreate die (XL frames frilly #1). I stamped it with Hero Arts Silhouette Grasses in Versamagic tea leaves and embossed in clear . The paper for the flower was made in the same way, but also sprayed with Iridescent gold glimmer mist.  The flower was made using Shapeabilities flower creations 3 and an x-cut embossing punch. The border punch is from EK success.

Here is a close up of the flower with some added stickles...

...those silhouette grasses...

...and my background. I really enjoyed making this card, and I'll definitely be trying it in different colour ways too.
So, pop over to the Sir stampalot Challenge and get some inspiration from my wonderfully talented teamies. They have produced some real masterpieces this month. We hope you will be able to join in, because there will be another fabulous prize on offer. What is it? Take a look at this lovely lot!

Happy Crafting!

Thinking of Spring...

The snow has almost all gone, and as it melted it revealed snowdrops in our garden. That made me think of spring, so last night I made a couple of cards with spring in mind. I used all Graphicus stamps. The first is my attempt at something Glenda did back in June 2008, and I found on her Artylicious blog. I stamped the tree from the Aboretum plate and then stamped the flowers and embossed in white embossing powder. I used alcohol inks to colour them pink. It's ok, but not as good as I would have liked. I was rather pleased with the brayering of the background though. I'm getting better at making it more uniform. The plants in the foreground are from the Wild Meadow plate. The next card uses the Wild meadow plate again and adirondack inks in lettuce and meadow. I stamped the thistle in olive versafine and coloured it with my Aquatone pencils. I then coloured over it with a versamarker and embossed with clear embossing powder. After that I stamped the plants in the background using lettuce. More use of my nestabilities!

Four Seasons

Here are the four panels of my Dad's Birthday card. They each measure 13cm square. All stamps are Graphicus except for the distant trees on the winter panel - they are a Stampin' up! image. Outside it is snowing and yet again the gritting lorry has failed to find our road - getting to work tomorrow could prove tricky!