Books galore at Tuesday Taggers

When our lovely Teamie Michelle chose the theme of Books at Tuesday Taggers I knew exactly what I was going to do. For several years I've had the Garden Fantasy sheet of Non Sequitur stamps, and there is a girl on it that always reminds me of the ghost of Cathy from Wuthering Heights. I got out my stamps, my brayer, a big and juicy pad (Hydrangea) et Voila!

The tree stamp is one I picked up from Encaustic art plus at Elsecar heritage centre. With clear embossing the outline of the girl the brayered ink wouldn't go right to the edge, but I think it makes her look quite ghostly. I finished it off with a quote.
Thanks for looking and I do hope you can pop over to Tuesday Taggers and join in the fun. Whilst you are there check out the amazing examples for our fabby DT!

All Distressed at Sir Stampalot

Good morning. It is the first of September and that means it is time for another challenge at Sir Stampalot. The theme this month is All Distressed, and I did get rather inky and messy creating this one! My background papers are MME and Cappella, distressed around the edges with my Tim Holtz distressing tool and my scorebug, and of course lots of Walnut stain DI. The script (Hero arts old french writing) was stamped in Tumbled glass DI and the ornate corner (Elusive images) was stamped in Walnut stain DI. The border was made with a Martha Stewart Doily lace punch. My central flower was made using 3 layers of each of 3 shapabilities dies (Flower creations 3) the flourishes are a Marianne Designs die, and the roses and small flowers are woodware and x-cut punches with a few gems.Here is a close-up.

Now on to the prize. Take a look at these lovely goodies.

Fabulous prize, eh? So, if you want to be in with a chance to win this lovely lot, put your thinking caps on a pop over to the Sir Stampalot challenge. There are lots of fab projects this month by my wonderfully talented teamies.

Houses at Tuesday Taggers

The theme at Tuesday Taggers this week is houses and we are sponsored by the Craft barn. The paper is from my Mind's eye, the stamp was borrowed from a friend, and I forgot to write down the make. The flower was made from shapabilities flower creations 3, coloured with moonglow sprays. Thanks for looking. Do pop over to the TT site for lots of inspiration.
I just wanted to say thank you for all your words of support at this time. It is appreciated.

An angel called Julie

 

This is my dear friend Julie. She passed away this afternoon at the age of 46 after losing her battle with cancer. She leaves a husband and a 13 year old daughter. We have been friends since we went to antenatal class together and our daughters are best friends too. You couldn't wish for a kinder more selfless friend. She will be missed by so many. Rest in peace my friend.

Music for a man

Here is my entry for the Stamp Man's 4th challenge, where the theme is musical. I am also entering it into the last ever Rosie D's challenge where the theme is 'for a man'.
I started off with a sheet of white card, colouring it with Broken china and Dusty Concord distress inks applied with a shaving brush. I stamped music (Stampourium), notes (Aspects of design) and swirl (Paper artsy) in Weathered wood over the background then sprayed it with hydrangea blue and lucky shamrock green starburst stains. I stamped the notes again in Chipped sapphire DI, before stamping the Guitar (Aspects of Design) in Versamark and embossing with detail white EP. The background card was staped with versafine and brayered with big and juicy Waterfall (blue end) and soothing sunset (Purple end). I added a couple of ribbons and mounted onto a white square card. Here is a close-up where I tried to capture the sparkle from the Starburst Stains.

I also get to display this for using Aspects of design stamps!
Thanks for looking, and I hope you get some sunshine today!

Allsorts Challenge - inspired by a garden or park

When I got back from holiday I decided to treat myself to a couple of cute stamps from Sugar Nellie. I saw this one used on a card in a recent challenge and instantly fell in love with it. It's called Searching by Kathy Hare. I'd stamped it in Versafine sepia and watercoloured the image with distress inks. When I saw the Allsorts challenge this morning I thought it would be perfect! Their sponsors this week are one stop cardcrafts. I teamed it up with some very old papers from my stash - a Bitty Scrap pad called windswept from provocraft. I just love the blues and greens on this pad. they go so well with the distress ink colours.

My easel card was finished with punched flowers, some rainbow drops (Crafty Notions) die cut flourishes (Marianne designs) and some sticky ribbon.
Thanks for looking, and have a great weekend!

Woo hoo and Karate!

You'll never guess what! the card I made for the Stampman Challenge for easel cards got me a top five place! Here is the card:

If you want to know how I made it my original post is here.

  Thank you so much Jill and teamies. I really appreciate it and feel very honoured! I will sport my blinkie with pride!


I also want to share with you that I was Student of the week at Karate this week for excellent kicks! I was incredibly surprised as I always feel I am not very good at kicking. I think it is something to do with my short stature and equally short legs! Anyway, Sensai was impressed and I'm chuffed to bits. I wasn't even cross with anyone, lol!
Off to have a hop around a few blogs now. Thanks for looking and enjoy the rest of your evening!

Delicious Doodles Competition

My lovely TT teamie Teri, over at Delicious Doodles is having a competition to win ten of her wonderful digi images. All you have to do is to create something using one of her lovely images and post a link to it on Teri's shop blog before the noon on 31st August. Now I'm sure you all know how much I love Teri's designs, so I had to have a go too!

Completely out of season, I know, but I used the beautiful Christmas rose and coloured it with promarkers. I teamed it up with some Papermania Capsule collection papers, some grey green card and some ribbon.
Now according to Teri, she is happy for people to enter up to four times, so I might manage another one yet!
Teri is also having a DT call for Delicious Doodles, and anyone selected will get all sorts of perks! You can read all about it here. Do pop over to Delicious Doodles and take a look at the fabulous designs!

Inspired by a poem

This weeks theme at Tuesday Taggers has been chosen by our lovely Michelle, and is to find inspiration in a poem. I sat down over a week ago thinking I would get a little ahead of myself with the beginning of term coming up. I got a bit carried away though! Please excuse the wonky photo.

It is based on the poem Silent Noon by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which you can find here. 

I started off thinking about the bit that goes 'Deep in the sun-searched growths a Dragonfly hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky...' so the right hand panel was my first. The border is a hero arts stamp and the dragonfly is a crafty Individuals stamp, used on fantasy film from Crafty Notions. 

The central panel features the poem, which I printed out and over stamped in wild honey DI with the same Hero arts cling stamp I used on the first.

 Then I decided I couldn't use the whole poem and not illustrate the first verse, so I did cow parsley skirting the hawthorn hedge using Elusive Images Wild meadow stamps.

I backed it all on thick card covered in paper from my Artylicious Essence of Nature cd, and made some grunge paper hinges to hold it together. Not perfectly positioned I'm afraid, but never mind. Here is a quick view of the back.

Isn't that paper just gorgeous? So there you go. My first ever triptych (I think that's what they are called!) Phew! That was a long one! Thanks for looking, and don't forget to pop over to Tuesday Taggers to see my lovely teamies inspiring work. Do hope you can join us this week!

A bit of this and that

Thought I'd share with you a few cards I've made recently from images I coloured with promarkers whilst on holiday. I'll start though, with my anniversary card that I made for Steve in July.

The image is a penny black slapstick called loving and hugging. Perfect as he loves ducks. I watercoloured it using distress inks and used large scalloped nesties to cut it out. The backing paper is from an artylicious cd and the sentiment was computer generated.

This card and the next are both penny black stamps coloured with promarkers, kindly stamped for me by my lovely blog friend, Jules. Aren't they cute?

The papers for my first one were in my stash and for the second one were on my computer entitled May Freebies - sorry, I'm not sure where from! Edit: The lovely Pinky tells me the pink ones are from Tinker and co.The flowers on the first were punched and made myself, but the second has prima flowers and punched leaves.
The post  below this one will be from the walk we did yesterday. If you don't like bees and wasps you perhaps won't want to look!

A walk in Sherwood Forest

Yesterday Meg,Vicky (my lovely neice) and I went for a walk around Sherwood Forest. We started off at a village called Budby, crossing some lovely heathland with lots of heather to get to the ancient woodland.

Here is a picture of Vicky taking photos. As you can see there are some very ancient trees in the forest. Some are hollow and dead, but are amazing habitats for so many species, including these creatures...

Yep, this is a hornet's nest. I am quite surprised at how well I coped, seeing as I am a bit scared of bees and wasps after a mishap at Bee club aged 13 whilst at school (Imagine the health and safety around a school keeping bees now?!) The hornets tolerated us for a while, but began to be a bit more than curious, so we left! I was quite fascinated to see the social behaviour of these insects. The one at the top of the last picture was the Doorman/ Bouncer and seemed to vet every other hornet arriving back at the nest. Not the clearest of shots, but I wasn't going any closer!!!
We also saw a couple of different fungi specimen...

I liked the short, dumpy nature of this one!and the one below is it's tall thin friend! Thanks for looking - hope you weren't put off by the hornets!

Messing about in boats at Tuesday Taggers

Here is my DT card for Tuesday Taggers this week. It was my turn to choose the theme, so still in holiday mode I went for boats,  waterways or sea.
The main image is a Blue Moon (formally Friends) stamp available from Stampers supermarket. The mini anchors are from my Hobby Art harbour set and the large boat charm has been in my stash for about ten years! 
The DT have excelled themselves as usual. Hope you can join us this week. Pop over to  Tuesday Taggers to take a look at my teamies inspirational creations!