Rudolf day for February

Hi there! Firstly can I say how sorry I am that I haven't made it in to blog land half as much as I would've liked recently. Thanks for all your lovely comments. I am hoping I will get round to leaving a few more comments soon, as soon as I finish the commission I am working on.
February has sped by and Rudolf day has taken me completely by surpirse! I did manage to knock up two cards, but one of them was a complete disaster when I put my reading (crafting) glasses on, lol, so it got confined to the bin!
Here is my sole offering this month then

I spotted the idea on Pinterest of using a piece of Vellum as an overlay and making a scene underneath and having a tree on top. It really does look like mist. All stamps are from inkylicious and the scene underneath was done with my ink dusters and memento inks.
Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's and take a look at the DT's gorgeous cards!
Thanks for looking! 

Colouring faces

 I've been colouring some different images over the past couple of weeks. Different  in that I don't normally go for this style of image!  I downloaded the flower maiden from Aurora Wings etsy shop and gave her a pastel look with my be creative alcohol Markers. I added glitter glue and liquid pearls to her hair too - here's a close-up...

 The base card is covered in paper from Be Creative's Vintage collage paper pad. I have to say it was a joy to colour her and I will definitely be buying more of Mitzi's images. There is a sale on at the moment too!

 My second image is another digi download, this time from Lavinia. Again I coloured her with Be creative alcohol markers and added liquid pearls and glitter glue. The base card was covered in a gelli print made some time ago with pearlised paints and a stencil. Here she is at a different angle so you can see the sparkle on the glitter glue.

Whilst I am showing you digis, can I please make a plea to you all. If you want a digi, go to the artist and buy it! Please avoid those sites that seem to think it is okay to steal,  or give away images without the artist's permission. I know several artists who spend hours, sometimes days producing images to sell for a very small price compared to rubber stamps. They need to sell at least 15 to 20 of those images to buy their child's next pair of shoes, or pay for that guitar lesson. If, like me, you teach workshops involving colouring, it is common courtesy to ask permission too. I have found artists are very obliging when it comes to letting me use their images at workshops, and if it helps to spread the word on how lovely their images are then all the better. Just keep in mind they need to make a living too. Rant over - thanks for listening!

February Mid month inspiration

In our mid month posts at Stamping Sensations, we are going to showcase for you a technique that we have tried out. I saw some wonderful samples from Visible Image, our sponsors this month, using shaving foam marbling technique and I knew I had to have a go. I have marbled with shaving foam before using a variety of inks and dyes, including re-inkers and food colouring, but not half as effectively as the samples I saw. They had used Dylusions sprayed onto the foam. The colours were amazing!

So, if you want to have a go yourself, you need shaving foam, a tray, a ruler and some inks, sprays or dies.

• First spray the foam into a tray and smooth over the surface so it is larger than your paper.

• Next spray the foam with your inks. Use a cocktail stick or paintbrush handle to mix up the colours a bit. 
• After that, lay your paper or card onto the shaving foam, pressing down so colour touches all of the paper surface
• Lift the paper off and use the ruler to scrape off the shaving foam
• Leave to dry

Here are a few samples using a mixture of Visible Image and Inkylicious stamps

I hope that has inspired you to have a go yourself! Thanks for looking!

Masculine cards

There have been several male birthdays in our family and friends recently. First up was Steve's birthday...

As a duck fan, this stamp from Crafty Individuals was perfect and I stamped it on silk art card and coloured with distress markers. The base paper was one that was a very pale gelli plate print, so I washed over it with distress stain to make it fit the colour scheme. The snippet of paper under the stamped image has to be at least 15 years old and I am not sure where it came from!

Next was my Dad's birthday, so a little scene was called for. All stamps are from Inkylicious, except the stag (stampscapes) and the scene was created with inkylicious stencils and ink dusters. 

Finally it was Meg's boyfriend's birthday. He is a 2nd Dan Black Belt and Sensei, so when I saw this Kenny K digi it was perfect! I coloured it with be Creative Alcohol Markers. the Paper is from Canon Creative Park and the sentiment is a very old one from Stamporium.

February at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month, so time for our February challenge at Stamping Sensations, where this month we have a nice and simple theme of........

********Anything Goes********

For my card I created a shaving foam marbled background using Dylusions, and stamped and embossed the Jazz it up saxophonist and the sentiment from the Play it loud set. These stamps are all available from Visible Image (see the link below). The adhesive Music border is from Be Creative.  The Usual rules apply, you can enter up to three times, combine with other challenges, use any make of stamp......but can I please remind you we are a stamping challenge and stamping must be the focal/predominant element of your work. Conventional rubber/acrylic stamps and digital images are acceptable, but pre-coloured digital images and toppers are not. It so upsets us to see names come out in the draw who are not eligible for the prize because they have not read the rules. 
Now onto the sponsor and prize this month

Visible Image Visible Image is a clear stamp designer and manufacturer based in South Wales, UK. Their stamps are hand poured and hand cut using the finest photopolymer available. Each stamp is deeply etched, 4mm thick, to ensure a crisp clear perfectly stamped image. They are offering one lucky winner a fabulous £35 store voucher. How great is that?
Do pop over to the Challenge blog and take a look at the inspiration from my multi-talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your fabulous entries!

A Glass Frame and Be Creative Exciting News!

If you watched the last Hochanda shows that Justin and Gordon from Be Creative did, you will have already seen my photo frame. It is one of the white glass frames priced at £2 from Wilkos.  I used the narrowest of their wondertape around the aperture and stuck foil to it. I then coloured the frame using my Be creative alcohol markers trying to create a Clarice Cliff type of feel to it. It took just a few minutes.
Now for my news. We have a brand new DT blog at Be Creative and we would love you to come over and follow us. Justin has promised a blog candy draw when we reach 100 followers, so do tell your crafting friends!
Thanks for looking!

Playing with Tree stencils and colour sprays

Hi There! It has been over a week since my last post - I blame the person who stole the weekend! I have no idea where it went at all! I had a little play with some tree stencils (Thanks, Brenda!) and colour sprays a week or two ago and here are the results

 The one above was on navy card using clear embossing paste and  sprays with Mica, and the one below uses imagination crafts sparkle medium.

 Finally I used Grunge paste over card sprayed with Adirondack colour sprays and water. When it was dry I sanded it until smooth

The sentiments are all from Inkylicious. Thanks for looking!

Rudolf day for January

Hi There! It is the 25th of the month and time for the first Rudolf day of 2016. I have made two very different cards for this month. For my first I used a be creative wonder sheet, a frantic stamper die, indigo blu mega flake and some of the narrowest wonder tape on a linen finish card.

My second card is a cute one. For this one I used a digi from Digistamp Boutique, coloured it with Be creative alcohol markers and added Inkylicious fluffy puffy stuff for the fur trim. The base card was embossed with a Sheena embossing folder.

 You can see the dimension of the Fluffy puffy stuff and a bit of the twinkle from the ultra fine glitter that I added below.

Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's and take a look at her inspiration and the prize this month - a rather gorgeous Die from Memory box!
Before I go I thought you might like a piece of my Whiskey Mac Ginger cake that I baked for our Burn's Night celebrations.

It was quite boozy with some single malt drizzled over it! If you fancy trying it for yourself you can find the recipe here.
Thanks for looking!

A couple of Be Creative floral cards

Here are a couple of cards that I made for Be Creative, using their wonderful paper pads and their alcohol markers. Did you see their shows on Hochanda? If so you may have already seen these. For the first I coloured a woodware singles rose. I covered the front of the card with the paper (I think it is from the vintage memories pad) and then coloured the rose border to match my rose and the one on the corner of the paper. I used a cream marker to add a little colour to the pearl and finished with an organza bow and a bit of tea dye DI around the edge.

My second card was made using paper form the floraella pad and a digi image from Teri Sherman's Delicious doodles etsy shop, coloured with Be Creative alcohol markers. The gems were also coloured with the markers and I added a pale blue bow and ribbon.   I am quite proud of these two bows. I really need a bow maker, but managed these without. I haven't tied a decent bow since though, lol!
Thanks so much for your lovely comments on my last post. I am more or less recovered now, although it has taken a week to get rid of the worst of the cough. That has been the most tiring thing. Time really doesn't seem to be on my side at the moment, and I am sorry I am not able to comment in blog land as much as I would like.
Meg went back to uni on Friday ready for her first placement in a hospital. I am hoping that the snow doesn't affect her too much as she is relying on trains and buses to get her to and from Barnsley each day for a fortnight. How is the snow where you are? We have had about an inch, but no more than that, and I don't think it will affect me getting to work.
Justin and Gordon have three more shows tomorrow on Hochanda. Do tune in and watch if you can at 11am, 3pm and 6pm.
Thanks for looking!

Fishing...

Hi there. How are you? I have only been back at work for three days then came down with a nasty virus, so have ended up doing very little except sleeping, coughing and sneezing since Wednesday. Over the holiday I had a little play with the Create a scene- Boating stamp set from Inkylicious. I used Memento inks in Dandelion, Cantaloupe, Danube Blue, Bahama Blue and tuxedo black. I used a moon mask.

For my second card I tried using a little bleach on a paint brush to pop the moon in afterwards, and I think it worked quite well. I went over the lower reflection with my ink dusters and blue and black ink. This was one of those off cuts where I had cut a square from an A5 sheet, as was the snippet of blue card underneath.
Thanks for looking!

Favourite five cards of 2015

Two post in one day, lol. It's just that I'm rushing in last minute to share my favourite five makes of 2015 with Debby over at A Scrap Journey. My favourite has to be Meg's eighteenth birthday card. She loved it so much it went off to uni with her. I used inkylicious stamps to make the scene and a frantic stamper fern die on the right.

Next up was this scene through the trees using a frantic stamper die and Inkylicious stamps.

 I loved this Honey Doo stamp, which was coloured with be Creative Alcohol markers. The papers are from Be Creative too.

 These last two card both used Be creative papers and Inkylicious stamps too!

Do pop over to see Debby's top 5 cards too - so cute! She also has her top 5 crochet projects and scrapnbook layouts to show you.Thanks for looking and for all your wonderful comments. Hope 2016 is a good one for you xxx

Stamping Sensations Challenge

Happy New Year and time for our first challenge of 2016 at Stamping Sensations!

Our theme this month is......................

********Anything goes with a die********

A nice wide open theme this month and I think most us have a die or two or three. Usual rules apply, you can enter up to three times, combine with other challenges, use any make of stamp......but can I please remind you.........we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image, sentiment or quote as the focal element of your artwork. This can be a digi stamp, but not a pre-coloured image. It so upsets us to see names come out in the draw who are not eligible for the prize because they have not read the rules. 
My card above is one that welcomed my great-niece into the family. I used Inky Doodles stamps and a spellbinders scalloped rectangle die.
As I have had the time between Christmas and new year to relax a little, I managed a second card this month.

 The border is a spellbinders die and the stamp is a hero arts digi, coloured with alcohol markers and a few spots of starlights paint. The embossing folder with enclosed die is from Marianne designs. 

We are pleased to welcome Tonic Studios back as this months sponsor and what a fabulous prize they are offering to one very lucky winner.........................

I look forward to being able to purchase some of these beauties myself as they look wonderful! 

Do pop over to the challenge blog and check out the wonderful inspiration from my lovely team mates this month, and I look forward to seeing your entries soon.

Thanks for looking!