May Blossom

Two posts in one day!  After clearing up my inky mess from this afternoon thought I'd go for something a bit simpler. Ruby's Rainbow challenge is for May Blossom and butterflies, I'm always happy to add a butterfly to anything I make. May blossom is white but we have just had some lovely blossom on our crab apple tree and this stamp reminds me of it.  Its a Stampin Up and I've forgotten what the set is called. The butterflies are Elusive image stamped on scraps left over from my last card.The green panel is embossed with butterflies using a free folder I got from a magazine, don't think I'll be using it much as it cut through the card in a couple of places, luckily a bit of double sided tape rescued it.

Ruby's Rainbow - May blossom and butterflies

Messy Play

Had a nice messy play this afternoon, started off with a piece of brusho card and used some old Elusive Image stamps  (seem to be on a using old stamps theme at the moment) Coloured the poppy heads with brusho, stamped the butterflies on another piece of brusho card and cut them out.  Decided I needed a bit of background card and thats when it gets hard ! can never get the same results twice with Brushos, ended up with a stencil and new distress inks to blend it in. Entering it a couple of challenges

Fantasy Stampers - wings and things

Craft For The Craic - wings

An old favourite

Sneaking in at last minute for Fashionable Stamping challenge to use an old favourite stamp, I find it hard to choose any one stamp and I've kept procrastinating about it, however last night I came across a little stamp set from Innovative stamp creations and remembered how I loved it. The butterfly and flower in the set was my "go to stamps" for a long time and I do love the girl's face too.  The rest of the card is just made up of various scraps of paper from my scrap box. I did overstamp one piece  with the flower from the set but I've almost covered it up.

Fashionable Stamping - Use an old favourite stamp

also entering it into

Allsorts challenge - vintage

Boys Toys

This weeks challenge at cardz4guyz is for prominent use of gingham/plaid/checks.  I had planned on making a totally different card to this to when I got round to making it the piece of black and white gingham paper I wanted to use was nowhere to be found. Although the checkpaper on here looks black it is actually a dark brown.  I have had the sentiment stamp for years and I've also had the old car stamp for quite along time too, its nice to get old favourites out sometimes. Hope you will join in our challenge

Poppies?

I bought this Imagination Crafts stamp set back in March at the Harrogate show and never got round to using it. It looked rather heavy stamped in black so I've stamped it using Memento Gray Flannel which I seem to be using a lot lately to get a softer outline. The set has the whole flower and then the flower head as a solid stamp too. I stamped over the main image in yellow and then slightly offset with orange. The back ground is just direct to paper with yellow and blue ink pads.  I'm getting a bit frustrated as I don't seem to be getting much time to play.  The cards I am selling for charity sold so fast I have run out of stock and so have been trying to get another batch "knocked together LOL )need some quick and easy cards that look as if they have taken hours to make ! Saw a challenge over at Lisa B designs  using Lisa B stamps which these are so I'm entering this there

Lisa B designs inspiration  - botanical collage stamps

Rudolph Days

25th of May,  where is the year going !  soon be Christmas LOL  .  Saw that it was round to time to enter the Rudolph Day Challenge here.  A couple pf years ago I went to a Stampin Up class and we made Christmas cards, searching around for some inspiration I found a folder with bits and pieces from the class left over. I didn't have the stamps used but I did have lovely as a tree stamp, found a Christmas text stamp and Dasher the reindeer who is wearing jewels in his antlers. Embossing done with a Sizzix border die.

Also entering it into these challenges

Christmas card Challenges - anything goes
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas challenges - something die cut or punched
Craft Hazelnuts extra challenge - anything goes

Wildlife

Over at Cardz4guyz this week the challenge 71  theme is World Wildlife . For my card I have used a very old Impression Obsession stamp which I have had more years than I care to remember ! Its a stamp that really doesn't need anything adding to it, I did just stamp a bit of bamboo round the edges (yes I know bamboo doesn't grow in the jungle but it looked ok !) Backing paper is a freebie piece from an old magazine and the sentiment stamp is Clearly Besotted. Hope you will join us this week

More tidying up!

I have been trying to sort out some of the mess in my craft room( which is really supposed to be the dining room)  Cleared out lots of old magazines, put inserts etc in yet another pile of cards and threw out various other bits of clutter, no one but me would notice much difference ! Anyhow found several of these hexagon cards in the pile I was putting inserts in, haven't quite decided what to do with the inside of them, anyhow I realised I hadn't blogged any of them so thought I would enter one of them into Allsort Challenge.  I usually scan my cards and then I can crop them, however these shaped cards don't look good scanned so had to photograph them and then realised I couldn't crop out the clutter in the back ground. The stamp is Inkylicious and the background splodges are Stampin Up gorgeous grunge.

Allsorts Challenge - No square cards

Pink!

I'm trying to use some of the stuff that's piled up on my table, a lot of it is stamped images that I haven't got round to using, amongst them I found this Penny Black image, I think the stamp belongs to my friend. Coloured it with water colours and found a few papers and a bit of ribbon. I really struggle with pink, there are so many shades of it and nothing ever seems to match ! I'm entering my card into Sparkles monthly challenge which is Spring, with at least five flowers

Sparkles Monthly Challenge - Spring with at least five flowers

I

Sympathy

 

Sorting out some cards to take down to the shop for my charity card sales found a couple of sympathy cards, Not the most cheerful things to make but I have found that strangely enough they do sell well.

I had seen a challenge somewhere for sympathy cards so had a look round and found it at

 

My Time To Craft  - Sympathy.

 

( the little black specks on the cards are from my scanner plate. I keep trying to get it clean but not succeeding very well, I do have a new scanner but I really like my old one best!)

Make your mark

The challenge this week at Cardz4guyz is "make your mark"  no images from CDs, ready made toppers etc, use ink, paint, pens etc.  For my card I've used Stampin Up Gorgeous grunge stamps in several shades of blue and a stamped sentiment from Inkylicious. Die cut the stars with one of my bargain buy die sets from Port Sunlight on Saturday. Hope to see you joining is our challenge

Blue flowers

Had a fabulous day at Port Sunlight on Saturday, the highlight for us was Paperartsy stand and the wonderful demos by Leandra and Sue . I had seen the flowers on Sue's blog the night before but the actual samples were just amazing.  Well of course into the basket went stamps, loads of Fresco paints, chipboard flowers etc etc.  Of course we had to visit every other stand at the show too, we were sad to see that The Stamp Man was missing, they have been at every show although Jill was on her own last time due to Ian's injury.  Also missing were Clearly Besotted and Ali Crafts, both companies we love to visit. Visible Image were there for the first time and what a fabulous display they had too, more stamps in the basket and a lot more on my must have list! Today  after spending several hours gardening I decided it was playtime !  oh my goodness, although I have used acrylic paints for backgrounds etc before I have never painted with them and its obvious I am going to need a lot more practice, I have been far too heavy handed with them on here but have had a great time messing about!.

More flower garden

 

I just love these flowers from the flower garden set, I haven't actually used any of the other flowers yet as I'm enamoured with this one.  More playing with stencils and embossing paste,coloured the paste with bits scraped off an inktense block to try and get an old brick colour, when the paste was dry I spinkled on some brusho crystals and flooded it with water so the colour ran between the bricks, bit of text stamping. Stamp, coloured and fussy cut the flowers and added a twine bow.  I'm entering this at Anything But Cute challenge, I don't think its mixed media enough for their challenge really but I'm hoping to get more proficient at it.  Tomorrow I'm off to Port Sunlight Stamping Show and I have a list of supplies I need from Paperartsy,  plus I'm hoping to pick up some tips from them too!We have had torrential rain for hours and the trip tomorrow is two and a half hours by motorway, not looking forward to that part of the day, hope its better weather tomorrow

 

Anything but cute challenge - Vintage garden

I'll never learn!

Spotted these Runway stamps on a challenge blog and of course I had to have them, I never stop to consider what I'm actually going to do with them, stamp then on bits of paper and stare blankly at them.  Saw some lovely examples on Meggysway blog which made me decide to have a play with them tonight.  Just messed about with distress inks, stencils etc. I used a stamp from Artistic outpost London to stamp the buildings at the bottom, Paris, London and New York from Tim Holtz papillon set and the top wording a Crafty Individuals freebie, I overstamped the whole piece with Hero Arts friendship stamp to try and tone it down a bit. I'm not over impressed with this but at least I've made a start with them!

Crafty Card Makers - make your own background

Alphabet challenge - F is for friends

The Garden Shed

The challenge this week at cardz4guyz is gardening, well I don't know about you but in this house its me who does all the gardening with the exception of lawn mowing and hedge cutting. I seemed to have plenty of stamps to make a card for a lady gardener but not for a man, however I came across an unopened pack of paper from Papermania called Home Nests and in it was this lovely garden theme paper, another search found this image from an old Card Making magazine and I was on my way. I do hope you will join us this week , as long as it follows the theme and is for a male of any age we'd love to see you.

Flower Power

Our May challenge at Stamping Sensations is Flower Power and there is a fabulous prize of £35 store voucher from Crafty Individuals, pop along to their store and see the wonderful range of stamps ,dies and papers.

 

For my card this month I have used Crafty Individuals stamp CI-320 and background papers  from their springtime book. Dyed some seam binding for the bow and the little wooden bird house is from a pack of them from The Works.

 

Flower Garden

I finally managed to get the flower garden stamps but having got my greedy little mitts on them I didn't quite know what to do with them!  I spent a very messy, happy time with stencils,embossing paste, stamps and die cuts, plus of course distress ink pads ( I so need the new colours !) I started off with a piece of water colour card which I mini brayered with acrylic paints, its almost covered up with other stuff though, used the embossing paste in random sections through the brick wall stencil,second generation stamped the flowers and spring wording. I think the die cut looks a bit like garden trellis too. Stamped ,coloured and cut out the flowers and added them with a little twine bow.
I'd like to enter it in the following challenges

Frilly and funkie - stencil mania   (brick wall and also stencilled through the die cut in lower corner

Fantasy Stamping - distress it

Vintage Journey - spring colour