Lost Linky's ?

Well I had a couple of things to post tonight but the challenges I was going to put them on didn't seem to have Mr Linky lurking about, think he must have gone on holiday ! so will leave them for another day and see if he's back at work tomorrow ?

Corsets

Had a play with another new stamp set from Indigo Blu last night,the main image and the corset are from that set. The advert behind the image and the ticket are both Crafty Individual stamps. the ribbon is definitely not the colour it looks on here but I'm getting used to things changing colour on here!
The papers are from a little 6x6 pad I picked up somewhere called One Moment in Time by a company called the Scrapcake who I have never heard of before but the papers are just beautiful. i made this for
Sugar Creek Hollow challenge which is vintage fashion this week, it also fits a few more challenges

Incywincy Designs - vintage
Make It Monday- anything goes
Crafting when we can - Fashion & Pearls ( the pearls are on the lace strip,don't show up very well )
Our Creative Corner - Shabby chic

Diamond Jubilee

Its taking forever to load anything onto my blog at the moment and after I finally got this on I realised I had forgotten to crop the background, not about to start again thought!  Just using up some Jubilee papers as they won't be much use after next weekend, everything I used on this card apart from the Union flag in the centre is from freebies from various magazines etc. I think I will be able to use some of them up in my London scrapbook if I ever get round to doing any more pages ! We had a fabulous Jubilee Tea Party in our village hall yesterday, all decked out with bunting, flowers , red/white and blue tablecloths and fabulous food ! Had a pianist playing all afternoon too, very nostalgic.  Hope we raised lots of cash as it was for our groups charity which this year is for Parkinsons Disease, a charity close to my heart as my Sister's husband had it and we saw at first hand what a terrible thing it is. Think this will fit a few challenges

Craft Your Days Away  - Red, White and Blue
Glitter Geeks                 -  Jubilee
One Stitch At A Time   -  Red, White and Blue
The Crafty Pad              -  Colours Of Your Country's flag

grasses and wild flowers

I haven't done any crafting all week , with the beautiful weather I've been gardening,trying to tame the jungle that my garden had become, my neighbours bought their house twelve months ago and have never touched the garden so we have been inundated with weeds, she thinks the dandelions are so pretty and had just left them to seed everywhere ! anyhow, finally this week they have had someone come and start to do something about it. I'm not someone who likes a manicured garden but there are limits.Moan over for  tonight!. Anyhow what with weeding, clipping, planting etc I have also been washing everything that can possibly be washed, never gave a thought to the fact that most of it also needs ironing ........ huge pile of it now but its far too hot to even think of tackling it !  Anyhow tonight after enduring the Eurovision contest ( poor old Engelbert !! ) thought I would just finish off this piece that has been on the table for a couple of weeks. Background is Pan Pastels, stamps Indigo Blu and Inkilicious. Just sneaking it in for Make it Monday - Wild flowers and grasses.

Soar

Haven't done anything steampunk for a while so I was pleased to see there are quite a few challenges for it at the moment. The cog background is a crafters workshop stencil which I have used with black sparkle embossing paste and I'm loving the texture of it, it looks like old cast iron( well it does tome anyhow!) Kanban costume stamps and Indigo Blue balloon. Its another page for my steampunk book.

Challenges

Crafting when we can -  Steampunk
Fashionable Stamping - Steampunk
So Artful challenge- Steampunk with Sepia and earthy tones
Paperplay challenges - Distruction
Pixie dust Studio - Steampunk

Up Up and Away

Had a great day out at Port Sunlight last Saturday, the highlight of the day was the wonderful Indigo Blu stand and Kay's demonstrations, she must have been exhausted by closing time as I don't think she ever stopped all day.  This is from one of the stamp sets that fell into my basket,love the balloon, it will fit in well for steampunk themes but stands well on its own. The compass and the wording are from the same set. Everything except the balloon is coloured with pan pastels, love them, its just so quick and easy to produce a lovely coloured piece of card, I'm a newbie with them so I hope I will get better at blending them in time,plus of course I need more colours ( don't we all)  I also finally gave in and got some dylusion sprays, haven't played with them yet.  The reason I haven't been on my blog all week is that I have been very destructive and finally plucked up courage to unmount some (over 100) wood mounted stamps, I didn't think I could bear to do it but after the first few I was ripping away with abandon !  I actually started with my beloved collage stamps that I have had for years and once I had done them the others followed quickly , it has taken me three afternoons as I scanned all the stamps first so I have got a record of the coloured stamp blocks and also making some kind of record of what I have. It emptied two drawers and three large file boxes.  I still have hundreds more but I'm keeping my boxed sets/ Stamping up sets etc and some of my large Hero backgrounds. I've now got to work out a storage system for the bit heap of rubber on my table !  ( I keep looking at the big stack of wooden blocks and thinking I could make something with them ? although that rather defeats the object of making more space !)
Putting this card on

Carfty Card Makers Challenge - Balloons

Flight

Another masculine card again tonight, quite a simple one. I must say that the string round the bottom of the card is not yellow as it looks on here but a sort of beigy colour, I did try messing about with the colours before I loaded it but it didn't look any different whatever I did!  The plane is an Artemio stamp(I think). There are a few challenges for Blue and Brown this week so here goes

Quirky Crafts - Blue and Brown (masculine)
Tanda Teaser -  Blue and brown
Sunday Stamper- Blue and brown

Anyone going to The Happy Stampers at Port Sunlight on Saturday ?  I'm looking forward to it as its a real stampers show , lots of lovely stamps everywhere. I need more stamps like I need a hole in the head but what the heck, lifes short !!!

Travel memories

The challenge at Fashionable stamping this time is Cities Of The World.  My first thought was of course London as my London stamps are getting a lot of use at the moment, then I considered Paris but while scrabbling about in a box of unmounted stamps I found this Venice Stamp by Stamp Camp which I got at Port Sunlight a while ago and has never been used. Very roughly (impressionistic ?) water coloured, mounted on a" cover a page" map stamp and a few extra bits of stamping added.  I think its quite a masculine type of card so I'm putting it on a few challenges

Fashionable Stamping-  Cities Of The World
Crafty Card Markers   -  For The Boys
Make It Monday - anything goes
Ooh-la-la-creations - make it manly
Come and Get it challenge - lets hear it for the boys
That Craft Place Blog - one for the boys

Black and White plus one

 Oh how I wish they would leave blogger alone, everytime I think I know what I'm doing it all goes wrong again, I have uploaded this card twice and now its on here I'm not too happy about how it looks, it is very black and white but it looks grey here.  Anyhow here goes with a couple of challenges

Sugarcreek Hollow - Black and white / only colour on the image
Hiding In My Craftroom - Black and white plus one

Also putting it on Simon Says - favourite stamp - well I don't have a favourite, whatever I'm using at the time is my favourite of the moment, however this old Hero Arts Gracious Lady is a very old favourite that has been used and better used over the years, today I've used her with some new Hero Paris stamps,and some old Papermania Papers.

Simonsaysstampandshow - favourite stamp

Bloom and Grow

Using up some more free papers, this time from Simply Homemade, they are lovely quality papers by Nitwits, The two seed packet stamps are Artistic Outpost, everything else including the buttons and ribbons were free (can't beat it !)This card will fit a couple of challenges I think

Alphabet challenge -  G for garden
Opus-gluei                -  Beyond the garden gate

The Queen's tea party

Here's a quick little card  using some free papers from a magazine and Hobby Art stamps Time For Tea,the little clock is from a Kanban set. Think I'm still in time to get it on Cheerful Stamp Pad challenge

Cheerful Stamp Pad Challenge - Queens Tea

Travelling In Time

Well here I go again with a 3rd Attempt to post this!  I really hate what blogger has done now and I can't find anything on here.  I really don't know where this week has gone, no posts for a whole week . I have done some crafting but nothing to post on here, some more London Scrapbook pages and some family cards I can't show yet.  Did manage to find some time to make this card tonight. Stamped and embossed the collage stamp straight onto some DP from a Debbie Moore magazine and stamped the car/watch and compass again and 3D them.All the papers are Debbie Moore or Tabby Cat Designs. Think I might just be in time to sneak this onto

Fashionable Stamping - Embossing and

Make My Monday - Masculine/Time

scrapping!

Haven't done any scrapbooking for ages but after surveying my enormous stash of 12x12 papers thought it might be an idea to do some and make some inroads into using some of the papers up, well after a whole afternoon I only produced the one page and used just one sheet of paper ! It started out as a sheet of architectural design so I dry brushed it with gesso to tone the detail down a bit and then proceeded to stamp over most of it using a mixture of Indigo Blu and Artistic Outpost stamps.The centre bit is a piece from a London underground map. We were in London a year ago the week after the Royal wedding and everywhere was still awash with flags and flowers. We took hundreds of photos so hopefully will do a few more pages (sometime !!)

Owls

Not a stamp in sight ! all papers and image from My Craft Studio Quintessential country garden CD. This is the first time I have ever  bought a craft cd, something I said I would never do as I thought It was a sort of cop out crafting, I don't think I will be doing too much of it as I don't get the buzz of stamping but I have to say I just love the papers on it. For this card I just printed out two papers and a topper, added a flower,button and sentiment. I couldn't resist inking the edges of the papers though ! Its for a friends birthday so hope she will like it. Challenge Up Your Life challenge is Owls so its going on there.

Birds

Oh dear, bloggers been messing about yet again !  taken me ages to get these three cards on here. Had a nice day with a friend yesterday, we both made cards just using this one bird stamp (Artistic Outpost) and a pad of Melissa Frances papers. I was on a roll with it yesterday but got up today and inspiration nil !  I'm fed up of the rain, although it has been a bit better today,need to get outside a bit to blow the cobwebs from my brain ! Putting the first card on these challenges:-

Alphabet challenges                 - F - for feathered friends
The Stampman                         - Shabby chic
Charisma cards                         - Shabby chic
Sir Stampalot                            -  birthday

Just seen that Artistic Outpost referral for April is Birds so am putting it on there too