Meet Pixie and a bit more Penny Black

Happy Monday Peeps, hope you all had a good weekend and those of you in the UK enjoying this lovely weather.

The little lady above is Pixie, a ten week old Jack Russell who joined the family gang this weekend. She's such a tiny little thing but seems quite capable of giving the large dogs a run for their money and has already sussed that if big guys play gets a bit too rough for her she can slide into spaces they can't. I will do my best to get a picture of the whole gang one day soon, but it's easier said than done keeping them all still for long enough.

I am still loving the new Penny Black 4237K Awakening so here's another share of another card I made with it. Again I inked the stamp direct, this time with Aquamarkers, spritzed with water and stamped onto Fabriano watercour card, inked the edges with TH tumbled glass and sponged through some sequin waster to give a bit of background interest.  The DP is Bo Bunny, some embossed and sanded Coredinations and a piece of cheescloth in the background and ribbon.

Have a good day everyone and as always thanks so much for popping in.

All rather floral

 

Good Morning, I hope everyone is OK.

I had a bit of a crafty play at the weekend as lucky me had some of Ruth's latest artwork to play with which you will find at A Passion for Stamps as well as some still un-inked Penny Black stamps.

To create the top card I masked the edges of a piece of Fabriano watercolour card and gently inked with TH broken china, I then tore a piece of copy paper to mask the top right section of the piece and stamped the the section with Hero Arts S5264 Antique Flower Background using TH tea dye. Next I sponged both colours of ink randomly over the stamping and finally stamped Penny Black 4237K Awakening using TH stormy sky and Aquamarkers and spritzed with water before stamping................every time there's a new release of stamps you tend to have a favourite and this one is definitely one of those. After removing the masking I mounted the piece onto coordinating cardstock and added a button.

My second card using Ruth's Fratillary image which I printed onto Fabriano watercolour card and did my usual mad rush to get some clear embossing powder on as it came through the printer, then coloured with Derwent watercolur pencils. The sentiment is Penny Black 4261L Time. The background was created using a Touch of Mica mask which I inked with versamark, rand through the Big Shot then dusted a lilac cosmic shimmer powder over the inked sections...................I am quite pleased with the effect and especially how well the colours match which was more buy luck than judgement as I only have a few mica powders.

Thanks for popping in, catch you later in the week.

A Krafty Affair

Hello peeps, Happy Mothering Sunday to all you crafty Mums out there.

A quick question, has anyone else lost their little editing tools from their blogs over the weekend ? I can still edit from the settings but the little pencil and spanners have disappeared on all the blogs I manager which is a real pain as they make editing so much quicker.

Today it's time to share the second of my Stampalot creations for the DT's March challenges. I hope you can fine a few moments to pop over the the challenge blog and go and visit all the DT's pieces of work, they are all fab and so different.

The kit's I sent to the DT were again much the same, just slightly different double sided DP's from the same pack of  My Minds Eye Kraft Funday Happy Days. Most the the designs were quite bright with primary colours so I opted for the reverse side of my three sheets.

The base sheet was a neutral colour with spots which I spritzed with Glimmer Mist iridescent gold and red velvet. When dry I randomly stamped with Hero Arts S5601 Newspaper Background and S5449 Fabulous Flourish and embossed the latter with detail copper. I then stamped Hero Arts K5586 Starbursts and again embossed with detail copper. The sentiment is Penny Black 3195H stamped onto a piece of the DP and embossed with the same powder. I made the flower using TH tattered floral die and the leaves are Spellbinders and I found the DP sanded down nicely to fit in with my overall theme.

Have a good Sunday.

Rows of Three

A very Good Morning to you all, it's Saturday which means time for a new challenge at Allsorts which my lovely teamie Jo would like to see 'Three in a Row'.

Our sponsors this week are Stitchy Stamps and Pretty Little Ribbons, so two cards from me using products from both.

The one at the top has been stamped with Penny Black 3381K Aspire and Hero Arts K5313 Silhouette Ivy onto Bo Bunny DP using second generation stamping with Adirondack black and butterscotch. The focal sentiment is Penny Black 3157H Growing Free.............I just love the wording on this one..........matted and layered on to Nesite circles and picot edging. The side border is Spellbinders Fleur de Lis, three roses (my row of three on this one, hope that fits OK Jo) cut with Marianne dies and yellow seam binding from Sarah at Pretty Little Ribbons (link to her store on my sidebar)

My second share uses a floral wreath from Stitchy Stamps which I printed onto Fabriano watercolour card and coloured with Aquamarkers. I printed one of the flowers a second time and decoupaged at the bottom. of the circle of flowers. My 'three in a row' on this one are the three butterflies and punched flowers on the bottom section of my easel card which has been covered with American Crafts DP.

Am entering the top card into Pretty Little Ribbons Spring Colours challenge.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Easter basket tutorial and Cup Winners

Good Morning, hope everyone had a good weekend and saw a bit of the lovely sunshine we had here in the Fens, it was really beautiful and Sunday quite warm as there was little or no wind.

Before I can talk craft I have to share a picture of the boys after our win at Wembley yesterday, it was something of a nail biter going to extra time and then penalties, but we got there in the end and are assured of  European footie next season, not to mention another trophy in the cabinet at Anfield. For those of you totally lost and not as mad and fanatical about footie as I am, I mean Liverpool FC !!

Silliness over, on to some craft and I thought I would share one of the little Easter baskets I have been making, the inspiration actually came from a demo I saw on TV for a rather expensive score board and it got me thinking I could probably come up with something similar using my cheapie MDF board which I've had for yonks and hey presto it worked a treat, so here is my take on the basket.

It's a really basic design and I am sure most of you can suss it out for yourself, but just in case I've done a few photos with sizes to help. Above is what I used for mine, one sheet of A4 linen cardstock, I 12x12 sheet DP, some ribbons, Copics, Aquamarkers, scoring tool four eyelets, Nesie and stamp for the image which is Penny Black 2665K Blush and I also used Adirondack raspberry for the main part of the flower.

Start by cutting the A4 sheet of card down to a 21cm square  and score in both directions at 7cm intervals so your piece is divided into nine equal squares, the score the four corner squares diagonally as above. Crease all scored lines and you will see the shape of the basket coming together. The four diagonal corners scores need to be carefully folded inwards.

Next cut 17 - 6.5x6.5cm squares from the sheet of DP, leave 9 whole and cut the other eight in half diagonally, then stick all into place as below. Both sides will look the same with just one centre square blank, that will be your base.

Note: the basket in the picture at the top was my prototype and I didn't cover the folded in flaps, so if you prefer to do it that way to get some contrast you will only need nine of the 6.5cm squares and they won't need cutting in half as you will only be covering the whole squares, five inside and four on the outside.

Stamp your image four times and cut out with a Nestie, I then ran a Copic round the edge rather than matting and layering so as not to add too much weight. Stick on the four outer squares.......make sure you get them the right way up and not upside down as I did on my first attempt !!

Finally pop an eyelet into each of the four corners, draw the basket up into shape and thread ribbon through the eyelets. And walla, you have a pretty little basket to fill with goodies. I will share this pink and green version another day.

And of course you can change the size to larger or smaller, all you need to remember is that your chosen size will divide evenly by three so you get nine equal squares.

In the garden

A very Good Morning to you all, did you get any of the white stuff ? We certainly did, it started last evening and by this morning it was a foot deep against the front door where it had drifted, that's one of the benefits of living in the Fens, when it blows it really does blow. But it looks absolutely beautiful, the dogs have already had a good play in it and later the horses will get a little play or rather roll...........yes Keryn...........like me she loves animals and loves to hear about the horses activities................... it's another of their little treats. Believe it or not horses love snowy and frosty ground to roll in, but only ten or fifteen minutes mind you before it's back into their stables for the daily carrot hunt.

It's the first Sunday of the month so that means new challenges at Penny Black and More and Stampalot. The theme at Penny Black and More is 'Lets Play Bingo', but no ordinary Bingo, I decided to try out something different and have created a colour bingo grid. And at Stampalot the theme is 'In the Garden', no prizes for guessing who came up with that theme !! And of course I could have gone in making them forever for the garden theme, but I think two are enough this time round.

For my first Stampalot piece I stamped Hero Arts CG153 on acetate using Archival black ink.........I wanted a larger aperture for my frame than the actual stamp so inked and stamped the left side first, cleaned the stamp and inked just the centre elements and stamped them and finally inked and stamped the right hand side. It actually lined up quite nicely, but the frame covers the edges anyway. Next I then mounted it inside a frame created with Nesties and edged the aperture with another little frame punched from Nitwits DP. I then  stamped the inside element onto a piece of rainbow cardstock using Adirondack dye inks watermelon and meadow, stamps used are Penny Black 3381 Aspire, PB 3948K Fireworks and all time favourite Stampendous P107 Agapanthus Cluster.

I mounted the acetate framework over the flower piece arching it to create a window effect, then mounted the whole piece onto a base card. The two large butterflies and the tiny one on the inner piece are from Hero Arts CL383 and coloured with the same dye inks.

I have been really good with my second piece and dug out some pretty old Stamps Happen stamps as I thought they were ideal for the theme. When I was making this one I came to the conclusion that a non crafting male designed the stamps because who else would come up with four stamps for the four season and make three vertical and one horizontal ?

So I had to come up with a design where I could incorporate all four together and made the base shape using a score board and two pieces of A3 cardstock - it is a bit of a heavyweight card. I coloured all four imaged with Aqumarkers, matted onto bazzil and used two coordinating sheets of Kaiser DP for the background. The sentiment on the central panel is Penny Black 2905H The Best, the swirls a making memories die and the flowers and leaves a Marianne die.

This seems to have become a bit of a lengthy post so I hope you can bear with me until I have finished my Penny Black and More share. I opted for the yellow, white and black row as it's a colour combo I love............and this card is very similar to one a few weeks ago, just different stamps................always so fresh and crisp. My main image is Penny Black 4039K Candid................I don't think they are mean to be daffodils, but I always think with a bit of imagination and the right colours you can get away with it..........and Penny Black 3096F Host of Daffodils. I inked the floral stamps with TH mustard seed and Aquamarkers and spritzed with water before stamping onto as piece of Fabriano watercolour card. The frame is made with Nesties and the flowers Spellbinders and Marianne dies and some feather to finish.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone and I really hope you can join in our challenges this month.

Spring Bluebells

Good Morning from the dull, misty, cold and basically pretty miserable Fens, but I am keeping positive and hoping for a glimmer of sunshine if for no other reason so I can take some photos of my latest makes. And I keep reminding myself Spring is not so far away, judging by the garden the bulbs certainly think so.

So just a quick couple of shares before I head off for my routine bloods, I'm still pretty immobile and the pain is as fierce as ever at times, in fact I reckon I could move backwards quicker then forwards, so needless to say I can't even contemplate driving and hubby is taking me.

But all is positive on the crafty front.......a girl has to do something to pass the time and I do find like so many of you that it helps absorb the mind and the pain seem less evident. Both my cards are made with Ruth's wonderful artwork which you can grab for yourself at A Passion for Stamps. Ruth has drawn some lovely new Spring crocuses which I will be sharing with you shortly and also some very sweet love birds which I need to put to use this week.

My card up top uses the beautiful bluebells, printed onto Fabriano watercolour card, heat embossed with detail clear.....you know my method of throwing the powder on as it comes through the printer and coloured with Aquamarkers. The DP is Nitwits, the roses cut with a Marianne die and the swirl is a Memory Box die, aren't they just so delicate.

My second card is Ruth's columbine printed onto acetate, then placed on one side of a piece of double sided sticky sheet. The reverse is a piece of white tissue paper scrunched up and inked with TH broken china, old paper and stormy sky, then stuck to the reverse side of the sticky sheet. The flower is then coloured with Copics from the reverse through the tissue, this technique never fails to fascinate me. The sentiment is a really old PB wood mounted stamp. I picked a couple of laurel leaves to place in front of my card when I did the photo, but they do look like they have measles in the picture don't they ?

Have a good Tuesday everyone, thanks for popping in and I hope you see a bit of sunshine today.

Floral delight to kick start the New Year

Happy New Year everyone.

And what better start than our first Allsorts challenge of 2011 and it's my turn to host the theme which  is "Paper Piecing".

Lots of you will know it's a technique I rather like and lends itself so well to Ruth's flower images over at A Passion for Stamps........................you MUST pop over to the blog as Ruth has a giveaway at the moment of some images and Promarkers.

The image I have used here is the Acidanthera printed onto Nitwits DP which is a fabulous weight for running through the printer, plus it's A4 in size so perfect. I created the square effect by placing a post it note on the centre of the main piece and inking the edges with TH Victorian Velvet. The background is a piece of Coredinations embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and sanded down a little. The sentiment is Penny Black 3419D.

Ooooops, nearly forgot, here is the lucky winner of the Nitwits DP giveaway I posted the other day..............

Kizzy 

Unfortunately the link to your blog seems to be blocked Kissy, so I can't add the link or mail you, so I hope you see this and mail me brenda@ibas.co.uk with your full postal so I can post them off it you. If I don't hear from you by 10th January I will re-draw the candy.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Happy New Year to you all !!

And what better way to kick start 2012 than with two new challenge themes and perhaps an opportunity to use some of your new crafty stash that Santa delivered ?

At Stampalot Challenge our theme in Monochromatic which gives you plenty of scope to create whatever you fancy and at Penny Black at Allsorts it's 'Love and Hearts' so you can make a head start n all those Valentine cards.

My card at the top is my DT piece for Stampalot and uses the lovely Penny Black 4035K Letter and Flowers which I inked up with a combination of TH Vintage Photo distress ink and Aquamarker sepia, before spritzing with water and stamping onto a piece of Fabriano watercolour card which I pre-stamped and distressed with Hero Arts G3316 Harlequin and F5042 Leaf Flourish. The DP is Cosmo Cricket and I inked a piece of cheesecloth with the same TH ink and made a little pendant from Shrink Plastic.

My second piece for Penny Black and More was more of a challenge as I struggle a bit with the whole love theme....................I freak every time I am asked to do a wedding as I'm not a fan of the repetitiveness of multiple cards....................having just finished the stationery for one rather large and high profile wedding this Spring with close to 400 guests, up pops another.........I don't actually seek out wedding work, it sort of finds me via friends, then I hate to say no.

So I opted for the same technique of inking the stamp and spritzing with water, this time with Penny Black 3796K Words Sweet and just Aquamarkers. I mounted it onto a mat created with MS round the page three dot scallop, added some ribbons and gems and a sentiment Penny Black 3322D I Love You.

Enjoy the rest of the New Year break and I hope you can join in our challenges.

Hero 2012 debut stamps hit town

Hello peeps, time for a new challenge at Allsorts and this week Fleur is our host and it will be a two week challenge to tide us over the Christmas holiday period. The theme is 'Blue and Brown' a really lovely colour combo which I love working with, so afraid this post is a bit picture heavy.

I had my DT cards all done ages ago, but then the Hero Art 2012 Debut stamps hit Sir Stampalot a couple of days ago so of course I was straight into demo samples and had to share a couple of the gorgeous new images...........doesn't take a lot to get me excited. They are already shipping from the shop so you can go here and be amongst the first in the UK to get your hands on them.

So first off with the card at the top of this post which uses Hero Arts K5576 Newspaper Tulips. I inked the stamp with Aquamarkers, spritzed with water and stamped onto a piece of Fabriano watercolour card and lightly distressed the edges with TH broken china and tea dye. The DP is Kaiser.

My second card used another of the newbies, Hero Arts K5540 Spring Dream this time inked with hero Hues Latte. The frame cut with Nesties and the background DP are all Bo Bunny. The border are corners are Spellbinders Parisien Accents, plus some flowers and leaves cut from a Marianne die and a piece of cheesecloth which I inked with TH broken china to tone down the colour.

Next up my original DT cards, the one above uses the beautiful Hero Arts S5362 Dogwood stamp which I stamped onto a base piece using versafine sepia and embossed with detail clear, then stamped a second time onto some DP from stash to cut out and decoupage. The sentiment is a section on Penny Black 2695J  and lots of pearls to embellish.

And finally, my fourth card uses a quite old stamp from Penny Black which I always think makes a perfect male card. I masked a piece of Fabrinao watercolour card round the edges and two central section to create three panels. With the masking in place I sponged the panels with TH broken china, then stamped stamped Hero Arts S5364 Antique flower background using Hero chalk ink latte. I then removed the two centre piece of masking tape and stamped  Penny Black 2827K  using versafine sepia and embossed with detail clear before removing the remainder of the masking tape. I embossed a piece of Coredinations with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and sanded lightly to use as a background piece.

Have a good weekend peeps and hope you all get you final Christmas preparations done and dusted in time to enjoy a wonderful Christmas.

It Takes Two

Good Monring peeps, how are your Christmas preparations going ? I think I am just about there and tomorrow we have a big family day with about twenty coming, so quite a bit of preparation to be done although I confess M&S are taking a good bit of the effort out of it.

It's my turn to host the theme at Allsorts this week and I would like to see creations on the theme "It Takes Two".................basically use just two colours on your work, but you can use white as well as your base colour.

Two DT cards for me, the one at the top of my post............yellow and black...............uses Ruth's A Passion for Stamps Narcissus image which you will find here, coloured with Aquamarkers and decoupaged onto a mat cut with Nestabilities, stamped with Hero Arts H2635 Old French writing and inked round the edges with TH mustard. The DP is Kasier and the sentiment is Penny Black 3096F.

For the second card I have used one of the Christmas stamps from Stampendous JGS157 which I fell in love with as soon as I saw it and ended up making quite a few with it as it lends itself to all occasions apart from Christmas, in fact I'm not sure I actually made a Christmas card with it.

For this one I stamped the image onto vellum using versafine black and embossed with detail clear. I coloured the image from behind with Copics and decoupaged some of the flowers. I machined round the edge of the Bo Bunny DP and tied a simple seam binding bow at the side. I love the fresh colours of this one, make me think of Spring...................

Our sponsors this week are A Passion for Stamps and Scotch Tapes whose restickable tabs I used on my both my cards....................you will find a bit more about them on the challenge blog and also here on a post I did last week where I also used them.

Have a good weekend everyone and as always, thank you so much for popping by.

Candy winner and a new lantern image

Good Morning Peeps, I hope you all had a good weekend.

As promise the winner of my weekend candy is..........................

Ciacchina

Please mail me with your full postal addy brenda@ibas.co.uk.

And I thought I would share a couple of my recent makes for Ruth, you will find all the images at A Passion for Stamps.

The top card uses Ruth's new Christmas lantern image which I printed onto inkjet acetate and glittered on the reverse, cut a bracket from Cricket Christmas Solutions and mounted them over some branches stamped with  a Stampendous stamp. The sentiment is Penny Black.

The circle card uses the Christmas rose image, printed out twice, coloured with Aquamarkers and the flowers decoupaged.

Have a good day everyone and thanks for dropping by.

Birthday Bingo

Good Morning all, it's the first Sunday of the month so that means new challenges at Stampalot and Penny Black and More. 


In case you missed it, I have a little weekend candy giveaway details here, just leave a comment to be in with a chance.

At Stampalot we invite you to play Bingo with us and at Penny Black and More we are celebrating "Birthdays".

The card at the top is my Penny Black DT card using Penny Black 4164K A Rose stamped simply in black versafine, embossed with detail clear and coloured with Copics.Matted onto bazzil, a punched border with some added pearls and a sentiment from Darkroom Door.  A really quick and simple card.

On both of my cards I had a play with the new tabs from Scotch which are so effective and as the name suggests they really are re-stickable, how cool is that. They are double sided, easy to use, will stick to any surface, remove cleanly and because they are clear you don't see them when they are used for such things as hanging Christmas decorations. Best of all, when you are finished with them you can simply wash them in soapy water and they are as good as new.

For my Stampalot DT card I selected the Bingo row "Pearls, Flowers and Punch". The base card is some really nice ribbed Kraft cardstock, swirls cut with a Marianne die and accented with pearl drops, a flower cut with TH tattered floral die from the same DP as I used along the bottom of the card.............it was scraps from stash and I am note sure of the make, but could be Doodlebug. I stamped two butterflies with versafine sepia and embossed with detail clear.........they are Hero Arts ones but unmounted which typical me means I have no idea of the code as the packing has long since been lost.

Have a good Sunday everyone and thank you so much for dropping by.

Penny Black candy and another DT challenge

I'm back again with the second of the challenges I set the Design Team at Penny Black and More.

Before I tell you about that, I need to tell you that we are having a little mid month giveaway. A name will be selected from all the new followers to Penny Black and More who sign up between today and 4th December. I have popped a picture of the lovely Penny Black giveaway on the challenge blog.

I called this kit "Merry Christmas" and thought it would be an ideal theme as we roll along................rather quickly it seems...............towards December.

Again the DT came up with a wonderful array of inspiration and so many different takes on the the me and I think it's fair to say they all really enjoyed the challenges and it's definitely something we will do again.

Kit included 3 sheets Echo Park DP (various patterns but all from the same colour family), Bazzil Basic, 1M red organza ribbon, 2 decorative pins, MS punched holly, 1 vellum roses cut with a Marianne die, Card base cut with Grand Nesties Labels 23, Red nailheads.

In addition to the kit items, I used Penny Black 4208K Christmas Narrative as my image which I stamped onto a piece of my DP and stamped the flower again onto another piece and decoupaged. I ran the piece of Bazzil through the Big Shot Pro using a Cuttlebug embossing folder and distressed it with a sanding block.