Speedy cards Part 1

Hi All

Back again with some speedy cards that we made at a super slick class with Alex Kamann our copic colourist extraordinaire....... The two below are both made using distress inks and a lovely Hero Arts stamp called Silhouette Vines. The first one is embossed in detail black and then the flowers coloured with Seedless Preserves, Peeled Paint and Mustard Seed. It really makes the flowers pop. The second card, which I love was supposed to be in reverse to the first, but you know me...... I replaced the Seedless Preserve ink with Broken China and added a little bit of Spiced Marmalade. Well its good to add a bit of spice to your life...... This time I clear embossed the stamp in clear and then rubbed Vintage Photo instead of black and I am really pleased with the result.

This card was really quick as it has one background stamp Hero Arts Newspaper background, three stripes of dotted Washi tape and the patterned rectangle was made with nothing more than two copics (of course I didn't write down the numbers did I!!) A quick message and a couple of brads and a home made flower using three discs of paper which  have been sprayed with water scrunched up and left to dry & Voila!

Another pair of quick cards to make once the original paper is dry. A square piece of gloss paper covered with an Imagination Crafts stencil - Butterfly Delight. We spritzed with Cosmic Glimmer mists, copper, red, bronze and teal. I then lay another piece of plain paper on top which picked up the mist which was sitting on the mask itself. Two for the price of one..... once dry these cards took minutes to assemble

Finally wasn't the parade today marvellous and it was great to see everyone on the Mall waving flags and all so happy to have seen the Queen for a few seconds on the way to St Pauls and back. Some people had camped out all night, now that's dedication.

Unfortunately I had some really bad news this afternoon about my ex-sister in law, who is very seriously ill in hospital following a stroke at the age of 43. Our thoughts and prayers are with her, her new husband and my nephew who is only 13.

Diamond Jubilee and I'm a winner

Well, what a weekend this is turning out to be..... Saturday was the Summer Spectacular at the Glitter pot..... is it really possible to spend so much when one appears to have everything (quotes Dean!). We then travelled down to Seaford with fellow crafting buddy Janet and her husband, where we had lunch, a lovely blowy walk along the beach (the sun even emerged for a little while!)  and a little tour of their perfectly formed holiday caravan on the cliffs overlooking this beautiful stretch of beach. I am amazed at how much you can fit into such a restricted amount of space. Albeit should my crafty friend have put in even a fraction of her stash, we probably wouldn't have been able to move!!

Back in Cobham we were just in time to enjoy the last couple of hours of the street party which was still heaving 2 hours after the road closure licence expired. Good job all the people who would have driven down the cul-de-sac were making merry!

Yesterday was so miserable I couldn't stir myself to do anything, so packed the boys and the dog off down the pub and sat glued to the TV watching the River Pageant from start to finish. I have to say what an impressive lady our Maj is. I think I would have been struggling to stand all the way down the Thames and that weather let alone at the age of 86 years. She epitomises everything that is great about this country, and for this weekend all thoughts of austerity and recession are put away whilst we celebrate with this fantastic lady.

Today we ventured out to a fabulous pub (sod the diet!) near Chalfont St Peter in Bucks with the MIL. They had a huge free pig roast available for all their patrons, but we didn't want to wait and had some of their fabulous signature dishes instead. Once we had dutifully spent the afternoon fussing around her (yes I won't elaborate, but you know the personality!) we slopped off home for another night in front of the TV (well its the weather) and a watched the concert in the Mall. Once again a fabulous event, but managed to keep the Kleenex at bay until (in my opinion) Lydia sang the Gary Barlow song. I have managed to include the link from Youtube and I defy you to watch this through and not feel a well of pride at being British.

Finally I am a winner! The lovely Michelle Short over at the Card Grotto recently had a birthday and gave away some lovely candy as you can see below to yours truly! I shall have great fun playing with this and if you have a chance please check out Michelle's blog which is simply stunning.

 

Well as seems to be normal at the moment I need to dash so I can get dinner cooked and get my prime seat ready for the concert tonight..... how exciting.

 I will be back tomorrow..

As always thanks for looking
Hugs

Pomp & Pagentry

Dear All

Back again with some more cards from the Glitter Pot. This time by the uber talented Jane Gill. The cards have been stamped in Black Archival ink and clear embossed. They are then coloured with Sakura Gelly Roll pens, which I don't know about you, but mine have not seen the light for quite

some time! 

 This card uses the With Love Doodle and matted on some Bazzill scraps. I love the coral colour, but don't ask me what colour it is! The heart is made with Card Candi and provides some lift on what could have been quite a flat card.

 The camera wouldn't behave for this card as I couldn't keep it all in focus and not have a shadow at the top..... I still think you can see the detail. Once again a Woodware stamp. but this time we used the Huge Cake and |Candles. Coloured with Sakura Gelly roll pens again, but this time I picked some colours which would be more appropriate for a wedding and a touch of stickles to bring out the edges of the icing.

Another Doodle stamp - Happy Birthday, which I coloured with a Primary palate and I think this would be a very useful stamp for kids, especially with the Huge Cake and Candles stamped onto shrink plastic lightly coloured and then shrunk down and used as an embellishment.

Finally my favourite layout and stamp and of course that means the worst photo.This one is purely light related as the weather is not conducive for taking macro shots. Once again we used a Doodle stamp - Best Wishes coloured with Sakura Gelly Roll pens.... I must dust mine off again as these are such quick and easy cards to make......

Right must dash I need to get my prime position on the sofa for the Queens Diamond Jubilee river pageant. How exciting............

As always thanks for looking

Hugs

Sara

More Tim Holtz.......

Dear all

Back again soon, I bet you are all in shock! Once I had taken all the photos (badly) in my craft room last night I felt so motivated to get back on the blog again and the rest of my weekend is so jammed packed so I scheduled this for today and whilst you are reading this I will be filling my basket down at the Glitterpot Summer Spectacular, whilst Dean patiently waits in the car with the dog!!

I just love the colours that the very talented Jackie Huckstepp used in the cards. They all use distress inks and the Tim Holtz Fairytale Frenzy stamp set, each one has a different technique. This first one is embossed using the Bubble set.

 This second one uses the new distress markers and I have to say that I am probably going to upset many crafters when I say that I really don't get on with them. I love all the other Tim Holtz products and the inks have to sit in my top five items I couldn't live without, but I found they didn't blend the way I wanted. However the finished result still looked good and I love the colours... way out of my normal range.

This final card used the ultra trendy splatter technique to add definition to the card which had been distressed with Worn Lipstick ink and then splattered with water and patted dry. The colour lifts off and looks great. The stamp is a Woodware stamp called Grasses that I was already in love with. It stamps beautifully. I have coloured it with distressed markers and then softened the edges with water.

At this rate don't be surprised if I am back tomorrow!!

Thanks for looking

Hugs 

Tim Holtz

Dear All

Yippee an extra long weekend thanks to this fabulous lady. I have to say a big WOW to her..... 60 years doing the same job and what a great one she has done. The whole of our cul-de-sac in leafy Cobham is covered in bunting and flags and looks so pretty. I am an unabashed whole hearted royalist, which is hardly surprising given is was born within the shadow of Windsor Castle! The whole highstreet is also covered in flags and quite a number of the streets will be closing at noon for street parties. Dean my partner is quite the opposite so I have agreed a compromise from all the festivities with a morning at the GlitterPot Summer Spectacular and an afternoon down on the south coast walking the dog. But when he slopes off to a soggy game of cricket on Sunday I will be a full patriot and glued to all the festivities.

So back to business with a few photos of the cards I have been making down at the Glitter Pot with the girls. These cards were made using the lush dies from the King of craft himself Tim Holtz.

I just love these colours and the bird cage has been covered in the Frantage embossing Enamel - Aged Rose

This one uses the On the edge die - Doily, which is beautiful when it works and an real pain if you don't get the right shim. I love the way it looks when its layered and these colours are so elegant.

This card uses the Movers and Shakers Die - Dream, which was really tricky to cut through the base card, but it looked so good when shadowed with the Jacaranda blue Bazzill card stock. The paper is antique script and the paper is the beautiful new forget-me-not paper from Magnolia.The stamp is an individual TH stamp - Flutter and is overlaid by the bird from the Caged Bird die.

Finally I think this is my fav of the day and uses the Sewing Room die and the On the Edge Die - Sewing Edge. The colour combination is so me and using the silver card candy really makes the silver mirri card sissors more real. The Tim Holtz Alterations - Texture Fades Embossing Folders - Pattern & Stitches Set, which has been distressed with Black Soot.

Well thats all for now

More over the weekend

Hugs

First time as a limette!

Dear all
I have ventured out of my old habits and tried my hand at a new challenge over at Less is more. This week they have the theme of Punches or Die Cuts, which is heaven for me as I have absolutely fallen in love with the memory box dies and now I have my Mojo back having been itching to have a play. So here is my entry......

Not quite fully in the spirit, but I hope to pare down to the reems of white that the rest of the limetts are already conversant with and boy have they come up with some fabulous cards.

Anyway end of the weekend boo  ...... so off to bed

Night & thanks for looking

Hugs

Flower Power

Dear all

Quick post with some cards made this evening. They were inspired by a very lovely card make by the ultra talented Alison Moore down at the Glitter Pot.

I'm entering the first one in the challenge over at Cute Card Thursday which is Flower Power.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

I'm back!

It seems only five minutes since I was posting that we were off around the world for a few months. You can see from our other blog that we had a great time, but it all ended far too soon and now we are back into the daily grind of life.
One thing that did seem to disappear is my mojo for crafting. I struggled all through the autumn hardly making a card and unhappy with every one. I even tried classes at the Glitter Pot and although it was great to catch up with all the 'girls' I still couldn't settle back in my craft den. Christmas was equally frustrating and even though I started hopping around all the lovely creations on blogland Mr Mo was truely out partying with Ms Jo.





New Year and back off on our travels with a five day trip to Moscow which was expensive but amazing and I started to get the creative urges back........ but only to take photo's ........
As usual we then jetted off to watch England cricket side, this time for a week in Dubai & Abu Dhabi. Dubai was a horrible dusty, place full of dead buildings following the financial crisis. However Abu Dhabi was beautiful, opultent and over the top. The colour and sun all started to stimulate my senses and when we got back I was stirred to make some cards for Valentines day. I even made enough to sell at work....... more money for stash and went off to the GP last saturday to spend my new found wealth.  I also did a class with Jane Gill which was fun!




So here is one of the cards (rubbish photo I know! Must get light box out) I made which I am going to belatedly enter some into  some challenges:

Truely Scrumptious - All creatures great and small

Penny Black Saturday - Love and Kisses

Secret Crafter - Red, White & White with Texture

Papertake Weekly - Black & white & red all over

Hope to be back soon...........

Hugs

Sara

Travel Blog

Dear all

With only 12 days until we leave of our round the world 'Gap year' I have finally managed to set up a little blog which Dean & I will be posting bits of our journey to update you all!!

http://deanosontour.blogspot.com/

The name is inspired by the cricket fraturity that we travel with who imaginatively came up with the name Mrs Deano on my first tour (partner's name being Dean !!), which has sort of stuck & we are now known as 'the Deano's'  - I didn't say it was clever!

Please feel free to come and leave a comment or two on our travels. It will be great to hear what's happening with you guys.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

On the move

Dear all

We now have some limited access to email, which gives me an opportunity to update everyone with our news.

The house is nearly finished, just a bit of snagging and the floors to put down then we can move back in. Its so exciting to finally have a move date and I can't wait to put all of my bits and pieces back in their new homes.

The sort of bad news it that I won't be able to get my craft room up and running cos guess what we are off again, but this time around the world!! We leave on the 12th September bound for the far East with all sorts of adventures planned for the following 11 months. So with bitter sweet anticipation I will be stroking everything reverently before packing my craft stuff up in the loft (well the remaining stash after my mother had raided it!!).

We are going to set up an adjacent Blog which we will use a a travel journal. As soon as I have pulled my finger out I will let you know the link!

Catch you soon

Hugs

Dino Saw................

Back again

Found a bit of time to do another card tonight and went from complete girly pinks to male neutrals not that you should really stereotype colours I know quite a few men that wear pink (shirts!).

The house renovations are moving along nicely and we now have the new roof going on the old house and the new extension. Inside the rewire is complete and all the plastering is well underway so now I get all the nice tasks of picking light fittings and bathroom tiles etc.

Anyway the card tonight is once again covering  a number of really fabulous challenges:

Fridays Sketchers - Sketch
Colour Create - Khaki/Aqua/Brown/Cream with an additional requirement of circles (oops missed this one!!)
Secret crafter - metal
Stampin for the weekend - A card for a male

This image is one from Woodware and has been coloured with distress inks onto suede paper which gives a very lovely texture. The papers are from an old pad had from BG and all the colours really suit masculine cards. I embossed a piece of scrap card to look like metal and added some ribbon from Stamping Up  and a little metal charm to finish it off.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Say it with Flowers

Hi Everyone

Very quick post as I couldn't resist making a card tonight as there were some fantastic challenges around.
LOTV -Sketch
Cute Card Thursday -Someone special
Just Magnolia - One for the Girls
Basic Grey - Punch it
A Spoonful of Sugar -Cute & Girly
Papertake weekly - Say it with Flowers
Penny Black - Flowers

Phew told you I was inspired!!!

I just love this new Tilda and I know I went a little mad with the flowers, which I also glimmer misted but ho hum they are very cute that way.

Recipe: Stamps: Sentiments x2 penny Black Salutations, Midsummer Tilda from magnolia. Papers:  Basic Grey - Sugared. Martha Stewart Lever Border Punch - Lace Doily. Flowers fromWild Orchid. Card Candy from Craftwork Cards. Ribbon from stash & stickles all over!

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Friendship

Hi Everyone

Last card for this week as I am finding it too hard to craft when back from work as I am having to spend over 4 hours each day commuting which is a bit of a killer. the building work is coming along. I now have a couple of walls missing, the new extension walls are now built and the first fix new electrics have been done in the old house. Not bad for one week!

So anyway back to today's card. This is another male card (I'm getting there!) and uses some old BG Design papers I have had for ages. I have also managed to fit it into three challenges:

Fridays sketchers - Sketch
Penny Black - Punches
Secret Crafter - Friendship

I thought this stamp really fitted the bill especially the accompanying sentiment.I coloured it with copics, but managed to avoid my customary stickles frenzy! However I couldn't leave it too plain so out came the MS punch!

Recipe: Stamp: Flyaway from Penny Black coloured with copics.Papers: Basic grey from my stash, and Bazzill in red and blue.. Ribbon from stash.

As always thanks for looking

Hugs

Thankyou

Evening Everyone

Three days in a row, don't go into shock, I did say I would be scheduling some postings!

Todays card follows three challenges:
Sketch Saturday - Sketch
Creative Inspirations - Easel Card
ABC - T is for thankyou

I just had to use my new Magnolias again, and actually ended up using the same Tilda longing stamp as she seemed to lend herself  to these lovely papers from My Minds Eye called Life Stories.

I had to slightly tweak the sketch and add some flowers as I managed to drop an ink pad onto the bottom of the card! However I rather like it this way so another one of those happy accidents we all have once in a  while!

A close up showing the inside of the card with a cute little message fom Hero arts

Recipe: Stamps: Tilda Longing Magnolia, Message Hero Arts. Papers: My Minds Eye - Life Stories. Punch Martha Stewart double hearts. Flowers Prima Painterly Petals Hydrangeas - Rose. Diamante & ribbon from stash

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Do Something different

Hi all

Don't worry this is real! Two post in two days! I am making use of the broadband so am scheduling a few post for the rest of the week as well.

The weather has continued to be good here although it didn't really matter as I have been crafting all day!
So anyway today's card is a bit of a departure for me as I used an 8x8 card for the first time and then using a pair of scalloped scissors (another first) converted it in to a circular card (a triple first!). It all fitted in nicely with a few challenges namely:

Cupcake Craft - Don't be square
Mojo Monday - Sketch
Lily of the Valley - Here comes Summer
Simon Says Stamp - Buttons, Bows & Bling
Papertake Weekly - Do something different.

I used this very cute stamp from LOTV called lazy afternoon and seemed so apt for a summer theme. The papers were the Bobunny Flutter butter papers and a few scraps from the bottom of my craft bag. All the papers have been distressed using vintage photo ink. I made a faux button from a small scrap of paper and some Diamond Glaze and used it to represent the sun. Here is a close up:

Recipe: Stamps: LOTV - Lazy afternoon coloured with copics. Papers: Bobunny Flutter butter breeze, Flutter butter cutouts & stickers. Die cuts - Scalloped circles - Nestabilities, Martha Stewart - Punch Around The Page Edge Punch.  - Loops. Ribbon and glass beads from stash

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Told you I'd be back!

Hi everyone

I hope you are having a great long weekend. I escaped the madness of our temporary new home to spend 5 hours fighting my way up to Lancashire for a weekend with the parents and of course a bit of crafting. My mum has been lucky and managed to persuade my father to do a loft conversion (Well he and a friend) and make a hobby room, which has just been finished and you have to agree it looks fab.

There is another desk for my father and loads of space for books etc. Today the sun just poured in above (unlike you unlucky souls in the south!) and I finally managed to put ink to rubber!

I was pretty much spoilt for choice today so managed a few challenges along the way:

Truly Scrumptious - Sketch with added requirement to make a hidden message

Totally Gorjuss - In stitches

Stamptacular Sunday -'Sew' Special

A Spoon Full of Sugar - 3D something

I used my newly arrived spring collection from Magnolia and some very pretty papers from craftwork cards that managed to fall into my basket at a show.

To complete the recipe from TS I added a secret message to the tab and hid it under the image. All the images have been coloured with a mix of watercolour pencils and distressed inks and then raised on silicon. I just love this little frog and the cute message which all came in the pack.  

Here is a close up which also shows the faux stitching around the tag.

So I hope to get some more cards make over the next couple of days, but am not sure when they will be posted as I we don't have broadband at the flat so am currently using anyone who will let me!

Have a fab weekend everyone and hope to do a little blog hopping soon and leave some messages..... promise!.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

All moved on..

Hi All

Its been a while, but we finally moved last weekend and I  managed to sneak quite a bit of crafty stuff into our temporary home so hopefully I will be able to dive back in soon. Not being able to craft has been worse than when I gave up smoking as I find it always relaxes me no matter how tough the day. Plus its been hell  seeing all the new goodies pouring into my fav shops and having to resist temptation when I have so many other bits and pieces to order for the house. The builder starts on Monday so we are doing our final sweep of the house this weekend, which makes a great change to packing boxes - How did I manage to accumulate so much stuff!!

I have 15 weeks in our little flat and then we move back to our place and my new craft room! Can't wait!
So bear with me a little longer and I will have something to show soon.....

Hugs