Daisy Delight

Good Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all well and that those of you that are battling different challenges, gentle, healing hugs are on the way to you.

Today's card is another version of this week's Sketch Challenge.  I decided to use the Daisy Delight Designer series paper that I have been saving, just to stroke and admire of course!  However it's to nice  not to share with all if you, I actually remember that Paul and I had matching curtains, quilt cover and wallpaper border in a very similar pattern to this, it was more of a denim blue though, do this still  match bedding and wallpaper border?  Oh there was a lampshade too!  It was back in the late  80's though!

Anyway back to the card, I matted and layered some Night of Navy and white  card as a base for the DSP, I glued that down too then stamped the Daisy Delight Stamp 6 times (2 for each daisy). I punched then out, shaped them and added a Faceted Gem to the centre of each Daisy. I created a topped with more white and Night of Navy card and then placed 3 daisies onto the topper, adding some foliage to finish.

I then made a decorative border with the Ribbon Border Punch and finished it with some narrow white ribbon. 

I tied a bow and made a tiny daisy with a flower centre from another die set, topped it with a glimmer dot. I popped this onto my bow.   I stamped a 'Thank You" in Night of Navy ink and added to my border.

Pat, I hope that your day at the hospital isn't too long today, it was great to read that Pete had a lovely day yesterday, it will help keep his mind off other things XXX

I hope you all have a good day, I think we are doing some preparation for holiday today. 

Love and hugs to all of you

Sandra 

Xxxxxxx

Monday Sketch Challenge

My Challenge Card

The Sketch

Good Morning Ladies,

I thought we would go back to having a nice easy to follow Sketch for the challenge this week.  I quite liked the look of this one, Michele thought it would be good for Christmas cards too.

You can choose whatever theme you like, I've gone for a 'just for you ' card this time as it can be sent for many reasons from 'thanks' to 'thinking of you'!  

For my card I used Stampin'Up! 'Eastern Palace' suite and 'So Saffron' card and ink. 

I created the 'flower' with the 'Eastern Medallion' Thinlits' which I stamped with 'So Saffron' ink.  The border at the bottom was created with a piece of 'So Saffron' card to which I added two pieces of 'Whisper White' card that I has punched the new Stampin'Up Ribbon Border Punch, I finished it this a piece of white ribbon and a bow.  I added a 'Just For You' sentiment with a stamp from. 'Teeny Tiny Sentiments'.

The centre of the flower is finished with a Stampin Up Faceted Gem stone.

I am going to make a little confession here, up until this last month I had refused to buy Stampin'Up! 'Whisper White' card, I kept saying that I had loads of my own white card and paper why would I need to buy any more!  

That was until the Craft Weekend we went on where I got to use 'Whisper White' in each of the projects we did, OMG what an epiphany !! It is the smoothest, silkiest feeling stamping card I have ever stroked!  and believe me I have stroked a lot over the years, it stamps like a dream, so now I am truly converted! 

I look forward to seeing all of your Challenge cards trickling in over the week.

Have a lovely day ladies,

Love and hugs

Sandra

xxxxxx

Your Amazing Challenge cards

The Challenge

Lilian

Lilian went for 'That' embossing folder, (the most sought after on the internet)! 

For her card this week, choosing the categories

Embossing, Embellishment & Yellow

Such a bright, cheerful card that would brighten anyone's day.

Thank you so much Lilian 

XXX

 Brenda

Brenda chose the categories : Embossing, Grey & Die Cut, 

Using a Crafters Companion 3D Embossing Folder, oh my goodness it looks 

Like Guipure Lace, I absolutely love the effect, you really need nothing else 

Other than a sentiment and embellishment, which is exactly what Brenda

Has added, I have to say that little touch of pink works so well with the Grey,

I think it will become one of my new favourite colours!

Thank you so much Brenda for rushing to get a card made.

XXX

Val

Val chose the categories: Grey, Embossing and Die cut, creating a pretty embossed background, I love how you have added that little touch of decorative paper that picks up the grey perfectly, the butterfly finishes the card perfectly!

Thank you so much Val 

XXX 

Janet has become a stamping queen over this past 6 months, I'm not sure 

If it was getting the 'Faux Misti' that got you started but I distinctly remember

You saying 'I'm not really a stamper', now like me, most of your cards

have Stamping on them, it brings a huge smile to my face, it shows 

that it's not just the newer paper Crafters like Margaret that have 

grown in the number of different 'mediums' we use to create 

cards, we are all learning together. 

Your card is fantastic Janet, the sentiment is very true too! 

Ooh almost forgot....

Janet chose : Grey, Masculine & Yellow!

Thanks Janet 

XXX

Karen has made two cards for this challenge, choosing the categories:

Grey, Yellow & Birthday (card 1)

Hexagon, Embellishment & Die cut (card 2)

Here is Karen's description:

New Birth - all with Sue W dies and a printed sentiment, all mounted onto foam tape. I created the card blank using dies and mounted the shadow box onto cream to give a little bit of contrast between the white elements. I may change the sentiment to "It's a ..." once gender is known! This is the first card I have made with yellow and grey - I love it!
birthday/gray/yellow

On the second one I have used a free Serif kit - Envelopes 2012. I made the card blank by resizing a hexagon and welded together with a third hexagon to cover the "join" on ScaNCut, decoupaged the bowler hat and moustache My embellishment is a die cut Sue W bow set plus a pearl!
hexagon/die cut/embellishment

I love both of these cards Karen, the Grey and yellow baby card is perfect for when you

Don't know what flavour baby us expected! (Not that many have the patience to wait these days)!

Thank you so much for taking part.

XXX

Maria

Maria has chosen the categories:

Grey, Yellow, Masculine

Maria has made this fantastic card for her Step-Son's birthday,

He is a keen cook so Sue's Apron Die is perfect for his card, I love all 

the amazing details you have added, the oven gloves are fab!

Thank you my lovely

XXX

Lynda

Lynda has made 3 challenge cards for this weeks challenge,

Choosing Categories:

Grey, Yellow & Die cut

Grey, Yellow & Masculine

Lynda has used her Stampin'Up ! Stamp sets to create her challenge cards

'Timeless Textures' and 'Touches of Texture' are the stamp sets that Lynda chose,

they work brilliantly together, you have created 3 amazing cards Lynda,

You are another one of our blog family that is stamping more and more.

I hope you feel the excitement I do, it's like we have a whole new world

of crafting goodies, like me you used to mainly buy dies!

Thank you so much Lynda 

XXX

Michele

Michele has also created 3 cards for this week's challenge,

Choosing the categories:

Masculine, Embossing, Wood

Grey, Hexagon, Happy Birthday

Hexagon, Embossing,Yellow

Three totally different and totally fantastic cards Michele, 

The first one has the wood embossing detail in the background that works 

well with the tree in the topper.

The second card meets more than three categories with it being hexagonal,

It's grey and yellow, has a happy birthday die cut and embellishment, amazing attention to detail Mrs C !!! 

Third card is one that Michele entered into magazine Design competition,

Michele had to work to strict guidelines, luckily it works for our Challenge too.

Thank you so much Michele

XXX

Margaret

Margaret has chosen the categories:

Embossing, Happy Birthday & Embellishment

Margaret has used the beautiful 'Birthday Blooms' stamp set from

Stampin' Up to create her card, such a pretty combination Margaret.

I know you have had a busy week so an even bigger thank you to you my lovely.

XXX

Well you all certainly rose to that challenge, you did amazingly well!

Can I ask you all if you liked this style of challenge??

there are so many combinations out there, I would love to try another 

in a few weeks, I need to think about next week's challenge first!

Have a lovely Sunday ladies and anyone looking in that doesn't comment, 

We'd love to have you join in our daily chat, we discuss just about anything

From Politics to paper craft, all very tongue in cheek of course !! 

Love and hugs to all

Sandra

XXX 

Mixed up Saturday

Mixed Craft Saturday

Good Morning Ladies,

Welcome to our Mixed Craft Saturday,

First up today we have :

Janet's stunning, boxed New Home Card, Janet it looks like you have used a

Fancy card fold for this card, I love how the middle section stands out

Fully displaying that beautiful die cut scene, of what looks like an

Alpine village, it looks as though you have stamped a scene behind too.

Such an amazing Keepsake, I love the box too, it makes a card more of a gift!

Thank you so much for sharing

XXX

Val's Fold back card, now I don't quite know how I missed this last Sunday but

I did and I always promise you that I will share what you make so

Here is Val's other challenge card, I love both the image and the sentiment, 

Sometimes it's hard finding a funny sentiment that isn't either too rude or too

Stupid, I think this sentiment is perfect, you could give it to anyone.

Thanks so much Val for sending your card in, I hope that the weather has 

Cooled down for you a little. 

XXX

Karen, you haven't changed a bit, what an amazing scrapbook page!

Here is Karen's description:

A couple of years ago, at my little craft club, we had a challenge, and the choice was "school days". I made this scrapbook page with my very first school photo! It was made with a Serif kit. If you look closely at my eyes, they look a little strange because my little sister decided to colour "me" in, hence the "red scribble". My dad was a brilliant knitter, he taught me, made the cardigan I am wearing and so, the template is a little nod to him and his job as a draughtsman.

Other ladies made things like an embroidered book cover to hide "Lady Chatterley's Lover", another made a beautiful model of an old schoolroom, complete with outside toilets!

Karen, thank you so very much for sharing 

XXX

Now onto Shopping :

Janet has bought some lovely new Crafters Companion 3D Embossing Folders 

And dies for her Gemini, such a fantastic selection Janet I would love to see them 

Die/cut and Embossed, looking forward to seeing what you make!

Thanks for sharing

XXX

Tracy has bought herself some of Sue's latest Christmas release die collection.

You have chosen some absolutely stunning dies Tracy, the background is really

pretty, I have one very similar from a year or two ago.

The snowflake is lovely too, I am really looking forward to seeing your 

Christmas cards, I think it's 22 Weeks now, so we must start soon .

Thanks for sharing my lovely

XXX

Lynda has bought some lovely new goodies too, some fantastic Stampin'Up 

Stamp sets, love the birds set, I have the Lace set and the Thank you stamp too, 

They all stamp beautifully, you will live playing with them Lynda.

Those stunning paper pads are from the Works, they are amazing quality too.

Does this mean you won't be using your Northern Lights pad this week?

Last but not least is the beautiful 'tuck in' die, perfect for adding little bits

Of detail to your cards without taking over the whole background.

Thank you so much Lynda for sharing your shopping

XXX

What are you all up to this weekend???

Not much on the cards here, we had the most tremendous rain storms 

here last night, the roads in town were totally flooded.

We popped into town to get some groceries for tea, we only usually

Shop in Aldi as they have most of what we need but we needed to pop into 

Morrison's die for some Tiger Bread as we were having Fish Finger sandwiches

for tea, Paul decided to park there and said we would just pop over to Aldi, 

Well to see the Heavens opened was an understatement, the rain was bouncing about

3 feet in the air, it was hammering it down, we waited in the Aldi entrance for about 

10 minutes then Paul decides it's slowing down so we will 'Go for it'!! I was holding

Onto my wheelchair for dear life, I can honestly tell you that the rain was stinging 

My skin it was that hard, it felt like being jetwashed with ice water, I've never squealed so much in public in my entire life, it took me a good two hours to warm 

up, I had to blow dry my hair too.  So I don't think we will bother with the allotment 

today, we have heavy clay soil so it will just stick to your feet, I am hoping the rain will help close up some of the huge crevasses that have appeared because of the dry 

Spell.

Michele I hope your sale goes well today XX

Love and hugs to all

Sandra

XXX

Definitely Dahlia

Good Morning Ladies,

Here we aren't the end of another week, they are flying by way to fast right now, the Girls school closes for Summer tomorrow, they have been home for the past week and a half though as they finished all exams and some of the Sixth Form group had Work Experience this past two weeks but the girls have decided to wait until next year to do theirs as the will turn 18 in February so they will have a lot more opportunities available to them.  

I had a visit from. Mr Brown yesterday, I swear he had a look of relief as Paul sent to the door and not me in my dressing gown!!

Anyway that meant I had some new goodies to play with.

This card is the result of that play session, I bought a pack of Stampin'up! 'Whisper White' paper in this last order because I got to use some at the weekend meet up and it is so super smooth it feels like silk and it stamps like an absolute dream, I have had quite a difficult and frustrating journey with stamping card since Ann Marie Designs stopped their amazing stamping card, they tried to replace it with something else and it was horrendous but still the same price!! 

Anyway I used a piece of the Whisper White card to stamp my new "Definitely Dahlia' background stamp onto, I used versamark and Clear Embossing Powder to create the 'resist technique' I then coloured over the top with 'Sweet Sugarplum' ink using a sponge, I love the results, I added a border of Sweet Sugarplum Striped ribbon with a lacy edge, made with the  New Decorative Ribbon Border Punch, I used the same Basic Grey card that I used in my layers. 

The sentiment came from the SU 'Beautiful Bouquet' stamp set.

I hope you like my card, it works with the Challenge too, Grey, Embossing and  die cut (label).  How are you getting on with yours.

Now I realised that you all don't have the Woodland Embossing Folder and /or a Brayer, I did mention that you could use a sponge to apply the ink or you can swipe the ink pad itself up the Embossing Folder.  I thought you might have a Embossing Folder that you could use to get the effect. It really isn't a problem if you haven't got anything it was just a bit of fun,  mostly to get you all trying the technique. 

I hope you all have a good day, the weather is forecast to be rather changeable over the next few days, so you will all have plenty of craft room time hopefully XXX

Love and hugs to all

Sandra

Xxxxxxx

Challenge card and a Tutorial

Tutorial for Technique

Good Morning Ladies,

Today's card is another Challenge card, (Wood, Embossing, Masculine) and it comes with a Tutorial too.  

When I first saw this stamped effect I thought it was a really complicated stamping technique, therefore it would be way above my stamping ability, how wrong I was, it actually couldn't be simpler, my first attempt was a success, I even did my own version of a happy dance (well more of a happy chair wiggle) 😉 teehee!!

I did several more times to make sure it wasn't a 'fluke' but it worked perfectly each time.

You simply ink up the side of the Embossing Folder that has 'sizzix' on (the trees are recessed) using either your Brayer, come on I bet you have one somewhere that you bought while watching Barb Gray on Create and Craft, I blew the dust off of mine that had sat, untouched since the day I bought it!! 

You can also use a sponge to ink it up just make sure you cover only the surface of the folder.  Once you have your background colour down you can stamp whatever you like onto the surface of the folder and it will appear behind the trees.  I saw a lovely card that had a vintage car in the background, another had the Beautiful You Stamp set lady, off for a walk in the forest, I am going to use a Deer Stamp, I think it would make a nice Christmas card, you could add some sparkle too for a Wintery scene.

Have fun with it, get messy and play, I just wiped my folder clean with a baby wood or run it under the tap, obviously I wouldn't recommend using a permanent ink.  I used Stampin'Up inks, but Tim Holtz inks etc would work fine too.

I am going to send out a little gift to the first, second and third person  that sends me a finished card using this technique, I can't wait to see them!!

Please watch the video if you have time, it's really short, if you like it please click the 'like' (thumbs up) button, oh and subscribe if you haven't already.  You can also leave a comment, I think you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page, it's so lovely reading your feedback.  

Could I ask one of you a huge favour too, would you click on the link to my Stampin'Up page in the description box under the tutorial (on YouTube) to see if it works please, my tablet connects automatically so I can't tell if it works from outside our internet, thank you XXX

Janet, thanks for opening up, I hope it's not too much of an early start for you now that you've sent Dobby back to Marketing, imagine the fun he's having in the house all alone!!  Sending huge thankful hugs xxx

Margaret, it was an absolute pleasure chatting to you, it was the highlight of my day, believe me sitting chatting craft to a lovely friend whilst flicking through the Stampin' up catalogue is not chore, when you love a product so much it's a pleasure sharing it with people that you know will live it as much as you do, thank you for the chat my lovely XXX

Lilian I hope your day brightened up, I was chuckling to myself at your Mum's description of a bad hair day,  I certainly have days that my hair looks like I'm an 'Owl Peeking out of any Ivy bush' . I look forward to seeing your new stamps from John Lockwood, hope today is brighter XXX

Maria, you will enjoy the Stampin'Up Demo, they are fun and usually have a 'Make and take' for you to have a go at, but just remember who YOUR demonstrator is! hahahah, only kidding it will be good for you to see it's not just me that's mad about everything too! Sending hugs, hope you aren't suffering too much my lovely XXX

Val I am not surprised those 'Pop Up Boxes' sold out so fast, they were stunning, something different too, they make a lovely display as well, I think a Christmas display would look amazing, don't worry I won't tell Lynn !!! Hahaha 

Have a lovely day ladies, 

Love and hugs

Sandra

XXXXXX

Ps thank you all for your kind words yesterday, I really was struggling, but knowing that you ladies are there really does lift my spirits xxx 

Pretty Sequinned Dragonfly

Good Morning Ladies,

I thought I'd change things today and throw in a randomly made card, while I had the Dragonfly Dreams set out on my desk I thought I'd have a play around with it using some different colours.  This time I chose 'Pool Party' and 'Blushing Bride' as the colours and used Timeless Textures for the background as that was out in my desk too.  I die cut the Dragonfly once in Pool party card and once in vellum and brushed both with a little "Wink of Stella" to add some sparkle, I also added some of the Stampin'Up 'Iredescent Sequin Sparkle' to embellish the Dragonfly and a few bits in the background.  

I hope you like it.

Another quiet day here, I felt quite flat yesterday to be honest I think it's as a result of two nights with no sleep at all and the usual aggro that 4 children bring to the table!! I ended the day feeling quite poorly which is a shame as I was so excited for Paul coming home.  I had to manage a bit more for myself while he was away too, although the girls were here, so I felt physically drained too, my own fault as I didn't want Paul coming back to any mess anywhere, I think we'd all be the same!

I hope you all had a better day than I did and that today is even better!! 

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra

Xxxxxx