Bright & Vibrant Heart card

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Hello from a very messy craft room, boy did I have some inky, messy fun yesterday,  trying a new technique that I had quick glance at on line, it involved Tin foil, Gesso, alcohol inks and metallic inks!   What fun, not sure about the results though 🤔☺️

Today's card is the second one I made with the Full of Life papers that I shared with you on Saturday.   I used the heart from the 'Friends for Life' die set to cut three hearts down my card front,  now the ombre style paper looked a little boring through the hearts so I added some splatters by simply tapping my SU Blend (alcohol markers) with my scissors,  which gave a fine spritz of splatters all over the paper, I changed colours asvI went down the paper.  I cut the 6 x 6 paper down to fit behind my card front piece, added glue around the back of the front piece and attached coloured paper, then adhered the whole piece to my card front. Now,  the heart comes in 2 pieces, the inner heart and a narrow outline die, so I cut that in black to 'highlight' that centre heart.                                           To finish the card I added the sentiment over the top of a piece of iredescent ribbon and added a few iridescent dots.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Wednesday,  

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx

Bright & Cheery Distress Ink card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

Well what a difference waking up to the sun 🌞 pouring through the windows makes,  I love watching the sun rise and the mist lift off of the hills in the distance so I always ask Paul to open the bedroom curtains when he gets up at 5 15am.  The sun was a welcome start to my day,  you can actually notice the difference in how the birds react to the warm sunshine, they seem to have more energy with the warm sunshine on their wings. 

I had a fun day at my desk, I looked at 'Bright & Colourful' cards on Pinterest and saw a fun technique by Jennifer Maguire, I didn't have all of the products that she used so I added my own twist.

I started by blending Mowed Lawn,  Salty Ocean,  Picked Raspberry, Carved Pumpkin & Mustard Seed Distree Ink around my card, I dried the inks off and then Stamped French Script background over the inks in a neutral ink (Memento Desert Sand), just to give some extra interest.                                                  Once the background was totally dry I took a silhouette style branch die and clear embossing inks and stamped one at a time and I added Tim Holtz Distress Embossing glaze,  similar to any embossing powder, they are translucent though so the colour is enhanced by the ink underneath, I love how it enhances the background colour too. 

Hopefully you can see the background stamping too. 

To finish the card I used a very old Thanks stamp and matching (ish) die , for a super cheap stamp it stamped really well,  I think I must have put these stamps in a folder as it was before stamping platforms when I bought them (Ali-Express) I think, having the stamping platform clearly makes the stamps usable again!  I will put my hands up and say that I had/have no skill when it comes to being able to line a stamp up by eye to restamp, believe my I tried so many times back in the day.  I stamped the rest of the sentiment on black card in clear ink and added white embossing powder and heat set.  The final touch is a few glitter gems in matching colours. 

I made another version of this with Oxide inks and I will share that on Thursday.

I hope that you all have a lovely day,

Love & Hugs,

Sandra xxx 

A bright start to the week!

 

We Will Remember Them 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

There are no words that can explain the debt of gratitude we owe to those that gave their lives so that we can live ours freely, not forgetting those that are still selflessly giving their all to keep us safe.  We will always remember them ❤️ 

Welcome to the start of a new week, fingers crossed that this one features a little bit of ☀️ sunshine!! 

We had quite the relaxed Sunday,  I spent most of the morning clearing my craft desk....

From this disaster....

To this....

That small 6 inch area was my crafting space for the last half of last week!   So now I have a nice clean & tidy space to start the week with, hopefully it will inspire some creativity 🤞                                 The afternoon was spent baking, I made Fruit scones & Cheese scones, both turned out well and tasted deliscious.

Oh Paul went into loft and got my sewing machine down so I am excited to have a play with that this week too. 

Today's card is a lovely bright and cheerful design, inspired by Pinterest posts, I used a brush stroke die to cut 5 strips from bright and cheerful colours in my stash.  I then die cut the friend die from blCk & white card and layered them and then used the outer die from a pretty heart die featured in the same collection as the friend die, I cut the rest of the sentiment from a pad in my stash and finished with some pearls.

These are the dies I used for today's card & tomorrow's too!  I love them. 

That's all for today, I hope you have a good start to the week,

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

Your Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Still no sign of the sunshine here in Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire,  it felt proper cold yesterday while we were out shopping,  despite me layering up,  I got my thick polo neck tops out,  the neck of which is super tight, it can only be me that has a panic attack due to clostrophobia as I got a bit stuck getting it on,  I'm dreading taking it off tonight, I will get Paul to help I think, what a pickle to get in !! 😳🙄🤣. I bet my GP would say that the Merina coil would fix that, as it was her answer to everything on Thursday! Do you think it will make sun come out too??? 

Lets look at your cards....

Karen

Karen's Description:  

An old Serif background which actually I haven’t used before 

A circle frame cut on ScanNCut 

A SueW bow

I really love the simplicity of this card Karen, that background is beautiful, I love the colours and design.  I also really like that you decided on the Bow rather than flowers, I think the flowers would have looked too busy. 

Thank you for such a lovely card, Aunty Mary will love it.  XXX

Maria 

Maria's Description :

Old booklet of butterflies and they are blue too. New is the back part of die cut that was bought recently.

The same with the second one. New die the poinsettia. Old card used and blue.

Two lovely cards, those butterflies are so lovely,   now at first I thought your second card was made using a plaid paper,  until you explained that you had stencilled it, it looks amazing,  so lovely that you can have it any colour too, I might have to look for that stencil, did you sat it is a Sizzix one? 

Thank you so much for 2 lovely cards Maria XXX

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my tag for this.

Something blue , flowers.

Something new, stencil( new to me )

Something old, button at the top of tag.

Sorry nothing borrowed.

Lilian your Tag collection is so lovely, this one is no exception, everything about it is beautiful,  that stencil is lovely,  the flowers are beautifully coloured and the little extra details really bring the whole thing together.

Thank you so much for another inspirational piece,  are you going to put them in a journal?  XXX 

Sue

Sue's Description:

I used an old set of star dies and some of the old Creative Expressions card that we all loved so much, a new sentiment and I “borrowed” an idea from Pinterest.

The stars are silver glitter card and the blue is the creative expressions baby blue one Sue used to use. I can’t remember what it was called.

I love how your card turned out, quite different from the one I saw you start though.   The blue card that we all loved was called 'Periwinkle' , don't ask me how I remembered that,  it just came to be as I read your description,  I must have some somewhere as I used it a lot.  

Thank you so much for a lovely card XXX 

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I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

Love & Hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

 I hope that you are all relaxed and looking forward to the weekend.  What are you all up to?  Brenda I am sure you will be celebrating your birthday with your family.  Apart from weekly shopping we don't have any plans,  which I am relieved about as for some reason I feel mentally & physically exhausted.   There are lots of firework displays happening around us this weekend,  Matt asked us if we'd like to go to one with him & Alex and some friends of theirs,  when he said it was £17 each, Paul's eyes almost popped out of his head!!  I actually couldn't think of anything worse.  There are two different ones in the village, one at a Cider Farm, which sounds more up Paul's street,  plus it's free!!  I imagine we will watch them from home if at all.  I do hope that whatever you are doing you have a lovely time. 

Now lets have a look at a bit of shopping:  

I bought some different decorative papers this week....

This was the pad I ordered from Amazon to use with my Sizzix Postage stamp die,  I love the vintage Christmas scenes. 

Now for something VERY bright & colourful:

Aren't these just a breath of fresh air??  This paper collection is called:  Full of Life,  which is a good description.  I used one of these for yesterday's card

The next collection is a variation of similar collections designed for different seasons,  this one is called :  Splendid Autumn 

I love the colours in this collection as the name suggests it is very Autumnal.  

Now lets look at Karen's shopping :

Karen has had her eye on these Aall&Create leaf dies for a while,  this week she took the plunge and ordered them.  They look great, I love that the outline is a separate die so that you could colour the inner detail and make them stand out with a bold background.

Some of my favourite cards of Karens are her Leaf cards,  I think I have 3 versions, all slightly different styles,   these are a two of them  ..

I can't wait to see how you incorporate your new leaf dies into one of these designs. 

Thank you so much for sharing your shopping my lovely XXX 

That's all for today Ladies, I hope that you have a fantastic Saturday, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

New Challenge......

 

🥳🎉🎂 Happy Birthday Brenda 🎂 🎉🥳

Good Friday Morning Ladies,  

Ladies please join me in wishing our very Dear Friend Brenda, a Very Happy Birthday, I hope you are planning to celebrate for the whole weekend with your lovely family ❤️❤️❤️😘

Woohoo I am glad that its Friday, what a dull,  miserable week.  On a good note the GP called yesterday afternoon she was able to access my hospital portal and look at scan results,  she said that wasn't familiar with the 'Biliary Tree' but she would try and understand the results, the main think I heard was that my Pancreas looked normal !!  The Common Bile Duct is very inflamed (despite it feeling not flared up for me)  which means it gets a lot bigger when it causes me pain to the point if bruising my ribs!  So they believe there is an obstruction of some kind.  She said that I would get a better understanding from the consultant.   She wondered if I'd benefit from antidepressants but I ruled that one out straight away,  my issues are very real, no medication has ever helped them!  The merina coil seemed to be her solution for everything else!  Including my heart problems, she has ordered a 24hr ECG to check everything though.  

Now onto our New Challenge.....

I would like you to show me anything Bright & Beautiful!! 

I am so fed up of these dark miserable days and think we all need cheering up so dig out your colourful inks, paints and papers and lets cheer this world up!!! 

I hope that you all have a good Friday,

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

A very different Christmas card

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

Busy day today, monthly bladder clinic and GP consultation.                                                                What have you all got planned today? 

I saw a card very similar to this on Tim Holtz website and I loved it and wanted to have a go at revreating it, using products that I have in my stash.  The background was a piece of watercolour card with red stars stencilled on and then I added Black Soot Oxide ink very lightly.  Next is a piece of sparkly plaid card, next layer was a piece of card diecut with my SU Postage stamp die, I inked again with black soot and then used my Embossing ink dabber to ink around the edges of the postage stamp piece , white embossing powder was added and heat set. This layer really creates a divide between the top and bottom layers.   Now onto the top layer, again white white card, upon which I stamped the sentiment and added white embossing powder and heat set,  now on this layer I 'went to town' with the Black Soot Oxide Ink, created an almost blackboard type effect.  I used a stitched rectangle die to add detail and then went over the stitching with a white gel pen to give the effect of stitching (well kind of).   The final part was adding the foliage that I die cut from one of the backgrounds I made last week, I then created a multi layered bow out of red seam binding ribbon, I added a cluster of tiny bells to the centre to finish. Its really different,  but I really like it x

Now I had a dilemma while making this card, I really wanted to add an actual stitched border but I can't decide whether to use my sewing machine for stitching card or whether to buy a cheap machine purely for stitching card, what do you think my lovelies???

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

Ghost Technique card

 Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all ok,  it's been so gloomy here for past few days, yesterday was really foggy pretty much all day,  I am really missing seeing the 🌞 sun!  It really does affect your mood, I can't see my hills either, you don't realise how much little things brighten your day.  

Today's card is the result of a little experiment, I started off by having a go at the 'Ghost' technique   I taped off a strip down the side of my card front,  then blended Festive Berries, rustic Wilderness and a bit of Vintage Photo distress ink.  Next step:  choose a stencil and tape into place, the spritz with water and absorb water with paper towel. Thus removed most of the ink giving the 'ghost' effect.  I decided to take it a step further, I added clear texture paste through the stencil and sprinkled with clear glitter to give some sparkle. 

Here's a close up of the embossing. 

I hope you have a good day,

Love & hugs

Sandra xxx 

Vintage Christmas card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope that today finds you all well, gentle hugs to those of you that need one 😘🥰

I had a lovely crafty day yesterday,  I was just sat trying new techniques, playing with inks and die cuts for most of the day, the whole thing made so much more enjoyable by the lovely company I had.  (Paul) in case you hadn't guessed 🤣😂

I started todays card on Friday, I bought a vintage Christmas scenes card, it was very inexpensive but I thought it wouldn't make some cute Christmas cards.                                                                                   I used my 'sizzix Snail Mail' die to cut a piece of one of the Vintage Christmas scenes, at first I thought that the die would obscure to much of the scene but I think it looks ok.  I took a piece of mixed media card and added a light coat of Walnut Stain ink to match the colours on the Vintage paper.  I adhered the die cut piece to the mixed media paper and then layered onto a piece of mirror card then onto a cream card base, edged with Vintage photo ink.  To finish the card I used a sentiment from Tim Holtz Christmas sticker book and layered it onto a piece of mirror card and added it to the top right if the card.  

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

My First Layered Stencil Card

 

Good Monday Morning my lovelies,  

Here we are at start of a brand new week at the start of a new month!   What have you all got planned?  I have GP phone consultation tomorrow and bladder clinic Thursday,  it will be a fun outing as both girls have the day off.  This one will be the decider as to whether I carry on with the treatment or not, as it stands I lose one weekend a month to severe uti symptoms,  however before I started it was a lot more than once a month, I need to discuss it with the consultant I think. 

Today I am sharing my first go at using multi layer stencils,  this one is a Sizzix stencil called 'Flowers', I used Distress Inks to colour the stencils, thankfully they blended beautifully on this occasion!  I really enjoyed using the stencils to create with,  I will confess that I did buy the stamping/stencil tool that Sizzix designed for these stencils and it made the whole process so much easier, no faffing about trying to keep the layers lined up perfectly.   Of course I wanted my first venture into layered stencilling to go to someone that inspired me to have a go at this technique,  Karen's Birthday was perfect timing!   It was the gorgeous Birthday cards that both Maria and Karen made for me that had me really inspired to try stencilling.  So thank you ladies XXX

I hope that you all have a great start to the week, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Our Challenge makes

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

From a very gloomy Gloucestershire, I think the sun has gone on holiday!  We had to have lights on from lunchtime yesterday. 

Now, talking of holidays I overheard this very 'trendy' looking woman in Tesco yesterday (Paul had abandoned down the bread aisle while he was looking at Bagels)  Her friend asked her if she managed to get a 'holiday' booked,  her reply  ....       Yes we have booked our "Recalibration Break' for a week at the end of the month.                                        What on earth is a 'Recalibration Break'!!!                Obviously a "holiday ''  but is it 'Woke", 'Trendy', Hippy or just downright ridiculous, I'm proper confused,  which probably means that I definitely need a 'Recalibration Break'  🙄😂🤣

Let's have a look at you have been making: 

Karen

Karen's Description:

Card 1 :  Here’s a “something old something new…” card

I have never used this Tattered Lace USB “Special Shaped cards” So cut HAPPY BIRTHDAY and To You to fit a DL envelope and the butterflies are from an old John Lockwood die set xx

Card 2:  A challenge card

Something old - Sue W Let it Snow 

Something new - Aall&Create background dies

Something blue - my favourite patterned paper pads

Two amazing cards Karen, I know you said that first card is one of the simplest you have ever made but it's fantastic,  a real mantelpiece pleaser!  So versatile too! 

Now I have to say that that Aall&Create border just seems to work with the snowy theme,  maybe its the abstract design,  it just works, that paper is perfect for the theme too.  

Thank you so much for 2 amazing cards for this challenge XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian'sDescription:

here is my tag for this week, sorry it’s a bit like yours, I’ve been playing all week trying to get it the way I wanted.

Categories : something new : moon mask

                       Something old : ink and stamps ( night of navy )

                        Something blue: ink

                        Something borrowed: idea from Alison at words and pictures.

No apology necessary,  it's quite different to mine, I think you have been way more creative!                     I really appreciate the time you put into creating your lovely tag, the detail of the moon is amazing XXX 

Maria

Maria's Description:

Something new is the background die, something old is the die where the sentiment is stamped on ( think it's spellbinder 46). Jumped over borrowed and went straight to blue which is this shiny Blue card.

I am absolutely loving Plaid backgrounds at the moment,  so your card is ticking all of my boxes!  I love your design, that blue is gorgeous,  I really like that little book style tag for your sentiment too!        Thank you so much Maria for a lovely card XXX 

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I hope that you all have an enjoyable Sunday, 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx