My Mother's Day card from Lucy

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,  

I hope that you all had a lovely weekend, especially yesterday, the weather was very kind to us,  we didn't do anything super exciting,  sadly my lot were all working, apart from Becca who is skiing in Italy, the girls had a super busy day at the Wildlife park,  they almost broke their record high for sales, with the sell out day and the extra hour of work the girls were exhausted when they got in.  Paul and I popped to the garden centre for an hour or so and then had afternoon tea in the beautiful warm sunshine on the decking.  

Today I am sharing my amazing Mother's day card from Lucy,  she used her Cricut to create the whole card, even the sentiment!!  I love how the sentiment is cut out with that neat border all around it, the other thing that blew my mind was the Bee's antennae,  they are so intricate and perfectly cut, the design of the card is perfect and all of the elements are cut and placed perfectly,  I feel so proud that my girl is enjoying paper crafting just like her Mum, although her first cards are 1000 times better than mine were 🤣😂 

I hope that you all enjoy this last day of March,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Let's look at this weeks makes..

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that all of you amazing Mum's have a wonderful day being spoiled by your family, I think of you all as Mum's and couldn't think of anyone better, you are always there to listen to my worries, offer advice when I need it and you all inspire me more than you know.  I feel blessed having you incredible ladies in my life ❤️ 

Have you all remembered to put your clocks forward?? I think most of ours update themselves, except the cooker and boiler control. 

Karen

Karen's Description:

A card for the challenge 

 The EF was a bargain bucket buy from Ally Pally and I chose lilac because it matches the little cardigan I have made The purple isn’t quite as deep for the paper piecing It’s described as Wisteria!

Love the colour, that little footprint embossing folder is so cute too.  These dies never go out of style do they. 

Thank you for sharing your card with us XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my card for this week.

An old embossing folder from couture creations.

Stamp from Tim Holtz, Paris garden ?( not sure of the name)

Coloured with oxide inks, and going over with distress pencils.

Also used the pencils for the flowers.

Gorgeous card Lilian,  love that flower stamp, beautifully coloured too.  Those borders are amazing, they look like printed papers 😍

Thank you so much for a lovely card,  I hope you have a lovely weekend with your daughter XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

On this card I have used a new embossing folder , looks a bit like cushions. I've used some envelope dies, a small and a bigger one and then put little hearts to fly out and love you 💋💗 😂 

I will have to change it tho......

Maybe it will be an extra card for Rick if I do it the right way up 🤗

Its a cute card, Rick would love it 😍, I have a quilted embossing folder similar to that but always forget to use it, one of mine is an A4 one by Sue Wilson,  funny how we all used to use the big ones but we don't now, our cards are smaller though aren't they, imagine the postage on those big 8 x 8 cards with the ribbon  flowers and hat pins!! 

Thank you my lovely for sharing your lovely card XXX

*************

I hope that you all have a lovely  Mothers Day, 

Love and huge hugs to all, 

Samdra xxx

Mixed up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning, Ladies,

I thought I would share a few snaps of my afternoon in the garden on Wednesday,  the sun was so warm, Milo and Bella joined Paul and I and loved every minute of the sunshine.  

Todays quote couldn't be more true,  after all its the whole reason we do what we do, apart from the fact that it keeps us sane !! 🤣

Firstly I'd like to share Maria's cutest Crystal art ever ...

Maria's Description:

My little cutie, a polar cub under an aurora borealis sky. 

Oh Maria he is the most adorable crystal art you've done,  having the Aurora Borealis behind him illuminates his fur!  

Thank you so much for sharing him with us XXX 

Here are the photos from our garden,  oooh but first ....

Look at my amazing Sourdough bread, it smells divine, the hardest thing is having to wait for it to cool before you cut it to see if its a 'good crumb' luckily it was perfect! 

Onto the garden...

Our adorable fur babies Milo & Bella 🥰😍

We have a woodland area of the garden, while looking for the wild garlic we planted last year I discovered this patch of violets,  I took a close up of one,  I think they are perfect for inspiration for colouring our stamped flowers. 

Some Daffodils and our first tulip ! 

Our rockery Area was bare last year, we bought a few reduced plants at the garden centre to put in it, most were 50p,  I was so surprised to see them bursting with colour and spreading nicely ! 

Lastly a couple of photos of the baskets at the front of the house springing to life. 

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend and can get out in your garden,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

Snowdrop Snippet

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

I am truly ready for the weekend, what a long day yesterday was,  we didn't get back from the hospital until 7pm as the journey was very 'rural', I mean we went through some lovely places but my goodness it took forever.  Added to that I had the worst upset tummy, I'm not sure if it was down to anxiety about the appointment or something I had eaten, although I hadn't tried anything new.           The appointment went well, the consultant has referred my to a Bile Duct Specialist in Birmingham as my issue wasn't something that he had seen a lot of and it wasn't his area of expertise.  I have to have another full liver function blood test done, so that he can send the results with the referral.  His main concern was the effects the Bile duct holding fluid instead of being free flowing is having on my liver.  So we wait for that appointment now, I was relieved that ruled out the worst outcome! 

Todays Snippet I actually made last week, I used a circle stencil and masked off the rest of the card, I then blended Salty Ocean and Cracked Pistachio onto the masked off circle and blended lightly,  I ten spritzed with water to add some more texture, blotted with kitchen roll and then tried, I then stamped the snowdrops over the inked circle and went in and painted the Snowdrops in, in white acrylic paint,  so that they stood out more,  although my camera hasn't picked that up well. 

To finish I stamped the March Hare and added some shading.  Then came the splatters in white paint. Finished with a black mat. 

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

Colourful Thrinchie (2)

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

We had a beautiful day of sunshine again yesterday, it was so warm out in that sun,  Paul and I pottered in the garden in t shirts in the late afternoon, admiring the flowers that Spring has treated us to. 

Lucy took Soph to Minor injuries as her foot was still painful and swollen,  she has sprained it, thankfully no broken bones, with that and her cough she is a bit miserable,  Lewis is coming over to spend the day with her to day, so that should cheer her up. 

Today's Thrinchie is the pair I did to one I made last week, its a lovely colourful one using Salty Ocean,  Wilted Violet, Fossilised Amber,  Twisted Citron,  Picked Raspberry & Spiced Marmalade,  I added all of those to a background stamp, spritzed with water and stamped onto thrinchie,  I then used a circle stencil to draw 2 circles in black pen, then add shading.  The main focus of the card is the Crocus that I stamped in Wilted Violet & Twisted Citron,  I added a little more colour with pencils,  then fussy cut and adhered to largest circle, I then stamped the pheasant,  added some white splatters and matted onto black card. 

I have my Upper GI hospital appointment today,  hopefully I will finally get some answers, fingers crossed its nothing too horrendous!! 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Layered Stencil Rose

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,

We have a full house today,  Paul is working from home and both girls have today off too, although Soph won't feel up to much as she tripped down the last few stairs on Friday and hurt her ankle, added to her terrible cough that's just so persistent,  I laid listening to her all night for past two nights, she isn't congested or anything,  she had a bit of a sore throat last week that has turned into a really frustrating cough, nothing seems to help, although Paul's Mum suggested Nana Wilmot's Raspberry Vinegar,  it must be 50+ year old,  apparently it's a 'cure all', sounds like 'Kill or Cure' to me 🤣😂

Today's card is another Layered stencil card, I bought a set of 4 of these last year for a bargain price on Facebook Destash page. 

The sets come complete with 5 shades of pink ink, I used Distress inks for the green. It's so simple, just apply inks from lightest to darkest through the layers,  I finished with the Sentiment that was also included in the set. I matted the stencilled piece onto green card and then onto a white base card. 

I hope that you all have a good Wednesday,  

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

A new layered stencil

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all as well as can be expected,  gentle hugs for those that need one xx

I had a very busy but fun day yesterday,  I finally mastered the sourdough bread, baking the PERFECT loaf,  I was so excited,  I waited all day until Soph got home to cut into the sourdough loaf as its something we have been doing together,  aa soon as they walked through the door I summobed them to the kitchen for the ceremonial cutting,  I cut down the centre and opened it up expected it to be gummy or hard on the inside but it wasn't,  it was soft and bounced back when squished, it tasted divine, I do think sourdough has more taste.   While I was waiting on the bread and then the girls to come home I totally reorganised my craft space, I had a real good sort through my desk drawers, I came across a pile of stamps that I had kept from parcels that hadn't been stamped with post mark,  I kept them to reuse them but was always too worried that the Royal mail would know and charged one of you for a parcel or something,  I have plenty of needles to see me through the rest of my days, trimmer blades too, I had collected about 10 old ones ! Heaven knows why!  So i sorted through all of them, moving my stamp n' blend pens to a smaller drawer so that I could put my A4 pink frog card and my pre cut thrinchies in a drawer right in front of me, which makes much more sense.  I do love a good reorganise,  don't you?  It took me until about 2.30pm, oh I also found a stamp that I thought I'd lost, which made my day! I labelled all of my Oxide inks and organised them into colour order, moved my switch to the other side of my work space, it fits and opens better that side too.  

After having my desk totally cleaned and organised I decided to make a card using a

 Sizzix Layered stencil called 'Frond', I saw it on Amazon reduced by 83% to £2.68 or something,  so it seemed daft not to at that price. 

Sizzix Frond Stencil

If you hit this link above it will take you straight to the stencil on Amazon!!  It has the bonus of sentiments on every layer too. 

I inked the background first in Squeezed Lemonade & Mustard Seed distress inks,  the I used Mowed Lawn, Peacock Feathers and Speckled Egg for the leaves.  I used one of my Sizzix stamps for the sentiment,  mounted the piece onto a matching green mat and then onto a 5 x 7 inch card base. I did ink the largest leaf (through the stencil) and fussy cut it out and attached it over the original one, it looked tidier. 

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Using reverse of Stencil

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

Its the start of a new week,  it's crazy to think that this is the last week of March!!  We put the clocks forward next weekend too. Which is great as we get the lighter evenings, the only down side is that the girls go back to working until 5pm, that extra hour makes such a difference to their day, the afternoons seem to really drag for those first few weeks,  they also both said that they really don't have many customers that late in the day either which makes it even more frustrating!   Let's hope that we will start seeing more brighter weather and no more frosts, as I want to get the veg beds planted up. 

I played with my Sizzix Stencil last Friday,  seeing how many different ways you could use it, I knew from some of Karen's cards that you can just parts of the stencils, so I was going to have a go at that, then I wondered if you could reverse the image (using the back) of the stencil, I am pleased to report that you can use the reverse!  

This is the card that I made last week, using the stencil as it was intended, with the background included. 

For todays card I used the last 3 layers of the stencil,  but I turned them over so that the flowers ate the opposite way around, so that tallest one was aat the edge of the card, it just seemed to look better that way around, I used Speckled Egg Distress Ink for the background and then Peacock Feathers for the darker shades, 1 light coat for the some of the shaded areas and then a heavier coat for the very centre of the flowers and the stem. I then smooshed some of the Peacock Feathers onto my glass mat and spritzed it with water and picked it up with my splatter brush and flicked it over my background.  To finish the card I added the sentiment and matted onto matching coloured card and then onto a 6 × 6 inch card base. 

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

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

Let's look at your embossed/ stencil projects

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all enjoying the weekend,  did you do anything fun, any crafting?  

Karen I'm with you, I am really needing a craft show trip, I really miss going to them and seeing all of the new goodies in real life.  

I had a baking day, using up some of our Sourdough 'Discard' (the bit you tip off when you feed your starter every day), I made Cinnamon Rolls,  which were a bit time consuming,  I tipped my first lot of warm milk and yeast down the sink because it didn't bubble up, well after some research 'Easy Action' yeast doesn’t react like normal yeast, you just add it in with your dry ingredients,  so then I got to thinking that maybe the recipe wouldn't work with this yeast,  luckily it was ok, the rose beautifully, as I am writing this the smell of sweet cinnamon is wafting through the house! I made some Sourdough discard Scones too. 

Let's look at what you have been making....

Karen

Karen's Description:

Card 1:   An eBay folder (I think) SW Cake & 

Phill Martin sentiment

Card 2:  I think this is more my style Now I have photographed it I wish I’d “shaved” a bit of the “Merry Christmas “ box to give it a little bit if a blue border …?

Two great cards Karen, I really like that Birthday embossing folder,  its great for any age, any gender, your emboss is very crisp and you have inked over those letters perfectly. 

 Look at you starting your Christmas cards in March!  I love the fun assortment of embossing folders you have used for the little Windows.  

Thank you so much for two fantastic cards XXX

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my challenge for this week, I decided to go back to my tags, which I haven’t done any for a while.

I used one of Tim Holtz wall stencils, not sure where the little flower stencil came from. Stamped leaves at the top, Lavinia stamps.

Die cut flower from Tim Holtz again.

Various mediums for colouring.

You really do create the most incredible tags, I guess you have a bit more area to create in than a Thrinchie. I really love how you create that brick wall background,  the colours really work, that ivy stamp works perfectly with the wall too.  The die flower just is the perfect finishing touch.

Thank you so much for another incredible tag XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

I used my new star stencil for the background in TH ink Lilac and Kitch Flamingo. Next I used the new Embossing folder and die set for the Sweet pea. I coloured it in again with the same inks and greens.

Ooh Maria I really love that Sweet pea, it looks very life-like, it works really well with your lovely background too.

Thank you so much for another gorgeous card XXX

*******************

I hope that you all have a great Sunday, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Mixed up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all relaxed and ready for the weekend,   do you have anything nice planned?  I don't think the weather is forecast to be as nice as last weekend but we will make the best of whatever we get.  There's always plenty to do around here!! 

I bought a craft magazine this week as I quite liked the sentiment stamps, so I will share that with you now  ..

Simply Cards and Papercraft 

Issue 268

A lovely selection of free stamps and the foliage and corner stamps are really pretty. 

Mel Jess shows us some lovely projects to make with the free stamps, they are all different styles too!  I love the floral card with the centre sentiment but I think my favourite ones are those inky background cards.

Nicky Gilburt has done a 'Tried & Tested' feature on the Sizzix Dimensional Diffuser, they are bits of plastic (same as embossing folders) that work with Embossing folders, you put a diffuser where you want blank space to be for a sentiment of focal point.  The ones that Nicky is demonstrating come with embossing folders but you can buy the plain diffusersvin different shapes, I have some but have never used them so I will have a play and see how they work.  The cards that Nicky has created are really lovely. 

Vicki Derrick makes some fantastic gift wrap ideas with those lovely sentiment stamps,  decorated with the pretty florals. 

Laura Murcott shares some different ways of foiling without having to have a foiling machine, using double sided adhesive, heat bonding powder, which you add to sticky ink and as you heat it it becomes tacky so you can add gilding flakes and some foils.  WOW Fab foil seems to be the one most used on these projects.  

Here Laura is using FlitterGlu from IndigoBlu to adhere the Foil.....

It's great to see something that works as I have had many failed attempts using many different methods over the years. 

Maggie Fielding takes you through how to make this gorgeous Fun Fold card using things you already have in your stash. 

Some beautiful floral cards by Vanessa Hodgson using the free stamps and downloadable papers.  I love the pretty spring patterns on the papers and they work perfectly with the stamps as you can see from the cards. 

All of these cards are made using white card stock that has been die cut and coloured with inks, pens, watercolour paints or pencils.  When you have diecut your flowers and foliage,  think about where you want the lightest part of your flowers then work with darker ink on the shaded side blending to the lightest where the light would hit.  These cards in this feature have the shade at the bottom working towards the light at the top.  

You can zoom in on this little step by step above to give you some great hints and tips  

All in all a good issue with some great techniques and some lovely inspiration.

**********************

Maria's Shopping 

Maria went to the Nec to the big craft show last weekend and she has kindly shared her shopping with us.  

You bought some lovely things Maria, plenty of embossing folders and stencils for this weeks challenge!! 🤣  

Lisa Hortons embossing folders are great, you get a really good deep emboss.  Oh and those flower dies look great too. 

Thank you so much for sharing your shopping with us, I do hope you have recovered from the journey XXX 

I hope that you all have a great Saturday,  

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx