Our Next Challenge

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

Well I found the card.....I had put it under my Cor Cube Boxes to flatten,  as I had spritzed it with water and the card had buckled a bit.  I spent anothet half hour looking for the blooming thing!  I went to move the boxes off my desk to make room for crafting and there it was,  looking at me!! 🙄🤣 When I put it under the box I vividly remember doing it, so why couldn’t I remember where at the time!  

Our Next Challenge 

So for our next Challenge I thought we'd do a colour Challenge,  using the Color Cube cards above. 

I picked these two cards randomly, luckily they are very different. 

I think the first card 206 could be used for floral cards, or graduated  Ombre effect  

The second card 419 Could be used for also for florals like sunflowers,  daisies etc,  I see silhouette cards though,  or sunsets.  Of course you could see something completely different.  I look forward to seeing what you create. 

Remember:

You don't have to use all colours on the cards, just pick colours you have or you like. 

You don't have to make one for each card, unless you want to,  I will run this for 2 weeks so you could do one each week. 

You don't have to have the exact shade,  as long as its similar in colour. 

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I downloaded and printed off this Distress Colour Swatch chart.  I will do one for my oxides and inks and see if I can do a blank one for my other inks. 

It is so useful for matching colours for your colour cube cards....

As you can see Milled Lavender and Picked Raspberry Oxides are good matches for card 206 for our Challenge. 

I downloaded the chart from Craft Stash, I will add the link below....

Distress ink colour swatch

I hope that you all have a lovely Saturday,  enjoy the lovely sunshine,

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Shades of Teal Thank you

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Here we are at the last week of May,  like so many others this week has flown, probably more so due to the Bank Holiday, we are about 3 weeks away from our holiday which feels absolutely unbelievable,  I will have to get organised and get some cards made to cover those 3 weeks.  If any of you get time to create a couple of extra cards I would be so grateful.  

Now I have posted Craft Quotes that joke about our crafting lives,   well one of those was a real life reality,  I know that we all put things down and can't find them but yesterday I lost a whole card,  I had been working on it all day, I embossed and inked & spritzed the background,  then set it to dry while I worked on this card, I was about finished on this card and wanted to die cut some bits to embellish the first card, I spritzed a piece of card and set that to dry then was ready to die cut the last bits and assemble the card,  I couldn't do this as I simply can't find the card, I have searched high and low, checking bins, shelves, drawers etc.  I am hoping it will turn up tomorrow!! 

I picked out Card 101 and then chose the colours from my Stampin up inks this time,  

Pretty Peacock for the Teal colour,  Pool Party for the Mint Gray colour and Seaside Spray for the Bondi Blue. The card and embossing powder I used are both a light beige too. 

I stamped my Uniko Mandala Stamp randomly over the card, I then found an embossing powder that was more cream/beige than white, so I used that and heat set and then blended the three ink colours over the embossing.  After it had dried I wiped over the embossing with a damp cloth to clean off any ink.  To finish I die cut a sentiment using the darkest colour as the background. 

I hope that you have a great end to your week, 

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

 

Good Thursday Morning Ladies, 

What a delightful day yesterday turned out to be,  the weather was so lovely,  the girls and I set off late morning to meet Becca at Highway,  we had a absolutely deliscious lunch, cooked by Adam, so you know it was top notch!   It's so lovely to sit and spend time with my girls over lunch, the chat never stopped.  We got lots of wedding stuff sorted,  we all have a list of jobs 🙄🤣                                                  After we finished lunch we took a lovely long stroll down Burford hill, the wheelchair was a bit of a nightmare at times, I sometimes think I have an invisibility cloak on,  so I was in and out,  we still had a lovely time though,  it was bound to be busy with the weather being so lovely. 

I did manage to get that card made though,  I used a piece of inked background that I made along time ago, I loved the shades of pink though and thought it worked well with Color Cube card 405.  

I stamped the Taylored Expressions Bouquet stamp onto the inked background and fussy cut it out, I layered the flowers to give more dimension to the card.  I stamped the stems of the flowers onto the card front, then placed the fussy cut flowers over the top, so it looks like it was all stamped at the same time.  I added the border that comes in the stamp set,  then added a sentiment in Garden Green to match the stems and the green on the Color Cube card. 

I hope that you all have a good Thursday,  

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

A couple of oldies

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Hello from a very wet & wild Gloucestershire!!  Our day out yesterday was somewhat hampered by the weather so we didn't get to have a walk around Cirencester.  Hobbycraft was a little disappointing, the lady at the till said that all of the machines and more expensive items were removed from the store before the sale started,  I mean I wasn't expecting to see Cricuts at 50% off, but I was hoping to see more than was there, a lot of the items that had the biggest discount (40 or 50 %) weren't things we'd use, they had cosmic shimmer coloured glues, which haven't been current for years, most of which I already have from way over 8 years ago!  They were no decent quality stamps, they had wooden block stamps that were very dated,  they were 40% off.  Sewing threads were 40% off, so I got a couple of those,  also Polychromo pencils were 50% off so I picked a couple of different colours up,  most things I would have looked at were only 20% off and even with that discount they were cheaper online.  Interestingly I thought there would be Crafters Companion stuff as they have helped them out financially but there was nothing. Lucy was hoping to get some Vinyl for her Cricut but even with 20% discount they were still much cheaper on the Internet.  We went to a few other shops on the trading estate nearby, got some holiday toiletries and medical bits.  We got home at around 4 30pm,  I was ready for a cuppa and a sit down. 

I started a card but didn't have the energy to finish it,  you know when you want to make something but it just doesn't go right,  well that was me yesterday,  at 6.30pm I gave up and will finish the card today.  

I had picked a Color Cube card that had shades of pink and green, so I stuck with that colour theme and found some older cards, which would work well with creating cards to match the color cube cards.  They go back to 2017!  

I hope that you all have a good day today 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

  

Lilian's Color Cube card

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

It's our lovely Maria's Birthday,  please join me in wishing her an amazing day ❤️ 🥳🎂🥂

It feels like a Monday,  I'm glad it isn't as Mondays can be a lonely day for me, Tuesday's definitely aren't though as Lucy is off,  not sure what we are doing, I think we might try going into Cirencester,  they have a Hobbycraft that is closing down, it says 'everything must go' but I doubt there is much in there by now, so sad to see so many craft businesses closing.  We will no doubt find somewhere for lunch too.  Soph is off tomorrow as well as Lucy, we are meeting Becca for lunch to go over the last few bits that she wants us to make for the wedding,  I think it will be a long lunch!! 

Today I am sharing Lilian's first card made using her Color Cube....

Lilian's Description:

I used card 125, unfortunately I don’t have that many ink pads, so have had to comprise with ink tense pencils. I used tissue for the back ground, hence the wrinkles.

I really like the texture that the Tissue paper gives,  did you stamp the tissue paper first??  The flowers and foliage and coloured beautifully,   you have done so well matching the colours too. 

Thank you so much for making and sharing your card with us my lovely XXX 

I hope that you all have a good day, 

A walk round the garden

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all enjoying the weekend,   the weather isn't perfect but it's nice having an extra day off the Paul,  we didn't get rain yesterday but it was quite windy, not cold though.   We went to a local Farmers Market,  apart from the plant man there was nothing much else to see,  it's such a shame that more stall holders don't use it, there was literally one selling honey,  one selling pork pies, a coffee trailer thing, a tiny cake seller and that was it,  it's a really big space too,  the last time was the same (its monthly) but we thought maybe it was a one off.  I thought there would be local farm produce etc, but not so far. 

We spent the afternoon in the garden,  planting the last of the vegetables,   we now have New potatoes,  Maris Pipers, Sweet Potatoes,  Runner Beans & French beans,  kale, Spinach, Brussel sprouts, parsnips, carrots, spring onions,  garlic, courgettes, tomatoes,  cucumber & aubergine! 

Enough to keep Paul busy,   I can see the look of delight in his eyes when it rains and he doesn't need to water!!  Thats without all of the pots of flowers! 🤣😂

Above you can see...

Geum, such a pretty orange flower, beautiful Foxgloves,  I absolutely love watching the Bees going into those little flowers.  Aquilegias and more foxgloves. 

To me this could be one of those Color Cube cards, its a bonus rose from Lynne & Bill next door, so pretty. 

This Periwinkle grows like a weed,  I love those pretty purple flowers.

This beautiful rose is called Marjorie Fair

This Cranesbill also grows likena weed! So pretty though with those dark centres. 

This rose is literally the size of a tea plate,  so so beautiful,  it's call 'Deep Secret'  

So simple yet so beautiful Rugosa Alba 

These are old steps that go up to the decking, they have deteriorated over time but I have a 'vision ' I am going to place pots of flowers on each of the steps, I love how it looks. 

Lastly today I just wanted to share yesterday's Sourdough loaf, the last two have been granary loaves with lots of seeds,  this one is a 'Croissant Loaf' .....

The crust is light and flaky like croissants 

The inside is soft and buttery

You add 4oz of grated cold butter to the dough as you are doing the 'stretch & Folds', it smell makes your mouth water.  Back to the healthy loaves in the week. 

I hope that you all enjoy this Bank holiday Monday,  

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

Our Crafts this week....

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Oh I forgot that we had am extra day off together this weekend,  what a bonus that discovery was!  Not that we have anything plans, the weather wasn't great yesterday,  it didn't rain but was cloudy and quite breezy for most of the day. 

Karen I hope that you had a good journey down to Essex,  where you entertaining the boys in the car?  I remember those days, playing I-spy, etc,  as ours got older we bought a game called 'Are we there yet' it was kind of like a bingo type game (from what I remember) they had cards with things to loom out for,  it saved us on long journeys on many occasions,  as back then we lived in Lincolnshire and both parents lived 3 hours + away from us! 

Maria 

Maria has shared a lovely colour blended card with us today....

Maria's Description:

I'm not sure what we are doing for this week's challenge but I had a card to make and this is it 

I have put the colours I used next to it to remember.

The die I have used is one from Temu. I also used a stencil but hardly shows I cut out the sentence in brown but put some lacquer on the numbers to stand out.

Maria thank you so much for sharing your card with us, what a brilliant Man card idea, I really like those Temu dies!  I have zoomed in so that you can see the stencilling,  it looks like wood grain which goes perfectly with the dies.  Adding the lacquer to the 40 has definitely made it stand out, what a great idea. 

Thank you again my lovely xxx

Gina

Gina's Description: 

Thank Gina for sharing your lovely card, I love the details that you added to the envelope too. xxx

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I hope that you are all enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend, 

Love & Hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

Mixed up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all relaxed and enjoying the weekend.  What are you all up to?  

Karen I hope you have a safe journey to the Essex coast and that you have an amazing week with them. xxx

Now I have been using my Colour Cubes all week and I'm really enjoying them,  I will share some of them to use as a challenge, that way you can all get to use them.  

I thought that some people may find using the cards confusing,  you only need to pick one or two colours shown, not all of them, also it doesn't matter if you don't have the perfect shade, the colours they use are just a guide.

A good way of getting used to working with the cards is to maybe look back at cards/projects that you have already made and match them to cards. 

Here are a few I compared....

I think this shows that it's easier than you think to work with things we already have to use the colour combinations.  

I hope that these examples help some of you. 

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend, 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx