A look back at this weeks projects

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all having a good weekend,  we had a proper lazy day yesterday,  although we did laundry, cleaned out the dishwasher and I potted up a couple of plants but that was it really!  

I did attemp something that I don't recommend you do..... I decided it was time to clean my blending brushes,  I thought I would start with my Oxide brushes,  OMG,  they hold so much more ink/pigment than they blend out!!  I usually blend until there is no more ink to blend, I then usually do a couple swipes onto kitchen roll to make sure its clean!  But as I put the brush into the mildly soapy water I was shocked,  I wash and rinsed and repeated and repeated and repeated and it was still colouring the water a lot, needless to say I gave up after 4 brushes.  

It has left me wondering how good they are,  I don't feel that you got anywhere near the same amount of wastage with the blending foams. Although they are definitely easier to blend with!  

Have you tried cleaning yours???

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my page for this week.

I used categories: ephemera; journal page; ink colouring.

There is quite a lot of colouring, but I blended it in to the pictures.

Lilian I love your journal page,  the papers are so pretty, which Stamperia collection is this one?  Your background stamping is lovely,  it really adds to the interest,  I love your little sentiments too, they are perfect.

Thank you so much for a lovely,  inspirational journal page XXX

Karen

Karen's Description:

I couldn’t bring myself to add extra leaves So I trimmed it down to fit 4x6 I still added Olive Green Chameleon pen

The NOEL is SueW and I coloured card with Peeled Paint and Fired Brick DO which I mounted with foam tape. 

Thank you Karen for another lovely Christmas card. You have once again inspired me, I am yet to use mine, you have given me some lovely ideas.  

For context Karen was adding Olive green pen around the edges of the card, this gives the look of an added mat.  While adding the ink the pen slipped which is devastating when its the final touch.  So karen cut the card down to a 4 x 6 inch.  A brilliant idea XXX

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I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday,

Love & hugs,

Sandra xxx 

Mixed up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,  

It was an unexpectedly lovely day yesterday,  Paul put towels abd bedding on the line early morning and they dried, it was quite breezy, very cold chill in the air too, I just couldn't get warm all day, I rested most of the day but felt to guilty to let Paul go shopping on his own, so I wrapped up and went with him,  my goodness did I regret that decision after about 40 mins,  I was at the point of wanting to scream at people that held the while aisle up while they stood having a 'catch-up ', then there were no Disabled parking bays,  I need the door to open fully to be able to get my leg out,  I am not steady enough to balance on one leg while stepping out, I have to have my leg literally lifted in,  even more now I have this bloody hernia, as I use my abdominal muscles to help move my legs as I have no muscle strength in and around my hip.  So when a young chap came sauntering out of the supermarket to his fancy new car that he parked in a nice wide Disabled bay so it didn't get scratched, I would have gone and kicked his car if I could!!  I have never scowled so hard in my life ! 🤣

Sophie 

The finished,  varnished portrait

This is the portrait without the varnish

This is the photo Soph worked from

Soph was asked by the Lady thats head of Gardens at the Park to paint a portrait of 'Deb' the lovely PR lady on a pumpkin,  the buy their pumpkins from a local charity group that grow them to raise money, they are coming in on Wednesday to judge the pumpkin competition at Wildlife park, so they are going to pop Deb's pumpkin in amongst the others so that she just comes across it while photographing all of the entries,  Soph took it in yesterday and everyone was blown away, they reckon that Debs squeals of delight will be heard for miles around.  

This is Soph's first portrait in Acrylic paint, she usually uses pencil.  I am biased but I think its incredible,  especially as painting onto a pumpkin wasn't easy, especially getting the colours right. 

Amazing work as always Soph XXX

Gina

Our Gina is in Lake Garda and has sent some photos from when she arrived on Monday.

Gina the scenery looks absolutely breathtaking, I hope that you are both having a lovely and very well deserved holiday. 

Thank you so much for sharing your holiday photos with us XXX 

I hope that you all have a great weekend,  

Love and hugs to all,  

Sandra xxx

Thrinchie 54

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,  

Ooh it was so cold when I went out to get in the car to go to Bladder Clinic yesterday,  my goodness it took me ages to get warm,  I need to find a warm 'winter' dress to wear to bladder clinic, I am in and out so fast I don't have time to faff with trousers, I wore trousers yesterday and Soph had to step in and help me get back dressed.  So I am going to get some long boots and warm dress that I can layer up, I do prefer dresses since having a hernia,  they are a lot more comfortable around my tummy.   I'm not sure if I have picked up the nasty cold/flu bug that Soph has or if its the after effects of the procedure but I felt mentally and physically wiped out late afternoon, we had Becca round for tea last night,  she asked if she could come over earlier in the week,  it was lovely to sit and spend time with her for the first time since the wedding,  they all chose 'Mr Brains' pork faggots,  with Dad's mash (Paul makes the best mash potatoes) Spring Cabbage, peas and carrots,  I sat with them but couldn't face such a heavy meal.  Becca left about 9pm and I had to go straight to bed, I was very glad to use my new heated throw/blanket. 

Today will be a slow day for me,  Paul is only going to work for 2 hours this morning as he has done SO many extra hours this week,  they don't pay overtime so he makes sure he takes the hours back. 

Today I am sharing Thrinchie 54, the partner to yesterday's Thrinchie,  again only Faded Jeans Distress Oxide ink was used, with a little white ink for highlight and splatters!  I really love this pair of Thrinchies,  the colour is one that I have often overlooked but won't be from now on it reminds me of Wedgwood colour. 

I hope that you all have a good Friday, 

Love and hugs to all of you,  

Sandra xxx

First of a new pair if Thrinchies 53 & 54

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

Well the heating had to go on last night, it was just too cold,  I think partly because it's so wet too, we are forecast a lot of rain today too.  I ordered a heated throw yesterday,  the girls both have one and have had good use out them,  I really struggle with the cold it just seems to make your pains worse.  I got one big enough to share with Paul if he needs it.

Today I am sharing Thrinchie 53,  I followed Tracy Evans tutorial,  this pair are made using only Faded Jeans Distress Oxide ink,  so the shading is done by drying between layers, even the bird and sentiment are stamped in Faded Jeans,  the only other thing used was white paint for splatters!  

I really like how it turned out,  which surprised me 

Bladder clinic today,  please cross your fingers for a positive outcome 🙏 x 

I hope that you all have a great day, 

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx

The last of my Autumn Cards

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Lucy and I had a lovely afternoon out at the local Garden centre yesterday,  we got some bargains, I wanted to get some cyclamens for the trough on the side of the house,  I found some pretty ones, they were £3.99 each, Lucy spotted a pot that had 4 different ones in (as a pre planted pot) it had been reduced from £18.98 down to £5 !!  So I put my 3 back and took that instead ! 

We then thought we'd get some lunch,  however they have had a revamp in the restaurant,   so we looked at the menu and they wanted £10.95 for a Cheese toasted Sandwich,   I said to Lucy that it would be the best part of £30 for two toasted Sandwiches and two drinks!!! So we decided to go get some nice ham from the Deli and use the fresh Sourdough loaf that I made on Monday and some of the 'Five Shires' cheese I had picked up for lucy when I went to a different Garden centre and farm shop a week or so ago,  she said that sounded delicious,  so thats what we did, I could only eat half a toasted Sandwich but it was yummy, I swear 5 'Shires' cheese used to be called 5 counties!  

Todays card is the second one that I made on Saturday,  I have to say I love how this turned out, I used the same French Foliage stamp set that I used for Monday's card, the sentiment is the second in the set from Inkylicious,  I have to say that I really love how this one flows!  

I hope that you all have a great day, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

Another little Stamperia Journal page

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

We had a very wet day here yesterday,  we had spells of torrential rain all day, Paul was up and down opening the back door for the cats then closing it when the rain got crazy,  the cats get a bit stir crazy if they don't get to go outside. 

I spent the afternoon crafting,  I made three projects using just one colour ink pad,  it was a challenge but I was surprised how well it turned out.  

Today I am sharing a little journal page that I made a couple weeks ago, it was my first 'Vicki' tutorial.

It started with the texture paste through a stencil that looked like Newspaper stories, I allowed the paste to dry and then added some Pixie type pigment powders, which were dark blue with  pinks in and a black one too, to give the night sky look.  

Here is a closer look at the details.   After tapping powders over the page I sprinkled the powders carefully,  but still used to much.  The colours just burst out from the water and filled the page! I love the little whispy bits on the top right of the page. 

When this was dry I added some gold glitter stars,  using a stencil was a disaster over the texture paste, they make it look so easy on line!  I fussy cut the different elements from the Stamperia Secret Diary Collection and layered them up in the centre of the page,, a few white splatters finish the page.  

Not my favourite,  but it was my first, so I have to love it!! 🤣😂

I hope that you all have a great day,

Sandra xxx

My last but 1 Autumn cards

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,  

Welcome to the start of a new week,  I hope that you all had a good weekend,  as predicted we had a whole day of rain, it felt cold and damp,  Paul lit the log burner in the afternoon which made it feel much cozier.  The girls came home early from work too which was an added bonus,  I guess even the hardest of Wildlife Park season ticket holders would have been put off by the amount of rain we had.  

It was nothing that a lovely roast dinner couldn't fix though. 

I had a lovely crafting day on Saturday and this card is one of the projects I made.   I have had some Autumn sentiments from Inkylicious that I have been wanting to use but they just didn't work with the journal pages I have made.  So picked out a really old stamp set from SU French Foliage and used it make a couple of cards. 

This one started out as my colour testing piece,  I love how it turned out so I decided to cut it down to 3 x 3 inch, ink around the edges and stamp over the leaves with the little french script stamp in the stamp set I used second generation Crumb Cake ink so that it didn't cover those lovely autumn leaves. 

I hope that today sets your week off to a great start, 

Love & huge hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx