Hummingbird card

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

Thank you for your lovely comments on our garden photos on yesterday's blog.  Gardening is one thing that Paul and I both love, which makes it even more enjoyable.                                                                 It's a good job we took the photos on Sunday as we had a huge storm yesterday afternoon,  it started with continuous thunder, with no gaps between the rumbling, after about half an hour it got even darker and the wind picked up, there was an almighty crack of lightning and then even louder thunder, then the heavens opened and we have torrential rain and hail stones,  I don't even want to look at the flowers now!  I'm sure they'll all recover. 

I made today's card yesterday,  using the free stamps that came the last magazine I reviewd.  I cut a 3 1/4 circle out of a piece of copier paper and placed that over a 5 x 5 inch piece of white card, I blended Scattered Straw Distress Oxide through the aperture blending out towards the centre, keeping that lighter, I removed the copier paper and placed the circle aperture over the piece I just blended,  I held the circle down and blended Peacock Feathers around the rest of the card, again keeping the centre a bit lighter,  to add definition to the corners I blended Uncharted Mariner around the corners and down the sides.  After drying the ink I stamped the circlular dot stamp over the Scattered straw area in the centre of the card and edged the sides of the card with Versamark ink and then added Gold Embossing powder and heat set.  

Next I had to do a reverse stamp of the humming bird so that I could have two facing each other, I did this by stamping the bird using Versafine onyx black (as it was a bit wetter than my Versafine Clair) onto my Gelli plate, I then put a piece of card over the stamped image and lifted the reversed image, I quickly added clear embossing powder and heat set, this makes colouring with Distress Oxides easier,  otherwise the oxide dull the black ink.  I then stamped the other bird and coloured both with Abandoned Coral,  Fired Brick, Scattered Straw and Peacock Feathers Distress Oxides.  To finish the background I stamped one of the flowers  around the bottom half of the card. I finished the birds with a quick coat from a clear glitter pen (although it doesn't show up on camera). 

To finish the card, I mounted the inked front piece onto a mat of orange card that matched the Abandoned Coral,  I edged this with a black pen to give a faux black mat, I then created a yellow card and after winding some black cotton around the top of the card I adhered everything to the card base, I stamped the sentiment onto the orange card and edged with gold embossing and then popped that onto a black mat and adhered it over the cotton.  The last job was to add the hummingbirds, I added foam tape to the backs of them and placed them either side of the circlular centre piece. 

I hope that you all have a lovely day,  

Love and hugs, 

Sandra xxx

A day in my 2nd favourite place...the Garden

 

A beautiful Marguerite

Beautiful Geraniums 

Begonia

Clematis (new last year)

African Daisy

Beautiful Azalea 

Rescued l

(Last year for 50p)

Another gorgeous Clematis 

Same clematis has grown almost 20ft up a tree 

At the end of the garden.

This Montana Clematis was new last year, 

It has reached about 12ft already

Princess Margaret Rose

The perfume from this rose is incredible, 

Pretty little alpine, 

(Another rescue 20p)

More Clematis 

Beautiful white Clematis 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

I didn't get chance to  create anything 'crafty' these weekend as we me made the most of the weather and spent most of the weekend in the garden, so I thought I'd share some photos of the beautiful flowers that bring me joy every time I get outside.

When we moved in the garden here had been largely neglected,  the previous occupant were just not interested in gardening of any kind, not even mowing the lawn.  Lynne & Bill who had the house built were keen gardeners, particularly Lynne who loves Roses,  we have felt that we wanted to nurture the roses that are dear to Lynne back to life, many of then were that covered in bind weed that they were bent double,  slowly they have come back to full glory, the one I shared above 'Princess Margaret ' was a gift from Bill's parents 30 years ago, we have pruned her and fed her, we have gotten rid of the Black spot that it was covered in,  it is full of buds and will bless us with beautiful big roses all summer long, every one a different shade of peachy orange,  the roses have so many layers of petals, so beautiful,  the smile on Lynne's face was worth every moment that we have put into taking care of it.  I will share the other roses as they come into flower. 

The flowers that bring the most joy are the ones we have rescued, from the dead and dying area at the Garden centre, the Azalea and Alpine above were bothe rescued, a little bit of tlc and they have rewarded us with a gorgeous display of flowers.

The clematis are just a delight to look at, we have 6 different ones around the garden, the most impressive is the pretty pale pink one that has scaled the fence and the tree next to it, it is a good 25ft up the tree and climbing and is covered i  flowers.  We have 3 that we bought last year, the montana has reached a good 12ft and has an incredible display of flowers, the white one is a bonus that we discovered last year,  it had been overtaken with brambles and nettles, we cleared all of that and have been rewarded with these stunning waxy looking white flowers.

Now here is an example of using the photos as inspiration....

There are so many more colours when you look closely at these flowers than what you see initially,  which I think is helpful when colouring flowers on our cards.  

Sorry that there isn't a card today,  hopefully the beautiful flowers will bring a smile to your face and maybe a little inspiration.  

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

Love & hugs,

Sandra xxx 

This weeks challenge makes

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,  

We have a lovely afternoon out yesterday,  we drove over to Pershore to a Nursery (just plants, no cafe,  no clothes boutique or gifts) just very reasonably priced plants, for instance trays of bedding plants for £1.50 !! His petunias were beautiful and already a good size pot for £1 50, we literally got a boot full for £27, that included aRed Hot Poker plant that I have been after for years, its a lovely size and was £5.99,  any of the garden centres i go to with the girls that one plant would have been the best part of £20, we drove into Pershore afterwards for a coffee and cake but it was a bit disappointing so we drove home and had a cuppa and home made coffee or Banana cake.

Let's have a look at what you have been creating this week.......

Karen

Karen's Description: 

Card 1:  Here’s a challenge card

Flowers-Stencil-Inks

It’s the Serif background I created from a Color Box card which I added stencilling and stamping Aall&Create dies 

(The blue in the flower is not as bright in real life it is more like the colour on the card)

Card 2: 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi here is my tag for this week, it’s strange as I stamped those branches yesterday, and today you show an early card.

Tim Holtz stencil is mosaic, stamp is Stamping Up, 

Beads I’ve had for years can’t remember where they came from.

So Foliage, things with wings, stencil.

What a beautiful Tag Lilian,  love the colouring in the background and you can never go wrong with a foliage stamp,  what a coincidence that I shared a card that you made using this same stamp from 9 years ago!  SU stamps may cost a little more but they are great quality. 

The lace trim and little flowers increase the beauty of this gorgeous Mixed Media tag.

Thank you so much for supporting the challenge my lovely XXX 

Maria

Maria's Description:

The time again, where the heck did the week go ? 

I had a little play today and got this together.

Stamp and tools for gardening I thought is for Spring/ Summer, used inks by T Holtz for stamping the flowers. So that's the card for Sunday.  I did everything directly on to the card but might transfer it to a larger card at some time ,not sure yet 😊

Absolutely love this card Maria, perfect for any gardener.  I love your attention to detail,  loke adding grass under the wheelbarrow,  watering can etc.  Beautifully coloured too. 

Thank you so much for supporting the challenge my lovely XXX 

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

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

Love and hugs to all,  

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope the sun is shining where you are today, it just makes the day feel better!  

I shared some of my older cards the other day and asked if you'd liked to see some of your old cards, you did,  so here they are.....

These cards were for our first few Blog Challenges back in 2016, yes 9 years ago !!! 

Brenda

Karen 

Lilian 

Maria

Sue

Aren't they amazing!!! Most of us, with the exception of our Lilian weren't stamping back then, so the majority of cards are made using dies.           Interestingly the styles haven't changed very much, its just the way we create those styles have changed.

Maybe we should go back and do these first challenges again.  They were mostly sketch challenges back then,  a couple of these cards were made for a 'One Die Challenge'.   Today a Challenge using only one die wouldn't be that much of a Challenge.  

I hope that you enjoyed the little stroll down Memory Lane. 

Have a lovely Saturday,  

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Spots & Stripes today

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,  

I hope that today finds you well,  or as well as can be expected,  sending gentle hugs to anyone that needs one, I say that as I could do with one this week, Gp are so frustrating, especially when you genuinely suffer with Anxiety, I did ask yesterday if we were ok to go on holiday, to which he replied yes everyone needs a holiday!  That wasn't what I wanted to hear!  

Anyway on to cheery things, I decided to use the Spots/Stripes elements of the TicTacToe Challenge for todays card, I used my SU Bright & Beautiful dsp for this card, the striped paper is the reverse of those spots. I adhered both pieces to a piece of Black card stock leaving a narrow border around both pieces.  I die cut the heart in white and 'friend' in white background with narrow black piece on top.  I stamped the 'Thank you' in black and added above the friend die cut, 3 small diamanté finish the card. 

I hope that you all have a lovely end to your week, 

Love and hugs, 

Sandra xxx 

A silhouette Tag

 

Good Thursday Morning Ladies,  

Ooh why are GP's so frustrating,  I had to go yesterday as the discomfort from my latest issue had had me up all night,  the receptionist were lovely, I like to point that out as its unusual 🤣, I got an appointment for 12.30, she got the giggles because she asked me which side the lump was, I said 'hmmm, its kinda in the middle,  she chuckled and said thats not an option,  I said well if I lay on my right its more on the right,  she got the proper giggles and said what about if you lay on your left side , I said my hip dislocates!  She said OMG do you need help, I said no, I don't lay on that side, I truly believe she was in tears with laughter by the end of the call 🤣😂                                                         The GP is one I've not seen before, had an air of arrogance about him, he listened, then examined me and said what he thought it was, then spent 5 minutes talking to himself,  he said we'll get an ultrasound to check, then said no need,  we know what it is !!  I was trying to explain the symptoms but he just cut me off saying, I'll make some enquiries and get back to you,  i also took a sample as I'm not convinced my uti has cleared up, any other Gp just dips it and tells you there and then, not him, he threw it on the desk and said 'the nurse can deal with that'!  So I am still non the wiser as to whether its cleared up!   

Now I'm not sure about todays tag, it started out as a bit of background that I had made using a mixture of oxides and the distress spritz,  you can't tell from the photo but it has a nice shimmer,  I used a stencil to add some more details, then I stamped a selection of TH Wildflower stamps in Black.  I stamped the sentiment and then added some inking around the edges and then added some black splats (I should have covered sentiment really) but I forgot until it was too late! 🙄                 To finish I added some ribbon and a bit of black lace  

I hope that you have a good day, 

Love to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Watercoloured Floral card

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Lucy and I had a lovely afternoon out yesterday,  we tried a new place called 'Cotswold Barn' for lunch, it was literally in the middle of nowhere, only about 18 miles from us,  they had a good choice on the menu, we went for toasted ham.& cheese on granary bread, it had Mustard and pickles in too, it was lovely,  really good ham makes such a difference.  It wasn't cheap, but we have come to expect that anything in the Cotswolds or calling themselves 'Cotswold' Barn, cafe, farm etc, seems to add a premium to their prices. 

We got home at around 4pm so I went straight to ky desk to create something for today's post. 

I was looking through my stamps and found the beautiful 'Floristry ' stamp that I bought last year,  I have used the sentiments on different cards but I hadn't used the floral stamp, it's that big that it comes with its own grid stamp block, I used my stamp platform though, I was inspired by one of Tim Holtz 'makers', I stamped a piece of the stamp in the bottom corner and a little bit for balance on the opposite corner, I stamped in Black Soot Archival ink and embossed with clear embossing powder, as I find this really helps keep the black ink a nice crisp black.                                                      I was undecided what to use to colour the stamped image, after 20 minutes of deliberation I decided to use Distress inks to watercolour the image, I smooshed the inks onto my craft mat and just relaxed and sat and coloured for about 25 minutes, I bled some of the colours out and around the image to give the background some colour and interest, it doesn't show up on the photo above but its clearer on this one.......

After the ink had dried I added some stitching,  I stitched it onto a white mat with 1/8 border, then I added a black mat to tie in the black ink and cotton, then onto a 5.5 inch square Kraft card base.  I stamped the sentiment onto a piece of card and clear embossed,  I added the same colours to the background as I used to colour the flowers.  I added a black mat to the sentiment and added some black cotton behind the sentiment strip.  I have to say I really enjoyed creating this card, colouring with the Distress inks was simple and effective. 

I hope that you all have a good day, 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx