Layered Plaid Christmas

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Rain Rain go away, come again another day!   We've had more than enough rain for this month, it's so miserable,  having to have the lights on in the morning, my craft desk is under a window which is great for getting good natural light but not for the past week or so, we all no how important decent daylight is for putting colours together.   Luckily I have a daylight lamp which helps. I thought the weather was improving this week,  it is getting warmer but not drier!   

Now onto today's card, I will be honest and say that I wasn't sure about the colour of the background of this card to start with but as I added the sentiment and embellishments it kind of grew on me.  I only really use black when stamping!  

So I took my Layered Plaid die and used it to cut both Black Mirror card and that lovely red velvet card from pink frog and layered them together, I 'hmmmed' and haaah'd for a while and cut the plaid in another colour way,  I decided to be determined and make my original choice work.       I placed my die cut piece onto a white card base and built up the card from there, I tried a couple of different sentiments in different colours, I decided on the 'Peace ' die and thought that the matt gold card worked best, so to tie that into the card I added a matt of the gold card under the sentiment strip and a couple of bits of it in the foliage sprays above below the sentiment.  The sentiment strip looked a little bare so I added the little extra sentiment below the 'peace' die cut.  

I tried to capture the shine of the mirror card here! 

Die Cut/ Foliage/ Sparkle & Shine 

I hope that the rain doesn't affect any of you today, 

Love & Hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Another new technique

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Monday & Tuesday seem to have totally flown by this week,  it doesn't seem possible that its midweek already!  The rain absolutely poured down all night, our waterbutts are all virtually overflowing!  Paul is trying to rig up some kind of contraption to move the rainwater from the water butts attached to downpipes on the house/garage to a larger water container in the veg garden!  It will be great if it works as we can store rain water for the veg plot for next year!   I will say that its worth collecting the rainwater for your house plants ours seem to be doing so much better since we switched from tap to rain water.  We started it when we bought the carnivorous plants as they need rain water.  

So yesterday afternoon I thought I 'd try 'Colour Blocking '  I masked off the edges of the card and then took some narrow washi tape and taped off a pattern,  making sure everything was well stuck down.  I then took a selection of Distress Inks and created a different blend on each side of card front.  After I had completed the blending I dried with my heat tool and then carefully picked the still taped piece up and put it in my stamp tool.  I chose a simple silhouette flower branch and stamped it randomly over the coloured card,  now I did use a large post it note to cover the areas I didn't want the stamp touching, as I did not want to mess up at this point!  I turned the stamp around each time to give a random look.  After stamping I carefully removed all the tape before adding the embossing powder, now this turned out to be frustrating as the white embossing powder stuck to everywhere the tape had been! 😔   I took a narrow paint brush and removed all of the excess powder!                            Finally I heat embossed the stamped areas and was quite pleased with the effect, by no means perfect but still a fun design.  I picked the colour that was barely visible in the background to use for the sentiment,  I stamped and embossed the "hello" then did the resist technique, using the green ink all over the embossed sentiment and then die cut and added a white scalloped mat. 

I hope that you have a happy 'hump' day, 

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

Trying new things....

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

Wl yesterday was wet cold and miserable, my feet didn't get warm all day!  I think i need some warm thermal slippers, I struggle with slippers though because they have rubber grippy stuff on the bottom, because I don't lift my leg like you would it kind of drags as I hitch it forward,  grippy shoes make that so much harder and usually results in my tripping over!  So I need to find something that has a bit of a glide surface!  Ooh the problems!!! Eh!!! 🤣😂😅

I tried something new yesterday!  I wanted to fully watercolour a piece for a journal page, I told myself it was going to be a journal page before I started so that I didn't get hung up on it being 'perfect' 

I saw this style piece on Pinterest by Copy cat crafts,  I basically stamped the images from SU 'remarkable you' stamp set, then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I then washed over my background with a wet brush and added yellow paint from my Koi watercolour set, I kept building the yellow until i thought it looked OK (although its by no means perfect) I let it dry for a bit then I set on with colouring the leaves and then onto the flowers, I did this a layer at a time, allowing the paint to dry in-between layers.  Now I will confess to a 'happy accident'  as I dropped my paint brush down tiny red spatters went across my card,  rather than getting disheartened I embraced it and added a few more and then a few black splatters too!          Finally I found this sentiment and thought it fit the piece perfectly!! 

So the moral of today's post, try something new,  don't stress about it, just have a go and enjoy it. !

Have a great day, 

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

Poinsettia card

Good Monday Morning Ladies,  

I hope that you all had a good weekend and are ready to start a new week.  We had quite a leisurely day yesterday,  lazy morning,  late brunch and then we went for a browse around a nearby garden centre, they are never just 'garden centres' these days though are they?   I heard a man complaining because he couldn't find a specific plant, he was saying to the lady gardener "maybe if you focused on selling plants and garden tools as the name would suggest rather than all of this other rubbish', he went on "tell me how many people come to ghe heart if the cotswolds to a garden centre to buy Grimsby fresh fish ", he did have a point there!   The girl just radio'd a manager to come and help him.   In fairness in amongst the aisles of nonsense we did find a couple of fun gift ideas.!  Mr Yorkshire wasn't paying those premium prices though, we took photos to search online, I did dare to suggest cuppa and a piece of cake, in fairness the queue was huge, but we went with buying some viennese swirls and taking them home where the tea cost pennies and you can have as many refills as you like!  The viennese whirls just melted in your mouth 😍 !  We got home and started to sort dinner,  Soph has requested beef stew and dumplings,  I might try baking them on top of stew in the Aga, so they get  crispy top this time!  Lucy hates dumplings so she is having mashed potatoes with hers and some deliscious dark spring cabbage with lots of butter 😋 

I had a lovely little craft session on Saturday morning, I usually like to spend the weekend with Paul as I barely get any quality time in the week, he was busy in the garden so I decided to have a play at my desk.

Having my sprays out on show on racks in my line of sight really helps to prick my conscience into using them,  I saw a card with a smooshed/spritzed background and that was all the inspiration I needed, I took what sprays I thought would work in both Distress Spray stains and Distress Mica stains and got busy spritzing 

I thought it needed a bit more coverage in the centre so I smooshed some Evergreen Bough onto my craft mat and tapped my background onto it a couple of times taking care not to lose all of the little spots and dots!  It doesn't pick up on camera but the Mica Spray 'Tree Lot' has added sparkle to the background too.   Next step was to die cut my TH Poinsettia and leaves,  it didn't occur to me until I was assembling the card that these leaves are more like Holly leaves as Poinsettia don't really have leaves (or they have coloured leaves and no flowers) 🤷‍♀️

To make the flowers/foliage a bit more festive I added sparkle to the top layers,  so the poinsettia flowers were die cut in Cheery Cobbler card, I then added some of the new Distress Spritz in Barn Door,  after drying I wasn't happy with the colour,  the spritz made it look a little pink,  so I tried blending a little cherry Cobbler ink over the spritz, I was delighted that the red returned and the sparkle was still sparkling!  The leaves were die cut in Garden Green and top layer spritzed with 'Tree Lot' Mica stain, I loved the colour immediately 😍

I assembled the layers adding a little sparkly yellow in the centre of the flowers.                                            I layered the background onto  matt gold card and then onto a 6 x 6 inch card base, arranged the flowers and leaves and decided to add the holly berries too. I was going to add some white splatters but I had assembled the whole card and i was too afraid that I'd get 1 big splatter that would ruin the whole card.   The sentiment is from a TH sticker book and was in a matching green, I layered it up the same as the card to finish. 

I hope that your week gets off to a great start, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Your Craft Projects

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Well I didn't leave the house yesterday,  not even to go into the garden,  it was very wet and slippery from the deck onwards.  So unusually for me I dis some crafting,  I had a fun little hour or two while Paul was in the garden.  

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

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my effort at doing Saturdays demonstration . Another time I would use stiffer card.

The papers are from stamping up. The flowers are from one of my ephemera books.

The categories are flowers, fancy fold, and die cuts.

I absolutely love your Pop Up Tent fold card Lilian,  those beautiful papers work so well with the pansies from your Ephemera books.

Thank you so much for having a go at the fancy fold and for supporting our Challenge XXX

Karen

Karen's Description:

Here’s a Tic Tac Toe

Foliage/Embossing folder and powder/Bold sentiment 

Our daughter’s Anniversary card I used the same colours as their wedding stationary 

I printed the sentiment on cream card using the same fonts 

2 copper embossed hearts as per the envelope of the wedding invite

Embolicious folder and a small strip of hearts from a SW Striplet

Oh Karen your Anniversary card is so perfect,  I love the way you use things that have added meaning to Charlotte & Martin.  Such a special card that they will treasure forever.  Thank you so much for supporting the challenge XXX 

Maria

Maria's Description:

Here are my two Pop Up Tent Fold cards. Papers from stash and Die cuts. It will probably be a stamped sentiment in one but couldn't find one I liked so nearly followed the TTT 🤭😊

Fun Fold/ Die cut/ Sparkle & Shine 

Maria thank you so much for making two of the fun fold cards I shared last weekend, I really appreciate you having a go and supporting the challenge too. 

I hope that you had a good day at your workshop yesterday 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 My Lovely Friends,  

Thank goodness its the weekend,  I know it doesn't make too much difference to most of us, for me it means that I get to spend quality time with Paul,  which is like the best treat ever 😀 ❤️                          We have no real plans, I think we are both mentally and physically exhausted with the recent news, I hadn't realised how much Paul was affected until we spoke about it yesterday, he had picked up the consultant's manner seeming to emphasise the cancer diagnosis more than the other options too.   We sometimes forget that those we see as our rock or main support are as affected as we are.  I am do incredibly lucky to have him ❤️ 

Lucy's Northern Lights photos 

We were all so excited to finally be able to get some photos of it, Lucy's phone camera is so much better than the the rest if us have, even she was surprised.  I particularly love the ones that have the trees in silhouette.   Well done Lucy 🥰😍😘

Karen

Karen was looking for Anniversary gifts for her Daughter & Son in Law on Etsy and saw something very similar to the photo above,  like me Karen leaves the gift shopping a bit last minute so after realising that if she ordered it it wouldn't arrive on time!  So Karen decided to have a go at making it herself,  which means you can add extra special touches that have more meaning to Charlotte & Martin.  How can it be a year already !! 

Karen's Description:

We saw a gift on Etsy that we’d have liked to have bought for Charlotte and Martin’s first wedding anniversary (paper) but like always we’re too last minute.com So decided to have a try I could find a suitable bottle with a cork and needed it quickly So bought the jar and some floristry wire from Hobbycraft 

Printed a sheet of cream card (from their wedding stationery) with the word Marriage and the sentiment matches the fonts used on their stationary. 

Karen you are so clever,  your gift is so thoughtful and those special little touches make such a difference.  Thank you so much for allowing me to share it today xxx

Creative Stamping Magazine 

Issue 140

IndigoBlu are the designers of the free gifts for this months edition.  There are a lovely mix of traditional and contemporary stamps in this set, the stencil is lovely and very versatile.   The papers are amazing quality and so can be inked and stencilled on, here are a few of them.....

These are just a few, you can use them as a whole background or just a piece! 

 Sarah has made these lovely projects using the free stencil with some distress inks to create the background for all of them.  I love how the modern looking distress inked background mixes so well with the traditional style Christmas stamps.

Now Glynis has gone for a real traditional look for her cards, using gold embossing to some special highlightss to the cards.  The fussy cutting and colouring are really inspiring  

Shadow Stamping is the Technique that Vanessa has used to create these lovely project.  These cards are great because they look like they have dimension due to the drop shadow but are in fact totally flat!  I zoomed in on the technique for you.  I have tried this technique before, I did it in my stamp platform and just shifted the card a fraction to the right and down,  literally just a couple mm! 

Helen has used the free "Downloadable' papers to create these Pastel coloured Christmas cards,  the different colour way gives the cards a more modern look.  

From subtle Pastels to super bright and blocky!!      Laura gives us a 'Beginners ' guide to using Colour Blocking to create these amazing cards, I am definitely going to be trying this technique!  It looks like most of the detailed patterns are made by using narrow washi tape, as shown in that little 'How to' box above.  Other cards have used Stencils to add the colours.

I love the bright and cheerful designs on all of these cards.  

Sarah has used all different mediums to create these fantastic mixed media cards, from gilding flakes to twigs from the garden, hessian ribbon and tissue paper, all things we have in our stash that can be stamped on or used to add texture and tone to your cards. 

Lastly Ashley has used the free stamps to create these quick cards that are perfect for a last minute make or for batch making.  The stamped and coloured images have been added to some fun, quick and simple background techniques.  

All in all I am really pleased with this magazine,  it has really imspired me to try some different techniques.  

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I hope that you all have a lovely weekend,  

Love & Hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Another Christmas Tag

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Just a quickie today,  I hope that you are all ok, pr as well as can be expected.  Gentle hugs to those of you that need one 😘

Bladder clinic went well yesterday,  I was brave enough to ask for the nurse that gets 'it' right first time to do my proceedure, the lady that usually writes the notes has done the last two and both caused me terrible uti symptoms,  bless her she is lovely but I think she doesn't like to do it, so when she does she is nervous,  as much as I understand I have to think about myself too.  I saw the lovely lady that does it straight away with no issues, I locked eyes with her and mouthed 'will you do it please' she just winked and said "yes its me this time", I smiled a smile bigger than anyone should in the position I was in!!! 🤣😂 Anyway it went as smoothly as it could.  Soph was my partner in crime yesterday,  she needed to go to Hobbycraft as she was chosen to decorate the Pumpkin to represent Restaurant staff for the Annual Pumpkin competition,  I don't think any of us would turn down a visit to Hobbycraft,  although ours is a small one and to be honest the very few bits of paper craft stuff they had was very disappointing, Soph got what she needed though.  We got lunch to take home to have with Paul, it was mid afternoon by then mind.  

I made another Christmas tag after we go back, just a quick one using Tim Holtz  collage paper for the background,  which I coloured with vintage photo DI, I used a poinsettia from a pack of TH Christmas layers & Paper Dolls,  plus a couple of word stickers.  I finished with a piece of seam binding ribbon.  

I hope that you all have a good Friday,

Sending my love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

❤ Ps....I don't know why I said "just a quick one" 🤣😂