TICTACTOE project 2

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Just a quickie today, as I am writing this its 7.15pm and I'm still waiting for the GP to call with my test results, believe me this is some kind of torture,  I think anxiety is under rated as an illness, mibe has me feeling absolutely terrible today, every minute has felt like an hour!  

I couldn't think straight enough to make a card so I am sticking with my theme of  tags, this one uses categories:  Flower/Stamping/tag 

I used my new French Garden stamp from Tim Holtz.  I added Seedless Preserves and Rustic Wilderness to my mixed media mat and spritzed with water, I then took a tag that I cut from Mixed Media card (Dolly Dimples I think) amd smooshed it into the ink, dried it and added a few more layers, drying in between certainly makes a difference.  When I was happy with the background I dried it thoroughly and then stamped the flower and the other text/script stamps from the set.  I then added some splatters, the brush I used must have been used with Mica sprays last as the Seedless preserves splatters definitely have a sparkle too them! 🤣         To finish I simply added a piece of green seam binding from my stash.  

I guess tags are a great way to experiment with colour and a good way of familiarising yourself with how a stamp set stamps,  for example when i did a test stamp with this flower I used Archival Black soot, the image was way too dark and the lines seemed too harsh, so I switched to Versafine Clair and it was much better,  so I might start a journal of tags and add notes like that for future reference.  

I hope the rain isn't causing too many issues where you are, stay safe and dry my lovelies,  

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

Pop Up Tent Fold card 2

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all ok, looks like the miserable weather has returned 😔!  I would much rather watch the Autumn leaves blowing about in the garden.  It's fun to watch the cats react to them too.   Paul pulled the last of the corn 🌽 plants up and weeded the bed ready to be covered for the winter,  while he was pulling the plants and weeds he kept finding conkers, they were buried a good 6 inches down too, under the corn plants,  we have seen that the squirrels have been bringing conkers into the garden and using the top of Paul's large composter as a table to break open the conker shells and then they must be hiding the them in the veg beds for winter, I wonder how they remember where they left them?!  My worry is that they will go uprooting new crops looking for their hidden bounty! 

Now onto todays card, I thought I would make a version using the Simply Cards & Papercraft  magazine free papers.  I thought I would give you the basic sizes in Centimetres for those of you that prefer it.

So the Base card :  10.5 X 29.8 cm 

             Score at   :   14.9  cm

Pop up Mech       :   10 5 X 12.1cm 

           Score at     :   1.5, 3.8, 6.1, 8.3 & 10.6cm 

Floating Hinge    :    3.8 X 6.5 cm 

          Score at      :    1.9 cm 

These are the main components of the card, you can use the original instructions for making up the card.  If you need any further help please let me know.  

Doing this certainly occupied my kind for an hour or so,  knowing that it might help some of you makes me super happy 😄. 

I hope that you all have a great Tuesday,  

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx

My First October TicTacToe Project

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

Well that weekend just flew by,  I found yesterday a bit of a struggle mentally,  it was a bit of an overcast day so I didn't join Paul in the garden, it's very muddy down the veg garden and very slippy so its not ideal for me.  So I thought I'd sort my very messy desk out and then sorted through my stamps, separating the Christmas ones out, I want to sort them further but not sure whether to sort into stamp Themes Flowers, sentiment,  background etc or Brand  Altenew,  Inkylicious,  Lavinia etc               How do your sort yours?   My larger collections like Tim Holtz and Aall&Create I keep separately in larger boxes.    I do find that I don't use many of my stamps because I forget they are there 'out of sight, out of mind' so to speak. 

I sat at my desk most of the day but just couldn't concentrate, I had intended getting a couple of projects done for this weeks blog posts, but that just didn't happen, my mind kept wandering to when I get my test results and what the impact could be.  So I was surprised when Paul said it was almost 5pm.  So I decided to go for a Tag (inspired by Lilian) I could then either use them as tags for gifts or create a tag journal.  

I die cut a tag out of some mixed media card, I then took a TH stencil and a tiny blending brush and coloured the poinsettias through the stencil with Distress Inks using Festive Berries and Rustic Wilderness.  I added clear embossing powder and heat set, after drying I went back and added clear embossing ink through the dots on the stencil and then added gold embossing powder, because the colours were all sealed beneath the embossing I was able to blend 'Shabby Shutters'  over the whole tag, then spritz with water and absorb with paper towel, it looked a little bare around the edges so I used another stencil to add some little fern branches.  I finished the tag with some gold gilding wax around the edges of the tag, some green seam binding ribbon and some with gold to echo the gold in the tag, I added a sentiment strip onto a piece of card and brushed the edges with a little gilding wax. 

So I used Categories:  Stencil/ shine/Tag 

I hope that you a have a good start to the week,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Our Projects this week

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

A lovely sunny day here yesterday,  we got a good bit of weeding and harvesting done in the vegetable garden, there is nothing more satisfying than pulling a nettle and getting the whole root!! 😀  We picked a good lot of carrots, the last of the beans, some more Kale to freeze for smoothies and for eating and some lovely corn cobs for last nights dinner.   I think today will be watching Paul pruning back some overgrown shrubs. 

Lets look at what you have been making this week..

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:  

Here is my tag for this week, not quite autumnal but I thought it would be ok.

I used the stamps, from Tim Holtz, French Garden, I really love this set.

Coloured with the distress water colour pencils, which at the moment is my favourite colouring medium.

I am hoping to make a tag book when I have done quite a few more.

The idea for this one is one I saw on Utube , called words and pictures, she does wonderful colouring with inks and sprays.

Oh Lilian such a beautifully coloured Tag, like you I absolutely love the French Garden stamp set, I will definitely have a look at that YouTube channel for some inspiration.  

Thank you so much for such an inspirational piece, I hope you are having a lovely weekend celebrating your birthday with your family XXX

Maria 

Maria's Description:

My card this week is using the same stamps from the old stamping magazine that I used on the last card and Tim's inks. Hope you like it.

Maria I love it, it perfectly represents Autumn,  I love your blended background, the colours are stunning and beautifully blended.  I really like that Tree stamp too, you could use it for any season by just adding more foliage! 

Thank you so very much for supporting the challenge, I really do appreciate it XXX

Sue 

Sue has used a combination of techniques to create her Autumn card, starting with that lovely Gilding Flake background,  then we have the wood effect layer, which looks like a piece of decorative paper but could be stamped or embossed card.  Then to finish the card Sue has dit cut a branch and a LOT of tiny leaves all individually coloured in Autumn shades!  

The overall effect is so lovely,  it must have taken ages!  

Thank you Sue for making time to create a lovely Autumnal card.  XXX

Karen 

Karen's Description:

Another card and I have used all “old stuff”

I found the embossed piece of card - I think you might have given it to me because I haven’t got that folder!

A Phill Martin sentiment embossed in gold (rarely used until this last week) on vellum - forget to use it 

And I used my tearing rulers - never really use them but Josie reminded us how effective tearing is. 

Ooh Karen that background is lovely,  it's not one of mine,  I really love that embossing folder though😍

With a background that lovely you need very little else as it needs to be the hero of your card!   I have that Poppy die somewhere though, works well with  the Autumn theme.  

Now, those tearing rulers give such a fantastic finish to your 'torn vellum ',  I think I might 'need,' them🤣  The trouble is you start off okay, you are gaining confidence by the time you get to the centre of your tear but then it all goes wrong at that last bit,  I'll start off with a A5 piece of vellum and end up with a postage stamp 😅🤣

Thank you so much for such an inspirational card my lovely XXX 

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

I hope that you all enjoy the rest of the weekend,  

Sending my love & hugs to all of you,

.

Sandra

xxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all relaxed and ready to enjoy the weekend.  We have no plans, which is probably a good thing as mentally I am all over the place.  I have to say the Surgery couldn't have been nicer yesterday,  they fitted me in for bloods straight away and as I was so anxious they must have spoken to the doctors as the one of them called me later on to ask if there was anything she could do to put my mind at ease,  she has promised to call me as soon as she can see them when she gets in on Tuesday,  even though the results are going to the consultant, she can access them.  I thought the fact that she went out of her way to call me was so thoughtful.  

To try and occupy my mind yesterday I did a quick tutorial for a fun fold card, it's a.....

Pop Up Tent Fold Card

So this is a regular 'tent' card (which is a top fold card) with a concertina at the bottom and a floating panel in the centre. 

So we start with our card base, cut your card to :      4 1/8 × 11 3/4 

Score @ 5 7/8 inch.

Next we cut the decorative panel for the card front: 3 7/8 × 5 5/8 inch 

Adhere to the front of your card 

Now open the card up and place a rectangle die in the centre of your card front.  

Now keep the piece you cut out as you will use this as the floating panel.

The pop up hinge piece :  

Cut a piece of card 4 1/8 × 4 3/4 inch

Score @  5/8, 1 1/2, 2 3/8, 3 1/4 & 4 1/8

Make sure you burnish those creases well ! 

Add adhesive 

Align the first crease with the bottom of the back panel of the card. 

Cut a piece of paper : 4 1/8 × 4 3/4 

Adhere this to the inside back panel,  it will cover where the pop up mechanism attaches to the card.

Next we make the floating hinge, cut a piece of card

1/2 × 2 inch 

Score along the short side 

Adhere the floating hinge to the top of the piece that you die cut from the card front.

To adhere the floating panel in the right place add  glue to the floating panel hinge, close the card and place the panel pack into the aperture

Like so..

Press down firmly at the top of the floating panel to make sure its stuck.  As the card opens the floating panel should stay in place. 

Add adhesive to the other side of that bottom 'pop up hinge' 

Line the crease of the first fold to the bottom of the card front.

This is how it should look 

Now comes the fun part.....

The decorating & embellishment! 

These are how it looks from different angles, it also folds flat to fit in an envelope! 

Oh and this is the back panel with space to write your sentiment. 

I hope you enjoy this fun fold Ladies x 

***********

Maria has kindly picked another fold for me to do next time, thank you Maria  xx

I hope that you all have a good Saturday,  

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

 

Happy Birthday Lilian 

Good Morning Ladies,

Please join me in wishing our Lovely Lilian a very happy Birthday,  I hope you have a lovely weekend celebrating with your family  ❤️ 

From a wet and and wild Gloucestershire,  although we did get some sun yesterday which was lovely.   O had appointment at the Gloucester Hospital to see a Doctor about the issues I was having with the  earlier this year,  around the Bile duct.  It keeps swelling up and is really painful,  He has sent off a scan appointment for me, I have to get the GP surgery to do my blood test,  I am praying they get me the answers so fast. 

Today I am sharing the Theme for our next Challenge.... 

TICTACTOE 

I had so many different ideas in my head but ran out of time,  so TICTACTO was the best choice, there are  so many different combinations to choose from.  

I hope that you all have a lovely Thursday, 

Love and hugs 

Sandra xxx

Embossed Autumn piece

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

Well what an emotional experience yesterday was, I am biased but Becca looked beautiful in every dress she tried on, I am sure this is the case in most Bridal shops but the dress she loved was nothing close to what she had in mind, she was looking at very fitted plain, no glitter, lace or tulle,  the very lady dress she tried was heavily embroidered leaves & vines that trailed down the beautiful bodice and top part of the skirt section, it looked stunning the little dropped sleeves made the look, when they tucked the long veil into her hair my heart about broke.  I think she almost felt like it was the 'one' but she wants to try others first just to be sure.  I wasn't aware that you have to pay a fee to book a viewing these days £25 !! 

Now onto today's Autumn project,  I don't think I am going to make it into a card, a lovely lady called Janet that very kindly found me a TH stamp I was looking for) suggested I used it as a journal cover, which hadn't occurrd to me, I think its a great idea.  Janet designs & makes journals and has a shop on Etsy, so she has an eye for these things.                       So it started out as a piece of watercolour card, I added Ground Espresso Archival ink to an embossing folder using a brayer , spritzed my card with water and then ran it through the machine 3 times (to ensure good coverage), I took it out of folder and added clear embossing powder to the dark brown background, I placed the piece into a box and added different Autumnal shades of Distress Mica stain, there was green, red, orange & yellow shades but its hard to pick out individual colours,  I did spritz with water too to get the colours to move.  

It kind of looks like metal or coloured leather up close.  

I am going to have another go using different colours and maybe try to keep one colour in one area, which isn't easy with a spray.  It's definitely fun though,  you could add mica powders to water or to any non sparkly coloured spray you may have in your stash. 

Hospital today, Upper GI clinic this afternoon,  annoyingly the duct isn't flared up at the moment but hopefully they can give me an idea of what it could be. 

I hope that you all have a good day too, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx