Our Craft Shopping

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

What a wet & wild day yesterday was, the wind & rain didn't give up all day.  Luckily it didn't hamper our day.  Let's face it nothing comes between a girl and her craft shopping.

The show was small which was a bonus for me getting round, it was busy when we arrived but quietens down after lunch,  which us when we got most of our shopping done.  

I didn't get many things from my list,  there was no A3 card white 300gsm,  no decent double sided tape, the low tack tape I did see seemed expensive,  I also wanted another temporary adhesive glue runner for my stamps that don't like to stick to my block, but no joy there either.  There was only one stand out of 22 that had Distress inks, so no good prices to be had, I think the days of 'show day bargains ' are a thing of the past.  I got some lovely things, mostly from The Art of Craft,  I wanted to have a go at one of the layered stencils, so I picked a Lisa Horton one that comes with a die and embossing folder, the lady that owns the shop said that she created all of the samples (which were amazing) without using the tool that is made for them, so I took the plunge. The John Lockwood die looked lovely on the samples as did the woodware stamp.  

I will share Maria & Sue's shopping when I get both of their photos, it was so lovely to catch up x 

I am looking forward to playing with my new things, it may have to wait though as I didn't think I would struggle so much physically as I did on  Sunday, maybe to the last weeks 'issues'  I was drained.  

I hope that you all had a good weekend, 

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

Let's look at our craft projects for this week.

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

We were blessed with another lovely sunny day yesterday,  we had a bit of rain early morning  but then the sun came out and stayed all day!  Travelling through the beautiful cotswold countryside to get to Cirencester feels like such  treat each week, I have to pinch myself sometimes as its like living in rural wales, the scenery is stunning,  the trees are changing by the week which is lovely to watch.  Sadly we aren't so lucky today,  we have rain all day !                                          I am relieved to report that 'mother nature' has given me a break, although annoyingly I don't know whether it naturally stopped or whether its because I have taken medication suggested by the GP.  I am just relieved its stopped (for now)!  

Let's see what Karen & Lilian created this week...

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my card for this week, or should I say tag.

Categories I used were flowers , stamping, tag.

Tim Holtz wall stencil, with crackle paste, which this time has worked, but you can’t see much of it.

Not sure where the stamp came from, it’s a clear stamp, came across it while I was searching for some other floral stamps, too fiddly to cut so mounted on another piece of card. Butterflies are some ephemera that I coloured over. Hope it’s ok . 

Oh Lilian your Tag is so much more than 'ok' its amazing,  the amount of work that you have put into your background is something that only other crafters would understand,  I am pleased to see that your crackle paste was so much more visible this time, it adds so much texture and interest. Those butterflies are coloured beautifully and are the perfect finishing touch to your tag.                               Thank you so much for supporting the blog each week my lovely,  I really do appreciate the work you put in XXX

Karen

Karen’s Description:

I’ve had a go at the floating topper 

The jury is still out on this one for me I used the wrong size die to create aperture therefore the tent thingy showed so I had to trim it down That meant that the folds were too big too So ended up doing a flat mechanism I should have put a tree on the aperture part as well but Hey Ho I will give it another try 

So Fancy fold - Tree or die cut - Sparkle

I really love your fun fold card, the paper you have used is lovely and works so well with the white Christmas trees,  it sounds like you had a bit of a frustration with the mechanism, however you would never guess that by looking at it.                      Its lovely and I really love your tiny sentiment.  

Thank you so much my lovely for taking time to have a go at the fun fold and for sharing it with us,  I know I say it every week but I want you to know that a truly appreciate the time and effort you put into making projects to support the blog XXX

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

We are off to Stamperama Bedford today, I am super organised and have prepared a list, I need some white A3 card for Sophie's portrait boxes and I need to be looking for card for Becca's wedding invitations too.  I did see that it says "Supported by Create & Craft" so I hope that doesn't change anything,  I don't ever remember seeing them at one of those shows. 

I hope that the rain doesn't hinder your Sunday plans my lovelies,  

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra 

xxxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you all managed to stay warm yesterday,  it was quite chilly here, quite a bright day though.  I wonder what today will bring??  Hopefully we will all be safe from storm Ashley! 

I heard from our Janet yesterday she is doing ok and still enjoying Knit & Natter, although isn't getting to craft as much as she used to, it was lovely to hear from her though 😊 

It made me think that I hadn't shared the gorgeous Birthday card that Janet made for me....

It is a beautiful background in soft lilac shades with a beautiful decoupaged floral arrangement in the foreground that has irises and cornflowers in amongst that pretty display,  as always with Janet the inside is equally as beautiful.   Thank you so much for such a lovely card XXX 

Next we have Sophie's entry to the Cotswold Wildlife Parks Annual Pumpkin display,  she was asked to represent the Restaurant, she picked two pumpkins,  one she turned into the cauldron by adding a piece of narrow hose around the top of the Pumpkin to create the rim of the pot.  

For the face Soph thought that the stalk of the pumpkin made a perfect old hag nose, so she turned the Pumpkin on its side and used the top to paint the face, genius!  Her mouth looks like you can actually see inside !!  Also the lines on the top of the Pumpkin made perfect wrinkles!  She has a floor mop wig to finish.  

Absolutely amazing Soph !!! 

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend, 

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Plaid Christmas in a different colourway

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day yesterday,  the sun shone all day, it really highlighted the beautiful colours of Autumn 🍂 of the hundreds of trees around us, no matter what your mood is looking out over the hills adorned with so many different coloured trees would bring a smile to anyone's face!  Mother nature can be so incredibly beautiful at the same time as being incredibly cruel 😉😂! 

Today I am sharing another 'Layered Plaid' Background, this time in Gold and Green shimmer card on a cream card base that has a hint of shimmer too.  The die cuts are from Tim Holtz Vault Holiday Classic die set.  

A closer look at the shimmer. 

I hope that you all have a good Friday, 

Love & Hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

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