Autumn Prettiness

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you all had a good weekend and are ready to start another week.  Today is the last day of September which seems crazy, to think that at the beginning of this month we were laying on a beach, it seems like months ago!  I think as we get into wedding preparations the months are going to fly by even faster. 

We had quite a relaxed day yesterday,  I collected all the seed pods from the sweet peas, potted up Geraniums and fuschias to go into the greenhouse for winter,  then I saw how cluttered the greenhouse was so I ended up reorganising that, while Paul was doing some weeding. We called it a day at lunchtime as we both felt a little unwell, Paul woke with a headache and felt congested and we both fell a little achy, fingers crossed it doesn't turn into anything bigger. 

I finished today's card yesterday afternoon,  I made the background a couple of weeks ago when I made this card.....

This background had the faux batik added too. 

To finish today's card I added some gold splatters from my Gansai metallic paints.  

I tore a strip of vellum and stamped the Autumn verse in Versamark and added Gold embossing powder and heat set.  I secured the vellum at the back of the coloured piece and then added a touch of gold ink around the edges, then adhered this to tje white base card.                                                           I really love how this background turned out. 

I hope that you all have a great start to the week,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

Our Autumnal cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Yesterday was another very early start,  we drove with Becca & Matt to a remote Barn in the middle of the Hereford countryside, the scenery was breathtaking.  Becca had paid for us to attend this event that was purely showcasing the Tipis and different ways of dressing it for weddings,  the decor was lovely in all styles,  there were different companies there showing off their wares.  The part that you paid for was a prosecco & canapés reception,  the alternative was coke! The canapés  ..a young girl came to us with a platter with 12 squares of bread on, Paul, Becca & Matt took 1 beef canapé,  she then came to me and said would you like one? I asked what they were,  she shrugged her shoulders and said they had the beef, these are vegetarian,  'i think they are plum or something ', I just frowned and said no thank you,  she then walked away, so for £25 you got a 1inch piece of bread and a coke, bearing in mind their Tipi hire is upwards of £7000, I almost choked when the girl said "I'm an event manager, I can Manage & plan  your Wedding day" (she had planned the event we were at).  I think we can manage!  It was good to see the actual space the Tipi gives and the different ways you can lay it out,  Becca saw some ideas that she really loved and some ideas she thought she liked that didn't work visually.  So it was worth the visit for that. 

Let's have a look at your lovely Autumnal projects...

Lilian 

Lilian's Description: 

.hi, here i my tag for this week.

Thought I’d try a bit of grunge after all the crackle paste came off. 

Tim Holtz stencil and stamps 

Coloured with distress water colour pencils.

Am quite pleased with, might try another one, with crackle paste I am determined to get it to work.

Such a lovely tag Lilian,  that background looks so textured,  like a real wall, the greenery growing over it looks just right too.  The flowers and butterflies are coloured to beautifully work with the background.  The blue edging sets the whole thing off.  Absolutely amazing.

Thank you so much for creating another lovely Autumnal piece XXX

Karen

Karen's Description:

I fancied doing something fiddly

It’s not perfect but I think it’s OK

I changed the sentiment to my own 

I think Maria sent you one a few years ago and I bought the kit It’s by La Pashe

I do recognise the image, it's quite a good likeness 🤣😂.  Actually tucking a hot water bottle in your dressing gown belt is a brilliant idea 💡🤣

I love how you have bought that La Pashe lady to life Karen, popping her on a acetate sheet so that she standing in the doorway and you can see around her to the stars behind  her was a genius touch.  I love how this card turned out, the recipient could be any of us 🤣, whoever it is is very lucky. 

Thank you so much Karen for making a different style if Autumnal coloured card. XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

My card for Sunday.

Stamps set from an old magazine. Coloured in with water colour pencils .

Ooh Maria,  you know I love a wreath!  I love your card, the wreath layout is amazing, I love the beautiful images too, you have coloured them perfectly.  This card is everything you think about when you think Autumn colours.

Thank you so much my lovely XXX 

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I hope that you all have a great Sunday,  

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxxx

Mixed up Saturday: Karen edition!

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

Hopefully today will stay dry,  as we are off to visit the Tipi that Becca haa booked for her wedding,  the have events where you can see it all set up for a wedding,  we are picking Matt up to as he us doing all of the sound and lighting for the wedding,  so he needs to see what he has to work with.  It will be nice to go out with the my older two for a change.

Poor Becca's appointment for Hydrotherapy wasn't great, she was hoping for answers but go none and the physiotherapist was in the pool so i couldn't ask questions,  she hated the unisex changing rooms with curtains that don't cover the gap,  she ended get dressed in the disabled toilet as there were only men in the pool changing area when she was there. She wasn't a happy girl when she came out, I will go with her to her other physio appointment next week. 

Karen's Craft Day Projects

Karen had her Crafting with Josie workshop last Saturday and these are the lovely projects that she made.  It sounded really well organised and a lot of fun, the stamping tutorial was on Masking, whicb is a really useful thing to practise, it's more time consuming but well worth the extra effort,  some stamps now come with a mask included, Taylored Expressions do for sure, I actually don't mind stamping into the masking paper and fussy cutting,  as they do last a few uses, its just if you were making a quick card it's more of a faff.  

I love the Christmas wreath you made, it made so much more sense doing that in the morning,  mine got ruined in the car on tbe way home last time. 

That lantern stamp is lovely and I love your cards. 

The highlight of these worksops is definitely the incredible lunch/ afternoon tea that you get.  There is some much in it and everything is from a bakery and tastes delicious.  It lasted Paul and I two days last time.  I will hopefully manage to make it to the next one.  

The bonus with a 'Crafting with Josie' workshop is that her partner is 'Mr' Every Crafts A Bargain'!  So you have to do a bit of shopping,  it would be rude not too 😉 🤣

You got some lovely bits, I have to say that tbose 8 inch scissors were a bargain £2.99 !! 

Thank you so much for sharing your craft day photos with us,  its so lovely to see what you did xxx

Karen's New Bathrooms 

The new sink & the recessed Bathroom Cabinet 

Heated Towel rail & Floating toilet, everything is Floating to make it easier to clean the floor!

All singing all dancing shower and tray The rainfall can be angled and the other has 4 settings all of which you can adjust the flow etc

And the en-suite aka Karen’s bathroom or Oscar’s bathroom. 

WOW Karen you must be so pleased with your new bathroom & Ensuite, it looks like a fancy 'high end' hotel.😍

Some absolutely genius features like the recessed cabinet with the charging point in,  having the storage under the sink is a clever idea too.  Having everything floating so that you can mop round without getting behing the toilet & sink pedestal is such a brilliant idea too.

The main shower looks lovely, I wouldn't be using the rainfall part though, I was excited to try it in the hotel in france but it was quite fierce and I felt like I was drowning 🤣😂, Paul enjoyed if though. I prefer to wash my hair and soap myself up then take the shower head off the wall to rinse off all of my important little (or not so little)places!! 🤣😅😂

Your ensuite is lovely,  even better that its mostly just for you !  I love the little recessed areas for storage, having the contrasting tile in the recess looks great too.  

Thank you so much for making our Saturday post so entertaining,  it's all about Karen today ! 😊         thanks for all the photos my lovely XXX 

I hope that you all have a good Saturday, 

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Clean & Simple Autumnal card

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Here we are at the end of the last full week of September, how can that be?!!  This year is whizzing by faster than last year, for me anyway! 

We had a bright day for the most part with a little rain, so far not the torrential rain that 'Alexa warned us about. I am hoping Our Sonia had a dry day at least.  

Today's card is a Clean & Simple Autumnal card, I die cut a square from my card front panel and then blended Picked Raspberry,  Abandoned Coral and Mustard Seed distress inks across my square at a slight angle (for interest).  I popped the card panel into my stamp tool and placed the inked square back in to the aperture, I then took a silhouette branch and stamped it and the sentiment onto the inked square and card front panel.                              Now, believe me I was VERY careful with this inked piece, I did not want to smudge the Versafine ink on this card.  I even went to wash my hands just to make sure I had no trace of ink on them before I adhered the panel to the card. 

Today we are taking Becca to her Hydrotherapy appointment,  she is meeting with the lead physiotherapist and I have some questions that need answering.  She is losing  ten degrees a week of the maximum her arm will bend, she is now also experiencing numbness, which is very worrying, she is also in more pain that she was before her surgery. 

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

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

Oxide blended Autumn Silhouette card

 

Good Morning My Lovelies, 

I hope you all aren't too washed away with all the rain,  we had a torrential rain all afternoon and evening and have the same and worse forecast today,  I am so pleased we put the Aga on last weekend for two reasons,  its nice having the warmth as the constant damp does bring a chill to the air the other thing is bonus of its washing drying abilities!   There was ne thinking I was super organised getting all of the holiday washing done and packed away!!  No!  the girls hadn't emptied their holiday cases, Soph had 2, one from Spain 1 from Maldives, I will do some but the towels can wait for a dry day! 

Today's card, hmmmm!  What a frustrating afternoon, I had played around with different colours of Oxide to create an Autumnal blended background.  

These were the colours I decided to go with after playing with the darker two shades for a while. 

So I created my background,  then dried it thoroughly before stamping the Taylored Expressions In the Meadow stamp in Versafine clair ink, I added black embossing powder and heat set, then stamped the sentiment in same ink.  I put this and another one I made to one side while Paul and I had late lunch when he got home from work,  about 45 mintes later I created 2 black card bases and used my Scrapbook Adhesive tape runner to adhere my inked piece to my background.   This is where I made my mistake,  after an hour or more of blending,  stamping, embossing etc,  I stuck the inked piece to the base card and gently pressed down to make sure the glue made good contact with the base card and smudged the sentiment fully into the very light antique linen ink at the top of the card !!  😪😤 I could have wept !!  Fortunately this card wasn't so bad and I managed to salvage it, it isn't perfect and had I got more cards ready I wouldn't have shared it but hey, we are all human and none of us perfect,  right?!                                       The other one was a total mess though, I am still working on a solution to fix it, so watch this space! 

I Hope that you all have a good day,

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

My Beautiful Birthday card from Lilian

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you all enjoyed a drier day yesterday,  we were very lucky,  we had typical September weather,  Lucy fancied a trip to the lovely garden centre that we discovered back in July, I particularly love their reduced plant section,  we picked uo some absolute bargains last time and they are still thriving,  I only picked up 3 this time, one of which was a Christmas Cactus (I think thats what it is)  I remember when we were first going out we used to go and stay at his parents and I stayed in his bedroom ( he had to stay in with his brother as although we lived together, sleeping in the same bed before we were married was forbidden 🙄🤣) anyway he had the same cacti on his window sill along with money plants,  I can still see them now stood in 'Vitalite' margarine tubs🤣. This cactus was reduced to £1,  so I couldn’t resist,  I'm glad I did as Paul's face was  picture, he said 'oh I had these on my windowsill at Mum's '  lets hope it survives. 

Today I am sharing the beautiful card that Our Lilian made for me for my birthday.  The stamp is a Tim Holtz stamp,  Lilian has stamped and embossed that gorgeous floral bouquet onto Kraft card, then adding the colouring that brings this image to life, the white flowers with dark pink centres really stand out against that gorgeous green foliage.  A real wow card.  I absolutely love my card Lilian,  you have inspired me to have a go with my large floral TH stamp too.  Thank you so much XXX

I hope that you all have a lovely day, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Another Autumn Challenge card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

From a VERY wet & waterlogged Gloucestershire, my goodness did it rain here Sunday night through the whole of yesterday.  Thank goodness we did raised beds for our vegetable garden or it would have washed away.

Todays card is my next Autumnal colours challenge card.  I used a piece of scrap paper and die cut 3 squares into it.  I used this to add autumn shades to my card base, Crackling Campfire, Spiced Marmalade & Mustard Seed.  I made sure all 3 squares were dry and then stamped the wheat sheaf over the coloured squares and then heat embossed in gold.  I added the sentiment where the 4th square would be, the sentiment is also embossed in gold.  I mounted the piece onto gold matte mirror card then on to matching orange card and added onto a white card base.

I hope that you all have a 'drier day', 

Love and warm hugs, 

Sandra xxx 

My Beautiful Birthday card from Maria

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

Welcome to the start of another week, seems crazy that next Monday is the last day of September, it feels like we only got back from holiday last week!   We start the first of the wedding planning visits next weekend,  we are going with Becca to Hereford to the place that her Wedding Tipi is coming from, I think she paid for the event,  it showcases the Tipi's fully decorated and event ready, I believe we have drinks and canapés too.  I am going armed with a list of questions from Matt who is providing all of the sound and lighting equipment for Becca for her special day (he has worked with a chap that has an event planning company for years, he does it whenever he iisn't working and really enjoys it,  he is 100% a people pleaser.   He provided all of the fancy effects that made Emily's day extra special too).    It makes it all a bit more real now that the organising has started, dress shopping starts next ☺️😁

Today I am sharing the beautiful card that Our Maria made for my birthday,  I absolutely love it, between this card and Karen's stencilled card I have really got the urge to get some of these stencils and have a go!  

The photo doesn't do the card justice, the colours are so beautiful and vibrant and the stencilling is flawless,  I love the composition too with the butterflies flying over the beautiful flowers. 

Thank you SO much for such a beautiful card Maria I love it and will treasure it always XXX

I think we have more heavy rain forecast today,  I hope you manage to avoid it wherever you are.

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra XXX 

Your Autumnal Cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

We had the most relaxing morning yesterday,  just reading and chilling out, followed by a cooked brunch,  I then needed to pop to next to return some clothes I bought for winter but they weren't anything like the picture on line,  or should I say they didn't loom right on my body shape! 🤣😂 

We had a look round a little Craft Market in town then picked up a couple of bits is Sainsburys, the skies looked dark and moody but luckily we didn't have much rain and definitely no storms.

Let's look at your Autumnal cards....

Karen 

Karen's Description:

Card 1:  Here’s an autumnal card I think I used every technique I know along with every machine 🤣

I used Pink Frog card to create a tent card fold

ScanNCut to create cream and brown layers

Guillotine to cut cream card

Embossing folder

Stamps and dies (from an old magazine) onto Clarity card 

Heat embossed with gold and copper 

Sentiment - Taylored Expressions in gold

Two extra leaves added to cover smudges! 

Also created an envelope using StampinUp envelope maker

4 types of adhesive 

Masking tape to hold cream together 

Collall all purpose 

CS Glue

Pinflair gel!

Card 2: Does this work for Autumn

I was asked to make a male card I was lucky enough to win a cd rom from Michelle Jackson when she worked with Serif - big shame they stopped the Craft Artist side

I have put the image onto a 5x7 template 

I duplicated the hat moustache and sentiment which I fussy cut and decoupaged 

I used a Tim Holtz cog die and a HoneyDoo gem

Nuvo copper drops which I tried to turn into screw heads but I didn’t really wait long enough before I tried to add the indentation They were still too liquid

It’s an old layout done slightly different but I think the colours work for Autumn

Oh Karen your first card is just so beautiful,  I know it was hard work but my goodness you can tell a lot of work has gone into it, the details on the leaves for starters!  

Your second card is perfect for the 'dapper chap' I love the steam punk style, you have nailed it. 

Thank you so much for 2 amazing cards, I hope you had an amazing day yesterday and Josie's craft day XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:  

Woodgrain EF. Tim holtz inks  and fussy cut the owl and the leaf.

Wow Maria I love, love, love the warm Autumnal colours you have used, such a perfect card for the season, your blending is incredible too.  

Thank you so much for taking time to make a card, I am sorry you are struggling with pain at the moment my lovely XXX 

Lilian

Lilian's Description:  

Here is my card for this week, I’m not very good with these colours.

I used scattered straw, rusty hinge, and a little purple, with a circle stencil.

Then used one of Lavinias stencils, in the same colours.

The stamps are from a magazine, can’t remember which one.

Oh Lilian such a lovely Autumnal card, I really like how you stencilled the circle of colour in the centre to give the faux aperture look with the stencilled Ivy all around,  such an inspirational idea. 

Thank you so much for perservering with the card making,  the results are definitely worth the effort.  It makes me so sad to know you are struggling with pain though my lovely,  sending gentle hugs XXX 

Sue 

Sue made this card while visiting me on Thursday,  she used a selection of leaf dies from her stash which she then coloured with Distress oxides.  She then arranged then in a wreath on cream card that was embossed with a Woodgrain embossing folder.  To finish the card Sue mounted it onto a 15 x15 cm Kraft card base and added the sentiment. 

Thanks so much Sue for pushing yourself to make a card for this weeks challenge XXX 

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I hope that you all manage to stay dry and have a lovely Sunday, 

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

I think that most of us have spread our crafting 

Throughout the house at some point!

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

What a stormy end to the week, I don't think I have ever seen the skies as dark over our house as they were yesterday afternoon,  we had a good hour of thunder, just continuous rumbling with the odd flash of lightning, the roads on the way to food shopping were so flooded though,  they must have had torrential rain for hours, Lucy had hailstones at work, we didn't have any here though.  I think we have a 24hr Amber warning for thunderstorm and flooding, so no gardening this weekend.  Did you have storms where you are? 

I do hope it doesn't affect your journey or your holiday Sonia, you really need this break with your family, hopefully you are already relaxing in the hot tub with a glass of something delicious 😘

Simply Cards and Papercraft 

Issue 262

I really like the free stamps and dies on this issue, you also got a festive paper pack, 59 paper designs and toppers too.  The papers are really nice quality too, no shiny magazine type paper, you could do any techniques on these papers to, they will take ink fine.  

Mel has used a variety of techniques to create these lovely cards, she covers 'Masking & Ink Blending ', watercolouring, fussy cutting, decoupage and different colouring techniques.

Helen creates 3 different designs for the same sketch, I like her different take on that one basic layout.

Sarah uses the papers and stamps & designs to create some gift wrapping and party favour ideas.

Vanessa has done Masterclass on Masking Stencils, I absolutely love these cards, the different layouts are so inspiring. I think you could use any small flower/leaf stamps to create the designs. I believe one is made using a stencil the others are using narrow tape.  I really want to have a go at these.

A closer look at the cover card, looks like they used every stamp in the set 🤣

Glynis has gone to town with the free stamps and dies and papers and in true Chloe style lots of glitter! 🤣  The cards are lovely,  I do like those Scalloped Square dies, the scallops are small & delicate.  Some lovely cards.

Nicky shows you different ways of using your dies to create your own embossing folders. Some fun designs and another way to stretch your stash further. 

There is a lot more features and inspiration that I haven’t shared so I think its a good value issue.  

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My craft Shopping 

I had some money for my birthday,  which I was saving but then I watched Tim Holtz launch his Christmas Vault dies, I love that Wreath die and all of the elements that make up the wreath. They all had great dies, you can't see the ice skates on the middle set, they are amazing and so detailed!   I have the everyday Tiny Text stamp set and wanted the Festive want for a while but it was always out of stock!  The Mica stains are in lovely shades and have the bonus sparkle of the mica too. 

I can't wait to have a play!! 

I hope that you all stay safe and dry from the storms,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx