Postage stamp style stamping

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I had a very crafty day yesterday, I wanted to use all of the Spray Stain & Distress Oxide Sprays I have in my stash that I haven't gotten around to using yet,  so I got up and got straight into messy crafting,   I used a big box and got busy spraying, drying between layers adding different mediums and embossing powders too.  I can't wait to show you the results, sadly they weren't dry enough for today's blog post.

At 5pm I realised I had nothing to post today so I had to make a quick card.  The laugh is making that postage stamp took forever to get right, I masked off the centre firstly using Sizzix 'Makers Tape'  I can confirm that in my experience it doesn't stop the ink bleeding underneath the tape, so that one got scrapped, I tried a second attempt making sure I properly sealed the tape down, it did the same again, so I went back to the trusty Scotch low tack tape,  third time lucky.  It took a full hour to ink the stamp with green, then clean it and ink red flowers only and restamp. Once dry I went over with a blending brush and some Crumb Cake ink.                To make it into a card, I inked the background with crumb cake , although it didn't show up on camera,  I added some random background stamping and the sentiment and then added the postage stamp piece raised on foam pads,  I coloured some pearls with crumb cake Stampin Blends and added them as a finishing touch.   It's not my favourite card, I think its because the inking hasn't shown up on camera.  Hey Ho!  We always have off days, I think my creativity was exhausted making my backgrounds 😂😳🤣

Home alone today so I am intending to A) Clear the bomb site that is my desk!!  I was literally crafting in a 6 inch square by the end of yesterday! B) Keep myself busy creating with the backgrounds I made yesterday.  C) Praying the phone doesn't ring!!! 

I Hope that you all have a great Thursday,  especially you Karen having your Grandsons on Halloween,  they are so lucky having the nost creative, fun grandparents ever!!! 

My love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

Watercolour Poinsettia card

 Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,

Just a quickie today as Paul and I had a 'date night' last night,  I think it was suggested as a bit of a distraction as I can't stop worrying about the MRi test results, which I think is understandable. 

I did actually get a card made rather than sat not being able to concentrate on anything!  

It's be no means perfect, but then is watercolour meant to look perfect??  I stamped the Tim Holtz poinsettia onto Masking paper and fussy cut a couple of times.  I took a piece of watercolour card and stamped the image three times using the masks so that I could overlap the poinsettia, I added gokd embossing powder and heat set.  I popped the masks back on and added some script stamping in the background using Archival ink so that I could watercolour over it.   I used a combination of Festive Berries & Aged Mahogany Distress Watercolour pencils to colour the poinsettias,  then I used Old Paper distress ink to add colour around the flowers, drying and smooshing the old paper to give more texture.                                                          To finish I stamped the sentiment on watercolour card inked with old paper and layered onto old olive card.   I used Old Olive card to create a DL card base, then edged my stamped piece with gold and adhered to card base. 

I hope that you all have a lovely Wednesday,  

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx

Something Old & Something New

 

Happy Birthday 

🎈🎉 Karen 🎉🎈

Good Morning Ladies, 

Please join me in wishing our Lovely Karen a Very Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳🍹❤️

Well we were trying to hold out until November but it was too chilly yesterday afternoon so we put the heating back on timer, I think we have had it on twice, once back in September and the  a week or so back when it was super chilly upstairs,  the trouble is I hate having the bedroom hot and stuffy in the morning,  I prefer to have the window open and fresh air flowing through,it just feels more 'cleansing ' than breathing in the hot stuffy air!  Is it just me??? 

I had a bit of a 'blue' day yesterday,  I think it was because its the first day in a few weeks that I have been totally on my own, as Paul will choose to go into the office when he knows the girls are here,  I was at my desk bright and early but couldn't get my mind focused on anything,  I was still sat rushing to finish this card at 7pm!!  When Becca rang me mid morning,  I felt sick, nobody ever rings our house phone, except hospital,  Drs etc, so I immediately thought they were ringing about my scan! 🙄😪       I have never been happier to hear Becca's voice but at the same time wanted to shout at her for calling house phone!! 

Today's card was very last minute and I'm not sure I even like it, I combined something 'Old' which was the tree stamp, which is a real old SU one, with something 'New,' which is the Tim Holtz Tiny sentiments.  It's all in Old Olive ink, card and ribbon.  I think I shouldn't of added the green ink to the pine branch embossing!  Lesson learnt!  Less is more! 

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Sue's TicTacToe Challenge card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you all had a good weekend and are ready to face a new week 😘

We managed to get a few garden jobs done yesterday but it was still very wet spongy down at the bottom of the garden, my crocs aren't cold & wet weatherproof,  trouble is with my legs being like they are I physically couldn't get wellies on, I tried but all but dislocated my hip in the process,  so I need to find something that comes lower down and will keep my feet warm and dry, any ideas?? 

Today I am sharing Sue's card that she sent in for yesterday's blog post but I fell asleep and totally forgot to post it 😅  *Sorry Sue!  

The upside of that was that I didn't have to rush around yesterday afternoon getting a card made, so thank you for that Sue x  

Sue's Description:

No problem my lovely. Glad it saves you having to do one. All of the card is from Lime tree. The cream 300gsm card is a gorgeous colour and it scores, cuts and folds beautifully. I will definitely be buying more of it The gold shimmer card, 200gsm cuts really well too. In fact I always rate Lime Tree for just about all of my card and paper stock. Their online shop prices are not much different if at all to what they charge at shows. The only ones I haven’t liked was some Kraft card bases which was too grey cardboardy colour for me but they do a beautiful Kraft colour one side with plain white on the other which is lovely. 

Sue used the new John Lockwood die that she bought at last Sundays craft show and also the cream hammered card too.  I loved your design Sue, especially that card shape, is that a new die too?  

Thanks for taking time to support the blog XXX 

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

Love & hugs

Sandra xxx 

Our makes from this week

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that the sun has blessed you with its presence this weekend,  we had a lovely bright day yesterday, the garden is still way too water logged to even attempt to work on.  We spent yesterday shopping and relaxing,  I still felt nauseous and extremely tired,  although I did get some sleep, I fell asleep quite quickly, I woke in a crazy state of panic at around 3am, my goodness I couldn't get my breath, my heart was going crazy, I think I had a nightmare, which has happened a few times recently.  Anyway I fell back to sleep about an hour later and slept until 8.30am, which is way later than normal.

Your TicTacToe Projects 

Maria 

Maria's Description:

Embossed, flowers and stamped sentiment 😊

It has taken me two hours to get this together 😂. It's the third one, the other two ended up in the bin 

Maria this is such a beautiful card, that embossed flower spray is gorgeous and beautifully embossed, the little pink gems enhance those little flowers perfectly.  

I think most of us have atleast one day a month that it takes several attempts to get a usable card. 

Thank you so much for pushing yourself to take part, I really do appreciate it XXX 

Lilian

Lilian's Description:

Here is my tag for this week.

Flowers/stamping/tag.

This is an old piece that I found ,so coloured it with distress pencils ( of course).

The stamp in the background is a very old chocolate baroque, when Glenda Worterworth ran the company ( not sure of the spelling ) .

A little piece of ribbon, coloured with ink pads, and the heated to heat gun unfortunately didn’t realise it would shrivel up so much.

Such a beautiful tag Lilian,  those flowers have been bought to life by your colouring,  you have definitely mastered those Distress Watercolour pencils.  Thank you so much for creating such a beautiful project for this challenge XXX 

Karen 

Karen's Description:

I made this card with the idea of trying to be clever with the pop up tent fold and then decided against it!

So the TicTacToe is 

Flower/die cut/bold sentiment

I think we all forget how lovely some of these old dies are,  I loved these New York square dies,  that paper is so pretty too.  The flower is a lovely finishing touch.

Thank you so much for another lovely Challenge project and for always supporting the blog Karen XXX

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Ladies, I cannot express in words how much I appreciated your incredible support this week, I seriously couldn't have gotten through it with out your constant words of encouragement,  love and kindness.  I couldn't wish for better friends ❤

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday,

Love & Hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Maria's Beautiful Crystal Art Owl

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

From a chilly & wet Gloucestershire,  nothing planned here today, I am hoping that I am going to have a much clearer head today, the medication the GP prescribed for me to take before my procedure yesterday had my head buzzy and aching the whole of yesterday,  I ended up having to go to bed early evening to get some relief, paracetamol didn't touch the headache, which in fairness was probably partly the stress and anxiety too.  So fingers crossed for a clear head today !!! 

Now I tried sp hard to sit and fo a fun fold tutorial for today but I ended up losing patience and giving up so I have shared one from last year,  it is decorated as a Man card but with a change of paper it could be any occasion.  

Maria has shared her gorgeous Crystal Art Owl, the girls said it looks a bit like Hedwig (Harry Potter).  It looks so lovely against that dark blue background too.  Thank you so much for sharing it with us XXX 

Oh Maria, I searched online for Inch to Cm conversions and came across this chart which I think will be so useful. 

You can screen shot and zoom in to read it.  I hope it might help someone. 

Lilian's Shopping 

Lilian treated herself to few craft goodies, what a lovely selection of stencils, all so versatile, please let me know how you get on with the tearing rulers, they look very sturdy. Those domed blenders are handy for stencils, they get in the stencil better than the flat ones. 

Thank you so much for sharing your shopping with us my lovely XXX 

Here is the Fun Fold...

Todays card is a fun fold for men, I made a standard sized card  (4 1/4 x 5  1/2) in Navy card, the covered the front with a piece of nautical themed pattern paper, I then die cut an aperture for a finishing touch for aperture I cut a slightly larger scalloped circle and used the die that I used for the aperture to cut the centre out, credted a scalloped frame, it just looks neater. I actually did the same for the inside too.  Now for the fun fold part, cut a piece of card 8 inch x 5 1/4 in and score along longest part at 4 inch & 2 inch then fold the first fold a valley, the 2nd fold a mountain fold, so you end up with a reverse z fold card, adhere this part to the card base with the 'Z' fold closing in to the centre of the card (see photo above).  Now the easiest way line up the circle with your focal image on (the circle has to be the same size as your aperture) is to have your circle stamped with matching mat (i used navy)  now close your card and take your circle and place it through the aperture, it will now be perfectly aligned. Remember to only add adhesive to right hand half of your Circle too.                                                              I finished mine with a sentiment embellished with a little Anchor.  You could choose any theme for this fold, you can even change the aperture shape. 

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Karen 

Karen was asked to make this gorgeous little Duffle coat for new baby Twins.  I absolutely love the yarn that you have used Karen, the pattern it creates is lovely in both the bright and more pastel shades. 

My babies lived in babygro and hand knit cardigans for the first few months, I think they look so comfy like that.

Thank you so much for sharing your cardigans Karen XXX

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend, 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Our Next Challenge

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,  

Well, I hope its a good day for you,  for me not so great,  but you my lovely friends know that, hopefully get this morning out of the way and we can get on and enjoy the rest of the day.  The appointment is at 8.40am, so at least I'm not sat about waiting all day.  Then we have the long wait for the results! 😔

Our Next Challenge 

Our Becca found her 'Dream Wedding Dress' yesterday, I have to say she looked stunning,  of course I cried like a baby which set Becca off too.  I loved that the Dress is from a Ukrainian Designer too,  the lady that owned the boutique said that she was the only stockist in UK too.  

So the excitement of that inspired out next challenge,  its Wedding Themed ...

The Categories are:

Something Old

Something New

Something Borrowed 

Something Blue

So for Old:  use any stash you have had for years & haven't used in a while. 

For New:  Use anything you have recently bought

For Borrowed:  Cards or projects you have been inspired to make from Pintetest or Tutorials etc

Something Blue:  i couldn't not add this one as its part of the verse, so anything Blue, shades of blue etc. 

You can of course combine the Categories or use them individually.  

I hope you enjoy the challenge ❤

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I hope that you all have a lovely day,  

Love & Hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Die cut Christmas card

 

Good Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all as well as can be expected,  as always gentle hugs to those that need one. 😘

I was determined to sit and craft yesterday although my mind didn't really want to join in,  so I wasn't going to try anything too demanding!.....Or so I thought l,  this card took me an absolute age!  All of the die cuts took 3 colours that had to be die cut separately, so I think all in all it took a good 2 and a half hours!!  Diecutting,  colouring,  adhering all the layers together.  The candle was 6 layers on its own! 🙄

I embossed the background,  then raised the candle on foam pads and then I arranged and adhered the the foliage at the bottom of the candle.  I was inspired by a card on pinterest but they used a huge sentiment at the top, I wasn't keen on that so I stamped a smaller one.  I do really like it, its very detailed.

I hope that you all have a good Thursday,  

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Maria & Sue's Craft Shopping

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

I know it looks like a Saturday but it isn't,  my brain is preventing me from being creative right now,  I refuse to not post a blog, so I am sharing Sue & Maria's shopping with you and thought I’d add a quote that went along with the theme and I honestly think we have all been guilty of 'shopping faster than we create' at some point. 

I want to take a moment to thank all of you wonderful ladies for your incredible support over this past couple of weeks, I really appreciate you all, just hearing words of encouragement every day makes such a difference.  ❤😘

Sue's Shopping 

Now I know I inadvertently gave you a sneak peek of Sue's shopping on the end of Mondays post but I didn't explain anything (Because i didn't mean to post it )🤣😂

Sue I thought you bought way more than that!  Although there were things that neither of us could find.  Sue mostly wanted to stock up on card in A3 & A4 in cream, I wanted A3 card too but by the time the crowd died down enough for us to get to the stand most of their stock had gone.  Sue added to her Oxide collection too as the prices were really reasonable on the Art of Craft stand, we both loved that John Lockwood Christmas foliage die, Sue also found a great Christmas sentiment that has a lovely font.  So mostly topping up consumables really, it was lovely to look at all the inspiration too. 

Thanks for sharing your shopping Sue xxx

Maria's Shopping 

Hi. Let me start with the Gummiapans little dies that I bought last Saturday.

Here are the ones from Sunday.

 First up the stamps and the little die for the circles. Also an owl one ended up in there 🤭

Next we have the bag of dies and a bag of droplets 

Then we have the embossing folders, the two cards under the photo are some show samples showing the embossing.

Last but not least a Merry Christmas die, the pot of Embossing powder and a pack of doggies for some cards to make one day 😊🤭🤗 over and out from me 😂🥰

Oh dear look what I found more in the bag. Crystal cards to make for my parents and sister, they were hiding 😂

This is also a little present for my neighbour and friend who I'm looking after the cat for when they are away 😊

Oh Maria your messages proper made me chuckle, your bag must have been like Mary Poppins bag with a those things hiding in the bottom! 🤣😅

Thank you so much for sharing your shopping with all of us xxx

I hope that you all have a good Wednesday, 

Love & hugs

Sandra xxx 

Throwback Christmas card

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

Yesterday was a  total write off for a few reasons,  exhaustion, anxiety mostly. I was sat with Paul at my desk from about 9am onwards but I could not get my mind to concentrate on anything. 

So today I am sharing a card that I made last year, using a Tim Holtz stamp, I love this stamp and seeing this card has made me want to get it out and have a play!  Hopefully today will be a better day.  

Here is the description of making the card...

I stamped the image in vintage photo distress ink first (onto watercolour paper), then I wiped over the stamp and adding a little water to the leaves and red petals of the poinsettia then added dIstress watercolour pencils in Candied Apple and Rustic Wilderness to the areas I had added water too, a quick spritz of water and then stamp over the vintage photo ink (benefits of using stamp platform).  It gives a bit of a watercoloured look, the vintage photo gives a vintage hue to the usually bright colours.  

I hope that you all have a really good day,

My love & hugs to all of you dear sweet friends,  

Sandra ❤️ 

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

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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