My First Spotty Challenge card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all well and relaxed after the weekend, I didn't relax on Saturday as I spent finishing off the card I was asked to make by a lady in the village for her Daughters 50th Birthday  so no pressure!  I finished it very late on Saturday,  delivered it Sunday morning, she loved it, thank goodness!  I can't relax when I am creating cards for customers!  After I had delivered it which took a while as we sat and chatted, I had to clear the devastation left by the best part of 3 days making that card, I must of gotten out every colour of flower making foam, different shades of card for accents on the card, a huge pile of stamens for the flowers,  the mini iron, glue gun and sticks, 3 different pairs of scissors,  pokey tools and plenty of dies ( I tried about 5 different kinds) then another large selection of dies for foliage! I do always intend on tidying as I go, I really do, put it just doesn't happen!!  I end up working in a space that measures 6x6 inches on my A3 glass mat. I can't be the only one.

Once tidied I started on today's card, I wanted to use my new Social Butterfly Stamp set  than won from an Ebay Auction!  I have a large pile of backgrounds and bits of backgrounds left over from either playing with different techniques.  This shades of blue background jumped out at me because of the "Spotty/Dotty' Background, it was a Tracy Evans inspired piece.                                           To continue the spotty theme I used this particular Dragonfly/Moth (I'm not sure what it is) but I love the dotty detail along the wings, so I thought it was perfect for this Challenge,  I stamped it in Versafine Clair and added Clear embossing powder to enhance the black ink, I did this because is really textured which can be tricky to stamp on. I really like how it turned out.  I finished it off by matting onto a narrow black mat and then on to a white card base. 

I hope that you all have a pleasant day, 

I would like to send special hugs to both Brenda and Lynda, lots of love too 😘

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                                xxxxxx 

Your New Not Used Challenge Cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies ,

We ended up having a very busy day yesterday,  we had to get 2 new tyres for our car, boy was that expensive! They are one of those things that cost a fortune but you don't see the benefit of spending the money like you would had you bought a nice piece of furniture or craft stash!  They do keep you safe and legal though and the value of that is priceless.  It took 2 hours for them to sort tyres and tracking, we popped into Home Bargains,  ooh Ladies that reminds me to let you know that they had the Embossing Dymo machine for £11.90, which is a good price. 

Lets have a look at your beautiful challenge cards....

Your Challenge Cards 

Janet

Janet's Description:

My first card is made using LABLANCHE latest kit called 'EASTER' and as you can see it features Daffs using a beautiful bright yellow colour. I used one of the 12x12 sheets in the kit to decorate the front and the inside of the card.

My second card -is also made using a new kit- from LABLANCHE called 'CLASSIC FLOWERS' These papers just shine in silver with news print behind.

As usual both these kits are just a delight to use. The 12x12 papers are a good weight and of course their die cut embellishments are beautifully cut with a really good quality finish.

Janet your cards are so pretty,  the first card is the most perfect Spring card, it would be perfect for Easter or Mother's Day.  The images are so beautiful, with that subtle mixed media detail in the background, something that LaBlanche do so well. The beautiful floral spray with those butterflies dancing around on your second is delightful,  it would brighten anyone's day.

Thank you so much for taking part in this weeks challenge Janet,  it's good to see you back making cards XXX

Karen 

Karen's Description:

Card 1: Here’s the finished card using #623 Elegant Spring Flowers plus other sets

Includes a bit of texture paste and some doodling

Card 2:  

Here’s a 4th challenge using my new DO Peacock Feathers and Broken Mesh die.

Card 3: 

   Another card demoed by Janet Pring using #623 Elegant Spring Florals 

Snowdrop stamped in black Torn around the edges and edged Sentiment stamped in Iced Spruce DO I used glossy accents on flower Shaded around flower and fine flicks/specks of black Soot DI 

Background stamped with corner stamp in same set edged with a black Sharpie.

Karen your cards are just amazing, your first card is beautiful,  I love the colour and how you have blended it out across the card, the stamp is one of my favourite stamps that Tracy has designed.  

The blend of colours looks incredible on your second card, Peacock Feathers is a real 'wow' colour, that Broken Mesh die is definitely on ky wish list.

You and Sonia both chose to do a monochrome card, that's so unusual, I absolutely adore that Snowdrop stamp, using it in its simplest form has really highlighted its beauty.  

Thank you so much for creating 3 stunning cards, you have really inspired me XXX

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

 I used a stamp set called peaceful moments , and the wiggly lines are a Tracy set, which I think are call frames( thanks to you). Ink colours are speckled egg and a green who’s name escapes me.

Oh Lilian I love your Challenge card so much, what a brilliant idea using that Tracy Evans border down the side of your card, it works so well. I love that stamp you have used too.  The beautifully blended background really brings the whole card together. Thank you so much for taking part XXX 

Michele

Michele's Description:

Very basic, using that kit I got reduced a while ago. The Easter egg paper is a very old Making cards download.

Lovely cards Michele,  that kit goes so well with the Easter Egg paper, it's so lovely having your cards on our Sunday showcase again.  I am personally delighted that you have felt up to making cards again XXX 

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

Card 1:

I inked the snowflake background stamp from Chloe’s Creative Cards in gold - it’s actually a very yellow gold and I’m not so sure about it. I die cut my new Hobbycraft snowflakes and added a pearl to the centre of each one. The sentiment is from The Stamp Market.

Card 2: 

I started stamping my background using a KaiserCraft grid stamp, and adding an Inkylicious border and Tracey Hey border stamps. I stamped the round sentiment/patterns and die cut them. They’re all from Tracey Hey stamp sets, which I’ve had for a while but never used. The Friend die is from The Stamp Market and the flowers are Sue Wilson. I love the pop of colour from the pink enamel dots by The Stamp Market 

Sonia you certainly put those new Snowflake dies to good use, you should have bought all they had as your amazing card would have them selling like 'hot cakes' !  That background is stunning too. 

Your monochrome card is amazing,  I love your design so much, the combination of background stamps work so well together, the card has given a whole new look to those Sue Wilson flowers. 

Thank you so much for taking part and inspiring us all my lovely XXX 

Sue

Sue's Description:

I used two Distress oxide Sprays that someone very special gave to me and the thank you die is one of a set of 5 different sentiments with a background die if you want to matt and layer it. I have a feeling that I haven’t used the fern die either but if I gave it would only be on one card. 

Have a lovely relaxing day tomorrow my lovely xxx

Sue I always get a warm fuzzy feeling when you take part because it means that you have felt well enough to do one of the things that gives you pleasure.  I am so glad you got to play with your oxide sprays, own up, how much mess did you make?? I love any kind of ferns, I have this die too its a Miss P magazine freebie, it works well as a focal element.   

Thank you so much for taking part my lovely XXX

 

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

Ladies this weeks cards are so beautiful,  you have all dig deep into your 'New Stash' baskets and aced this challenge.  I absolutely loved the Challenge, I used stamps I hadnt used for a year!  If I'm honest I could continue for another week or two before I'd clear my basket! 

Thank you so much for showing me that this challenge was a brilliant idea, thank you for taking the time to take part too.  I truly appreciate you all ❤😍🥰😘

I hope you have a lovely relaxing Sunday,

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday featuring Sue's Magazine Review

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

How are we all this chilly Saturday Morning?  Have you got anything nice planned this weekend?  Nothing much here, if Sun shines like it did yesterday afternoon, it was really cold but glorious sunshine. I was head down trying to get my commissioned card finished, Paul worked until tea time too, for some reason I had my days muddled,  I was convinced that Thursday was Friday, so it was quite a shock when Paul's alarm went off at 5 30am !!  By mid afternoon I got my head in the right place! 

I have to finish my commissioned card today,  I made the foamiran flowers yesterday,  I just need to shape them and add the stamens and hot glue them onto the card.  Then spend a good half hour tidying up!!  I then have bag of clothes that I ordered online to try on at home, Paul's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the huge bag until I explained that I had ordered 2 of each thing in different sizes!  I just hope that there is something in there to fit, I have ordered a dress that has a flower print on, just occasional flower, it's a black background,  I'm just worried that it's not suitable, although I'm not sure Paul's Dad would mind.!! I will let you know. 

Cardmaking & Papercraft 

Issue 226

By Sue

This months free gift are 2 beautiful stamp sets which will make some lovely bright and cheerful cards. I think these are some of the prettiest freebies I have seen. 

30 traditional flowers and sentiments make up one set. The 2nd freebie is  a gorgeous Pinkfresh Studio Leafy decor stamp with a sentiment. 

There is also a free set of 4 cute little girl digital stamps from Paper Nest Dolls. One day I will have a go at using digi stamps

There are several pages showing various ways to use your free stamps including some very pretty clean and simple card tutorials

Some different ways of using the freebies

There is a great watercolour article using the freebies aimed at novice artists like me

The wall calendar article shows how to use a photo frame to make one. Something a bit different and can be easily changed throughout the year if you fancy a change

This feature showcases some Polkadoodles products,  their Characters are always fun, some really cute designs here.

This feature shares hints and tips to help dispell all your doubts about using Acetate on your cards.  Some great ideas.

A couple of competitions to finish this weeks review. 

Thank you so much Sue for taking time to create this review for us xxx

Shopping 

Sonia's Shopping 

Sonia popped to Hobbycraft yesterday and boy did she get a bargain!! 

Here’s a couple of things I did buy in Hobbycraft along with the card blanks, Kraft card and tape if you’d like to share on blog tomorrow….

The snowflake dies we’re on sale, a bargain at £1.50 - and you can never have enough snowflakes 😉 I liked the stencil with the different patterns so will be good for cards and journaling.

Thanks for sharing your shopping Sonia,  I love that stencil so much and the Snowflakes were too much of a bargain to leave behind!  They are so intricate xxx

My Shopping 

Now I saw this stamp fearured on some cards when I was looking at spots and stripe inspiration to try and decide whether to set it as this weeks challenge.  I fell in love with that spotty butterfly so went in search of it, I found this one on Ebay, so I placed a bid and sat and waited for 2 days to see if I had won! I was so excited when I received notification that I had won it for £3.50 including postage!!  I can't wait to use it. 

That's all for today Ladies, 

Sending love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Our Next Challenge....

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,

How are you all my lovely friends? How has your week been??  The weather has been rubbish the past few days and it amazes me how much difference that makes to our daily mood, there is nothing more pleasant than getting up and flinging the bedroom windows open to let in the fresh air and look out at the clear blue sky and hear the birds chattering away in the trees, that just doesn't happen when it's pouring with rain, missing our on that glorious start makes an incredible difference to your day.  I hope that despite the gloomy skies after you are done with your 'swearing' 😜😉 you get to have a lovely day.

 

Despite yesterday's gloomy weather we had a lovely afternoon, Paul had an appointment to get his hair cut (to make sure he looks his best for the funeral next week), usually he would get his hair cut on the way home from work, his hangar is still out of bounds due to having no roof so he is still working from home all week, not that I am complaining although we get through 5 times the amount of tea bags!  Anyway what I am trying to tell you all is that we had an afternoon out, I haven't spent a couple of hours browsing around the town that we used to live in for years. 

So ladies I am wondering how many of you had heard of the word ''Oligarch' before last week??  An Oligarch is a very rich business leader that has a great deal of political influence (usually in Russia), I guess the one we might know is Roman Abramovich (owner of Chelsea football club).  Watching news online a lot of these 'oligarchs' have something to do with Oil, are being sanctioned, France and Germany have seized the most enormous super yachts from their Oligarch owners, I have never seen anything like these yachts, one is valued at £86 million!  they look the size of cruise ships!

Now the thing that got me thinking about funny or odd words that I have no idea of the origin of was Our Sonia's blog comment yesterday, she was responding to my comment about trying clothes on in shops...She said ''if they don't fit you then have the 'Rigmarole' of having to get a different size etc''

this made me smile the hugest smile and I laughed too as it is a word that I use and one that my Mum used loads but I never hear anybody else using, I wasn't sure it was an Essex word, here is an explanation of it's Origin:

For our next challenge I thought it might fun to make some backgrounds with Stripes & Spots,  looking back for inspiration cards I discovered that I hardly every use Stripes.  I have used spots in various ways but not many stripes.  So it will be a challenge for me.  Now you can use spots and stripes in any way you like, you can use spotty or striped paper, you can stamp the spots and stripes or Stencil them. You can also use dies or embossing folders to create the spots and striped.  I can't remember having this as a challenge before so it will be a new one for us all, it can work for any occasion too,  so if any of you want to start your Christmas cards now's your  chance. 
I hope that you enjoy the challenge, I am excited to see what you design. 
Love and huge hugs to all of you,
Sandra                                                                        xxxxxx 

Ragman was also the name of a game where a scroll of parchment had strings hanging from it that pointed to various (likely bawdy) verses in the scroll. Players would choose a string to find their verse, and it would be read out to the entertainment of all.

Over time ragman roll, for a long roll of parchment full of “nonsense,” eventually became rigmarole, a long, unnecessarily time-consuming hassle. No doubt a word that has always been useful.

Do you use any words that are local or make you laugh?

Our Next Challenge

For our next challenge I thought it might fun to make some backgrounds with Stripes & Spots,  looking back for inspiration cards I discovered that I hardly every use Stripes.  I have used spots in various ways but not many stripes.  So it will be a challenge for me.  Now you can use spots and stripes in any way you like, you can use spotty or striped paper, you can stamp the spots and stripes or Stencil them. You can also use dies or embossing folders to create the spots and striped.  I can't remember having this as a challenge before so it will be a new one for us all, it can work for any occasion too,  so if any of you want to start your Christmas cards now's your  chance. 
I hope that you enjoy the challenge, I am excited to see what you design. 

Love and huge hugs to all of you,
Sandra                                                                        xxxxxx 

Another New Horizon card

 

Good Thursday Morning Ladies, 

Well what a wash out yesterday was, so much rain, shopping is just not fun in the rain, coats on, coats off, umbrella just doesn't work in a wheelchair!  We made it fun though, the only thing you can do in these situations is laugh, oh and go for a lovely hot chocolate and a slice of cake 🎂 🥮 !  Oh and no I didn't find anything,  is it just me that hates trying on clothes in shops?!  You can't just buy a size though as one size in Next is definitely not the same in M & S !! 

Today's card is another card using those amazing 'New Horizon ' papers, I used a tiny piece on this card matting it onto a piece of 'Misty Moonlight ' card to pick out the blues. I stamped the sentiment and Birds in 'Misty Moonlight' ink to tie everything together. I embossed a piece of white card and adhered that to a white base card. I thought that leaving a wider border would frame the image nicely, making it more of a feature. 

I hope that you all have a fan Thursday Ladies,

Sending my love and warm hugs to all,

Sandra                                                                                xxxxxx 

A pretty Challenge card

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,

Here we are at the middle of the week already, Happy 'Hump' day!  What are you all up to today? 

Not much planned here other than crafting, I am enjoying going through my 'New products' basket, although I have struggled to move away from those beautiful papers that I used on yesterdays card. 

I love this card that I made yesterday afternoon, using the stamp set called ''Ranunculus Romance' 

I like this set as you get some lovely stamps for creating your background papers as well as that lovely focal stamp which has a matching die to cut it out.

I decided to go a little bit 'grungy', I wanted to work on a Kraft Base card, so I chose Petal Pink (that is more of a soft peach) as I thought that it worked to well with the Kraft card.  I embossed a piece of the petal pink card with a script embossing folder and the roughed the edges up to give that shabby effect.  

After creating my background paper with the stamps in the set and the flower from Flowing Flowers, I edged it with a little Crumb Cake ink mixed with Petal pink ink.  I took the stamped piece and tore it all the way down to add to the shabby feel of the card, I inked the torn part. 

I layered the petal pink embossed piece then added the torn background with a piece of the delicate lace tucked just under the edge. I decided to create a tag for the main focus of the card, I used another piece of the background I created to die cut the tag from, I cut another in Kraft card to layer together, I stamped the Ranuncula flower in Polished Pink and Old Olive and die cut it and layered it onto my tag, I added the 'Hello' sentiment over the stem of the flower.  

To finish the card I added some of the matching lace and Petal Pink ribbon to my tag and trimmed down, I placed the tag onto the card at an angle using foam pads. 

The final finishing touch was some matching little pearl gems to opposite corners of the card and on the tag.

I hope you like the card Ladies, I do hope that you are enjoying this challenge too! 

Lucy wants me to go into town with her to find some smart trousers for the funeral next week, I could do with some too to be honest but most of our 'decent' shops in town have closed down, the town centre is like a ghost town.  Fingers crossed we find something.  Paul is going to try on his ''Hatches, Matches & Despatches'' suit to make sure it fits! 

I hope that you all have a lovely day, I think it will be an indoor day today looking at the weather,

Sending my love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

I love this Collection 😍

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

Yay its March,  Spring is just around the corner 🌱🌷🐏🌤

What a difference a day makes,  we had rain on and off all day yesterday,  it felt much cooler too, I ended up Crafting in my heated foot warmer!  

The news continues to be distressing to watch, it is however so heartwarming to see Ukrainian men and British ex soldiers packing up and heading off to Ukraine to fight.  So many different bodies standing against Russia from FIFA,  to Elon Musk positioning his satellites 🛰 to give Ukraine the best internet access possible that Russia cannot disconnect.  I'm not sure how much of an effect it will have on Russia but it is good to see. 

Now on to today's card, the collection I used for this card is called "On The Horizon ",  the collection includes Stamps, Dies & Papers (6x6).  I have to say that I absolutely 😍 the papers!  I matted a piece of the paper onto Evening Evergreen card and then placed onto a 6x6 card base. Although annoyingly the 6x6 cards I bought measure 5 3/4  x 5 3/4 ( so why not call it that)!!                                                       After layering up the base I die cut the little fence pieces, added those to the scene and the little grass shrubs infront of the fence. I had no flower dies small enough to add them so I had a brainwave and coloured some tiny flower stamens with Alcohol pens and popped them in among the grasses.            The final touch was the sentiment and the little twine bow. 

Janet your Italian meal sounded like a perfect birthday treat, I totally understand what you mean about having to rest to recover from both the physical and mental exertion!  We have all gotten used to isolation, being out in a group is tiring. Fun though. I hope you got some crafting in yesterday.   Did you get any crafty gifts for your birthday? xxx

Lilian the box hoarder in our house isn't me, unless its a special looking box, I bought Paul a coffee advent calendar for Christmas as it was reduced from £60 to £20! I told him when he opened it that I hope he enjoyed the coffee but I was having the box as it would make perfect craft storage!! I will photograph it tomorrow and show you.  

I hope that you all have a lovely day  

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                              xxxxxx