Good Monday Morning Ladies,

Well that was a busy weekend,  I dissappeared so fast,  I hardly saw Paul all weekend as he was busy too'ing and fro'ing with boxes from 8am till 9pm both days!  I couldn't physically get in the van to join him on his journeys, I did go over with lucy yesterday evening though, as I refused to let Paul be at the house alone while climbing in and out of the loft, so while he was busy I sorted a huge load of stuff that can go straight to the tip rather than being packed away AGAIN!  

Today's card is one I made a couple weeks ago using a SU paper collection that I have had for months and never even opened,  the colour palette is quite dark so I have put off using it.  I simply matted some of the dsp onto my card base,  then layered a contrasting strip down one side which I finished with a matt silver decorative edger die cut, I added some matching ribbon to finish the background,  the focal element is simply some flowers die cut from the dsp, with some added leaves and matt silver sprigs,  I added the sentiment on a tiny label that I tucked under the bow.  I stamped a coordinating flower on the inside of the card with a stamped message.

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

Love and hugs,

Sandra xxx

Our Background Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

What a wet and wild day we had yesterday,  Paul changed his t shirt 3 times as he got soaked !!  I only managed 1 trip as getting in and out of the van was a challenge.  I stayed back and sorted through boxes he had fetched down from the loft, lets just say that 80% of the stuff he bought down today is in a pile for the tip!  Ooh it feels good to let things go!  On the run I did do, while Paul was unloading I sorted through a load of boxes and again put a car load full to one side for taking to the tip or Charity shop. Matt is coming over to help Paul tomorrow so hopefully that means they will get more done.

Let's have a look at what you have been making, hopefully you have used up some of your backgrounds! 

Your Challenge Cards 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi this is my card for this week.

Both I have had fora while, not sure where the foxgloves came from,a digi stamp I think, the paper was in those from StampinUp.

Your foxgloves look so real Lilian,  your painting is so incredible, love the bees too!  It looks as though you have stumbled upon the foxgloves on a country walk. 

Thank you so much for taking part in the Challenge XXX 

Karen 

Karen's Description:

How are you

Here’s a card using an old Sue W Fire and Ice technique I will add a small sentiment when I need it. 

Really can’t get the sparkle to photograph.  

With a GUMMIAPAN die cut

Oh Karen that background is amazing, so many different colours, its like a Kaleidoscope, so lovely! 

I love that Gummiapan die too, I also like that your corners are rounded.  

Thank you so much for taking part XXX 

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

Card 1 :  This was a sprayed background through a Lavinia stencil, using a mica spray. I stamped and heat embossed the AALL and Create stamp and added the butterfly.

Card 2:  I did this background ages ago as an experiment of adding gilding flakes to the paste through a Memory Box stencil. I had a piece of card which I’d specifically added gilding flakes to and cut the butterfly from that. The sentiment is from a Tracey Hey patterned paper.

Card 3:  Inspired by Chrissie Stokes. I die cut the corner with a Memory Box stencil and adhered it to a piece of my gilding flakes background card. I die cut the Gummiapan dragonfly from the piece of card and added the My Favourite Things sentiment.

Wow Sonia,  some incredible backgrounds 😍!   

3 amazing cards, all very different,  you certainly have a flare for gilding flakes both of your Gilded cards are stunning.  

That Gummiapan Dragonfly is definitely going to become a favourite!

Thank you so much for 3 amazing Challenge cards XXX 

Sue's Description:

Finally used one of my backgrounds using the Inkylicious By the Sea - Waves stamp set. I am still deciding how to frame it so just popped a white border around it for now xx

Peace is the perfect sentiment for that scene, I have spent many an hour sitting watching the waves enjoying the peace, the waves are so calming!  I love your background Sue, your blend of blues has really worked for the sea & sky.

Thank you so much for taking part in the Challenge XXX 

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Thank you so much Ladies, I really do appreciate every second that you give to supporting the challenge and the blog ❤

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

Love & Hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

What a day for moving !!  We have 99 % chance of heavy rain all day, with the added bonus of strong winds!! Typical Riley moving weather!  🙄  Thankfully tomorrow is supposed to be better.   I hope that you all have better weather, although Lilian you could be in the path of the strong winds from Storm Antoni as well, fingers cross it misses you.  

On to more positive things, how beautiful is that Rose from my Mum's house, it fills me with joy just looking at it as both Mum and my Dad absolutely loved that rose, he trained it to go up and over an arch over their back gate.  I have also been blessed with an amazing display of the most beautifully scented sweet peas, I can't pick them fast enough,  it really does help to pick them often as we have never had so many !  

New Glue

In my endless search for the petfect fine tip Glue I bought this 'Bearly Glue'  its quite popular in America, it comes with 2 different tips, a pin and a green cap that goes onto the bottle top when not in use, I like the little tube to keep all the tips in, they would get lost in my craft room otherwise. 

The glue is quite 'wet' , I found the larger tip the glue tended to run out, you didn't need to squeeze it, I'll have to get used to that, the fine tip you did need to squeeze,  as you can see, it does what it says on the tin!  A lovely fine line of glue.  

It says that it dries clear, won't wrinkle your paper, its flexible too.  It does tell you to wash out the tip at the end of your session, which makes sense.   I will try it out over the next few weeks and let you know my thoughts. 

Sue has kindly written us a fantastic magazine review....

Simply Cards and papercraft Issue 247

This months magazine has Christmas stamps including a large one of Father Christmas with holly around him and some sentiment stamps. There are two dies. One cuts an outline around the holly in the main stamp and the other is the word Believe. A pack of A5 Christmas papers is also included. Some of them have quite large patterns so I’m not sure how you would use them. 

Katie Skelton has designed 7 cards using the freebies. There are some nice cards in various styles including a shaker card filled with gold sequins which is perfect for Christmas. 

The main Tried & Tested this time is the new Sizzix Tim Holtz Embossing diffusers. The results give you a plain inner or outer on you card front depending which combination use These come in 3 sets of 2 diffusers, a circle and two different ovals shapes. They cover A6 or smaller size cards. The diffusers are made to be used with any embossing folder, but 3D folder results may vary. They replace one of the cutting plates on your die cutting/embossing machine. I would be happy to be able to be able to only emboss certain parts of my cards so will be waiting to see how people get on with this new product.

Christine Smith has designed some very pretty cards using vintage style stamps but with a modern look. I absolutely love the snail and flower card but some of the others are not for me. A technique that can gives you more use from your stamps is always a bonus

Sarah Jackman Read has made some lovely Christmas packaging including a gift bag, tag, money holder wallet and a box so something for everyone. There are bonus free matching papers and templates for a cracker and a shaker gift box included. 

Digital stamps- free download. Simply made crafts have some pretty Christmas/winter digital stamps which could be used to make some beautiful cards if you prefer to craft that way. I love the gingerbread man and all of the different mittens in particular so I might have to try digital

Jessica Rouke designed several cards using the Stepped Back die-cutting technique. I hadn’t heard of this before but you simply create a tunnel effect on your card. And instead of raising the main focal point you raise up the things around it instead. You can also raise or lower layers to add even more dimension. Another new interesting technique for me that I will have a go at.

If you want more details of anything shown here please ask. 

Take care. 

Sue 

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Thank you so much Sue, for a great review , not sure this one is for me!  The Santa isn't my 'cup of tea', some great features though XXX

Sonia's Shopping 

Oh Sonia,  you got some lovely new dies, are think we are all Gummiapan converts.  Now those strip dies at the back are multi purpose, they can be used as sentiment dies and dies to make backgrounds, Sonia sent me this example....

I look forward to seeing what you create my lovely,  thank you so much for sharing your shopping XXX

A new Challenge....

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that today finds you well, do you all have anything nice planned for the weekend?                  We will mostly be.....moving stuff !!  Paul picks up a van on Saturday morning for another weekend of shifting!   I have got a bit carried away with kitchen packing though, we were making Enchiladas on Wednesday evening and once I had the filling made I went to get a glass baking dish, only to find I had totally packed that cupboard a couple of weeks ago so the baking dishes, cake tins and cake cooling racks are all sitting at the new house, luckily I had a round baking tin with deep edge so we made it work. I will look through boxes and bring a couple back as girls are doing Hello Fresh while we are away.  

Our Next Challenge 

Now you ladies have all been quiet about recent craft purchases apart from the few that we have shared, so I'm hoping that this challenge will work.

I would like you to dig out your most recent craft purchases and those things that you bought because you were really inspired by a card or project that someone had made, you used it for that one thing and then lost inspiration for what else to do with it, I am certainly guilty of that, many times over.                                                                                   So have a look at your stamps, dies, embossing folders, sprays, masks, stencils etc, make a little pile (or big pile in my case) and have fun using them.

As always I am excited to see what you all come up with, remember it can be anything that you make, cards, journal page, Thrinchie,  Snippets etc. 

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I hope that you all have a fantastic Friday, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 

All white Christmas card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

A day of rain and shine for us yesterday, we had a very early start to our day, leaving our house at 7am for a hospital appointment, we did end up getting there about 40 minutes early but better that than late and rushing to find a parking space, at 7.15am we had the pick of spaces, we had no idea where we were going but soon found it.  We had to sit and wait in the corridor as you can only enter the department 5 minutes before your appointment.  Luckily I was seen within 5 minutes, so we were soon on our way home. 

Today's card was inspired by Christine Stokes, I had a piece of embossed card in my scrap box.....

So I trimmed it down to 1 3/4 inches and matted it onto a piece if white card, slightly wider, after a tip from Christine I embossed a line down top and bottom edges of the matt just to finish off or round off the edges.  it's surprising what a difference it makes, it looks like it is properly finished, rather than having raw cut edges.

I mounted this piece onto a piece of white card 4 inch X 5 1/4 inch and matted that onto a base card that measured 4 1/4 X 5 1/2 inch.   I die cut a simple sentiment 3 times and stacked them, I adhered the first part above the embossed piece and the second half at the bottom of the embossed piece.                  To finish the card I added some crystal gems on and around the snowflakes to make them sparkle.

Not much planned today, I know that I will NOT be getting out of bed at 6am.

I hope that you all have a lovely day,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                                                                                               xxxxxx

Green & Gold Aperture

Good Morning Ladies, 

I forgot to mention that we are now in August!! July simply flew by, I think August will too, we have so much going in we have just 2 weeks and 3 days until we leave for holiday, we have another 2 weekends of moving to pack in before we leave,  the plan is that we will 'Move in' to our new home after we get back from holiday, we are all looking forward to it too,  especially the girls, they have been building new beds and bedroom furniture and adding new little touches to their rooms, they are excited to help create a new pantry from a spare little room just as you walk in the front door too, so lot's to keep us busy. 

Today's card was made using one of my tissue paper backgrounds, the texture is fantastic, before I started my project I added some gold gilding wax to highlight some of that texture.

So this is the background......

I cut a small square and placed it behind a square aperture that I die cut into my 5 x 5 square card. I then cut 2 fern fronds in matt gold card, I chose matt gold as it matched the Gilding wax better than mirror card.  

I cut the sentiment from the same background as it worked better than gold. 

It looks so lovely as the light catches the gold. 

I hope that you all have a lovely day, 

Love and hugs to all of you,  

Sandra

xxxxxx

A girly pink Eclipse card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope today finds you as well as possible, I'm just not going to comment on my health today as I'm sure that you are a sick to death of hearing about it!! 

The girls are excited today as they are doing their first ever 'Tip run'  Lucy has been Paul' s moving buddy over the weekend and when we were talking about fitting in a tip run for some bags of clothes etc she wanted to have a go, I don't think she will as excited when she gets there though as it stinks!!   Actually one thing I have noticed while doing so much recycling is there aren't anywhere near as many clothes/shoe banks around, they used to be at every supermarket car park around here but since the Pandemic they have disappeared.

Today's card was made on Friday (ot was it Saturday)!! Either way, I went into my craft room to tidy up and pack a few bits away, however I had watched a YouTube video about doing the Shaving foam technique, instead of using inks or reinkers they used acrylic paints, their results were amazing! So when I saw the Shaving Foam still out on my desk I had to have a go,  well what I can tell you is that it is messy, the acrylic paint sticks to your hands/desk etc more than ink, but the results were worth it,  I shared some on Saturday, today I am using one of the lighter ones, with Pinks and yellows. I deicided that the best way to keep as much of the background as possible on show was to make an Eclipse card.                                                       So I used my Julie Hickey (I think) Birthday die to die cut the 'Eclipse ' part, now a little tip here...I found it easier to die cut the Birthday several times and stack them together than I did to use just one and adding foam pads as it is so fiddly cutting them small enough to hide them from view.  So I cut the one from my background and three more from scraps of white card, adhered them all togther and place the stacked piece back into place on the background that I had adhered to a piece of coordinating pink card, the pinks matched perfectly, which was pure chance.  To finish the look I added the 'Happy' part of the sentiment,  it was a SU stamp, I stamped in VersaMark and added white embossing powder and heat set on a piece of the same pink card.                                                          Now I wasn't keen on this piece of background but I quite like how it turned out, a fun pink girly card!  

I hope that you all have a great day,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx