To the moon and back

Morning all.

It's been a busy week here, what with all these cards to make, babysitting Grandson and having Nannee cuddles with our brand new Grandson. He's a gorgeous little thing but won't sleep! Know that feeling well, but that was a long time ago when little Seb's Ma was a baby and the only thing on at stupid o'clock was Radio Eireann! At least these days there is always something on the TV or radio in the wee small hours. Doesn't make it any easier though.

Anyway this is the last of this week's cards, this time for the new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge blog. We are up to the letter -

Q is for QUOTE

I have a few quote stamps but while sifting through them, I saw this NEBUS one from STAMPlorations.

I started by making a galaxy background using various DIs, water and chunky white EP. The moon is a circle of card stamped with an ink splat stamp with Weathered Wood DI and some soft ink blending.

My sentiment was stamped in black then embossed with clear EP. The trimmed down sky panel was attached to a white base card and the moon popped up over it on pads, simples.

For more inspiration check out the rest of the DT here.

I'm joining in over at:-

Altenew Stamps

Morning all.
It's time for a brand new challenge over at Cardz4Galz. This time around we would like to see projects featuring -

YOUR FAVOURITE FLOWER

Such a feminine theme, don't you think? Here is my card using Altenew's Amazing You stamp set.

I only get to use roses on cards as my OH doesn't like them. In fact at our last house, the first thing he did was dig them all out of the garden. I know they were past their best but he wouldn't let me buy some new ones to replace them. I think it's the thorns that get him as he even dislikes the wild briars in the hedgerows, especially when he is hedge trimming!

To start, I stamped and embossed in clear EP a selection of blooms and leaves on W/C paper. Using a mixture of Worn Lipstick and Tea Dye DI, I washed in some colour to the petals and a couple of my Zig pens for the leaves, which I then fussy cut when they were dry.

In a panel of white linen effect card, I cut an aperture using a Spellbinder die, then placing it on a matching white base card, I traced a faint outline of it onto the base card. This allowed me to remove the top panel and stamp my sentiment from Altenew's Wishing You set in black.

The roses and leaves were then arranged around the aperture and glued in place. After rubbing out the pencil line, I place the finished panel over the base card using pads to lift it slightly. A few spots of Glossy Accents and  Sprinkled Sugar were added and clear Wink of Stella added to the blooms completed the design.

For more flower inspiration check out the rest of the team here and why not join in.

Joining in over at:-





AG with Flowers

CASEing Me!

Hi and welcome to a post to announce the start of a brand new challenge over at ATSM.
Here is my card for your inspiration.

Some of you may recognise this as a CASE of this card here. It's also on my side bar as one of my most popular posts! I'm not sure why it rates so highly but it was over 3 years since I made the original and I thought it was time to revisit it.

As it is the photo inspiration week at ATSM, my starting point as the word SMILE in this phrase.

You could of course use a phrase as your focus or perhaps a watercolour wash or even the pink and black colour scheme, the interpretation is all yours.

I kept with the colours of autumn of the original, but went for a more pumpkin coloured background such as in the Time Out photo.
I started by cutting a mask from Post it paper then positioned it on the front of a base card. Using a small Versamark pad and a pen, I inked up the card through the stencil. Carefully removing the mask, I embossed the detail with gold EP. When completely dry, I used another homemade stencil mask to create the 3 circles of colour. The sentiment from STAMPlorations was then stamped in brown and embossed with clear matt EP. Apologies for the awful photo but the weather was so bad and dark even at midday when I took the photo, at least the gold embossing showed up in the flash!
So more more inspiring interpretations of the photo, check out the rest of the team here.

Joining in over at:-



I was inspired by the orange pumpkins and twigs contrasting with the white background

Poppies?

Morning all. After a very busy weekend of babysitting one Grandchild and travelling north to see our brand new baby Grandson and have some Nannee cuddles, it's back to the old routine. 

With all the anticipation and excitement, October has whizzed by and November isn't far behind! 

The trees will soon be bare except some of the trees around the local war memorial which are bedecked with knitted poppies! It also reminds of that shortly it will be Remembrance Sunday and the poppies for sale that appear in the run up. So over at Cardz4Guyz our theme this time is-

REMEMBRANCE / SYMPATHY

Here is my card for your inspiration.

I love poppies and am always grabbing handfuls of their fine seed to spread them around the tracks and field edges to spread their dancing red flowers. Did you know that they are flowers of disturbed and waste ground, hence they were chosen as the symbol of Remembrance after WW1, springing up in the fields after the awful carnage? Anyway I have a couple of stamps plus some my friend DI lent me but for this I fancied doing a softer faux watercolour technique. I chose a couple of the solid stamps from Altenew's Whimsical Flowers, which I picked up at Port Sunlight a couple of weeks ago, they look quite poppy like I think. 

To start I spritzed ares of my card panel with water then inked up the stamps with Memento ink and stamped. The water allowed the ink to feather at the edges. However by the time the third one was stamped the water had dried up too much so it wasn't as effective. The outline stamps from the set were partially inked with a black w/c marker and over stamped and the centers of each flower with a center stamp and head embossed with black EP. I sketched in the stems and then added a bud and leaf freehand adding some water then w/c. My sentiment is from STAMPlorations.

The finished panel was then trimmed down and popped over a strip of paper from the bits box and the base card with pads.

Please check out the rest of the team here and join us for the next two weeks.

Joining in over at:-


Make a card with flowers on it


Close to nature

Merry Monday Ornaments

Evening folks.

I'm having a stay at home Wednesday. Normally I meet up with a friend and after a meal we go to a craft class but as she had a funeral to go to early this afternoon and we are on standby for looking after our Grandson, our daughter is almost 40 weeks pregnant, I have been crafting at home.

I noticed that the current Merry Monday challenge is Ornaments and as I was sorting through my un posted cards I saw this and thought I would enter it.

This OLC was made by masking off the baubles with die cuts from Post its and a little extra for the hanger, then stamping a pine branch stamp with Pine Needles, Chipped Sapphire DI and good old fashioned water to give the soft effect of a Christmas tree bough. Once the ornaments were painted with more DI and well dry, they were masked with the leftover outers of the post its and embossed with various stamps and gold EP. I added a few more branches to go over the coloured baubles. Sentiment from STAMPlorations was embossed with gold EP.

Joining in over at:-

   

AG Christmas

      

Happy Holidays

Afternoon folks, hope you had a great weekend.

The weather was fab but I was feeling a little under the weather with a bit of a cold so didn't really make the most of it. 

Anyway I'm here to remind you that there is still time to enter this month's CUTplorations challenge. Here is my inspiration project.

In my previous CUTplorations post I was inspired by the words of this pic.

This time it was the words made up of small fruit and veg in a range of colours, especially the happy, that influenced my card. 

Instead of making my letters from images, I decided to stamp lots of small flowers and leaves from the Frames and Flowers set in autumnal colours, then cut out a happy using the CUTplorations die. I then cut another in black card and one in white, placing the black one in the space I made in the panel with the happy die, carefully replacing the really tiny bits in the middle of the Ps. The white HAPPY was placed over the top of the black but slightly to one side to create a shadow. The end result reminded me of Thanks giving so added a simple holidays stamped sentiment to complete.

Please check out the rest of the DT and why not join in.

If you feel you would like to purchase any of our stamps then check out the shop here where you can also get 20% off by using this code.

Joining in over at -

       

Fall/ Halloween                                  Autumn/ Fall

A Twofer!

Morning all and welcome to a brand new challenge from Cardz4Galz.

This time we would like to see your cards etc on the theme of 

MONOCHROME

For my cards I decided to use the colours from LIM's latest challenge. The spice element reminded me of Liam's raised pie on Great British Bake Off which was flavoured with the spice Turmeric and turned the pastry yellow. Here's the result.

As I said in the title of this post, I ended up with two cards for the price of one.

I started by stamping my Uniko Pure Florals Gerbera in shades of yellow on a panel of white card. I decided to stamp my sentiment on a piece of plain card, so instead of placing it over the stamped panel, I cut a rectangle out from the stamped panel, giving me the idea of making another card.

The sentiment panel on this card is embossed in gold EP and inlaid in the stamped panel after it was attached to my base card. 

This card is much more CAS and the sentiment (SU) was stamped in brown then embossed with clear semi matt EP. The panel was then popped up on fun foam over a warm yellow base card.

For more monochromatic inspiration check out the rest of the team and then why not join in.

Joining in over at-

    

Autumn Glory

Little Skier

Hi and welcome to a post to announce the start of the new ATSM challenge.

This week our theme is

HOLIDAY

Here is my 'holiday' card

The FB challenge over at LOTV asks to use one of the first of the stamps you bought so I used an early LOTV image but instead of the regular layout, I gave it a little twist.

The central circular panel is suspended in an aperture with invisible thread so that it appears to float. It was rather difficult to see in the first photo so here is another view.

I started by attaching some DP then a panel of embossed white card to a 5 1/2 inch square card.

Using a circle die I cut through all the layers to leave my aperture. The circle I cut was reused for the mount for the image but cut down using the next sized die. My image was stamped and coloured with Copics before cutting it out with another circle die and mounted onto the blue DP circle. I stamped the greeting from Woodware across the bottom. To make the image appear to float, I cut another circle from white card and sandwiched 2 lengths of transparent thread between it and the image, leaving enough to attach it to the card. Laying the image face down I placed the open base card over and using some double sided tape, attached it to my base on the inside. I covered the back with a paper panel to cover up the strings and added a panel of snowflake DP to the other inside so that you could see it peeking through.

So for more HOLIDAY inspiration check out the rest of the DT here.

I'm joining in over at -

Just the one little pooch on my card!

U for Unlimited Christmas

   

Edited 18/10/17 I forgot! 

White Pumpkins?

Good morning all.

I had a fab weekend, meeting up with friends at the stamp fair at Port Sunlight.

We don't have any decent craft shops near us so it's great to be able to peruse the stands and get those choice items plus a few bargains. There was an added bonus in that I got to chat and catch up with a couple of blog friends. 

Anyway back to business with a brand new challenge over at Cardz4Guyz. This time our theme is -

AUTUMN THANKS or BOO! (Halloween)

I went with the first as I have no one to give Halloween cards to. This is my card for your inspiration.

I used the photo over at Card Concept and the layout at CAS(E) this Sketch. CAS on Friday also have the Fall/Halloween theme.

Picking up on the rustic neutrals, I cut a few ovals and made a pumpkin, edging the panels with Weathered Wood DI as I went. The stalk was cut from a scrap of brown card and the leaves from a scrap of green. The completed pumpkin was set on a die cut circle of shimmery charcoal card, an echo of the clock in the photo and element on the sketch. On a panel of linen textured card, I placed a panel of kraft card shaded with a white pencil crayon then embossed with a brickwork Sizzix EF. Above this I wrapped some jute string and slipped a thank you tag embossed in silver pearl EP under the circle before securing it on the panel. I think the neutral tones of the finished card work well as a masculine card.

So for more inspiration, check out the rest of the team and then why not join in.

   

Clean and Layered?                                                      

Fall/Halloween

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

It's the 8th of the month so it's time for another Anything Goes with Dies challenge over at HLS.

As many of you may know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. This is a cause very close to my heart, having been first diagnosed with it over 20 years ago, followed by a recurrence 10 years later. So it was a no brainer when I saw that Time Out had the theme for their latest challenge, I had to take part. So here is what I came up with using a very, very old Cuttlebug die that my friends and I used to label cards we made to raise funds for Breast Cancer Care, just after my last brush with BC.

I cut lots of the ribbons from white card and laid them out in a grid on a die cut panel of the same card, gluing them down to give a faux embossed effect. One of the ribbons I coloured with Copics and a touch of a Wink of Stella. The panel was then cut and trimmed to reveal the pink base and the STAMPlorations sentiment in white EP. I popped both pieces up on some funky foam scraps and added the pink ribbon die cut.

Quite a simple design but effective I think.

Unfortunately BC can strike anyone, I was under 40, active, not over weight and breast fed both of my children, so when I arrived at the breast clinic after finding a suspect lump,the registrar was not too worried and was going to say that it was nothing to worry about but deep down I knew something was wrong and I was forceful and he eventually did a needle biopsy but as I left he assured me there was nothing to worry about. How wrong he was, after a lumpectomy and taking Tamoxifen ( then as part of the initial trials, no radiotherapy) I survived and carried on playing tennis and badminton thanks to a great surgeon and a stubborn streak. 10 years later I went for a check up mammogram, where the radiographer spotted a shadow, a core biopsy followed. I eventually had to have a full mastectomy as the cancer had returned. Radiotherapy, Tamoxifen and more bloody mindedness carried me through;

So please, please listen to your body and check monthly this link may help. 

As one lady on the ward all those years ago said, PMA, positive, mental attitude to all those currently undergoing treatment.

I'm joining in over at-

   

#93 Breast Cancer Awareness and/or Friendship

Home is where the happy is

Afternoon peeps. Hope you had a fab weekend. We had a visit from our daughter and Grandson, as SiL was at the footy followed by a night out with college friends. She is heavily preggers with her second and feeling the strain so we amused our Grandson to give her a more relaxing time. He wanted to play Monopoly, he's 7 and an absolute whizz at it. Playing the full blown game, he calmly and steadily wiped his Grandad out, closely followed by me! Nothing fancy, no large purchases, a bit of devious bargaining and a maths lesson to boot!

Anyway the theme of houses and home is the focus for my first card on the STAMPlorations CUTplorations team. 

The inspiration for this card was this image.

image source: marmaladebleue

I was pretty literal with the card, making a new home card but you can interpret it how ever you want.

I started by generating the sentiment on the computer, then cut away the top of the printed panel with my brand new (NEBUS) Stitched Spring Landscape die. On a separate panel of white card, I inked through a homemade sunray stencil with Mustard Seed DI, then removed it and inked over the whole panel with Squeezed Lemonade DI.
Trimming the inked panel to smaller than my card base, I glued it flat onto it, then trimmed the die cut panel to match. The top panel was then popped up on pads over the stencilled panel. I cut a small red heart using the Clustered Hearts die and positioned it above the chimney of the house to complete.

So please check out the rest of the team here , where you'll also find all the Ts and Cs and why not join in.

I'm joining in over at:-

Life's Events (New Home)