the last two.............

 The last two tags for the Chocolate Baroque alphatag challenge - I know they were not due till next month, but I still need to make my Christmas cards!
The Y is for yellow roses - not at all original, but I could find the stamp and the die, which helped! The embossed tag background used the SU Sizzix embossing folder called lacy brocade, which was inked up with summer starfruit (SU) ink before running through the big shot -funny, but having actually used this ink pad, I quite like it,  yellow is not a colour I would normally use....................which explains why this is the only yellow ink pad I own.
The rose is from the largest stamp on the  Harlequin Rose plate, stamped in black versafine ink and coloured with inktense pencils before cutting out and adding to the tag. Yellow roses were cut from yellow card using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die and the Sizzix (SU) blossom party die for the larger flower. All the flowers were heavily spritzed with glimmer mists in wheatfields and bronze.
Z is for Zoroastrian magi - the Magi are thought to have been Zoroastrian priests, who were renowned astronomers. The blue card of the tag base was stamped with the small star using a snow cap dabber, then white gel pen and finishing with a rhinestone centre. Tiny dabs of gel pen to represent other stars, then a shimmer spray finished the background. The 3 kings from an old DL Elusive Images plate were stamped 3 times on paper from the Echoes of Italy pack (had to grit my teeth a bit here and sacrifice this paper) using black versafine ink and clear EP. The various kings were then cut out and reassembled before gluing onto the tag. I did try using gilding flakes before using the paper, but the image is so finely detailed that it didn't work, and my eyesight is definitely  not up to colouring in a blank image!
Will have to post the swap tags separately when they have all arrived

xmas greetings

 I am afraid I went with the Xmas greetings for my X tag for the Chocolate Baroque alphatag swap - sorry, Val, hope you don't get this one! Brain just not working with ideas for alternatives - will be interesting to see how many of us have to use Xmas! I used my current favourite distress inks again, tumbled glass and broken china, and the freebie CB snowflake from the current issue of Craft Stamper. Some of the snowflakes were embossed in glittery white EP -Wow? it's lost the

label- but they don't seem to show up on the scan, and neither does the shimmer paint in the background. I will try to get a photo tomorrow if the weather is decent..................................
The greeting was stamped in old olive SU ink and coloured with olive, pear and ruby promarkers before cutting out and mounting on foam pads.
The two tags on the left are my swaps from last month -Ursine from Joan Carnell and Village in the valley by Joyce Dixon - both lovely tags for my collection, thanks ladies!
Only Y and Z to do now - and yes, I do have ideas for these, just got to clear enough workspace to do them............................

woodland spirit woodcut tag

For once, I have got slightly ahead in the Chocolate Baroque alphatag challenge (am sure it won't last) and have done my W tag! Background was done using peeled paint distress ink and a duster brush (have to admit that this technique is much easier with the brushes) and Elaine's background leaf technique. The image of the woodland nymph is from an old Graphicus plate called earth spirit  featuring Carrie's designs - I know they are linocuts, but they could just as easily be woodcuts!
Anyhow, the image was stamped in versamark and embossed with black EP - leaves at the base of the tag cut from cored'inations card using the Tim Holtz tattered leaves die. I crumpled the leaves up, splodged with brown and green inks and finally a gold TH dabber before glueing onto the tag.

getting near the end........

 The end is almost in sight - of the Chocolate Baroque alphatag swap, that is. This month we have got to U and V - not easy, and somehow I don't think the rest of the alphabet is going to be any better.
I really will have to sort out my stamps, I know I spent longer looking for stamps that i know I have but couldn't find than actually doing the tags.........and I still haven't found that unicorn stamp! I may be stretching a point with U for uncial and uppercase - the uppercase bit is fine, just don't think the manuscript lettering is uncial, but by this point it was just too bad. Colour scheme for both tags is wild honey, tea dye, vintage photo and aged mahogany distress inks, and I tried using blending brushes to apply the ink instead of my usual cut'n'dry - it certainly goes on more smoothly, but is more difficult to work round the finer bits and takes a lot longer anyway - jury still out on these!

V is for vintage and visage - I masked the face with post-its while doing the background inking and stamping. Flowers from my box of readymade  ones, with punched leaves.
The final tags are my swaps from last month - Spooky from Margaret, (whose idea this swap was, and who has done a wonderful job organizing us all - many thanks) and Tree by Shirley

S and Tt tags

 It's that time of the month again when panic starts as I realise that I only have a few days left to finish (to be honest, to do) my tags for the Chocolate Baroque alphatag swap. I did know which stamps I was going to use, and had actually got them out, which I suppose was an improvement!
The T tag was the easiest to do, as I had an old tulip stamp, which was stamped in black versafine, clear embossed then coloured with pencils before cutting out and adding glossy accents - it took longer waiting for the glossy accents to dry than anything else. Background tag was white, sponged with DIs - mostly antique lined, with bundled sage round the edges - I do like distress inks for quick backgrounds, I find them a lot easier than the pan pastels. I coloured the tulip stamp with very elderly Whispers markers and stamped three times across the tag - I was trying to get a very faded antique look for the background, and added a loop of SU crochet trim to finish it off.
The S tag used a seahorse stamp that arrived as part of a grab bag of stamps, so would be from a much more recent stamp set. background was again DIs, starting with tumbled glass, broken china, faded jeans and ending with chipped sapphire and bundled sage.I spritzed the whole tag heavily with a mix of water and shimmer paint to try to get an underwater effect. Once it was dry, I stamped the seahorse with versamark, then stamp'n'bond powder before using gilding flakes - I couldn't decide whether to use silver or a green mix of flakes, then decided on the green as I thought that the silver might not stand out enough. I'm not sure it worked too well, but black wouldn't have looked right either....I  coloured the image with blue and green pencils
 before brushing the colours together using the shimmer ink/water mix again. The ribbons came from another grab bag ages ago.
All the shimmer made it hard to photograph, and I tried using several angles before getting a couple that looked ok - at least I did take the photos this time......

My swap tags last month came from Kath Halstead (Q for quilling) and
Mickie Sutcliffe (Rose resist)

alphatags Q and R

 The alphatag challenge on Chocolate Baroque is definitely getting harder now - not so much having the idea to go with the letters, but having stamps that fit the ideas!
I did have several options for R  and eventually decided to use this image of a roman from a very old discontinued plate - don't know which one, as I got it as part of a grab bag of stamps about 2 years ago. The small floorplan stamp in the background also came from the same grab bag. The tag was inked with distress inks after stamping the small stamp to form a background using versamark and clear EP as a resist. After the first couple of layers of ink I ironed the EP off and added more DI, but quite a bit of the resist effect still remained, rather more than I had hoped for to be truthful. The Roman was stamped and embossed in black onto white card and coloured with DI again before cutting out and adding to the tag - tag edges were distressed and inked with vintage photo and black soot.
The Q tag was far harder - I had thought of using a stamp from the peacock lady series as a queen, but ran out of time. In desperation I used the proverb stamp from one of the bird plates, embossed it in black EP, tore it out, added some quick sponging of distress inks, mounted it on a piece of paper from the echoes of italy paper pack (real desperation there, as that pad usually just gets stroked!).
Hopefully I will be more aware of the time next month - amazingly I wasn't the last to post my tags- all I need to do is find the stamps, which will involve a major clear-up operation. Not all my fault, I hasten to add - after several on-going computer problems, ending up with bits of 3 computers spread around the room, my son snapped and bought me a new computer - quite a culture shock from the rebuilt collection of hand-me-downs I am used to! - said he needed to do it to save his sanity! I do have the room to tidy up though...........which will not do wonders for my sanity..................
The last pic is of the two tags I received last month - the colour combination certainly woke me up when I opened the envelope! OMG! orange overload came from Joan Carnell and the peacock from Lavinia Tuck - 2 more gorgeous tags formy collection, thanks ladies.

alphatags O and P

 why does Blogger suddenly decide that all text has to be in blue and underlined?  It has taken me ages to get it back to normal, and I thought I was having trouble getting photos from Photobucket!!!!These are belated O and P tags for the Chocolate Baroque alphatag swap - I ended up doing them in such a rush that I dumped them in the post without taking any photos . Fortunately Margaret our swap organiser takes photos of all of them to add to the Ning site -only snag was she uses Photobucket, upside is that I could grab the pics from there to add here (eventually)I cheated with the owl tag - the background was a spare tag I didn't use for  N, with the owl added. Owl was stamped and embossed with detail silver EP and coloured with DIs in various blues, cut out and stuck on with glue gel.The poppy was the one I started out doing  - the poppy was stamped in versafine and coloured with pencils. then coloured over with a versamark pen and clear embossed. Post-it notes were stuck round to make a rough square shape which was sponged with DI to create a background - I used 2 greens and 2 blues, but can't remember which ones now. I just moved the postits about to make the patchwork effect, and stamped a couple of small stamps randomly into the other squares, if that makes sense. The stitches were roughly scribbled in with a fine line pen.

Have now managed to add the  previous  swap tags I received  - N for nature from Sheila and M for masquerade from Margaret - sorry, ladies, the pic doesn't do the glittery dimensional masks justice or the muted colours of the nature tag either.

just cosy...............

Just to prove I am still around, this is an earlier pic of the cat keeping  warm during our summer! She wriggled herself under the duvet so she could keep an eye on me in comfort while I was crafting.
haven't been able to do any lately, as the craft stuff had to be put away (well, sort of stacked up in heaps) to accommodate family staying to check up on OH. He is still in hospital, but the local one now, the op to remove the tumour went well, and all he really needs now is a lot of rehab physio - he fully agrees with the term physioterrorist!
Hopefully I will soon have my space back, and the time in which to play as well would be nice............

getting harder every month....

 The Chocolate Baroque alphatag swap is getting more difficult each month now - the problem is finding the stamps to match the ideas!
The L for lighthouse tag was very much an after thought - I spent ages trying to make my idea for Lace work, using the lovely new lace flower stamp, then gave up as time began to run out, and instead borrowed the lighthouse stamp from Moira (we had been using 2 other stamps from this set at craft club). Image stamped in versafine smoky grey ink, coloured with pencils and distress inks. The light effect was copied from Moira - use a brush to paint where where you want the light, then brush mica powder over it - it clings to the water and sparkles nicely!
The M for music was the easiest of the three, the music background was stamped in DI -old paper?- then more of the same colour sponged all over the tag, with a darker brown round the edges. the image was stamped once onto the tag and again onto white card, and both were coloured with pencils. The violin and some of the flowers were cut out and decoupaged over the original image, then the violin was given a coat of glossy accents. The small violin charm was  one in  a pack found when a heap of stuff collapsed and had to be tidied up.
 The N for night was also awkward - 1 spent ages fiddling around with numbers in one form or another and only succeeded in filling the bin up. in desperation I went for real simple - stamping the tree in black ink and clear embossing it before sponging various blue inks over the tag after adding a moon mask behind the tree. I also sponged the ground under the tree with black ink - the mask wasn't lined up very well, and left a little pale line, which fortunately resembled a moonshine effect - you have to be lucky some time!

 The last photo is of the lovely tags I received back last month - J for jewelled jars from Kathryn and K for Klimpt from Pat, both very glittery and opulent looking tags.
Am now waiting to see what delights turn up in the post next week!
Apologies for lack of posts recently, but OH has been in hospital, and posts - and crafting - are rather on hold until he is better.

black and yellow

 The challenge this week at Simplystampin is monochrome with a hint of colour - and that at Dynamic duos is black and daffodil delight, with optional dry embossing. I had intended to do 2 different cards, but am rapidly running out of time, (in fact, am sure that I am too late for dynamic duos already!) so one card that hopefully fits both challenges!
The black square base card is cut down from A4, and embossed along the bottom edge with a snowflake cuttlebug embossing folder, that just about shows up in the second photo.
The image from lovely as a tree was stamped in versamark and basic black ink and clear embossed. The sun was coloured with a marker pen, and the clouds sponged round the top from the cupcake punch with the basic black ink after dabbing most of it off onto scrap paper. I added shadows using

the blender pen, and also patches of sunlight on the hills with the daffodil marker. the trimmed image was matted onto a layer of daffodil delight before mounting onto the black card.
No sentiment yet, as haven't decided what to put on it!

white flower

This is the first time for ages that I have managed to take part in the Make My Monday challenge - this month the theme is florals, and this week they wanted lily of the valley or white flowers.
I don't have any lily of the valley stamps, but I do have this lovely lace flower from the new Chocolate Baroque lace fragments stamp set that I was itching to try out!
I also wanted to try the faux patina technique from Splitcoast Stampers, so got inky fingers and put them both together.
The flower was stamped in versamark and embossed in detail white onto SU crumb cake card, roughly torn out round the image and the edges inked with vintage photo DI - and I carefully added a very little ink onto the centre of the flower using a cotton bud.
The faux patina background starts out with an embossing folder - I tried several, and the ones that worked best were the cuttlebug harlequin pattern I used here and the SU vintage wallpaper, which both have smallish overall patterns that are fairly deeply embossed. The folder was inked with SU crumbcake ink before embossing, so you have an embossed white image on a pale background - I embossed twice to get a large enough piece of card. The card was then inked all over with distress inks, starting with tumbled glass and peeled paint, ending with vintage photo. After a few hours drying on a storage heater, I dabbed a versamark pad over the card, and embossed with detail gold EP - the random effect does mean that the background got a bit inked too, but it looked ok.
I used a white 5"x7" card blank, with a mat of SU chocolate chip card under the embossed panel.

joy and koi alphatags

 These are the latest for the alphatag swap over at Chocolate Baroque - it is getting harder to think of something for some letters now, something that I have a matching stamp for at least.
I couldn't find any stamps to match my first ideas for J - I even put some 'orphans' away whilst searching! - and then I had  a brainwave. This stamp was part of a set bought last year, and fitted beautifully - just hadn't thought of using a Christmas stamp. The white tag was stamped with black versafine and clear embossed, then sponged with distress inks, mostly tumbled glass, broken china and chipped

sapphire. I used white gel pen to outline the words and add detail to the holly border.
The K tag was easy, using one of my favourite stamps from years ago, the chinese-style koi carp. I used the faux pearl background, starting with tsukineko frost white shimmer ink and then mostly the same DIs used for the J tag, but more of the lighter colours. The image was  stamped in black versafine, grasses sponged over with shabby shutters DI before colouring the fish with watercolour pencils.The fish then got a coat of rock candy stickles, then one of clear crackle

accents, some stickles were smudged along the water as well, and a few highlights in white gel pen.
The final tags are the ones I received last month, the lovely golden H for happy hearts from Kathryn and the beautifully coloured  I for Ipomoea from Sarah - thanks ladies, two lovely additions to my growing collection

got there eventually!

 I had been meaning to do scrapbook pages for quite some time now - without getting around to actually doing it! Spurred on by the fact that many photos were on OH's computer, lost when the drive failed (and the back-up system also went down-grrr)  I was helped by the Stampin Up day organized by Sharon and Lisa last weekend, which was to feature scrapbooking - so I turned up clutching an assortment of cat photos.
The colours chosen fitted incredibly well with my photos, and I ended up with these two pages - I do need to redo one of the photos, as I cropped it too small - only 2 more cats to go until I get up-to-date on the cat front!

All in all, a very satisfying way to spend a very wet day - and here is a photo of our supervisor, one of the handsome pair owning Sharon.

perfect pairs?

The challenge theme this week at simplystampin is 'perfect pairs' - think I am pushing the edges of the box more than a little here though!
The 'pairs' are the ships, the sailing one is from the new Open Sea set in the summer mini, and the speedboat from Need for Speed - sort of old and new together - can I get away with it please?
The card started out as a 6" square white: the background on white card,  was randomly  stamped with the other images from Open Sea using a retired ink really rust, then sponged with early espresso ink round the edges. The ship images were stamped in black on scraps of white card, sponged with night of navy, crumb cake and early espresso inks.
For those interested, there is a summer mini blog hop starting tomorrow, with two separate groups - group 1 starts with Alison and group 2 with Emily

colour challenge

The challenge at Simply Stampin is a colour one this week - about the only colour I had was the marina mist, and that was a marker pen.................so after much turning out of drawers and head-scratching, this is what I came up with. The base card is crumb cake, cut down to a square from A4, with a pink layer, then white layer.
The stamps are all from Everything Eleanor, which I haven't used very much so far. The scroll was stamped with crumb cake, and the leaves were punched from the rest of the crumb cake card from the base.
The flowers were inked using markers - I matched the pink marker as well as I could to the card, and the blue was my marina mist pen from the starter kit. All the flowers were cut out, pink ones glued directly to the card, and the blue ones on dimensionals.
As I haven't been able to keep up with challenges for a while, I was determined I was going to manage one at least this week- especially as next week looks busy too...............

alphatags again- month 4

it is alphatag time again at Chocolate Baroque - and desperation set in when I realised that I hadn't even started my tags while several people had already got theirs in the post................and deadlines were approaching far too fast!
It didn't help that my stamps are totally disorganized - if you don't count boxes full of 'orphans' waiting to be returned to their sets, that is - and I just couldn't track down the ones I had originally intended to use. these are the two I eventually came up with - H for Home and I for Infinite Love - after consigning several tags to the bin.
H involved my favourite sponging and a couple of stamps, and the I just had a faux pearl background and the image stamped and gilded (a real cheat!).

These 3 tags are the ones I got back last month - a very dimensional Easter egg from Sarah, beautifully simple Flowers  and the very pretty Girly & glittery both from Jackie - the scan is much better of these than of mine - suspect I will be buying a new printer/scanner soon.................
Sorry, did post in a rush, and didn't say how I did the pearl background - dabbed Tsukineko frost white ink randomly over the tag using scrunched up paper. Let it dry - only takes a few minutes - then sponge with DIs , tunmbled glass and shabby shutters in this case. Far easier than the white paint + mica powder mix we used when we did this at craft club for Christmas cards

just playing

 At an inter-federation WI meeting this week we were talking crafts, and inspecting everyone's samples, and having a lovely lunch (provided by the ladies of Suffolk West Federation) into the bargain.
Margaret from the host Federation showed us this little box, demonstrated how she made it, and kindly provided us with the template too - originally from a Craft Stamper article. I have checked the downloads on the mag website but couldn't find it, so can't give the designer the acknowledgement. I had to have a go that same evening, when I didn't really have the time to do a decent job, but this is how it turned out.
 Margaret recommended using double -sided scrapbook paper as the base, and it really worked well - originally it felt very flimsy, but becomes very sturdy once the card top, bottom and sides are added. I didn't have any mountboard, but found that a heavy sheet of card backing from a pad worked fine. I only had a gold Adirondack paint dabber, so used that to coat the card pieces instead of ordinary acrylic paint. For the top panels I randomly stamped a sheet of white card with 2 of the flower stamps from the SU Everything Eleanor stamp set in black, with second and third stampings without reinking to give depth, and then cut this up.I used more of this to cut the flowers out (from the blossom party die) and also a couple of layers in black to layer up for the lid. The seed beads I coated the central mini circle with did have some blue in the mix, but no way was I going to pick them out!    I shall be a lot more careful about cutting out next time   ......                                                                                                                        
The owl keyrings I saw on Jo's blog ages ago, got the instructions, and finally got around to trying to do them. I borrowed the nesties to cut out the backing as I didn't have a suitable punch, but had a great time playing with these - I used Anita's clear glaze to coat them with, and this dries in about 4 hours, which suits an impatient creature like me just fine.

wheels

The challenge theme for Make my Monday this month is men and boys, and the theme this week is 'wheels' - I used the colour scheme from Simply stampin of wild wasabi/daffodil delight/tangerine tango/whisper white - well, I would have if I had all those colours! Actually, I was only missing the green, so used a piece of DP in garden green instead and used some whispers markers to colour the car to match as well as I could get it.
Stamp is from the 'need for speed' set, with the foreground image masked with a post-it note and a second image stamped behind it.  The edges of the DP and the stamped image are torn, and I sponged black ink over the bottom of the image piece to create a road, and also around the edges. The sponging isn't as obvious as in the scan - think I pressed a bit too hard on the scanner lid when copying a large book last week!
greeting is from an old SAB set 'so happy for you' cut out using the modern label punch, and the backing bit is cut down from the decorative label punch.
This is a card for my son, who has a car very like this one, and has just moved into a new flat (and a new job)

simply stampin 52

There is a sketch challenge this week at Simply stampin, and this is my version.
Square base card is old olive, cut down from A4, and the backing started out as whisper white randomly overstamped with stamps from French foliage in certainly celery and pear pizazzz inks. The tree from Lovely as a tree was stamped in black on white, punched along the bottom with the spiral punch, then torn along the sides. The edges that weren't punched were inked with old olive and crumb cake to make the stamped panel stand out a bit. The ribbon is old olive grosgrain.

totally tags

Well, one tag to go with the totally tags challenge this week on Simply Stampin.  A very simple tag after the Chocolate  Baroque ones, but it seemed to take forever to do!
I used the regals designer paper patterns stack in always artichoke and night of navy as backing, I wanted 2 almost matching bookmarks for a friend who is retiring from being a Markets producer at the end of the month - one for her and one for her husband, (who will be retiring from his duties as chauffeur and general go-fer!) hence the initials.
As they are both gardeners and bird lovers as well as avid readers, I used my bird punch for only its second outing. Jean's tag has a double-sided flower on the end of the old olive grosgrain ribbon - am not sure yet what Roy's tag will have on the end of the ribbon, maybe the owl punch.
The flower was made from the stack of kraft packing paper that came with the starter SU kit - I cut out loads of small flowers using my Tim Holtz die, fastened them together with a brad and then crunched up the layers. I tried it without spraying the layers with water, and it worked fine, just making a softer flower than using card did. I rubbed the finished flowers over the night of navy ink pad before glueing them onto a matching flower cut from the DP and onto the ribbon. I think next time I will spray the flowers with re-inker or glimmer mist to give more colour.

alphatags 3

 These are the latest in the alphatags challenge at Chocolate Baroque - a bit of a rush, as I did two, carefully put them away while I wrestled with the third tag - and promptly lost them! So I started to redo them, and they ended up completely different to the originals- not sure if they are better though!
E is for Elephant - and Nellie the elephant (showing my age here aren't I!) was the cause of the trouble, she went AWOL for a few weeks, and then wouldn't work the way I wanted. The tag is actually mostly grey and blue, with the Indian script stamp in the background stamped in grey, then blue ink sponged through a glimmermist mask before adding the elephant, stamped on black card with flitterglu and gilded then painted with H2Os.

F is for foliage and flourish, started out with a grey and green glimmer mist background , with old olive  ink sponged round the edges. The flourish from the butterfly swirl stamp set was also stamped in old olive ink. The panel from eastern grasses was stamped in black ink, overstamped with more grasses in I think spiced marmalade, before covering with versamark ink and clear embossing powder.
G is for green grungy brocade, and started out as a green tag sprayed with green glimmer mist and sponged with forest moss ink round the edges. The grungy brocade stamp was again stamped with flitterglu and gilded. The flowers were made using the TH die - the gold one was originally wrapping paper sprayed with gold glimmer mist and dusted with green ink, the green one was grungepaper with green glimmer mists.

Sorry for the rather poor scans - either that or even worse photographs!
The last tags are the ones I got from Jacqui for C and D - surprising how random selection got me two tags from the same lady, wonder what the odds were against that happening!
Mine go in the post tomorrow morning, and the swaps will be on their way to me next week....................

simply stampin wk 50

 Simply stampin have a colour challenge this week - crumb cake/poppy parade/baja breeze/ very vanilla. Crumb cake and baja breeze I have, and I also used real red and a bit of ready embossed cream card.
The square card was cut down from A4 in crumb cake, with a mat of red and the top note diecut from the cream card. The images from My Friend were stamped in blue and red onto whisper white card, and die cut using an x-cut die before matting onto a piece of blue.
I love these flowery/grassy  silhouette stamps, and am hoping a similar stamp available in the US makes it here this summer..........
The second card uses my new build a cupcake set of stamps - well, I had to try it out, and this colour scheme just says choc chip to me...........

Same card used, and the topnote die again for the cream card. I used the cupcake wheel across the A6 base card using whisper white ink, but it doesn't show up too well, so I coloured the cupcases in with blue marker pen and added glitter to the cakes with a sakura clear stardust pen. I cut the greeting out with the decorative label punch - it was a bit of a fiddle getting the small piece back in to cut the second time, but I was quite happy with the result.