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.