karisma pencils

Got distracted last night - was meant to be mass-producing Christmas cards with my new stamps from Chocolate Baroque and Hobby Art (couldn't resist the special offers last weekend!) but found a box of Karisma pencils when picking up a heap of crafty stuff that ended up on the floor................. I remembered buying these at the NEC many years ago, but they didn't look as if they had ever been used, and I think they are long discontinued now.
I stamped off some birds n berries and had a play - I wasn't greatly impressed with the first ones I tried (much prefer my watercolour pencils), possibly as there wasn't a lot of colour choices in what was admittedly a smallish box.
Then I had an idea - to try using just the black and red pencils, so this is the result. The birds haven't landed on the holly properly, but it was ok as a trial run. I was much happier with this version, and will probably try it again with the watercolour pencils or promarkers, as I think it will make a nice card done properly!

p p p pick up a penguin

After the WI meeting, I had several stamped Hobby Art penguins over - quite a few of the older members were unable to come to the meeting -  so rather than waste them I decided to make a slider card. I haven't made one of these for quite some time, and this was the first effort - he slides nicely, but doesn't do somersaults, so need to work out why next.
Background was done with distress inks, sponges and the traditional torn paper, and the penguin is attached to 2 pennies with foam pads, one either side of the slit in the card. Did have to make a quick trip to Jane's to get some small round foam pads - they came out of the clearance basket, too!
The card is mounted onto the base with more sticky pads, so the pennies have room to move.

The second card took almost as long in the actual making - the Chocolate Baroque penguins were actually stamped at the same time as the other penguins, but only got coloured in on Wednesday. Background again distress inks, and the mat is some very ancient holographic silver card.
There are a couple of individual penguins and snowmen in this set as well as the stamp I used.
for those quick off the mark, check out the websites, as both Hobby Art and Chocolate Baroque have sale offers  at the moment.

November tags

The technique for this month over at Chocolate Baroque was to use a distress ink background. My bright (?) idea was to try to create a poppy field background - I eventually gave up after almost running out of time and settled for the nearest sort-of ok tags. (Thanks Margaret for waiting for me, and apologies to everyone else that I've held up!)
I used the first poppy stamp without a butterfly that I came across, from poppy meadow, coloured with watercolour pencils
                                                                                                                                                                 





The other tag was my entry for the Hobby Art
November blog challenge -actually, it is the first one they have run - where the theme was remembrance. I did actually finish this a bit ago,  using one of the distress ink backgrounds, but the scanner was playing up, and the broadband has just come back after being out for most of the day.

WI card

 This is the card we made at WI this afternoon, after the excitement (not) of the annual meeting.
It had to be something simple, so I borrowed Moira's Hobby Art penguin stamps - nice big penguins, and very easy to colour in - admittedly not quite so easy to cut out, but no-one moaned about it!
I had two versions, one with the penguins on a thread to twizzle round, and one using acetate - everyone managed to do the thread version. We did use smaller A6 cards, as I could get those in trifold, so easier to die cut matching holes, and they didn't get the snowflakes, or the brusho lining - I did print out a snowflake backing paper from the Artylicious Seasons greeting cd for them though (now on special offer)

They had a choice of white or blue base cards and round or fancy oval apertures, and I stamped out the penguins in advance, as we only had about 30 minutes to do the cards in. It was very peaceful when they were busy colouring in!









This was the acetate sample card, still had the reverse of the penguin inside, just quicker to do

Gissing Sunday

 A happy afternoon with Moira and Janet at Gissing yesterday - especially so as I hadn't been able to touch my craft stuff since the Clarity workshop last month, due to daughter reclaiming her old bedroom temporarily. There was a benefit in that everything was already packed up and ready to go..........
It took a long time to do the first card, using some of Moira's favourite Hobby Art stamps, as everyone wanted to use the farmhouse stamp, so we had to wait patiently for our turn. I did manage to stamp out loads of penguins while I waited ready for the WI meeting next week, when we will be making Christmas cards, so didn't mind being last in the queue! (thanks for the stamps, Moira).
Everything was stamped with versafine, coloured with a mix of distress inks and watercolour pencils - the sky was brayered with broken china and stormy sky inks, the sprinkled with a mix of glitter and white embossing powder to give a snowy effect , which doesn't really show up on the scan.

Janet's quick card really was just that - same two inks brushed through a circle mask before stamping the Clarity santa and sleigh and the greeting across the circle. Two  snowflake stamps in the corners and on the edges of the base card, and a quick brush of ink round the edges and that was it! There is a little bit of clear glitter on the tree and the snowflakes, which again isn't obvious on the scan.
Just need to sort everything out now and put it all back before I can get back to playing work again....

Clarity on Saturday

 These are the cards I made on Saturday at the Clarity East workshop with Janet - of course, after 3 days of lousy weather, Saturday was lovely and sunny, and even quite warm.............
Still, we had a good time getting inky!
For the first card we used distress inks and glimmer spray mixed on a craft mat and dabbed on with a sponge to create the background - I actually used blue inks, but they turned green as the glimmer spray was a gold one.
The reindeer was stamped on a separate piece of card and glued behind the aperture, mounted onto a green mat and then onto a card blank which had the treestamp stamped randomly round the edges.  Fir trees in front were stamped and cut out, and a bit of glitter added.

The second card used the same stamps - the sky was dabbed with white acrylic paint using the sponge again before brushing with stormy sky distress ink. reindeer and trees were stamped with chipped sapphire, mats are blue card.
This one was my favourite, and I have several spare bits to make more cards.

The final card was based on a design by Lynne Hammond, and used the sweater set of stamps - it was actually easier to do than it looked, but it did take all the afternoon...............and no-one needed the valium!
We cut masks to help with stamping the designs onto the sweater, which were stamped in versamark and white embossed, and used masking tape to help line up the stamps for the background (would have been a lot easier with a stamp positioner..............)

zentangle tags

The challenge for October for the Chocolate Baroque technique tags was to use zentangling - this was definitely not one I looked forward to!
 I can admire the work that many people do - indeed I own a beautiful tangled birthday card, and am totally awed by the skill of Paula - but it is not something that I would in any way describe as relaxing.
I dug out an ancient Elusive Images mandala stamp, (sadly no longer available, they were great fun to do), stamped it in black versafine onto white card and added stripes and dots in black marker pen, and some solid black areas too.
Once all filled in, I cut it out and glued it onto a red tag - first one done!
I did think about just repeating it for the second tag, but decided to try using a newer stamp, the clear peony, which hadn't seen a great deal of use.
Again black versafine on white card, and more marker pen, this time mostly just stripes, with circles where the stamens were in the centre. A quick whip through the big shot with a spellbinders die, glued onto another red tag, and that was it.
The tags went into the post very quickly before I had any second thoughts, working on the principle that almost any swap tag was better than none...............

woodland glade

 Had a lovely peaceful afternoon yesterday at Gissing with Moira, who showed us her makes from the Hobby Art workshop the day before, and let us loose on her collection of stamps - and yes, she did make sure she got them all back!
One of her cards with the robin on wellies had a new fold, which I have to admit drove me mad as I couldn't get it to stand up, so I added another card blank behind and left off the tag at the top of the original.
I chose to use the new woodland glade set, which I love - am sure it could be made to work with any season.........but my version is winter.
The background was using distress inks in broken china and peeled paint and crumpled cling film, dabbing the ink randomly over the card.
 The images for the front panel were stamped with black versafine, and coloured using marker pens scribbled onto an acrylic block and a water brush.
The greeting came from a different set, and the small pine trees were hastily added to cover up a smudge of ink from the edge of the rockablock the stamp was mounted on - benefit of clear stamps is that I could make sure the darkest tree was over the line!

The second card used the same stamps and the rest of the background piece of card, but I used distress inks and a water brush to colour in this time.
Both cards are on  6"x6" blanks, and the smudge on the second one is from the scanner - it is definitely not on the card! But I do admit to needing a new blade in my trimmer...................think I may have had better photos on my phone from yesterday, as the light was so much better  but not worked out how to get them on the computer yet!

angel and madonna - Diva 2

 As promised, the final part of the Div Red day yesterday - the weather co-operated inasmuch as the sun came out, but I did not appreciate scraping the ice off the car this morning! It also took 3 different cameras to try to get a decent image...........and a great deal of muttering.................
I tend to make simple cards, and Moira loves the complicated ones, so it is a nice change to have to make them occasionally - and I have to admit I do enjoy doing them. As Moira showed us her sample card, I had a brainwave and decided to use my new Chocolate Baroque stamps instead of the diecuts Moira was using - the angel just fitted nicely, although the madonna was more awkward.
The word and the stars are all from the same set of stamps - I stamped and gold embossed these first onto the scored card, then stamped the angel and madonna onto a spare piece of matching card and cut them out. I glued the angel partly overlapping the fold at the front - and I did check before I added the glue! The madonna I had to trim right down to fit the size of the central panel, and mounted it onto gold mirri card.
I decided to make another one, this time using the full sheet of A4 card, so the card was taller - the other dimensions were the same - partial scores at 5 and 25cm, and full scores down at 10 and 20 cms along the long side of the sheet- the original bar at top and bottom was 3cms,  and I did increase this a little for the second card. You can see the difference in the height of the card by the space above the angel, who this time was embossed in silver. I also did a second angel for the back panel. I left the stars off as I thought they would be a bit too much with the two angels.
The madonna stamp still had to be cut down, but not by as much.

Here they are both together, so you can see the difference in height.

Diva Red part 1

Spent a wet day at Gissing with Moira , Janet and 5 other ladies, all happily getting inky.
This is the second of Moira's cards , and is a double-fold card - the front part was a ready-made card blank, with the back piece trimmed down and glued to another plain square card blank .
My camera is playing up , so these are scans.
I stamped the snowflakes from the Chocolate Baroque set a child is born, using Moira's multicoloured ink pad, then brushed cloud blue and juniper adirondack inks over the front.
The inner piece was a piece of water colour card coloured with  brushos (what else?)
I masked part of the card off first to give a snowy area, then used crumpled cling film and liquid pearls to dab in mountains,  sprinkled grey and turquoise brusho powders over the rest of the card, then spritzed heavily with water.

 Covered the wet card with more cling film, scrunched it up and left it to dry. Once it was dry, i used torn paper to sponge in the snow using the cloud blue and juniper inks again, then sprayed the sky with home-made glimmer spray using shimmer ink, water and isopropyl alcohol. Die cut deer added to the snowy fields, then the piece was matted onto silver card and glued to cover up the joined cards. We added acetate behind the cut out on the front, then added the diecut stag.
I will add the other card tomorrow once I get a decent photo, as no way will it scan - hopefully the weather will co-operate............

Janet's cards were much simpler -the one on the leftt was very quick, but very effective, using a Clarity stencil.
The stencil was taped down onto white card, then the blue and juniper inks were brushed through the stencil, and the darker bits sponged in. Once the ink was dry - I cheated and used the heat gun- we glittered the centre image - I used a white glitter that turned out to be mainly clear, so I went over part of the dove with a glue pen and added another glitter that claimed to be sapphire but looked more like an iridescent silver..........Matted onto grey card brushed with the blue and green inks, then onto silver before mounting onto a white card blank.

For the other card we used alcohol inks to create the background strip and the card used for the diecut poinsettia - I used latte, pest and rust, which came out rather paler than I was expecting. The strip of card across the front used 2 holly spray stamps, coloured with a mixture of inks and marker pens, trimmed down, matted onto a strip of gold card then onto the inked background strip before mounting on a white DL card. The poinsettia was held together with a brad, leaves curled slightly, then glued over the join of the two stamped images with glue gel.

Chocolate Baroque challenge 3

This is my entry for the latest Chocolate Baroque challenge - have stretched it a a bit to include the blue!
Yet another brusho background - you can definitely tell that I am seriously addicted to these little pots of powder!
The image from a child is born was stamped in black versafine and clear embossed before colouring with promarkers in shades of brown. I used bleach on the head dresses and sheep with varying degrees of success - the blue colour doesn't seem to bleach as easily as the others.
Simply matted on dull gold and black and mounted onto a white 7x7 blank card - the gold embossed star in the corner is also from the same stamp set.

poinsettiia wreath

 I wanted to use the poinsettia stamp from the Chocolate Baroque  Holly bells set, but couldn't immediately  think of a way to use it on a card, so thought I would go mad and try to make a wreath.
Of course, I couldn't find a readymade wreath shape, so I liberated some packaging from a local supermarket and made my own, using 2 different sized plates to draw round and cut out. I cut two out, as the card wasn't very sturdy, put them together and wrapped green ribbon round to hold them together and make a hanging loop.
I added die cut leaves in green card using the tattered leaves die from Tim Holtz and glue gel.
Next I stamped loads of poinsettias onto red card using black versafine and clear embossing powder, cut them out and glued on with more pinflair glue gel.
Next was another layer of poinsettias on the inside of the first layer.


I thought that it looked a bit flat, so cut into some of the images and curled a few leaves up to give a bit of dimension, then went really mad and cut the centres out of the last few stamped poinsettias, and cut and curled the leaves before decoupaging them over some of the base images, then added a few more leaves as most of the first ones had been covered up by now!


I gave up at that point, and hung the wreath on the front door to get a photo of the finished  item - it wouldn't be suitable for outside use, though maybe if it was given a good coat of spray varnish it may last a little while outside.
Apologies for the photos, the flash was reflecting back off the images - would have been much easier if I could have scanned it!
Ones outside are much better.................amazing the difference a bit of sunshine makes........

santa

This is my final card as a guest for Chocolate Baroque  - I have had great fun playing, and thank you to Glenda and Lesley for inviting me.
The santa and sleigh are both from the Santa Baby set, combined with a brusho inks background again.
This background was one that resulted from the afternoon playing at Gissing, using Moira's perfect pearls dabbed on with crunched up cling film before using the brusho inks in grey and turquoise, with quite a lot of water. Once it was dry, it looked like a mountain in snow, so I thought it would be ideal for santa............
The sleigh looked a bit lost without something to pull it, and my reindeer stamp is definitely of one in the sky, so you will to assume it is still being loaded up!
I stamped the sleigh in black versafine ink and clear embossed it directly onto the background -which was when I discovered that the pearly bits didn't like this very much. Fortunately the tricky bits stamped ok, so I stamped the sleigh onto white card , coloured the body and parcels with promarkers and just cut this bit out and glued onto the original image. I brushed stormy sky distress ink beneath the sleigh to give Santa and the sleigh something to stand on
Santa was also stamped separately, coloured, cut out, and mounted in front of the sleigh.
I matted this onto pearlescent silver card, then onto blue card coloured with promarker to sort-of match the blues in the background, then onto a white 7" square base card.
Have to admit to stamping and embossing the greeting in silver before I stuck on the matted santa - I am very good at getting stamped greetings squiffy , but found the clear stamps to be really good. My small greeting is stuck onto the smooth side of a small clear ruler, so I know it is straight to begin with, and I can use the markings on the ruler to help place the greeting.

playday

Had a good afternoon playing at Gissing with Moira, Barbara, Liz and Jill last Sunday- it was a shame Janet was ill and couldn't join us; we only actually did one card, the rest of the time we were playing with brusho ink powders...........
The card on the left is my version of Moira's original, inspired by You-tube originally, then Eileen Godwin.
Moira had unfortunately left the precut circles behind, so we ended up using squares instead - being naturally awkward, I stuck mine on diagonally instead of square like everyone else, but I did stamp and cut out the flowers, even adding the gems in the centre!
Rather a poor scan, but far better than the photo I took, believe me!




For the remainder of the time we played with brushos - only Moira and I had used them before, it was very interesting watching everyone's faces as the inks spread! On some of them we also used liquid  perfect pearls, which gave a lovely shimmery effect.
I ended up with a nice pile of background papers , and have used one of them here with the angel from the new  Chocolate Baroque set A child is born. She was stamped in black versafine and clear embossed before painting with H2Os - I haven't used these for ages, and really must get some more of them.
I discovered that the sheets with a lot of  the pearls resist being stamped onto, and that the H2Os won't cover the splodges of pearl either, which was why there is a golden angel on a yellow background instead of a snowy blue/grey sky one!

holly spray

·   

Warning, this is a long post for the second of my guest posts, so grab a mug of coffee first! Pictures in the order I did the cards, so a bit of dodging about.............

This was the stamp I went for immediately from the Holly Bells set as I thought it would go well with brusho inks – BIG mistake! Brushos need a really bold stamp, as I discovered...................

Many  sheets of card later, I finally got an idea I thought might work – stamp the image first, emboss, then thoroughly damp the card before adding the tiniest amount of powder using a very fine brush just where I wanted it............................I really thought I’d cracked it, until the colour started spreading ....and spreading.... all over the card, and not just where I wanted it! Spraying with more water and blotting with kitchen roll finally toned down the colours, but the rest of the piece of card was a very splodgy mess.

In desperation I trimmed it down fairly close to the image, mounted it onto a red panel, then onto the white 7x7 base card, added the greeting in gold embossing powder.

Back to ‘normal’ it was, and a group of CAS cards...................

Masked off the panel towards the top of the 7x7 card blank, stamped the holly spray with black versafine and clear embossed.

Brushed scattered straw and wild honey distress inks round the image, then added a line of brown watercolour pencil  under the panel (thanks for the tip Lesley) and brushed it with a water brush then replaced the bottom piece of masking paper and added more wild honey.

Coloured the image with water-based marker pens.

Greeting from the clear stamp gold embossed along the base of the card.

Marks are on the scanner, not on the card! - I am fairly rubbish with a camera, think Ii need to hijack a better one from OH.......

A smaller version on a 6x6 card, using fired brick and forest moss distress inks, and a smaller clear greeting- for this version I used a sheet of A4 card vertically, stamping the spray several times down the card and gold embossing it . Trim to the size you want, colour the berries and leaves, then sponge distress inks around the image before mounting onto a base card and gold embossing the greeting. 

I also used this system with a sheet of card sprayed with red glimmer mist – the image was stamped in black versafine, clear embossed, berries highlighted with bleach and a gel pen, then trimmed down to fit on a 6x6 white card base.

It also worked for the brushos, once I had given up on traditional colours – I dropped blue and purple powders onto a  sheet of A4 card, sprayed heavily with water and left it to dry overnight. I then stamped the spray with versamark and white embossed it, highlighting the berries with bleach again.

This time after trimming, I mounted the panel vertically on a 6x6 white card base and stamped and gold embossed a greeting across the centre of the card.

Depending on the size of panel you want and the orientation of your card, you can get at least 4 out of a sheet of A4, so a good way to batch make cards, which is what we need to do at Christmas.

The greeting stamps are clear stamps, bold on the first two cards and mini

for the rest.

Victorian Christmas

I thrilled to be asked to do a blog post by Glenda, as I have always loved her stamps since discovering them on C&C many years ago, back in the days when they only came on wooden blocks.

When I received my stamps to play with – Santa Baby and Holly Bells – the one image I really couldn’t see how to use was the mantelpiece – to me, it was unfinished, I wanted the rest of the fireplace! Funnily enough, it is the one I have used the most..............

My moment of inspiration came when I was using a friend’s holly wreath stencil at a craft afternoon and suddenly thought that the mantelpiece stamp would fit in the centre. I quickly stencilled it in vintage photo onto some spare card and took it home to play.

To me, this was a very Victorian image, which was why everything is vintage photo, although they are not really Christmassy colours.
 I stamped the image in the centre, coloured it by dragging the colour out with a waterbrush. I sponged scattered straw very lightly round the image, then vintage photo working from the edges in towards the holly, finally adding a touch of black soot in the corners.

Matted onto dull gold and dark brown before adding to a white 7x7 card base.

One thing I love about CB stamps is how well they work together, (and indeed with other makes of stamps ) and for the second card I dug out an old EI stamp to use as a foreground image – this time I wanted lighter silvery tones, still not very traditional Christmas though, and still very Victorian.

I stamped the image with smoky grey versafine, coloured it with watercolour pencils and sponged weathered wood round the edges, It was matted onto dark and light pearlescent silver card, then onto a 6x6 card blank dusted with weathered wood again. The maid was stamped with smoky grey and cut out, mounted onto foam pads slightly overlapping the layers.

The final effort got a bit brighter in colour.

I stamped a tree image from one of the old Christmas sets sideways to make the branches of a Christmas tree down the left side of a 13cm square of white card, using iced spruce ink. I roughly

cut a mask for the tree branches and stamped the mantelpiece behind the branches using a brown ink pad. I coloured the image with marker pens, then sponged old paper ink round it.
Apologies for the squiffy photo, I did it in a hurry as my scanner didn't like having the screen cleaned and decided to add interesting splodges everywhere............

I am playing very happily with the other stamps, so watch this space!

Creative bloghop

This was the idea of a now-anonymous blogger ages ago - the idea is that the creative bit includes anything  artistic, crafts,  needlework, painting etc etc, you name it. You have to write a bit about yourself, answer 4 questions, add photos (optional) and, like a game of tag, nominate 3 people to follow the next week.  I got tagged by Kate Perry, who is a very talented crafter living in Spain who I know through what was then the Graphicus Guild, and is now the Chocolate Baroque forum.
So here goes -
I am retired, living in Norfolk with a very patient husband who puts up with an ever-increasing mountain of  overflowing craft stash - 3 grown-up children all away from home who have also learned to put up with my craft stuff, in varying degrees of resignation!
I have always loved paper, pens and pencils  and spent all my pocket money at the local stationers first, then at the art store later -after leaving school  I spent 4 happy messy years at art college, first in Preston then in Liverpool where I ended up changing courses to the school of printing and studying typography - I got just as messy, only this time with printer's  ink!  College diploma and City & Guilds certificate  (even a medal!) did not lead to jobs, so I ended up as a civil servant in London.
I started crafting seriously when my daughter was around 11, with quilling and parchment craft initially, and bought my first rubber stamp and mini ink pad because I was fed up of quilling leaves. The next ones were small square stamps to make my own teabag folding papers, which  were  annoying to use and cut out individually and then colour in with felt tip pens.
Then I discovered Create & craft TV, where thanks to Jayne Nesterenko  I found out how to use some medallion stamps I had ordered at a show, and forgotten how to use by the time they arrived. I became hooked on stamping,  especially when I watched Glenda Waterworth - I still have some of the wood mount stamps from then. Once I discovered unmounted stamps -especially when they were so much cheaper and took less room up - there was no stopping me. Even I have to admit I have far to many stamps now, but I still can't resist buying new ones, especially from Chocolate Baroque, and trying out new techniques.
I have been lucky enough to run several workshops for the WI, which have been great fun, if hard work.

Now the questions...............
1. What am I working on
    my tags for the monthly challenge at Chocolate Baroque - this year it is a technique challenge, and this month we had to use embossing cracked in the freezer.

These are my two, after several failed attempts, using an old koi carp stamp from Elusive Images and a fragments stamp from Chocolate Baroque on the actual tag. I discovered that clear embossing powder will actually go opaque if you you reheat and refreeze it enough times! - the backgrounds to the fish are using brusho inks, which are my current addiction.
The next set of tags are to use zentangling, which is definitely not a favourite of mine..........
I have new sets of Christmas stamps to play with as well, which will hopefully be blogged on Wednesday

2.how does my work differ from others   and
3 why do I create what I do
I put these together, because to be honest, this is not something I have thought about, I just play! I do prefer simpler designs - I hate huge ribbon bows and loads of flowers on cards , and it takes a lot even for me to add ribbon at all. I usually make cards, because I like the results of my playing to be useful - I am not a fan of altered spoons and the like, if I have a wooden spoon I will be cooking with it!

4 how does my creative process work
As I said, I normally just play - I rarely start out with an idea of how I want the finished card to look. I may want to use a particular colour scheme or stamp, so i start out with that. I have to admit to being a very messy crafter, usually ending up with an A5 size space on the table to actually work in - the rest of the the space is ink pads, stamps that I thought would go well with what I started out with, and hopefully some scissors ( I swear there is a black hole on the table which swallows scissors!). I have several boxes of 'orphan' stamps which need returning to their sets, although some sets do manage to stay together probably as they are used so much.
I love challenge blogs, they are great for kick-starting ideas - I follow several, and am always discovering new ones through bloghopping, but very often never get around to actually doing an entry; it does annoy me that often I find a new challenge that I have just blogged the ideal card a couple of days earlier - sigh - though it would annoy me even more if everyone could backlink old stuff all the time!

now for my victims -

Moira Walters, who is a very talented crafter and a great source of inspiration, and who keeps me up to date on all things crafty. Moira runs craft classes - admittedly in the wilds of Norfolk at one of the best-hidden village halls I know -she does not have the best of health, and will I hope be able to add her blog next week.

Jane Aldridge, another very talented stamper , who says
I am an enthusiastic crafter who is an addicted rubber stamper and zentangler. I live in Norfolk with my husband and two furry companions. For many years I was a University administrator, until we took the leap and moved from Essex to Norfolk to have a different pace of lfe. i am lucky enough to have opened my own craft shop a couple of years ago partnered with a great friend, Sarah. I regularly attend local crafting events such as Sincerely Yours and run workshops and clubs as well as put up something creative on my blog everyday. I have a mixed taste of styles - I like collage mixed media style, steampunk as well as clean and crisp styles too. I love to be inspired by all the creative talent you can now view online and am keen to try lots of different styles and techniques

.Elaine Friend another very talented crafter, who does the most gorgeous needlework as well as stamping, and another who does not get around to blogging as often as she should!

snippets challenge

Pixie snippets challenge is one that I have often thought of doing , having admired that way Val has worked her way through her oddments collection, but never got around to actually doing it - partly because I try to throw out all the bits I used to save!
However, my current addiction to playing with brusho inks has meant that I had a little pile of bits that I couldn't bear to throw out.............then the sale at Chocolate Baroque tempted me..............
The result is my first ever card for this challenge - the stamp comes from the holly bells sheet,and was stamped with versamark and gold embossed onto an A6 card blank, as was the greeting.
The same stamp was stamped in black versafine onto some of my scraps, and some were so small I could just squeeze on one layer of the tree! Layers were cut out and glued onto the appropriate places on the stamped image - and my first Christmas card of the year!
Very quick and simple, and the pile of cutout bits will make several more of the same...................

CB colour challenge

The colour challenge over at Chocolate Baroque this month is this one, which has a lot of possibilities......

and i have several ideas lurking that I haven't worked out yet, but the colours just happened to go with a scrap of brusho-inked card left over from something else, just  big enough for a tag. I came across this old stamp from the Graphicus days, think it nay have been one of Guild stamps, which just seemed to go with my scrap. I stamped with brown ink and clear embossed  the image, then highlighted the birds with bleach before mounting onto a brown tag.

apologies for all the  space, just can't get rid of it, and gave up before Blogger drove me totally loopy!

.

Clarity East again

 Clarity East again today with Janet Pring and we made 3 Christmas cards using the holly wreath stencil , two holly spray stamps and bauble stamps.
Scans of my versions of Janet's cards are not in the order we did them, as the top was the last one...........having managed to get them relatively straight on the scanner, I wasn't going to put them the right way round!
The long thin card in the bottom of the first scan was the first one - we stamped the large and small sprays diagonally across the card with black archival ink, and the small bauble on an extra bit of card and I coloured mine with ordinary marker pens. Janet had already die cut the gold and black layers for the bauble, so this was layered up and stuck across the join of the sprays. I brushed fired brick and bundled sage inks around the edges before adding a green mat before mounting onto the white card.

The blue card used broken china ink sponged through the wreath stencil to make the background strip. The large babuble was stamped in black archival again, and coloured with promarkers this time, matted onto silvery grey and pale blue card before adding onto a white card blank that had been stamped round the edges with the holly spray and sponged with the blue ink. Large bauble onto precut gold mount and added to one side.
The large square card used the holly wreath stencil run through a grand caliber to emboss the design first onto cream card before inking through the stencil with versamark. After removing the stencil, we used red and green perfect pearls to colour the stencil and also the greeting stamped in the centre.
The large holly spray was stamped in the corners and also round the edges of the white card blank. I didn't like the white base, so stamped it with the holly again and brushed the fired brick and bundled sage lightly round the edges to tone down the white, then on the corners of the cream panel to match it up a bit.

sneaking in.....

A very quick post to add this one to the Chocolate Baroque challenge - definitely last minute!
Stamp from thistle butterfly, stamped in black versafine onto a brusho and distress ink background. Coloured with marker pens.
Butterflies stamped onto spare bits of brusho-ed card, decoupaged over main image, and extra one added at bottom