Time for a Little Train Spotting

Good evening friends, followers and all out there in blogland.  The Alpha Challenge over at the Craft Barn is moving along swiftly, we will be to the end of the alphabet before we know it, this fortnights letter is "T" with no added twists or turns.  There are lots of words to choose from but for some reason I have chosen train spotter, maybe I was persuaded by the "Looking Glasses" stamp I had out on my desk I don't know.

 

My page didn't come together as I hoped it would, I stamped the Papermania "Looking Glasses" stamp onto my page but it didn't take so I stamped it onto paper and stuck it over the mess, this was coloured with distress inks and some glossy accents added to the glasses.  Tried stamping the train and again the ink messed up so the train was stamped onto paper too.  The trees were fine as were the words and numbers.  I covered the page with distress inks in scattered straw and evergreen bough then covered it with some gesso added the train spotter sign and the platform ticket (googled) and finished by adding the letter "T" and stamping dots,  from Tim Holtz bitty grunge set, in turquoise acrylic paint .

So there it is the letter "T" completed, I am determined to get to the end of this challenge just hope it comes together better for the next letter!

Once again ladies a big thank you for all your lovely comments on the Alpha challenge and my other posts, I will be checking out your blogs shortly to see what fabulous things you have been up to.

Inspiration Monday at Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge

Hello blogland ladies, are you enjoying this hot weather or is it getting a little too much foir you?  I am back again with my second DT card for the Crafty Bloggers Network monthly challenge.  The sponsor this month is Lacy Sunshine Stamps and Heather is offering a whopping $20 gift certificate as a prize, the theme this month is METAL MAGIC. There are still two week to go before the end of the month and time to enter into the challenge,  pop over to the  challenge blog and take a look at the other fabulous inspirational ideas from the design team.

 

As my last DT card was quite CAS with lots of white space I wanted to go for a more colourfull card this time.  I started by playing with background colours and patterns, and decided on a beach for the stamps and bright co-ordinating colours for the main background.  The backgrounds were coloured using distress ink in dried marigold, spiced marmalade, squeezed lemonade, broken china with a little peacock feather thrown in for the surf boards.  The orange mat was stamped randomly with a daisy in grey Stazon, this was then matted onto the card.  The beach background was cut a littles smaller than the card and mounted onto some green card which had been edged with peacock feather DI.

The image was coloured with Promarkers and fussy cut, the surf boards were stamped onto textured card which had been coloured with the DI, a few patterns were added to the boards and they were fussy cut too.  The images were layered onto the beach backing using different thicknesses of stick fixers to give a 3D effect.  This panel was the layered onto the card at an angle to show the orange background.  With the remaining textured paper I stamped and cut out daisies and added them to the backing and placed a metal stud in the center of each, a few studs were also added to the boards.  The greeting from LOTV was stamped onto white card and edged with DI before attaching to the card.

I added an orange insert with stamped daisies, then another smaller pale green insert with a quote/sentiment and a  Lacy Sunshine digi stamp camper van which was coloured with Promarkers.

Thank you everyone for all your lovely comments on my blog posts, they are very much appreciated.  I have my family staying at the moment so time is short but I will catch up with you all soon.

Midway Reminder - Show Us Your Twinchies Challenge

 Hello followers, friends and visitors, half way through the month already and this is a my reminder post for my twinchie challenge over at the Show Us Your Twinchies Blog where the theme is "In An English Country Garden", just to encourage you to have a go and enter a twinchie or two in the challenge here are a few twinchies and ideas  on how to use your twinchies when they are made.

 Afternoon Tea on the Lawn

 

This takes me back to when the children were young and we had tea in the garden on sunny days.

The Potting Shed  

A must for any English Country Garden, full of pots, seeds and compost ready for planting up in spring.

Using Your Twinchies on Cards

Here are a few ideas for using twinchies on your cards, a great idea as you get the pleasure of making the twinchies and someone else gets the pleasure when they receive the card from you.   Below is a quick note card made using one of the tea time twinchies.  I used a bought card blank and attached some patterned paper (free pad from a mag) which had been distressed and coloured slightly with broken china distress ink, the edges were sewn round and a Marianne doily die placed in the center, the twinchie was attached to the doily - a quick and easy note card.

Here is another card where the full image was stamped onto a ready made card blank, the bee coloured and the rest of the image left black and white. A stamped and water coloured twinchie was mounted with 3D sticky pads onto the full stamped image, the twinchie and the bee were highlighted with glossy accents. The edge of the card was coloured with Distress ink in worn lipstick.

Another quick and simple card.

So come on ladies, whether you are a regular twinchie fan or a novice, get making those twinchies and enter the challenge HERE.

Yellow yo-yos go up and down

The Alpha Challenge over at The Craft Barn is now over half way through, this fortnight's letter is "Y" with the colour yellow added to keep us on our toes.  Not many pages in the "Y" section of my dictionary, will it be year, yettie or yo-yo, or even Y-fronts.  I picked year first but thought that might be a popular word, yettie next but how do I bring in the yellow for the Abominable  Snowman (won't go into what my OH suggested!), saw a great stamp of a pair of Y-fronts on a card last week, but yo-yo won out.

The yo-yo definition was brief  but I also associate it with going up and down so that was my reasoning for the arrows.   Firstly I covered the definition with tape and then coloured my background with yellow acrylic paint, it turned out rather dark so I added some white acrylic paint through some sequin waste and dabbed a lid into the white paint and stamped some rings to represent the yo-yo.  The images are from the internet, various tricks you can do with a yo-yo, I fussy cut the images and highlighted the movement of the yo-yo with a black marker.  The "Y" was left uncoloured with just the up and down arrows and a yo-yo hanging from it.

 

 

Finally I drew dashes and arrows round the definition and this is another page finished.  Researching the history of the yo-yo came up with quite a few facts but I only wanted a single page spread so there was no room, did think about covering the Z page but I may need a word from there later.

Off now to enjoy the day before it gets too hot.

Music and Lyrics and Inks and Embossing

Wonderful afternoon here in Somerset, the sun is shining and all is well with the world, especially because I have a few hours to spend in my craft room.  Today I have two twinchies for the Twinchie Challenge Blog where the theme this month is Music and Lyrics.  I am a little short on any music related stamps but found an aspect of Design stamp lurking in the depth of a draw and just had to use it.  I also pulled out 2 or three bags of stamps and am determined to use some of them before the year is out.  The wonderful thing about twinchies is you can use up those scraps of card just cut out a 2 inch x 2 inch square and away you go, they are also great for using those free stamps we get with magazines.

The background on my first twinchie was created using embossing powders in yellow, green and a pale blue Moon Glow embossing powder (pale blue with a shimmer of gold ), and a little white powder sprinkled on at the side.  The stamp from Design 1 - Floral Aspect of Design stamp set was inked with Stazon black ink and part of the stamp stamped onto the twinchie.

For this second twinchie the background was created with distress inks and a flick of water, the stamp was again inked with Stazon black ink and then stamped onto the twinchie.  The small dragonfly was stamped onto plain card and cut out  and attached to the twinchie, glossy accents was added to the 3D dragonfly to give a little more dimension.

I have had a good afternoon, it is a little hot and sticky now so will get this post published and off I go to cool off by the fan downstairs!

Lavinia Stamps Challenge -

Good Morning ladies out in blogland, what a fabulous day we are having today this is what I call summer.  As the weather is so good I have been trying to do my crafting in the evening and here is a little something I ran up last night.  I received a new set of Marianne dies last week and the Lavinia Stamps Challenge gave me the opportunity  to play around with them, this month's challenge is "Us a Die or Punched Shape".  This is my entry for the Lavinia Challenge and there is also a card showing what I did with the spare backing card I had left after making this card.

The card blank was made using some lovely cream textured card from the Papermill Direct. Using my new Marriane die I cut out the doily edge aperture.  The background was created with distress inks in fired brick, peeled pain, faded jeans and aged mahogany on kraft coloured card and splashed with water drops.   The card was cut to fit behind the aperture and the Lavinia poppy stamped in black Stazon In the center, the poppies were lined up behind the aperture and then the backing card was attached to the back of the aperture.  I thought this would make a lovely note card so left it without a sentiment, I can add one if I feel It needs one when I use it.

Now on to the other card using up the spare backing card and my  first attempt at stamping the poppies, I had used an old embossing powder with a pale blue/gold tint but didn't like how it turned out so used this peice of card to roughly stamp a few black poppies before stamping onto the main card.  When trying out my new die set I cut out  the fancy circle and placed this over the stamped poppies, it looked OK so I cut out the poppies with the circle die and attached it to the fancy circle, this was in turn attached to a square of the backing card and then onto a cream card blank.   I added glossy accents to the black poppies which made the gold stand out more and the slight pale blue iridescence showed up more.  I was very pleased with how the card turned out. Again I added no sentiment as this is a note card, a sentiment can be added later when I know who and what the card is for.

Well off now to do the housework before the temperature soars.  Have a good day everyone and enjoy the sunshine.

Getting Messy with some Hidden Treasures

Good morning all you lovely ladies out there, another nice day here so an early post then off for a walk with the dogs and some housework.

I have been sorting through my craft boxes (as you do now and again) and came across some small canvasses with stands, originally bought to use the stands for photographing cards.  I have not done a canvass yet and thought the challenge over at Anything But A Card would be the ideal challenge for me to give it a try, and to use up some of the alcohol inks I bought but never opened.  The theme for this challenge is "Getting Messy", and I assure you I did!  And here they are one for him and one for her.

The ladies canvass was coloured with Dylusions ink spray in vibrant turquoise and fresh lime and some Adirondack colour wash in sailboat blue.  I them added some texture past with the Crafters Workshop Mini Butterfly Meadow template.  When dry the raised areas were coloured with the inks and treasure gold, a little embossing powder sprinkled over and heated to give a shine.  The little butterfly was punched out, coloured and added to the top corner which I thought looked a little bare.

The other canvass was done with a male theme, cogs and gears.  The canvass was treated the same as the other using Adirondack alcohol inks in mushroom, raisin and a smidge of lettuce, a Splodgeaway cogs stencil was used with the texture paste.  When the canvass was dry I applied some rust powder, treasure gold and two Tim Holtz metal cogs.

Really enjoyed myself playing with these, a bigger canvass may be on the cards.  Off now to have a lovely walk on the beach,  but hope to have a free hour or so this afternoon for some more messy work, I have a few Tim's Tags to catch up with it may be another messy afternoon.

Barnum's Big Top and all the fun of the Circus

Good morning followers old and new, friends and all in blogland.  Another two weeks have flown by and another Craft Barn Alpha Challenge, this time the letter B.

So many Bs to choose from but one word stood out and I had just the stamps to use on the page.  I have been sorting through my crafty bits and bobs and trying to use some of the things hidden away and forgotten, I found these stamps (Oxford Impressions "Big Top") last week and they were out just waiting to be used.  My chosen word is Barnum the American Showman, philanthropist, author/publisher and politician who's circus was established in 1871 and merged with J. A. Bailey (another B) in 1881.

My page was started with the red stripes which are supposed to represent the circus tent, then a layer of gesso to tone it down a bit.  The stamps came next, they were stamped in black Stazon and coloured with red, orange and yellow acrylic paints.  The "B" was coloured with distress inks in spiced marmalade and fired brick and edged with broken twig.  I used a Dylusions stencil to add the diamonds using DIs and again added gesso to tone down the colour.  To finish I added a little piece of thread under the tightrope walker and drew round the definition with a fine liner.

 

 

Another letter completed, will have to look through the remaining letters in the dictionary and see if I can get a few ideas for the letters still to come, I may even get a page done in the first week of a challenge if I am lucky!  But then again I always work better when I only have a little time and am under pressure.

A big thank you for all your comments on my last pages,  looking forward to seeing what all the other talented ladies have come up with this time, popping over soon to have a look.

Hippy Birthday Hippy Chick

Hello everyone out in blogland and welcome to my new followers, I am back again with my DT card for the Crafty Bloggers Network monthly challenge.  The sponsor this month is Lacy Sunshine Stamps and Heather is offering a whopping $20 gift certificate as a prize, the theme this month is - METAL MAGIC - just add something metal (or something that appears to be metal) to your card

Pop over to the CBN Challenge to see what the other talented DT have done with the Lacy Sunshine stamps and find out more about the challenge.

I just love this Lacy Sunshine image.  Maddie and Clover Hippy Music digi, I embossed a white 15cm square card using a freeby folder from a magazine.  Maddie was printed onto white linen card and coloured with promarkers, the greeting was printed and also coloured with Promarkers.  I die cut the daisies (Xcut die) green fancy circle (Marrianne) and the Maddie image (Spellbinders Nestability).  The image and a the green circle were attached to the card.  The daisies were coloured with Promarkers, layered together and an eyelets fastened in the center, the greeting was attached with foam pads and then the daisies placed round the image.  I found a metal butterfly bead while rummaging around and added it to the card.

Don't forget to pop over to The Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge, how can you not enter with such a fabulous prize on offer.

Show us Your Twinchies Challenge -

Good morning blogland, all my lovely followers old and new and all who pop over to take a peek.  This month over at my Show Us Your Twinchies Challenge Blog the theme is "In An English Country Garden", sounds daunting but the possibilities are wonderful, flowers, afternoon tea, insects, bees and butterflies, picnics on the lawn, herb garden, I could go on but here are a few twinchies to give you an idea.

 Secret Garden - Michael Powell stamp and Promarkers

Garden Pests - Digi images from Digi Sparkle

Cottage Garden - Stamping, beads and embossing

The Challenge is just for fun, so whether you are a twinchie fan or a novice have a go and try playing around with these two inch by two inch little beauties, I assure you they can become quite addictive. The challenge runs for a month and the winner is featured in The Winners' Gallery, pop over and check out our previous winners, you could be next.  There is a winner's badge too, so go on ladies Show Us Your Twinchies.