Snow Family

I'm waaaay behind with blogging my cards but life has got in the way again! After getting back from our cruise I became treasurer of The Fleet Art Society just as they were due to hold their winter exhibition. The hand over took a while as the guy showing me went over everything a number of times! Then the exhibition was on for five days and I had christmas presents to buy, cards to write, cakes to bake! 

So here are two snow family cards, which have also used up some of my stash of 6x6 papers,

I do like this stamp, I should use it more often!

 

Challenges:

Fab 'n' Funky - Christmas

Little Red Wagon - Christmas

Birthday Bouquet

My stash of birthday cards has got a bit depleted so thought it was time to do something about it. This stamp from Penny Black has been sitting on my desk for months now, so I finally inked it up.

 

I coloured it with Zig watercolor pens and a water brush. The white background looked a bit stark and unfinished so I brushed on some distress inks - Old Paper and Spun Sugar, mounted it onto Mint Macaron card and added a sentiment strip.

 

Challenges:

Colour Throwdown - mustard, pink and green

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour - AG

Happy Little Stampers Birthday

NBUS

Cardz4Galz

Fuschia

After a fraught few days - five- I finally managed to get back into Bloglovin yesterday. As I use it to read all the blogs I follow I have had quite a few to catch up with.

I finally got round to using this lovely Penny Black stamp. I used Zig watercolour markers to paint the image and a water brush to blend and move the ink around.

I actually stamped it on white card but it looks very creamy on the photo. The mat is also much closer in shade to the purple on the flowers than it looks here. Both the white and purple mats are out of my snippets drawer.

I would like to join in with the following challenges:

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge 

NBUS Challenge

Pixies Snippets Playground

A Valentine!

I suddenly realised that it was Valentines's Day next Monday so yesterday I made  a quick card after I had cleared away all the mess from my pastel painting. I will show you those later in the week.

As you can see it was a very quick card. I die cut a red heart with an old SU die set and the added the Penny Black train. I've had this die for ages waiting for an occasion to use it.

I'm finding card making a bit difficult since I had my cataracts done. I'm constantly having to take my reading glasses on and off, not a problem I had before, in fact I'm thinking of asking the optician for varifocals when I next have my eyes tested, just for card making!

 

Challenges entered: 

Pixies Snippets Play ground - red and black snippets.

NBUS Challenge - Penny Black die

Cardz for Guyz - 

Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies

HLS Watercolour June

It's the first of the month (well it is in Australia!) so it's time for the first of the monthly challenges at Happy Little Stampers. Sadly this will be my last DT make as I made the decision to step down when I was diagnosed with Polymyalgia in March. I need to keep the stress levels down. But I'm hoping to join ib from time to time.

  As always it is Anything Goes but must include watercolouring.

 

 I used a Penny Black stamp which I love and did some no line watercoloring. I used White Knights watercolours.

Do pop over to the challenge blog where you will find lots of inspiration from the rest of the DT and I hope to see you joining in.

Rusty Splatters!

I've had this Penny Black stamp sitting on my desk since before Christmas. I was determined to use it at least once before putting it away

I stamped it in brown ink on a piece of cream watercolour card then coloured it with a Cajun Craze marker blended with a water brush.

Splatters were added using both Cajun Craze and Chocolate Chip using a blowy thing that the marker sits in. I can't think of the name for it. I'm sure one of you will be able to tell me!

I'm going to share this at CAS Mix Up, Colour Throwdown, and NBUS challenge.

June Rudolph Day

Well it’s certainly not Christmas weather here - absolutely scorching - and unfortunately bringing out all the idiots, as could be seen on Bournemouth beach yesterday. I’ll stop the rant now as it is making me so angry and get on to nicer things like card making.

I fished this ATC out of my bits box. It was made 3 years ago for the HLS retreat (3years ago? Really?)

I mounted it onto some pretty snowflake paper and added some red sequins. Another quick card for the Rudolph Day Challenge.

HLS Xmas

Welcome to the June Happy Little Stampers Christmas challenge. The optional twist is Deck the Halls so I used Boughs of Holly.

I used Copics to colour the holly and added a red diecut sentiment on top. The weather here is not very Christmassy though, we have had weeks of beautiful weather which has certainly been a help during lockdown.

Make it Kraft!

Welcome to a new week! The new challenge at Make My Monday is  to use Kraft card. I know Valentine's Day is past but it wasn't when I made the card! I'm thinking I will use it as an anniversary card.

I stamped this sweet Penny Black stamp in Versafine Onyx Black and coloured it with Spectrum Noir pencils. There's lots more inspiration over on the challenge blog and look forward to seeing what you make.

The Last Two!

The last two Christmas cards for this year! Both were made at the Craft Retreat in November.

The  Christmas trees were cut out of white card and sponged using Distress Oxides in Iced Spruce and Peeled Paint. The Snowy card is all Penny Black - I love those snowflake frames.

All that's left is to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and I'll see you all in the New Year with some exciting news.

Partial Die Cutting

Here’s another card made at the HLS retreat I went to in November. One of the sessions was partial die cutting. Never having been to a retreat before I really didn’t know what or how much to take, so the choice of dies I had that were suitable was limited. But I thought the Penny Black stamp and die set would be OK and this is the result! 

The colours are not very true to life in the photo as the hats, scarves and snowflakes are really aqua not green!  I’m entering this into the following challenges:

The Sisterhood Of Crafters - All about Christmas

Allsorts: Snowflakes

Snowman at Cardz 4 Guyz

Well the house refurbishment is still ongoing! They keep telling me that it will all be done in time for Christmas! It might be but I don't want to try out the new oven for the first time with Christmas dinner, that's a recipe for disaster!  Anyway onto the card for the new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz, and this time we want to see snowmen! How easy is that?

I have used Penny Black stamps and dies for this card.Love this new set of stamps and the snowflake frames.

A Great Weekend!!

Last weekend I travelled down to Swindon for the Happy Little Stampers Craft Retreat, and what a great time I had with like minded people. Lots of crafting, good food, and laughter. Thank you Kylie for arranging it and being a fabulous teacher! This is the card I made at home for a challenge, which I won!

I will post more of the cards made during the Retreat in the next  few days. Going to head over to the Playground with this one and to the Penny Black Saturday challenge, and Rudolph Day extra!

Snow Fun!

Time for a new challenge at Make My Monday and this time it is Snow Fun. Lots of scope there! The perfect opportunity for me to use my new Snowy Family stamp. I do love these snowmen.

I watercoloured the hats and scarve, and cut it  out with an oval die, then mounted it on red mirri card. The sentiment is cut out od the same mirri card.

Do pop over to the challenge and check out my teamies makes!

Christmas in July

It's time for another new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz and it's Christmas in July!! I used a NBUS Penny Black stamp and coloured almost exactly the same as the packet suggestion.

I have to say I was rather pleased with it. I embossed the sentiment in white to make it stand out on the black base.

The last few days have been very exciting and a bit nerve wracking. Those of you who are regular readers of my blog will know that I have been making Octopi for Octopus for a Preemie. I have also become the local coordinator for them for Frimley Park Hospital, which recently started to use them. Last week they issued a press release about them and as a result Radio Surrey did an interview with me on Friday morning( by telephone, thankfully so I didn't have to get up too early, even that was early enough for me). You can hear the interview HERE about 1 hour and 25 minutes into the recording.  Yesterday I had to go to the hospital again for BBC South Today filming a piece about them as well. It should be aired tonight on their programme at 6.30pm. It wasn't as easy as the radio one as he didn't ask questions, just got me to talk about them, which I wasn't really prepared for.

 

NBUS Challenge

The lovely Darnell is celebrating her 5th blogaversary with a special NBUS challenge. You can read all about it here. She has added an optional twist of a new technique -colouring with pencils on Kraft.

This is also a technique I haven't used before either, so had a go. The stamp is NBUS from Penny Black  - Red Blush, the sentiment is from Clearly Besotted and also NBUS. I thought of mounting the panel on red, but preferred it without. I used Spectrum Noir pencils to colour the image.  I'm also entering this over at Winter Wonderland where the challenge this week is Sunshine, Flowers, Romance.

Merry Monday #81 - Santa

This week's theme at Merry Monday is to use Santa himself on your cards.  I used a stamp from Habico (NBUS) inked in Cherry Cobbler, some scraps of red for the scallop borders and mats, a Sizzix holly embossing folder, and finished it with cherry cobbler seam binding. Then I decided it needed a bit more so added a Frosted Finishes embellishment from Stampin' Up! And here is the inside

The stamp is Penny Black which I have just acquired as I thought it was perfect for the insides of cards.

Penny Black Cat

I have had this stamp a long time and not used it, but as my partner's daughter is into cats thought it would be perfect for her.

 

 I used acuttlebug snowflake embossing folder for the background with some retires Stampin' Up! paper. The holly spray is a Memory Box die and the snowflakes were made with a Martha Stewart punch and Stampin'Up die and were leftover bits from othe cards. The only colouring was on the holly on the cat's head and I used promarkers. The sentiment is SU.

Blue and White

The Crafty Cow forum has a monthly challenge and this year it is a sketch challenge. This is the card I've made for the April sketch. The flower stamp is from Penny Black and was stamped in white and embossed with white detail powder on navy card. The sentiment is also stamped in blue using Adirondack denim. The stamp is from Hobby Art.

Just for a change!

Thought I'd have a change today from pretty cards! I made this for the monthly challenge on the Crafty Cow forum . The theme is "animals". The stamp used is from Penny Black.