In The Garden

Hi everyone :)  I am such a bad blogger as it's been a little while again hasn't it!!

Today I have a Penny Black card to share with you as I am a guest designer this month for Penny Black and More!!

Very appropriately the Penny Black girl is actually called Garden Assistant so this seemed to be the perfect choice for Penny Black and More's August Challenge which is called 'In The Garden'!!

I created my own background setting for the girl by applying distress inks to a white panel, then stamped trees (Hobby Art/Open Tree) using a light inkpad and coloured them with Copics to give them a 'springtime' feel.

The die-cut trees (Memory Box/Grand Oak Tree) were coloured using the same Copic colours as for the background trees.

And of course Copics were used again to colour the girl, dog and flowers.

Don't forget to hop on over to Penny Black and More to see all the other wonderful creations that the DT have made and to find out how to enter the challenge.

I'll be back again soon!!!..................

Summertime

Hi everyone.  I thought I'd amaze you all by not leaving it too long this time before showing you another card!!

This is one that I made a little while back using a cute stamp by Penny Black along with some swirls and wording from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet. Thought this would be quite an appropriate card to load up as the sunflowers are just beginning to come out now even with the distinct lack of sunshine that we've been having recently!!

The image was coloured using Copic markers, (What else - lol!!) and the background stamping was done using a Versamark inkpad and Crystal embossing powder.

Penny Black stamp and Prima flowers from The Glitter Pot.

Fancy Flourish stamp sheet from The Glitter Pot or The Stamp Man.

Don't forget that if you fancy picking up a bargain to check out The Craft Barn's half price Summer Sale!!

I'd like to enter this card into the Flower Power challenge at the Penny Black at Allsorts Challenge blog and also into the Allsorts Free and Easy Challenge Week 112.

A Summer Snooze

Hi everyone.  Sorry that I've been missing for so long but things here are a little challenging at present!!

Anyway today I thought I'd share another card with you that I made using that Penny Black Make A Wish clear stamp set.  (As I think a lot of you already know I just love this set and so I thought I'd enter this card into the Penny Black at Allsorts June Challenge.)

The background paper is by Basic Grey, the wording came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the imagery was coloured with Copics.  And talking of  'Copics', I am now
Copic Certified!!!  Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a closer look at the main panel for you.

I also added some subtle sparkle to the dandelion heads using the Clear Spica pen. Hopefully you can see it a little clearer here!!

All products and materials used on this card came from The Glitter Pot.

Hope you like it!!

A Couple of Challenges!!

Hi everyone.  I have two cards to share with you this time as I thought I'd play along with a couple of challenges before the time is up!

Now as some of you already know my Mum loves to do quilling but she never actually does anything with the pieces she makes up.  Ages ago I did promise her that I would have a go at making some cards up for her if she quilled some snowflakes.  I had no idea that she would then go absolutely beserk and quill an enormous amount!!!  I ended up making 9 cards for her using her quilled snowflakes - each of them based on the same layout but all slightly different.  I will show you the rest of them next week as all the snowflakes that she quilled were individual and no two were the same. (She did actually quill a whole lot more than 9 so I have some more cards to do for her when time allows.)  I thought it might be fun though to enter our shared card into the current Sir Stampalot challenge - A Winters Tale.

So without further ado here's the card I've chosen to submit for this challenge!  I created the background using the Papermania snowflake embossing folder along with an Inkadinkado Winter Trails stamp set, Silver inkpad and Stardust embossing powder.  The 'winter' wording came from a rather old Impression Obsession wording stamp set.

Here's a closer look at Mum's marvellous snowflake that she did out of strips of white paper.  As you can see I simply stuck the snowflake onto nestabilities die-cuts before sticking it to the main card.

Onto the second card and I would like to enter this into the Penny Black at Allsorts challenge - All You Need Is Love.  Ok I realise that this isn't a traditional lovey dovey stamp but it is VERY sweet and they do look as if they are almost kissing so I think this counts - lol!!  This particular stamp is called Hedgy Gift which I coloured using Copic markers.  The flourishes and wording came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the lacey edging was done with the Doily Lace Martha Stewart punch.

Here's a closer look at the colouring for you.  Can't remember the colours off-hand that I used but I'll see if I can find my notes and edit this later for you!

I'll be back on Friday with The Stamp Man's latest challenge so hopefully see you then!

What A Great Weekend!

Hi everyone.  Sorry that I've been missing for a bit but I'm currently having to limit my time on the computer!  I won't bore you with all the details as to why!!

Anyway I've found a bit of time to pop on here and I must say I had a lovely weekend (just gone).  No, it wasn't because I was at The Glitter Pot on Saturday - although of course that was VERY nice.  It was actually because Take That were on the TV on both Saturday and Sunday and I got to see all my boys back together again!  (I know I'm VERY sad!!)

Talking of The Glitter Pot...............I was there on Saturday taking a couple of classes and my thanks go to all the ladies who joined me for them.  At the end of the day I didn't leave empty handed and came away with a new crafting toy which I just had to have!!  Can you guess what it is???  Can you??  Can you????  CAN YOU??  Unfortunately I haven't had time to play with it yet though :(

Onto my card for today and I thought I'd enter this into the It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas challenge over on the Penny Black at Allsorts Challenge Blog.  As you can see I used that same Watercolour Resist technique for the pine needles!!  Just love this technique and it really is so easy to do. (Still not going to tell you how to do it though - you'll just have to look in the Dec issue of Craft Stamper!!)

All the stamps used on this card are by Penny Black - the main image is called Gift Of Giving, the pine needles and wording come from the Winter Whites and Greens clear set and the flourish is called Snow Scroll - all came from The Glitter Pot.

The paper came from The Glitter Pot as well but can't remember whose it is now and the snowflakes are a Martha Stewart punch called Glacial Snowflake.

I stamped Gift of Giving in black Memento and then coloured her using the Copic markers.  I used Copics for the pine needles too. (I think this makes such a lovely wintery scene!)

Copics used -
Skin - E11, E00, E000, R20
Hair - E99, E35, E50
Clothes and holly- E49, E47, E43, E41, YG67, YG63, G40, R59, R37, R32
Gifts - YG67, YG63, G40, YG95, YG91, R59, R37, R35, R32
Sleigh - E47, E43, E41, R37
Background - E47, E43, YG67, YG63, G40, BG11, BG10, W3, W1, 0

Hope you like it!!  Don't forget to let me know if any of you give the Watercolour Resist background a go!!

A New Challenge Blog

Hi guys.  Time keeps marching on here and I can't believe that it has been a few days since I last posted!!

If you scroll down a little bit you will notice that there are some new blinkies in my sidebar.  The Stamp Man people have been very busy recently and not only are they hosting a new ATC blog but now they are setting up a new Fortnightly Challenge Blog too!!  As you already know the ATC swaps are up and running and we have already had some marvellous entries.  Click here to go and visit and see the ATC's and learn how to win some blog candy. 

The new FortnightlyChallenge Blog will be going live very soon in a weeks time. Cick here to find out all about it.




Anyway all this talk of challenges has made me decide to try and enter some challenges now and again and after having a brief blog hop this morning I have stumbled on yet another new challenge blog called Penny Black At Allsorts so having made a few Penny Black cards recently for The Glitter Pot's demo weekend, I thought I would enter one into their very first challenge called A Burst of Summer Colour.

So here is my entry for this challenge using the Penny Black Sunny Days stamp.  I don't think anything can say 'summer' better than sunflowers!  I just love their cute stamps and this is just so sweet!

As you can see I did quite a bit of decoration for this card.  The delightful background paper is from the Kioshi Collection by Basic Grey and is called Motochi.  I used my tiny daisy punch and also a McGill pine punch to decorate around the wonderful Prima flowers.

You can see these extremely pretty flowers a bit better in this photo.  They are from the Athena range and I just added some Platinum glitter glue around the edges of the petals and some Diamond glitter glue to the centre.

The main Sunny Days image I stamped onto smooth white card using Tuxedo Black Memento and then coloured using Copic markers.  After I'd done my basic colouring I added some shimmer using the Copic Spica clear pen and some Diamond glitter glue.

All of the items mentioned can be bought from The Glitter Pot apart from the McGill punch which I purchased from The Hobby House.

I hope you like it!