Stampalot Birthday Blog Hop

If you've come along to join the Stampalot Birthday Blog Hop, please click here, or scroll down for new posts.

Blog Candy winners!

It's time to draw the winners for my blog candy! For the main prize, Mr. Random Generator chose

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 9

Result:  2

which is mamapez5 (Kate)

And for the second prize it is

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 9

Result:  4

which is Nuschinka

So congratulations, Kate and Nuschinka! If you'll email me your snail mail addresses (link to my email is on my profile), I'll get your prizes off to you asap.

Thank you to all my blog friends, longstanding and new, for your support, which is much appreciated.

Blog Candy!

A warm Hello and Welcome to all my new blogging friends. I promised that when my total number of followers reached 100, I would give away some blog candy, and so here it is! No complicated rules, all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning it is to be a follower and leave me a comment to say you'd like to be included in the draw. If you'd also like to link to it on your own blog, that would be great, but not compulsory.

In the parcel will be a selection of unmounted stamps by Crafty Individuals, an Enveloper Pro for making your own envelopes, a Basic Grey 6"x6" paper pad (now retired, so you can't buy one in the shops!) an A5 notebook to alter, a mini book to decorate, 8 sheets of peel-off stickers, 12 chipboard tags, various sizes, and a pack of ribbons & fibres. Plus maybe a surprise or two!

I also have a few more Crafty Individuals stamps which I will give away as a second prize, with maybe a couple of extras. I'll post to anywhere in the world. The draw will be random, and you have until midday on Saturday April 28th BST to leave me a comment. Good luck everyone!



The Tree

It took me a while, but I have managed to make my photo of The Tree (see this post) into a digistamp! I had no idea of the best way to do it, so I fiddled around with it in my editing programme (which isn't P****shop) until I got a good silhouette, and then erased the background from around it, which took ages! I'm sure there must be a better, and quicker way! Any advice much appreciated for future efforts! Anyway, I was happy with the end result. This is the photo I used.

And here's the card made with the digistamp. (Computer generated sentiment, cut out with a Nestie, background coloured with Memento inks using ink dusters.)

And here they are together in the same picture!

Lovely blogging friends!

During our Stampalot Birthday Blog Hop (go here if you'd like to join in - there's still time) I've gained some lovely new followers. Just wanted to say welcome to them all. Also, I've just realised that my total number of followers is now 99! If I reach 100,  I'll post some blog candy........

Less is More Week 62

Well, it's been quite some time since I last made something for the Less is More Challenge. Nine months, believe it or not! Just before the move up to Scotland. Since then, other things have had to come first, but at last I have time to enter again. The topic this week is "Three shades of green".

I immediately thought of paint samples, and found the perfect one. I stamped over it with one of my favourite Chocolate Baroque images, and added a greeting (Personal Impressions). Quick and easy, clean and simple, right? Wrong! Three cards went in the bin before I got one right! The problem was that the paint sample card was non absorbent, and very difficult to stamp on to without the stamp slipping. I tried various different stamps and inks until I got a combination that worked. In the end I used Archival ink. Anyway, here it is.

It's very green up here just now! After a few weeks with very little rain, we've had quite a lot over the past few days. The sheep in the field next door are certainly enjoying the fresh new grass.

And yesterday there was a beautiful rainbow.

Finally, specially for Sally, a photo of The Tree, at sunset. This tree is quite a landmark hereabouts, and Sally and Megan were really taken with it when they came up to stay last week. We all agreed it should be made into a stamp!



Happy Birthday Stampalot Challenge!

It's a rather special month at Stampalot Challenge. It might be April Fools day, but we're not joking -  you really are going to be spoilt rotten this month! There are absolutely loads of prizes to be won, because it's our Second Birthday! Naturally the challenge theme is

Happy Birthday

You can make absolutely anything you want as long as it's to celebrate a Birthday and as usual there's a fantastic prize from the lovely people at Sir Stampalot for this month's lucky challenge winner:

But it does not stop there, as in time honoured tradition we are having a Blog Hop and what fab prizes Sir Stampalot are offering in addition to the challenge prize above: one at each of the DT's blogs and another for the winner of the correct blog hop answer. I know lots of you are familiar with what you need to do, but as we are seeing so many new crafters joining our challenge, here are the details:

Visit each of the DT's blogs listed below.

Leave each one a comment to be sure you are in the draw for the prizes on each of the DT's blogs.

Pick up a letteR fRom each DT blog you visit. (You might have to look foR a clue to the letteRs!)  My letteR should be faiRly obvious!

Assemble those letteRs into two words - each word has four letteRs, and there's a clue in the prize! - and send youR answers to brenda@ibas.co.uk by noon GMT on 30th ApRil.

All correct answers will go into the draw for this super prize, some rather yummy Hero Arts goodies!

Here's the list of names you need to follow, each one will tell you where you should have arrived from and where you need to go next, but if you get lost you can always go back to the Challenge Blog and start again and don't forget you need to leave a comment at each blog, otherwise you won't be in the draw for all those prizes.


Sally

Pinky

Clare

Brenda

Ruth

Tracy

Lynne - You are here!

Francesca

To get here you should have come from the very talented Tracy and your next and final port of call will be the fabulous Francesca. Then you will have collected your eight letters and rearranged them into the two words to send off to Brenda.
This is the prize you can win on my blog:

And there are yet more prizes, because as this is a special month for us, this month Top 3 challenge entrants will also receive a little prize rather like this which Brenda has put together...........

Amidst all the excitement, I almost forgot to show you my card for our birthday challenge!

I've been making Mothers' Day and Easter cards with some of my classes at school, and they were mostly based on punched flowers. Being in a punch mood, I thought I'd do something with them for my challenge card. I've also just learned how to make crochet flowers (thanks for the lesson, Mairi!) and this one seemed to be the perfect embellishment for the card.

The background paper is from Crafty Individuals, and the flowers are punched from the same paper. The little butterfly is a Nellie Snellen punch. Not sure what all the others are, but they and the Nestie (Blossom 3) I've mounted them on are all available from Sir Stampalot.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Don't forget to go and have a look at the DT's gorgeous samples on the Challenge Blog, where you will also find all the details of the challenge and blog hop, and I look forward to seeing your entries.