A great weekend

I went down to Nottingham last weekend to stay with Sally so we could go to Stamp Magic at the Doncaster Dome on Sunday. In other words, so I could get one of my twice yearly doses of crafty retail therapy! It began on Saturday with a little trip to Ik*a. Whilst there I noticed they were selling some lint rollers. Very cheap! On Pinterest I had seen a suggestion to use a lint roller to pick up all the fiddly little bits left in a die after you've been diecutting, so Sally & I both bought one, along with a pack of 4 refills. Suffice it to say, it didn't work! However, we now have enough roller tape each to keep our clothes free of bits until kingdom come!

Anyway, the serious shopping was on Sunday at Stamp Magic. Great show, as usual. Top of my list were some of the gorgeous new stamps from Inkylicious. I then left Sally doing a bit of demoing on the Inkylicious stand while I went for a wander round. I bought some stencils to use with my Gelli Plate, plus a few other bits and pieces, and watched Barbara Gray doing a great demo on the Gelli Plate. Haven't had chance to try what she was doing yet, but I have had a play with some of my new stamps.

One of my favourites from the new Inkylicious ones is called Poppy Lea. I like the way all the flowers except the poppies are solid, and just the poppies are open so that they can be coloured in. I happened to have some small pieces of watercolour paper already cut, so I stamped different sections of Poppy Lea on to each one and made a set of three cards.

 The backgrounds were coloured with Distress Stains, then Poppy Lea was overstamped with Versafine ink. The poppies were then coloured with Promarkers.  I stamped the first base card down one side with Delicate Vines, the second all over with Worn Paint, and the third with French Style Script across the centre. The Poppy Leas were then attached with foam pads, and each card finished with a simple sentiment. All stamps by Inkylicious.

On the way from the car park to the Dome, we came across this mother coot feeding her babies on the grass next to the lake, right by the path! They weren't a bit bothered by all the people walking past. Cute coots!

A Treemendous finish to the year!

It's our final challenge for 2012 at Stamping Sensations, and the theme is

TREEMENDOUS!

Plenty of scope there. They could be Christmas trees, if you haven't yet finished your Christmas cards, or if you have and you can't bear to contemplate any more festive foliage, any other kind of tree will be perfect! If you're a lateral thinker you might go for family trees, or shoe trees... or not! But whatever your arboreal aspirations, we want to see them!

Trees being one of my favourite topics, I have really been looking forward to this month! When I was at Stamp Magic in October, I couldn't resist buying the fabulous Inkylicious Christmas Tree Flourish, and that is what I've used for my card.

I stamped it with Versamark ink on to white card and embossed it with WOW Neutral Ultra Shimmer embossing powder, which gave it the most gorgeous shimmery sparkle which unfortunately is hard to see in the photo. I then covered the whole thing with Chipped Sapphire Distress Stain, which the embossed areas resisted, of course, and matted it first on to white card and then a piece coloured with the same Distress Stain. The computer generated sentiment was cut with a Nestie label die, and the little snowflakes with a Tonic Studios punch. Quite a simple design, but I don't think the tree needs anything more to complement it.

Our lovely sponsor this month is Visible Image, a British company based in South Wales, who have a fantastic range of stamps. They have given us this amazing selection for our prize.

So, if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning, show us your Treemendous creations. Just remember that your entry may be combined with no more than five other challenges (that's 6 in total including ours), otherwise sadly it will be ineligible. My talented teamies have come up with some brilliant inspiration for you, so don't forget to check it out on the Challenge Blog. I can't wait to see yours!

Changes afoot at Sir Stampalot Challenge, and we've moved in at last!

As from this month, Sir Stampalot Challenge is looking a little different! The starting date of each challenge will now be the first Sunday of the month, (instead of the first day of the month) which means that most months, our challenge will run until the end of the month................unless the first Sunday falls on the first of the month...............but if this all sounds rather complicated, don't worry, as there is list of exact dates on the challenge blog sidebar so you will be able to check when each challenge begins.

Apart from that everything remains the same, fun themes, great prizes from Sir Stampalot, our monthly Top 3 and of course inspiration from the Design Team.

Anyway, on to the theme for November, which is

BLUE & GREEN

The task is to use those two colours on your entry, with a stunning selection of stash for this month's prize!
 

We have now moved into our new house, and are currently unpacking boxes and trying to decide where to put things! I am in the process of organising my new craft room, with many boxes yet to be opened, so I was rather limited in my choice of materials, not to mention desk space, to make my sample this month! I decided on a simple easel card to celebrate our move to Scotland.

The background was coloured with Chipped Sapphire and Bundled Sage Distress Stains, stamps used were by Heritage Rubber Stamp Co. (the  castle) and Chocolate Baroque (thistle). Unfortunately I can't remember where the sentiment is from (may have been a magazine freebie). I stamped it on a Nestie shape. Some tartan ribbon (for which many thanks, Sally!) completed the Scottish look. 

This is what my craft room looked like until yesterday!

Now, however, I have some lovely new shelves, built by my DH, so I will be able to get a bit more organised. This is Phase One, along the back wall!

Phase Two will be similar, along the adjoining wall! More photos to follow in due course!

I am loving being here. It's so peaceful and green (mostly thanks to all the rain we've been having since we got here!) and I keep getting distracted from the sorting out by the wonderful views and the local wildlife. Many varieties of birds, as well as rabbits, a mouse and a stoat, are regular visitors to our garden. Heron and flocks of geese fly over. There have been a few dry days! This was one of them. The view is from our garden.

I even managed to get a picture of the sunrise!

It feels good to be posting on the blog again, and I hope it won't be too long before I can get back to visiting and commenting again. Hope to see you all soon!

Just because

It's quite a long time since I made anything that wasn't for a challenge, DT work, or a particular occasion. Having recently acquired various items of new stash, I thought I'd take a bit of time to have a play with some of them.

I'd been wondering whether to invest in some Distress Stains, and in the end couldn't resist ordering a few to try. I must admit they are very convenient to use, being in a sponge tipped bottle and so it's easy to cover a background quickly with them, and you can also ink up stamps with them, but since they are basically just like watered down distress ink, and you could probably get a similar effect using diluted DI and a sponge, I'm not sure whether I'll buy any more.

Anyway, inspired by Glenda's video on her blog, where she uses the Distress Stains with some of her gorgeous new Chocolate Baroque stamps, I made a card.

The background was made with Spun Sugar Distress Stain, overstamped with Hero Arts Dots & Flowers background & Old French Writing, which I had inked up with the same DS. The result is very subtle. Also stamped the Old French Writing on the base card. The picture is from a Crafty Individuals Miniatures Book (People & Places 2), and I made a frame for it with a Nellie Snellen die, inking around the edge with Versamagic ink. A strip of Tim Holtz Tissue Tape across the bottom, a Marianne Design leaf flourish (also coloured with Versamagic), and a sentiment by Innovative Stamp Creations finished the card.

I'd just like to say a big thank you to all you lovely people who keep commented on my blog. I do appreciate your visits, and hope you'll forgive me for not being able to reciprocate much at the moment. The big clearout in preparation for our move north is ongoing, slowly but surely, and between now and the end of term I will be very busy indeed at work, with several school concerts/events to come. A bittersweet time, as I have been at one of my current schools for the past 28 years and this is my last term here. But, as I said to my head teacher last week, 28 years is half my life, near enough, so I reckon it's about time for a change!