In Essence...

... I've just realised it's over three weeks since I last posted anything, and that's mainly because I haven't made anything to post during the last three weeks! I was very busy with school concerts and things leading up to the end of term, but also I've been sadly lacking in inspiration. I think my mojo broke up early and went on holiday without me!

However, it came back yesterday with the delivery of the much anticipated new Artylicious CD from Glenda at Graphicus. It's called Essence of Nature, and is simply stunning, full of the most gorgeous papers and elements in wonderful colours. Glenda's best yet, IMHO. I couldn't fail to be inspired by it, but  there's so much on it that the problem was in knowing what to try first!

I love the Elusive Images Eastern Grasses stamp set, and was very pleased to find a matching backing paper on the CD. It's beautifully subtle and makes a perfect background for the stamps. I used the main image from the set as a focal point (stamped on to paper coloured with VersaMagic inks), added some of the grasses along the bottom, and embellished it with a few butterflies from the Artylicious Butterfly Bliss CD. The sentiment is computer generated (not from the CD).

Inspired not only by Glenda's brilliant CD, but also by her posts such as this one about her decluttering, I decided that whilst I've got a decent amount of time off school I should try to emulate her! My craft stuff clearout is ongoing, but I hope to have time to get that finished and then maybe make a start on the rest of the house. (Note the word "maybe"!) So my blog will probably be a bit quiet again for a while (though I'm sure I'll be tempted to stop work now and then and make some more cards with the CD!), but I will do my best to look in on everyone else's blogs when I can. Hope you are all having a good summer.

Sir Stampalot July Challenge

The theme for the Sir Stampalot July Challenge is Lazy Hazy Days of Summer. There's not much that says summer to me more than poppies, so when I found a pack of gorgeous poppy design napkins in S****burys I thought they'd be just right to make a card with.

As you can see, they are rather bold and bright, so a large size base card was called for, in this case an 8" x 8" one from Craftwork Cards. I wasn't quite sure what to do at first, as the large, bright flowers would overwhelm any image I tried to put with them. However, when I separated the layers of the napkin, I found that the middle layer had picked up some colour from the printed top layer, and was in effect printed with a ghost image of the poppies. Perfect! It became the background for my card, with a narrow border sponged around the edge with Barn Door Distress Ink.

Next I glued the top layer to a piece of thin card to strengthen it and cut out some of the flowers and leaves. These made a border down the side of the card along with a strip of paper coloured with the Barn Door DI and cut with a Martha Stewart punch.

The stamped image is the beautiful new "Poppy Field" by Crafty Individuals (currently free with orders over £30!) which I coloured with Distress Inks (Barn Door, Bundled Sage and Shabby Shutters).

A computer generated text on a Nestabilities label and a few punched butterflies were the final embellishments.

And here's the finished card.

PS. My lovely butterfly blog background from Scrappin' Blogs disappeared this afternoon! On investigating, I found that Scrappin' Blogs are having problems with Photobucket (basically it seems they are too popular!) and need to find a new server. I'm not sure what the situation is with their backgrounds at the moment, so I've found another for my blog for the time being from The Cutest Blog on the Block. Maybe it's time I had a change anyway.

Normal service is resumed!

Back to my more usual style for this card. I love the look of the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals dies, but they are too big for the sort of things I'd want them for, so I decided to make my own distressed flowers using the EK Success retro flower punches. I wanted them to look as though they were made from old book pages. I've been wanting to do this for quite some time. However, I couldn't bring myself to tear the pages out of a book! A friend of mine even gave me an old book which she'd got specially for me to use, but it was a book of wild flowers with some lovely old pictures in, and I just couldn't do it! I thought I would scan them instead. Then I found a website where you can download copyright free books, so I printed some pages from that and made them look old with Distress Inks (Tumbled Glass and Antique Linen, which I also used on the butterfly and sentiment). Having punched out the flowers I just tore the edges of the petals a bit & then inked around them. Not quite the same as Tim's, but near enough to the look I wanted.

The background paper is a digital download from Two Peas in a Bucket, one of the "Art Papers III" digital kit by Vinnie Pearce. The text-printed leaves on it went perfectly with my flowers. It's such a pretty paper that I kept the embellishments to a minimum so as not to hide it. The photo doesn't do it justice. The punched butterfly is overstamped with Hero Arts "Delicate Vine", and the sentiment is by Darkroom Door. The lace and ribbon came from my late mother's stash. She was a crafter, though her speciality was in fabrics and dried flower arranging. She was also a hoarder and loved a bargain, with the result that she had more materials stashed away than she was ever likely to use. I think I've inherited the tendency! But if that's the price of also inheriting her love of arts and crafts and making things, it's one I'm happy to pay!

Woof woof! And woof!

I'm short on both time and inclination for crafting & blogging lately. Busy at school with preparations for end of term concerts, and not feeling well. I seem to have had a cold for weeks, but without the streaming eyes and sneezes, just the bunged up sinuses & feeling tired and lethargic. I'm beginning to wonder whether it's hay fever instead, although I don't usually suffer from that. But I've heard other people saying the same, because the pollen is so bad this year, so I've just started taking antihistamines to see if they will help. No improvement so far, but I guess I should give them a few days to start working. Anyone else out there had something similar?

Anyway, I did manage to make a birthday card for a friend who has two papillons (also known as butterfly dogs). I bought the Grandma's Parlor Collection Set (digital) from *Wink *Wink Ink, which came with a poodle (not quite a papillon, but I thought it would do!). This isn't at all the sort of thing I usually go for, but there was just something about the set that appealed to me. It comes with 3 types of files - png, jpg outline drawing and jpg pre-coloured. I wanted something quick and easy to make, so I cheated and used the pre-coloured version, with a bit of 3D so I could feel I'd actually done something!

Also couldn't resist the BasicGrey "Max & Whiskers" 6" x 6" paper pad, which made lovely paw print patterned "wallpaper". I was quite pleased with the result, so I made a similar card for my FIL for Fathers' Day. He used to have a border terrier, who sadly is no longer with us. The set is female oriented, so I changed the colour of the chair, lamp and vase using my graphics programme and made a "Happy Fathers' Day" instead of the Mothers' Day greeting which is included.

A mystery!

Several years ago I was given a wooden planter filled with spring flowers. After the flowers died off, the planter was left on the patio and became repopulated with dandelions and moss! Then, three years ago, we noticed a strange plant growing there. It had long leaves which were covered with dark reddish spots. Eventually a single long stalk appeared with a spike of pale pink flowers at the top. "Hmm!" I thought. "That looks like an orchid!" A perusal of the wild flower book confirmed that indeed it was. A Common Spotted Orchid.

The following year there were 3 flower spikes, and along with those there appeared another plant, with darker purple flowers and no spots on the leaves. We identified that one as a Southern Marsh Orchid.

This year there are several more flower spikes, plus more baby plants of both varieties. The mystery is how they got there, especially as there are two completely different species! We certainly didn't plant them. They weren't there when I was first given the planter. When the first one appeared we wondered whether a seed could have been carried there by a bird or something, but when the second variety started growing, that seemed unlikely. All we can think of is that the seeds must have been dormant in the soil, and sprung to life some time after the original flowers had died off. Anyone got any other suggestions?

We may never solve the mystery, but we have some lovely flowers to enjoy!

New Stash

Here's a card using a stamp I bought when we went to Sir Stampalot last weekend. It's one of this year's new ones by Hero Arts. I've had the Basic Grey "Stella Ruby" paper (now discontinued, unfortunately) for some time and had been looking for a suitable stamp to go with it. This one was perfect. The card is for my sister-in-law. I wanted the image to be the focal point, but also wanted the background paper to show as much as possible, so I've kept it quite simple; watercolour pencil on the dresses, Martha Stewart punch down the side, a few buttons from my button box, a bit of ribbon (also from Sir S), but I think she'll like it.

Brilliant Day!

Well, the day finally arrived, and Sally, Megan and I set off to Sir Stampalot for our eagerly anticipated Blog Girl Get-together. It was lovely to be able to put faces to names (and blogs!) and spend the whole day playing, although with all the talking and laughing going on, not to mention eating (at lunchtime a delicious buffet appeared as if by magic!) some of us didn't get quite as much crafting done as we might have!

Brenda and Chris had prepared some wonderful projects for us to make, and since we wanted to try as much as possible, many of them were started and then put carefully aside to finish off at home. Chris's first demo was a really neat little album for recipes, photos, etc, with mini envelopes for pockets, then Brenda showed us how to make a lovely book/album using a new Sizzix Bigz Pro die using distressing and resist techniques. Other projects used brayering, masking and decoupage. I have yet to complete my little photo album, but have just finished the book.

(I used Distress Inks, and stamps by Hero Arts, Penny Black, Magenta, Inkadinakdo, and Crafty Individuals. The flourishes were cut with a die by Marianne Design.)

It was a very warm day, but the atmosphere of fun and camaraderie was even warmer. So to Brenda, Chris, Jules, Linda, Hayley, Rosie, Amanda, Sally and Megan, thanks for your company, and I hope you all enjoyed the day as much as I did. Thanks also to Janice and Andy for keeping the shop open for us to indulge in some retail therapy afterwards (not to mention during as well!) to everyone who contributed to lunch (Jules's heart shaped cheese scones were just to die for!) and huge thanks to Brenda and Chris for teaching us some gorgeous projects and for all their hard work which made the day such a success. Here's to the next time!

Sir Stampalot June Challenge

I've been busy lately dealing with my late father's affairs & effects, and clearing out his house, not to mention having had some sort of cold or virus which has left me feeling quite washed out, so I'm afraid blogging has had to take a back seat. When I did have some time to craft, I didn't have the inclination, but now I've been inspired once again by Sir Stampalot's Challenge. For June the theme is "Punch it", so I decided to make a screen card.

I started it off with the punched flower panel, the idea for which came from Julie Hickey's lovely book "Flower Power Papercrafts" (published by David & Charles), where she shows a beautiful wedding card with a flower panel, all in cream. I wanted mine to look summery, so I used multicoloured flowers.The flowers are not stuck on to acetate, as one might suppose, but only to each other, which adds to the lacy effect and allows the light to come through naturally.

The background papers are by Papermania, and the stamps and printed pictures by Crafty Individuals. I finished off the screen with some more punched flowers, a punched butterfly and some computer generated text. Other punches used were a Dovecraft corner rounder and the border at the top, the make of which unfortunately I don't know. 

Sally and I are very much looking forward to the Blog Girl Get-Together at Sir Stampalot this Saturday, when we will get to meet some of our blog friends, play and generally have a good old natter, just what I need after the last few months. Oh, and I should mention we also get to shop afterwards!

I'm also entering this card for the Charisma Cardz Challenge #22, which is "Flowers".

No longer so distressed!

Well, 10.30pm has just passed, so it is time to declare the winner of my little competition. Not many entries - obviously nearly everyone but me had already got a Victorian Velvet Distress Inkpad! I loved Jules's suggestion that I had sneaked into her front room and taken a pic of her dusty coffee table, (which sounds a lot like mine!) but I'm afraid that was not the case! In fact there was just one correct answer, so my superfluous pad will be finding a new home with

CRAFTIMAMMA (LESLEY)

Well done, Lesley! I'll be posting it off to you tomorrow, and hope it cheers you up after your cold.

Thanks very much to everyone who did enter. The mysterious object was indeed a Tim Holtz/Ranger Blending Tool!

Out of my comfort zone

This week, the  fabulous Allsorts Challenge Blog is one year old! So their challenge for the week, is, naturally, birthdays. Here's my entry.

It's quite different from my usual style. Generally speaking, I don't do cute, and I don't do fruit! Nor do I do hot colours. I much prefer cool or muted tones - blues, purples, greens, and my work tends to be nature, arty or vintage inspired. However, I thought that for such a celebration something a bit more lively was called for!

The background paper (which includes the flourish & the trims at the bottom) was a freebie from Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine a while ago. The cake and sentiment stamps are from a set by Impression Obsession. It took me about 10 minutes to make, which again is unusual for me! Normally I like to take my time, and often get part way through a card, leave it & come back to it later, to see whether I'm still happy with the direction it's taking, or whether I've changed my mind, before I finish it off. That's because I hardly ever have a plan in mind before I start! I just collect a few things together and see where they lead me.

Anyway, you'll gather that this card was some way outside my comfort zone, and that being the case, I'm also entering it for this week's Tuesday Taggers, whose theme happens to be "Step out of your comfort zone"! Funnily enough, now I've done it, I actually quite like it! And I managed to use up a bit of old stash too!