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!

That went quick!

Can't believe a month has gone by since my last post! Already I'm almost at the end of my first term in the new job, and this week we have the keys to our new house! Just got to get our stuff moved up from Notts and then we can move in! I can't wait!

Anyway, being the first of the month, it's time for a new Stampalot Challenge and for October the theme is

Food, Glorious Food

So anything to do with food is what we want to see on your entries! And there's a scrumptious prize on offer, generously donated as always by Janice & Andy at Sir Stampalot. Feast your eyes on these goodies!

I decided to use some recently acquired stamps by Waltzing Mouse for my sample. I made my own background paper with the plaid stamp from the "Off Beat Backgrounds" set. The label stamp, which is made to fit a Nesties Label 4 die, is from the "Rescue Remedies" set, one of my Waltzing Mouse favourites. The little corner stamp is from the "Very Vintage Labels No. 2" set. The floral paper and cupcake stamp are magazine freebies. I paper pieced the cupcakes and added a bit of colour with Promarkers.

Sorry this is such a short post, but I'm hoping it won't be long now before we get moved in to the new house and I'll be back in business in my new craft room! Watch this space! 

Sir Stampalot September Challenge

We're back to a set theme for this month's Stampalot Challenge, and it is

It's A Frame Up

We want to see a frame somewhere on each project! Plenty of scope there, I think. Just make sure that your frame is an actual "feature" of the design, rather than simply matted layers. For my example, I took inspiration from an article by Emy Buxton in the July 2011 issue of Craft Stamper magazine, where she used stamping and masking to create a frame for a scrapbook page.

I made my frame by masking off a rectangle of the base card and stamping round the edge of the mask with tiny stamps by Rubber Stamp Tapestry, using VersaMagic inks. The picture inside the frame is from the Miniatures book "People & Places 2" by Crafty Individuals, and the card is completed with a sentiment by Darkroom Door. Quick and simple to make, but I love the effect of the floral frame.

Here's the delectable prize donated by Sir Stampalot this month! Check out those gorgeous ribbons! Some fab stamps too, and lots of other goodies, so get those entries in!

And on the subject of Sir S,  HOT news! Watch out for a new weekly feature that Sir Stampalot are promoting, starting tomorrow. It’ll be called ‘Freebie Friday’ and it’ll be sent to you via their email newsletter so if you haven’t already signed up, you’ll need to sign up before end of day today, here. 

Or use the “stay in touch… sign up to smudges” icon on the home page of their website (left hand column).

I started the new job this week. So far so good! Quite different from my previous one, in that I flit from school to school (9 schools in two days!) instead of being in one school for the whole day, but I have certainly enjoyed my first two days. And it's lovely to be able to drive to work through beautiful countryside. Bit of a hold up yesterday morning when I met the school bus which serves several local village schools coming towards me on a narrow country lane, and had to reverse so he could get past. One or two slow tractors as well, but I can cope with things like that! So much better than being stuck in traffic jams going into the city.

Went to have another look at our new house the other day. I'll leave you for now with a photo of the view from the window of what will be my new craft room! If it looks that good in the rain, imagine what it's like when it's sunny with blue skies! I can't wait until we can move in!

Quick update!

Ages since I last posted anything, I know, but things have been moving pretty quickly here! The house hunting was very successful, I'm glad to say! We found just the sort of place we wanted, with wonderful views across the countryside (pics to follow!), and couldn't believe our luck when we found we could actually afford it! We hope to be able to move in by the middle of October. In the meantime, I start my new job up in Scotland next week! So I'm now staying with my daughter and family, but will be travelling backwards and forwards for a while until we have got our things packed up ready for the move. Blogging will have to take a back seat for the time being, I'm afraid, but I will try to keep in touch as often as I can. I managed to bring enough stash with me to keep me going (I hope!!), not that I will have much spare time to craft, but should be able to cope with cards for family & friends and my DT work.

I had a couple of cards to make before I came up north, a wedding anniversary card for my daughter and son-in-law, and a birthday card for my niece, so here's a quick share of those.

For the anniversary card I used my new cameo stamps from Waltzing Mouse, cut out with Nesties. The papers are some I've had in my stash for years, not sure now who made them. I used a Martha Stewart border punch to trim them, and then inked around the edges. It wasn't until I looked at the photo that it occurred to me that the two cameos and the greeting made a face!

 

For my niece's card, the dog stamp and patterned papers were all freebies from magazines. I coloured the dog with Promarkers, and framed it with Nestie diecuts. The ticket stamp and die are by Whimsy Stamps. Now, I know this is cute, and I don't do cute, but my niece likes cute, and dogs, and pink, so I gritted my teeth and did it!

Stampalot August Challenge

Another "anything goes" theme for Sir Stampalot Challenge this month with

WHATEVER YOU FANCY

I decided to use one of my favourite Penny Black stamps, the poppy, embossed on to an alcohol inked background and coloured with Promarkers. This was then attached over some Papermania background paper with some lace to trim the edges. The sentiment, by The Craft's Meow, was stamped on to a Nestie label.

The prize on offer for August is this fabulous selection of goodies!

So good luck everyone! I'm sorry this is such a short post, but I'm just about to head off up to Scotland to do some house hunting. Wish me luck!

Circles

Another great theme at Less is More this week! Chrissie and Mandi want to see circles - lots of them! Or at least, more than one! I had quite a few ideas for this, but unfortunately I doubt I'll have time to make them all. Anyway, here's my first entry. I've counted 57 circles (58 if you count the scalloped circle), think that should be enough!

Stamps used: Owl - Inkadinkado; Branch - Stampscapes; Alphabet letters used to make sentiment - New Stamp On The Block (sadly no longer trading).

Legs is More!

Rushing around again at the last minute for Less is More this week. I'm exceptionally busy with work, coming up to the end of term and my final week (after 28 years and one term!) at school here, before I start my new job in Scotland after the summer hols.

The LIM week 23 theme is a one layer card to include something with legs. Had to make it quick, so I stamped this little sandpiper (Impression Obsession) and just added a bit of colour with watercolour pencils. Sentiment by Paula Pascual for Personal Impressions. All that white space - scary!!

Silhouettes

As part of my ongoing clearout, I'd been going through some of my old Take Ten mags, tearing out the pages I wanted to keep and filing them in a ring binder, so that I could get rid of the rest. In one of them was the most beautiful set of cards by Tilly McLeod, with gorgeous coloured backgrounds and silhouette details, exactly the sort of  style which really appeals to me. Tilly has very kindly allowed me to case her cards, and share the result here, although my method was slightly different from hers. Do go and have a look at Tilly's blog, her work is fabulous.

Tilly made her backgrounds by inking up a palette stamp with various colours and stamping straight on to the card, then adding definition with watercolour pencils or the edge of an inkpad, whereas I painted mine with a wash of distress inks and mounted it separately with a thin black border. The stamped couple (Stampscapes) and birds (part of a stamp by Inkylicious) were added, along with the sentiment (The Craft's Meow).

I really like this clean and simple style. Thanks for the inspiration, Tilly!

Shades of Blue

I'm loving the challenge from Less is More this week. It's Shades of Blue, and blue just happens to be my favourite colour! I was in a painting mood, so I painted a little landscape background and then stamped a few images on top. Shades of blue from navy right up to very pale - all done using just one Distress inkpad! The beauty of Distress ink is that it can be diluted with water but retains the colour integrity, in other words it just becomes a paler shade of the original according to how much water you add. I used Chipped Sapphire, my favourite of all the Distress colours.

The tree on its little mound with the grasses either side of it (all one stamp) is by Beeswax, all other stamps and the sentiment are by Hobby Art. There are some fantastic entries this week. I'm really enjoying looking at them all.

Sir Stampalot July Challenge

Time for a new challenge at Sir Stampalot. We've made it nice and easy for you this month, as the theme is

*ANYTHING GOES*

So you can make whatever you like! The design team decided that we would showcase the new summer Molly Blooms stamps, which are available right now, right here at Sir Stampalot. We were each given a Molly stamp to use however we wished. Mine is George on his hols.

Here he is on an easel card, taking a break from a hard day's surfing! The beach scene behind him was made with Hobby Art Scene-it stamps, also available from Sir Stampalot here. I coloured the beach scene with watercolour pencils, and the other elements with Promarkers. There is a little surfboard in the Hobby Art set, but it was too small for George, so I drew him one instead. The sentiment is by Hero Arts, stamped on to Nestie circles.

The wall (stamped three times to get the right length) came from Toomuchfun Rubber Stamps, bought when I was in the USA about 16 years ago, and would you believe, this is the first time I've used it! I visited the Toomuchfun shop, which was huge, and it was like being a child in a sweetie shop - I wanted everything! Back then there was all sorts of stuff you just couldn't get here, and of course it was before the days of easy internet shopping. I had taken an empty case with me (not a huge one, honest!) especially for the purpose and brought it back full of new stash! Somehow the wall must have got overlooked at the back of a drawer and I came across it again during my recent clearing out. Anyway, just the thing for George to sit on, I thought!

Of course, you want to know what the prize is for this month's challenge! Well, it's fabulous! Loads of the new Molly Blooms stamps, and much more besides to keep you busy with your summer crafting. Take a look at this lot:

With the theme of "Anything Goes" it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a winner, so get those entries in! Just remember - to be eligible for the Stampalot Challenge, your entry may only be combined with 5 other challenges, ie. 6 challenges in total.