Blue, Purple, Turquoise

It's hard to believe, but already we are halfway through our 2019 challenges at Stamping Sensations! This year is flying by! We've had some great themes so far, and loads of wonderful entries, and there are plenty more to come.

For June we would like you to

* * * * * SHOW YOUR TRUE COLOURS * * * * *

By, that, we mean use your favourite colours in your project! This is a nice and easy theme, and one you probably shouldn't have to think too hard about. However, please do remember that your entry/entries must still follow our challenge rules, which you can read here on the challenge blog. 

We are delighted to welcome back Visible Image as our fab sponsor this month. They are offering a super £25 voucher for the very lucky winner to spend in their online shop. I'm a big fan of their amazing stamps, several of which I have used for my card.

My favourite colours have always been those at the cool end of the spectrum - blues, purples, turquoises, and greens. Shades of the sky and the sea, and of the earth and the trees. Calming and soothing hues. I think one of the reasons I feel so much more relaxed living in this beautiful rural area than in the city which was our previous home is that I look out every day over rolling green fields, majestic trees and distant hills, with stunning big skies overhead, although the latter are looking pretty grey at this moment!

My card reflects those heavenly colours. The circle background was done on a gel plate, with Distress Oxide inks, then I used a fan brush to flick some diluted Brushos over the whole square. I stamped elements from Visible Image's "Creative Chaos", "Wings of Change" and "Random Art of Kindness" sets, using Versafine Clair ink, and coloured them with Arteza coloured pencils (my new favourite art medium!). I sponged the edges of the picture with pigment ink to define them before matting it onto a background made with alcohol inks. No, I hadn't intended seeing how many different media I could use on one card, that's just how it turned out!

Occasionally I like to challenge myself and tiptoe outside my comfort zone with a different colour scheme, but I did so enjoy creating this card! I can tell by my teamies' beautiful samples that they also enjoyed indulging themselves, and I'm sure you won't be disappointed if you nip over to the Challenge Blog and have a look at them. I am looking forward to a rainbow of entries!

Back to winter!

Well, after all the water which came down in March, April turned out to be a great month! Dry, warm and sunny for the most part. Anyone would have thought it was summer already! It was obviously playing tricks on us, though, as right now it's so cold it feels as though we're back to winter, at least up here in the north. And even further north it's been snowing, apparently! Minus temperatures are forecast for us tonight. I think I put the thermal undies away too soon! How all that fits with global warming, I've no idea, so I'll just move swiftly on to this month's Stamping Sensations Challenge, where our theme for May is

* * * * * IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GARDEN * * * * *

We'd like your projects to show what you might find in a typical English country garden, so you could include, for instance, flowers, trees, birds, insects, wild animals, etc., or perhaps garden furniture, shed, greenhouse or even washing on a line! Whatever you choose, your main image must be stamped and relevant to the theme, otherwise your project will not be eligible. See here for our full challenge rules. You will not want to miss out on the chance to win this month's fab prize of these 2 beautiful A5 stamp sets, kindly donated by our lovely sponsors Chocolate Baroque.



I have used Chocolate Baroque stamps on my card.

I created the background with my Gelli Plate, covering it with Distress inks and then lifting off some of the colour with stamps from the Chocolate Baroque Spring Foliage set before taking the print.

The central image is from the Home Sweet Home set and the robin is cut from the main image in the Robin the Spruce set. I coloured the butterflies (Just Butterflies set) to look like Orange Tips, which have been visiting my garden during the past few weeks. The flowers on the grass at the front are from "The Spinney" Design A Tree set.

The main image is coloured with Polychromos pencils and cut out with a Spellbinders die. I used Arteza brush pens for the robin and butterflies.

There is some truly delightful inspiration from my teamies over on the Challenge Blog, so please do go and check it out. I am so looking forward to seeing your entries for this theme.

Mine is a Scottish Country Garden but it has plenty in common with an English one! I'll leave you with a few recent photos.

Orange Tip butterfly. Hard to photograph as they are hardly ever still!

Lesser Redpoll

Auricula

Ivy Leaved Toadflax, growing in the garden walls. In our garden, the wildflowers sit happily alongside the cultivated ones. We do not have weeds!

Bank Vole. We have a family of them living in the undergrowth behind the bird feeders. The baby ones are so cute!

Yellowhammer. Due to recent population decline they are now classed as an endangered species. Not apparently so in our garden! Last year we counted 20 here on one occasion. Not so many yet this year, but still several pairs visiting regularly.

Bluebells. This seems to be a really good year for them as there are lots about, both wild and cultivated. 

Sycamore. The warm April weather brought most of the trees bursting into leaf. This is my favourite time of year, when everything is fresh and new.

Heron. Not in our garden, but I took the picture from the garden as it took off from beside the river which is next to our house. We are so lucky to live here, surrounded by beautiful wildlife. It makes up for all the rain!

Been a bit wet here lately!

This year I think the April showers came along with the March winds! At least, I hope they did, and that we're not going to get them again this month! The river by our house, usually calm and placid, turned into a lake.

Fortunately our house is well above any possible flood level, but it is quite scary to see nonetheless.

February was lovely, much warmer than usual, but March certainly made up for it, and though the daffodils came out a good few weeks early, no doubt spurred on by the warmth of February, they are probably wishing they hadn't, as they are now being battered by the winds, sleet, and hail showers, and shivering in single figure temperatures! And it's only a couple of months until the longest day!

Still, hopefully all that water will be put to good use, which brings me nicely to our theme for our April Challenge at Stamping Sensations, which is

* * * * * APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS * * * * *

As usual, it is up to you how you interpret this, but the main image of your project must be stamped and relevant to the theme. Please check out our full challenge rules here to ensure your entry is eligible.

Our lovely sponsors this month are Be Creative who are offering a fab £25 voucher for the lucky winner to spend in their online store.

I had a gorgeous new background stamp from Concord & 9th which I was itching to use, and it happened to be perfect for our theme. It's called Lovely Blossoms and is a turnabout stamp. If you've never come across turnabout stamps before, there are many Youtube videos on the subject that are worth watching.

Having stamped and matted the background on to a 6"x 6" base card, I used the emboss resist technique to create the circle element. I stamped all the images with Versamark ink, embossed them with clear powder, and sponged various colours of pigment ink over the top. Wiping away the excess ink with a tissue made the stamping pop. I added a bit of extra colour to the main flowers with brush markers, and the result was nice enough, but didn't quite have the impact I was hoping for. After a few moments thought, I decided to stamp and colour the three large flowers again, cut them out and attach them over the original stamping with sticky pads. That simple addition made a huge difference and gave depth to the picture. It just needed something in the bottom corner to balance the composition. I had a Concord & 9th flower die which was similar to the stamped flowers, so I cut it twice and used the cutouts from one to fill in the other, with a piece of  Card Candi from Craftwork Cards for the flower centre. All stamps by Concord & 9th, except for the raindrops, which was a magazine freebie. Circle dies from The Works. The sentiment is computer generated.

In case you're stuck for ideas, there's some gorgeous inspiration from my teamies over on the Stamping Sensations Challenge Blog. We are looking forward to seeing lots of lovely flowery showery entries!

Somewhere Under The Rainbow!

The other week it was the Pink Ink Meadow Hare that bounded through my letterbox. This week a Sea Turtle swam through! Another stunning Pink Ink Designs stamp. I wonder what will come through next. You'll have to watch this space!

As our topic for this month's Stamping Sensations Challenge is "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", I decided to give my turtle a rainbow shell. So he's under the rainbow, rather than over it, but I think he'll still count!

I made a background with Distress Oxide inks and overstamped the turtle. Then I stamped him again on a separate piece of card, along with the seaweed and fish, cut them all out and coloured them with a mixture of Arteza and Zig brush pens. I then stuck the turtle on top of the original stamped image, added the fish and seaweed and matted the resulting picture on to an A5 card. All stamps are by Pink Ink Designs.

The Pink Ink Meadow Hare is still my favourite, but the turtle is coming a close second. He's fabulous to colour.

There's still plenty of time to enter our Rainbow challenge. Full details are over on the Stamping Sensations Challenge blog. There have been some brilliant entries so far. Judging this month is going to be tough!

Must have been hibernating!

The other day I came across something called Alcohol Lift-Ink by Tim Holtz. Yeah, I know, where have I been for the last six months, lol?! It hadn't come up on my radar until now, and it sounded interesting, so I thought I'd better find out what I'd been missing. I'm glad I did! It's clever stuff! For anyone else who's been hibernating like me, you can learn all about it in Tim's video here.

Anyway, I've had a play with it and made a few cards.

(Fern leaf - Embossing Arts, Butterfly - unknown, Sentiment - magazine freebie)

         (Fern leaf - Embossing Arts, Butterflies - unknown, Sentiment - magazine freebie)

 (Fern leaf - Embossing Arts, Butterfly - unknown, Sentiment - magazine freebie)

(Fern leaf - Embossing Arts, Butterflies - Visible Image, Sentiment - magazine freebie)

My alcohol inks had been neglected for quite a while, and the Lift-Ink gave me the impetus to get them out again. Wish I'd found it sooner!

A Moment

Just had a play with some lovely new stamps from Visible Image, Distress Oxide inks and watercolour pencils.

A Riot of Colour For March!

We have a great theme for our March Challenge at Stamping Sensations, and there'll be no difficult decisions about which colours to choose for your project, as you can use all of them! We'd like to see your take on

* * * * * SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW * * * * *

You can take inspiration from either the colours of the rainbow or from the well known song. All we ask is that your main image is stamped and that your project adheres to our Challenge Rules, otherwise it will not be eligible for our fab prize, and may not be commented on. Our lucky winner this month will receive a lovely selection of dies.

I've gone for rainbow colours for my card, and kept the design quite simple to let the colours stand out.

I've had this very pretty Woodware flower stamp in my stash for a while and never got round to inking it up until now, but I thought it would be perfect to show off our rainbow theme. The sentiment is part of the same stamp set.

The card was very quick to make. I used ink dusters and Distress Inks to make the rainbow background, and the same inks to colour the flowers. I cut the border with a Spellbinders die and added some sparkle to the flowers with a Spectrum Noir sparkle pen. You can see the effect better in the next photo.

I know I say this often, but my brilliant teamies really have outdone themselves with their projects this month! Go and feast your eyes on the rainbow of stunning samples over on the Challenge Blog, and then see what you can come up with to rival them! We're looking forward to seeing a riot of colourful entries!

Meadow Hare

I recently discovered Pink Ink Designs, who have the most amazing animal and fantasy stamps! Would have loved to get them all, but the set I was most drawn to was the utterly gorgeous Meadow Hare. She bounded through my letter box this morning and I couldn't wait to ink her up.

There are hares in the fields around here, and I love to see them. They are beautiful creatures. They often sit just like this, ears pricked up, alert for any sound or movement, and then they are gone in a flash.

I coloured my Meadow Hare with Arteza brush pens (another new discovery, with which I am impressed!) and a water brush. It's a huge stamp (this is an A5 card) and I kept the design simple to show her off.

She won't be my last Pink Ink purchase, as I have my eye on several others, but I think she'll always be my favourite!

More things Bright And BEAUtiful!

Here's another of my samples for this month's All Things Bright And BEAUtiful theme at Stamping Sensations Challenge.

Again, all the stamps I've used are from our sponsor for February, the wonderful Bee Crafty. The tulips are from their gorgeous BEAUtanicals range, and the butterfly is from the Birds & Butterflies set. But Bee Crafty are not just about stamps, stunning though those are. They also have lots of accessories with which to enhance your projects, including some fab MDF pieces such as the Victorian Tag Artboard which you see here. 

There is still plenty of time for you to enter our challenge, and since the prize is a fantastic £25 voucher to spend in the Bee Crafty online shop, what's not to like?! My teamies also have more stunning projects for you over on the Challenge Blog, please do take a look and they would be delighted if you paid their individual blogs a visit too. If you have already entered, or are inspired to do so, good luck! If not, I hope you enjoy looking anyway!

Bright and Beautiful Fox!

February already, so it's time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations! We have a lovely theme for you this month:

* * * * * ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL * * * * *

We are thinking along the lines of the wonderful old hymn - All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. We'd like to see your hand stamped creations celebrating the wonders of nature. Please do make sure that your entry fits our challenge rules which you can find here.

We are delighted to welcome back Bee Crafty as our lovely sponsor for February. They have a wonderfully eclectic range of fabulous stamps and stencils, and loads of other things too, and our lucky winner will be able to choose £25 of lovely new stash from their online shop.

I decided to make something other than a card for a change, using stamps from two Bee Crafty sets, Scenery Animals - Fox and BEAUtanicals - Ferns.

 I made a plaque from wooden lolly sticks and painted it with gesso to prime it. I created the background with a home made mountain stencil, punched circle mask for the moon, and Versamagic pigment inks. All stamping was done with Versafine Clair ink. The row of trees and the single fern (which I hope looks like a tree!) were stamped directly on to the plaque, while the foreground ferns and the fox were stamped separately and cut out before being affixed to the plaque.

Here you can see the beautiful scenery detail in the fox stamp.

I'm sure this will be a popular theme, and I can't wait to see what you come up with! My amazing teamies have once again excelled themselves with some gorgeous samples to inspire you, so do go and have a look at them on the Challenge Blog. Remember, you can enter up to three times, and with such a fab prize on offer, it's definitely worth maximising your chances of winning. Good luck everyone!