Last Rays of Sunshine

OK I know I've been a bad blogger...I have been crafting...just not managing to get it on the computer though!  The odd thing is now Em is off in Falmouth I should have a bit more time on my hands!  Having said that I am back to ferrying Sarah backwards and forwards to school, clubs etc.  Em phoned the other night and finally she has admitted that she realises how hard I do work looking after the 4 of us...she is struggling to look after just herself, she hasn't done any ironing yet, she's only got her room to keep clean and she doesn't have a large garden to tend!

Anyway I digress!  I'm here to share the card I made for my Great Aunt.  She was 100 yesterday!!  Not sure that she is totally happy about being that old, but she is incredible.  She still lives in her own home and cooks and cleans for herself.  Her major niggle is that she has lost some of her vision, from what I can make out I think that it is her central vision that is going...she says she cannot see peoples faces when she looks at them. 

With this in mind I decided to make her a very textured card so that she can feel it rather than see it.  The inspiration for my card came from memories of eating sand sandwiches on Hayling Island.  I remember when I was very small Auntie and my Grandmother used to rent a beach hut and we used to go there sometimes.  It was a lovely spot, but there was just sand everywhere....and sand gets into everything including the sandwiches!

Hence I made her card a beach scene using Crafty Individuals stamps. I stamped in Black Archival ink and then water coloured the images. The card is built up of layers.  The base is a square of watercolour paper, to which I added a wash of colbalt blue and then used tissue paper to take out some of the colour to make clouds.

The next layer was stamped with a row of beach huts (crafty individuals) and pebbles (art impressions).  the roofs of the beach huts were cut out and this layer was painted with watercolours.  I stamped the girl onto a small piece of watercolour paper, painted her and cut her out.  Having dyed a few lengths of seam binding with distress stains I stitched across the bottom of the beach to make waves positioning the girl so that she looks as though she is paddling.  To give the impression of foam on the breaking waves I ran stickles along the top edges and added silver accent beads.

The speech bubble was die cut and stamped with an art deco style Happy Birthday (Tanda Stamps) before being coated with glossy accents.  The 100 was a Tim Holtz die, again coated with glossy accents.  Not being able to get enough of glossy accents I also coated the beach huts and the girls parasol with the stuff! 

Having assembled the card I stamped the seagulls (crafty individuals) in the sky and distressed around the edges with weathered wood distress ink.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
"Chocolate, coffe and cards - Stitching"
"Clearly inspired - Ribbon or twine"
"Fussy and Fancy - Anything goes"
"Stampin for the weekend - anything goes"
"Delightful Challenges - Stitching"
"It's all about the vintage - make your own background"
"Paper-crafting journey - Ribbon or twine"
"Alota Rubber stamps - Birthday Celebrations"
"Crafty bloggers network - Anything goes"
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"Stamptacular Sunday - No Rules"
"The squirrel and the fox - must use ribbon"
"Penny's paper crafty - ribbon and or buttons"
"Whimsy Creation - Sparkly", my sparkly bit is the stickles on the waves
"Flourishes - Create a birthday card"
"Through the craft room door - Anything goes"

Going away pressie

Good news!!! Em sailed through her A's and has easily got her place at Falmouth University to study Graphic Design!  If only I could have my time again I would be going with her!!  So now it's a mad rush to get everything sorted for her to go away.....a couple of trips to Ikea have meant that we have most of the utensils she will need..still collecting though! 

Still trying to get the house sorted out...sewing machine went into the shop to get fixed yesterday...don't get it back for 3 weeks at the earliest and I need to get a blind made for the study before the 16th Sept....big family get together to send her off.  Also need to make the house Molly proof...another story! and just generally clear loads of rooms.

Anyway...Em's leaving..so "Mum can you make me a card for xyz...like by tomorrow?!" is going to be a bit difficult.   I thought that it might be a good idea to send her off with a few ready made cards....so this was my inspiration for a box of cards to take away.  I used the brilliant Gala Event stamps from "Creative Expressions" .  She loves them so that's good!

I decided to use up all of the scraps of dyed seam binding that were languishing in my ribbon draw...and as you might see if you have good eyesight...my sewing machine was dying!  Tension was all over the place!

Making 6 cards and a box in a short time was a prompt for following the CAS route.  Dresses are coloured using distress markers or cosmic shimmer water colours paints and then glossy accented.  I made the box to house them and used my favourite stamp from the set to decorate the box..  Having used ancient page ink to stamp the dresses, I outlined using a grey copic marker which drew some of the black ink out to give a dramatic base for the dresses and make them pop a bit more.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:


"Top tip Tuesday - One Layer"
"Eurekastamps - Anything goes"
"Lexis creations - back to school or college" not toddler stuff but big girl stuff here!
"Make it Monday - anything goes"
"Simon says stamp and show - No rules!"
"The crazy challenge - anything goes"
"totallystampalicious - CAS"
"Craft your days away - anything goes"
"Hiding in my craft room - limited to 2 layers" kept it down to a minimum here.

More Faux Ribbon and Another Thank You Card

For my next Creative Expressions DT piece I have gone along the one layer route again. I wanted a quick thank you card for a couple who are seriously minimalist in their taste. So my card had be simple. I decided to use the faux ribbon technique again and then used stamps from the "Butterfly girl stamps by Sam Poole" .  I also used Sam's bubble wrap background stamp, vintage typewriter set and the large flourish from the JustRite Greetings from Paris set .

I used weathered wood distress stain and distress ink and archival black ink for my stamping and distressing.  I coated the large flourish with glossy accents as my final finishing touch.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"One stitch at a time - anything goes"
"That craft place - anything goes"
"the paper players - CAS with sentiment as main element"
"ATC's & Cards with attitude - anything goes"
"Inspire me Fridays - anything goes"

You Warm My Heart and Faux Ribbon Technique

The Design Team have just received this month's stamp set from Creative Expressions.

It's the rather wonderful "Butterfly girl set by Sam Poole" and the "Bubble Wrap background stamp also by Sam Poole".

I couldn't wait to cut them up and get stamping!
For my card I decided to follow the CAS route. And in playing about with distress stains for another project I came across a very simple technique that gives the effect of a ribbon across the card without actually using a ribbon. I'm going to call it the Faux Ribbon Technique. From a distance it certainly looks quite effective! A great way of creating a ribbon without adding another layer and hence great for one layer cards.

 So what do you do....simply drag the bottle of distress stain across the paper or card, start a little before the edge of your card and finish a little after your card otherwise you get a dot at each end.

I used the bubble wrap stamp at the bottom of my card with spun sugar distress ink and then stamped the heart balloons and hanging sign in black archival. The sentiment was from Sam Poole's art sayings that we had last month. I coloured the hearts and hanging sign using cosmic shimmer paint from the summer set. Once the paint was dry I coated the hearts, strings and sign with glossy accents.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

"Love to create - anything goes"
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"Pile it on - Make your own embellishment", mine's faux ribbon...bit cheeky I know!
"Robyn's Fetish - No flowers anywhere"
"2 Sisters - Anything goes"
"ATCs and cards with attitude - Anything goes"
"Dilly Beans - Dots"
"CASual Fridays - Pretty in Pink" might get disqualified...wasn't sure if you weren't allowed to enter the challenge more than 4 times or enter more than 4 other challenges.

Splish, Splash, Splat!

The new ""Tanda Teaser" is all about throwing your paint/inks about and generally making a mess!!

And most of all having fun!

I needed to make an anniversary card for an old college friend and I wanted something a bit edgy...not mushy.  I stamped in black archival and then did a splat, splat with fired brick distress stains.  Once dry I went over the stamped image with glossy accents giving a wrought iron sort of effect.

I used the same distress stain to dye my seam binding to finish the card off.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
"Paper Shelter- Anything goes"
"Craft your passion - anything goes"
"The ribbon girls - use ribbon or lace"
"Speedy and friends - Black and white and a splash of colour"

More Art Sayings and something new....

Another week has flown by and so it's time to share another project using "Sam Poole's Umount Art Saying stamp set" , but before I share that with I want to just let you know that Creative Expressions have just started a new blog which you can find "here" it is a great way to see what's new at Creative Expressions and also it has links to the whole design team's blogs so you can see what we are all up to!

This month, the idea is that we combine the text with other stamps available from Creative Expressions.  This week I have combined my word stamp with the campion and bee stamps on the Eco Green Garden Chic set.  My tag was cut from a mountboard off cut that I was given by a picture framer.  I covered this with eco green paint and used PVA glue to get the crackle effect...I'm not sure I did it correctly as my crackle is barely visible, but it is there. Before stamping, I sprayed the tag with cosmic shimmer.

I coloured my stamps using distress markers and stamped the flowers across the bottom of the tag.  I used first and second impressions to get depth.  I used the green distress ink to distress the edges of the tag and the fine tip of the green distress maker was perfect to quickly draw in some grasses amongst the flowers.

I stamped the bee onto cream card and cut it out, this was mounted onto the main tag using some thick double sided tape to give it dimension.  I then cut out a small tag, just big enough to take the words.  The tag was sprayed in cosmic shimmers and the words stamped in the same ink as the bee.  I ran a line of gold Krylon pen around both tags.  I coated the be and three of the flower stems with glossy accents, again to add a bit more dimension.

While the glossy accents was drying I dyed some chalk white seam binding with Victorian Velvet Distress stain.  When everything was dry I finished the tag with seam binding top and bottom. I would like to enter my tag into the following challenges:
"The Cheerful stamp pad - in the garden"
"Craft your passion - anything goes"
"Love to create - Recycle something", I've recycled waste mountboard off cuts.
"Make it Monday - Always anything goes"
"Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything goes"
"Emergency crafters - Anything with wings"
"Stamping for the weekend - bugs and butterflies"
"Totally Papercrafts - doodle on it"
"Inspire me Fridays - anything goes"

Make Your Mark!

Just playing catch up here....there has been so much to fit into the last week!  Working extra hours and the National Schools Regatta with my daughter.
I guess all the jubilee celebrations today got me into the red white and blue mode when I came to design a card for the next Creative Expressions project using Sam Poole's stamps.  I have to admit that I did get a lot of  inspiration for this from "Kim Dellow's" card. After using Distress stains to dye seam binding, my next favourite thing to do with them is to make great big juicy splats.  I thought the sentiment for this would be perfect for my daughter when she goes off to Falmouth University to start her Degree
(grades permitting) in Graphic Design.

The card is very simple....three ink splats (Chipped sapphire and Fired Brick), I used picket fence on the word stamps to stamp on the ink splats and chipped sapphire to stamp the make your mark on life sentiment onto a die cut label.  The seam binding was dyed using the chipped sapphire distress stain.  A button and bakers twine finish the card off.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

"Moving along with the times - Red White and Blue"
"Craft your days away - Red white and Blue"
"Less is More - Red White and Blue"
"Speedy and Friends - Use Buttons"
"Delightful challenges - Red White and Blue"

I just want to finish this post by saying congratulations to my daughter for Friday.  She and her friend Emily were entered into the National Schools Regatta held at Holme Pierpoint in Nottingham where the Olympic rowers train.  They had to take part in a time trial to see if they could get through to the semifinal heats.  They completed the 1000 m in 4 mins 5.7 seconds, unfortunately they missed out by .7 of a second.  But they did incredibly well considering Emily has only been rowing since September and this is only their second competition.  Their coaches are really pleased with how they performed as this is the toughest regatta for school aged kids where the opposition is all the elite private school rowers.  Emily and Sarah were rowing for little old Stourport Boat club.  I'm just sharing a picture of the girls in action,  Emily and Sarah are in the nearest boat, Emily in the front and Sarah in the rear.  If you are in the UK, enjoy the rest of the weekend!