A Nautical Journey

This month we have been given "Sam Poole's Art Sayings" to play with. It's my brother's birthday next week so I decided to combine the word stamps with Sam Poole's nautical stamps. When I saw the background stamp on this set I knew I just had to buy it!

I stamped the background using the text stamps and smaller nautical stamps on cream card that I distressed with distress inks. The next background layer was stamped using the map and coloured with pearlised watercolour paint. The edges were torn and then singed. I had a bowl of water handy at this point and I had to use it.

The boat was stamped in coffee archival and then die cut with a Spellbinders label die. I coloured the image with the pearlised watercolour paints. A piece of cream fabric was stitched to the base and frayed to the edge of the base layer then other layers were stitched onto this.

I used the word stamps to stamp in coffee archival on cotton tape and used this to embellish the card.  I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

"Art with No boundaries - Anything goes"
"Crafty Cardmakers - Distress it"
"Karens Doodles - Stitch it up"
"Lexis Creations - For the man/boy in your life"
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"Simon Says Stamp and Show - one for the boys"
"Stampin sisters in christ - Do something on your card that you're afraid of" In this case it was the fire...like I said I had to use the bowl of water more than once!
"2 Sisters - bring on the boys"
"Little Claire - Male theme"
"One stop craft - One for the boys"

In the Garden

Wow what a change in the weather! Just perfect for getting out in the garden! Unfortunately I've had to go to work so that hasn't really happened yet. Got lots of weeding to do this weekend me thinks, mind you I've got decorating to do too, never enough hours in the day! This week's DT project using "Sam Poole's bird stamps" is influenced by the green of the garden at the moment.

I used my distress markers to stamp the central bird, and used distress inks to stamp leaves and the small flourish all round the central circle and the background layer. I added a little black dot to the bird's eye and then coated him in glossy accents.

I found a piece of loosely woven green fabric in my stash and thought that it would add an interesting texture. I cut it roughly to size and then frayed the edges before stitching it onto my card. I also added a strand of natural raffia for even more texture.

I cut the tag from mount board and stamped the sentiment using distress ink. The leaves and flowers were all cut using Spellbinders dies, and spritzed with gold mica.

The flower centres were brads that I coated with glossy accents and then covered with gold accent beads. I selectively coated some of the leaves around the central circle and the background with glossy accents to add a bit more interest.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
"Craft Room Challenge - Add Fabric"
"Hooked on Craft - Flowers"
"Make it Monday - Always anything goes"
"Great Impressions - Anything goes"
"One Stitch at a Time - Anything goes"
"Opus-gluei - Sew What"
"Stamptacular Sunday - In the Garden"
"Just some Lines - Show us those birds"
"The Secret Crafter - In the garden"

Don't forget to visit the other DT members to see what they are making with these stamps!

Something New

Hi there, just taking a break from clearing the study so that we can decorate it....we've lived here for almost 13 years and this is the only room that we haven't decorated.  Having had a leak in the roof last year there are some dodgy stains on the ceiling so we are going to have it replastered to cover this up and to hide the dreadful artex!

 This has knock on effects for me as one end of the room is where most of my craft materials are kept so I am having to try to find places to put them so that I can still have access to them!  That said one of our oldest friends and his partner have just had a baby girl so a new baby card was called for.  Pretty good excuse to pause on the room clearance.

I've used this card for the  current "Tanda Teaser" with the theme something new...so could be a new home, new baby, new technique, new stash, basically anything so long as it's new! For my card I used the baby and toddler stamp sets that I designed for Tanda. I built the background up by stamping and masking with the teddy stamp, the baby stamp and the flowers using distress inks. I cut the background stamp so that one of the baby word stamps would show in the bottom left hand corner of the card.

I cut a circle of white card and stamped the teddy in distress inks before colouring it with copics.  the heart cushion was coated with glossy accents and the edges were distressed with Victorian velvet distress ink and my dune dots stamp.  the fancy circle was a spellbinders die as were the leaves.  The flowers and tiny tag were cut using Tim Holtz dies.  For a change I decided to use buttons for my flower centres and matched the twine with the twine on the tag.  Gold mica was spritzed onto some of the leaves and the seam binding was dyed with Victorian velvet distress stain. 

I didn't actually have to die cut the flowers especially for this card as I already had some cut...I tend to try to get as much out of my hand made paper as I can.  (I got it in Ikea some time ago and I haven't seen it since)..So when I've done the first cut I move the paper around so as to use all the bits inbetween and hence often end up with more than I need for one flower.  I keep these extra flower shape bits in a box with my brads then, when I need a flower for a new project, I will check to see if I have enough to make a flower and go from there.  Sometimes the finished colour of a card can be determined by what flowers/leaves I have in my box.

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

"Creative Belli - New Arrival/baby"
"Divas by Design - Pink"
"Little red waggon - DIY Patterned Papers"
"Truly scrumptious - Anything goes"
"Alphabet Challenge - H is for handmade flowers"
"Simon Says Stamp and Show"
"Amusing Challenges - Flowers"
"The squirrel and the fox - One for the girls"
"2 Sisters - Make it Girly"
"Crafty Mess Challenge - Pink and Cute"

Oh well better get back to clearing the study!

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet!

I was going through my craft draws the other day and came across some tags in one of my draws. I thought that they presented quite a challenge as they are quite small and I generally struggle with small areas to decorate. So out came my new distress ink markers and the "Bird stamps by Sam Poole" These are the stamps that the Creative Expressions design team are working with this month and the smaller stamps in the set were just perfect for my little tag.  Technically this is supposed to be next week's project, but I have an extra shift at work tomorrow so I know I will be short of time, hence blogging today!

I used the branch small birds and the leaves to stamp the tag. I cut the wings from thick card and stamped tweet, tweet randomly over them before distressing them with distress inks and coating them with glossy accents. I also coated the stamped images on the tag with glossy accents. A distressed flower (made with brown parcel wrapping paper)  a green brad and green raffia finish the tag.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
"Catch the Bug - Things with wings"
"Craft your days away - All creatures great and small"
"Crafty Calendar - Things with wings"
"Drunken Stampers - It's not easy being green"
"Sugar Creek Hollow - Tags"
"Alphabet Challenge - In the Garden"
"Fairy Tale - Wings and Things"
"Glitter Geeks - Wings and Things"
"Sarah Hurley Challenges - Tags and tickets"

Just enjoying a lazy morning catching up on the Archers omnibus and various blogs.  Nice sunny morning here so I think I will be out in the garden in a bit....lots of weeding to be done...with all this rain everything is growing so fast!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Of Course you can fly, for dreams have wings!

Just popping in to show you my third project using Sam Poole's Birds stamp set from "Creative Expressions".

My eldest daughter has the first part of her practical A2 Graphics exam today so this is really for her.  Her goal is to get an A* in graphics and then to get into Falmouth Uni to study Graphic design there.

I coloured my background using pan pastels.  The stamped birds, sentiment and swirls were all stamped in ancient page black and versafine inks.  The bird cage was stamped onto acetate and cut out before being attached to the card using a cream brad.

The hand made flowers were made as per my last post and based on Ange Lee's tutorial "here".

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

"Pan Pastel UK Challenge - Anything goes"

"I brake for challenges - Flowers"

"Sundays with Chrissy - Things with wings"

"2 Sisters - Anything goes"

"Crafty Calendar - Things with wings + Acetate"

"Inspire me Fridays - Anything goes"

Time for another cup of tea?

Another fortnight has passed by in the blink of an eye and so it is time for another Tanda Teaser.

My cousin and her husband had a dream to give up their day jobs and open a tea shop and last year it all became reality...although having spoken to her the other day...the tea shop has changed a bit and is now a rather nice delicatessen...with the fabulous name Jeffersons of Richmond. Check out their website "here". So it's her birthday this coming weekend so I wanted to do a tea related birthday card for her. I'd also seen a tutorial for handmade shabby flowers over on "Ange Lee's blog" and I really wanted to try them out. My handmade paper is not going to last forever so I need alternatives.

My card was stamped using loads of Tanda stamps in coffee archival ink and then distressed with panpastels. the background was stamped using Tanda's advert plate, I lined the stamps up on a  large acrylic block to make it look like a real page of classified ads.  The flowers were made from 4 concentric circles coloured on both sides with panpastels as per Ange's instructions.   I changed the flowers slightly by coating the brads with glossy accents and then filling the flower centres with accent beads, this gave a more realistic flower centre and meant that I could up some of my least fav brads..we all have some of them!  The ribbon is seam binding dyed with weathered wood distress stain. The dies were all Spellbinders dies.   The dots around the main image and sentiment were stamped using my Dune Dots stamp which is exclusive to "the Treasury in Kidderminster".

OK so here goes another gripe at Blogger...I've spent all evening trying to upload pictures onto this post..every time I try to post something else stops working....so far we have paragraphs, picture alignment, uploading pictures, spell check, editing and scheduling posts...is it just me having problems? DD1 just came back from the cinema and agreed I'm not doing it wrong she thinks it's just teething problems but I'm thinking no one else seems to be struggling?! If they are they're not saying.  I'm giving up and going to bed!

Back again now....With any luck you are seeing pictures now... I gave up last night and have come back to try again this morning and it seems to be working although I'm still looking for one picture which seems to have got lost in the ether... It said it uploaded and I clicked done but it's not here...think I will have to upload it again......here goes...

there it is now! think I'd better save now! So now that all seems to be sorted I would like to enter this card into a few challenges...here we go...lets see if this works!
"Crafting for all seasons - handmade flowers"
"Little darlings challenge - flowers"
"Little Red Waggon - Stitch it Up"
"Paper Pretties - flowers"
"Simon Says Stamp - Happy Birthday"
"Truly Scruptious - Distressing - Diecut/punches"
"Creative Card Crew"
"Make it Monday - anything goes"
"truly madly crafty - handmade flowers"

Just found spell check...woooo hooooo!  Think I'll publish now before it all disappears!  Hope to see you on the other side!

Special Packaging

Still trying to get to grips with blogger.....can't preview now...left and right came up for the pictures..but looking at the hmlt coding..it looks like they will still be centered...so I feel like I'm flying blind here...

My next door neighbours' daughter just turned 21 and is in her final year at uni studying fashion design specialising in corstets and bridal wear....I was going to buy her a bottle of champagne but at the last min I remembered her mum telling me that she could only drink vodka because of her allergies...so I made her a pin cushion that straps onto the back of your hand. Then the question was how to package it, so I made a box decorated using the bird stamps by Sam Poole from "Creative Expressions"

I guilded the box using the bird stamps and the flourish from Sam Poole's stylish Chirstmas set. The inside of the tag was coloured and stamped with distress ink.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges: "Bunny Zoe's Crafts - ribbon or twine" "Creative Mondays - Anything goes" "Amusing challenges - Anything goes" "Come and get it challenge - Anything but a card"

"Sunday Stampers - Red" (the box is dark red...hope that counts! "Alphabet Challenge - Feathered friends" "Crafty Catz - Anything goes" "Inspire me Fridays - Anything goes"

Tatty Button

OK so Blogger has done it again....pulled the rug!!! So how do you position your pictures where you like now? Mine in this post will all be central...I like to offset left and right.

So this card was made for my nextdoor neighbour's birthday...lovely calm image..we can all do with that! Image coloured with copics.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
"Poodles Parlor - Anything goes"
"Wags and Whiskers - Distressing"
"Aud Sentiments - Anything goes"
"CRAFT - Animals"
"CCEE Stamps - Scallops, flowers and buttons" OK ao I've got scallops and flowers....hoping that Tatty Button counts for the button!
"Southern girls - get your girlie on"
"Creative Belli - Animals"
"Inky Impressions - anything goes"

Time for Tea!

Over on the "Tanda Teaser blog" the current challenge is Drink Up! For my card I have used designer papers, ribbon and felt from the Treasury in Kidderminster. The stamp of course is from TandaStamps.  I chose to use this paper because I liked the retro design which I thought went well with the 50's image

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

"Card Makin Mamas - Make it Girlie"
"Fat pages with attitude - Anything goes/faces"
"Cheerful Stamp Pad - Time for Queens Tea" definitely tea going on here and don't you think she looks a bit like a young Queen Elizabeth II?
"Love to Create - Anything goes"
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"Victorine Originals - Anything goes"

Whooop, whooop....I just sussed the paragraphs....or at least I think I have...it works on the preview anyway!

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Hi there, just sharing my first project using Sam Poole's Bird stamps from Creative Expressions.