PDCC 53 - Burgundy

I haven't been able to do a Play Date challenge for a while, but Sarah's inspiring photo of this glorious acquilegia spurred me on.

I made two Christmas cards, using one of my favourite Christmas stamps, this Magenta poinsettia panel. I stamped it 3 times and embossed it with clear powder, and used the 3rd image to cut out the flowers to mount on the other 2 cards.

I used a purpley-burgundy gel pen (which looked more of a burgundy colour on the pen lid than the ink comes out!) to colour the flowers and 3d foam to mount the larger flowers, and a glue pen to stick the smaller ones stright to the card.



WOYWW 73 - Christmas??

Yikes, only 2 months to Christmas!! Need to crack on with my cards now, so on my mat on the floor today, is a card - clean and simple, black and white - and a tag that I may put on a card too.

The tag's covered with eco green paint left over from my Sunday Stamper entry earlier this week, (didn't want to waste it, lol) and the reindeer is by Tim Holtz, the greeting by Wendy Vecchi..  The stamp I used on the black and white card, is a Penny Black one called "snowy park" and it's really pretty. I bought it at the Worthing stamp show in May I believe and have been dying to use it!

Looking around the room, I was rummaging in my Christmas drawers (some of them) looking for some stamps - they live behind the green drawer unit in the first picture so it takes a bit of shuffling to get at them! Still, since my small reorganisation after the phone fixing week from earlier this month, they're easier to get to (I used to have to lean over the top of one of the wooden drawer units that used to stand where the cardboard ones now live, and bearing in mind that in front of the cardboard drawers my distress inks and melt pot live, that was not easy!)

I am off now to our host Julia's at the Stamping Ground to spend an evening chasing round the desks and cupboards of the crafting stratosphere to see what you've all been up to - I will leave comments where I can, blogger and time permitting!  Have a great Wednesday. All being well, this post will schedule early and I'll link it up when I get to work.

CCC 19 - extreme masking

Linda has set this week's Compendium challenge from page 61 (you can get your copy from the Man Himself here) and as usual I am not to spill the beans on how I did it.

Suffice to say, I made my own mask with the tattered leaves die, used distress inks in wild honey, crushed olive, rusty hinge and walnut stain. Stamps are by Wendy Vecchi.

I edged the top and bottom of the base card with some tissue tape which I blended with wild honey and added one of the fab Prima leaves I bought from my SIL last week., for some texture.

I know it's not a Christmas card but I gave myself a challenge off Christmas!

Green Onions for Sunday lunch?

Hels' has set a challenge this week for Sunday Stampers to use green - fortunately, not onions! So taking my pledge to try wherever possible to use challenges for Christmas cards, here is my green card!

I took a circle chip which I painted with a mixture of zucchini and green patina paint (from eco green), a piece of a torn book page distress inked in green. I mounted it on a 6x6 card covered with some paper (Craftwork cards 2010 Christmas range) which just happens to be green and purple; used Tim's pine needles stamp in the corners in forest moss DI. (not sure why I didn't reach for the pine needles ink...) The larger Tim reindeer stamp was stamped on cartridge paper in black and spritzed with a tea dye/gold perfect pearl reinker (as was the Christmas ticket stamp, also by Tim). Some green fibres and ribbon finished it off.

For a change, it is so bright and sunny in here I had trouble photographing this card!!

As you can see from the shadows of the fibres!

Have a great Sunday.

Simon Says - anything but a card

When I got back from my visit to Mum's earlier this week, the first thing I had to do was catch up on the new challenges! Simon Says Stamp and Show - anything but a card.  I wasn't sure what to do for this, because I am meant to be only doing Christmas cards now.....

So it took until tonight before I decided what to do.

I took the smaller of the two little suitcases that have been waiting attention for some time and went to work with some Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain distress inks, some pearly reinker spray and some bits and pieces!

I 'm not sure if it needs something else, but I don't know what - I don't seem to have any inspiration the last couple of days! I had trouble taking decent pictures of it too, not to mention persuading blogger to upload more than one at a time without closing the post each time..... grrrr!

The Artistic Stamper theme this month is layers, so I'm entering it for that too.



All Things Crafty

Today I have been shopping (yeh, there's a surprise!) But this time it was at my SIL's craft cabin in her backgarden (above)

Really, I was going for lunch, but she had a sale on - she runs a mail order business (but I'm local and family so get to pick stuff off the shelves, lol!) http://www.allthingscrafty.co.uk/ (see side bar - I've finally managed to get a copy of her banner logo to put up) and at the moment she has a sale, like I said.... so the opportunity was too good to miss.

Lynne wouldn't let me take a pic of her climbing up to the top shelf!

and here is what I came away with - just a bit!! (if blogger will let me upload more than one photo it would be nice...)  Hurrah, made it!   She has lots of Prima products lots of which are in the sale and I got some chip shapes too, frames and leaves and rectangles. Just love those bright Prima oak leaves! Not sure when I'll get to play with any of this, now that I'm supposed to be in Christmas card mode...

Speaking of which,  I've been good - I did make a start on my Christmas cards yesterday - had a bit of a production line going with this fabby Tim ATC sized stamp

Some of which I've made into finished cards (apart from the inside greeting - need to move some boxes to get to my message stamps!) I don't normally do multiples of cards, I like to make each one different, but these are very subtly different if you look closely!

Today, before I went to Lynne's I started some more, with some fab Inkadinkado snowflake stamps and a multi coloured purple ink pad. Just need to add the Timmy reindeer and some finishing touches!

Oops, my knees got in the way!

Sadly I have to go back to work tomorrow - it seemed like a good idea at the time, to have Friday at work and then another weekend off, but now it's here I'd rather be home!! I was also hoping to go to Kew on Saturday morning to see how the autumn colour is progressing, but rain is forecast... watch this space as they say.

It's taken me an hour to upload these few pics so I'm signing off here.

A LIVE WOYWW post!

Not scheduled, but live!  Although I could be tucked up in bed still, I decided to do a live broadcast today!
Thanks for all your comments last week.  It still looks fairly tidy here, mainly because I was away between Friday and yesterday.

When I got home from Mum's, there was nice post on the mat for me - a nice fat jiffy bag! and what did we have inside it?

Sadly the Tim cobweb mask was out of stock, but the rest - yum! I love those papers - great little pack of orangey-red-brown papers. Can't wait to play.

And this IS a truly live shot as the one I took yesterday, I realised I had left my address (so carefully covered up on the envelope) gazing out from the invoice - you can't be too careful, so I re-did it now.

I was going to upload another shot of part of my overflow storage but can't get it to work - I didn't think it was the time blogger announced their 2 hour downtime yet, but who knows! I may try later. So in the meantime, I am off back to bed with my cup of tea and I'll catch up with you all later. I have had to put the heating on for the first time - Mum had hers on and now it seems COLD here today!!
 Oh, haven't given you the link to where all this madness stems - go see Julia, here!