Boys to Men

The challenge this week at Allsorts is Boys to Men, so this card that I made for my son's birthday fits the theme perfectly. When he was younger all he wanted to do was to ride motorcycles, now that he's reached his 30's he's happier using a car in the colder and wetter weather. The stamp and sentiment are from Indigo Blu, I stamped it in Vintage Photo distress ink and then with a water brush dragged the colour out a bit for a vintage feel. I then distressed around the edges and mounted onto a piece of an old map of France that I had in the cupboard. A 7x7 card base was used for the card and with a stamp of a tyre tread I stamped randomly around the edges using another distress ink.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Mixed Media Tag

The current challenge over on the Allsorts Challenge blog for this fortnight is Tags and I had great fun making this for the challenge. I have a pack of grey board tags that I bought from Tando at a retreat earlier this year so taking one of the largest I started by giving it a coat of black gesso. Next I added so texture paste through a Tim Holtz stencil, when this was dry I added some colour using some Luscious from Indigo Blu (although you can't see a lot of it). Then I added a little guilding wax in gold over the stencilled part before adding some hessian and a little cardboard. Finally I had a rummage through my box of metal embellishments and added these over the hessian and cardboard. I added some thread that I've had for some years to finish the tag (this was left over from my Machine Knitting days).

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

A Dirty Weekend

Friday morning saw hubby hopping out of bed at 6.30 and off he went to play golf all weekend with his mates. So while hubby was away "a friend" and I hopped into my car and trundled off for a "dirty weekend". The venue was the Holiday Inn hotel at Coventry and the dirty weekend was with about 20 other ladies and a workshop with the wonderful Kay Halliwell-Sutton from Indigo Blu with the help of Louise Withers. We met with another friend who was travelling from a different part of the country and had a wonderful time creating an A3 canvas using fantastic products from Indigo Blu. At the start of the workshop Saturday morning when presented with these blank A3 canvases and being told what we were going to be making, my thoughts were, never in a million years will I end up with a canvas that looks like it has a face on it. But by the end of the day I admitted that I was wrong and am quite pleased with the results. She still needs a bit of finishing, like adding some shoulders and maybe a bit of sparkle. We decided that she has a bit of a mermaid feel to her, so I think I shall go with that theme.

Sunday saw us return to the classroom where we altered these little ring binders again using  wonderful Indigo Blu products. All to soon the weekend had come to an end and we found ourselves back on the motorway and making our way back home. I dropped my friend off and pulled up onto the drive just as hubby was getting out of his car, that's what I call excellent timing.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Bumble Bee

The challenge over on the Allsorts blog this week is Insects, Bugs, Bees and Butterflies and as I had this wonderful bee stamp from Indigo Blu sitting on my work space waiting to be used it would have been rude not to join in. I started with an A 5 card black which I rounded the corners off. Next I blended a background using distress inks and a stencil that looked like honeycomb (I think this came from Bee Crafty but there are so many similar ones out there it's hard to remember) . I then stamped the bee and added the flowers, which came from Inkylicious at the bottom and a sentiment , that came from Chocolate Baroque at the top. I stamped the bee out again on a piece of scrap and coloured it with sparkle pens after fussy cutting it out. I then used a little glue gel just to lift it slightly off of the card. I also added a little highlighting with a white gel pen.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Weekend Playtime

Last weekend saw Hubby loading the car and going off for a golfing weekend with his pals. So with this in mind I had a friend around and we had a crafty play. We had both wanted to try Acrylic Pouring and some time ago bought kits from Indigo Blu to try. We had also been watching You Tube video's and found lots of different ways of doing the Acrylic Pouring. So with lots of ideas running through our heads we retired to my Craft Shed (for all things messy) and had a play. By late afternoon and trying the technique we had seen at Ally Pally by B J Crafty we were sat watching paint dry, at that point it was pouring with rain outside and we had run out of room inside. We left the canvases to dry over night and started again on the Sunday this time trying the technique by Indigo Blu and also one we had found on You Tube. Below are some of the many canvases that I did using all of these techniques, they all dried slightly different but I love the results. Drying on Sunday was far easier too as it was sunny outside so we just covered the patio table with the canvases.

Some of my canvases were quite pale in colour and as soon as I saw them dry I thought of adding fairy scenes to them. This one below I made using the stamps only, the trouble with this was that it was a little patchy in the middle and I had to go over with a black marker. I also added some stickles.

 This bottom canvas was made using stamps around the outside and using a stencil in the middle and Archival ink. I added clear sparkle pen to the wings and some stickles around the fairy. Now all I need to do is find something to seal the canvases with.

We had a wonderful time and the only problem we found was the space to leave the canvases to dry while searching for the next thing to pour onto. If you are thinking of trying this please bear that in mind because it is addictive.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated

Old Cardboard

I've been trying to get this posted all week but just had not managed it until now. On Saturday I had four crafty friends around to play, one who does exquisite parchment and sat doing that all day while the rest of us got messy. I always save any decent pieces of cardboard with the intentions of using it, so Saturday that was what we did. We all used the same stamp (from Indigo Blu) and flower dies (from Heartfelt Creations). We also used some tissue paper and Tattered Angels sprays and needless to say we all ended up with something different. I got the Cricut out and cut some words out and the butterfly was added right at the end and was a Tim Holtz Sisix die.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue xx

When I'm 65

Yesterday it was Hubby's birthday and he's reached his official retirement age, although he retired in 2012. We had a quite day together and finished it off with a trip to our local Indian restaurant. I had asked him what he would like to do to mark the occasion and he decided on a birthday tea, so later today I have family and friends arriving for just that. There is going to be loads of sandwiches, nibbles and cake all washed down with party drinks no doubt. As it's his 65th we are celebrating by going away and for this trip we are of to Vancouver and also an Alaskan Cruise. This is something that we have both wanted to do for sometime now. I'm also hoping to meet with a couple of blogging friends while there.

Below are a couple of the cards that I made for him, the first covers his favourite hobby, Fishing. And the second his latest obsession Golf. For the Fishing card I used an image from Joanna Sheen's Nostalgia Collection and dies from All Occasion dies and Tonic. The image show two children a girl and a boy, we have one of each, hubby often took them both with him while fishing but I certainly did not dress my daughter in dresses.

 The second card was made using the Fairway to Heaven stamp from Indigo Blu. It was coloured with distress inks and distress pens with the sentiment being made on the PC.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Imagine....

I have a small (5x7) canvas to show you this evening using a stamped image from Indigo Blu. I bought this stamp back in April at Ally Pally and had stamped it out but not coloured it in. I also has a couple of small canvases sitting on my worktop, so I thought why not combine the two. I first used some texture paste and a Splodgeaway stencil, then when dry I sprayed it with Dylusion Sprays. When the spray had dried I rubbed some Pebeo Gilding Wax over the raised parts. I coloured the image with Promarkers and stamped a sentiment from a Tim Holtz stamp sheet and used Distress ink around the outside.

Good news on the FIL front, he finally made it home yesterday with a larger care package than when he went in.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comment which are always appreciated.

Sue

Craft A Scene - Week 5 Realistic Forest Animals

I'm back again with a second post today, this time for Craft A Scene. There are five Sundays this month so you still have time to take part. For this card I used a green A5 card base and a golden green card  for the matting. I've used Stampscape stamps for the trees and foliage and the Stag is from Indigo Blu. I coloured my scene using Pro markers, and added a sentiment which was made using the PC.

I'm also going to enter this card into the challenge this week over on My Time To Craft, which is Masking. As I stamped and masked the stag before stamping the trees this qualifies for the challenge.

I've just returned from a week away, so have spent the day catching up with washing, ironing and blogging. I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll have time to catch up with a bit of crafting.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue