Playing At The Weekend and A Great Technique.

This past weekend I should have been winging my way around the M25 to attend the Monthly Journal Workshop with Eileen Godwin near Rochester. Unfortunately last week I went down with a Flu Virus and was full of cold.  So rather that spreading my germs around I stayed away (I'm sure that I missed something great). At the last Journal Workshop, Eileen taught us a super technique which can used to alter these lovely Mirrors from Ikea. I'm not going to go into details on how this is done as both Eileen and Karen Claire run workshops showing this and another great technique that can be used. I have linked them both so if you are interested you can go and visit their blogs. I really enjoyed making this one and have already started on another.

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

Sue

Craft A Scene Week 3 - Let It Be Spring

Nothing says springtime to me more than to see the Daffodils opening their yellow heads to the sun. There are plenty about along the roadsides and in the gardens now, which is why I decided to use them on my card this week. I started with the Daffodil stamp which is from Chocolate Baroque and the masked them off while I overstamped with stamps from Hobby Art to create this Cottage in the Country scene. I then coloured it in using Aqua coloured pencils, before mounting onto matching card. So far I've not added a sentiment, but it looks to me like it would make an ideal New Home Card.

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

Sue

Golden Wedding Anniversary

I was recently asked if I could make five golden Wedding Anniversary cards for a friends Mum and Dad. As we know the couple as well, I ended up making six and I'm glad to say they are all different. This is one that I made from us, using the Harlequin Rose stamp set from Chocolate Baroque. This set make such romantic card, and is Ideal for Anniversary's. I stamped the rose with versamark and embossed with Wow fine gold embossing powder, then coloured it in with promarkers. I swiped some ink from Stampin up, around the edges of the topper. The colour I used was Crushed Curry. Using the same colour on a piece of backing paper printed form the Love letters downloads, also from Chocolate Baroque, I then over stamped using the Leafy Heart from the same stamp set. Again I went around the edges of the paper with the ink pad. The sentiment dies are by Rob Addams, these I cut out twice, once in gold and again in black and off set the gold on top on the black. The corner die from Marianne., and the ribbon from my stash.

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

Sue

Wedding Card

I can't believe that most of the week has passed before I've had time to get back and post the card that I made for Vicky and David's wedding. Thank you for all of the wonderful comments you left. I actually made six cards in total, for various family members to give them. I managed to make them all different too. For this card I used a Lili Of The Valley stamp, and also dusted of my fancy Spellbinders Dies. I stamped the image onto some lovely matt card and coloured with water colour pencils. The backing paper is from A Joanna Sheen CD (Thomas Kinkade I think). The swirl is from a Marianne die and I made up a mini bouquet of roses that I've had in my stash for ages, then added a ribbon to match. This week I've been making Golden Wedding Anniversary cards, five for the same couple and again all different. I just have one more to make now (that will be from me) making six in total.

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

Sue

One Beautiful Bride - Two Very Proud Parents

After a very hectic couple of weeks, the big day finally arrived. We got up Saturday morning to gorgeous sunshine, and prayed that it would stay fine for the day. My Daughter Vicky and bridesmaid and future sister-in-law Daisy stayed the night at the wedding venue, so all hubby and I had to do was turn up and get changed. The wedding was set for 2.30 and both the Bride and Groom looked very calm and relaxed, the same could not be said for hubby and I, who said that we both felt more nervous than our own wedding day 33 years ago. Everything went so smoothly, the registrar who married them was a family friend on the Grooms side and knew them both, I think this made them more relaxed. As all mothers I had a few tears when she walked down the aisle, and I'm sure you'll agree with me Vicky looked Stunning in her dress (my son said he had to look twice to make sure it was his sister). Hubby and I were so proud of Vicky, and also David our new son-in-law who we welcome to our family with open arms, along with his own family. I'm glad to say the sun shone all day long, although having the photos taken outside was a little chilly. The happy couple are off to the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon, so it will be a bit warmer for them there.

I was  going to add the wedding card that I made for them both, but have decided that I will leave that until later. Thanks for taking the time to look today.

Sue

Wedding Guest Book

With my Daughter's wedding now only a week away I thought I would show you the Guest Book that I've decorated for the big day. Whilst in Hobby Craft with my daughter a couple of weeks ago looking for table confetti she saw a Wedding Guest Book she liked. So I bought the book for her, (£14.99, not that I begrudged that) but on closer inspection when we got home, we noticed the pages had ink splats on them. Something that looked as though it had happened during the manufacture of the book. So the next day I returned it to the store, and as it was the last one I opted for a refund. Whilst wandering around looking for inspiration on what else I could do instead, I found this white book (cover as well), what Hobby Craft called a scrapbook. As this was only £5.00 I decided to buy it with a view to decorating it. This is what I came up with. I first covered the back and front with this pale green backing paper, it has very pale roses on it and I overlaid in MCS a text sheet with the words Wedding Day printed over it, after I took the opacity down so that it's very faint. I fixed it with glue and seal from Ranger. The large corners are from Tonic, the letters are from dies from Rob Addams and lastly the flower dies are from Crealies. I added some gems to the butterflies on the corner dies and the centres of the flowers. The ribbon is already part of the book. I must confess that I have one of these little scrapbooks as a journal, the paper in them is quite good quality and they are just the right size too. I've not shown it to her yet, although I did tell her what I had planned for the front, I just hope she likes it.

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

Sue

Craft A Scene - Week 3 Favorite Technique

It's week three over on the Craft A Scene blog and we are still asking for you scenic cards using your favourite technique. Like before I've made a card using a background that I had made for stamping scenes onto. As soon as I saw the colours on this piece I thought of Storms and this wonderful Oak Tree stamp from Sheena Douglas, along with the words. With the wet and windy weather we've been having here in the UK recently it seem quite apt. Along with the swirls of blue on the background I also over sprayed with some Glimmer Mists, then stamped the tree with Versafine Black Onyx. The couple standing under the shade of the tree was from a set from Inkylicious. I then went around the outside of the page with Chipped Sapphire distress ink, and put in the shadow of the tree with Black Soot. There are so many areas in the UK that have flooding at the moment the shadows could well be reflections. I hope any of you that are reading this have not been affected by the awful flooding and that you are all keeping safe and dry.

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

Fantastic Day Out

Sunday morning my alarm clock sang out at me at 6.30 a.m. Just as I was about to turn over I remembered that I was going to Kent to attend another of Eileen Godwin's wonderful Journal Workshops.With Eileen, there we only five of us but what a fantastic day we had. I'd gone armed with my Gelli plate and a lemon, both of which Eileen said we would be using. However once there Eileen showed us two wonderful projects, one she made while attending a workshop held by the talented Karen Buckle, and one Eileen had made herself very similar but using a different technique that she found on You Tube. Both were stunning and of coarse we wanted to know how she had made them. She gave us a rough idea on Karen's method and then set about instructing us how she made the second. What better way could there have been than getting our hands dirty and trying it out for our self's. I'm not going to go into lengthy details but it involved, White Card stock, Embossing Folders, Black Gesso, Glue and Seal and Inka Gold paints, oh and some die cuts. The picture below was my result, which was done in my new larger Art Journal. Eileen has posted the other three ladies pages on her blog, we all done some thing different so do pop over and take a look and don't forget to take a look at Eileen's project that she made, or Karen's workshop photo's. Needless to say the Gelli plates were put away unused.

Thank you for taking the time to look, and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Lavinia Challenge - Blue, Lilac or Both

I missed the last two challenges over on the Lavinia Challenge blog, so I was determined this month to get something made. The challenge is use Blue, Lilac or Both, and I just happened to have a background made with Blue and Lilac (I made some Christmas cards using this colour background). I used the Creeping Vine, Felicity, Cobweb and Fern stamps and black versafine ink to stamp them. I'm hoping that I've given the feeling of dawn and Felicity sprinkling fairy dust onto the cobwebs.

I'm counting the days down now until the big day when my Daughter gets married on the 1st March. Tonight we are off out with the female family for a girly evening meal, then she's got her Hen Night next weekend with her friends and the bridesmaids. There seems to be a hundred and one things still left to do, but I'm sure that everything will go fine on the day.

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

Sue

Craft A SCene - Make A Scene Using Your Favorite Technique

The beginning of February and it's time for a new challenge over on the Craft A Scene blog, and this month we're asking for you scenes to be made using your favourite technique. My favourite technique is making backgrounds to stamp scenes onto. I start with my glass cutting mat ( a heat resistant mat would do just as well), and then either using spray inks or ink pads I put the colours I want to work with on to the mat. I then spritz with water and take the card and lay this onto the colours, you can re-spritz with water and the affect you get will be a lighter shade of the one taken previously. I love the random look that this gives and after stamping and bit of shading with distress inks you can make scenes just like this one. The stamps I've used are from Chocolate Baroque, Sheena Douglas and Inkylisious and they were stamped using distress ink pads. I hope that you'll have time to pop over to the blog and take a look at the cards that the rest of the design team have made for your inspiration, and make a scene for us using your favourite technique.

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

Stamping Sensations - Wings, Fantasy and Fiction
Creative Inspirations - Stamping

Thank you for taking the time to look, and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue