Time Flies...

Where does the time go? A week into June already and little crafting has been done. We've been away for a few days and after 7 loads of washing, I'm now trying to find excuses to avoid catching up with the ironing .....hence this post!!

Whilst I didn't do any crafting I did add to my stash a little - a box full of card from The Paper Mill shop to replace some of the most used colours and get some corrugated card, linen and leather etc. Then a trip to The Stamp Bug at Hatherop which we happened to pass one day on our way out - and they say women can't navigate!! They're selling off loads of wooden Hero Arts stamps so how could I refuse!! Other than that, I took lots of photos of wildlife, flowers, steam trains etc and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Now it's back to work and exams for 3 of us this week. And maybe catching up with a few challenges and getting inky and possibly distressed....oh no, I hear you cry! Back later in the week with some photos.

Pansies

It's bedding plant time again - for various reasons I always end up being late planting up my pots but it doesn't take long for them to catch up and burst into flower.

I was looking at pansies and all the different colours you can get - I always choose purple ones, no idea why, but I guess it's the closest colour to blue which I always think is a nice companion to the pinks and reds of pelargoniums etc. It made me think of a scrapbook page I made last year.



Don't you just love those colours - purple shading to pink. I used Oak House Studio's Pansy Pot stamp - just the flower part - to create a border and printed a pansy definition on the computer.

Pansies always look jolly so I hope this brightens your day!

Riptide

Here's my entry for the Sunday Stampers Challenge 104 with a theme based on the song Rip It Up and Start Again. Haven't quite sussed out how to put a picture link on my side bar but Hels sets the challenge so go take a look at her blog.

Not sure where the idea came from but riptide came into my head so that's what I've done. A rip current (so the dictionary tells me) is a strong channel of water flowing seaward from near the beach, typically through the surf line, and can occur on any shore that has breaking waves. Well I tried and mine certainly threw up a few shells and things!!



I swooshed Broken China, Faded Jeans, Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint Distress Inks and mopped it all up again to create an angry sea, spritzed with perfect pearls, tore sections to create white crests on the waves and threw a few shells and a starfish into the mix. The stamps are all Oak House Studio ones. They are very detailed stamps but here I used normal gold embossing powder - they look like they've had a troubled life in the waves!!

It's amazing how one word or phrase can lead to so many diverse creations but that's the beauty of challenges!

Nature

Nature's a wonderful thing isn't it. Spring suddenly arrives and everything springs into life - the bulbs come out and fill the garden with colour and all the shrubs take on a fresh green hue.





I have an oak tree in my garden - I planted an acorn about 8 years ago and its now about 4ft tall and growing happily in a pot. Whilst it had budded up, not much was happening until this last week. I took the first photo on the 19th - aren't those tiny oak leaves so cute. The second photo was taken on the 24th - just 5 days later! As I said at the start, nature is a wonderful thing.

Having a bit of a busy week so haven't done much crafting. I am working on something for the Sunday Stampers Challenge - hopefully I'll get that posted later in the week.

Meanwhile hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather.

Red (2)

Having posted my red piece yesterday I've just spotted more red art on Rachel Greig's Darkroom Door blog. It's red mail art which I think looks stunning. It's not something we do a lot of in the UK and I seem to recall years ago Royal Mail insisted on plain white envelopes or else they wouldn't deliver it.

When you go to so much effort to make a beautiful card for someone, why put it in a boring plain envelope. I don't have this set of Darkroom Door stamps but I think I'll give the idea a go.

Watch this space!!

Red

Here's my entry for the Sunday Stampers Challenge 103 on the theme of RED. I vaguely followed Hels piece with sections of colour and t!m's stamps.



The backgrounds are made with the mopping technique using Barn Door, Fired Brick and Worn Lipstick distress inks with a hint of Vintage Photo and sprayed with gold perfect pearls. The stamping is Versafine Sepia, the butterfly is gold embossed and some of the background has been embossed in a numbers folder.

I made a similar card a month of so ago for a friend's birthday - she teaches maths so I thought the numbers were appropriate, she likes butterflies and her favourite place is Dartmoor so I used greens and browns with a hint of blue.

Which leads me to the question of what you all do with your art made for challenges? Do you keep them in a box? Do you hang them on your wall? Do you give them away? Let me know!

Bright or Brrr..

It's been absolutely freezing this week - the sun has been out, the sky has been blue, but that wind is definitely coming down from the north....brrr!

I've got a few busy weeks coming up so I've been trying to do jobs round the house but let's face it, it's not that exciting. Pieces of card and ink pads keep getting in the way. So I've made a start on a bookmark for Craft Stamper magazine's new Trade It swap - it has to be sage, pink and mauve, so I've been painting with Twinkling H20s which I love.

I've also made a set of 3 ATCs for a butterfly swap - here's one of them.


For some strange reason I only seem to have the one butterfly stamp (7gypsies Notting Hill set) and because its bold and silhouettey I went along those lines. I just used Stazon swiped on white gloss card with stamping in Jet Black.
I was going to say it's not my usual style but I'm not sure what that is. Besides I like doing different things - sometimes distressy, sometimes bold etc. It depends on the stamps and what I'm making. What I can't do is fussy - I try occasionally but I never think it looks right.

Let's just hope it warms up for the weekend!