I've been away for so long.........

Sorry for neglecting the world of blogging for so long.  I don't know how it happened, it just did!  Well I'm back, hopefully on a regular basis and do have a little work to show.  I have a lot of catching up to do and a lot of blogs to go and visit so you might get some remarks from me on old postings.  My last entry was March, I did so many cards that week and really haven't made many since and if I have I probably didn't take a photo of it......I have of course been sewing as you will see in the next post.  If the weather is nice I sit in the garden, put a cloth over the table and sew, I find it so relaxing, if the weather is bad I either sit here, watch Iplayer or live TV on the computer and paper craft or if I am in cosy mode I sit and watch TV, snuggled under a blanket I either crochet or again, sew.....sometimes I do neither as I have fallen asleep!  I just get into that position with the blanket over me and I am sure that my brain remembers that it was my bed for six weeks when I broke my ribs a couple of years ago and puts me to sleep.......lovely it is, I can sleep for hours!

Not a new stamp, but one of my favourites.  I succumbed and bought some Distress Inks, wanted to see if they were really any different, not sure that they are yet, although I love Ranger Inks anyway, especially the colours.  I am quite sceptical about new things as there is always something similar or even the same already in your stash or something you can improvise with.

 The two images above are better than the finished article below!  This card is for My Sister to give to her friend and I hope she likes it, I always worry a bit when I'm making cards for someone else to give away.  This time (using an old PSX Botanical stamp) I embossed it, which I have never done before and rather like the results.  I used watered down Distress Ink in Faded Jeans, Spiced Marmalade, Dusty Concord and Peeled paint and painted in the colour.  I added Distress Inks around the edge of the image, mostly undiluted.  Glossy Accents were finally added to the petals, this was a new bottle and I love using a new bottle of Glossy Accents!

 Hope to hear your comments....................

Alcohol Inks on Glass

It's a HAT TRICK

three posts in one week!!!!!!!

Inspired by the article in the last Craft Stamper magazine I decided to try out the Ranger Memory Glass that Janette gave me saying "had these for some time now and never really used them, thought you might find something to do with them"....thanks Janette and thanks CS.  You could of course use acetate and get the same effect, but the glass gives the whole card a lovely feel and the glass is cut perfectly square and believe it or not, the glass is less sharp than when you cut acetate.  You could of course use microscope slides, which are a lot cheaper and definitely what I will be buying next time; I saw a pack of 50 for something like £2.00 plus packaging on Ebay.  These pieces of glass were simply covered in two colours of Ranger Alcohol Inks (Butterscotch and Denim).  The blue has become lost when reacting with the butterscotch so mainly looks yellow and green.  On the opposite side I have inked up the stamp with VersaMark clear inkpad and added black embossing powder before melting with a heat gun.  Incidently my clear inkpad was brought back to life with a couple of small spoonfuls of glycerine that cost £0.80 in the chemist....I love saving money on craft, it leaves me more to buy new stamps or papers.

Anyway, gabbling away there.....this is the finished article which I will be handing as the card is rather big  (A4 folded in half horizontally) and I am not sure how the glass will fare through the post.

Hope she likes it :)

FIVE BIRTHDAYS!

  

Every year around the end of January I suddenly panic that I have five birthday cards to make for next week!  I am still in the "keep it simple" mode as I am trying to dedicate most of my crafting time to textiles at the moment as I attend a class every Thursday evening local to where I live and I am getting a bit embarrassed now that I am still on the same project that I started last May.  I still want to make cards, altered art and crochet so as you can tell I am spreading myself a bit thin, lol.  Here are my efforts for this year, four females and one male, the male cards always being difficult ones, but I remembered I could fold origami shirts and I hadn't sent him one before.  I think I've almost exhausted the Tiki Idol stamp for all my male relatives and friends which is a shame as it is one of my favourites and it makes a lovely card every time!

Oh......isn't it Valentines next week....another one to make on the quick!  Anyway......enough of my gabbling, here are my efforts: -

The Same, But Different!
Nothing much to tell here, I dyed the stems with Ecoline and used a rub on for the wording
you can see how I have made the rest of them

And the origami shirt folded with the wrong paper really, but I like this paper and didn't have any real washi paper

Their birthdays are tomorrow and Friday, so Janette if you are reading this, Happy Birthday my Darling x

Simple Cards!

A couple of very simple cards made recently.....

This first image isn't a good one.  The paper was so lovely (Papermania Oriental) that I didn't want to cover any of it up...so that's exactly what I didn't do!!!

This range came with some lovely gold peel-offs, which I never use, but I did fall in love with these ones and added one to the top right hand corner of the insert.

Again, a simple card.  This is a stamp that I borrow from my Sister-In-Law and stamp up a few pieces of card.  Coloured with water colours and a little Glossy Accents added to the flowers, bow adhered with Glossy Accents too as I find organza ribbon difficult to stick and this works a treat.

Leaving card

I was asked to make a leaving card by a friend, it is an A4 size card for everyone in the office to sign.  This image was drawn by my Sister-In-Law and I have used it many times, thank you Janette! 

Sunflower

Another sunflower, I love this stamp!  Coloured with coloured pencils, which act as resist and then sponged inks around the image, distress with craft blade.  The photo is not very good, didn't have my tripod out and took it in night light.

Old PSX Stamp

I never know what to put for a title, lol - always ends up sounding very boring.....A card for my friend's birthday.  I stamped this up about a year ago using my Sister-In-Law's PSX stamp, it is such a fab stamp called "painted lady".  I used different coloured pigment inks applied to the stamp and then clear embossed it.  I added a row of clear embossed flowers at the bottom, I rather like this effect.  I'd like to use this stamp again, so Janette if you are reading this......hint hint!

I've got two cards to do for next week so better get stamping!

Glad to be back!

MY SISTERS BIRTHDAY

It's my Sister's birthday on Friday and to be honest I haven't done much crafting since Christmas - two reasons for this I think.....1)  My craft desk and work space were combined and I moved my work space down into the dining room (temporarily) thinking it would be great to have a desk just for crafting, but I haven't done much at all since I moved.  Usually I am working away, on my computer but looking longingly at inks and stamps and ideas are springing up in my head, so maybe it was a case of out of sight, out of mind and 2) I've quite got into crocheting and have been enjoying sitting in front of the TV, fleece blanket over me and discovering how relaxing it is to sit and crochet little flowers and trying new things out, making my own stitches up.  Maybe now (at last) the weather is warming up a bit I will not need the cozy zone as much, lol  It is my Son's birthday tomorrow, although I have already wished him happy birthday as he lives in Sydney so it is already Thursday morning there....but I sent him a shop bought card....OH NO!!!! I didn't have any ideas for him and time was running out - am I a bad Mother?

The main image was a Craft Stamper freebie and I stamped it into air dry clay, sponged some water spritzed ink over it and then rubbed in a little gilt cream.  I added some glossy accents.....I rather like this stamp.  The background paper is from an old Basic Grey pad.......Anyway I did enjoy making this so maybe I'm back on track and you will see more of me on here once again.

Had to make a card!

Still not properly better, but felt well enough to sit down and make a card yesterday as my niece is going to be 40 next week.....I can't believe that I have a niece that old, I was a very young Auntie (nine years old), my nephew is 43!  I am nearer their ages than my brothers.  I'm afraid that I was Mum and Dad's mistake, lol.  I haven't done anything for so long it seems and I couldn't picture anything in my head so decided to decorate two wooden numbers and make the card around that....hmmmmm not sure if I actually like it, probably because I had so much trouble with it.  I put three layers of matt gold embossing powder on, stamped it and then topped it with a layer of clear UTEE and the gold underneath reacted in rather a nice way.....perhaps you can see it on the next photo?

Coloured Pencils

This card kept changing as I was making it. I started off by stamping the sunflower (an old PSX one) with a dark green raised felt dye ink, but I did this ages ago, so I pulled it out of the box and coloured it with Karisma colour pencils, which gave a nice waxy feel to it. I wiped some VersaCraft pigment ink in cerulean blue onto a craft sheet, spritzed with water and sponged all over the card. The colour pencils made the sunflower image resist the ink. Did the same with Adirondack raised flet dye ink pad in Lettuce and the same with Wild Plum. Wiped the edges with the wild plum putting a bit more around the sides and then spritzed water on it and dried it with a heat gun to stop it bleeding. Mounted onto turquoise perlescent card and matt gold before attaching to cread linen card. Once again, having problems with the photography so uploaded two photos taken on different cameras in different rooms, need to sort this out.

It's That French Woman Again!

It's Shannon's (the girl next door) birthday tomorrow and she will be thirteen and she adores this stamp, she sometimes comes into craft with me and she always tells me that this is her favourite, but I never encouraged her to use it as I thought she was too young, but as she will be offically a teenager tomorrow, thought I would do this for her. I have uploaded both a scanned image and photo taken with a flash.

I stamped the image onto some hammered card and then stamped part of the image onto torn smooth paper in exactly the same colour and matched both images up sticking the paper on with a glue stick. Main image stamped with Adirondack wild plum, coloured in with water spritzed ink pads, added some gold accent beads and highlighted with Glossy Accents.

I also made another card tonight, but it is for my Nephew and his Mum might log into my blog and see it on here before it arrives in the post.

Some old stuff again and keeping the French theme going!

I have two cards to do this week and will upload them when they are finished, but thought I would share with you something old again to keep your interest, maybe it will work, maybe it won't? LOL.

This is an old stamp that I don't even have any more, but have stamped it and scanned it into the computer in case I do want to use it. It was one of my very first attempts at card-making and I remember not like the card very much when I finished, but now I quite like it again, apart from making their lips a bit too severe looking. They look more like they will rough you over down a dark alley :)

Stamped with StazOn and coloured with water colours. Highlighted with glossy accents in places.

Now I haven't done anything new in a few days, but after looking at Brenda's blog, floral fantasies and the card she uploaded, Parisian influences thought I would upload one I have made with the very same stamp. I do think Brenda's has the edge here with the lovely embellishments she had added. Anyway.....it is a really lovely stamp and bought for me by Janette, my Sister-In-Law and it is always a favourite of mine. I have to make another card with this stamp as the girl next door absolutely loves it and although she is only 13 she likes this kind of image. This was made for Emer who just got married. Jon asked me to make it for her for Valentine's day earlier this year. She is a French Teacher and likes anything French... ooh er....ha ha The Image was stamped with Adirondack wild plum ink onto plain white card. The background paper is hand made paper with rose petals in it.

The Patter Of Tiny Feet

Our friends are over from Russia, they got married in Russia in April and are here in England for their honeymoon and a blessing in a church last Saturday. They have just given us the lovely news that Alina is pregnant......This card is to congratulate them. The main image was drawn by my Sister-In-Law, Janette (Jntzworld).
Hair, cup and lips enhanced with Glossy Accents. Dress coloured with pencils and clear embossed - dress adhered with sticky pads.

RECYCLING MATERIALS - TWO CARDS TODAY

Although I absolutely LOVE spending money on new craft items that come onto the market I also like to think that I can use a little imagination and recycle items that you would usually throw in the re-cycling bin and one big area that I find that I use frequently is packaging. The first card that I show here was for Andy's birthday, which was yesterday and although I haven't taken a great photo of it am pleased with how it turned out. Earlier this year I made Jon & Emer's wedding invitations and they had dried pressed roses on them, they were well packed as you can imagine, but I kept back some of the padding which I thought was very like Grungeboard. I inked up the background using normal inks (not distress) with a spritz of water and stamped images & matted onto gold card before attaching to my card. It feels lovely to the touch, rather like suede. I took the second photo with a flash as the first one came out a bit too dark.

The tiles on the second card were made from a piece of plastic that backed some paper to stop it bending during transport. I inked these up with alcohol inks and stamped over the top with Staze-On.

I do apologise to all of those blogs owners that may be promoting products, but I would rather spend my money on new inks, stamps or lovely backing papers.

An Old Card

My friend is visiting from Russia in just over a week and bringing with him his new bride, they got married in Russia in April and are coming here for a blessing and it will be their honeymoon It made me look at some old photos and I stumbled across this card that I made for his birthday a couple of years ago and realised that I like the picture of the butterfly and have never used this technique since. The butterfly was stamped with black ink, but not a StazeOn type ink, one that will bleed, then I coloured it in with chalks and splashed some glossy accents in places. and left to dry. I then dipped a thick paint brush in water and smeared it over the whole picture. The butterfly centre was filled with accent beads. It is very difficult to make cards for guys, but I know him well and knew that he would like this, some men you can give flowery or cute things to and he is one of them.

Usually, when I look back a year or two I find that I have moved onto different things and don't like the old stuff, but not with this one. Hope you like it too!

Today is my sister's 60th birthday and this is her card. Been having a bad couple of crafting days where I don't know what to do and then when I am crafting, everything goes wrong, or I do stupid things, like this card - I stuck the rose on before anything else and then had to slip the main picture in after, doh! Still not sure whether I like it, but I think she will. Janette bought me this stamp and I have used it lots........

Alcohol Inks Today!

Needed to make a card for my neighbour's children to give to their Mum on Sunday and completely had crafters block, all I knew was that there had to be a flower on it! Decided to get out my alcohol inks as I found a nice piece of thick glossy card and was away, then got stuck on what to do, so after making about three or four toppers came up with this card. It was one of those times when you are making it and not liking it and then it only all comes together when it is actually finished.....well I think it has. Have another Mother's day card to make, plus one for my Sister's 60th birthday and then will have to start on wedding invites that I am doing for friends.

Off to knitting club tonight though, so it will have to be tomorrow now.