After eight? no any time will do

I finally got a chance to sit and play this afternoon so I thought I would just make this little holder for after eight chocolate mints...Alternatively you Could use it for any flat chocolates or tea bags or coffee sachets.

I have the large and small g45 french country paper pads now I have had them some time..they have been looked at and stroked an awful lot ..I have used some...but not much ha ha and its time to start using them can't justify buying any more until its mostly gone and CHA is coming up and there is sure to be sonething something new lol.

I made some little pockets inside to hold the choccies I think I will enter this in the following challenges

Fussy and Fancy Friday....chocolate

&

Sweet Lilac Flowers....buttons and Lace

Happy 18th

Hi all  It's nearly here - Are you ready yet?

I think I am all done just some last minute food to get on Tuesday from the butcher and baker - don't need the candlestick maker - I am posh I have electric lol.
So I came her to sort out my next offering for the January Claritystamp challenge so that I wont be on the last minute - it being Christmas and all - you never know what's gonna happen, and I found this picture that I had uploaded but never blogged.

It was for an order - young man turning 18 and it had to have Matthew B on it.  So I hadn't a clue what to do then I found a brick wall gelli print in my stash - so handy them prints lol.  So I used the Claritystamp shapes and letter box set to make the Banner and the word Grandson - the small happy birthday at the top is just a sentiment stamp from my ever growing stash of stamps.  I inked through a number stencil I once bought from craftwork cards.  The background stamping is a large stamp like ledger paper from Indigoblu and the blots and rings are also Indigoblu./

Right going to post this then get back to the job in hand.

Glitter and sparkle

Yesterday's lunch was a good laugh and it was great to see the girls - we all used to work together for many years and I was "boss" to four of them so  it's great to keep in touch every now and again .

For today's little jaunt I am off to the craft club over at the Craft Range this afternoon for an afternoon of play 

I made this card for a card swap group that I am in .its a variation on a theme - I do love purple and this butterfly montage stamp.

This one was stamped onto pearlised lilac paper I think I used shaded lilac distress ink and then embossed with clear.  I stamped it twice then cut out the little butterflies and the tag shape and layered these up.  I stamped again onto acetate and silver embossed then cut out the butterfly.  I added glue and glitter.  the background is stamped with a clarity sprig - its a bigger version of the little leaves you can see under the word butterfly.  I created some glitter background for matting and layering with ds tape and some glitter.

Oh well best get a wriggle on and do some chores and pack my truck ready for this afternoon!

1 today

Morning all...well look at this another day another blog -- no I haven't been busy this is a card I made for an order the other week and was sat in my Camera!!

I am off out for lunch with friends today but before that I must set to and retrieve my crafty stuff from everywhere around the house I can't put it all back in its normal place as I should really be tidy for Christmas but I still have a week before the big day so time to do some more playing !!!

I was asked to make a first birthday card for a grandson - now this proved to be a bit of a challenge - as you know I love stamping but I don't have anything childlike in my mahoosive collection lol

So if in doubt get the Serif out.  I don't have mega numbers of digi kits but can usually cobble something together with all the free ones that I do have and a few that I have bought.  My thoughts were to use a big number one on the front of the card.  so I created the back ground then added a number one and made it big - the large text is an alphabet in a mexico set - all brightly coloured so I recoloured it to blue.  I added the mobile from another set .  I also printed these out twice one another sheet to cut out and layer up -- I did the same with --today-- added the text top bottom and in the circles .

I have another couple of cards that I have "found" in my camera so I will blog these before Christmas so watch this space.

Butterfly Birthday

Hello everyone - Oh haven't I been a bad blogger - it's been an age.  

I am sat here not doing anything - all my stuff is scattered all over the house as I decided that I must get the downstairs carpets cleaned - cream carpets - WHY did I pick cream?  As many of you know I craft at my dining room table (we have to eat on our knees now)  You can never see the table for all the stuff piled on it, around it and under it - so you can imagine the state of the carpet - bits of sticky stuff that I have missed when I dropped it and it had gone black - speckles everywhere and the lovely man has got rid of them all - I am very impressed.  He is in the other room now - that wont take as long as no mucky jobs go on in that room lol. I can't put my stuff back until tomorrow when the carpets have had time to dry properly so I thought I would use my time to upload some photos so that I could do some blogging.  Methinks I might not get much crafting done between now and Christmas except I must do my offering for the Claritystamp challenge blog  - the one that goes live 1st January  - not got it sorted yet .  

Anyway this is a card I made the other week - I think I made it for my niece's birthday.  

 I had the gelli print in my stash so decided that would be my starting point .  I have obviously silver embossed the butterfly montage and I am almost certain I did it on acetate.  I suspect that the background to it was the remnants of the gelli printing session picked up on double sided sticky sheet,I love that trick you get some lovely stuff.  I laid this on some silver mirri  card. Stamped the butterfly mantage again and the smaller butterfly is a stamp on its own.  Added a bit of ribbon and some sweet lilac flowers .

Beer? Footy? Whose your team then?

So a man's card today.  I originally made a version of this card for my son in law then sent it to him and forgot to take a pic!  Anyhow he's a Blackburn Rovers fan and I did it in Blue and white.  Then I was talking to my SIL Margaret - my crafty mate - some of you know her - and she mentioned that my Nephew had gone to watch a rovers match - she didn't know why as he was a United supporter --ding ding  light bulb!!

So his birthday has passed now and I can share this with you - how many men drink beer and support a footy team - birthday cards --simple just make em in their team colours!!

the central stamp is either from LOTV or Little Claire? and the others were a freeby on creative stamping mag absolutely ages ago.  central panel is 15 x 15 ( makes it easy to cut squares lol)

Scene Building

Well hello there - I cannot believe that we have got to December already - it seem only a couple of weeks ago that I was asked would I be a DT member for the Claritystamp Challenge blog and here we are at the final challenge of the year No. 10 as we started way back in March - really? yes really where has this year gone?

Haven't we seen some beautiful cards and projects posted by not only by the rest of the DT team but from you guys too - the standard is astonishing, and what can we say about Claritystamp itself - this year has seen the introduction of ------THE GELLI PLATE --- OH YES -- I love mine and I do play with it but I need to play more to get to grips with it properly - I keep looking at Sam Crowe's blog and just wishing I could get to grips like she has - she does some fabby stuff it's no wonder Barbara picked her to be the gelli queen for her design team. Then following on from that came the Stencils - now I know there are lots out there but I have a lot of Clarity stamps so nothing teams up as well as a Clarity stencil - I now have a selection but I fear these will be as addictive as the stamps aaahhhh - more expense.  Then Barbara started blogging - oh boy can she blog! lots of excellent pictures and words to tell us how she has done things - fantastic and of course on Tuesday's I wait expectantly to see the next chapter in the Claritystamp history - so interesting especially if you are a nosey cow like me.

Anyway I think that's probably enough of waffle from me for today - and on to Challenge 10 - build a scene!  Now if you have been following my challenge posts you will know that I have done quite a few scene cards and projects so this should have been a doddle right? wrong - could not think of a single thing to do  but here is the finished article and I will explain how I got her below if you want to see........

On Thursday 14th October as I was driving home from the craft club I was looking at the sky - quickly as I was on the motorway - wish I could have stopped to take a pic - anyhoo it was all blue and pink - gorgeous it was.  Then the light bulb went on.  Could I replicate on the gelli plate with inks?mmm I wonder so off I went to try.  I used the technique with the cotton wool that we use to create a resist technique on shiny card.  So I put down some blue added some stringy bits took a print on copy paper - this wasn't what I was after.  I removed cotton wool and took another  mmm not bad but still a bit ..blue?! so then I took a third - hurrumph not enough - just bits but I persevered next time with pink.  the final print now started to come to life so I carried on and did it several time till I had built up a lovely sky - well I thought so.  The second print wasn't bad --I kept using the same three sheets-- but it wasn't as subtle. ................Anyway I thought black might be a bit harsh for the stamping although in real life on the motorway the landscape was very very dark but I continued with browns then....hated the scene I created.  So I tried again with black on the second, brighter print --still not happy so they were not good enough to be put on the challenge blog.  I will have another go at this when I have more time though as I was quite impressed with my little self lol

On 

So I walked away from the table that day and revisited the next day and thats how I finished up with my purple offering now if I could have replicated the scene I created on that one using my sky from the third print I probs would have been a happy bunny but these things are sent to try and test us and from our mistakes and mishaps we learn and grow.  I just thought I would share my mistakes cos we all make 'em.

Happy Crafting  xx

Craft range Christmas Party samples

Last night was there was a bit of a Christmas party night over at the Craft Range - I wasn't doing any demonstrating but a couple of weeks ago,  Janet Banks chucked some white circles at me (not literally but almost lol) and asked me would I do a few samples as she would be demoing the system.

I went over last night, sat and watched and heckled her demoing he he he  then had a nosey around talking to other crafters, mince pie, fruit punch - I enjoyed my little self. I then got a phone call today to say I have won a raffle prize - there were quite a few goody bags so I will have to wait and see what I get.

Anyway  I just thought I would share what I made with you  - I am off to my last fair of the year tomorrow at a Nursery attached to Chorley Hospital 9 - 1 so then I can put all my fair stuff away until next year. When I come home I will have to sit down and write my Christmas cards with the stock I have left in order to catch the last post on Monday by the  Scouts who deliver in the local town for just 20p - cheaper - which is cheaper than petrol costs for driving round lol .  What will I do if I haven't enough cards left I here you ask....well I will do what lots of other card makers do ----go out and buy some stupid isn't it.

Happy crafting xxx

circles birds

I have just been looking at the fussy and fancy blog  and they have a call out for a new design team member so I thought I would re schedule this post in order to link it back.

Hello there strangers ...It's been a while hasn't it ?

Hey ho that's how it goes I have been busy crafting  but don't seem to have had the time to take the pics and load them up and then blog them but that's life I guess - it gets in the way of crafting lol.

So what have I been up to since last time?  Well I did the fair at Oswaldtwhistle Civic Hall and it  was a good day and they have a craft club on a Wednesday so  I will be doing a demo/card making session with them next March, so I am looking forward to that.  I have been in conversation with Janet from the Craft Range and I will again be doing workshops there next year but we are going to try Wednesdays and Saturdays and see how they go .

On Saturday I had a craftilicious day at the Claritystamp Northwest  workshop with Maria Simms - we always have a great time with fabby projects ...such fun xx

I made this card the other week using one of the new Claritystamp aperture stencils - just and easy one I just used the aperture and then offset the inner to one side.  I used two tones of purple to ink with my clairity stencil brushes then added a couple of stamps.  I then took the "edge" off the edges before mounting on the card.

Hopefully If I get chance I will schedule a few more posts in the coming days.  but I have a busy week ahead I have a Christmas fair this Thursday evening at Crown Paints here in Darwen (where I used to work) and then  I have another fair over in Houghton on Saturday so its all go.

Last workshop of the year

It's the last Wednesday in the month tomorrow so I will be at the Craftrange running my monthly workshop.   Just got the morning session this month but it is full so if you are not booked already - you are too late.

This will be the last one of the year - but like Arnold - I will be back

probably around the last Wednesday in January - we are also planning some for Saturday's so fingers crossed.

Thanks to all my lovely ladies who have helped to make the workshops a success by keep coming back for more of my bossiness!! Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year to those of you I won't see and hopefully see some of you on Thursday evening at the shop's Christmas Party !!

Here are the two cards we will be making tomorrow.

This months theme is based on a set of  travel stamps from Clearly impressions I thought they would come in handy for men's cards.  The top one focuses on the train but you could easily change the central image!

The second card is inspired by the lovely Tracey Dutton from Lavinia stamps  so I hope it passes muster!!

 I have also used elements from the Andy Skinners set of stamps .. A Winters tale that we have used before.

For this workshop I have used :-

Black archival ink

and the following Adirondak dye based inkpads

BLACK

STONEWASH

DENIM

EGGPLANT

but you could use distress inks - black, pale blue, darker blue, purple.

I have also used a make up sponge or you could used ink brushes - please bring your favourite and of course your trusty brayer and splodgeaway or ink blending mat.

Hope to see you all there ... happy crafting Linda xx

gelli ladies

I don't think I have blogged these two lovely ladies so here they are.

I did these some time ago and came across them when I was faffing with the other gelli prints so I  have turned these into cards too.

These were a couple of my first attempts with ink on the gelli plate after seeing Tracey Dutton using inks .

I tried stamped the lady on a mask, sticking it onto the gelli and then doing the ink, then stamping her in the space but I found it left too much of a halo for me so I stamped her on the card and masked her first.  then I inked up the gelli and pulled a print - that's why she is white ( I have coloured her in now lol ) 

I tried stamping the sprigs and lupins on the gelli on the lilac one but decided they were better stamped directly onto the card so the lilac one is a mix whilst the bottom on is stamped directly onto the card.

no gelli just ink

Here I am again  I am like a bus (I know literally as I am big lol) nothing for yonks then loads a posts all at once.

Another inky print I made into a card and forgot to photograph.

I inked through the aperture stencil to form the middle of the oval, then I inked through the trellis stencil leaving it lighter around the oval.  I used the middle of the oval aperture and added some brown adirondak to leave the pattern and then I stamped  the tree over the top in the same ink but  you could really see the lines through the tree so I overstamped with archival ink and that was better - if you look close you can still see but as my dear old Mum used to say - a man on a galloping horse will never notice !

 I stamped around the edge with the little sprig and archival.  I think when I made it into a card I distressed the edges with some more brown ink

more inky gelli

Two more prints for today - two more I made into cards and forgot to  take pics.

for this first one I covered the gelli in pink - added the trellis and pulled the print then I pulled the ghost which is the one I have used.  I then put the stencil back onto the print  and added some pink to one side and blue to the other with a stencil brush I removed the stencil and added blue all around the edge, stamped with archival inks on the top .

I love this one don't know why but I do.  I randomly splodged some ink on the gelli, then I stamped the leafy swirl in the middle , pulled a print.  I took the middle of the square aperture stencil from Clarity  and inked through with some more red ink to add the hexagons .

Gelli inks

Morning as promised here 's another post from me.

I did these prints when I was at the craft club and I have since made them into cards but forgot to photograph them and now they are all wrapped in cellophane bags - too reflective to take piccies !

If you look the second pick is a ghost of the first one - I used adirondaks on the gelli with a couple of Clarity stencils then I used archival ink to stamp directly onto the pulled prints.  I used the same ink as the gelli print to colour a scrap of paper to make the rolled rose in the middle of the top pic.  I did think about colouring in the floxgloves but I quite like them as they are.  I will post a couple more for tomorrow xx

purple butterfly

Good morning  I was up at the crack of doom today so after spending time on Fb and catching up on other blog posts I have just made another cuppa and time to share some cards with you.  I had hoped to do these yesterday but time ran away, so here I am now and I will schedule a few as its going to be a busy few days coming up.  

I have a friend coming for coffee this morning  and I need to run an errand this afternoon, tomorrow I have a stall at a Christmas Market at Crown Paints - where I used to work - then I have another fair on Saturday and oh the dreaded weekly shop to fit in and the prep for my next workshop over at Craftrange next Wednesday - you can see what we will be doing if you hit the craftrange tab at the top!.

So this is a card I made for my lil Sis her birthday was at the weekend.

I got out the lovely gelli plate and used some lilac's white pearl silver metallic and some purple metallics now don't ask in what order I did what as I have no idea   I haven't had much time to play with them (yes I have two) but I love it and just go with my instincts till It's either a keep or a whizzy lol

So I made the background on the 6 x 6 and then I used the ghost but this was a bit patchy for the square in the middle.  I cleaned the plate with double sided sticky - I wanted this - I do love this trick.  I then stamped and embossed in silver the montage, twice and the smaller butterfly once and stuck them onto the ds stuff, added talc to the sticky side so it was good to go and added a few flowers and bit of purple ribbon.  

monochrome again

I think this might be my last Christmas card for a bit - feeling a bit like I could do with doing something else and I know I have a few family birthdays later this month and next so I may put my Christmas stuff to one side for a bit - well unless of course I am mega busy on Saturday at the craft and and table top sale over at Oswaldtwhistle Civic Hall. - if you are nearby - bob in and see me it would be nice to have a chat x.

Another background made with that woodware stamp - I love it  - makes a great peice of paper - in fact I did just that then cut it up to cover  a box to sell as a gift box.  the tree is from Indigoble and the snowflake is a Claritystamp one x

Noel

Another card in the series designed so I can add a special verse at the point of sale

I embossed the Noel with clear embossing on top of cobalt blue archival - you gotta be quick lol.  I ten just built up the scene and matted and layered on another piece of card and random stamped second generation cobalt with the snowflake

jig saw

I have been a bit tardy on my blog so a short pit stop to schedule a couple of posts whilst I continue to make stuff for my up coming christmas craft fairs.

I have made lots of cards and also a few gift boxes and candles so lets hope they are busy lol.

This card was inspired by a sample (on one of the Claritystamp shows) by Lynne Hammond It is all on one level and the "cut out" piece isn't cut out but a separate stamp.

I stamped using cobalt blue archival and used some stone wash for the "hillocks" I added a bit of glitter on the hillocks too but it doesn't really show in the pic xx

Clarity challenge November - Christmas

Well here we are again the 1st of the month and time to post my inspiration for the Claritystamp Challenge blog.  What a month it has been .... First of all it was The great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate then the following week it was that fantastic Clarity weekend on the telly then some lucky people went to the Dome in Doncaster and finally this last weekend it was the SECC in Glasgow - all in all a very busy week for team Clarity and then to top it all  our Barbara launched her own blog - and wow what a blog ..fantastic inspiration and instructions on a daily basis - magic and finally the Challenge blog got a whole new facelift with a direct link to Barbara's blog &  her workshop listings together with all manner of other links.

Wow last month's entries - what to say except WOW WOW & WOW... such an amazing set of entries; how to pick my favourite 5 nigh on impossible; I spent ages and ages looking, gazing reading the blogs and just generally studying form so to speak.. but my contribution to the top 5 gets added to the other design team members top 5 and eventually they are selected.  So if you are one of them many congratulations and to the winner too.

So far this month's theme Christmas .......sometime ago I went to a workshop where I made a star book and as I have finally ..after several years of collecting...amassed the whole collection of the twas the night stamps so I thought I would combine the two and here is my effort.

The book itself is made in Navy blue card stock with an inner sleeve of silver mirri card.  each section was layered with two ripped pieces of white card each edge with a bit of blue and several sponged hillocks in blue and I added glitter, and some fir trees.  the "sky" was stamped with snowflakes, embossed in white and a gem in each one.  I then stamped,coloured matted and layered all  10 stamps and put them in order within the book. the back of the book was just stamped and embossed in silver whilst I made a separate topper for the front and used the letter box kit to make the title.  I threaded random bits of white and silver ribbon through the spine and tied them in a knot at the top.

Baubles

A bit of a different take on things but still a tag for the sentiment.

I decided to use that woodware background stamp again but this time in blue.. the last card gave me the idea.  so I did the blue on white then I embossed white on blue.  mmmm needs something on top....oh yes I know I got some stamps on a magazine that fit the heirloom dies from Spellbinder so I embossed white on white (doesn't show in the pic - rubbish photographer) then I cut them out and "hung" them from the top of the blue layer with silver cord.  the white sentiment will cover up most of the writing on the tag but at least it will match the rest of the card as it didn't look right just in blue.

more monochrome

Another card -----another house 

This Claritystamp doesn't have a frame around so using the same trick as yesterday's card I just drew a square using the stamped sky as a size. More little hillocks an dear and then I used the snowflake stamp from the same set as the dear to fill in the white.   Oh and there is glitter again 

A winter's view

Another in my series 

The house is a Clarity stamp but has an edge all the way round so I masked off the bottom so there was no line this allowed me to extend the view.  I continued the lines around the sides down and across to form a square.  I added some "hillocks" with black ink and a couple of the Claritystamp dea.

The background has been made with a Woodware background stamp.

Let it snow

So I am busy making Christmas cards ready for the up coming fairs I will be attending.  So far I have done mostly packs of cards to sell together but now I must move on and make some proper cards.  I came up with this idea of leaving a matt in place and I have lots of pre printed sentiments that I can add on the stall - I put a label on top of the cello bag over the tag that says to pick a sentiment for example Merry Christmas Mum & Dad.  so if some of my up and coming cards look a bit odd that's why.

So a simple card just stamped in archival blue using Claritystamps a bit of shading and though you can't see it some glitter but I did have to colour Mr. Robin - he couldn't be blue could he?

18th birthday - daughter

Here is the other half of yesterday's commissioned card order

I used pearlised card for this one .  I used my computer to generate the writing and changed the colour to "silver" its not silver really but as near as you can get a print to be!.  the number stamps are embossed with some sparkly embossing powder.

The flowers are a from two Chloe stamps (large and smaller) which I embossed with the same powder then cut out and layered up then finished off with some very blingy middles from creative expresssions.  The leaves are a pink frog die as are the butterfiles.  I covered the butterflies in versamark and embossed those two.  I ran another piece of pearl card through an a4 embossing folder  and made a box .

18th Birthday

Morning all - thought I would just take a couple of minutes to blog this card.  I was struggling to come up with an idea for an 18th birthday card for a girl and in the end - thanks to a couple of suggestions from fb friends this is what I came up with . - me and masking ---again.

I decided to use the Claritystamp balloon to frame my letters so I had to stamp each one, then emboss and then mask before I could go onto the next one and the balloon as a ribbon attached - you can see some of it in parts  so the masking became very important - lol.  I then coloured them in with probmarkers before adding the numbers and letters - Clarity again .  I stamped the champagne glasses - Inkwell stamps - and the word celebrated together with the twiddles and stars - no idea whose stamps - had them ages.

I then laid the trellis mask from Clarity over the top (after masking off the balloons - again and the wine glasses) and used victorian velvet distress ink to add a background.

I added glossy accents to the bubbles and the balloons and left to dry..............and then...............Oh no....................I dropped a box right on top of the glossy accents balloons ...............the air wasn't blue ...honest.

So I picked myself, dusted my self off and started all over again !

more g45

Sunday today and I will probs be taking Grumpy out for a run in the car somewhere so I thought I would just show you the second card that I made at the craft club on Thrusday.

Here is another of Kim Bacon's fancy fold cards using up some more of the G45 papers the stamps are all from Clarity

Nothing much more to say on this one - think I said it all yesterday ... Have a great day folks

G45 and fancy folds

So today is the day I pack up my little truck, collect my mate and set off for a lovely play day over at Locstock Hall near Preston for a Clarity Northwest workshop with the lovely Maria Simms.  I love these days we have such fun and crafty friends arrive from all over it is just brill and we make some fabby projects - cos our Maria is well clever. So I shall leave you with today's offering from me.



The other day I saw a great card on facebook  but I was on my phone and then the next day on my lappy I couldn't find it grrr anyway my friend Moira found it an tagged me.  so I got to go the blog and check it out.  so this card and the next are inspired by Kim Bacon  and here is her blog After that I was watching a recording of Sheena Douglass on the telly and it popped up amongst the samples.

So here is my version :-

Now I had a little play with some scrap card and decided that I didn't like how Kim's had no"back" behind the pop out bit so I decided to add a bit, then when it was folded up ..it was an odd size for an envelope so my versions ends up as a 15cm x 15 cm version.

I made this one at the craft club on Thursday afternoon - can you see I am also using up some more of the G45 pad?.  I didn't quite know what to stick on the front but then my mate Liz says what about this ere bird stamp I just got it I think it would look OK?
How right she was ( so while I was there I stamped and embossed a few more for future use lol).

I have left a spare space on the end panel for folks to write a message in .  I am  quite chuffed how this came out - whaddya think?

12 days of Christmas G45

 So when I was at Port Sunny I just had to get a graphic 45 pad for Christmas - I love their papers and you can just sit and stroke them for ages.....before putting them away again.

I am actually a bit useless at making cards with paper and I got an 8 x 8 size pad cos I knew it was for cards and not scrap booking.  but look you just don't want to cut into them and if you did where would you chop it down??

So I have made 7 cards from the front of some of the sheets and I have a cunning plan for the backsides lol.  So whilst these are not very exciting cards to me maybe somebody will like them on my stall. I have a fair at the beginning of November