Summer Meadows

Wow! A heatwave, I do hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine in the UK right now. Here is a little card I made this weekend with a summer theme.

The background is Tim Holtz Distress stains in tumbled glass and peeled paint splodged about to make a hazy summer day in a meadow feel. A bit of antique linen distress ink is applied around the edges to soften it and then some grasses from Hobby Art "Just for You" clear stamp set stamped in peeled paint distress ink. The cow parsley is stamped in sepia archival ink and to finish it off I added a butterfly (Hobbycraft Fly Stickers).

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone.

Music and Lyrics

#3 Music and Lyrics is the theme for the Twinchies challenge this month. Many possibilities, my first thought was to do something with a reggae theme with rainbows and bright colours as its summer but I went for the obvious as I love this little bird stamp from Crafty Individuals. I've used it many times over the years so here it is again:

The background is some music vellum from my stash. I stamped the bird image on the vellum and also on to white card and coloured it with distress markers, peeled paint and tumbled glass. Cut out the frame and the bird and pop them on with pinflair glue.

Crafty Individuals stamp CI-184

I will enter this one in the challenge but may well have a go at another one before the month is out.

Shades of Grey

Less is More have a colour challenge this week, Shades of Grey. They would like to see a minimum of two shades of grey and I think I have managed seven on this card, would have been eight if I had some grey pearls but I didn't so I used white. I put the project on some grey card to take the photo so that is arguably eight different greys. Oh, I popped some red on it too because, after all, it is a poppy.

What I used:
White A6 card : Craftwork Cards
Dark grey textured cardstock : DCWV
Grey floral paper : Craftwork Cards
Silver embossing powder : Ranger
Promarkers : Cool grey 1, 2 and 3
Dewdrop ink : London Fog
Hobby Art CSS001 Bordered Poppies clear stamp
Spellbinders Nestabilities A2 Distressed Edges die
X-Cut corner punch
Tiny pearls from stash
Red Sakura stardust pen

When you list them out, that is a lot of things to make one card!

In an English Country Garden

Well Summer came and I took off to have a look around Nyman's Garden this morning hoping for some inspiration for the Twinchie Challenge #6 : In an English Country Garden. There was plenty of inspiration, so much in fact that I stuck with my original idea but added a second one inspired by this pot .... so English.

These are my twinchies. The top one inspired by the pot has a chalk background in green and blue, the hanging leaves are stamped using peeled paint distress marker, the pot stamped and masked out then the trowel and flowers added. The images are from a Lindsay Mason Design stamp set called Watering Can Scene. The pot is coloured with promarker, the flowers stamped with blue archival ink and liquid pearls added to the centres of the flowers.

The twinchie below uses an image from a Craft Stamper magazine freebie, a really old one but I was really good last weekend and organised all my old free magazine stamps into one box so I can see what I've got. I quite like these blackberries so thought they would make a good focal point for the twinchie. The background is antique linen and mulled lavender distress ink, very pale but gives it that aged look with a hint of colour. I stamped the blackberries twice, coloured them with promarkers and cut them out and stuck them on with pinflair glue. The butterflies and strawberries are elements from a Lili of the Valley stamp, they are tiny, I thought I'd leave them uncoloured to look a bit sketchy. I prefer the second one.

I hope you are enjoying the weather. Don't stay out in that sun too long!