Lino Cut Hares

A quick post today as it has been some time since I shared anything on my blog. I have been lost.
This is a card I made using Hobby Art Lino Cut Hares clear stamp set CS208D.

An easy card as it just required a bit of masking and stamping and colouring with Copic pens.
Happy July everybody x

Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge : September

Time for my entry for the Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge. The September verse is;

Warm September brings the fruit

Sportsmen then begin to shoot

Fruit stamps seem to be in short supply at my house but I have some pears so I thought I would use those for the background with a little country scene as the focal image. I have a Dreamweaver stencil of a pear. A bit of masking, inking and stamping with distress ink and I got my focal image. I masked it out with masking tissue and then stamped the pears and leaves on the background using archival ink and coloured the pears with a distress marker.

Silhouette stamps used were by Hobbyart CS083D Farmhouse Scene-it.

The pears in the background - unknown.

Stencil - Dreamweaver 

Archival inks : Leaf green and potting soil

Distress inks : Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass, Milled Lavender, Dusty Concorde

Happy Weekend everybody x

Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge : May

Here is my entry for the Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge for May.

The verse this month is :

May brings flocks of pretty lambs

Skipping by their fleecy dams

I remembered I had a stamp of a lamb which was a freebie with a magazine. Amazing, I found it! Then I remembered a Hobby Art set that a friend gave to me as she had a duplicate. It is the same set that Claire used on her canvas this month, I recognise those sheep. 

I used distress inks for the background and for some of the stamping, removed the ink from the sheep in the distance with a water brush and coloured the fences and lamb with inktense pencils.

Stamps used:

Card-io Oriental Blossom (branches and leaves).

Hobby Art CS083D Farmhouse Scene-it (sheep, wildflowers and fences)

Rural Springtime from Creative Stamping Magazine issue 23 (lamb)

Next month we will be half way through the challenge and half way through the year, how scary is that!

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : Y

Just for a change from the seasonal wintery and sparkly things, yellow is my word of choice for the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary challenge. To illustrate it I have chosen sunflowers, another summery set of images to brighten up our frosty cold days.

Here is my page:

Stamps used : Hobby Art CS064D Sunflowers

Have a great week everybody and thank you for visiting. x

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : I

I is for Imago.
Definition : Final and perfect stage of insect e.g. butterfly.

This is my entry for the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge letter I.

Stamps used:
Kaisercraft : Butterflies
Hobby Art : Ann's Collection - Just for You

Just a quick post this time as I am running late and wanted to catch the deadline. The next letter in the series has already been posted on the Craft Barn blog and I really want to complete this project. My goodness, where does all the time go!

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : J

My Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 page is done. This time we have been given the letter "J" but have to include a dragonfly. I chose Jigsaw for my dictionary word.

Stamps used:
Hobby Art Butterfly Kisses - Art's Collage
Hobby Art Anna's Collection - Just for you (the tiny dragonfly from the set)
Clarity Stamps - Jigsaw

I stamped the collage image with Memento dye inks in Potters Clay, Peanut Brittle and Paris Dusk twice. Then stamped the jigsaw puzzle image on top and from one of the panels cut three jigsaw pieces. I added the tiny dragonfly to the main image and coloured him with a silver Wink of Stella pen. The definition is outlined with a gel pen.

This was difficult as I really wanted to choose Juggler for my "J" word and do a circus themed page but I couldn't get my brain around that dragonfly. I don't actually have a decent dragonfly stamp, only the tiny sketchy one I used on this page and a similar bigger version. This is odd considering the vast collection of stamps I have greedily accumulated over the years!

Just for You

A quick post tonight to show two cards using my Hobby Art "Just for You" stamp set. I love this set, I have used it many times.

The background of the panel is created using distress stains, shabby shutters and peeled paint, the first two colours I bought and still high on the favourites list. The grasses are stamped with shabby shutters distress ink and the other images in black archival ink. Mounted on lime green textured card.

This one is not an original idea, I saw this one on the Hobby Art gallery and had to have a go as black and white can be so pleasing at times. It's not exactly the same as the example of course.

I hope you like them.

Nautical Knots

I really liked the knot that Chrissie used on her card for the Less is More Challenge : Week 143. The challenge is to use string or twine. Following the instructions in her link I made the knot in bakers twine and it looks nautical so I constructed my nautical card around the knot .
For instructions to tie the knot, follow the link on the Less is More Challenge blog.

Ingredients:
Hobby Art Harbour set - Yacht, sea gulls and water stamps
Background for the focal image coloured with pan pastels and promarkers for the Yacht
Bakers twine
Blue and white cardstock
Anchor charm from a bag of charms bought on ebay

My friend's son has a birthday on Friday so this one will be going to him.

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.

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!

Demos and Inspiration

I so enjoy going along to these demo days that our local craft shops run. It is such a good day out and you come away brain loaded with inspiration and maybe a few new things to add to the stash.
On Sunday I went to The Glitter Pot near Burgess Hill with a friend, we didn't know about the demo days at the weekend until I happened to notice a blog posting from Imagination Crafts mentioning that they would be there. So, a quick bit of organisation, like who picks up who and who is driving and off we went. The Imagination Crafts stencils are so nice and they have brought out some thicker ones that you can use for embossing with a 6x6 embossing mat, interesting.

Fab demo from Kay for IndigoBlu and I resisted buying the Kroma Crackle which was stupid because I think I want some of that, yes, I do want some of that! Kay was amazing, she showed us a demo of the flitter glue and mega flakes then did a one on one for my friend to try it, how kind.

One of the demonstrators was from Hobby Art and she showed us a quick card using some of the elements from the Butterfly Kisses set "Old Crock", a lovely image of an old car. So, I bought the set and Monday morning I had a go. This is the card I made:

Materials and recipe:

Butterfly Kisses stamp set - Old Crock BK-HA008

Background coloured with distress ink, shabby shutters, tumbled glass and edged with vintage photo.

The branches and foliage are first and second generation stamping, I used an old green marker pen.

The car image was coloured with Promarkers.

Mounted on pale turquoise card from Craftwork Cards.

Just as well we had a Bank Holiday on Monday so I had a chance to play. 

Poppy Scene

Wow! It did not rain today after all so I went out for a wander around Borde Hill Gardens, a gem of a place in West Sussex with a particularly nice little art gallery and a great tea room. I just had to share this photo of a poppy I saw today, the blue was stunning.

So on to the artwork. Yesterday I was playing with my Hobby Art Poppy Scene-it set (CS044D). The design for this card isn't entirely my own work as its loosely based on something I saw at The Craft Barn last time I visited. The example I saw had a scene framed with poppies around it so I wanted to have a go at something similar. My scene and poppies are coloured with promarkers and the poppies and leaves cut out and added to the frame. All mounted on red cardstock embossed with a Cuttlebug flower embossing folder.

Having seen the blue poppies today, I think I need to try something in blue.

Hope you are all having a great weekend and a big thank you to all those who comment on my posts, means a lot to me.