Happy Hens - Sunday Stamper wk 250 - Thursday 28th March

Sunday Stampers week 250 Challenge and a give away!

Good Morning Friends,

Thank you all for visiting and leaving comments, I really do appreciate them all! As some of you saw from my WOYWW post yesterday, I was busy with my melt pot first thing in the morning. I like to make quite a few items  at a time and keep them in a box ready to use..there was a lot of flower dipping yesterday and one of the seahorses is for my next Emergency Crafters DT post for next tuesday. The turquoise seahorse sadly met an abrupt end when it fell off my desk along with  a few heavy items and smashed :( so it's back in the box for re-melting.

Whilst on the subject of the seahorse, a few of you asked me about moulds and what they are - well the ones I am using are basically for clay modelling and are readily available in craft stores. The ones I have, I have had for a while and got from The Stamp Bug, a lovely little country stamp shop, tucked away in the village of Hatherop near Cirencester. They only open Mon-Fri and we are usually near there at weekends, so we wait of their 'open weekends' - but they have a shop online with lots of lovely moulds - visit: http://www.thestampbug.co.uk

And so to my Sunday Stamper project for this week! Hels set us the challenge of adding something shiny to our creations and nowadays at the mention of something shiny I reach for the melting pot. I started out to create a canvas with a Venetian feel and made two casts from a mask and Venetian mascot mould (Lion statue), but then had a complete change of mind, so they are in my box for another time!

Enjoying my morning coffee break, looking at our hens scurrying around the garden and then racing to the back door as soon as they saw I was watching them - in the hope of a grape of blueberry treat - I decided to create something whimsical and light hearted instead and came up with this little scene...

It's a wall hanger featuring our girls..well stamps coloured in their honour! I started off by die cutting the frame with two pieces of decent weight kraft card sandwiched together for extra strength. Then I die cut a slightly smaller shape with polka dot card. The top layer is kraft card, to which added a brick effect mask whilst it was still in the die and then  stained with Picket Fence distress stain. The photo below shows this slightly better.

The hen stamp is by Magnolia. I used Spellbinders Decorative Chateau Gate as the window, which I decorated with dotty paper curtains. The flowers were made using Spiral Blossom One and the little button a cookie cutter - all given the melt pot treatment.

 I hope you like my little bit of fun! There's still time to enter and this week Hels has some goodies to give away - link from above or the photo on my sidebar to the right.

I started this post this morning and am finishing after work..yay I'm on hols for a week now! But before I'm off to make tea, a few days ago I mentioned making baskets to give my two office volunteers - filled with choccie eggs and an egg from each of our 'girls. I forgot to photograph the first one, so here is the one I gave my second volunteer today...

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a lovely Good Friday - the tradition in our family is that Tom and I put on a brunch - so a busy but lovely day for us!

Carole  X

Summer Dreams!...Thursday 10th January

Good Morning Blog Friends,

WOW to WOYWW! It was so nice to have visits from other crafters yesterday...I will make sure to visit your blogs too! And a big welcome to my new follower...thank you!

This is a little card I made at the weekend when I was trying to fit in some time to play with some crafty Christmas presents...

This is a small (6x6) shaped card: I inked the edges and die-cut the window using the Spellbinders Heartfelt Creations Decorative Chateau Gate die. I've had the die for ages, but the matching stamp from Heartfelt Creations was a Christmas Present. Once I had the die cut, I placed it on the front of the card and then cut the window shape to match.

The image was stamped on a separate piece of card because I was colouring it with Promarkers  and it would bleed through the back. I just cut it to size when I placed it. To finish off I just added the gems, ribbon and button. A simple little card to look ahead to summer days..hopefully!

Thanks for stopping by!

 Carole X

L'il Bird in Window - Wednesday 1st August

Good Morning Friends,


First of all, welcome to my new followers, it's great to have you join me. I do read all your posts and I try and visit and post on your blogs too..so please let me know if you have one and I'm not  following you yet!

I have my cousin from Wales staying, which has meant a few days off work and some nice 'girly' time...her husband brought her, but she is travelling back my train, so as my husband Tom hasn't had the time off and I don't drive, we've been doing lots of walking and travelling by bus. Monday we had a lovely day in Bath, I love showing people around my favourite city! We did shopping of course, but I really enjoy taking visitors to the historical sites. The weather was lovely and Bath was so quiet, usually you can't move this time of year, it was a very strange feeling..the foreign tourists must all be at the Olympics.

Is everyone watching? I'm not really 'into' sport...anything to to do with horses and ice dance and hockey are my sporting interests, I used to ride a lot as a child and into my twenties and I used to skate and play ice hockey (my dad's time spent in Canada as a child and teen had an influence on me with both horses and hockey!) Unfortunately participation in such 'risky' sports are taking their toll with muscle stiffness now and a nasty riding accident put an end to my riding and left me with a back that isn't without quite a bit of pain if I don't look after it...but never mind, it was all fun at the time and I am still pretty fit and able to chase my hens around the garden!:) So, all I was going to say is that I was really pleased that our Eventing team got  a Silver medal! I was actually getting quite excited by some of the mens swimming last night too!

Back to crafting...

 This is a card I made at the weekend whilst playing with the 'Dandelion Wishes' stamp from Creative Expressions...I had been watching Hels Sheridan demo with it creating backgrounds during the Spellbinders shows on Create and Craft last week and I was actually lucky enough to win one of her lovely cards as well!

This is a 6x6 card, which I stamped randomly all around the sides using Bundled Sage distress ink, which is my favourite of the 'greens'. I then inked around the edges of the card as well.

 I used the Spellbinders Decorative Chateau Gate die to create a window and inked the edges quite randomly with Wild Honey, I also carried the foliage stamped image through behind the window and also stamped the little bird from the same set, using both Wild Honey and Bundled Sage. I finished off with some bakers twine and a few little gems.

My cousin goes home later today and I have a busy evening ahead making sure everything is ready for our next workshop tomorrow evening. This time we are going to be using masks, Mica Mists and distress inks...nice and messy! I'll post some photos later in the week hopefully. So it's unlikely I will be posting tomorrow...

Before I go, I would like to share with you one very exciting piece of news I had yesterday...recently Fantastic Ribbons -http://fantasticribbons.blogspot.co.uk - had a Design Team call and I applied...yesterday I heard that I was one of the four new DT members chosen and I was thrilled!

Happy crafting everyone!

Hugs,

Carole X

Corner Bookmark - Wednesday 9th May

Good Morning Friends,


Today's project is a corner bookmark, which I made on Monday (another wet Bank Holiday!), to enter into Lindyloo's blog challenge draw. Linda showed some of her creations last week, with a link to the instructions, so I thought I would have a go...


The criteria was for a Corner or Ribbon bookmark, in Pink, Black (or grey) and White. I enjoy making black and white cards, but it was really quite hard for a small bookmark and knowing I only had Monday afternoon to design and make it as there is so much to do this week,  this is what I came up with:

For instructions on how to make this bookmark visit http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/cornerbookmark/and also visit Linda's blog for examples.  http://creativeharmony.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/bookmark-challenge.html a really good idea and if you are selling crafts what a great little gift...I'm also thinking a gift within a greeting card, what a super topper.

I used Spellbinders Heart Squares, Chateau Gate(as a window) and a border die from Parisian Accents. The stamp used is from HOTP Sweet Tweets, which I had free with a magazine some time ago. I just added a little pink blossom and highlights on the birds.

A pink bow finished it off. 

I must say thanks to Linda for letting her blog followers know about this little gem of an idea, when I get a few moments, I will make some more and upload them!

Thanks for stopping by,

Carole X

I'd like to enter this is in Creative Harmony Blog: Bookmark Challenge

http://creativeharmony.blogspot.co.uk/

Sarah Kay (2) - Saturday 28th April

Hi Friends,


Thank you for your comments on yesterday's card...I think it's one of my favourites that I have made recently. I did say yesterday, that I would be back with a different card today and I'd spread the Sarah Kay's out a bit -but-  I was in Bath, meeting a good friend all day yesterday - we had a good catch up over lunch and got soaked! So I didn't get a chance to photograph my latest cards, so I will do that today!


For the second card in this 'series' I wanted to use the Spellbinders die I bought at the Ally Pally stamp show a few weeks ago...The Decorative Chateau Gate..which I used as a window...


The first picture is a close up of the view through the window: I stamped a background from a Jayne Nestorenko background stamp and leaves from an Artemio stamp, both with Bundled Sage distress ink; then using a water brush I lightly coloured the images with the bundled sage, just adding a little tea dye for the gate and shabby shutters for the sky. This was then cut out and placed behind the frame.

I shaded the shutters with Shabby Shutters too and in 'reality' the colour looks nothing like as dark as in the hoot!
The paper used to cover the card blank is from  a lovely designer paper pad (Spring Jubilee by pinkpaislee) that was free with Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine this month. I just thought it gave the card a vintage feel.


The image was coloured with Promarkers and forgive me for not listing the colours today because I have temporarily mislaid my 'list' - I'll add it later...


Then I cut out the little girl this time and placed her in front of the window. Finishing touches were all from stash...buttons, ribbon, flowers and little pearl gems to finish of the window. I really like this dye and eventually will buy the stamps that go with it...got to save first though!



Have a great Saturday and see you tomorrow...we are in Bristol today for most of the day as my brother in law has his car in an Italian Car Show (it's a bright red Alfa Romeo sports car that he restored and is very proud of, but that's as far as my knowledge of cars goes!), so it looks like we'll be getting wet again..so I'll be catching up with those blogs I follow later!
Carole X