Seaside Belle - Thursday 5th June 2014

Good Morning Friends,

Once again I have to say a massive thank you for your comments on my last post and for hopping over to Sam's blog and leaving a message there....you are all too wonderful for words!

Today's card is a DT post for Nicecrane ...the fabulous collection of vintage images, both pre-coloured and for colouring yourselves. You can view and buy at Nicecrane Designs

I usually colour for my DT posts, but I have a few lined up and this one is pre-coloured. I just love these vintage post card images. I have combined my DT project with my Sunday Stampers offering this week, as Hels theme is 'Girls Talk'  - projects featuring females -and well this certainly fits!

I have combined the portrait from Nicecrane with a bathing belle stamp from Crafty Individuals. I stamped on some ' I do like to be beside the seaside'  paper from Pink Petticoat using black archival and heat embossed with clear powder, but otherwise left uncoloured.

I used my sewing machine (it is so handy that it's now on the next desk!) and stitched around the edge of the image, which I had matted and layered on to some pale turquoise card (by Tilda, left over from another project).

The pre-coloured image was die cut using a scalloped oval die by Spellbinders and inked at the edges. I inked the edges of virtually every element of this card using Rusty Hinge distress ink. I cut a rough oval shape using Tilda card and sewed around it, then mounted the image on it. I used some turquoise card, die cut with the Oval die to make a small divide on the card between the images.

To finish I embossed a piece of kraft card with the 'That Special Touch of" Rope Mask that I have been using a lot with my projects for Sam, through my Grand Calibur and then stitched around the edge. I then added the sentiment, some hessian, string, voile and a little sea shell from my California Collection (yes I really have a collection of shells brought back over the years... they don't usually get used on cards though, so this card was honoured!)

That's it from me for today...I have the next week off work, except for attending one meeting and today I am off on the bus to Bath to meet a friend for lunch. With work schedules we don't get to see each other often enough, so I'm really looking forward to catching up with her.

This Saturday, Julia Watts is coming along to demo all day for my friend Amy's shop, so I am going to be helping out and  am really looking forward to it. I will be back tomorrow though!

Many thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!

Love and Hugs

Carole X

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

Sunday Stampers WK 229,Autumn - Nov 1st

Good Morning Friends,

We had quite a few Trick or Treaters as usual last night, with very wet parents...what a shame about the rain! And so we are in November....oh my, Christmas is getting way too close! Today's post is my project for Sunday Stampers challenge and the theme this week is colours of autumn.

With last week's marathon of workshop, events and craft fair I missed last week's challenge for the first time since I started and I really did miss it! I don't have time to enter many challenges, but this one is a must for me!

Two weeks ago I made an autumnal card for the metallics challenge, so the challenge for me was coming up with something different!

For the main image I used the Dreamweaver Bare Trees stencil on white card. I wanted to create a bright background of autumnal colours - sometimes in a dense woodland on a bright day, it can look like the the whole landscape is on fire. I used a mixture of distress inks - Broken China and Faded Jeans for the hint of sky,Brushed Corduroy, Wild Honey, Rusty Hinge and Mustard Seed for the bright colours and Brushed Sage and Crushed Olive for the grass. There may have been a few more in there somewhere - too many to remember! It took quite a while to get it so I was happy with it!

For the base I used Autumn Maple Leaves stamp set from Clarity Stamps. I love the sentiment. The stamps are all individual so I arranged the images around the sentiment. I stamped them with Versamark and then heat embossed. The powders are my own mixture and what fun I had trying to get it right!

I used gold, chocolate brown, holographic and red and I even threw in a tiny amount of stamp magic from the metals range. My aim was to create a brown-gold with a hint of red, just like you get when the leaves are changing.

The trees were matted and layered on brown, white, brown; then I tied some orange ribbon around the bottom (I promise you it's not such a bright orange as the photos would have you believe!) and added a pumpkin button and Spellbinders Leaf cut from craft foil. I added some hessian  to kraft card and mounted  the image on top. To finish I added a few maple leaf brads.

Hope you like this and thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment!

Carole X

Green is the Colour - Sunday Stampers Wk 221 Tuesday 28th Aug

Good Morning Blog Friends,

Yesterday was the first chance I had time to craft since last Wednesday and where was my mojo? It had decided to pack it's bags and have the Bank Holiday off I reckon! Anyway, I decided that I would get out some green polka dot paper that was just peeking out of a box of scrapbooking stash and make my card nice and early for this week's Sunday Stampers...

I started with a 6x6 Kraft card blank, if I'm not using 8x8, I like to use this size - the larger is normally reserved for my commissions and the smaller tends to sell well at craft fairs and in places where I keep some for sale, such as Tom's office.

I cut the polka dot paper just  a couple of inches smaller than the card and I also die cut  a labels four small and cut it in half, again with Kraft Card, but slightly darker. I layered this under one side of the polka dot, so it was just peeking out and stuck both to the card. For the ribbon I chose some lovely silky double sided, one side green and the other gold. I used double sided tape to stick one piece of ribbon, gold showing up, along the side of the polka dot and used another piece with the green side showing horizontally along the card. I ruched this (never know how to spell that) and glued it down with Cosmic Shimmer.

The stamping part! I simply used a scallop edge hole punch with white card and coloured the edges with Wild Honey distress ink. I then inked an Artemio flower stamp twice on the scallop circle with the same ink and once on another piece of card. I cut out the third stamped image to give the flower a little movement. The sentiment is a stamp by Creative Expressions.Finally I added a wooden button tied with bakers twine.

Hope you like it Hels!

Thanks for stopping by!

Carole X

Before I go, exciting news from the coop for those of you who have been following my tales from the coop along with my crating lately! Lacey laid her first egg yesterday...Lacey is the seventh hen we have owned over the years and we still get excited and photograph the first egg! I think this one is particularly pretty :)

Sunday Stampers wk 218 - Thurs 16th August

Good Morning all!

It's Sunday Stampers time again, I always look forward to seeing what challenge Hels Sheridan is going to present us with each Sunday - this week it's something shiny, or a project with some shine  somewhere... I decided to be a bit experimental this week and go all out for shiny by creating a tile and stamping on it....

I started with a piece of stampbord and inked it with Perfect Medium, then I used ultra thick embossing powder (Cosmic Shimmer Midnight Blue) and heated it to melting point, at which time I added more embossing powder and repeated. I did this three of four times until I had enough depth, then whilst the powder was still liquid I stamped the tile with a stamp from Steampunk Flowers by Creative Expressions (Sam Poole).

I had the little cogs ready and tried to place some of them whilst there was still some grab,for the the others I used cosmic shimmer dries clear. I embossed the craft foil using an embossabilities folder and die cut the butterfly with the small die from Spellbinders Flight of Fancy. Just to steampunk it up a bit, I added a couple of watch parts for antenae.

It's the first time I'd tried this and I have to be honest the stamping took a few attempts to get right, but that's okay because at least you can re-melt it and start again!I'd seen Ali Reeve from Stamps Away demo it recently on TV and had been keen to give it a go. I also like the texture that the heat creates on the tile, will definitely be doing this again!

Thanks for stopping by,

Carole X

Sunday Stampers Week 216 - Thursday 2nd August

'Maschera Carnevale d'Oro'


Good Morning Friends,


It's been a lovely few 'girly' days spent with my cousin visiting this week, she caught the train back to Swansea last night and I'm back to work today, for just one day this week, I have a workshop tonight  and Tom also has tomorrow off as it's his birthday this week, so to make up for lost crafting hours during the day and knowing there were at least 2 projects I had to complete, I was up very very late last night crafting away in my little room!

The theme for this week's Sunday Stampers is 'Gold' and I did say in my post on Hel's blog that this week's effort was going to be something I could make very quickly. I had an idea in my head to go Venetian again and wanted to use the new mask die I have from Spellbinders, so I made the teeniest canvas (3.5ins x 3ins)....so here is my  Golden Carnival Mask...doesn't that sound better in Italian? :)

I painted the canvas with gold acrylic paint and when dry I stamped around the edges and sides with a Venetian Mask stamp, by Debbi Moore using Antique Linen distress ink. Then I  took some white card, painted that with gold acrylic and when dry, sanded it to 'antique' it a  little. I then inked up the same mask stamp with Antique Linen again and stamped randomly down one side of the card, so that it just shows through the mask. To finish I tore the card to again give the antique look - I also inked the edges but it doesn't show at all in the photo!


The mask die is gorgeous, I had been wishing Spellbinders would bring out such a die for so long, so when they did it was 'Oh Wow!' for me!! I really am looking forward to using this die with microbeads, but don't have any in gold, so I used wet glue and dipped it in rich gold glitter. I don't often use lots of glitter, but somehow dipping this in a plastic kitchen container that I keep my gold glitter in, seemed the right thing to do when the plain white mask I sunk in there came out looking very opulent :)


To finish off I added some feathers, ribbons (disappointed that these were the only ones thin enough I could find) and a few red gems.


Thanks for stopping by!
Carole X


This is my contribution to Sunday Stampers week  - Gold

http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk

Sunday Stampers Week 215 - More than Words 26th July

Good Morning Blog Friends,

Today it's time for my contribution to Hels' Sheridan's 'Sunday Stampers' weekly challenge and this week's theme is - More than Words.

Before I talk about my project, I just want to say it's been great to have Hels on Create and Craft for the POTW these last few days. Like many others I was getting very worried at the weekend that there wasn't going to be enough left for Hels' shows, but yesterday, which was my day off, good news, more stock and more shows! So there I was creating my canvas whilst watching Hels on TV! And even better, having rushed home from work on Monday for the 5pm show, I settled to watch and sent in an email. Then my hens decided that there was something in the garden disturbing them, so I had to go out and have a look and missed the end of the show! It wasn't until Susie left me a message on my blog to tell me I'd won the card! So thank you for that and woo-hoo!!! A Hels original is on its way!

Now for the project:

When I read the theme was WORDS, I immediately knew I wanted to use the Sam Poole typewriter stamp from her Vintage Typewriter set which I only recently acquired, but had been on my wish list for a while.

I decided to make a piece of canvas art, so having prepared the canvas, I covered it with this piece of script paper from my stash box. The edges were inked with Victorian Velvet distress ink (one of my favourites!). My idea was words and writing; a writer in times gone by, sitting at a typewriter (although I dare say some still use a typewriter instead of a computer!) with ideas and thoughts flowing into beautiful words, hence the butterflies and flowers.

I'll let you into a secret....when I was in my 20's I wrote a book, a bit of a Jackie Collins set in Hollywood....sssh! Honest! It was never published of course and only read by a few, who did try and get me to send it off, but all 300 pages of it are gathering dust in our box room and as it was all saved on floppy disc, which is long gone, there's no hope except rewriting. Tom said that with the success of '50 shades'  I should resurrect it, but I think I'd rather be crafting! I did eventually get published, after studying film as a mature university student, I wrote a few feature articles for film magazines so that was one ambition sort of met...but no, I'd rather be crafting :)

So there I go off on a tangent again! I stamped and cut out the typewriter and also what I thought was the perfect sentiment from Sam Poole's Art Phrases stamp set. I also stamped the alphabet from the Vintage Typewriter set on to  American seam binding to represent the trail of words from the beauty of nature to the words on the page.

The butterflies are from the Spellbinders Fanciful Flight die set and the flowers are from Spiral Blossom One, Flower Creations and Anemone Flower Topper all inked with Victorian Velvet. I used a paper from stash,which was printed with random words. To finish off I added some buttons, Vintage Bakers Twine and metal button embellishment.

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Carole Z X


This is my contribution to Sunday Stampers Week 215 - More than Words

http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/

Study in Silver - 3rd July Sunday Stampers wk 212

Hello Bloggers1


Today's project is my contribution to Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers Challenge and this week's theme is titled Silver Dream Machine and calls for silver creations - so silver it is! A grungy piece of Steampunk....

First of all, apologies for the photo...I just could not get it in focus because there was so much metal and reflection going on, so I hope you can actually see it!


I started with black card and inked all around with Perfect Medium clear to create a frame and then I heat embossed with silver embossing powder. I stamped the dress form in Perfect Medium too on white card and again embossed with silver. The stamps are all from Sam Poole's Steampunk Dreams stamp set by Creative Expressions...I do really love this stamp set! I added a few metal watch parts to the form and then die cut the wings and butterfly (wings) from  Spellbinders Wings of Hope using silver craft foil. A butterfly was then cut from Spellbinders Flight of Fancy. I did actually emboss this with a That Special Touch of... Cog Mask but it doesn't show in the photo unfortunately.


To finish I stamped and embossed a sentiment from the same stamp set.


Thanks for stopping by!

This is my contribution to Sunday Stampers Week 212 Silver Dream Machine

http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/

Pretty in Pink Sunday Stampers wk 209 - Weds 13th June

Morning Blog friends!


This weeks Sunday Stampers theme is "PINK" so I have gone for it...a pink fairy tale card...take me to the ball! :)


I started with a layer of pink patterned paper from stash and then using a slightly darker pink paper with a star burst design over it. The Horse and Carriage stamp is from Clarity Stamps. I used jet black archival and heat embossed it with kaleidoscope iridescent embossing powder, lots of twinkles!


I die cut it using Romantic Rectangles and also die cut some flowers from the Aster and Anemone die sets. The sentiment is from Sam Poole's Steampunk Dreams stamp set and the little pink pearls are from the Pizzaz a'Plenty sets I won from the House Mouse Challenge last month. I finished off with some pink bows!

Thanks for stopping by!
Carole X


* All dies used are Spellbinders

     This is my contribution to Sunday Stampers week 209: Pretty in Pink

http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/

Sunday Stampers Wk 208 Her Majesty - 08/06/12

Good Morning Blog Friends...and a wet and windy one it is too!

It's also the last day (apart from the weekend) of my holiday from work...and I started off with such ambition!The idea of this time off alone, was that as I only work three days a week, with the Jubilee Public Holiday, I would be taking minimal leave and still getting two whole weeks to get up to date with my commissions and other projects....wrong!

I've been working very hard, but with the Jubilee party at the weekend and Tom taking  some extra time off too, I haven't achieved anywhere near as much as I'd hoped...oh well, Keep Calm and Carry On as they say!

Which brings me to today's card (and I'm not done with the Jubilee yet!). This card is my contribution to Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers and this week's theme is 'Her Majesty'

This card is similar to one of my earlier Jubilee designs, but I wanted to marry vintage with Regal with street party and get 60 years into one little card! 

I started off with plain white card stock and made the base frame card, using Spellbinders Labels One Small for the frame. The base card is covered with some newspaper design card from a 12x12 Portobello Road pack that I had in my stash and the back of the card is covered with red and white rose paper from the same pack. I scored the folds in the front and back and then stamped a little crown randomly over the front of the card with Versafine Vintage Sepia. To finish off the front of the card, I inked the edges with a mixture of distress inks: Antique Linen and Brushed Corduroy.

The bird is cut from Spellbinders Bird Sanctuary, inked with the same inks and I stamped a branch for the perch! Another stamped crown was used to adorn the bird. I made some bunting from the same paper pack and inked up the twine to give it a vintage feel. I then added some Union Jack buttons from stash (I think these were left from the Royal Wedding last year!) and I cut the 'ER' and '60' using my Cricut (I only ever seem to use it for letters and numbers!). The soldier ribbon was also inked too, as I thought it looked to 'pristine' on the front of the card and I finished off with the crown, which was also in my button box.

Thanks for stopping by!

Carole X

This is my contribution to Sunday Stampers Week 208 'Her Majesty'

http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/

Steampunk Circles - Tuesday 22nd May

Hi Blog Friends,

Isn't it lovely now that the sun is shining again? I was so happy to see the sun still warm in the sky when I got home from work last night, that I took this project outside in the garden  to photograph it!

I created this piece of art work on Sunday, for Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers week 206 challenge, the theme of which is Circles; it was fun and I had no idea where I was going when I started out! I die cut 3 large circles and punched 2 deckle edged circles, all with various pieces of kraft card card I had in my stash. I stamped the cogs from Sam Poole's 'Steampunk Dreams' stamp set, very faintly on one circle and I also stamped the mechanical bug from the same set (he has a round body, I had to!) and "Dare to Create' on another. That stamp and the flower are both from Sam Poole's 'Steampunk Flowers' set.


Having stamped the circles I then spent quite a bit of time distressing them with a mixture of Wild Honey and Tea Dye Ranger inks. I had seen Hels' demo-ing the flower on C&C at the weekend and have the tut from her blog. The demo reminded me that I hadn't made a flower like this in a while, so I was determined to incorporate one on this piece, but I had to adapt it to the stamp I wanted to use, which didn't have the same effect because the petals were closer together and harder to manipulate. I stamped the on grunge paper and also distressed it. After I had made it and stuck it together with Cosmic Shimmer glue, (which is my favourite glue, I use it all the time!), instead of teasing the petals back,  I painted them with some Glossy Accents and did the same to the bug.


To finish off I added a clock face, little brass cog,a faux screw brad and some rusty wire as the hanger. I then die cut some flowers using the smaller dies in the Peony set, distressed them and scrunched them.


It's a whimsy, I had fun making it and it will hang on my craft room wall!


Thanks for stopping by!
Carole X

I made this as my contribution to
Sunday Stampers Challenge - Week 206: Circles
http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/