Harbour - Monday 11th June

Morning bloggers,


Well it's back to work today after almost two weeks holiday, which have passed so quickly and I've been busy the whole time with commissions, house stuff and of course the Jubilee! I can't say that I have any where near caught up as intended, but it's going to be hard to go back!


Anyway, today's card was one of two cards I made at the weekend from a male cousin and a male friend. I saw these Michael Powell stamps featured in Docrafts magazine and was immediately drawn to them. When I visited Out of the Blue in Chipping Sodbury, they had this one just in, so I had to buy it and try it!

For the card base I used  cream card. I then cut a slightly smaller black piece of card and matted and layered with another cream piece of card. Before adhering to the card blank, I randomly stamped the map from Sam Poole's Nautical Journey stamp set,using Adirondack Latte ink: I also stamped the wheel and ship from the same set. I heavily distressed the entire background using a mix of Vintage Photo and Antique Linen. I then used a measure of vintage bakers twine across the front, stamped a greeting from an LOTV sentiments stamp and die cut it using Spellbinders Labels  Four Small.This was lightly distressed with Antique Linen.

I coloured the picture with Flex-markers. I don't use these that often and if I do, they are usually mixed with Promarkers, the latter being the dominant. I like them a lot, but I only have a few starter sets. My investment over the years has been with Promarkers and it's a bit expensive to collect different types. Having said that, by blending these pens, I managed the entire picture  using just flexes! I wanted to give it more of a watercolour feel than I think I could have achieved with Promarkers, but I do see the future of images with this stamp as...bright...monotone...sepia...who knows!?

I see this as a Cornish harbour scene and have coloured it as such...it could be anywhere in the UK, it's just that being a West Country gal, Cornwall is my idea of seaside and fishing villages! What I wanted to aim for was a fresh image with light, pastel colours and a background reflecting Cornwall's "Pirate" heritage...treasure maps and sailing ships.

All the stamps in this collection are gorgeous and I particularly like the beach huts, which I think are on order!

Because I have to leave my craft room for  my office Monday morning, I am scheduling this post and am now away to tidy my craft desk so that I can at least pick up where I left off...the one good thing about Euro 2012 is that I won't feel guilty disappearing to my craft room on an evening!

Take care and thanks for stopping by,

Carole X

Emergency Crafters DT Card - Saturday 9th June

Hello Blog Friends,

It's time for another challenge over at Emergency Crafters and the theme this fortnight is Butterflies, Birds - anything with wings. I've gone for a little birdie for my design team card..as I write this I haven't been able to upload this card as yet...but to take part hop over to:

http://emergencycrafterschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

I've enjoyed 'playing' with this style card of late, so I created the box shape and stamped butterflies all over the front of the card. I then stamped and cut out the bird and added some punched blossoms. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Carole X

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/

House Mouse - Tuesday 5th June

Hello Blog Friends,


I hope you have all been enjoying the Jubilee Weekend....our garden party fundraiser yesterday was brilliant and the sun actually came out to allow us to actually have a garden party! Our family, friends and neighbours were all so generous with their donations of both money and cakes, we all had a lot of fun and even some catching up with friends we hadn't seen in ages. We also raised £152, which for a small number of people was amazing.


Today I have a special card....as a recent prize-winner in the House Mouse Monday Challenge, I was invited to be a guest design teamie for June..how exciting because I love House Mouse, so it has been an honour to be asked to design two cards for them this month.


This is the first one is for the current challenge 'Here Comes the Sun'...

I chose the 'Parasol' stamp for my main image and made a frame card using linen textured aquamarine. I started off making it in a lighter coloured card but then decided this gave more of an effect of our little mice being by the sea! I coloured the stamp with Promarkers and cut out and coloured an additional parasol to add a layer and give it even more dimension. I cut the image and the aperture using Spellbinders labels 24 and although the photo doesn't really show it, I distressed all the edges of the card and aperture with shabby shutters distress ink.  The little mouse lying down is from the same stamp set, but the one with the flower 'sun hat' is from the `Spring' collection: Daffodil and the greeting is from another summer set: Drinks. The jumping mouse is from 'Sew Mice' and I just added the flower.


To finish off I added a strip of  Coredinations polka dot paper, which I sanded and three little gems. The greeting is stamped with Perfect Medium and embossed with 'Carnival' embossing powder by Papermania. I die cut it using Spellbinders Lacey Ovals.


Hope you like it! This challenge runs until.....


Hop over  to    http://housemouse-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/    to take part and Good Luck! I'll stop by and look at some of your creations (I'm told as a guest teamie I'm allowed!)


Thanks for stopping by,
Carole X

Best of British - Monday 4th June

Hello Blog Friends!


Today I have 'two of a kind' cards to share with you..very easy makes and similar to designs I have seen in shops...including a very upmarket department store in London where they were charging over £5 for a small 6x6!


Both of these are actually 5x5, they were quick to make and could be ideal for  good luck cards.

The first one is simply a kind of light brown (sounds boring, I'm sure it has a much nicer official name!) card front, which I distressed with a mixture of antique linen and tattered rose distress inks and typed the greeting in one of the 'typewriter' fonts. Using the Portabello Road paper set from doCrafts, I cut out the flag and the bunting and used vintage bakers twine as the line to hang it.

 For the second card, I used Clarity Stamps London set, which I got at Ally Pally and hadn't had a chance to use...and read on for a story about these stamps! I made the front of the card in the same way as the first one, but this time stamped the little soldiers above the greeting. I then made the Union Jack from the same stamp set, stamping quite 'roughly' for a vintage feel - I used cranberry and denim adirondacks, as suggested by Barbara Gray. The soldiers were coloured with Promarkers (of course!)

Now, I have seen Barbara Gray demo this stamp set on TV and also live at Ally Pally. I loved it and decided to buy it. The set includes one of Clarity's lovely designs with the great big 'O' that can be used as an aperture. I sat down to try and recreate one of her designs with these stamps a few days ago and after a few attempts got it right. I was really pleased with the finished result and then...I did the unthinkable! I picked it up without cleaning my hands! I have no idea why I did it, but I ruined the card, there was no saving it. So when all the activities of this weekend are over, I am going to sit down and do it again...it takes ages, but the result is so satisfying and by the end of the week, I hope to be posting my finished card...wish me luck and clean hands this time!

Thanks for stopping by...I have a special card tomorrow and I will also let you know how our own little garden party went...enjoy the Bank Holiday everyone, if you're in the UK!


Carole X

Rule Britannia - Sunday 3rd June

Good Morning Blog Friends,


Today's card is made in celebration of Great Britain....

I have made two versions of this card and I may well share the other one later in the week. This frame card is a shape I have been playing with, perhaps for our next workshop. A few weeks ago, I went along to a friend's 'Stampin' Up' party and the card the demonstrator had us making was this type of card and it had me thinking that I used to make cards like this, but not for a while; in fact so long ago that it was before die-cutting machines came along and getting that centre aperture to look good was almost impossible!

It's quite a simple idea...I used 2 pieces of 6x6 card and cut the aperture using labels one small. You then score twice along each side, for this size I scored at 1.5cms and 3cms, this shapes the card. All the card used  is from a Portobello Road paper and embellishment pack that I had at Christmas. I've used it quite a lot and it's lasting ages. I used a very pale newspaper print sheet for the front and stamped over it very lightly with Versafine vintage sepia  ink and a crown stamp from a Prima stamp set I bought in my local 'Out of the Blue' shop recently.

The bird was die cut using the Spellbinders Bird Sanctuary set, distressed with antique linen and I added another stamped crown.  After the sides were stuck together, I added a little hint of gold along the bottom with an edger die from Parisian Accents. The bunting is made from cutting out the bunting on the cover of the paper pad and the ribbon also came with the set, as did the spotty card for the back.

Thanks for stopping by!

Carole X

Diamond Wedding - Saturday 2nd June

Good day blog friends,

Are you doing anything fun to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee? I'm looking forward to settling down and watching the concert Monday night, it'll be glimpses of the flotilla tomorrow as both Tom and I will be in our kitchen baking cakes (me) and savoury items (him)...we decided, or rather I decided that it was all pretty boring around here, nothing going on so, I had to do something about it! We had already invited the family over for tea on Monday, so as I had registered to do an afternoon tea for Cancer Research UK, intended for later in the Summer, I decided to bring it forward and invite the neighbours and some friends over and fundraise at the same time. A few people have offered to bake, but we are doing most of it and I have no idea how many will end up coming, as some haven't RSVP'd and I suspect they might still come...no matter, it will be fun and hopefully we'll raise a few ££'s...of course I'll be selling some cards as well!

Over this weekend, I am scheduling a few cards that I have made with Great Britain in mind -isn't this a great year to be British?

 Today however, is a card made for a commission recently and as it was for a 'diamond' occasion, I thought I would share it today...

This is an 8x8 white on white: I used heart doilies for the centre images, the 60 was cut using my Cricut and the butterflies are die cut using Spellbinders 'Wings of Hope'. The person who commission this asked for it to be boxed, so I could go to town a little with the embellishments. I also decorated the box with white organza ribbon and some flowers.

Sorry for the short description today, so much to do still to prepare for Monday!

Thanks for stopping by,

Carole X