In the absence of Mojo

I have been struggling to come up with ideas of late. There have been a few 'real life' things which have invaded into my little cocoon and this has resulted in me being unable to make anything that I am happy with!
I sat yesterday and just made a couple of simple cards  - achieved by smooshing watercolours onto watercolour card.
The basic design of both is the same - I used the same stamp, embossed and smooshed! Will share the other (even plainer) one at a later date but here's the first

I have tried a different way of smooshing and found this works better for me - it is simply instead of putting the colours onto your craft mat and dipping the card into it, I put the colour onto a piece of acetate, spritzed and then pressed it over the embossed image.

It's probably not as random as you can actually position the colours but as I can see where the colour is going it stops me from covering massive areas when I only wanted to cover a tiny bit!

The stamp is a smaller one from a 2 part Woodware set.

I used Mustard Seed, Wild Honey and Dried Marigold with a little bit of Peeled Paint, drying each colour with the heat gun before moving onto the next.
I added a teeny bit of Vintage Photo into the centre of the flower.

I finished it with a few (did I say few?) ink spatters and a new to me die cut sentiment.

Then I decided it wasn't finished and added the little black card with the white embossing  - THEN it was finished!

Sharing over at
TIOT - Say It With Flowers
AAA - 1 image/Spring
Crazy 4 CAS - Watercolour
Alphabet - Z for Zesty
Cut It Up - Flowers

We have had a dry but very windy day here today - but it really IS cold!!
Have a lovely day whatever you're doing and thanks for coming to see me today. x

Guest Designer at CAS on Friday

(if you are visiting to see my card for CAS Stencil, please scroll down to the next post!)

I was delighted to be asked to join the CAS on Friday team this week as their Guest Designer.

The theme for this challenge is 'Baby'.

I don't have call to make a lot of Baby cards and coupled with having to make it CAS was, I confess, a bit of a challenge!

I thought a bubble or bokeh effect might work well whilst keeping the card CAS so chose a Pink and Grey colourway for the Bokeh circles.

I used a stencil I made myself from some acetate for another project and  just used the smallest circle.

The pink colour is Spun Sugar and the Grey is a Metallic Silver (which really doesn't show up very well in the pic- but has a really pretty subtle shimmer to it in real life.)

Did a few ink splatters with the Spun Sugar ink.

I stamped our little elephant (from Lawn Fawn) in the same silver ink and clear embossed then coloured her in, before cutting her out with a stitched circle die.

The teeny heart is from the same set and the sentiment is LOTV.

The very talented design team have made some wonderful examples this week - I am honoured to be in such talented company! 

Sharing my little baby card over at
Creative Moments - A/Goes 
AAA - 1 image

Just Beachy!

This is another one of those cards that didn't really end up like I thought it would!
Looking back I had no idea how it would turn out as I simply wanted to try out the Ghosting technique again. 

I have lots of odd pieces of watercolour card perfect for practicing with (Playground for me!) so made a couple of backgrounds using different colours - mostly blue and greens with varying degrees of success and this one which was done in shades of orange DI's, lifting the colour by spraying with water, leaving for a few seconds and lifting the stencil off.

The stencil is by That's Crafty.

I stamped and embossed the shell and the sentiment in gold and cut the frames and sentiment frame from the left over base card - there was no waste left from this particular piece of card!

The shells were collected from a trip last year and the seed beads were from my stash.

I am not sure if this is CAS enough for the CAS Stencil challenge but am linking anyway!

Also linking at the Mixed Media Must Use a Stencil challenge at Stamplorations

A2S+M - Holiday (and right now I can't wait to get on a beach somewhere!)

The Card Concept also have a lovely Inspiration Pic and I chose the shells and the overall beachy theme to inspire this make.

My kitchen floor has finally been laid today - the whole project has taken 7 weeks - there is just the skirting boards to be fixed now so my house is almost back to normal!

Thanks for visiting today - have a great day whatever you are doing! x
 

March Mid Month at Stamping Sensations

Our March 'Rainbow' themed challenge is well under way and this is a little reminder that you still have time to enter if you haven't done so, (or even if you have you can have another go!).
Great 'Lucky Dip' prize of  lovely dies and embossing folders up for grabs. (A pic  of our prize can be seen HERE at the bottom of my post)

Check out the Stamping Sensations blog for full details - and PLEASE read our rules before entering!

For my mid month card I opted for a simple CAS design with rainbow colouring.

I used a 'Cherry Blossom' embossing folder for the background.
The Butterfly is from an old set and I stamped it with Versafine ink starting with the centre one then simply masked and stamped again along the panel.

Following the colour spectrum of the rainbow I coloured the butterflies with a host of DI's and then made a few ink spatters.

The sentiment die and the sentiment are both Technique Tuesday.

Am sharing this over at -
Sunday Stamps - Sketch 
Fab N Funky - Butterfly 
Stamps + Fun - Butterfly

Have a great day whatever you're doing! x

Ghost

If you are visiting and the title of my blog post has you thinking you will see friendly Casper 😱 then you are going to be disappointed!
Although there were several times during the course of the last week that I may have been happy to see the little white sheeted person 👻👻 - instead of seeing the inside of the waste basket with failed attempts.
I am enjoying being back in the swing of being able to enter challenges - and challenging this one was - for me.

I have though finally managed to make TWO fairly passable cards for this months CAS Stencil challenge of  'Ghosting' and here's the first.

The 'Ghosting' technique entails inking a piece of card, placing a stencil over it, spritzing with water (or rubbing with a baby wipe) to remove the ink and leave a 'ghosted' image.

Sounds relatively easy??
NOT!!

I tried several times with small stencils and tried both water spritzing and baby wipe method.

I had varying degrees of success before turning to a very large stencil and a baby wipe.

The background was inked in Seedless Preserve/Cracked Pistachio/Mermaid Lagoon (without doubt these are 3 of my very fave DI's)

The stencil is from AliExpress and a new purchase.

I found this metal die cut amongst some of my stash and it just seemed to fit.
The large purple stone was cut off an old jumper (I have quite a few of these!!).
The hardest part for me was the actual assembly of the card.
I agonised for ages about putting it in a frame and adding more die cut feathers - in the end I simply got frustrated and opted to just keep it as plain as possible.
Am sharing over at
A2S+M - Make Your Mark
MMM - Something New (Stencil and Technique)
Crafters Cafe- Include metal (my sentiment)

Thanks for looking today - I welcome all comments and hope that you are having a great day whatever you're doing!  x   

Watery World

Happy weekend everybody!
Over the last few days we have experienced an awful lot of heavy rain showers   ☔ so I made a watery themed card!

The background was cut from a larger background piece made a while ago whilst playing about experimenting with Brushos. 

The foliage inked in  Forest Moss Distress Ink was shadow stamped a couple of times and I found a tiny stamp in the 'no idea where these came from' box 😄  which looked like a stream of bubbles so used it after inking in Salty Ocean. It gave a really subtle effect I think. (Although you may have to enlarge the pic to get a better view!)

Some gold embossing powder on the bottom which I hope resembles some sparkly sand!

The Seahorse die is from a free set  that came with a mag last year, coloured in gold ink and clear embossed. 

I have rather a lot of this textured card from American Crafts bought some time ago and like the finish it gives so note to self - use more!


Sharing my seahorse over at
A2S+M - A/Goes
Cardz4Guyz- CAS
Creatalicious - A/Goes
Craft Stamper - March - A/Goes

As once again we have heavy showers 🌂 here I am planning on sitting in the craftie space and having an inky day today. 
(I should really be doing housework but hey ho!) - have a great weekend! x

Vellum

Visitors to my blog will know that on Sunday here I made a wild statement to try and join in as many of the CAS Mix Up and Sister blog challenges as I could.   My intentions were good at that time - and then............
I saw this months challenge at CAS Watercolour.

Vellum  ....    I mean VELLUM????      Vellum hates me. I don't know why, it just does.
But a statement of intent is a statement of intent - so I found the vellum (thrown away in a drawer in disgust no doubt) and looked at it.
It stared back at me. I still looked at it. It still stared back at me.
I looked at it and before it got a chance to look back I decided to use it - to use as little as possible - but to use it.

I count the Cherry Blossom stamp from Technique Tuesday as one of my faves.  Cherry Blossom reminds me of Spring and I love Spring when everything is starting to grow and flower.

I stamped and white embossed. 

I imprisoned the hated vellum in a frame of tape (stuck down as hard as I could to get my own back) and used my watercolour pencils to colour.

When dry I reluctantly released it from it's tape prison ....  and then cut it up. (Revenge is mine👿👿)

Fussy cut the 3 flowers and dotted teeny blobs of liquid pearls onto the stamens.

I die cut and watercoloured a branch and a frame and used one of the very first EF's ever bought (Oriental Set) as the Cherry Blossom EF I thought was a good background .
Mounted the embossed piece behind the frame.
A simple stamped sentiment finished it off.

And I finished the vellum off by returning it to it's dark drawer!!

Am sharing this over at
Flower Challenge - A/Goes
Allsorts - Fave Season (Spring)
CAS on Friday - Vellum
Daisy Chain - Spring

Thanks for looking! x

CAS Mix Up - March

(If you are here to see my March Stamping Sensations DT post, just scroll past this one!)

I am trying to submit an entry into as many of the CAS Mix Up challenges (and their sister blogs) as I can.  And this month CAS Mix Up is 3 years old so they are having a birthday celebration too!
The challenge set is 'Faux Stained Glass'.
Not a technique I have used before but I watched the videos (all linked on the challenge blog) and decided to have a go.

  As it was my first try I wanted something relatively simple! There are some fab examples of mandalas etc but I wasn't confident enough to plunge into degrees of difficulty!

The balloon is part of a 2 die set and scarcely used.
Cut four times (with sticky sheets on the back of each cut) from a small off cut of white card.
I dusted another piece with Tumbled Glass DI, and positioned the first die cut onto it. 
I coloured the balloon with Promarkers then built up two more layers.
Then used Nuvo Crystal Glaze, finally adding the last die on top.

The 'clouds' were odd scraps lying about! (Not that using them has made much difference to the mess on the desk.....😉😉)
I was a little disappointed when the glaze dried as the left side colours were pink, red and orange but the glaze took a little of the vibrant shade out of the red - a lesson learned!

Here's a close up though of the lovely glossy shine

And I think not too bad for a first attempt.

Am sharing my ballon at the Playground  and also at
Inkspirational - Use Your Stash
Die Cut Divas - A/Goes
AAA #135 - Sentiment plus 3 (die cut/matted layer/coloured pens)
Fusion - Inspiration Pic - a rainbow cupcake handle!

Thanks for stopping by - I really appreciate your visits and any comments you leave me.
Have a nice day whatever you're doing. x

Rainbow for March

We have a 'RAINBOW' challenge this month at Stamping Sensations.
We want you to be inspired by the colours or the words of the song.
Please read our rules before linking up - thank you!

I opted to used the rainbow colours for this card.
 The background stamp is a WOW one called 'Tropical'.
I stamped onto watercolour card and heat embossed.
I think perhaps I should have stamped and embossed again to make the background more defined as I didn't quite get the effect I wanted once I started colouring. But wasn't going to risk re-doing once I had removed it from the Misti!

I used lots of Distress Oxides(Shaded Lilac, Picked Raspberry, Dried Marigold, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Blueprint Sketch and Wilted Violet).

Mounted onto black card,sentiment stamped and hear embossed and a couple of black sparklies.
A quick unfussy and uncomplicated card which I actually like rather a lot!

Hope you can join us - once again we have a wonderful prize which you can see when you go to read our rules HERE!