Mid Month Anything Goes at Uniko!

Having won the April challenge over at Uniko I was invited to be their Guest Designer this month for their theme of 'Anything Goes' with the option of  'Bright and Happy'

My first card for the challenge is HERE if you want to go and look!

My background was created using Wild Plum and Watermelon Alcohol Inks on Yupo.

I dried a little with a heat gun then took a small piece of Deco Silver Foil and pressed it down and rubbed my finger randomly onto the background.

This is a fun technique as  after each press down and rub, when you lift off the foil piece some of it has transferred to the AI (usually where the 2 colours have 'pooled' together) and gives a 'marbling' effect.

I stamped and heat embossed the flower (Flower Power Set #8) and fussy cut, and used the sentiment/die from the Kindness Blooms set.

Much as I like this AI/Foil combo it is a nightmare to photograph but I hope that you like my bright background and my happy flower!

There is still time to enter - and you don't have to use a Uniko image - so with a great prize on offer why don't you link in?!
You may be lucky like me and win!

Happy Crafting! x

Happy Hug

Earlier this week I was suffering just a tiny bit, feeling quite .... 'restless' (only word I can think of to describe it).  Even though restrictions have eased a bit here we are still preferring to be careful and not go anywhere unnecessarily - but yesterday we had a 15 minute drive to a local garden centre which cheered me up no end. The car was a little full on the way back!
So my plans for today were after our walk,to plant up the lovely things from yesterday - the forecast said a light breeze and sunny spells until Sunday - perfect for me - light breeze??? LIGHT BREEZE??? 

We got up this morning and 3 of my new plant stash were blown over and rolling about on the patio. The wind has been ridiculous all day - and tomorrow is going to be the same -  I am not happy!!!!
Simply impossible to do anything outside - apart from to secure all the plants together - so to those of you who commented on the post with the pics of where I live (here) - yes it is a lovely place - until the winds arrive!

So off to the craft space and whilst listening to the howling outside made this from a piece of left over smooshed background.

The sentiment shape was not intentional! I stamped onto a piece in between where I had cut out the flowers to see if I liked the text size next to the delicate dies intending if I thought it was OK to stamp onto a bigger left over piece and diecut.
But I liked the shape so just snipped it off and used it!

Sharing at
Krafty Chicks - CAS
Unicorn - Use Dies
CAS on Friday - Use a Die
Pixies Snippets Playground - #378

Perspective (or lack of it)

We are being treated to a damp day so after getting a little wet on the morning walk the rest of the day is being spent holed up on the top floor!
I have had this image rattling round in my head for a while now after seeing a spring card made with Alexander Renke papers (and probably dies).
As it would be easier to plait fog than get my hands on anything Alexander Renke in my part of the world without having to rob a bank beforehand I set about trying to put my own slant and create something with stamps and the dies I have.
Which is where the perspective comes in - 

Yes I know that deer are slightly bigger than Holly berries.... but I didn't have any tiny berries or big deer!
(Just pretend that the deer is a long way away in the distance........)

Random colouring of a leaf stamp with my Arteza pens, spritzing then stamped on the bottom of a circle with the top bit run through a snow E/F.
Die cut and watercoloured the holly and deer and added the sentiment from Penny Black inked in Walnut Stain.

It was really fiddly chopping up the berries and re-positioning them and it almost became one of those jobs I hadn't wished I'd started!

Am sharing over at CAS Christmas in their 'Winter Berries' challenge.

Some restrictions here have been eased slightly but things definitely cannot be described as 'getting back to normal'. For now I am staying put!!

Thanks for stopping by. Take Care. xx

May Mid Month at Stamping Sensations

Wee half way through our 'Say it with Flowers' challenge at  Stamping Sensations  and this month we have prizes from Chocolate Baroque and our teamie Dora , who has a wonderful artistic talent and produces some gorgeous hand drawn images.

I have again used one of Dora's beautiful flowers -  isn't it pretty?! (if you want to see another -  click here to go to my first DT post)

Watercoloured and fussy cut first - I opted for blue as for me it's a bit of a change from my normal pinks and yellows for flowers!

I didn't want a fussy background as wanted the flower to be the star of the front of the card - I stamped a few grassy strands and then second generation stamped a few pale blue flowers in Broken China DI.

I overstamped the bottom of the flower stem a few times with another grass stamp and think I have achieved my intention of disguising the cut flower stem at the bottom!

A few ink spatters and sentiment to finish.

Still lots of time for you to put in an entry  - and with some great prizes, you'd be daft not to have a go!
Thanks for looking today - have a great day! x

Beach Huts

A couple of years ago whilst attending a Presentation we stayed in a hotel near a beach and had a walk - and I saw a row of brightly painted beach huts.

It brought back lots of lovely memories of trips to the seaside with my Mum when I was a child and we gazed on beach huts with envy. I love these stamps by Inkylicious (Seascape- Beach Life) as each time I see the set it makes those times pop back into my head.

Watercoloured my background and with a not so steady hand managed to do the fence!

I had considered stamping the huts straight onto the card and colouring but didn't trust myself not to make a mess of them so instead stamped, clear embossed and fussy cut!

The sentiment is a really old one but the distressed look of it makes me think of washed up driftwood.

I hope wherever you are in the World you are currently having Happy Days and thanks for looking! x

CAS Stencil - Mid Month reminder!

Hilary is our host at CAS Stencil this month and she chose the theme of 'Layered Stencils' and I'm here with my mid month reminder that there's still time to enter!

I recently had a little treat of several layered stencil sets which range in size from 2.5" square to 4" square.

Although most of the sets have 3 stencils to use I used just 2 for the butterfly on this card. 

The background strip is an old stencil (sorry I have no idea who makes it but if you scroll down to my previous post you will see it used again!) inked in Pumice Stone DI.
Stencilled the butterfly body over and then when dry used the detail stencil and heat embossed in gold.

Added the sentiment and a small black enamel dot.

We have a wonderful guest designer this month - GRETA (GG Creations)
Greta and the rest of the Design Team have made some great cards to inspire you too (if you need any that is!!)

Thanks for looking - have a great day whatever you're doing. x

Guest Designer at Uniko

I was lucky enough to win the April Uniko challenge and was delighted to be invited to be their Guest Designer for this month's challenge which is 'Anything Goes' with the option of 'Bright and Happy'.

I used rainbow colours for my stencil background and matted it onto black card.

I made a tag (as I don't have a tag die!) and took the smallest scribbly flower stamp from the 'Kindness Blooms' set.
Using the same colours used for the background I randomly stamped onto my tag, then did the same with the small dot stamp before matting it onto black  card.

Some enamel dots in coordinating colours and a sentiment (from Thirsty Brush) and finished.

There's some gorgeous cards from the talented Uniko design team over on the blog and a brilliant prize on offer.
They would love to see you join in this month!

Twofer Flowers

You can tell the weather changed here over the weekend as I spent a lot of time in the craftie space so have more shares today!

The Twofer Challenge has the prompt of 'Flowers'.  I am a bit of a flower nut when it comes to stamp buying so I had a big problem deciding which flower stamp to use.

In the end I opted to just use a flower head stamp set for these 2 cards.

Both cards used up some oddments too.
I had this slate grey panel left over from another card.

I spent a little while stamping some different grey ink shades onto another scrap to try and get a good match without it being too wishy washy.
I ended up using Altenew Silver Stone.

Randomly stamped the larger of the 2 flower heads on the panel and mounted it onto the white base.

Small odd pieces of grey and white used to die cut the sentiment, which I popped up with foam pads and added the word 'Happy' underneath.

Finished with the 3 grey enamel dots. The sentiment inside says ' Enjoy Your Day'

The second card is a re-make of one done a little while ago.
This time ivory linen cardstock used as a base.

Stamped the flower heads onto an offcut of watercolour card.

Coloured them using my Waterbrush pens and fussy cut.
The two vases are from an old Clearly Besotted Flower Arrangements set.
Die cut and shaded from another scrap!

I had a small panel left of the linen card so I simply cut it freehand into a curved shape. This cardstock does not like lots of water particularly on the textured side so I used the smooth side!

Used a brick embossing folder to give some background texture before putting it all together.

I have left this card blank of any sentiment both outside and in - I have a feeling I may well be using it as a Sympathy card very soon.

I am also linking to
MAWTT -  Flowers (2nd card)
MMM - Tone on Tone (1st card)
Flower Challenge - Monochrome (1st card)
Snippets Playground  - (2nd card)

Look Up!

The temperature change in 24 hours here has been ridiculous!!
Sat outside on Saturday - very warm and sunny. Sat inside on Sunday - in a jumper and socks! (had other clothes on too........😄😄 )
Still cool today but not raining thankfully so we managed a walk round the nearby Nature Reserve this morning.
I have a card for this month's CAS Watercolour challenge which is 'Night Sky'.

I quite enjoy trying my hand making these backgrounds and usually manage OK blending Distress Inks but I tried this time just using my watercolours.
Note to Self - NEED MORE PRACTICE!

Overall my watercolour piece didn't turn out too bad and I managed to make 2 reasonably passable cards with it.

I love these little 'SuperHero Pugs' from Clearly Besotted and I thought he would look good against the galaxy sky.
Stamped, embossed and watercoloured before he was ready to sit patiently waiting to fly off somewhere to Save the World!

Thanks for looking today - stay safe, be kind and happy crafting. xx

Also sharing at -
HLS Watercolour - A/Goes + Embossing
Daring Cardmakers - Inky Background

CAS

A picture heavy post.

My share today is a very CAS card, made using pale grey cardstock (which really IS a much better colour than the pic shows!).

A simple die cut frame for my Gerberas which were inked with my Arteza Brush Pens and water spritzed before stamping.

Finished with a die cut sentiment and couple of small enamel dots.

It has been a strange kind of week - we have had some lovely weather which has enabled me to continue to potter about outside and push to the back of my mind the sadness of losing friends and being unable to say goodbye  - there's not much to do here really and on several occasions this week I have missed the enormous plot of land that we had in our old house.

Then I remind myself that although much loved it simply was becoming a huge chore as we got older - so have contented myself with the glorious view we have and looking after the pots/baskets here.

I am very thankful that we have such a space during the continued lockdown and grateful for our little Barn community of 6 houses where we are able to spend time outside in our own space but not completely isolated as we can all see each other and chat from our gardens. We are luckier than most.

This pic on the left is where we step out onto  the right hand side of our patio and the one on the right looks down our lawn into the bottom of the valley and you can see that we can sit out and talk to our neighbours over our fences!

The one below is the view from the top of the garden across to the hills (and of course the wind farm!)
Hang in everybody wherever you are in the World. Even in the darkest of times there is still some beauty around. xx

CAS Stencil May Challenge

Hilary is our host at CAS Stencil this month and she has chosen the theme of 'Layered Stencils'.

I started by creating a soft spotty background using a pale grey ink, fading it out as I moved across the card.

I have a bit of a 'thing' about blue poppies! I love the red ones but I had a blue Oriental Poppy in the garden of our previous house and once it began to bud I checked it lots - (sometimes several times a day 😉😉!)  - as I loved to watch it unfurl and flower.
Although this one isn't a frilly oriental one I decided I wanted to make it blue!

The layered stencil is from Altenew and this is the first time I have used it (it won't be the last!)

The sentiment from Penny Black stamped in Grey ink.

Our Guest designer this month is GRETA - please go visit and see her lovely creation!
My team mates have also done some fab work again this month and if you need any help there's also links to a couple of video tutorials.
Hope that you will create something and share it with us!
There's a few changes afoot with our CAS group of challenges starting next month. CAS Stencil will be combining with CAS Watercolour and CAS Mix Up into one monthly challenge and the new CAS Mix Up Challenge will include a rotation of challenges ... Mixed Media, Stencil, Watercolour (repeat).
We hope that you will come and join us at the new CAS Mix Up from June onwards! x

May Challenge at Stamping Sensations

'Say it with Flowers' is our Stamping Sensations May challenge and this month we have prizes from Chocolate Baroque and our teamie Dora , who has a wonderful artistic talent and produces some beautiful hand drawn images.

For my first card this challenge I have used one of Dora's fab images - I love Hellebores so as soon as I saw this one I had to have it!

I coloured it with watercolours and fussy cut.

The background behind the die cut trellis was some by smooshing the ink used for the flowers onto a piece of acetate and transferred to the background card. I find that using the acetate is easier for managing where and how much ink you want rather than just pressing the card direct into the ink on the craft mat.

Finished Dora's pretty flower with some Nuvo Pearls for the stamens and the flower centre.
Sentiment is from Altenew

Hop over to the Challenge Blog and check out my team mates creations this month - then grab your stamps and join us! (Don't forget to read our rules - we're a stamping challenge and stamping has to be the focal point of your entry).

Have a great day. x