Isla

This week has flown and tomorrow will be time for my launch card for the new challenge at CAS Mix Up - but a quick share from me today.

I simply HAD to have this stencil from Sweet Poppy - we have lots of Highland cattle in the fields around us and quite simply I think they're cute- (particularly when they're babies!)
So 'Isla the Highland Cow' found her way into my shopping basket and I have made about 6 cards so far including a couple of Christmas cards after being inspired by blogging buddy Linda.

All of them quick one layer makes and great for just swelling the stash for those hard to do 'man' cards.
I have used different sentiments on the birthday cards like 'Did Someone Say Cake?' and 'You are as perfect as me'!

I bought some cheapie make up blending brushes from Amazon and they work a treat for ink blending - I am quite impressed considering how much they were! They give great coverage.
For 'Isla' cards I used shades of Distress Inks in Tea Dye, Vintage Photo and Old Paper.

Thanks for looking today - hope you will come back soon! x 

Sharing Isla over at -

AAA Birthday - Critters/Animals
AAA Card - One layer
Creative Craft Cottage - Add an Animal

BIG Birthday!

One of my very good blogging buddies NANCY is celebrating a BIG birthday today!  🎂  There is only one candle on this cake - but Nancy is a teeny weeny bit older than one! (Only a little bit😉😉)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANCY!

To mark this occasion Loll is hosting a linky party for Nancy's birthday over on her own blog HERE

I am lucky to have got to 'know' Nancy (and marvel at her talents!) when I joined the CAS DT team. She may be hundreds of miles away but she has become a blogland friend and I am grateful for her support and encouragement. Here's Nancy's birthday card from me -

I took some white cardstock did some shadow stamping - the stamp is a recent purchase - Soulful Silhouettes by Penny Black.

Stamped first in Memento Tuxedo Black than again in Versamark and white heat embossed.
I used one of my fave colours - VersaMagic Wheat - for the blending. 

A few ink splatters and a sentiment which I hope conveys to Nancy that I am grateful for her.

I cut out with a stitched die and matted it onto black card.
I tried the panel on white card base and didn't like it -  the white jumped out before the panel! So I simply inked the white card base with the same colour and was happier!

I made another card similar using a fern stamp (whilst I had the ink out) which I will share at some point as I found making this was quite relaxing

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave. x 
Also sharing over at
Krafty Chicks - All occasions
Get Creative - Black +1
Watercooler Wednesday - All Occasions

Last Day of Summer?

I had a couple of pieces of card lying on the desk - I used to save all little offcuts of card but was in danger of being buried under a paper mountain of tiny bits🗻 so have got into the habit of only keeping card if it is of a reasonable useful size. (Wasteful I know but I used to spend hours searching in the 'bits box' and invariably ended up not having a 'bit' big enough for what I wanted!)
 

So now the 'bits box' only has bigger pieces in it and this card was made with them.

I took a piece of card which was the exact perfect size for a panel and used a Stampasurus stencil for my background blending with Speckled Egg and Picked Raspberry.
 

My stamp is from Altenew's Just Because set - this was it's first use!
After stamping I fussy cut.✂
I thought about colouring the flower bouquet bit decided it would make more impact left.

I added a small strip of black card under the flower (another odd bit!)
The sentiment and die word is from Technique Tuesday.

Yesterday we had a day out at the seaside - it was warm and sunny, there was hardly anyone on the beach (I collected a couple of 'keepsake' shells which I am going to use for a small canvas).
After our beach walk we sat on the prom looking out at the blue sky and the sea and had a fish and chip lunch - it was just a perfect day.

Today our weather has ended up being grey, cool and windy! So maybe we made the most of the last day of summer?
Thanks for visiting me today.
I am more reliant than ever on contact with my blogging buddies as the months go by and the virus remains with us.

Stay safe and well wherever in the world you are. x

Linking to

TIOT - Use up Your Scraps
NBUS #18 - (My Altenew stamp)
Pixies Snippets Playground #387

Mist

This week has been a week of contrasts. Warm, Cool, Highs, Lows, Ups, Downs!

We took a picnic at the start of the week and went out to Dunham Massey - a lovely warm and sunny day.
Walked a long way so the high was replaced by a low when the hips and back suffered for it the next day!!
The warm weather has been replaced by cooler conditions today although it is still sunny.

There was definitely a BIG 'down' during the week (details now unimportant) but this resulted in an 'up' when I realised that even during the down times there are many people around in Blogland who I am privileged to know and are there when you are low.

So my share for today was made after all the angst of the week.

It serves to remind me that despite there being a lot of 'mist' about it does eventually clear and sooner or later the sun comes out and the clouds disappear.

I am holding on to this thought too as in addition to the trials of the week, once again (like many others) we are having further restrictions imposed on us and paying for the lunacy of some.

I wanted to achieve a soft effect for this make - Memento London Fog used for all the foliage and the sentiment.
Background (from the bottom) - Hickory Smoke, Shaded Lilac, Tumbled Glass and Squeezed Lemonade.
Thanks for looking today - I hope your weekend is full of Highs not lows and Ups not downs!

Sharing over at
Inkspirational - Prompt word 'DAY'
Cards Galore Encore - A/Goes
Crafty Sentiments - A/Goes
APTTC- A/Goes
Creative Moments - A/Goes

CAS Mix Up September Mid Month Reminder

Our 'Embossing with Dies' challenge set by Joanna is mid way through at CAS Mix Up, so there's still time to enter!
Here's my card.

I had this fern leaf die and stamp set and thought I would try it for this technique. I used a woodgrain embossing folder to give some texture to the background.

My first attempt at running the die and EF through the machine was not a success as the 'sandwich' was too thick and the card ended up creased and the die had cut through in some places. I fiddled about a bit with a shim until I finally got a run through that was OK.

I stamped the embossed die image several times with Peeled Paint DI (the stamp is mostly outline highlights), then lightly watercoloured the rest of the leaves.

The sentiment is from Woodware again stamped with Peeled Paint DI.  I really like the mottled effect stamping with Distress Inks gives.

Fussy cut the sentiment and popped it onto the card base.

Our Guest designer this month is Mac and her make for our challenge is lovely so hop over and leave her and the rest of the team some love!

Inky

 We have some lovely weather today - although it is windy it is warm. Took full advantage and stripped the bed, all dry in 2 hours. Kind of lifted my mood a little bit seeing sheets blowing out on the line with a blue sky above although by no means has the feeling of restlessness disappeared.

The celebratory birthday challenge at Allsorts is entitled 'I Love' - which asks that you do something that you love or use something that you love. This was quite a difficult choice for me.
I love creating CAS cards but - I also think there's nothing better than getting out ink blenders and stamps and making messy fingers!

So it was the ink blending and stamps option that I chose to do using stamps from two of my fave companies - Inkylicious and Lavinia.

I just adore this cat! I am trying to make my mind up if he and the birdie are friends having a nice chat or whether he is plotting how he can reach the birdie from his mushroom!

I think as there's so much bad stuff going on in the World, that I would prefer them to be best buddies and while away the time together.
I do intend to stamp a sentiment on the top right side eventually but I am keeping this for my own stash so a sentiment will be added when I decide what I'm going to use it for!

Am also sharing this over at Sweet Stampin' where the theme is 'Pets'.

Thanks for looking today - I hope the sun is shining for you too. x

Brusho Christmas

 I sometimes look at my craft stash and think 'It's a long time since I used that'.... and so it is with my Brushos.
I don't use them enough - probably because I am not very good with them!

This card was inspired by a technique I saw a while ago and I stored it up to try it.... long forgotten but it just for some reason popped into my head when I saw the challenge at my Cas Mix Up's sister blog-  CAS Christmas this month was 'Christmas Tree'.

The technique is to simply 'ink' your stamp liberally with water, stamp onto watercolour card and sprinkle the Brushos on the wet impression, allowing each impression to dry before repeating.

I struggle so much with Brushos and also the 'move the colour around with a brush' thing that everyone I know seems to be so good at so there were several failed attempts before I managed to achieve something which I call 'passable'!
I was also limited as I only have a 12 colour starter pack so the colour options were not many - I used Emerald Green and Ultramarine.

Once dry I just dotted a white gel pen randomly before adding the sentiment.
As I said, this for me is a passable effort - I doubt if I am ever going to become expert.
I am struggling a little lately - my problems are compounded by the fact that no matter how much I try the face mask just makes me panic after 5 minutes. So for me now it's simply out in the car to somewhere flat so I can just walk - a visit to the shops are no longer an option. The weather here tho' has not been the best for walking which probably explains the 'restlessness' I am experiencing and my complete lack of any inspiration or motivation!

Stay safe wherever you are in the world. x
Linking up at
Sweet Stampin' - A/thing but a Birthday Card
Time Out - Season
CRAFT- Christmas

Stamping Sensations September Challenge

Our challenge at Stamping Sensations for September is 'The Great Outdoors'.

I've used stamps from Hunkydory for my scene and watercoloured.

I wanted to use the hiking man silhouette but when I tried him on the scene background he was all out of perspective so I extended the scene background by turning it round and stamping at the bottom - this gave me a bit more 'path' for him to stand on - he still looks like he's about to go for a swim but at least he is the right size!!

We've got a great prize this month -   2 A4 stamps sheets from Rare Earth Illuminated Florals collection - full pics are over on the challenge blog.

Please read our challenge rules - we're a stamping challenge so the focal point of your entry MUST be stamping!

Hope my card has inspired you to join us - if not there's lots of lovely inspiration from the Stamping Sensations DT!

Colours

Trawling through craftie shops on line recently a couple of stamps which I thought looked a little different and possibly interesting just jumped into my basket by accident......😳😳
Interesting they were - they took an age to colour and so kept me occupied!
I am happy though with the way they turned out so here's the first one (The other similar stamp has Angels on it which I'll share later)

I stamped then clear embossed - which was just as well I did -  as it at least gave me an opportunity to try and keep the colours inside the lines!

It took me a couple of hours and this was my first attempt so there are places where I think the shading could have been better but overall not too bad.

If you look very carefully a litle way down under the point of the star is a tiny arch where there is a manger - it's really small and to be honest I only noticed it as I got to it with the paint.

I cut out the finished piece  and popped it up with 3d pads onto the white base card.

This is quite a big stamp and there wasn't a lot of room for a sentiment on my 6" x 4" card but found this small Penny Black one which I think is ok.
A friend asked me for several Christmas cards with a religious theme so at least these stamps are going to get a bit of use - which is more than can be said for a lot of my Christmas stash!

As this is the first outing for this stamp I am joining Darnell at the NBUS Challenge!

Also sharing over at
Double D - Lots of Colour
Holly and Ivy - A/Christmas
MLCCB - A/Goes

As ever, thanks for taking the time to look, hope all is well in your part of blogland. Stay safe. x

CAS Mix Up September Challenge

Hello CAS Mix Uppers! Today is the start of another new challenge at CAS Mix Up and this month we are back to a 'Mixed Media' challenge and Joanna has set the challenge of Embossing with Dies.

I have had this die from StudioLight for a little while - another impulse buy and 'never before used'!
All I will say about this card is it was one of those where I had a good idea in my mind but the execution and composition turned out nothing like I expected!

I angled the die across my card base and then dry embossed.
I took lots of odd bits of card that we all keep and simply die cut them all, then pushed out the tiny triangles from the die.

I had a fun time (not) of finding pieces that fitted into the embossed part as I didn't put any to one side just kept die cutting until I thought I had enough to finish the picture in my head!

Boy was there a mess on the desk!

But you know.....even though it didn't quite resemble what I had in my head, I don't think it turned out too bad at all!

Lots of lovely inspiration over on the CAS Mix Up blog, some video tutorial links and a really special card from our Guest Designer, the wonderfully talented Mac

 Hope you will enjoy using your dies in a different way and share your make with us!