Twofer April Challenge

Twofer's April word prompt is 'Leaves'.
I used a rarely seen daylight stamp and die set  from Thirsty Brush to make my two cards - and although there are some flowers on the stamp I hope there's enough leaves to fulfil the challenge!

This was my first use of black watercolour card and despite me using an anti static bag across it, I still managed to get little white specks from the embossing powder!

I recently bought some metallic watercolours to try  - they didn't cost a lot so I wasn't expecting great results but I have to say I was impressed with them - the shine on them is good and they were great value for the money!

Finished this card with a few spots of Perfect Pearls for the berries and the flower centres.

My second card used the die set.
Painted the image with watercolours and popped it onto the card base with some 3d foam tape.
I stamped another of the leaf designs from the set and die cut.
A few paint spatters and a big sentiment and job done! 

We've had some lovely Spring weather the last few days. It's lifted the spirits being out in the sunshine without a coat and watching the plants and trees burst into life.
Here's a pic of my two cards together

and a little pic of the shine from the paints!

Dragonflies

(Picture heavy post!)
The Twofer challenge always makes me think and this month I had to think more than usual!

It's taken me a long time to  make a decision and to come up with something - which is madness when you consider the prompt was 'YOUR CHOICE'!

Eventually I came up with these -
I've had this Stampendous stamp for ever! Forget the last time I used it so made up for lost time and used it twice.

I stamped and clear embossed then added some Brushos. I am still not very good with Brushos and this panel was my third attempt.

A little grungy overstamping with a hexagon stamp and an arrow stamp. Liked the hexagon, didn't like the arrow so overstamped it with the 'Make Art' which fortunately for me looked OK!


My second card involved more embossing!

Gold embossed the dragonfly

then fussy cut, getting rid of the flourish and the vines. I painted the wings with several Mica Powders so they have a little shimmer.

The background is an old stencil from Imagination Crafts - I used Tea Dye for the Bullrush tops and Twisted Citron for the leaves.

I lightly inked some Speckled Egg DI for the sky and stamped the sentiment in the Tea Dye ink.

Am going to share the second card at
MTTC- Stencil It
Stamplorations Stencil Challenge - A/Goes

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking today and thank you for any comments you leave.

I really appreciate you taking the time. x

February Twofer

(Picture heavy post!)  The 'Twofer Challenge' this month has the theme of Balloons  - ( 'Twofer' - you have to make two cards for different occasions using the same stamps/dies/stencils.)

My first make is using an edger die which I bought last year and never used (another NBUS- this room is full of them!).

Despite it looking big and easy (and I thought versatile) there's not many different way really to use it - it is what it says - an 'edger die' and that's it!
BUT - it is OK for relatively CAS cards needed in a hurry if you're OK with fiddling about putting the different coloured balloon centres in.

By changing the balloon colours and/or using glitter card etc I suppose it may come in useful for Anniversaries and other Celebrations?

My balloon centres are cut from a piece of Peacock Feathers smooshed watercolour card and I used a piece of black card to secure them. A few ink spatters and a sentiment - job done.


The second card uses one of the white balloon diecuts from the first.
I coloured it with a Promarker.

I love this 'Inspired by  not endorsed by Banksy' girl  from Bee Crafty - she's called 'Hope'.

She was stamped onto an ink blended background (Speckled Egg sky and Twisted Citron ground) and added a tree stamp that was a magazine freebie.
Layered some Glossy Accents on the balloon and drew the strings from the balloon with a thin Posca Pen. Finished with an Inylicious sentiment.

Overall  I am not too disappointed with it although probably the balloon is a little big for the right perspective! (Crafter's Licence!)

If you've stayed right here to the very end I send hugs from my pleasantly warm and almost sunny part of blogland! x

Twofer Guest Designer

Two posts in less than 12 hours! (Scroll down for the other!)

Delighted to have been asked to be Guest Designer for the Twofer Challenge this month - the prompt word is 'Flowers'.
For those who are wondering about 'Twofer' - you have to make two cards for different occasions using the same stamps/dies/stencils. It certainly makes you think!
I used a NBUS stamp set, Penny Black Dahlias. Have had it a while and thought this was a good opportunity to let the set see ink!

First card uses white heat embossing of the largest stamp in the set.

I smooshed the background with Picked Raspberry and Shaded Lilac.

I sometimes don't like the effect I get just inking direct onto my craft mat so I used Acetate instead - that way you can have a little control over the distribution of colours and see if they are too much.

Originally I was going to simply heat emboss the sentiment direct to the inked piece but changed my mind and went for the vellum instead.  A couple of pink enamel dots and done.

The second card was a little bit more complicated time wise as it involved a lot of masking and stamping.

Gold embossed this one and watercoloured it - used the same biggest stamp and a couple of smaller ones.
I used Squeezed Lemonade, Fossilized Amber and Wild Honey for the flowers and gave the background a very light colour wash of Tumbled Glass and a few ink spatters in Amber before gold embossing the sentiment.

Popped it onto a die cut square and used hammered cardstock for a bit of added texture.
Here's a pic below of the two cards together and the challenge runs until 24th of the month.

Thanks to Darnell and the team at Twofer for inviting me to be Guest Designer this month and thanks to you for looking today.
Sharing over at
NBUS #

November Twofer

 This month's challenge at Twofer is 'Stars'. Last challenge of the year too!
I made a Christmas card and a Birthday card using the same Star die and some odd bits of glitter card.

The background for the Christmas card was done using Chipped Sapphire and Stormy Sky DI with a little dab of Squeezed Lemonade round the 'moon' for the sky and Shaded Lilac for the 'snow'.
Liberal amounts of white Posca pen spattering too!
I used a silver pen to 'hang' the stars from the die cut branch. I treated myself to this sentiment last week and it seemed just right!

The Birthday card is a tried and tested 'man' card!
Have done a few of these in different colours.
After stamping few grungy elements in grey, I added a couple of ink blots using a Midnight Blue ink.
The dark coloured stars were also cut out of the same dark blue card as the matted layer.
The sentiment I think was a freebie some time ago.

These two cards were also a way of using up the odd bits of glitter card that I always seem to be left with at this time of year.

Thanks to Darnell (Dolly 😘) for all her hard work this year with this challenge - and thanks too to the DT for their inspiration -  enjoy your month off! x

Linking my Christmas card over at
CHNC - A/Goes (Glitter)
Inkspirational - Frame It
and a quick visit to Pixies Playground 'cos my glittery bits were all leftovers!

Fern (and a long post!)

Spent yesterday outside in windy but sunshiney🌞 (and not too cold) weather preparing my pots and containers for the winter season. I have the fleece ready for my precious Camellia 🌺 and have re-arranged most into bigger groups so they can protect each other from the monstrous winds we get here. An added bonus was I got all my washing dry!
Today by contrast is dull grey and drizzly so a perfect excuse to sit at my favourite desk (and ignore the ironing 🙈). 
After failing miserably last month, I have managed to actually finish the cards I made for the Twofer Challenge  this month  which has the theme of Silhouettes.

The hardest part for me was deciding which stamp to actually use but as I had used this SU fern stamp recently it was - well - there!

The background on the square card was a smooshed piece using Cracked Pisatchio and Spun Sugar.

The two teeny birdies (which I simply LOVE) are from Inkylicious and the sentiment is Technique Tuesday. 
I think they are there for each other during this weird time we are living through hence the sentiment!

I lightly inked the edge with Black Soot and matted it onto black card.
It looked really stark on the white card base so I blended a little of the inks on it.

My second card is shadow stamped with the fern in Memento Tuxedo Black and the second stamping white heat embossed.

In the absence of a coloured card base which I could use, I blended Wheat coloured Versacolour ink for the background and spattered a few black droplets.

Again it just didn't look right on top of white card so the ink blending was carried over onto the card base.

Glad that I actually managed to link up this month instead of remembering 2 days after the challenge closes.

I hope everyone is coping - it's tough when there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of this loooong tunnel.

But when all else fails there's always blogland......
and cake,
lots of cake.

In fact I have a rather nice Belljun Choklit cream filled Shoo Bun sat here on a plate next to me....

well it would be rude not to wouldn't it?

Take Care! x

Twofer!

The weather here has been not good at all this week and I am trying not to let the grey skies coupled with all the madness that is going on outside in the World sink me into an abyss of misery, frustration and foreboding.  The Twofer Card Challenge for June began a couple of days ago and as I have lacked any motivation for a few days I determined that I would make something for it.

I used the same die on both cards and I hope the finished articles are different enough!

My first card has been left minus a sentiment at the moment as I am not sure if I will use it or will simply put it in my stash.

I spent a couple of hours last week making messy with Alcohol Inks and Yupo so the background is one of those.

I roughed up the surface of the die cut a little as I didn't want too smooth a finish with the embossing powder.

My sea horse die was smooshed with Distress Oxides and then a few sprinkles of embossing powder on top.

For my second card I used distress inks to colour the circles whilst it was still in the die.

I double embossed the diecut with Platinum embossing powder to give it a raised and smooth finish.

Assembling the bits back into the die cut was a bit of a challenge but I got there in the end!

Punched out a couple of small circles and popped both on top of a die cut frame that had been stamped with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

I really DO need to liven myself up!  I have promised myself I will not watch any news or spend hours trawling social media this weekend.

In a lot of cases it simply makes me angry and at other times makes me so sad.

Totally counter productive.

Am hoping the weather improves a bit so I can at least get out for a short walk across the hills down to the Nature Reserve - where it is serene and peaceful and the only things that are fighting are the ducks over the bread!

Thanks for looking today - and thanks for listening (reading!)  xx

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)

Twofer and more!

I took advantage of the Twofer Challenge rules being relaxed a little this month as we can make 2 different cards for the same occasion instead of different occasions with the theme of Holiday Greenery.

I used a Penny Black tree stamp from the Peaceful Winter set (30-450).

The square one uses 2 different tree stamps in varying shades of green, with one topped with a punched out gold shiny star and a sentiment from the Merry Up set (30-622).

The larger card on the left had the 'sky' inked with Chipped Sapphire and Seedless Preserve and the snowdrifts done with Tumbled Glass and Weathered Wood.  White embossed the tree, stamped the sentiment and spattered with acrylic paint before mounting it onto a stitched die.

As well as the Twofer challenge I am also linking up to -
PB&More  -  Christmas
Holly & Ivy - Anything Christmas
Christmas @ Sweet Stampin' - Trees

Thanks for looking and if you've left me a comment I really appreciate it. have a lovely day whatever you're doing. x