Just playing

 I treated myself at the last Lavinia release. Although I am not a Halloween person I fell in love with the lovely pretty witches so they got on their brooms🧹 and flew here bringing a couple more things from the release with them. I am very controlled when it comes to buying Stamp Collections - I sift through and only get what I know I will use - (👼polishes halo!) as it is too easy just to click on 'buy all'!

Since buying I've had very little time to try them out nor have I had any ideas so it was simply a matter of finding a simple design and having a go.

Ink blended, stamped, highlighted with sparkly Posca pens and a white Signo pen.

Don't forget there is still time to enter our Halloween challenge at Try It On Tuesday!

Ages since I linked up at other challenge blogs too so am popping over to
Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge
The Crafting Challenge - Halloween
Make My Monday - Spooky/Halloween
Daisy Chain - Halloween

Have a great day whatever you're doing! x

New Challenge at Try It On Tuesday

Having not had a proper holiday since pre-Covid and as this year was our 25th wedding anniversary we sat down and talked about what we wanted to do. Other half wanted a lazy beach holiday and I wanted the trip of a lifetime!
If we have learnt anything in the last 25 years or so it is how to compromise - so a beach holiday was duly booked for this year and my dream trip booked for next!
It was a lovely relaxing break and the weather was fantastic. I have lounged about, been waited on hand and foot by the amazing staff at the Asimina Suites and was sorry to come home.
So I apologise for not visiting you all the last 3 weeks but now I have sorted out the washing and ironing I will rectify that and come and see you!

It's not surprising given the date that our challenge at Try It On Tuesday for the next 2 weeks is called 'Halloween'!

I don't actually 'do' Halloween but I have made a card which is (loosely) Halloween related!

I started by stamping the smallest pumpkin from Lavinia and masked it before stamping 'Pumpkin Lodge'. 

This was also masked before I stamped the Fairy Crook.

The 'evil' pumpkin was then stamped to hang from it (I actually think it's quite cute with it's smiley face and not at all scary!)

This was one of the few times I did the stamping before the ink blending. I left the masks in place and used Spectrum Noir Midnight, D.Ox Chipped Sapphire, Villainous Potion, Mowed Lawn and Peeled Paint.

Did a bit of shading, highlighting and colouring with Aquarelle Pencils, glittery Poscas and a white Posca pen.
The two dangly spiders are from Card-io.

Hope you can join our challenge this time round and please do stop by the BLOG and see what the rest of the DT have done!

Thanks for stopping by. x

New Challenge at Try It On Tuesday

 Happy Tuesday! It's time for our new challenge over at Try It On Tuesday and for the next 2 weeks we're wanting to see your Halloween creations.
Having no children means Halloween doesn't mean much to us although we do always buy some treats for the trick or treaters! Other half always hopes it rains so they stay at home because it means he gets to eat the sweeties! How bad is he????!!

I don't send Halloween cards so this was a bit of a challenge for me too!

I have been having a play recently with coloured card as a base so I found some really vivid orange and used that for this.

I started by stamping my owl, cat and broomstick (all Lavinia) direct onto the orange card.

Then inked my moon with Brilliance Moonlight through an Inkylicious stencil and ran a white pen round the edge.

The hills were Black Soot DI and I resisted being too heavy with the ink as I really wanted the orange base to show through a little.
The trees are one of my most used sets from Inkylicious.

The castle is Lavinia and the teeny spider (cute isn't he?!) is from Card-io.

I finished by dragging the white stencil brush across the card to give the appearance of mist - but am not sure I achieved it!

I intended to stamp 'Dont Forget to Fly' but am damned if I can find the stamp - it'll turn up when I don't want it no doubt!

Hope you will join us this month - if you pop over to the blog there's lots of spooky makes from the DT too.
Thanks for looking today - have a lovely day whatever you're doing. x
Sharing over at
Triple B - (Bird- my owl)
Stamps+Fun - Black and Orange
Crafty Calendar - Halloween
Sparkles - Things that go bump in the Night
If you give a Crafter a Cookie - Black
Two Old Bats - Halloween

Halloween Dance

I am not a Halloween person! Nor am I inclined to read or watch anything remotely spooky.... (apart from Casper that is!) but once in a while seeing all the masks, capes, spidery things I am tempted to produce something non cute that could be (loosely) interpreted as suitably scary.

Perhaps the image is not your normal kind of anniversary/wedding card subject but the sentiment seemed to fit with it so a wedding/anniversary/engagement card it is....... for someone who likes all things Twilight Zone!

Basic white card covered in some black paper then a piece of purple crackle style paper.
After distressing the edges, some Pumice Stone DI applied and some faux stitching in black along the edge.

Image matted and distressed in the same way, coloured with a mix of promarkers and Distress Inks.
Black lace, black pearls and flourishes and two die cut gothic style corners.

The freebie sentiment printed onto the purple paper. The two 'bats' are tiny cut outs from the corner dies - they didn't start off life as bats - I just used a pair of scissors and trimmed the off cuts a bit!!

The metal heart charm is a dull dark grey colour - the shine comes from the flash on the camera - I had a devil of a job taking this pic (perhaps not a good choice of descriptive person for Halloween??? LOL) - its very grey and damp here today and the dark colours didn't make for good photo taking!

So there it is - my Halloween offering for 2013!

Challenges -
Creative Insp - Happy Haunting
MAWTT - Spooktastic
CRAFT- Halloween
Crafty Catz - Halloween
LOC - Halloween
Card Crafters Circle - 3 embellishments
Country View Crafts - Something Spooky
Emergency Crafters - Halloween

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

Halloween

There was an 'open' theme on Gothic Arches this week so I took the opportunity to post a 'fun' arch! The background of this arch is fabric - it looks like a sparkly spiders web- which I spotted in the window of a small haberdashery shop in the nearest town to me - I have another Arch almost completed (not a halloween theme!) and really should get round to finishing it! I've got loads of ideas for gothic arches as i really like the shape and size, trouble is I never have enough time to make any of my ideas come to fruition!

I've also had a bit of a spend on some stamps this week, so have been too busy stamping the images in different colours seeing what they look like instead of actually doing any proper crafting!