I'm Back & I'm Behind!!

Hi my Lovelies!!  I'm back and I was rested, until I had to climb mount junk mail to get in through my front door (for the benefit of my wonderful followers who don't live in the UK, we have letterboxes in our front doors that the postman pushes our mail through every day!  With the result, it piles up on the floor, just inside the front door) . . . you get the picture! 

Then, I had to sort through it all and dispose of said junk mail and deal with all the problems that wait to arise just as we leave the house and sits there malevolently awaiting our return!!

It was 03:30, when we finally got to our bed, and then slept until 12:00 on Saturday.  Then the fun of switching on the computers, to face a tsunami of e-mails and  . . . more junk!!  Of course, it had to be sifted through, to ensure I didn't miss anything important!  In the end, I just had to scroll down through the headers, to delete on mass anything that didn't look important.

I must thank each and every one of you who still left comments even though you knew I was unable to read them until my return, they were like little diamonds shining in a very large dung heap!  They really helped to lighten the task, it was like sifting for gold, every so often I would find another shiny nugget and it would keep me going!  I just hope that I will manage to catch up and return your wonderful comments when I visit your blogs . . . though I know that I am bound to miss some/many, if I do, I hope you will forgive me and know that, from now, I will continue to return any comments you kindly leave here.

Enough of the waffle, you have come here to see a card, not me whittling on!  This is a piece of colouring I did whilst without internet (all I did every day, was relax in the sun and read a book or do some colouring that I had taken with me).

This card is for one of my sister's and her husband who have just bought a new house. I have carried the outside sentiment to the inside, with the 'new' from the outside sentiment, masked off, and I used my new, Mama Elephant, 'Calli Letters' alphabet and spelled out the word,  'beginnings', so it reads, 'New Home' and inside, 'New Beginnings', which I thought was very apt with the butterfly!

Here is my card.

Thank you so much for your visit today and especially if you have left a comment.  You are all appreciated more than you know!

A Masculine Birthday Card

Hello my beautiful friends.  As most of you will know, this is a scheduled post as I am away without internet until the end of June (and, yes, for those of you who have kindly pointed out that the internet is good in rural Spain now, I do know this, but not in the place we are staying).  This is fine with me though, because it forces me to do things differently to what I would at home, and relax, and that's what holidays are about . . . right?

This is a card that I made from my 'bits & bobs' drawer and I made it primarily as a masculine birthday card . . . because I was short of those in my 'stash'.  I won't waffle long, so here are the rest of pictures.

Thank you so much for your visit today and especially if you have left a comment.  You are all appreciated more than you know!  I will repay your kindness on my return!

CAS Mix Up June Challenge

Hi my lovelies!  Most of you will know that this is a scheduled post as I am currently in rural Spain without access to constant internet, land-line telephones . . . and, sometimes, . . . running water!  I was beyond thrilled when Loll & Bonnie asked me if I would be their 'Featured Designer' for their CAS Mix Up June challenge, and I jumped at the chance.

The requirements this month are:

First, I will show you my card and then, I will describe the how's, what's and why's after, so that those of you eager to get on with it can just look at the pictures.

OK, this is how I made it and what I used.  The first thing I did, was to make a plain, white card base.  Then, I took another panel, slightly smaller than the card base and masked off a circular area near the top.  I then took a Hero Arts, 'Woodgrain' background stamp inked up with Versamark and stamped that through the mask.  Then, I heat embossed that with WOW 'White Pearl' embossing powder.  Next, I lightly sponged some 'Tumbled Glass' Distress Ink through the mask.

The next thing I did, was to take the circle die I used to cut the mask and emboss the circle 'frame' around my sponged piece, to give it a nice 'finish' to the edge.  Then I ran the panel through my Big Shot with my 'Linen' embossing plate.

I then got some small left over panels of ink smooshed card-stock out and die cut some feathers with my Spellbinders 'Peacock Feathers' die set and adhered them at different heights using wet glue and thin, foam tape.  Then, it reminded me of a 'dream catcher', so I got out a couple of punches out and punched a small, scalloped circle and a plain circle and mounted that on top of the feathers.

Finally, I stamped the greeting with two colours of Altenew crisp inks in coordinating colours to give the sentiment an ombre look.

So, to recap on techniques:

Stamping - sentiment & woodgrain texture
Die-Cutting - feathers and mask
My Choice - heat embossing (woodgrain texture), die embossing (circle frame), dry embossing (linen texture), emboss resist & sponging (sponging over woodgrain texture)

There you have it my friends, who would have thought that you could use so many techniques and products in one CAS project!  This new challenge of Loll & Bonnie's is pure genius.

Pop on over there and see what Loll, Bonnie and their team have put together for your inspiration and then give it a go, it really is fun!

Thank you so much for your visit today and especially if you have left a comment.  You are all appreciated more than you know!

Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge - Ghosting

Well, my goodness, gracious me, yet another month has whizzed by, so fast I very nearly missed it!  This means we have another fun challenge over at the Happy Little Stampers CAS blog.  This month it is Ghosting . . . no, not the spooky kind . . . stay tuned and I'll explain, but first, you need to pop on over to HLS and check out the videos there explaining this technique and the other design team members fabulous examples.

As always, HLS is sponsoring this challenge from the HLS shop.

So, without further ado, here is my card and the explanation will be below for those interested.

First, I took a white card base, a grey, slightly textured panel smaller than the card front, and a strip of navy blue card-stock.

The first thing I did was to stamp the flower silhouette in white pigment ink and let it dry, then I stamped it again in navy ink, just a little offset and let that dry.  Whilst that was drying, I took a piece of white card-stock and stamped the sentiment in navy and adhered a small strip of navy card-stock on to the bottom of the sentiment piece to tie it in and adhered foam tape to the back.

The nest step was to mount a strip of navy card-stock to the back of the focal panel an mount the whole thing up on fun foam to the card base and the sentiment strip to finish.

Now it is your turn and I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Supplies used:

Stamps: Lindsay Mason - Hope Blooms
Cards-stock: Smooth White, Grey textured, white and navy snippets
Ink: White Pigment & Navy Dye Ink

CAS Mix Up June Challenge & Featured Designer!

Well, my lovely friends, I am beyond excited today!  You see, two of my lovely blogging friends Loll & Bonnie, the co creators of CAS Mix Up Challenge, asked me if I would like to be the featured designer for June!  Would I?  I am thrilled, what an honour!

The challenge for this month is:

So, without further ado, I will explain my process and the techniques I have used and list the supplies at the end.

First, I stamped a flower and leaves in Versamark on to white card-stock.  Then I coloured them by sponging ink in two colours for each die-cut, two greens for the leaves and a yellow and orange for the flower.  Next, I cut them out with the matching dies.

Then I took a piece of coordinating card-stock and stamped a floral background on it with Versamark and heat embossed with gold pearl embossing powder and cut a strip for the left hand side of my card base, which I adhered with tape runner.

Then I took a panel of white card-stock and dry embossed with my favourite embossing plate for texture.  I then stamped the sentiment in the same gold pearl embossing powder and adhered the panel to the front of the base card with craft foam for dimension.

Finally, I arranged the flower and leaves on to the card front - some the leaves were adhered flat and the flower with foam tape - again for dimension.  The very last touch was my home made dew drops, which have been referred to as my 'signature' touch.

So, techniques used were, stamping (main images, side panel & sentiment), die cuts (flower & leaves), sponging (flower & leaves) heat embossing (main images & side panel texture) and dry embossing (texture on front panel).

Here is the card.

Why not join in the fun, it's a fabulous challenge, and don't forget to make your mixed media CAS too!

Thank you so much for your visit today and especially if you have left a comment.  You are all appreciated more than you know!

Supplies used:
Stamps & Dies: Uniko 'Chrysanthemum'  - MFT 'Roses All Over' - Your Next Stamp 'Whatnot Sentiments 4'
Embossing Plate: PTI 'Linen'