Fabulous at 50

Good morning and happy Sunday. I'm really pleased to be sharing my second project for Country View Crafts 'hand stamped' challenge, and this time it's a birthday card for my brother in law.

Whenever I need a fun birthday card I always seem to reach for my 'crazies' and my favourite Paper Artsy goodies.

 I started by making my background with my lovely bright fresco's and this fun JOFY mini background stamp.

And added some tactful 50's - just in case he'd forgotten!

 Then I cut out some frames and painted these in the same colours, and stamped and painted my sentiment.

Now for the Crazies! I've stamped and die cut the Crazy Dogs and accessories. 

 I've added Glossy Accents for their eyes.

 What's not to love about these guys?

This is one of my favourite sentiments for a birthday card, I think it really packs a punch.

I always love making these cards, they are such fun and never fail to make me smile.

I hope that you play along with our challenge, what's not to enjoy about stamping, it's my favourite crafting thing to do.

I'm entering this into the Craft Stamper TIMI challenge for November.

Have a great week, and thanks very much for looking x

Reach For The Stars

Good morning and happy Saturday. Today I'm over at Ink Art Designs and I'm sharing the rest of my 'Little Book of Secrets' that I made at a recent Tracy Easson class. I'm not saying how the book was made as it's a class that Tracy is still teaching. I will say that it was great fun and I can't wait to take another of her classes.

I know that you've seen the front cover already but I really like the covers lol.

I just love Matilda Bottoms, she's so cute!

And Morty is such a handsome chap, always with his head up to the sky.

This is page 3. I really enjoyed working with the fabrics, not something that I had ever done before.

This is the middle where we added some paper pages.

And the other side with some fabric clouds added. This is the very sweet Betsy Bottoms.

Lots of words on this page.

And I've added a Tim Holtz die cut to this one.

The lovely Matilda started the book so it seemed only fair that she should end it too.

And finally the back cover with a fabric badge that I made - I never thought that I would say that!

I hope that you've enjoyed your little tour of my book, and that you will also join me at the Ink Art Designs facebook group, and play along with our challenge over there. Just click on the link to be transported  https://www.facebook.com/groups/InkArtDesigns/

I'm entering my book into this months Mini Album Makers challenge. It's the first time that I've made a fabric album but it won't be the last. I enjoyed it so much and you end up with something to keep.

I'm also entering into this months Craft Stamper TIMI anything goes challenge. 

Have a very happy day, and thanks so much for looking x

Build A Man

Good morning and happy Tuesday. Well we're back home from a wonderful couple of weeks in Spain. The weather was very kind to us so I'm really feeling the cold now.

I'm sharing another project that I made for the recent Craftascope One Day Special on Hochanda, and this time I've built myself a man or eight!

This is A3 size - wish I'd thought about that beforehand as it took some packing - luckily Mr Amazon came to my rescue. I have an industrial sized plastic back full of packaging, and I don't know how 'cos I never buy anything lol. 
I'm looking forward to catching up with the shows now that I'm home and the laundry is all done.
I'm linking this to the current Dream In Darkness challenge.

Have a very happy week, and thanks so much for looking x

A Grand Day Out

Good morning and happy Monday. I'm over at Ink Art Designs today together with Morty, Matilda, and Betsy Bottoms from Just A Girl And Her Imagination.

 A little while ago I was lucky enough to attend a Tracy Easson class at Which Craft? in Doncaster. It was my gift to myself for turning 60 a couple of days later. It was a brilliant day and we made the 'Little Book of Wishes'

This is my front cover. Everything was provided by Tracy, even the sewing thread! I'm not going to go into details about how this was made as Tracy is still teaching the class, and I can't recommend it highly enough, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

And here's the back cover. I even made a fabric badge, something I wouldn't dream of doing before Tracy's class, I've never worked with fabric before, but I really loved putting my book together (over many many hours lol).

Please pop over and visit Dot's group, everyone is welcome, and join in with our challenge. It's always 'anything goes' as long as stamping is the main focus using any of the many brands of stamps that's in the store. Just click on the link to be taken there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/InkArtDesigns/ 

Have a very happy week, and thanks so much for looking x

Craftascope One Day Special Cards

Good morning and happy Thursday.  Today I'm back sharing some cards that I made for the recent Craftascope One Day Special on Hochanda.

This was made with the Build A Man set.

And this is Lush Landscapes and Splinters in Time.

Finally I couldn't resist making a shaker card - this is using Lush Landscapes again.

This is our last day in Spain, we fly home tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to watching the shows on a TV rather than my phone lol.
I'm linking my man to the current Dream In Darkness challenge. 

Have a very happy day, and thanks so much for looking xx

Craftascope One Day Special - Your Journey Never Ends

Good morning and happy Sunday, I hope the weather is being kind to you. At the moment we are in Spain, so life is very good! 

The lovely Nick has had a Craftascope One Day Special over on Hochanda on Friday and Saturday with his 'Splinters In Time' collection, so people on facebook will have seen sneak peeks of my samples. I'll be blogging some on here too as this is my own personal record of my makes 'cos I really will have to start deleting some photo's from my phone.

First up is an A4 album.

This is a bit of an 'everything but the kitchen sink' cover. It's made from a Zutter A4 size chipboard cover, so it's taken all the paints and mediums perfectly. I've used lots of Decoart Media paints and texture paste here, together with Craftascope stencils. The man's face is from the Build a Man stamp set to which I've added some Day of the Dead features as the ODS ran into the 2nd November. The die cut leaves are from a set that Nick will be bringing to Hochanda on Monday, so be sure to watch. 

 I've kept the inside of the covers very simple - I've just used the Retro Rounds strip die on black and white card.

Page one has been made on hessian and uses the Eastern Delight and Fantasy Fields stencils, together with lots more DecoArt paint. The trees are from the Lush Landscapes sheet and have been stamped into UTEE. Although these are clear stamps you can treat them as rubber, so it's not a problem stamping into melted UTEE.

 This is another fabric page, together with lots of handmade papers. The brick wall is from the Splinters In Time sheet, and the scene is from 'Scenes In Time'

This page again has been made using lots of fabric and the Scenes in Time stamps.

And finally the back cover using stamps from the Build A Man and Helping Hands set. Both of the sentiments are from Lush Landscapes.

I'm entering my journal into this month's Mini Album Makers challenge, and the cover into the ongoing Dream In Darkness challenge. 

I hope you like it, I'll be back later in the month with some more of my samples. 

Have a very happy week, and thanks so much for looking x

Feelin' Groovy

Good morning and happy Friday, welcome to November and the weekend. There's a fab new challenge over at Country View Crafts which is 'hand stamped'. I'm really happy with this as I can't remember the last thing I did that wasn't based around a stamped image.

 Stamping has always been my first love, and since I got my stamping platform I love it even more. You can't beat the magic of watching embossing powder heat up, and as my drawing would have to improve loads just to be rubbish, I have quite a collection of stamps. 

Neil if you're reading this they are all really old, I've not bought any for years - honest!

Who am I kidding, I don't think he even knows what a blog is, to him it's all just 'messing about on the computer' after I've finished 'messing about with bits of paper' lol.

 I started by making my background. I've used some retro Craftascope stamps. I really like these as you get the outline and the 'solid' stamps so it's really easy to add colour straight from the inkpad. I've used Ranger Archival as they dry really quickly.

 They also have really groovy words - did you see what I did there...

So that's my background all done and trimmed to fit an 8x8 card.

 I wanted to background to stand out and be interesting, and also to let a much smaller focal point stand out, so I die cut some shapes out of a piece of black card.

What's not to love about this fabulous Tim Holtz goat! He's been stamped, coloured, and then cut out with the matching 'hipster' dies.

I cut the black card to exactly(ish) the same size as the background, then stitched it all to my base card. And we're all done, a guy card too, so that's definitely worth double points right?

I hope you like my 'groovy' card, and join in with the fun challenge. Just put your best stamping foot forward and hit the linky.

Have a fun month, and thanks very much for looking x