Time for Something New

 First of all I apologise for not posting anything here for so long, I got caught up in the bustle of the holiday period and have found it difficult to get back into blogging since.

Over at Chocolate Baroque our Alphatag swap project

is finished and we all now have a lovely collection of
colourful tags to treasure. Again I am sorry that I didn't get round to showing my last few tags, I will try and make a photo of all the tags I made and also one of all the tags I recieved. Watch this space!!

So for our new swap we are making two "Quintiles" to swap each month. Quintiles are 5" square pieces of artwork, and the theme for this month is Winter Wonderland. I found this a nice size to work on and for my first one I used a stencil and sparkle medium from Imagination Crafts to make the snow flake swirl on a piece of their shiny blue card. The tree image is a Crafty Individuals stamp inked with Versamark and embossed with WOW white embossing powder, on a piece of the same blue card. I trimmed it close to the image and then mounted it on navy and then white card stock. I used Versamark ink and the white embossing powder to edge the main card and then added the tree image on foam pads over a piece of white ribbon and added a few gems for some extra sparkle.

For the next one I used matt blue card and stamped and embossed the Crafty Individuals snowflake background stamp all over and embossed the edges as before. the main image is a Chocolate Baroque stamp which I coloured with distress markers before stamping, and then added a little stickles glitter glue to highlight the snow. I then trimmed it leaving a tiny white border and stuck it to the background and added the curly swirl that I cut from sparkly white paper using a Dienamics die.
 I enjoyed making these am looking forward doing the next ones and also to getting my swaps in the post.
Hopefully now that I have managed this post I will back soon with another project.


Happy crafting to all, hope you are all managing to keep warm and safe in the snowy weather. We had quite a bit of snow here on Friday,(more than usual for this area) and although it has rained most of today and had washed most of it away, late this afternoon it turned back to snow and has left a little layer again.If it freezes tonight it will be a bit tricky for those who have to venture out to work in the morning , fortunately that is not me and I will be indoors crafting in the warm.

Thank you for taking a look, and for you comments I do appreciate them . Jean

Birthday Flowers

It seems ages since I posted anything here, ( well it is nearly a month actually ), I have been busy making Christmas cards and just haven't got round to the blogging. Anyway after just over a two week card making marathon they are all done and just need writing ready to post. I also have a load of family birthdays at this time too, three in November, four this week ,one next week and one more to do before the end of the month. Today I am showing you these two flowery cards that I made for my sister and sister in law for this week.
For this first one I stamped the rose from Chocolate Baroque onto white card and coloured it with colour soft pencils, and then trimmed it down and lightly shaded the background with spun sugar Distress Ink, and then mounted it onto some brown pearlised card.I cut some green pearlised card to fit the front of my base card and cut the scalloped edge with a Memory box die, and tied a pink organza ribbon around it before sticking to the card. I fixed the rose panel in place and then stamped and mounted the sentiment to match and fixed it place with foam pads.

For this one I started  in much the same way by stamping the poppy onto white card. This is also a Chocolate Baroque stamp as are the other stamps used on this card.The flowers were coloured with pencils and the background shaded with bundled sage DI, and mounted on a darker brown pearlised card. The base card is folded  from a light green pearlised card. I positioned the prepared image to left hand side and stamped the grasses and small butterflies at the side with Versafine olympia green ink. The larger butterfly was stamped, coloured and cut out and fixed on with silicon glue.

I am entering this at
 Crafty Bloggers Network- Anything Goes
Make It Monday- Anything Goes
Vintage Stamping Challenges- Pocket Full of Posies

 Thank you for taking a look, I appreciate your comments.

Happy News

 Yes this this week we got the news we have been waiting eagerly for, the safe arrival of our first Great Garndchild, a beautiful little girl. This is the card that I made for her proud parents. I had nothing baby related in my stash except this backing paper from Papermania. It is actually from a set for making a little scrap book for a baby boy. As I didn't know if  was going to be a boy or girl at the time I chose this one because although it predominantly blue I thought the design was neutral enough for either. I cut it to fit the card with some scalloped scissors and  prepared two mounting mats one pink and one blue, so that the card was ready to assemble when needed. I then went to the craft show at the NEC  last weekend hoping to find a suitable stamp.This cute little baby snuggling up in a cloud  by Inkwell Stamps was all I could see.I stamped it onto white card and coloured it with pencils and used a Go Kreate scalloped oval die to cut it out. I shaded around the edge with Spun Sugar DI and added some white Flower Soft to make the
cloud look more fluffy. Next I glued the backing paper to the pink mount
and wrapped the pink gingham ribbon around it and added a bow. That was then fixed to the card and the stamped image fixed with foam tape. I stamped the words,( from an old clear stamp set I don't know the name of ) onto a scrap of patterned paper and again mounted it onto pink card and fixed to the card. Lastly I added two little heart shaped pearl buttons and a couple of charms. Finally here is a photo of the little lady at two and half days old, looking very fetching in her very pink girly dress.

I am entering this at Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes
and at My Time To Craft - New Baby

Thank you for taking a look and for you kind comments, I really appreciate them.

Christmas Robin

The Stampalot Challenge blog has changed it's name to Stamping Sensations and the  first challenge under the new name is for a Traditional Christmas card. I always like cards with robins on and having bought this lovely stamp form Chocolate Baroque I decided to try it out. I wanted to keep it fairly simple to see if it was viable for batch making. I'm not too sure about that though as it took me quite a while to colour it. I love the images of fairly realistic looking birds but worry about being able to colour them properly. However having stamped the image with Memento black ink I set to work with my colour soft pencils, I like using pencils as you can gradually build up the colour and it is easier to rectify any mistakes than when using pens. I used a paper stump and some Sansodor to blend the colours together. After also colouring the trees and ivy I used white liquid pearl and crystal ultra fine glitter to show the effect of the snow.the Christmas greeting is also from  CB and was stamped with a red ink pad.
I am also going to enter this at St. Luke's Charity Card Challenge where for their last challenge they too would like a Traditional Christmas card.

Thank you for taking a look and for your comments, they are much appreciated.    Jean 

Christmas Card Number One

Yes I am ashamed to say this is the first Christmas card that I have made this year in spite of my intentions to start earlier. So now as usual I will be rushing to get them all finished in time. The challenge this month at St. Luke's Charity Cards Challenge is for a CAS Christmas card, and I made up my mind to enter as it's ages since I have taken part, but here it is almost the end of the month again and I've only just about made it in time.
Here is the card I made, it is only small, about 4 x 4,5 inches, so not a lot of room for much white space, but the design is quite simple so I hope that it fits the challenge.I stamped the main image onto the card with Memento tuxedo black and onto some spare card with Memento rich cocoa. I coloured the trees with a green coloursoft pencil and the white distress marker.This turned out to be a bit tricky as the pen tip kept picking up the green and I had to keep cleaning it on a piece of kitchen paper. I was going to use a glue pen to add glitter to the snowy bits but my pen seems to have run out or dried up so I used white Liquid Pearls instead and some ultra fine crystal glitter. I stamped the star above the trees with Brilliance galaxy gold ink and embossed it with WOW clear gold highlights EP. I then cut out the little deer from the brown stamped image and used silicon glue to to stick him over the black one to give just a little dimension, and then stamped the greeting at the top. All the stamps used are from Chocolate  Baroque, the main image is from a set called Christmas Creatures, the star and greeting came from other sets.                                              
I am also going to enter this at Crafty Ann's- Christmas in October.
and Stampin' for the Weekend - Anything Goes.
Thank you for taking a look and for your comments, I really appreciate them all.  Jean.

U and V Alphatags

 Another month has passed so quick and it is time to show my tags for the Chocolate Baroque Alphatag Swap. We are nearing the end of our year long task and almost every one who started is still in, but with some very difficult letters all together at the end it doesn't get any easier to come up with ideas. Both of mine have a vintage feel to them this time which I didn't really plan but I struggled with finding stamps to match my ideas.

U is for Undergarments

For this one I covered my tag with some very pale pink backing paper from a Papermania pad and inked around the edge with Victorian Velvet distress ink.The background image is a crafty Individuals stamp, stamped straight onto the tag and coloured with pencils.The back dress form and the front stand were also stamped onto the tag,and the front dress
                                                form and all the corsets were stamped onto spare card and coloured with
 pencils and then cut out. I used an off cut from the backing paper to make a kind of pelmet at the top of the tag. I stamped the piece with a texture stamp and Victorian Velvet ink and used more of the same ink to shade around the edge. I used an edge punch to make a fancy edge along the bottom and then fixed it above the sign.I fixed a length of lace down each side tied with tiny ribbon bows to represent curtains and then fixed all the corsets in place, and added some little roses and a bit of ribbon for embellishment.The stamps are from Crafty Individuals and Chocolate Baroque, and all the main stamping was done with Memento Rich Cocoa ink.

V is for Victorian Valentine.

I took my inspiration for this one from the backing paper which is from crafty Individuals shades of Summer pad. It is full of lovely romantic images of roses and birds in pretty colours. I chose this one because I liked the birds and thought they looked just right for carrying a valentine greeting.The paper is 6x6 so wasn't quite long enough to cover the tag, so I found some matching braid and stuck it to the top to cover the gap and then added another piece at the bottom.I inked all the edges with Broken China distress ink. The large heart is a Chocolate Baroque stamp and was stamped onto the tag with Verasfine Majestic Blue which was really a bit too dark so I embossed it with WOW white pearl EP to tone it down a bit and also to give a nice lustre, which doesn't  really show in the photo. The top bird was cut out from the piece of paper left over from covering the tag and fixed using foam pads.The two tiny hearts are part of another CB stamp and were stamped onto spare card and embossed in the same way as the large one. I cut them out and fixed them to look as if the birds were carrying them as well as the flowers. I used a blue ink pad to add some colour to the roses from my stash and a little blue stickles  glitter and fixed them together with a piece of  lace to the bottom corner. The words were printed onto Saffmat using the computer, and some blue gems added for decoration.

Thank you for looking, your comments a re much appreciated.

Birthday Greetings

I need several cards for the men in my family during this and next month and I never find them too easy to do. However Chocolate Baroque have recently brought out a range of clear stamps to run alongside their excellent rubber ones, and when I saw this beautiful crane in the Oriental Crane set, I thought it would be ideal for some of them.
I first stamped the crane onto white card with Tuxedo Black memento ink and coloured it with colour soft pencils. I trimmed it down and used broken China distress ink to shade around the edges. I mounted it onto blue and then grey card and fixed it to a square white card blank. The grasses are from CB eastern grasses set and I stamped it once with memento London Fog and once with Versafine Olympian Green.
the greeting is stamped with the London Fog also.

I am entering this at The Stamp Man, Birds, Butterflies and Bees.
Make It Monday, Always Anything Goes.
Crafty Bloggers Network, Anything Goes.

Thank you for visiting, I really appreciate your comments.  Jean