I do love a rainbow .......

Happy weekend .......

I couldn't resist playing along with this months CAS Christmas Challenge, they have such a fun theme going on for April ........

I do love a rainbow but, I must confess I've never thought about using all those colours on a Christmas card .......... but hey! don't they look fab.

This is definitely Merry & Bright!  And it was so easy to do.

I cut myself a simple mask from a piece of copy paper to cover the bottom half of my card.  With this in place I then used various colours of Distress Ink, and the tall triangle aperture stencil from Sweet Poppy, to create the line of rainbow trees.

The stencil is quite a large aperture as a whole, I only used the top part and varied the height slightly as I went along the card ......

I stamped my sentiment underneath in a gold ink .......

and added some sparkle with a touch of fine crystal glitter along the tree line.  

A tiny star on top of one of the trees finishes off the card ......

What a fun theme .... I love it!

I've also got a little more inspiration for April's CAS Mix Up challenge.  I'm hosting this month, and the theme I've chosen is ........  Paper Piecing

This is such a fun technique, especially if you're not a fan of colouring in.  

OK a bit of fussy cutting is required, and I know that's not everyone's favourite thing to do but, if you keep your images simple then cutting them out isn't going to take that long.  And just think of all those bits of patterned papers you can use up!

I like to use old book pages to paper piece, I think the text gives a little more interest to your designs.

I brushed some colour onto my background using Distress Ink ..... I smooshed the colour onto a craft mat first, spritzed with water and then used a paint brush.

To give a bit more interest I added another layer of ink, this time using a piece of acetate to pick up droplets of ink from my craft sheet and then smooshed them onto my card.

I then stamped the single poppy onto the inked background, coloured the stem with a ZIG Marker and paper pieced the head of the flower .....

I used two sentiment stamps to complete the card .... one heat embossed in gold,the other simply stamped in black

Both challenges are open until the 24th of the month so if you fancy playing along with either, or both, of them there's still lots of time.

Thanks for popping by ...... enjoy the rest of your day and have a lovely weekend.

Remember the yacht I told you about sitting in Douglas Bay well, it's still there.  Lauren and I were out and about yesterday ...... we had a little trip to the garden centre now that they're open again, so we decided to drive along the prom and take a look at this boat.

OMG!  it's BIG!!!!

We managed to park somewhere quiet and take a few photos .......

It's really hard to appreciate the size of it as there's nothing else in the bay to compare it to, but trust me, it's huge!  I bet when those sails are up it looks amazing.

It did look nice in the sunshine though .......

It's the Grand National at Aintree this weekend.  I'm not normally a horse racing person but, there's something about the National.   

One of the runners is owned by a guy on the island so it would be rude not to have a flutter now wouldn't it. Trouble is, I can't win an argument never mind a bet on a horse race ..... wish me luck!

Cheerio until next time ......... 

Products used:

CAS Christmas

Stamps: sentiment was from Uniko but I think its now retired 

Inks: Distress Inks - Festive Berries, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Tumbled Glass, Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Broken China, Cracked Pistachio, Kitsch Flamingo; Delicata - Golden Glitz

Other: Tall Aperture Stencil (Sweet Poppy); Fine Crystal Glitter; Quickie Glue Pen

CAS Mix Up

Stamps: Happy Watercolor (Stampin Up!) for the flower; Sentiment Collection, Heartfelt (Penny Black)

Inks: Distress Ink - Festive Berries; Versafine Clair - Nocturne; Versamark

Other: ZIG Clean Color Brush Marker (for the stem); Gold embossing Powder (WOW!)

Did somebody say cake? ........

Happy Wednesday ......

I hope you had a lovely Easter weekend ....... for once I didn't eat my body weight in chocolate eggs!! Too busy in the craft room trying to find my mojo instead.

I'm playing along with the AAA Cards Clean and Simple Challenge again.  It's game #187 and the challenge is ........ to use Two Quarters of your card. 

I hope this fits the bill .......

I've used the top two quarters and stamped the cute little monster in each one ....... don't think it quite meets with the optional twist though

I've stamped them both off the edge, one each side keeping plenty of white space in the middle, and I used Distress Inks and ZIG markers to add the colour

I added a strip of washi tape across the bottom, and a touch of shading with Distress ink to sort of ground the little guys,  and finished off my card with a fun sentiment.

We've had snow here on the island the last couple of days.  In fact, over the Easter weekend we've had weather for all four season's of the year!!  The Isle of Man weather is changeable if nothing else! 

The end of last week we thought Spring had definitely arrived.  The sun was here, and it was warming up nicely.  We took full advantage and mowed the lawns, pressure washed the patio and got the garden furniture out. We cleaned the barbeque, and even filled the hot tub! 

Saturday/Sunday we thought summer had arrived.  Glorious sunshine and it was warm.   We had a lovely, socially distanced of course, get together with the rest of the family, now that we're allowed gatherings of up to 10 people outside, and we enjoyed our first barbeque of the year.

Glad we made the most of it when we did ..... what a difference on Monday.  It was sooo cold, it felt like winter again.  The wind was howling, and the snow came on Tuesday.  Thankfully it didn't stick around.  We had some today but again it disappeared as fast as it came.  We just need the temperature to go back up now.  Don't think we'll be using the hot tub again just yet ....... brrrrrrr!!

Another bit of excitement over the weekend was ....... the world's largest sailing yacht has been sat in Douglas Bay ........

                                       (photo taken from Facebook ....... Isle of Man by Drone)

Apparently it's owned by a Russian billionaire, cost an absolute fortune, and it is HUGE!!!  I think it's been sheltering from the weather but, who knows!  The can't come onto the island as our borders are still closed!

                                       (photo taken from Facebook ....... Isle of Man by Drone)

                                        (photo take from Facebook ....... Isle of Man by Drone)

Just to get a sense of scale of the yacht ...... look at the guy checking the mast!!!!!  This thing is huge!!!

Thanks to Isle of Man by Drone for the photos ...... hope they don't mind me taking them from Facebook!

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day.

Cheerio until next time ......

Products used:

Stamps: Monster Love (Concord & 9th); Birthday Messages (Mama Elephant)

Inks: Versafine /Clair - Nocturne; Distress Inks - Salty Ocean, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed

Other: ZIG clean Color Brush Markers; Washi tape from my stash

It's the 1st of April, time for a new CAS Mix Up challenge .......

Happy Thursday .........

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month ......... welcome to April!

A new month means new Blog Challenges and, this month it's my turn to host over at the CAS Mix Up Challenge.  

It's a Mixed Media month, and I've chosen the theme ........ Paper Piecing

I do love a bit of paper piecing.  If you're not really a fan of spending time colouring in all your stamped images then this is a great way, it's quick too, of adding that colour.  

Just think of all those bits of patterned papers that we all hoard, just in case we need them, this is a great way to use up all those.  Or, what about the backgrounds we've made using various ink and paint techniques that didn't quite turn out as we planned, well don't throw them away ....... these are perfect for paper piecing.

Flowers work really well with this technique ..... small or large, but you can paper piece anything, butterflies, birds, pieces of clothing, you name it!  My only tip would be, look for images that are easy to cut out, and don't worry about all the little surrounding details like stems, or antennae,  you don't need to fussy cut those!

If you're not familiar with paper piecing, then check out the links on the CAS Blog post to some really useful videos showing ways of using this technique.

These cute little daisies are just perfect for paper piecing .....

I stamped the image onto a piece of white card stock, and then splattered the background with Distress inks using colours that matched the paper I used for the actual flower heads

I coloured in the stems and added my sentiment ......

I then used an old gelli plate print for the flowers ....... simply stamped the daisy heads and heat embossed with a clear powder, and then fussy cut them

I  attached the flower heads with some glue onto my stamped image ...... voila!  all coloured, with some nice shading going on there too!  

You could also use foam pads to layer your flowers and add a touch of dimension as I've done in the example below ........

Using a black ink, I stamped the whole image onto the front of my card.  I then stamped just the centre of it, twice onto a gelli print and heat embossed those with a gold powder

I fussy cut the flowers, attaching the first layer onto the stamped image with glue, and then used foam pads to attached the large flower in the centre to add some depth

I think the pop of colour looks really cool in the centre of the black and white, and I love the texture and the pattern from the gelli print, which as a whole print wasn't very interesting at all!

I finished off with a sentiment made up of plain stamping and some more gold heat embossing to bring everything together.

You'll find more paper piecing inspiration from the rest of Design Team over on the CAS Mix Up Blog.  We also have a fabulous Guest Designer ...... the lovely Bonnie (Papercrafter at large) is joining in the fun so please pop by and say hello.

I hope you have fun with this month's challenge, I'm really looking forward to seeing all your paper pieced designs in the gallery.

Happy stamping!

Thanks for popping by .... enjoy the rest of your day and have a lovely Easter.

Cheerio until next time ...... 

Products used:

Card one .....

Stamps: Sweet Daisy (Julie Hickey Designs)

Inks: Versafine Clair - Nocturne; Distress Inks - Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade (to do the splatter)

Other: ZIG Clean Color Brush Marker - green; gelli plate print from my stash

Card two .....

Stamps: Hello Lovely (Concord & 9th)

Inks: Versafine Clair - Nocturne; Versamark; 

Other: Gold Embossing Powder (WOW!); gelli plate print from my stash

Journaling is keeping my sane ......

Hello again ........ Happy Tuesday!

Just taking a quick break from cleaning the craft room, so I thought I would share some recent pages from my art journals.

I've been catching up with some online workshops again, getting messy with paints and inks and learning some fun techniques.

The following pages are from Tracy Scott workshops, done via Facebook.  I know I keep saying this but, if you haven't tried one of these yet you need to sign up! 

The workshops are done as Facebook Lives but, you don't need to watch live.  If you'd rather play along and work at your own speed then the videos are always going to be there on replay so you can watch, and rewind as much as you like.

The first two were monthly journaling classes ......  Fresh as a Daisy (which I think was March)

Done in one of my large Dylusions journals, so the flowers are very big and bold ..... love it!

And this one, which I finished yesterday (it's only taken me about a month!!) was from back in February ...... Autumn Leaves

Another large Dylusions journal, across two pages this time.

The tree is hand drawn and painted ..... I surprised myself there!  

And then the leaves have all been cut from a sheet of hand made collage deli paper (another first!) and attached over the top ...... really pleased with this one!

But, I think my favourite workshop done recently has to be the gorgeous Geisha ........ (still can't believe I drew this!!)

This was a three day workshop and worth every minute!  Tracy makes the whole process so easy by breaking it all down into simple to follow step by steps.  

OK, the finished one is not exactly the same as my practice sheet but, she's still beautiful!

Now she is big ...... I used my Dina Wakley Large Media journal for this one ..... it's about 10 x 14.25 inches, so lots of space to work on.  I got a bit carried away and did another double page spread, with a little inspiration from a JOFY project.  

The fan was part of the workshop with Tracy, and is attached with Velcro so it can be removed ..... clever eh!

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day.

It's the last day of March tomorrow ...... a quarter of the year done already!  A new month means new blog challenges so I'll be back again later in the week.

Cheerio until then ........