On the twelfth day of December ....... could this be my final Christmas card for 2018?

Happy Wednesday to you ......

Only 12 days until Christmas ...... ooohh it's getting closer!

And guess what ....... I think I've made it at last ....... my final Christmas card for 2018! I hope it is anyway.

I can relax a little now ....... all my cards are done, written and posted, and I even have a couple of spares. 

I'm linking this one up to the CAS Christmas Challenge ..... they want to see Stars

I stamped the branch (PaperArtsy ELB10) using Distress Oxide inks off the edge of a piece of white card, and added some glitter to give a frosty look

The stars have been die cut from glitter card and they're so sparkly in real life

I attached them onto the card, under the branch, and then used a Stardust Gel Pen to draw in the lines to make them look as though they are hanging from the tree

The sentiment is from Penny Black, and has been stamped using my favourite gold ink ..... Delicata Golden Glitz

And I finished with a sprinkling of Chunky White Embossing Powder to add some falling snow.

And that's it ..... all done! 
I've even managed to do the last of the Christmas shopping, and it's all wrapped, well nearly all of it.  I ran out of wrapping paper yesterday ..... I knew I would!
At least I can go for our weekend away and not have to worry about shopping though.  It's going to be a weekend just for us ...... I can't wait!

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day.
I'm off to finish tidying the craft room, then I need to pack. 
Hubby and I are off tomorrow for a nice long weekend in our favourite place in the Cotswolds ...... Bourton on the Water. 
We've never been in the winter before ...... we have sat here in the sunshine though, many times!

(photo from Google)

I'm looking forward to seeing the Christmas tree, apparently they put it in the middle of the river ..... how pretty is that!

(photo from Google)

Hopefully the weather won't be too bad ....... it would be nice to see it like this though

(photo from Google)

Cheerio until next time ......

Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge .......

Happy Monday evening ......

Welcome to July.  We've had another glorious day here on the island, summer is definitely here!  I hope it's been the same where you are.

It's the beginning of a new month so that means new Blog challenges.  I'm hoping to actually play along with some this month seeing as I should have some time on my hands ....... although that doesn't seem to be happening just yet!  I must confess though, since getting back off holiday I've hardly spent any time in my craft room ...... the sunshine is much more inviting.  I shouldn't really say it but ..... I'm enjoying having the time to myself.

It is however time to get this month's Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge underway, and the theme for July is  ....... Animals

When we're sat in the garden in the evening all we can hear are the sheep in the field at the back of us.  We can't actually see them, but boy do they make a noise ..... it's quite cute really.  Anyhow it brought to mind a PaperArtsy stamp set (ZA21) that recently found it's way into my craft room .......

It definitely made me smile!

I stamped the sentiment first, onto a piece of white cardstock cut to fit on the front of my card-blank

I then stamped the sheep above the words, and again onto a snippet of white card.  I coloured the image on the snippet using my ZIG Markers and a water brush, and then fussy cut around the sheep's body

I added a few ink splatters to the background and then used foam pads to attach the coloured sheep .... so cute!

There's another fun sheep on the inside too .......

Love it!

Now it's over to you ..... just remember to keep your designs clean and simple.  What animal will you choose?

There's a $20 Gift Certificate for the Challenge winner and ..... if they've used HLS stamps on their project then the prize is DOUBLED!!

Happy stamping!

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day and have a great week.

Mine's going to be taken up with the football I'm afraid ..... something else that's keeping me out of the craft room.

The BIG game is tomorrow (Tuesday) .... England play Columbia for a place in the quarter finals.  Come on boys .... you can do it (I hope!)

Cheerio until next time .....

Time for some ATCs .......

Happy Wednesday .....

Stop the week ...... I want to get off!!
Talk about busy ....... I'm taking multi-tasking to another level ....... and I haven't even started packing anything up for the move yet!!  We've just had the 6th February confirmed as the big day so there's plenty of time ..... eeek!!!!!
We'll get there though, we always do!

Anyhow ..... one of the jobs on the To Do List today is the Happy Little Stampers ATC challenge

So .... what is an ATC?  Well ...... if you don't already know, an Artist Trading Card (ATC) is

•  a little piece of artwork that measure's 2.5 x 3.5 inches (approx 64 x 89mm) 
•  they can be traded for other ATC's,  but not sold
•  be flat enough to fit into a plastic trading card sleeve
•  and they must have the artists details on the back and be signed and dated

They're fun to make too!

January's theme is all about ..... Trees
Here's what I came up with ........

PaperArtsy stamps ....... EKD01 and  EKD02

(love these little hedgehogs)

 Distress Oxide were used for the backgrounds ....... smooshed onto white cardstock

And then a little extra colour added using ZIG Clean Colour Markers

The sentiments are from the same stamp sets as the trees and birds apart from this one ....

 ....... this is part of a larger stamp by Inkylicious, I just inked the bit I needed
I then cut each of the sentiments into separate words and attached them to the ATC's, and to finish off I added a few dots of Liquid Pearls to some of the branches

I like to do sets of ATC's .... usually three but you can do as many as you like.
There's a prize for the challenge winner .... a $20 Gift Certificate to spend in the HLS store and something new for 2018 is .... if the winner has used HLS stamps on their project then the prize is DOUBLED ..... that's $40 to spend!  But .... you have to be in it to win it!

Check out the HLS Blog for more details and you'll also find lots of inspiration on there from the rest of the Design Team.

Happy stamping!

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

Cheerio until next time .....

Do you like to doodle ......

Hello there ...... I'm back again

It's been a busy day ....... and it's not over yet! That'll teach me to go galavanting at lunchtime.

It's time for another blog challenge this evening ....... do you like making ATC's? If you do you're in the right place ....... it's time to get this month's Happy Little Stampers ATC challenge underway.

The theme is Doodling ....... do you doodle?
I must admit it's not something I do a lot of however a little bit here and there can give a project a real fun look.

My ATC's have got a bit of a floral theme going on but there is doodling on there too ......
They started out as plain Kraft card and each one has been given a coat of pretty metallic paint from Sweet Poppy ....... Persian Blue

Bamboo .....

and Strawberry Sorbet .......

I then stamped the flowers (from PaperArtsy EEG14) over the top using a black ink and heat embossed them with a clear powder.
Each one was then coloured using PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints  ..... these paints are fab and cover brilliantly

Spotted the doodling? (sorry!)  I added the dots to this flower, using a white gel pen

More dots on this one ...... ditsy groups of three, I love how this looks.

and stripes on the last one.  All of my ATC's have the faux stitching around the edges and a handwritten word on the bottom

I suppose you could say the painted dots are also doodled ...... I didn't use my usual brush to splatter the paint, instead I picked up the colour with the tip of an embossing tool and dotted the paint around the blooms

What will you doodle? .... I can't wait to see.

The challenge is sponsored by the HLS Store  and the winner will receive a $20 Gift Certificate to spend on their next order .... get doodling!

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

Cheerio until next time

Pages 5 ..... 6 .... AND 7!

Happy Tuesday ......

Hope you're enjoying your evening.  Just had dinner which was delicious, even if I do say so myself, so hubby and I are chillin now ..... he's going after bad guys on his latest computer game so I thought I'd spend time with my blog buddies .....  we're also finishing off the bottle of red we opened ..... or is this the second one. It's been a long day!

It's also been a busy few days in the old craft room .... DT stuff to do, I've been playing around with a canvas, more about that later, and I've even found time to mess around in my journal.
Pages 5, 6 and 7 are done and number 8 has been started. Still not caught up completely but it's fun trying .....  we'll get there!

Page 5 ....... the prompt for the day was 'pinkish' ..... think I covered that one

Quite a simple page.
I painted both sides of my journal page spread using the same colours (PaperArtsy paints again) ........ this makes things easier I think.
I then used the Wendy Vecchi Heart stencil ....... both the outside piece, to ink the heart in the centre (I used Worn Lipstick Distress Ink for this) and also kept the stencil in place whilst I stamped the script onto the heart to give it a bit more interest.

I then covered up the heart in the centre with the inny part of the stencil whilst I added some detail to the background

 The words were stamped and heat embossed in white .....

And I finished off by 'splatting' distress stain straight from the bottle on the journal page .... love doing this!

Page 6 ..... the other half of the pink spread

Back to using old book pages again (something else I love doing!).

Stamped my blooms onto the book pages and fussy cut them ..... love these flowers from PaperArtsy!

I also used more of the stamps from the set to add some detail to the background

The large word is also on the set too ..... perfect finishing touch!

Pages 7 and 8 were coloured together, this time using Brushos

Before I started with any colour I used my stamps first, directly onto the journal page, with a Versamark ink and then heat embossed the images with a white detail powder (page 8 isn't quite finished so you'll have to wait a little longer to see that one)

I then sprayed the right hand side of the journal with water, sprinkled shades of blue Brusho on the top and then closed the book and let the pigment and water do it's thing.
This was repeated a few times until I got the colour and the coverage I wanted ..... mopping up any excess in between with a piece of kitchen roll.
Love how the white embossing acts as a resist to the colour ......

The paint brushes are a stencil, with white embossing paste, applied once the Brusho background was dry

And then I finished off with some more of those Distress Stain splatters ......

Hmmm ...... what shall I try next?!?

Thanks for popping by ...... enjoy the rest of your evening.
Apparently we've been forecast snow for the end of the week. On high ground that is, with a chance of it falling lower.
Not only that, the ferries may be cancelled again tomorrow due to bad weather ....... gales I think, so things could get a little exciting here towards the end of the week.  If the boats don't go then everyone will be panic buying again ..... the supermarket shelves will be empty.  Time to stock up on the essentials I think .... more wine?

Cheerio until next time .....