A little Christmas in July ........

Happy Tuesday evening folks .......

Did you know there's only 173 days left before Christmas ........... that's just 24 Mondays before the big day ... WOW!!
Why not join in the fun with this month's Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge and make a start on all those festive makes.

The theme is Anything Goes, and there's an optional twist too ....... using Die Cuts.

I've added another card to my Christmas stash and hopefully given you a bit of inspiration to start yours.  I've used the optional twist too ...... the trees are a die cut as is the sentiment

I took a piece of black cardstock and spritzed the top part with a pearl mica spray (Perfect Pearls) and left it to dry ..... doesn't it make a fab snowy sky

I then die cut the trees from a piece of plain white cardstock and gave them a quick spritz with the mica before attaching them onto the black card

Love the shimmer from the Perfect Pearls spray ......

I added the sentiment to the bottom .... again a die cut ..... cut from a piece of card found in my bit box, that had been previously coloured with distress ink and also spritzed with mica

A nice quick and easy design .... perfect when you've got lots to make.

As with all the HLS challenges there's a $20 gift certificate for the winner to spend in the HLS store.
Check out all the challenge details on the blog and see what the rest of the Design Team have been creating.

Happy stamping!

Thanks for popping by .... enjoy the rest of your day.
I hope the weather's a little better where you are, we've had rain all day today and I got soaked ... twice!!  But .......guess what .... the BBQ is in place. Whoo hoo!!!
Yes, the guy turned up this morning, with his crane and lifted the huge box, in the rain, down onto the patio area in front of the house .. easy!
We haven't had chance to take the packaging off yet but hopefully that will be all sorted tomorrow.
It's a Bank Holiday here because it's Tynwald Day .... the islands national day. Hubby's off work so let's hope the sun shines and we can celebrate with a Tynwald Day BBQ.  At least it means I won't have to cook!

Cheerio until next time .....

Sprays and mists ......

Happy Thursday evening to you,

How is everyone? I hope you're having a good week.
We've had the Manx Grand Prix going on this week ...... it's been race week.  There's been a few disruptions to the race schedule but at least they weren't all because of the weather!!  It has been pretty good on the whole ..... the Bank Holiday was glorious and the only rain we've had has been during the night.
We haven't actually seen any of the races though, heard the bikes ..... and have been caught up in the road closures .... always fun!!  It's been a good week though ....... and you never know, we may just catch one of the races tomorrow as it all comes to a close for another year.

I have managed to spend some time in the old craft room though ....... hubby has taken advantage of being off work and has spent some of the time in front of his computer, which has meant that I didn't feel too guilty locking myself away to play with my craft stash!  To be fair .... I have had DT stuff to do so it hasn't all been play time!

One thing I did manage to do was play along with this week's Less is More challenge.
Last weekend we were still in August, and because it was the 5th Saturday of the month we have a Lucky Dip week this week. The challenge is .......

 to use Sprays/Mists

You know me ..... I love spritzing and spraying.  Splattering ink here and there is one of my favourite techniques.

We still have to keep things CAS though ..... lots of white space.  Not always easy when usng a spray bottle .... anything can happen!

Using a Black Archival ink, I stamped the beautiful butterfly (from Tim Holtz) slightly off the edge of a piece of white cardstock.

I then made myself a mask and covered up the image, before spritzing, just the once, with Abandoned Coral Distress Spray Stain

I let this dry for a couple of minutes then spritzed again over the top, with the mask still in place, only this time I used the Perfect Pearls spray mist.

I also mixed some of the Perfect Pearls with some Distress inks to colour in the butterfly ..... spritzed the PP directly onto my craft sheet, swiped my Distress ink pads on there too, then mixed the two together with a clean paintbrush ....... shimmery Distress .... how pretty is that!!

I added a touch of Glossy Accents to the body and finished off with a sentiment ......

Well that's it from me today.  I'll be back in the morning with the launch of this month's Craft Stamper Blog Challenge ........ have you got your copy of the magazine yet?

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

Cheerio until next time

Linda

xx

Oh no! It's Friday the 13th .......

Good morning everyone, 
Happy Friday 13th. I hope today's a good day for you all.
Doing household stuff yesterday didn't last very long. I made the bed and tidied the bedroom. Did a pile of ironing whilst watching 'This Morning'.  Entered their competition to win £50000, not much chance of that I know, but, you have to be in it to win it! Entered online so at least it didn't cost me anything.  I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen, and that was it.  I'd had enough at that point so off to the craft room I went.  Well, I still had my Tag to do for April.
Yes, it's that time again. Tim's tag has been up there for 2 weeks nearly and I hadn't even started mine.   Check out his blog to see what he came up with. 12 Tags of 2012
As usual I didn't have all the products that he's used, I'm still waiting to get my hands on the new Bird on a Branch die.  So I had to see what was in my stash that would inspire me to create a similar look.
Here's my finished tag

It's a little more feminine than Tim's, I like the addition of the flowers and a little bit of pink, adds a touch of Spring.

Products used ....
#8 Manilla Tag
Tim Holtz Reflections Stamp
Sizzix Oval Frame Embossing Folder
Sizzix Caged Bird Bigz Die
SizzixTattered Florals Border Die
Grunge Board
Distress Inks - Wild Honey/Stormy Sky/TumbledGlass/Broken China/Gathered Twig/Vintage Photo/Old Paper

Black Archival Ink
Perfect Pearls Mist - Pearl
Vintage seam binding
Chain/jump rings/tiny clip/Adage ticket
Pearls

I did some of the techniques he used - stamped on the embossing folder with the reflections stamp before embossing the tag through the Big Shot, used the distress inks to highlight the embossed areas and colour the tag. Instead of misting my craft mat at the end, to pick up the excess ink, I spritzed some water into my hand and then splashed it onto the tag. I used kitchen roll to mop up any excess water, this takes some of the ink out and creates a 'mottled' look.  You can just about see this in the photo.
The bird cage was cut from grunge board and then coloured using Old Paper Distress ink.  It was then spritzed, very generously, with the Perfect Pearls.  I was hoping to get a nice shiny metalic look to the cage.  I think it worked.
The leaves could do with a little inking around the edges I think, but it's not bad.
I think I'm all crafted out for this week.  I need to give my room a good tidy and put some things away, ready to start again.

Thanks for popping by.  I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings this week.  Have a lovely weekend wherever you are, and whatever it is you're doing.
Bye for now

Linda

x

Playing 'Catch Up'

Hi everyone,

I know I really should have done this last week but I'm not sure where the time went.  I don't seem to have done that much really, but the weekend soon came around. We have started house hunting though - Oh joy!! And we're looking for a new car, or rather Stephen is looking for a new car, I'm keeping well out of that one.
Here goes. I'll warn you now, this could be a long post, so you may want to grab a coffee. 
I'm not sure where to start really, I've got cards to put on here, that I made while ago but couldn't blog them in case they were seen. There's workshops, craft shows, new photos of Alex. I won't bore you with all the details, so here are the edited highlights.

I started the week with my crafting buddies and we had a ball.  I've not laughed so much in a long time.  It's great when we all get together because we pick up right where we left off, and don't stop until it's time to go home.
Saturday was a workshop at Inspirations in Preston (my old work place), with the lovely Sarah McCrossan http://sarahmccrossan.blogspot.com/  It's always nice to visit my old workmates, and do a little shopping of course. It's even better when there's a 'Sarah' workshop on too.  Here's what we made using the new Hero Arts Cling Stamp 'Large Flower Background'. All four cards are different even though they are made with the same stamp.  My favourite is the shaped card because of the technique we used.  We stamped and embossed the design in white, then painted it using Distress inks mixed with Perfect Pearls to give them a pearlescent finish.  No need to buy special pearlised paints, just smudge your inks onto a craft sheet and then spritz with perfect pearls, mix and apply with a paint brush.  Easy, but very effective. Great workshop as always.

One stamp - four different looks

My favourite from the four

Sunday (Mother's Day).  My Mother's Day treat was to go to the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza (GNPE) in Harrogate.  Another fab day with my craft buddies.  What about my kids I hear you say!  Well, Christopher was in Sheffield and we'd arranged to go over and spend the day with him later in the week, as he's busy with Uni work at the moment, and Lauren, who's a Mum now herself was spending the day with Alex, so why shouldn't I spoil myself.  I did get a call from Lauren to wish me 'Happy Mother's Day' and a facebook message from Christopher, so at least they didn't forget.  As I was out all day, Stephen and I had been over to his Mum the night before with cards and flowers.  Here's the card I'd made for her.  I was inspired by an article in the March edition of Papercraft Inspirations by Angela Poole. I went for different colours and a bigger card.  I was pleased with the result, and I think Stephen's mum appreciated it.

I decorated the inside like usual, and added more ribbon.  Well, I knew I didn't need to post this one so I could be a little more extravagant.  I think it looks really pretty.

I enjoyed the GNPE as always.  It's one of my favourite craft shows, and as usual I spent a small fortune.  Well, I don't spend much on the island on craft stuff so while I'm over here I think I deserve a treat or two, or three, or more ........  Here's what I ended up with, it's not a very good picture I'm afraid but you get the idea. There's a bit of everything I think, stamps, papers, inks, dies, bling, storage (cuddly toy!) etc., etc. This is not just from the craft show, it was other craft shopping as well, done during the rest of the week, and some done for me before I got over (Thanks Susan  x)  I got loads of new goodies, now I just have to find time to play with them all - it's a hard life I know.

My new stash!

Monday - another fab day.  The morning was spent at Inspirations again, no workshop this time, it was their regular Monday Craft club.  They do have a calendar with all their events on, check it out.  I would recommend Sarah's classes anytime http://www.cardcraftplus.co.uk/acatalog/Inspirations_Calendar.html  I'd only popped in to say 'Hi' to everyone and ended up doing a bit more shopping (as you do).  Then it was out for lunch with Sally and Deborah, who by the way both spoiled me rotten with cards and gifts. Thank you so much girls, I lover my little luxuries.  
Because I wasn't across for my BIG birthday at the beginning of March I'd had to wait for my birthday card from Sally. OMG! was it worth waiting for.  Sally is an SU demonstrator, and a very talented lady.  My card is gorgeous!  I hope Sally doesn't mind but I've used her pictures from her Blog because they're better than mine. http://stampin-sally.blogspot.com/ I'm still figuring out my new camera by the way.  I can take pictures, just need to get them onto the computer now!   Here's the card and the beautiful necklace that she made for me which, I must say, was all beautifully gift wrapped. Thanks again Sally, I love it  xx

My '21st' Birthday card

Now for the present ...

The necklace

Beautiful pendant

Pearl charm

Crystal charm

  









 Wasn't I a lucky girl! 

While we were over in the UK a special little boy had his first birthday.  Here's the card I made for him, and as we were over there I got do deliver it myself which was nice.

My Cricut machine came in handy for this one, it just took some time putting it all together along with the hand doodling.  It was worth it though.

Well, I think I've gone on long enough, you must be fed up by now.  I'll give you all a break and be back again later with the rest of the week.

Thanks for looking
See you soon

Linda

x