A little bit of Flower Power! ......

Happy Thursday .......

The weekend is fast approaching, and the sun has finally decided to show itself.  

However, that wasn't the case this morning when I had to go into town ....... lets just say it was a little wet and windy at 9am so I didn't hang around long!  I suppose a little bit of rain will do the flowers good though! 

Speaking of flowers, this month's theme for the Simply Sweet Poppy Stencils Facebook Challenge is ........... Flower Power.  If you'd like to play along then there's still time.  

Just follow the simple rules and you never know, you could be the next winner of a £40 voucher  to spend on Sweet Poppy goodies ..... wouldn't that be nice!

Sweet Poppy have loads of gorgeous flower stencils, the hardest part of this challenge is choosing which one to use.

This one was on my desk ....... Wall of Poppies, and guess what ...... it's currently in the sale, what a great bargain!

I decided to go with a rainbow of colour ..... well, poppies don't always have to be red do they!

I simply inked through the stencil using Distress Inks, blending the colours as I worked over the design

I added my sentiment on a strip across the bottom.  I used a tiny Happy Birthday stamp and simply repeated it across the strip of card and then attached it using foam pads, to add a bit of dimension.

I added a few ink splatters using one of the Distress colours ......

and finished everything off with a few co-ordinating enamel dots

The challenge is open until May 29th. 

Simply choose your stencil ...... it must be a floral design and remember, it has to be a SWEET POPPY stencil.  Create something fabulous and add it to the Simply Sweet Poppy Stencils Facebook Page

Happy stenciling!

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

It's starting to get busy on the island, and everywhere is making preparations for the TT which starts this weekend ...... I am so excited!!!!

I went by the The Big Stage @ 1886 this morning,  which is coming along nicely.  They've got two weeks of entertainement going on in Douglas starting on Saturday with an opening party and the Champions Leauge final on the big screen.   Then on Sunday, we've got tickets to see Jessie J who's the first of a whole list of big names coming over for the event ........ TT is going to be amazing this year!!!

Cheerio until next time .......

Supplies:

Stencils:  Wall of Poppies (Sweet Poppy Stencils)

Inks: Distress Inks - Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean, Twisted Citron, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry

Stamps: small Happy Birthday stamp 

Other: Coloured enamel dots

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!)

A rainbow of colours .......

Happy weekend to you,

It's a little late in the day I know but ...... Happy World Cardmaking Day!  Have you been spending time creating ..... made anything nice?

I've been playing around with DT stuff all day .... and getting nowhere fast!!! Started lots of projects but nothing's finished.  The good thing is, nothing has ended up in the bin ....yet!!

I have managed to play along with the  Merry Monday Christmas Card challenge this week .......

Hmmm ...... use a rainbow of colours ...... on a Christmas card!  Not my usual style but here goes ....

This is about as rainbow coloured as it gets for me.
I've used an old Hero Arts (I think!) clear stamp. stamped in Black Versafine, and then coloured the fairy lights using Copic Markers

A touch of Stardust Gel Pen here and there, and a sprinkling of Chunky White Embossing Enamel to give the snowy look .... .well it is a Christmas card!

I finished off with a festive greeting from the HLS Mixed Christmas Sentiments stamp set .....

and added a few more of those rainbow coloured fairy lights to the inside .....

Rainbow coloured enough do you think?  I hope so!

Well that's it from me today ......... and I've timed it perfectly.  I can hear the over beeping so that means dinner is just about ready ....... yum!!

Thanks for popping by ..... have a lovely evening and enjoy the rest of World Cardmaking Day

Cheerio until next time

Linda

xx

Happy Birthday LIM .......

Happy Thursday,

The clue is in the title as to what I'm posting today ........ yes it's a birthday card and it's for the girls over at Less is More.  This fabulous weekly Blog challenge is 3 years old ...... congratulations ladies and thanks for all your hard work in putting together all the fun challenges each week.

It's a COLOUR challenge this week and it's .....

RAINBOW

There's lots of fab inspiration over on the challenge blog, with some special guest designers too.

Here's what I've come up with ......

I've had this Memory Box die for a while and thought it was about time it came out of the packaging.  The rainbow bit is all the colours behind the cut out circles ....... each one coloured using a Copic Marker ...... really simple

The little sentiment in the centre is a Penny Black rubber stamp ...... so cute!  

A bit of mat and layering and the card is done ...... very clean and simple.  A little different from the first one I made

 

A bit too More is More I think ....... the idea was ok, but once it was finished I couldn't make my mind up about it ...... and when hubby said 'isn't that a bit too much for LIM'  I thought maybe he was right, and made a new one - everyone's a critic eh!!!

The cute little balloons on this one were cut using the Penny Black die - uplifting (51-004), from various scraps of Core'dinantions cardstock (a great way to use up all those little bits of cardstock you just can't throw away)

I added some highlights using a white gel pen and did a spot of doodling on one of the balloons .....

Some natural twine bows finish them off and the sentiment is from the Tim Holtz set - Simple Sayings (CMS155).  Too much?  What do you think?

I'm on Grandma duties this afternoon ...... everyone's out so it's just me and the little guy.  Time to have some fun I think.

Thanks for popping by, enjoy the rest of your Thursday.

Until next time .......

Linda

xx