Less Is More

Morning everyone,

Are you well?  I'm struggling with a flippin' cold at the moment.  Well, it's not actually a full blown cold as such, I've just got this tickly cough that comes at night, just when I go to bed.  It  keeps me awake, and then leaves me with a stuffy nose and a sore throat for the day - delightful little bug!
At least I don't have to go anywhere this week, so I can stay nice and warm tucked away in the old craft room.

Todays card is for the latest challenge over at Less is More
It's Week 90, and we have a Theme 

AUTUMN

We can take our inspiration from the colours, the festivals, seasonal images etc., but, we still have to keep things Clean and Simple (CAS), and leave lots of white space.

This is my favourite season of the year, I love Autumn.  It's time to get those winter woolies out, dust off your boots and dig out your scarf and gloves.  No more salads either.  The slow cooker's out of the cupboard and it's roasts and stews on the menu- yummee!!   We also have Halloween just around the corner too, looking forward to that.
I love the Autumn colours too, all those golden browns, oranges and shades of red, alongside the evergreens, just stunning!

I think I've used all of the above Autumn colours on my LIM card.

I masked off an area using post-it notes and then blended Distress Inks for my background - Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold, Rusty Hinge, Aged Mahogany, Forest Moss and a little bit of Gathered Twigs.  Then, with the masks still in place, I used the same inks to stamp the leaf randomly over the background.  I love this little stamp from the Stampin Up! set 'Autumn Days'.  Unfortunately I think this set was one of those that got retired last month, which is a shame. 
The sentiment is one of my recent purchases from Inkylicious and I think it describes Autumn perfectly.

I decided to decorate the envelope too.  Haven't got anyone in mind to send this to yet, but when I do, it's all ready to go.

I think the other half is coming home for lunch today.  I'd better get a move on soon, I'm still in my PJ's! (not that it's lunchtime yet but, I can at least look like I've been busy!)
We had a minor disaster last night.  I went to make the dinner and I noticed that the freezer door wasn't closed properly.  The last person to use the freezer was Chris (our son).  He made himself a pizza in the early hours of Monday morning, after coming in from a night out.  You know what it's like, late night drinking means early morning munchies.  Well, he mustn't have closed the door properly - muppet!!
You can imagine my reaction.  It was like the North Pole in there.  There was ice everywhere, but some of the food inside had started to defrost. 
Dinner had to wait, all the food had to be transferred to my second freezer in the garage.  Thankfully there wasn't much that had to be thrown away, but I now have a fridge full of stuff that needs eating pretty quickly.
That's one of the reasons why Stephen is coming home for lunch - there's a load of smoked salmon in the fridge!!
I remember Chris doing this sort of thing once before.  He was only about 2 at the time, and he had a thing for switching off plugs.  It was a lot worse that time, we didn't notice for a couple of days, everything was ruined, and the freezer was FULL!  They don't get any better as they get older do they!?
Looking on the bright side, it's one of my 'Jobs To Do Before Christmas' done at least.  I always defrost the fridges and freezers before the big shop for the festive food.  I've just done it about 6 weeks early.

The Autumn theme continues tomorrow as it's 12 Tags of 2012 time (that's not easy to say!).  Yes, October's Tag is finished - whoo hoo!

Thanks for popping by today.  Enjoy your Tuesday.

Linda

x

Another week, another challenge

Hello everyone,
A bit of a slow start this morning, but welcome to a new week.  Let's hope this week carries on to be as productive as the last.
Did you all have a nice weekend? I hope so.
Mine was lovely, very relaxing.

Hubby was back from his business trip on Friday evening.  It's nice to have him home, and he even brought me a present, a lovely bottle of perfume.
We had a quick ride out on Saturday to do a spot of shopping.  My boys in blue (Chelsea Football Club!) won their match, we're now 4 points clear of Man Utd (who we play next weekend) and we're still top of the league - well done boys!
Sunday, we had a lazy morning, lunch out which is always nice as it means I don't have to cook, ooh, and I bought my pumpkins for Halloween.

Traditionally on the Isle of Man it's called Hop Tu Naa and they carve out turnips instead of pumpkins. Have you ever tired carving a turnip?!   This year however, there's a shortage of them, due to the bad weather we've had.  Now, I'm not saying this is a quiet place to live but, this made headline news. It's even on the BBC News website.  It's up there with other major headlines we've had, like potatoes washed up on the beach in the North of the island.  Exciting or what!!
Anyway, enough about the IOM.  On to things of a crafty nature. 

Last week saw the launch of the latest In the Pink challenge.
It's Challenge #6 ........

BUTTONS AND BOWS

You know me, I love my ribbons and I have been known to use the occasional button or two.

Well over the weekend I spent a little bit of time in the old craft room - can't keep out of there lately!

And I came up with this ........

Cute isn't she?!  I used to love my Magnolia stamps but they don't seem to come out of the cupboard much lately.  I don't seem to do cute anymore.
Obviously Pink always makes me think of girly cards so I had a rummage and found this little sweetie - Tilda with the Rose.
She's been coloured with Copic pens, using various shades of pink - something else I don't seem to use much of these days.  Too much other stuff I suppose.  Anyway, she's been die cut using a Marianne's Creatables die.  I cut this twice, once around Tilda and then again just on plain white card.  I also embossed the plain one, and while the die was still in place I used a little bit of Spun Sugar DI to highlight the raised areas.  The one with Tilda in the middle has had the fancy edge cut away, leaving just the circle so that I could layer up my design and add a little bit of dimension.
Tilda's rose has also been stamped again and layered and I add a tiny silk bow to the stem.

The papers I've used are from Making Memories - the 'Je t'adore' range.  I've just done a simple layout, added a scalloped border and some pretty lace.  There's a spot of Fran-tage on there too (Shabby Pink).

I spent quite a while with my button collection, and as always couldn't find just the right shade of pink.  In the end I gave up and made my own buttons.  Cut from chipboard covered with one of the background papers, using the Tim Holtz Alterations Die - Sewing Room.  They match perfectly now!

My final touch was to add the sentiment, which is from a Paper Artsy set of stamps, and of course I couldn't just leave it with the one small bow now could I.  So I added a beautiful pink silk ribbon bow, finished off with a sparkly Dazzler.

Well, that's one thing crossed off this week's list already.  Good start.  I'll be back tomorrow with this week's LIM card.

Thanks for popping by.  Have a great Monday.
See you soon

Linda

x

What a busy week I've had

Hi everyone,
Happy Friday!  This week has flown by, but it's been fun.
I'm still busy in the old craft room, at least the 'To Do' list is going down (sort of) - yeah!
There's a project on there that's been on for weeks, I just haven't had the time to do anything about it.  It's a Memory Box for my Grandson Alex. 
My father-in-law made the box last time we were across in the UK and up until yesterday I'd only had time to put a layer of primer on there.  Now it's had a coat of colour - whoo hoo!  I'm trying to get it finished before we go across again - November 7th.  I'll keep you posted!

In the meantime, here's something I did a couple of weeks ago.  I think I'm safe posting it today - the lady who it was for should have seen it by now.

It's an anniversary card for the wife of someone who hubby works with.  It was their 1st Wedding Anniversary on the 14th (I think) and Baard asked me to make a special card for him to give to his wife. I even made a matching box with Gift Tag for it to go in.

When I started out I was going to keep it quite simple, but I think I got a little carried away. There's a bit of everything on here .....

As you can see, my 'Fran-tage' phase is still in full swing.  I used the Shabby Blue on the corners of the background paper and the black card.  Everything was distressed around the edges using the Tim Holtz Distressing Tool, and then inked with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink to soften it and give an aged look.

There's some embossing on there (Birds and Swirls embossing folder).  There's some die-cutting (Weathered Clock, and the Tree Branch).  Rubber Stamping - the hearts were done with a Stampendous stamp and heat embossed in white, the sentiment is from Penny Black.
I used punches for the birds and the blossoms on the branch, and I added ribbon and gems to finish it all off.  It was pretty when I'd done - I was pleased with it anyway.
It's always a bit of a worry when I'm making something for someone else, especially when I don't know them that well.  But, I know that Baard likes it, I just hope Alena, his wife, thinks the same.

As it's Friday, it's my day for posting on the Creative Studios Blog.  I had fun yesterday finishing off this week's project.  I've gone all frosty looking this time, same stamp sets as last week but a competely different look.  I can let you have a sneaky peek, but if you want to see it in full, and read how it was done you'll have to pop over to the Design Team Blog later and have a look.

Phew! I think that's me done for this week.  Not sure what we have planned for the weekend.  Stephen's back from his London trip this evening, so no doubt the washing machine will be going on a some point - I get all the good jobs!
If I do get time over the weekend  I'm hoping to do my Timmie Tag.  I've made a start.  I've coloured my glitter .......

....... it was white when I started!
I had a bit of an 'OMG! I've done it wrong' moment when it all started to clog, but it all came good in the end - Tim said it would!
Full instructions are on Tim's Blog post for this month's tag.  What a fabulous technique, I'm now looking at all my alcohol inks and thinking what fab colours of glitter I can make.  I'll be using this one again!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  Thank you so much for sticking with me this week, all your fab comments really do mean a lot.  I always look forward to hearing from you.
I'm off to do my DT post, then it's back to the old craft room.  It's a hard life! 

Bye for now

Linda

x

When the cats away ..........

Hello again everyone,

Things are still moving along in the old craft room.  I'm really enjoying myself this week, it's a mixture of doing things that have to be done, deadlines to meet and all that, and doing some stuff just for ME, because I can! 

Stephen's away in London for a couple of days.  He's on a business trip with his boss (alright for some!).
Christopher is working every night this week, so come 6 o'clock it's just me and my stash.  I can spend as much time as I like in my craft room, and not feel guilty about it - heaven!
Don't get me wrong, I do miss my other half when he's not here.  In fact, he'll probably read this on his iphone, if he has a minute.  He says he has to check my Blog as it's the only way he finds out what's going on. Hmm!  He does actually read it - usually when he comes in from work.  He's one of my followers too, bless him! (mwah! xx - just for you Stephen).

I'm still playing with my new Halloween stamps, I love em!  For those of you who don't do the whole spooky, Halloween thing I'll try and make this the last one, for a while!

It's the Witches Brew set from Chocolate Baroque and I think I've used all of the stamps on this card, except the words.
I love the spooky scenes you can create.  On this card I've just stamped the images onto white card, and then used some torn paper as a mask, along with some Distress Inks to do a spot of shading here and there to create the background, and to colour the sky.
I've then gone around the edges and stamped the spider's web in black, and sponged a little Black Soot DI over the top.   The scene has then been matted onto a piece of black card leaving quite a large border, about 1/2 an inch or there abouts.
I've then used one of my favourite products at the moment (I have so many I know), Flitter Glu and Flakes from Indigo Blu.
I've used the spider's web stamp again, this time with the Flitter Glu and I've stamped around  the edges of the black card, but also, stamped over the black web in places.  Then used Sheffield Steel flakes over the top.
To get the best results with the flakes, once you've stamped with the Flitter Glu cover the whole area with the flake.   Rub over with the palm of your hand to make sure all the glue is covered, then use your scoochy sponge to remove all the excess and bring out your image .......

The added extras are from the Penny Black 'T for Transparent' set - the pumpkin, and the bats.  The words are from an old Inkadinkadoo clear set - 'Cats and Bats'.

I thought I'd enter this in the latest Blog Challenge over at Ladybug Crafts.  It's Challenge number 2 and the theme is .....

Halloween and/or your favourite embellishment

I think this qualifies, don't you?

Ah well, back to the craft room.  I've done all my household stuff that needs doing.  

Today I'm working on my latest project for Sam over at Creative Studios.  You'll be able to see the finished results on the Blog on Friday.  I think I'm going for a frosty look ..... hmmmmm, we'll see.  

Thanks for popping by today, I really appreciate you all taking an interest.  I get a real fuzzy feeling when I see how many views I've had, and your lovely comments too - I love my Blog buddies! 

Bye for now

Linda

x

Mwahhaha ........ it's Twinchie Time!

Hello again everyone,
Middle of the week already, doesn't time fly when you're having fun.
I told you I would be spending most of my time in the old craft room this week and I wasn't wrong. It's great, things are actually being crossed of the 'To Do' list, which makes a change!

It's Twinchie time again and the new theme is ....... 

SPOOKY STUFF

If you haven't tried this Blog Challenge yet, you should give it a go, it's so much fun.

Twinchies are little 2inch x 2inch pieces of artwork.  Now you may think that's not a very big space to put anything on but, once you get started you'll be amazed at what you can do.

Why not pop over to the Show Us Your Twinchie Blog and have a look.  The Design Team had done another fabulous job with their Twinchies for the new challenge.

Here are mine ........

You can see I've been playing with my Chocolate Baroque stamps again, and my Dylusions inks, which I am loving by the way.  The colours are fabulous.
I've also used a couple of Penny Black clear stamps (for the Happy Haunting and the Bats).  And the spider is from an Indigo Blu set (Hocus Pocus). 
Definitely getting in the mood for Halloween - can't you tell!  The other half says it's the perfect night for me to go out!  Cheeky!!!

And on that note I'll say Cheerio for now.  I'm off to the old craft room to do my weekly project for Creative Studios. I'll be posting it on the blog on Friday so don't forget to pop over and take a look.

Enjoy your Wednesday
Bye for now

Linda

x