Stitching flowers in the sunshine

It was a stunningly beautiful afternoon so after inking up my tag with distress inks and stamping some toadstools and flowers, I had a lovely time in the sunshine adding stitching.

My Lavinia Stamps order arrived this morning and I was itching to play with the new images.  'Single Fairy Thistle' has a wonderful spray of 'growth' on the top, which I used as fairy grass, and the flowers are a combination of 'Fairy Orbs' and 'Glow Flowers'.  I love how versatile these stamps are - using small sections in different ways expands the stamp collection in a way.

Off to play with the 'Fairy Dandelions' now for my monthly step by step article on LaviniaStamps.com , and pop into 'Try it on Tuesday' (where my good stamping buddy Chris is on the design team)  whose latest challenge is 'sending you flowers'

Light it up for Autism blog hop winner

Helen, you won my Light it Up for Autism tag and extra goodies!!  Email me your postal address and I'll get your goodies out to you.  I used random dot org to generate the winner.

Thanks to everyone who commented and supported this wonderful event, and thanks to Veronica and Tenia for organising it.  They'll be announcing more winners from their sponsors over at http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/.

Light it Up for Autism Awareness

Hello and welcome to the Light It Up Blue For Autism Awareness Blog Hop!  It's World Autism Awareness Day today and having friends with autism, friends with children with autism, and teaching kids with autism I was honoured to be asked to take part in this blog hop.

The National Autistic Society describes what autism is here.  

Lots of fantastic sponsors  have shown their support for Autism Awareness and you can see the complete list here: http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-light-it-up-blue-for-autism.html

If you would like a chance to win a prize from one of these fabulous companies leave a comment on this blog, and any of the other blogs participating in today's hop! You can find the other blogs taking part in the hop here.  Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced on Monday April 6. 

The theme for this campaign is 'blue' so I used as much blue as possible, plus my new stamps from Fred B Mullet

After smooshing my tag through some blue brusho inks I stamped some Stampotique numerals, lightening the intensity of the ink by stamping it onto my underpaper before stamping my tag.

I applied a couple of blue distress inks to the fern stamp and spritzed it with water before stamping it on my tag.

It didn't come out as clearly as I thought (but oooo, love the effect at the bottom of the tag!) so I added some stenciling...

..and some sprinkles of water, which I dabbed off - love that effect!

Spraying White Dylusions ink through my circles stencil added this gorgeous splash of pink 'cos I rarely clean my stencils.  It adds a great contrast!  You can tell I got carried away here and forgot to take my step by step photos - I also stamped a fern by Fred B Mullet.

It still needed a little something so I used my fern die with a security envelope and love the contrast of the black and white paper against the blues.

I'm going to give this tag, along with a little collection of blues, as blog candy to someone who leaves a comment on this blog; I'll use random.org to pick a winner.  Other blogs in the hop also have their own individual blog candy.

It's a shame I can't include the matches, they have cute blue heads!!

So head on over to http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-light-it-up-blue-for-autism.html  and have fun blog hopping!  And don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win, the draws will take place on Monday April 6th :)  Happy Hopping!

creative wrapping

 It was one of my very best friend's birthdays last weekend and although I'd bought part of her present, I made the rest.  It was a handmade present that grew and grew and I'll share it in another post, but today I'm sharing the fun I also had gift wrapping it!

After splashing paint and ink around on some paper along with some doodles and rubber stamps I added some double sided adhesive sheet to the back of part of it, punched some circles in the style of Roben-Marie Smith and used the circular stickers I created to hold down the tissue wrapping paper.

I then added some more to a tag, added some collage and a declaration of truth, punched a hole and added some thread.  Now, can you guess what the present was?!!

tagging some celtic dreams

Still playing with my new dies from Lavinia Stamps and Imagination Crafts.  This tag took a bit of playing around with though,

and in the end,

I had to take photos

and look back at them later

to decide which design I liked best.  In the end I used the coloured toadstools on the front of my sketchbook (see yesterday's post) when it accidentally fell there and I thought 'ooo I like that!'.  

As the tag felt a little dark I added some stars with silver embossing powder, sprinkled it elsewhere on the tag (and heated from underneath), and edged the tag with it too.

Loving these dies :) 

a discombobulated pony

I know I've said this before ...

... but I just love how Roc Nicholas' images lend themselves so beautifully to paper piecing!!  And her new ponytail is no exception!

Stampotique stamps used:

Ponytail  #2434  by Roc Nicholas

  Barcode Text #2   #10025  by France Papillon

Daisy daisy  #3002  by Jo Capper Sandon

lavinia stamps challenge #9: add some ribbon

I'm really pleased that you can see the sparkle on this tag :)  It's starburst stains sprayed over a gelli print made using paint.

This month's Lavinia Stamps challenge is to 'add some ribbon'.  I added mine to my tag but as my sewing machine is still at the shop after being serviced I used my embellisher to give a textured effect to the ribbons and lace.

I used fine white detail embossing powder on the main images, and used some Stampendous chunky white embossing powder to add some background texture ... love that stuff!!!

Meet Cinth and say Hi!

Although she's a touch un-seasonal she's a jolly, good-natured little person who lives very happily, just the kind of person you want to be around!

Stampotique stamps used:

Dotted Line  #7107  by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Antique Description  #7228  by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Design Cube  #10012  by France Papillon

Hiya Cinth  #9174  by Janet Klein

Sunflower large  #9256  by Janet Klein

beaded envelope with a sprinkle of fairy dust

This month's Lavinia Stamps Challenge is 'add some beads or gems' and since I usually add some kind of sparkle to any card I make using Tracey's gorgeous stamps I decided to add some beads.

I was originally going to make a card with a beaded edging but I enjoyed making my envelopes so much yesterday I made another and added beads for texture around the toadstool houses.

Starting with my gelli plate I laid the opened out envelope (my template) underneath so I could see the area I needed to ink, and to help image placement.

You can just about see the ink I brayered on and the stamped images.

I picked up the second lot of colour onto what will be the back of the envelope, then realised I'd done it all backwards so started again, turning the envelope template over under my gelli plate (I can now hear you all shouting at me but don't worry, I get there in the end!!).

Just as I lifted this second print I realised that the first one was fine, it's an envelope, it doesn't matter which side the flaps go to fasten it!!  Duh!!!  Never mind, I now have two lol.  I drew around the brown envelope, cut it and folded it and then forgot to take anymore step by step photos - sorry!!

 I stitched the beads onto the envelope before I attached it altogether (glad at least a tiny portion of my brain was working!!).  Love that bronze embossing powder I found in my drawer ;)

The toadstools were stamped onto the envelope in order to get the fine detail around them, but I stamped and coloured them again on separate card to give them more definition and to cover up the line created by stamping over the flap at the base of the envelope.

The envelope was looking a little empty so I made a tag with a sequinned flower (when I tried this on the envelope it was too much with the beads but I really liked the idea!!)

They don't show up well with the camera but the sequins are two shades of pink and orange.

 Still loving that bronze embossing powder!!

I think it still needs some more tags inside but I'm happy with what I've done so far.

another Paper Artsy challenge piece

I knew I wouldn't be able to resist playing with these stamps for long but that was hardly any time at all!!  So here I am, back with a second entry for Paper Artsy's weekly challenge

I often decorate envelopes but this time I was inspired by Darcy to create an envelope from the papers I made earlier (see the previous post).  I opened up an envelope, glued it to the bag of my paper then refolded it.

  

I knew the stamped image would be difficult as I was stamping it overlapping card but it coped better than I thought!  I added a black and white image of the lady over the top.

Unlike Darcy I kept the flap at the top of the envelope (although I will give hers a go at some point), and added some of my left over bits of stamping from the previous project.  The tag in this Lynne Perella set was a perfect size to fit inside my envelope .... and hey presto, two projects in one day #feeling happier :)

what if this isn't me?

I've been doing a lot of 'rummaging around' on the internet recently, watching you tube videos, visiting lots of blogs, and I kept seeing clouds!  

So I decided to use Janet's wonderful '2 nuages' for this week's project for Stampotique.

I started with a glassine envelope and decided I'd like a dark blue tag tucked inside to give the impression of a blue sky.

I LoVe AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh stories and knew I'd find a cloud quote there as Pooh pretends to be a cloud in an attempt to get some honey from up a tree.  If you don't know the story I can highly recommend it; you can read it here, although the very best way (in my opinion) is to listen to the wonderful Alan Bennett read it to you.  I have it on cassette so am very pleased to discover it's now available on itunes!!

But whilst googling the quote I came across another one from a different Pooh bear story which just made me smile, and since I have a rabbit stamp...!

Stampotique Stamps used:

2 nuages by Janet Klein  #9248

Upward Bound by Maria Sabina Raita  #7310

Thanks for visiting!