Scrappy Sunday - Two Floral Cards

Hello Everyone

Happy Sunday to you all - I hope you've had a lovely weekend. Bloglovin' tells me I have a few new followers - welcome! I appreciate your interest and hope that you enjoy what you see here. Today I've been playing with inks and paints on scraps of cardstock and, because I hate to waste anything, I've created a couple of cards with my efforts.

Card No. 1 - the base for this card is the result of testing out a mist - Mister Huey's Heirloom Blue - on a scrap of white cardstock to see if it was the right colour for a scrapbook layout I'm in the middle of making. It wasn't but I liked the effect so thought it would make a good background for some stamping.

How I made the card:

1. The misted card was trimmed down to a 5" square to create a topper to fit a black card base from my stash.

2. More experimenting, this time with stamping using the Poppy Field flower from Rubbernecker.  I wanted to try out whether it is possible to stamp using Vicki Boutin's Mixed Media paint, Sugared Strawberry, so, using a paintbrush, I covered the surface of the stamp, misted it with water, and then stamped - it worked a treat.

3. After the paint had dried the outline was stamped using a Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad. 

4. The topper was then layered on to a patterned paper, from Wild Studio Rose's Spring Fling 6x6 paper pack - an old one leftover from way back when I was on the DT for Handy Hippo -  which was then adhered to the card base.

5. Confession time here - I did stamp a sentiment directly on to the background but then realised that it was a bit skew-whiff. Not to worry. I just stamped it again on a snippet of the white misted cardstock, layered it on to a scrap of the patterned paper and stuck over the mistake - only you will ever know because I've told you!

6. For the final touch I added a few pink sequins.

I'd like to submit this card to Pixie's Snippet Playground where, as always, the requirement is that we use up as many snippets in our projects as possible.

Card No. 2 was made in much the same way using another scrap of which cardstock previously spattered with Spectrum Noir' black Aquatint ink. This time I managed to stamp the sentiment perfectly straight. The white card base used measures 5" x 7" and instead of sequins I used tiny black 'pearls' made by Craft For Occasions.

Blimey! It's only just still Sunday ... I started writing the post hours ago but got distracted by a programme on TV about two of my favourite tennis players, Federer and Nadal, and then Poldark.

And now it's time I went to bed. Take care and have a great week.

The Scottish Air Show and The Sewing Table Makeover

Morning Everyone,

It's still morning, just. I hope the weekend has been an enjoyable one so far. It's been not too bad here. We've had sunshine, though it's a tad breezy out and there is definitely an autumnal nip in the air. No snippet make today ... we are still in a muddle as the craft room is being made over. Instead, here's a couple of highlights from my weekend.

The Scottish Air Show took place here in Ayr yesterday and it went off without a hitch. I don't think it is any secret that I love the Red Arrows display ... I might have been a pilot in another life :)

It was also the Vulcan's final appearance. These stunning photos were taken by friends, Ruth and Steve.

Now on to the sewing table makeover. When I started sewing again, put that down to the influence of fellow WOYWWer's Annie, A Stitch In Time, and Lunch Lady Jan, it seemed a good idea to have a dedicated sewing table. However, having priced up the real thing, and discovering they cost a fortune, I decided to go down the second-hand route. This scruffy old dressing table was picked up for a miserly £10 in a charity shop last year and this week I finally got round to giving it the makeover I promised back then.

This is the before photo - it does look a sorry state.

This is it after it had been prepped with a sugar soap wash and then given a white undercoat ... looking heaps better already.

Here it is all spruced up with a creamy shade of gloss paint, Wilkinsons Crushed Almonds - the drawers are finished in Olive Green, and a new set of drawer handles form B&Q. It is now absolutely beautiful and will look fabulous in my craft room once we can move in again. There's a glass shelve that fits in the centre section, in case you were wondering. In total the desk has cost around £40 - a bargain :) I wonder what the original owner would think of her recycled dressing table.

Right, time for a quick lunch and then it's off to watch the youngest grandson playing football - kick off is at 2pm. 

Hope your day goes well.

Live Every Moment ....

... again! Can you tell I like this stamp :)

I think this IndigoBlu stamp is fast becoming my most used one, it seems to be appropriate for so many cards. This one is for my middle grandson who has just been promoted, found his ideal girlfriend and is enjoying life to the full ... all at the tender age of 23 :)

To make the card I used one of the prints taken from the Gelli plate as the basis for the design. Black, brown and blue acrylic paint has been combined with a That Special Touch stencil, Circles, and bubble wrap to create the pattern. After trimming down, it was matted on to layers of blue and brown cardstock before adhering to the card blank.

The topper was made by stamping the sentiment on to a snippet of white card and then matting and layering as for the base layer.

The hinged greeting ... I spotted this idea on a TV demo. The hinge is made from an off-cut of white card ... I scored the fold first before attaching it to the inside of the card.  The greeting, from My Favorite Things Happiest Birthday Wishes set, is again stamped on to a snippet of white card and matted and layered as before. Before attaching it to the front of the hinge I adhered a tiny scrap of the trimmings from the Gelli print ... you can just about see it peaking out from under the greeting.

The inside and back are also decorated with trimmings from the print matted on to scraps of the blue cardstock.

Lots of snippets and off-cuts of white card used here so I'm submitting this card for examination by Di at Pixie's Snippets Playground.

I'm off now to see what other snippeteers have been making this week.

Hope you are having a lovely day.

Happy Crafting,

Materials used: 6" square white card black; snippets of white card; blue and brown smooth cardstock; acrylic paints, black, brown and blue colours; Creative Expressions That Special Touch Circles stencil; IndigoBlu sentiment stamp (magazine freebie); My Favorite Things Happiest Birthday Wishes greeting stamp set; black dewdrops for embellishment

Painting of a different kind ...

... and even more WOYWW5 ATCs!

Yes, we are painting the hall, stairs and landing this week so the desk has been swapped for the EM's WorkMate. And on it is a paint kettle containing a tin of undercoat at the moment and a couple of paint rags, and a screwdriver - for prising the lid off the tin. There's a paintbrush too - just out of shot.

All this means I won't be joining in the desk hopping over at What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) this week. This fun hop is normally in full swing over at the Stamping Ground by now but there seems to be a bit of a glitch cos there's no linky there yet!

Edited Note: It's Wednesday evening and I've just discovered the reason for no WOYWW post ... Julia has been taken ill whilst on holiday and is in hospital. Both the EM and I wish her a rapid recovery and hope she is up and about again soon. For further information, please pop over to Lunch Lady Jan's who will be keeping us posted. 

 Despite my non-attendance, I just had to show you the lovely ATCs received this week.

Are they gorgeous or what??? From the Sewing Sisters, Twiglet and Wipso (aka Jo and Annie), I just love all the stitchwork  - beautiful :)

Hopefully all the ATCs I sent out have reached their destination by now so here, for the record, is a pic of the digital card I made to accompany them.

Using Serif Craft Artist 2 and two digikits - Pebbles Floral Lane for papers, ribbons and flowers and Playground, a free kit from Daisytrail for the birds. To create the 'topper' I had a go at digital punching the papers and adding shadows to each item creates the illusion of dimension.

After printing out I added orange and blue gems from Anita's gem wheels to give a little bit of real dimension. 

Even the insert and the back were created digitally... 

... as was the ATC.


Well better get back to the painting.

Have a great day and a wonderful week.

Happy Crafting,

Sunday Snippets - Autumn Sunset and Another Altered Frame

Happy Sunday Everyone

Hope you are all have a lovely, possibly restful, maybe exciting, day :)

As it's Sunday it's time for a trip to Pixie's Snippet Playground - Week 94 and today, because it incorporates a couple of snippets, I have the sunset scene, last seen in it's unfinished state, on my desk on Wednesday.

The background, a snippet of white card, is sponged with combination of Tim Holtz distress inks in yellows, pinks, mauves, blues and black. The stamps, Lavinia's Bare Trees & Leaves and Toadstools, were stamped with VersaMark and heat embossed with a black powder. Finally, it was edged with Rub 'n Buff metallic wax, rather appropriately Autumn Gold, and matted on to a leftover scrap of embossed black card - the folder is the superb Fall Leaf Background from Darice - which has also been given the Rub 'n Buff treatment.

Just a tiny embellishment top left, composed of a scrap of hessian, a few gold waxed leaves and a bronze brad, to finish.

To frame it I altered a very old frame I had tucked away in my box of 'things to be recycled/altered'. In fact the frame is more than 43 years old ... I know this because for much of the 43 years it held a lovely photo of my baby son, then 11 months old, in it ... and he is now 44 years old :) As usual, I forgot to take a before shot of the frame which was a very battered cream with a gilt trim. Here's a shot of the back to give you some idea of the sorry state it was in.

It now has several layers of acrylic and one of a bronze metalic paint with a touch of Rub 'n Buff around the uppermost edge for good measure.

Looking so much better - there might even be another 40+ years in it yet :)

Off to sort out my wardrobe now and pack away anything I think I can live without for the next few weeks.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Bird of Paradise Canvas

Afternoon All,

I hope your day is going well for you. It's not going too badly here. It's raining and the garden really needed it so I'm not complaining. Rain also means that it is warmer ... yippee!

I have a canvas wall hanging to share with you today. Another item from my aqua phase :))

Yes, I know, it's not hanging in this photo - but the photo taken of it hanging is not good ... scroll down to see why.

This is one of those canvas boards that you can pick up in a pack for a song at The Works (UK). Starting with a coat of white gesso, I painted and sprayed with a mix of Pebeo paint and shimmer sprays. I used some sequin waste as a mask. The bird of paradise topper is one of the last remaining items from a scrapping kit bought way back in 1997/98. I was able to use all the items except this and one other topper ... they just didn't fit with the theme of any layouts made with the rest of the kit.

Here's the less than lovely photo of it hanging up.

This is the wall that I always use as a background and in real life the canvas looks lovely on it - it just doesn't photograph well ... rather like myself :))

Really, all I did for the embellishments was raid my stash. The feathers, flowers, lace, seam binding and ric rac - all ready and just waiting to be used. And the die-cuts were gifts from my very generous crafting buddies ... the die-cut poppies I painted with H2Os and the white cherry blossoms were sprayed with teal Radiant Rain. To make the crinkly double bow, I dampened and scrunched up the seam binding first and then tied it.

Materials used: a white canvas board measuring 7"x5"; white gesso; blue Pebeo paint; Luminarte Radiant Rain, Teal Zircon; Cosmic Shimmer Mist, Pearl Mist & Blue Lime; H2Os, Just Peachy, Celedon and Sea Spray from the Summer Fun set; sequin waste for masking; the Spellbinders die-cut and die-cut poppies were gifts from friends; topper unused from a very old kit; feathers and pearls from The Works; white cherry blossoms (sprayed with teal Radiant Rain)and pink tinged hellebore from Wild Orchid Crafts; aqua seam binding from The Ribbon Girl; Marianne Vintage white cotton lace; Anna Griffin Hannah collection blue, ric rac; pearls from stash.

Oops! Almost forgot I wanted to submit this to the following:

Belli Challenge #167 - Pastels - the spirit of the Belli challenges is to encourage you to use your OLD and FORGOTTEN embellishments - I've certainly applied that spirit to my wall hanging :)

That's it for now - it's lunch time here so I'm off to grab a bite to eat.

Take care all. Thanks for visiting. Happy crafting,

In the Direction of Dreams ... a canvas and matching card set.

Afternoon Everyone,

It's been a busy day for me ... well, a sort of busy day. After breakfast, I spent a good couple of hours this morning watching the new scrapbooking programme with Wendy Rhodes, hoping to pick up some useful tips. It ended in time for lunch so it wasn't until early afternoon I was able to hit the craft space, intending to do something with grunge paper but ... Outlook calendar reminded me of a birthday coming up. So I've been working on a shabby chic card today which I will probably post tomorrow. And for the last couple of days I've been working on this canvas and card set - another birthday - so the grungeboard and spool project just has to wait.

I started by making an ATC for Sarah's My Mojo Monthly. The theme this month is Play Petite ... go small, make an ATC ... so I did.

Our friend, Scott, has a lot of imagination, ambition and energy and is well on his way to realising his dreams. He recently completed an MBA, all the while building a very successful business ... he's aiming to become a millionaire before he's 40 :)) And as if that wasn't enough, he fills his spare time with distance running and the martial arts - mainly Tai Kwon Do, but he dabbles in others too. In fact, only this week he returned from Israel after completing a Krav-Maga course ... no, I don't know what it is either. Anyway, I digress, but it was thinking about what Scott does that led me to the making of this ATC. And I've finally used one of my collection of Clarity stamps.  The sentiment is a digital from Pink Petticoat. I'm afraid the photo does not do it justice - there's a lot of sparkle you just can't see!  Like Sarah, I decided to incorporate the ATC into the canvas I had started.

It's all about travel ... any kind of travel, places, directions, whatever, and maybe just a gentle reminder to write home too :) A lot of paint, distress inks, cosmic shimmer, stamping and gold embossing went into this project ... yes, I got messy for this one ... though the embellishments were kept to a minimum ... just a couple of brads, adage tickets and a tiny dragonfly.  Once again, the photo doesn't do it justice ... the colours are much better in the flesh, so to speak.

And after the canvas the card had to be simple, a ready-made card base, a bit of sponging with distress inks, stamping and heat embossing - silver this time, a ready-made greeting matted on to silver mirri card and some fab silver polka-dotted card candy - job done :)

Materials used:
- 7"x5" canvas board
- white gesso
- Adirondack paint dabber - mushroom
- Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky, Aged Mahogany, Black Soot, Pumice Stone
- VersaMark; fine gold & silver embossing powders
- Cosmic Shimmer - Pearl Mist, Rich Gold
- Stamps: Clarity - Postcards, Famous Places; Inkylicious - Simply Scrip;: Tim Holtz - Visual Artistry Collection
- Digital: Debbi Moore CD - Shabby Chic; Pink Petticoat - Tiny Sentiments
- Mask - Tim Holtz Idea-ology mini mask - compass
- Tools: heat gun; ink duster; make-up sponge
- Embellishments: Tim Holtz adage tickets; brads, dragonfly, card candy, greeting card topper, silver mirri card & silver/polka-dotted card candy from stash

I started writing up this post this afternoon in between cutting, sticking, distressing, and glittering, and then it was time for dinner, followed by Dancing on Ice - so many distractions :)) So now I'm sitting here in my PJ's after a lovely lazy easy Sunday - what more could a woman want :)


I hope you have all had as good a Sunday as I have and that all's well with your world.

Take care and happy crafting,