Sunday Stamper 187 - Time of your life.

I am determined to be more organised and creative this year, so here is my first Sunday Stamper admission for 2012!

I have made a card for my dear friend Sally, which is another thing I am determined to do. Last year we sent each other something every month but December came and we both got a little overwhelmed. I intend to resume normal service as from today! Enough waffling, the card was stamped with a background of clocks with white acrylic and then distress inks mustard seed, dried marigold and wild honey were applied with walnut stain around the edge. I love the batik look this gives! The text was chopped up and rearranged and the hand and eternal time circle stamped in balck archival and stained with old paper DI.The clock is from Tim's stamps and given the same treatment and the metal clock and spinner are from the ideology range adhered with glossy accents. I thought the piece of stamped train timetable was apt because of the 'On Sundays' heading! Forgive me folks, but the stamps with the exception of Tim's were from an unmounted sheet I brought years ago and I cannot remember the maker.

On to the next thing now, am on a roll as mojo went away with Hel's mojo for a holiday and is now back in residence! Have a happy week one and all.

I

Tag Tuesday

I have joined the Tag Tuesday challenge! How could I resist, hosted by the very talented Carlolyn Saxby of http://love-stitching-red.blogspot.com/ and  making a different tag each week, my challenge to myself will be to use different mediums, but I have started the first one using stamps and paper. The theme is Snow:

I wanted it to look like an old photograph, so I used pumice stone and old paper distress ink for the sky and stamped the tree in walnut stain using two different tree stamps so that I could build up the branches. The snowflakes were clear embossed across the landscape and the snow in the foregrouned was snow cap dabber for texture with shades of pumice stone underneath. The die cut snowflakes were coloured with expresso ink stain and then edged with picket fence stickles. The rusty metal snowflake was in my stash and the little figures were inked in with promarkers.  Do have a peep at the challenge, there are some lovely tags on it!

Didn't quite make it!

Happy New Year everyone! I tried really hard but couldn't quite finish Tim's tags, did 10 and ran out of time!  So here, in no particular order are the ten I have managed.

I shall carry on and do the other two, but oh , I had such high hopes. A challenge or two, finish the tags, make a calender page for January in my journal, produce something original and creative! To be sure I am not clear where this week went and now I am back to work. Perhaps I shall manage more when I am juggling my hours? I hope you all had a splendid time, for me it is back to the diet and a year full of good intentions.
I shall keep my craft room tidy!
I shall produce something every week.
I shall not eat chocolate as if it is going out of fashion.
I shall do new challenges.

Heavens, I need something more exciting than that.

Here goes:
I shall live everyday to the full.
I shall try and make a difference every day, however small it is.
I shall find something magic in everyday of the year.
Whenever it rains I will jump in the puddles!

Happy crafting in 2012 to everyone xx

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I have not been able to craft for the last few weeks as my mum has been in hospital and lots has been going on, but if there is anyone out there who has not given up on my blog I hope to be able to play after tomorrow!
A very merry Christmas to one and all, enjoy your families and your friends at this special  time of the year.
With love
Barb xx

Sunday Stampers week 181. Frosty the Snowman.

Morning peeps, just getting this entry on in the nick of time! I start with such good intentions and the minutes the hours the days just fly by - oh to have a whole day playing. However, at least I have done Frosty the Snowman. I so love this time of year!

After distressing the background with tumbled glass and broken china  I used part of a stamp I have had in my stash for many years by Stamps Happen Inc.. Then I restamped it on the same background on a spare piece of manilla and bleached out the snowmans body leaving some shading around the edge. I also cut out another cat and adhered both to the main image with sticky pads to give some depth. I used sakura and copic pens to colour Frosty's  nose and to bring shading to his scarf and hat. The tree was also coloured with a copic pen and then I added glitter to the star with a glue pen. The snowflakes on the bottom of the tag were made with Martha Stewart punches and the resulting waste snowflakes added to the sky with some punched blue ones. The big flake on the top was a wooden die cut painted with snow cap acrylic and glittered over. Well, off to work now, please be lovely angels and grant me the wish of time to play this weekend! xx

Sunday Stamper:180, The trail of the lonesome pine.

I have had a busy week, but so wanted to do this weeks Sunday Stamper challenge. I am getting in a Christmasy mood, must be the cards I am trying to get on top of. It felt good to do a tag, I so hope Tim is going to do his 12 tags again this year. 

Am having trouble getting a good picture, so hope this is clear enough. I used Forest Moss, Pine Needles and Evergreen Bough on my craft mat and swiped the tag across. Then I edged it with Walnut stain. I stamped some pine trees in the same colours and then vagabonded a pine tree in glossy card so that it would take the Pine Needles ink in a different way. Then I used white acrylic paint to spray a snow fall and white glitter accent on the tree. Taking a piece of script stamped vellum paper I tore off  a piece at the bottom of the tag and puched out a Martha Stewart snowflake edge, using the cut out snowflakes over the tag. Then on another piece of vellum I stamped the words Let it snow, which has not come out very clear on the photograph! Finally I added a wooden snowflake on the bottom, die cut a nestability snowflake for the top and added an Officially Winter medallion from Cats Life Press, tinting the paper and edge with the new distres ink, Evergreen Bough. Hopefully I will have time this weekend to do some more crafting, there are some lovely challenges out there at the moment. What an amazing Autumn we are having, but I will be old grumpy, and say I wish it was a tadge colder, it just does not feel right! Here's hoping dear Hels of the Sunday stamper is feeling better, and all the pine challenges cheer her up!

Sunday Stampers 179 - The First Noel.

As I have been trying to get some of my Christmas cards made I thought I would enter one for the Sunday Stampers challenge. Then I thought in the spirit of bargain hunting, why not enter 2 get one free?

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I usually buy a new set of stamps each Christmas but this year my pocket money has gone on two of Tim's new seasonal dies and the Spellbinders Poinsettia die, so I got out my much loved set of clarity stamps and used them in a different way this year. As you can see the two cards and tag have been given the same treatment. I used recycled brown card for the base, then I stamped a poinsettia in brushed corduroy distress  on the background. The base for the stamp was die cut from a very old sizzix die that I have had for years which was distressed with various brown DI's and then stamped with the Autumn gathered twigs DI. (As you can see DI's are my main stay!) I coloured away with my copic markers and used bleach for the white areas. Then for the first card I vagabonded (such English) my new holly die, coloured and then overstamped with a music sheet. The second card and the tag have a red poinsettia which was treated to aged mahogany distress stickles and a little gold dimensional paint in the centre. They feel very aged which I love, and very dimensional, which poses a problem! I realise that they may be hard to post, so I will have to make these for hand outs! I have completed  6 sets, so I must now get my thinking cap on for another set of cards. I am unable to concentrate on more than 6 at a time, then I want to do something different. Back to the drawing board! Have a good week everyone.