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.

Sunday stampers 178. Halloween - Bats out of Hell.

Although I don't own any halloween stamps, I thought I would have a go with this weeks Sunday stamper challenge.

So I splodged around on my craft sheet with Tim's Autumn distress pads and then made a stamp out of his Houses edge die for the bottom, adding an Elusive image tree. Then I found an old wooden Happy Halloween stamp in my stash I forgot I owned. I drew the spiders web and added a black glittery spider from my witches outfit I wore to a dance on Saturday. The Boo comes from Tims stickers and the 31 was amongst a hoard of die cut numbers stained with the seedless preserves ink. The lace at the bottom of the tag is some velvet sticky back edging from Prima I think, adorned with an orange spider and the tag is finished with a strip of bin liner!

Happy Halloween to you all. I'm back to the Christmas card stash now, will post some of them later.

Sunday Stamper. Week 177 - Forever Autumn.

Forever Autumn.

Help! I wanted to kick start my mojo and so I have brought the new Tim Holtz die of the pine cone. Then I thought it would look good on an Autumn card for the sunday Stamper challenge. After half a dozen aborted tries I managed to make two that could resemble pine cones! (OK. So they may to a blind hedgehog in a paper bag).  Can someone out there share their tips for making these? Is there a Tim video on it I have missed? Thanks!

I also used my recent aquisition of the limited edition Autumn ink pads from Tim - mixing them in  with an assortment of his other colours. The Large leaves are from the tattered leaves die which were splodged in any ink I had left on the mat after colouring the layers of card. The sentiment is from Elusive images Autumn set and I used another on shrink plastic under the cones. The backberry is made from glass beads on a small base.  I drew some veins on the leaves with a sakura pen.

I have to say the cones are giving me hysterics, they so don't look right. Mind you I couldn't make a rose until Hels (she of the sunday Stamper fame!) showed me the right way. I put it down to my age - as you do!

Off for a girl's break!

Well, I really wanted to post some wondrus item I had produced this week, and in fact have made a box with a 'porcelain' flower on top, but I am off for a girly break with my little sister and her two friends and the camera is packed! It's about the only thing that is mind, I have to shoot off to work, then fly home, pack the rest and then sis is picking me up for our adventure! We are staying in her Spanish residence, so plenty of sun, wine and chocolate. I have loaded up the kindle, packed the suntan lotion and  sketch book and am leaving dearest hubbysand in charge of Hermione and Molly our cats! Have a good week everyone, I shall try my best to enjoy myself!!