Another Harbour and a thing with wings!

Here is another harbour scene using Hobby Art Stamps. Centre front is a cheeky seagull, keeping his eyes peeled for any unsuspecting passers-by with chips or an ice-cream! I used Lakeland Inktense pencils to colour it . The outer edge of the base card was stamped with Inkylicious splatter effect stamps and Bahama Blue memento ink. I also added a few blobs of Be Creative Teal Emerald glitter glue. With the seagull I think it qualifies for entry to Allsorts this week, where the theme is 'Things with Wings'.
Apologies that I haven't posted for two weeks. I came down with a very nasty cold last weekend and didn't feel like doing much for about four days. Feeling much better now though. Now Steve has retired there are lots of things he is doing around the house. We have just had a weekend of moving a single bed to his Dad's flat and a rather heavy double bed back to ours. Next I need to do a bit of rearranging of craft stuff so we can fit a keyboard in the front room. I may need a craft retreat once he starts sorting the loft!!!
Thanks for looking and I hope you have enjoyed some sunshine this weekend. I will be back next weekend with a new theme for Stamping Sensations and hopefully to join in this months Rudolf days before that!

Distress oxides!

Have you had a play with Distress oxides yet? I have just purchased the second set and I love them! It is so nice to have something so different to experiment with. Here are a few cards I have made with the backgrounds I have made. The first was done with a bit of smooshing and spattering. Stamps are from Hobby Art. I painted with the inks to add a bit of colour and also added a little glitter and pixie powder to highlight the plants. As this one used snippets left over from other cards I'm off (shamefacedly) to Miss Di's snippet playground with it. Hopefully they will remember me and let me in!

The butterfly card was made using blending with a sponge, then splattering with water, left over ink and glimmer mist, adding a touch of gold sparkle. The Butterfly is an inkylicious stamp.

Finally, this was a smooshed background splattered with water, then stamped over with regular Distress inks for the leaves. The border down each side is from Crafty individuals and the rest of the stamps are from Inkylicious. In all cases I stamped the main images with versafine black and for the first two I clear embossed them.
Sorry I have been a bit quiet in blog land. I am back at work and working on a magazine commission as well. I probably should have said no, but it all adds to spending money for Doncaster in October😁😁😁
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments. I really do appreciate them all!

September at Stamping Sensations

Good morning, It's time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations and this month we have some photo inspiration for you with some pretty colours that can range from bright to pastel, it's very much down to you which ones you choose to work with, or you may want to go floral inspired by the lovely Iris.

I used both for my inspiration and came up with this...

I coloured the iris stamp (Hobby Art) with distress markers in peacock feathers and picked raspberry and then used a water brush to spread the colour, adding a little glitter glue. I  created an inky panel for the base card using dylusion sprays, distress oxide ink in broken china, a stencil, a crafty individuals background stamp and another Hobby Art stamp. It sort of evolved as I went along, and I was reasonably pleased with how it worked out!

Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image, sentiment or quote as the focal element of your artwork. You can enter up to three creations but please note: If we do not comment on your entry it will be because it does not follow the theme, qualify under our rules, or because we are asked to sign in or provide additional data to comment on third party hosts particularly Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Splitcoast. We do not want to be rude but we do want to be fair to those who do follow the rules.
We have a lovely prize of Hero Arts goodies this month and a second prize of ribbons too. 
     
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the gorgeous creations from my multi talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your great entries!
Thanks for looking!  

Coastal Scene

I stamped and water-coloured this scene whilst on holiday and it has been waiting patiently to be turned into a card. I used the Hobby Art Coastal walk and seashells set, and my colouring was inspired by the scenery we saw from the Pembrokeshire coastal path. Here are a few photos...

A walk around the Marloes peninsula was so good - great views, lovely sea and sands, lots of wildlife and wildflowers and the sound of the sea!  We took a boat trip round Skomer and were lucky enough to see seals, porpoise and dolphins! I took hundreds of photos, but these were the best!

 I am back at school and the children start tomorrow, so probably not going to visit blogland again until the weekend.
Thanks for looking!

A wonderful day of Owls and Eagles

Meg bought me a bird of prey experience for two for my birthday. We booked it to take place in August so Meg could be there too. Steve came as an observer and chief cameraman (apologies to him that forgot to change the watermark!)  It took place at Thorseby Courtyard in North Notts with Hawks of Steele. What a wonderful time we had!

 We met a lanar falcon,

 the cutest boobook owl,

 A barn owl,

Sooty is a baby great grey owl.

 Karl flew Sooty between our heads and he was totally silent!

 Our favourite though was Rambo, a golden eagle weighing 7 1/2 lb (just a little more than Meg weighed when she was born) and quite a weight sitting on your wrist. He was magnificent!

Thanks for looking!

Rudolf Day for August

It's past the 25th of the month so time for Rudolf day for August. I managed three this month, Woohoo! All are stamped with Hobby Art stamps onto watercolour paper and coloured with Distress Markers, zig clean color markers, watercolour pencils and a water brush. I completed the colouring on holiday, then turned them into cards when I got home. All three have been generously coated in a variety of glitter glues. The greeting on the ones below is a very old one from Stamporium.

These two are similar, but not identical. The top one was coloured with the zig clean color markers and the lower one with watercolour pencils. I added highlights with a white gel pen

Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look. It is the best way of keeping up with making your Christmas cards.
I am back to school next week. In sorting out my classroom on Tuesday and officially on Wednesday. Where did those 4 weeks and 4 days go? I am hoping to squeeze in a little more crafting before I go back, but need to get my planning sorted first.
Thanks for looking!

More cosmic shimmer playing

Hi there! It's time for a new mid-month theme for our inspiration posts over at Stamping Sensations, and we are looking at 'something new I've tried recently'. 

I decided to go with Cosmic Shimmer Pixie Powders, which I have shown you a smattering of before. Just in case you didn't see my last post, the pixie powders are like brushos in that they are in powder form, but they are mostly just single colours and pearlised so they have an amazing sheen. They come in a fine tipped easily squeezable bottle like the ones stickles come in but bigger, and depending on how much you tilt it more or less comes out. You can give it a light tap or squeeze it. The colours are lovely and vibrant, but turn pastel shades with more water, rather than going muddy. They are also water soluble so can be mixed with water to make a paint. I've used them for the background, to splatter and as a paint on this next card, using Hobby Art Dandelion Wishes stamps. 

 

The paper that you use them on does affect how they react, and I did find watercolour paper or cartridge paper worked best. I used the pixie powders like brushos on the other cards.

I stamped various stamps from Woodware and Inkylicious in versafine black and clear embossed over it.

This last one does look a little muddy compared to the others, but I had swooshed it on the mat to soak up some excess first.
Thanks for looking and I do hope you have had the opportunity to enter at Stamping Sensations this month.

With a number

Hi there! The current challenge over at Allsorts this week is to use a name or a number on your card.  Here is the card I made for Meg's boyfriend on his 21st. I used stamps from Honey Doo crafts and watercolour markers. The background paper was from Craftwork cards tartan pack. the sentiment was computer generated (Can't believe I don't have a 21st stamp!)

My second card was a commission from a friend who wanted a 50th birthday card for a Francophile who loves flowers. This is what I came up with. The background stamps were Waltzing Mouse ones (no longer available) The sentiment is from Little Claire, the Eiffel tower was a do crafts stamp and the leaves are from Inkylicious.  The background was created with ink dusters.

I added prima flowers and dots of liquid pearls. All dies are spellbinders.

Thanks for looking!

Harbour Villages

Good Evening! As it is the summer holidays I've taken inspiration from some of the many places we have visited over the years and created some scenes. For both of my cards I have used the Hobby Art set 'Harbour Villages'. The first also includes the Seashells set too. In each case the stamps were stamped onto watercolour paper in versafine ink and coloured with Zig clean clean color markers and Distress markers, with a waterbrush. Both backgrounds are made with an Inkylicious stamp and ink dusters. A few spots of  brass liquid pearls finished them off.

One of my friends says they remind her of the North Yorkshire coast, the top one Staithes and the bottom one Whitby. Do they remind you of anywhere?
Here are a few photos of picturesque village scenes from our holiday in Pembrokeshire.

There will be more to come soon!

August at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the Month and time for a new Challenge over at Stamping Sensations! This month's theme is.....

***Anything Goes*** 

As the title suggests we want to see your projects featuring stamping. I have used Gummipan feather stamps (Available from our sponsor this month) and a sentiment  from Hobby Art. I used a kaleidacolor ink pad called Calypso.
I made a second card using the same design...

This time I used a sentiment from Inkylicious and the Cappuchino Kaleidacolor ink pad. 
Our Sponsors this month are a relatively new company called Swedish House Crafts. They are very friendly and reliable, run by crafters for crafters. I ordered several Gummipan stamps that arrived promptly and are unique designs and good quality red rubber. Several of their sentiments made me laugh out loud! 
 Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the gorgeous creations from my multi talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your great entries but please note: if we do not comment on your entry it will be because it does not follow the theme, qualify under our rules, or because we are asked to sign in or provide additional data to comment. We do not want to be rude but we do want to be fair to those who do follow the rules.
Thanks for looking!

Janie's flowers

With all the beautiful stamps that Hobby Art have produced recently I had to have a play with some of my purchases as soon as as I could! I opted to play with Janie Burnett-Bleach's Floral mix set. For the first card I used my inktense pencils - a birthday present from Steve. The poppy on the far left is decoupaged and added with 3d glue (shhhh, it is hiding the bodge I made of colouring it the first time round 😂). I also added a few highlights using a white gel pen. It isn't perfect, but I was reasonably pleased with it in the end. I am entering it into the current chalenge at Allsorts where there is photo inspiration of poppies!

My second card uses stamps from the same set. This time I painted the flowers with distress oxides. I placed a mask over the centre and dusted tea dye distress ink over it. The sentiment stamps are also from Hobby Art. I added dots of perfect pearls to the flower centres and around the circle to finish it off. I made a better job of the masking this time too!

This is such a beautiful set, and I am sure I will be playing with more of the stamps soon!
I'm off to enjoy a Saturday night doing absolutely nothing, lol. Hope you are having a great weekend!

Rudolf day for July

It's past the 25th of the month so time for Rudolf day for July. Here is my offering. I stamped the berry branch stamp (inkylicious) in olive grove memento ink then used 3 colours of liquid pearls for the berries. The greeting is from a Honey Doo set and the snowflake on the base card is from Crafty individuals.
I've not managed a second card this month I'm afraid, but I will have 3 for next month.
Do pop over to Mo's blog and take a look. It is the best way of keeping up with making your Christmas cards.
Thanks for looking!