Bonne sante from Provence

Good morning peeps and a lovely fine and sunny one it is too!

Don't be deceived, I'm not on holiday but the sneeky peek I 'ave pour vous aujourd'hui (oops, sorry! it's becoming an 'abit but I'll slap myself and get back to normal!) is from the other stamp plate that Sheena is presenting on Saturday on C & C TV, which has Provence as its theme:

I can just imagine sitting under the shade of vines heavy with grapes and drinking the odd glass of the juice!  Hey ho!  Never mind - I'll just get back to my work, not that you can really call crafting work - so many cards, so little time!

The shows are on at 11.00 a.m., 4.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m. so don't forget to tune in or set to record - they'll be a real treat!

See you all again tomorrow!

Hugs

Bonjour mes amis!

Or in other words, good morning, peeps! ..... and what's the reason for this O Level French I'm sure you're asking yourself?  Well it's to give you a little sneeky peek of the treat that's awaiting you at the weekend when Sheena appears on Create and Craft TV to launch the latest wonderful stamp plates that she's created.
Here's just one morsel to delight your palettes and I'm sure I'll be tempting you with a few more delicacies as the week progresses:

This only shows a couple of the images and one of the sentiments and there are two inspiring A5 plates with loadsa individual stamps on them - you know how generous Sheena always is with the images!

Anyhoo, I'll be back with more to show you soon.  The tree, by the way, is a Memory Box die called 'Orchard Tree Frame' and the DP is Melissa Frances.

Hugs

 

A Monochrome Fairy

Good morning, peeps!  It's that day again - the day for another Polka Doodles Challenge and this week, the challenge is to produce a monochrome card.  I'm actually trespassing into the group I'm not normally in to catch up because I wasn't able to make a card last week for the group of which I'm usually a part.  That means you'll be seeing another one of my cards again next week to get back into my normal sequence.  Anyhoo, here's my Monochrome Fairy:

I do believe that this is the first time I've ever created a monochrome card and I found colouring the image really interesting and challenging.  It's one of the gorgeous fairies from the Sugar Plum Daisy CD and they're all lovely - it was really hard to choose but this little cutie seated on the toadstool won the day because it fitted with my red/pink theme.  The lovely ticket sentiment is from the same CD, which is packed full of goodies including loads of wonderful papers.

The ivy sprays are cut with a Marianne Designs Creatable die - I've used this one a lot - so useful.  The edges of the ticket sentiment and the Go Kreate central panel are distressed with Barn Door DI.

Copics used:  E000, E00, E21, R20, R11 for the skin and the rest of the image was coloured with R000, R11, R20, R22, R24, R27, R29, R30, R59 oh and a little black Promarker on the ladybird!

I do hope you can join us for this challenge, I can assure you it's great fun colouring an image in tones of one colour!  Thank you for looking at my efforts for this week.

Hugs

Flowers and Butterflies with Bling - part the second

Good morning, peeps!  It's long past time I showed you this second card with a similar theme to the last one so, ta-daah!!  Here it is:

As you can see, it's one of those impossible to photograph easel cards featuring a Spellbinders Lacey Square backed with the one of the gorgeous The Scrapcake, One Moment in Time Collection papers.  I was hyperventilating as I cut into this and had to go and buy another two sheets of the same one to replace it!  The whole collection is wonderful but the two variations you see on this card are two sides of one of the designs.

I've used just the Stampendous Frilled Butterfly stamp on this card blinged up again with the Stampendous Fran-tage Gold Halo Mix Glitter - this stuff is so effective and really shines!  I love it even though I'm not particularly a glitter fan.  I've used the same bling on the centre of the Prima flowers, which were from my stash, as was the ribbon.

I'm teaching a workshop on both of the cards (this one and the one from the last post) at Samuel Taylor, Brighouse tomorrow and there are a few places left if you want to sparkle!

Thanks for looking today and I hope you like what you've seen.  I'll be back on Friday with a new Polka Doodles Challenge so I hope to see you there.

Hugs

Flowers and Butterflies with Bling (part the first)

Good evening, peeps and I hope you've all had a fantastic day!  I've been for a session at the gym and been crafting so I'm feeling fairly virtuous!

Anyhoo, I thought I'd just pop in and show you the results of crafting today and yesterday.  This project was very much 'design as you go' - nothing new there then!  I was inspired by a lovely young lady who was demonstrating on the Which Craft stand at the Harrogate Show last month and she was making lovely cards using these Stampendous designs.  I'm afraid I didn't get her name but I determined to create something similar using Spellbinders Dies instead of the pre-cut Which Craft Additions.

This is the first example created this way:

and here is another piccy taken from a slight angle so that you can see the jotting panel inside:

The DPs are from Bo Bunny and Basic Grey and the sentiment stamp is an oldy from my stash.  I'll be teaching folks how to make this card and another one (when it's done!) on Tuesday 1 May at Samuel Taylor, Roseville Street, Leeds and at the Brighouse store on Thursday 10 May - it would be great to see you there!

Thank you for looking and reading my ramblings and I'll see you again soon!

Hugs

Brayer-phobia

Good morning peeps!  Are you surprised to see another post from me so soon?  Anyhoo, I thought I'd just pop onto here briefly and show you some cards for a forthcoming workshop over at Craftrange at Burnley on Saturday 28th April.

On my various travels I meet a lot of ladies who've bought a brayer, usually having watched Barbara Gray demonstate at a show or on Create and Craft TV, and the brayer is still idling in its box never having been used because they're afraid they won't be able to master the technique or maybe they used it once and got stripes!  I hope to release a few such ladies from their brayer-phobia on this workshop and these are the cards we'll be making in a morning and an afternoon workshop.

If you're within commuting distance of Craftrange, I'd love to see you there!

I hope you enjoyed this quick post.

Hugs

Tilda's in the Strawberry Patch

Good morning, peeps!  Have you dried out yet? - what dreadful weather we had yesterday and I know some people are really suffering so, if you're one of them, I hope the water is going away.

Well, over at Polka Doodles we're having a Red and White Challenge to mark St George's Day next Monday so I printed some wonderful red and white paper from the fabulous Sugar Plum Daisy CD (doesn't it remind you of strawberry flowers?) and then created this little scene for Tilda to play in:

I'm not sure those red and white toadstools would be growing  so close to the strawberries but, hey! it works in card-land!  The whole thing was, of course, coloured with Copics and Prisma Pencils and I must say it was great to get back to some colouring.

I added the 'strawberry leaves'using a Marianne Designs die - one of my faves and made up the strawberry flowers using an EK Success Small Retro Flower Punch.  It seems you have to be somewhat eagle eyed to spot one of these but they are around if you search and it's one of the most useful punches in my collection - I just cut a small notch out of the end of each petal to change the shape slightly.  Go here on this blog to see a little tutorial on how to make these flowers with colour added.

I also added another Marianne Designs die, this time LR051, shaped as a vine and a little spray of flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts to add a little depth to the scene.  Some ribbon from my stash was the finishing touch.

Whilst we're on ared and white theme, if there are any of you lovely peeps that knit, please take a peek at this post from the very talented Dawny P about the poor Fish and Chip Babies in Africa and see if you can help.  I've knitted this little contribution in red and there's another blue one on my needles as I type.  They knit up in a flash and are so easy to make - I'll be adding more to the collection as the weeks pass.

Thanks again for looking today and I do hope you'll join in the challenge with us to celebrate the slaying of the dragon!!

Hugs