Have you seen this man before?

Good morning, peeps!

I hope you're all bright eyed and bushy tailed this Bank Holiday morning and generally having some down time doing what you love best!

The answer to the question in the title will depend on how long you've been looking at my blog because this chap, Aubrey Bumblethorpe, made an appearance in his faded Black Sabbath T shirt and denims exactly one year ago when it was my gorgeous hubby Brian's birthday last year. Go here to see that post and his look alike in the form of my DH!

Anyhoo, he's making a reappearance this year complete with his birthday cake.



As you can see,this year he has a hangover! However, I don't think that Brian will be in this state because, as I type this post on Sunday 28 August, he is in bed with a horrible chesty cold! I do hope he's better for Tuesday which is his actual birthday. I know he doesn't like birthdays too much these days but catching this is really extreme!

You may be thinking that it's risky posting this before the birthday boy has seen it but there's really no problem since he never looks at my blog. I do hope that Aubrey makes you and him smile. I've made an insert on the computer for the inside that says 'Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened!' which I've borrowed from a card that the lovely and talented Mina showed on the card she posted this morning so thanks, hun and I do hope you don't mind my borrowing from you. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and if any of you haven't seen Mina's work yet, please follow the link I've posted and leave her some love - her work is wonderful.

Please send some positive thoughts for Brian to get better in time to celebrate his birthday and here is the recipe - not for the cake, but for the card!

Recipe

Image: Digi image from Just Inklined
DPs: K & Co 'Hopscotch'
Star die: Sizzix Primitive Stars
Buttons: from my stash
Button twine: The Ribbon Girl (and it only arrived yesterday - wonderful efficient service!)
Copics:
Skin: E000, E00, E01, E21, R11, R20, R30
T shirt: W1, W3, W5, W7, R22, R24, R27, R29
Beard: C0 C1, C3
Denim: B91, B93, B95
Icing/Plate/Doily: E50, E51,E53, BG11, BG13
Table: E53, E55, E57
Ice pack/candles: YR14, YR16, YR17
I used Prisma pencils and Sansodor to create the shadow and enhance the picture a little.

Hugs

Apple Harvest

Good morning, peeps!

Apple Harvest - is it that time already? Well it is on my card for the Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge this week, where we are challenged to use a sketch inspired by Korin Sutherland and here it is:



and this is what I produced for it:



I'm ashamed to say that I've had this lovely image of Mimosa with Apple Basket for the better part of a year and this is the first time she's seen ink! If you like her, she's available here at Bunny Zoe's Crafts with an amazing 25% off the normal price! She still looks as pretty as when I bought her and I really enjoyed the colouring, on which I spent hours - literally! Everyone says how therapeutic colouring is and I certainly find it so and I never get bored when I'm colouring or try to find an excuse to do something else (I'm sure you all know what I mean!). You may have noticed that I still stamped the image in Memento London Fog after I said in a previous post that I thought I might go over to using black for the outline. Immediately after I posted that, I noticed a trend amongst many artists to work with a light outline so I'm still persevering with that but I think I need to get more definition into the lighter areas like the skin and blonde hair so that these areas don't fade into the background - more practise is required.

Our sponsor this week is Sweet and Sassy Stamps so do come and join in this wonderful challenge. The sketch is a great one to work with and I can see myself using it again sometime.

If you're wondering what happened about the wallet damaging trip to find a new car for me, I'm now the proud owner of a 3 year old Smart car, whose name is Black Bess so no prizes for guessing what colour it is then! I'm still getting used to driving her and it's weird not having a clutch but it gets better with every trip.

Anyhoo, here's the recipe for the card:

Recipe

Stamp: Bildmalarna 'Mimosa with Apple Basket'
Sentiment: Pink Petticoat Curly Girly Sentiments
DPs: Basic Grey 'Sweet Threads' (one of my current faves!)and the dotty one is from Polka Doodles CD 'Sundae of Seasons'
Flowers & Stamens: Wild Orchid Crafts
Lace: from my stash
Leaves: Magnolia Doo Hickey Die
Copics:
Skin: E000, E00, E01, E21, R20, R11, R30
Hair: E50, E51, E53, E55
Dress & wellies: R21, R22, R35, R37, R59. The wellies have Glossy Accents added.
Petticoat: R81, R83, R85, RV0000
Grass & apples: G20, G40, YG11, YG93. The apples have Glossy Accents added.
Basket: E40, E41, E42, E43
The 'sky' effect behind Mimosa was added with Prisma Pencils blended with Sansodor.

Have a great weekend, whatever you have planned!

Hugs

Single layer card

Good morning, peeps!

A single layer card is the challenge at Polka Doodles this week, which is definitely a challenge to me! Well, you've probably seen my cards before and it's usually more a question of what else can I ladle on to them in the form of embellies! Anyhoo, here's what I came up with:



Now, if you've seen Nikky's work before (for those that aren't familiar, Nikky is Mrs Polka Doodles), like here, you'll see that I've completely CASEd her. (By the way, if you're not familiar with the expression, CASE stands for Copy And Share Everything.) I confess that I've been completely fascinated with Nikky's method of creating these scenes for several weeks and have seen her demonstrate it three times now. Anyhoo, I finally plucked up courage to have a go at it myself - it's not as accomplished as those Nikky produces but I'll keep practicing! The shading is produced with Promarkers and the sentiment was printed from the All Around and Everywhere CD, which has a fabulous selection of papers, sentiments and images just like all the Polka Doodles CDs.

If you live anywhere within reach, I'm teaching this technique at Samuel Taylor, Brighouse on Tuesday 13 September and at the Roseville Street, Leeds store on Thursday 15 September, so maybe I'll see you there?

Whatever is your style, I hope you'll join us for this challenge, put away all your embellies and just see what happens when you have only one paper surface.

Well, it's back to other DT work for me but we'll be taking a break later to look at cars because that painfull time for the bank balance is starting to look imminent. Whatever you're doing today and over the weekend, have a good one and I'll see you again soon.

Thanks for looking today and please leave me a comment to let me know you've been around, I do so appreciate them.

Hugs

A little more Clarity

Good morning, peeps!

Well are you surprised to see a post from me when it isn't Friday? I just thought I'd break a habit and post on a Thursday instead! I actually spend a good deal of my time crafting but a fair proportion of what I'm making can't be shown here on my blog until it's been shown (or not!) on the monthly Clarity Stamps TV show on Create and Craft. Then, very often when the show is over, I forget to post pictures here. So this post is a little catch up.



This card was the largest card I've ever made since it's A4 but I wanted to get all the Calligraphy Christmas Tree sizes on to one card and also include the Holly and Ivy Swirls since they embody the words of the carol.



Another Christmassy one - I hope you can pick up the sparkle in this picture. I wanted to really convey the feeling of snow falling in moonlight but the only problem is that sparkly embossing powder can be the very devil to work with because, if you're not careful, you end up with the sparkle everywhere and you can't see te images properly! (You're probably thinking 'Yes, I've been there!!') There was plenty of dabbing with the anti-static bag before the embossing happened, I can assure you! Anyhoo, I think it worked and hopefully the images embodied the words of the verse.



This is one that I really enjoyed making because it gave me the chance to watercolour something that I love but hardly ever do these days. I wanted to create the misty impression of the background in the original Alphonse Mucha painting as well as setting off the image to it's best advantage and watercolour was the most effective medium to allow this effect. Then I mounted it to look like a painting hangingon a wall. I can't remember what the DP is but I think it's Anna Griffin.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little meander back through a few of my past creations and thanks for staying with me through all the waffle and the piccies. I'll be back again tomorrow (well it's Friday isn't it?!!) with another Polka Doodle Challenge so see you there hopefully!

Hugs

Polka Doodles Challenge 32 - Good Luck

Well, hello again!

I almost can't believe I'm making my second post in one day - it's certainly something I've never done before but I feel really pleased with myself for doing it! This is also a special card because it's my first sample as part of Team Doodle and I'm one lucky lady to have the opportunity to use all the wonderful products from Polka Doodles and there are so many of them that it was hard to know where to start!

This week, we're challenged to produce a Good Luck card and, since I love the Neighbours stampies so much, I decided to make mine a Good Luck in your New Home card, since the designs are perfect for that and here it is:



I really love the creative possibilities with these stamps since you could go on making cards with them for such a long time and never create the same scene twice! In fact it's quite hard to stop adding detail and ending up with the biggest card in the world!!

The paper and greeting are also from a Polka Doodles CD and I used 'Sundae of Seasons'. Crafting with CDs is totally new to me and it was quite a revelation to find that I could choose a sentiment outline and type whatever words I chose over it! Yay! what possibilities - I need never worry about having the right stamp again! Those of you who have been using CDs for a long time are probably wondering what planet I'm from but I openly admit that I have a lot to learn in this area.

I don't really have a recipe to leave you with for this card since I've already told you most of what I used. The colours are mostly the same as on the previous post (am I in a rut here?) and the flowers are from WOC, as usual. The leaves are from a Magnolia Doo Hickey die.

Anyhoo, who are you going to wish 'Good luck' to and enter your card into our challenge? You could win a wonderful prize from the lovely and generous Nikky as well as a blinkie for your blog.

After creating two posts in one day, I think I'd better go and lie down in a darkened room but whatever you're doing today, enjoy yourselves to the full and have a great weekend. I've still got some cleaning up to do from the kitchen re-fit so I think I'll just have to make myself a badge from one of these CDs that says 'I'd rather be crafting' and get on with it.

I wonder what I'll make next???

Hugs

My fave embellies!

Good morning, peeps!

Well, it's Friday aagain and time for another Fussy and Fancy Challenge, which is to use a lot (meaning 3 or more) of your favourite embellies. Well I don't think there'll be any prizes for guessing that mine are flowers and this card is something of a flower fest, as you can see!



I think it's not just the flowers, although I do love them for themselves, but it's the process of putting the arrangement together and seeing how they absolutely transform a card whether there are lots or just a few.

Having said that, pearls are another fave of mine so they're on here as a sort of supporting act!

The image I've used here is from Lili of the Valley and it's called 'Summer Days' (the sentiment is from them too). It was my out and out favourite from the June release of their new designs and this is thefirst time it's seen ink. I've stamped it with Memento London Fog ink, which I've long preferred because it gives the impression of a pencil drawn image but the card is sitting on my desk beside me to next to another card that I'll be posting shortly which has the images stamped in black and I think I'm starting to prefer the greater definition that the black outline gives. Looks like there's a change coming in my cards, peeps!

Do come and join us over at Fussy and Fancy Challenge this time, there are two prizes from our wonderful sponsors Digis with Attitude and Inspired Stamps so get out your fave embellies and see what you can create!

I used so many pens to colour this image that I didn't keep a note of them all but I'll put what I can remember below:

Recipe:

DPs: Prima 'Sweet Fairy'
Pearls: The Hobby House
Flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts
Leaves: Woodware punch
Sky: Tumbled Glass DI
Copics:
Skin: E000, E00, E21, R11, R20
Hair: E50, E51, E53, E55 (blonde) E21, E23, E25, E27 (brown)
Pinks: R81, R83, R85
Purples: V12, V15
Greens: YG01, YG03, YG17, YG25, YG95, G20
Blues: Promarker Cool Aqua

Well, that's all for this post, peeps - can you believe that I have another one to make today so is this a record or what?!!

See you later!

Hugs

They used to be a secret!

Good afternoon, peeps!

Well it seems strange doing a post to my blog when it's not Friday! LOL

I thought I'd show you some of the cards I made for the Stamping with Clarity TV show last Sunday since I don't seem to have shown you many of my efforts with Clarity Stamps for a while.

Firstly, here's the one that Nigel May said was his favourite:



If you're reading this, Nigel, I'm very flattered that it was your favourite Treescape card!

I think that this one was my favourite this month:



but it didn't make an appearance on the show.

One more for today:



This was probably my second favourite - just a soft and gentle Christmas card.

See you again soon, peeps - be good and stay safe!

Hugs

An announcement!

Good afternoon, peeps!

This is just a very brief post to let you all know that I'm really excited to announce that I've been invited to join the Polka Doodles DT! As you can imagine, I said 'No!' (yeah right!!) :-).

I really love the wonderful designs that Nikki comes up with and I shall have so much fun colouring them! Hopefully I shall have something to show you from the Polka Doodles range in the not too distant future!

Thanks for reading my exciting announement today!

Hugs