Bee boxes

Just before Christmas, I shared a canvas I made as a DT project for Chocolate Baroque with the gorgeous honey bee plate. Here is another project I made with the same set, three tiny boxes.

I used three graduated sized papier mache boxes which I pained with acrylic paint. I stamped the bee and honeycomb design onto tissue paper with Stazon and added this to the box lids with Mod Podge. Once dry, I added Distress Ink watercolouring to add depth to the cells of the honeycomb and used a white pearlescent reinker to paint the bee wings. I added gold microbeads to the stripes on the bee bodies, using pva to stick them in place. When these were dry I added a glossy accents layer on the tops of the boxes.

These boxes are tiny, but would be nice for gifts of jewellery or other little treasures. 

Do check out these great stamps here.

Elaine x

It's beginning to look a lot like ...............................

In our house Christmas decorating gets left until the last minute as I use quite a lot of evergreens and if I put it up too soon, it is brown and crispy in no time! So yesterday and today I have been doing all my last minute prep and cooking and generally getting in the festive mood.

I've been cooking to Christmas CDs, watching lovely Nigel Slater on the TV, giving myself a break watching The Polar Express and doing the last minute decoration on our Christmas Cake.

This isn't a traditional Christmas cake as I don't like the strong taste, this is a fat and added sugar free Molly Cake.You can find the basic recipe here, mine is an adaptation.  I use golden raisins, dried apricots, glace cherries, crystallised ginger, pineapple, mango and orange peel and walnuts. All mixed together with a paste made from dates, ground almonds and orange juice. I topped off the cake with toasted marzipan and more fruit.

Finally to finish, a Christmas card I made for my special crafty friend Judith.  Not my usual style, but I fancied trying a Christmassy version of what I call the Magnolia style. I loved these rich colours. This is an 8 inch square easel card, the image is from Mo Manning and the sentiment is a Waltzing Mouse stamp.

Whatever you are doing for Christmas I hope you have a happy one with your loved ones. We have a quiet day planned tomorrow, with a couple of good films, books and our feet up. It has been a very hectic time lately, and I can't wait!

Elaine x

Honey Bee Canvas

Glenda has launched some gorgeous stamps over at Chocolate Baroque this week. One sheet honey bee is right up my street. I love bees and like to watch them at their work in my garden.

This is one of my favourite creations with these stamps. I used an 8 x 8 canvas which I covered on various shades of orange, buttermilk and yellow acrylic paints. I cut a piece of tissue paper larger enough to cover the canvas and stamped all over it using black Stazon. I stuck this to the canvas using Mod Podge and covered the whole thing with more Mod Podge. I added colour by watercolouring with Wild Honey, Vintage Photo and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks. I added more colour by sponging at the edge.I highlighted the small bee wings with a white pen. I then stamped lots of the large bees on white card and coloured the bodies with a marker. I covered the bodies with glossy accents. I made wings by stamping them into angelina fibre and ironing it into shape. I stuck these on around on the canvas with silicone glue. Finally I added the words in a chipboard bookplate which I stuck on after adding honey coloured brads.

Thanks for flying by - hope your Christmas preparations are on track.

Elaine x

White Christmas Challenge

Here is my entry for the White Christmas Challenge over on Glenda Waterworth's blog! Be in it to win it! A lovely Chocolate Baroque gift voucher - just click on the link in my side bar.

I wanted the centrepiece of my card to be a Christmas garland in shades of white and silver. I used stamps from four different Chocolate Baroque sets for this card. The corners are from the Steampunk Christmas set, the poinsettias are from Poinsettia Script, there are acanthas flourishes from Brocade Backgrounds and the sentiment from Christmas Reflections.

Here is a brighter picture I managed to get in daylight!

Firstly I stamped and embossed the ivy corners onto my card blank, embossing in silver detail powder. I used my square quilter's ruler as my acrylic block to help me line up my corners. I added pearls to the design. I then embossed the sentiment and cut it out in a circle and stuck that on as the guide shape for my garland.

The garland is made from die cut and punched leaves in white and white glitter card and pearlescent vellum, using a Crealie die, a Doo Hickey die and X-Cut Holly and tiny leaf punches. I also added acacthus leaves and poinsettias embossed in silver onto white pearlescent vellum. The flowers have a second layer decoupaged. I added tiny silver gems and gem flowers as highlights.

I really enjoyed making this card, it made me feel quite festive!

Do pop over and see the other projects - there are some great ideas there and lots of different interpretations of the theme!

Elaine

An Allsorts card

This is a card I made for the Chocolate Baroque Design Team using the new Texture Fragments stamp set .

Once more using my favourite square format, this time I used one of the essentials chipbaord frames with inchie inserts. I inked the framed with black soot Distress Ink. I then painted the tiles in three shades of acrylic paint - buttermilk, tangerine and fuschia. I stamped each tile in black Pefect Medium and embossed with black EP, then reinserted the tiles back into the frame. I then matted and layered with black, fuschia and orange corrugated card onto a black 6 x 6 card blank.
These stamps are great fun to play with. When I had finished this card I realised the colours made me think of licquorice allsorts!

Elaine

A purple birthday

It was my special crafty friend Judith's birthday recently. She has been having lots of celebrations lately and keeping us busy on the card making front. This is the card I made for her birthday and she loves purple!

I started on a black base and layered up a deckle edged Laurence Llewellyn Bowen paper, topped with an art nouveau themed Joanna Sheen paper that Judith actually gave to me so I knew she would like it, The stamps I used were the gorgeous Crafty Individuals tag, with the little girl image that in our little group of crafty friends we called the Shirley Temple stamp. I stamped in my favourite Versafine in Imperial Purple and shaded with Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord DIs.

The berries and leaf stamp is from Stamp Camp, embossed in a coppery Moonshadow powder. I used the same stamp as a watermark on the sentiment panel which uses a stamp I bought from Rubbernecker at Ally Pally on my last visit. This sentiment is especially appropriate for Judith as I always call her the Queen of Flowers because she often adds beautiful handmade flowers to her cards. I finished with some grosgrain ribbon, purple arum lilies (also a gift from Judith) and two little metal earrings, that I bought especially, to incorporate into a project for Judith some time.  

Thanks to Judith for taking the picture for me as I was so pushed to get this in the post I didn't have time to snap it myself.



Have a good weekend!

Elaine x

A silver wedding celebration & a White Christmas Challenge!

Well today is a special day for my lovely crafty friend Judith and her OH Terry - their 25th Wedding Anniversary. Here is the card I made for them.

I wanted to keep the colour scheme simple in white and silver, so used texture a fair bit. This is an 8 x 8 stepper card. I backed the card with some Swiss Dot embossed card and the front panel with a silver foiled DP. I added two hearts embossed in silver from the lovely Chocolate Baroque Damask Hearts sets, I think this is a favourite of Judith's. I added some pearly swirls. On the front panel I used a lovely white ribbon which has hearts woven into it, just visible in the picture. The sentiment is from a small clear stamp set from Studio G which I thought was perfect. I finished off with a little charm as I know how much Judith likes them on cards.

On another subject here is a lovely chance for you to win a delcious Christmas treat for yourself, just when many of us have to curb our crafty spending and turn our budgets to Christmas shopping!

How would you like the chance to win a £10 voucher to spend on Chocolate Baroque rubber stamps? Or would you prefer a £20 voucher or how about £50? Glenda over at Chocolate Baroque is sponsoring a little challenge hosted on her blog and the more people that play, the bigger the prize.


Basically, Glenda will add £1.00 to the value of the gift voucher for each person who submits an entry to the challenge via the link form below. So if there are only five entries, the prize will be £5.00, but if there are 35 entries, the prize will be £35.00, with a maximum prize fund of £50.00, and the winner will be drawn at random. So do join in and encourage all your challenge-holic buddies to join in.

The theme is WHITE CHRISTMAS and how you interpret the theme and what kind of artwork you produce is entirely up to you – cards are obviously welcome but feel free to do anything from ATCs to jewellery, canvas to crochet. As a bonus, any pieces which showcase Chocolate Baroque stamps particularly well will be featured in full on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog over Christmas with a link back to your blog.

The closing date is DECEMBER 15TH 2011 and the winner will be chosen at random from the list of entries.

Click on the link in my side bar to find out more and to put the link on your own blog.

Feeling festive now?

Have a lovely day - especially Judith and Terry.

Elaine

Two Roads

Here is a card I was pleased to make as a sample for the Chcolate Baroque Design Team using their lovely new Woodland Dreams plate. It was bound to be a hit with me because of the nature theme.

I used a few of my favourite inking techniques on this card to build the image. First I stamped the trees in plum archival ink and then masked it. I cut a hill shaped mask out of scrap paper to match the curve on the trees and then cut two path masks from Eclipse tape. I then added shading with Spiced Marmalade and Vintage Photo Distress Ink in this bottom portion of the card. I then made the sky using my leafy background technique which I show here and here on my blog. I used a mix of Adirondack dye inks- Sunshine Yellow and Watermelon, plus Spiced Marmalade DI, I always use this in preference to the Adirondack orange which I find a little harsh. I finished the inking with edging in Eggplant ink. I love to add layers of ink to an depth to the image.It is so satisfying! The sentiment was stamped in Plum Archival to finish and matted onto black. 

Thanks for popping by - have a greet weekend. 

Elaine x  

Deco lady

I saw the stamped image on this card in the Aug/Sept 2010 issue of Stampers Sampler and felt one of the strongest yearnings I had ever had for a stamp. Recently my crafty friend Judith picked up this and some other Stamp Camp stamps for me at the Happy Stampers show in Port Sunlight. I was a very happy bunny.

I decided to let this striking image speak for itself and keep the overall card layout simple, so just stamped it in black archival, added some shading with Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord Distress Inks. I mounted the panel onto a gorgeous dusky mauve My Mind's Eye paper. The final touch was some gems on the eyelid. I cannot take any credit for this idea for embellishing the image. This touch was added in the original project by Hedy Husarzewski in the magazine article I orginally saw. I have tried to see if Hedy has a blog, but haven't been able to find one so I haven't been able to thank her for her inspiration, but I want to acknowledge it here.

It's nice to have something else to blog again and my OH said he liked the card too, that's a once in a blue moon event! 

Elaine x

Back at last!

Well at last I have something to blog. Just a few Christmas cards assembled using ready made toppers would you believe! I made these cards when I was on holiday in Kent recently. I needed simple elements I could take away with me, without needing the entire contents of my shed and these were the results.

The background papers are from a Marianne A5 pad I bought on my recent visit to the craft show at Ally Pally. I love these papers as they are very Scandinavian feeling. I added various toppers, including from East of India, some buttons, hearts, bakers twine and pretty ribbons.

We had a great time in Kent. We visited some special places, including Great Dixter, a garden I have always wanted to visit.

It was a great time to visit Kent, the Garden of England, as the orchards are bearing their fruit right now and we indulged in plenty of local fruit and delicious local apple and pear juice. We had some juice made from a variety of apple called Red Pippin, it was truly wonderful. We fitted in a visit to the national fruit collection at Brogdale, which includes over 2,200 varieties of apple alone.

We paid a return visit to Canterbury Cathedral.



For me one of my special moments, was a visit to Camber Sands on the coast, the place where I went on my first every proper holiday with a school friend and her family. The day we visited it was quite blowy and the sand was blowing in patterns along the beach. I also collected some of the same sort of shells I had collected when I was about 8.

We went past Prospect Cottage at Dungeness where the late film-maker Derek Jarman made an amazing garden in the windswept shingle.



We had been to Sissighurst before, but very much enoyed our return visit on a perfect day and we managed a day in France stocking up on smoked garlic, Normandy cider and my favourite mint tea bags!



We also went to Whitstable, where I spotted these bikes, completely covered in knitting. I couldn't resist a picture!

It was a really great holiday, and an added bonus for me was managing to visit some great craft shops, The Craft Barn, Pickleberry Papercrafts and The Glitter Pot. Needless to say a little self induglence was in order.

Since being at home, we've had a busy time, getting the harvest in and preparing for what promises to be another cold winter, splitting logs and making jam and chutney and enjoying the last few warm days of autumn. I can already feel the chill in the air, winter draws on methinks!

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x

Apologies

Sorry, sorry, sorry for being so neglectful on the blogging front. Life is very busy for me lately on so many fronts. Work, harvest time in the fruit and veg patch which means chutney and jam, visitors and decorating. I have taken on a job as a craft demonstrator doing things I can't share here, plus my DT stuff for Chocolate Baroque so projects to share are a little thin on the ground right now. I am also behind on blog commenting and there are some I still don't seem to be able to comment on for some silly reason. Very annoyng when I do try and find the time to comment , so please forgive me.

I have managed to fit in a couple of breaks. I went to spend a couple of days with my special crafty friend Jo in August and we visited Wightwick Manor. This house is a favourite destination of Arts and Crafts fans like myself as it houses a wonderful collection of William Morris artefacts and interior design. It was a perfect place to visit and I would never have got there without Jo and her husband taking me. We also had a day with another of our dear Quartet friends Lesley. Our planned day out in the country was rained off so we managed a day of crafty shopping. I also managed a visit to one of Jo's local craft shop. It was a great trip - thank you Jo!

This weekend I have another treat I am meeting Jo and Judith for a weekend at Ally Pally. As so often is the case with our Quarter get togethers we are only three quarters. It is always bittersweet as we feel an important person is missing and this time it will be Lesley, who knows we will be thinking of her. We love our trips to Ally Pally and we will be staying all weekend to make the most of it. I have to try and not spend too much, but I know I will really enjoy the experience.

Hopefully I will have some real crafty stuff to share here before too long.

Elaine

A butterfly card

This is a card I made recently for a work colleague who was leaving.

This is a green and purple colour combination inspired by the main papers which are gorgeous designs from My Minds Eye. I added a stamped panel using nesties, which are stamped in Imperial Purple Versafine on a Quietfire word stamp with a little Crafty Individuals butterfly added. The die cut leaves use a Crealie die, the butterfly edging is an X-cut border punch cut out of pearl green parchment. The purple butterflies are cut using a Martha Stewart punch. I added olive green ric rac, purple gros grain ribbon, purple paper roses in two different colours and a few green gems. 

Life is pretty hectic right now, so I don't seem to be posting so often at the moment or managing to visit many other blogs either. Hopefully, things will settle down a but soon.

Elaine

Home Sweet Home

This is the name of a gorgeous new set of Chocolate Baroque stamps launched this week and we girls in the Design Team have had the pleasure of playing with these behind the scenes for a while.

Between us we made several cards inspired by the work of Clarice Cliff. Of course everyone made something that reflected their own favourite approaches and styles so we ended up with a real variety of interpretations. My card used masking and quite intense coloured dye inking to make the sun rays and the cut out cottages to make the layers of a stepper card. The full instructions for my card and how to make the mask and folding dimensions are available in the July issue of the Chocolate Baroque Guild newsletter. If you want to know more about the many benefits of joining the Guild you can find out more here.

You can see several of the different projects on both the DT blog and the personal blogs of the Design Team members which are all linked from the DT blog too. Just click on the DT logo in my side bar to get there. There is a really good reason to pop around and visit the blogs of all my teamies, because one random commenter on one of the blogs (both DT and personal) gets the chance to win this scrumptious little set of stamps. Not only do the cottages have a wonderful vintage feel, but the words are a wonderful stylish font too.

For more inspiration, Glenda has made two videos with instructions of how to make a masked sunburst panel and I was really thrilled when she told me my card had inspired her to work on the videos. Pop over to Glenda's own blog here to see the two videos, including how she used lovely Coloursoft pencils to build up colour in her design. 

Thanks for popping by and please visit the other girls to be in with a chance of winning these gorgeous stamps.    

Elaine

Sweet Madeline!

Well, I have just finished work on some DT deadline projects and other secret squirrel stuff, so I indulged myself playing on this card for a work mate and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Sadly the pic looks a bit washed out thanks to the dull and gloomy day we have here. These papers are from the Prima 6 x 6 Madeline pad which was recommended by my dear crafty friend Jo.  They are really delicious and these browns, teals and greens just got my imagination into overdrive really quickly. You know how it is when you are inspired by certain colours and you put stash together from around your craft room and somehow it comes together so comfortably.

The only stamping is the sentiment which is a Bild Malarna stamp from Sweden that I bought from their stand at Ally Pally mounted using the oval nesties. I used the leaf and Flutterby punches from Papermania and added these vibrant green paper roses that were a pressie from one of my other special craft friends Judith. I finished off with cream and green gingham ribbon, some teal and olive rick rack and some buttons and brads. When I showed my OH the card he said "what do the buttons do"!

Hope you have had a better day weatherwise than us as it has been virtually non-stop rain all day here.

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x

I'm still here!

Goodness life seems really busy at the moment and much of the crafting I have managed to fit in has been projects that sadly I am unable to share here at the moment. This is a simple thank you card I made for friends who we stayed with recently.

This card uses a set of Papermania clear stamps which are designed to build up the petals of a poppy. Here I stamped into red mulberry tissue paper with Memento Tuxedo Black ink before cutting out and decoupaging all the layers. I added a sparkly butterfly and a little bit of black glitter at the centre of the flower as my friend likes a little glitter in her life! I have recently posted a couple more of my makes on the Chocolate Baroque design team blog here and here.

We really enjoyed our time away Gloucestershire and nearby sights in Avon. We visited the wonderful house of Tyntesfield, just south of Bristol.

I also fulfilled a long standing ambition to visit Kelmscott Manor, one of the homes of William Morris. It is a really interesting house and garden

This is a carving of William Morris on cottages in Kelmscott village. We also visited the lovely Arlington Row in Bibury, an archetypal English village. 

Plus some beautiful poppy fields, guaranteed to bring a smile to my face.

We are so lucky to have some amazing places to visit in Britain.

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine

Gorgeous new stamps launched at Chocolate Baroque today!

Four new sets of gorgeous new stamps are being launched today by Chocolate Baroque! I have been lucky enough to be working with these stamps behind the scenes along with the rest of the Design Team and during this week, you can see some of our work.

Do pop over to the DT blog here and the Chocolate Baroque website here and see these irresistable stamps and to get some ideas of how to use them.

Meanwhile here is a sneeky peek from me!



Have a great creative week.


Elaine x

Delight!

I have been madly busy on the crafting front, but hardly anything I can share at the moment. As  a result my blog has been sadly neglected.

This is a little card I made for my lovely friend Lesley. I used a 6 x 6 kraft card blank and stamped it with the Heidi Swapp delight stamp. I stamped the bunting with a great Marion Emberson Personal Impressions stamp set onto some Do Crafts pastel coloured paper and stuck the flags onto fine paper string.

This is a remarkably simple card for me, I do wish I could do this more often!

I continue to have difficulties commenting on quite a few blogs at the moment, so forgive me if I don't seem to be taking any notice of your posts, it is not for want of trying to comment!

Elaine  

A slightly saucy pen pot!

I recently purchased a lovely pack of Do Crafts Kraft paper in 12 x 12. This is right up my street as it is patterned liked different stationery papers, squared, ledger etc and as anyone who knows me well will be aware, as well as having a serious stash habit, I am obsessive about stationery and especially love squared paper. I must be one of the few people I know who trawls stationery departments for notebooks with squared when I am on holiday in Europe. My poor OH is now resigned to it!

So, I decided my first project with the paper needed to have a stationery type theme and decided to recycle a baked bean tin into a penpot and here is the result.

I first painted the bean tin with black gesso and then added a panel of the squared Kraft paper that I had edged with a little Cranberry and Egglplant Adirondack ink. I added some gorgeous pointy black lace and some wooden scrabble tiles which were also from Do Crafts eons ago. I love these little tiles and will be very sad when I have finally used them all up. I made some roses from thinner kraft paper, inked again in Cranberry and Eggplant. The reverse of the pen pot hides a secret side!

Before I stuck the squared panel on, I used an X cut scalloped edging punch and added eyelets with my trusty Crop-a-Dile. I love using that tool, it is so sturdy and reliable! Under the gap, I stamped a piece of the plain card from the pack with a lace tag stamp from WS Designs. Then I added some lacing using a cotton fake leather cord. I realised then it all looked rather too Miss Whiplash, but at least her naughty side is generally hidden from view! Perhaps I can use some poetic license and claim it is speampunk!

I have to say the colour scheme and black lace takes much inspiration from the lovely project me and my CSQ pals did with Linda Elborne almost a year ago at our mini retreat near Bedford, which I posted here.

Elaine

As Free as a Bird

Well here is my take on the latest Crafty Individuals challenge Free as a Bird.

For some reason I had it in mind that I wanted to base my design on a patchwork quilt. The original concept didn't quite come together, so here is what I ended up with! I stamped CI 184 in Teal Stazon twice and then shaded with a mixture of DI, Eco Green and Adirondack dye inks. I mounted the birds onto nestie Fleur de Lis Square die cuts. I mounted the main panel onto a sheet of CI paper which I overstamped with the CI 182 flourish stamp in Aqua Vivid Ink. I edged that panel with more die cuts, this time cut with a Crealie border die in pink and lilac pearlescent card and mounted the whole thing onto a sheet of DCWV 8 x 8 paper. I added the little bird squares and then matted a couple of times with different shades of purple and some pink die cut edging strips that have been in my embellishment box virtually since I started crafting. The resulting panel is over 9 inches square.

The colours are a little washed out as I took the pic in direct sun.

Thanks for looking - have a great day!

Elaine



Saving Daisy

Do pop over to Kirsty Wiseman's blog here. She has organised an amazing crafty raffle to raise money for veterinary bills for a gorgeous little dog that needs urgent and expensive care. Please do your bit asap.

Elaine x

The Secret Garden

I have recently posted my latest contribution to the shared Craft Stamping Quartet blog I share with my three lovely crafty friends Lesley, Judith and Jo.

It would be great if you could pop over and have a look http://craftstampingquartet.blogspot.com/2011/05/secret-garden.html

Elaine x

Three friendship cards

Today I am posting three cards made in a batch from stamps I bought when I went to the Ally Pally show recently. They were real quickies, with all three taking less than an hour.

As soon as I saw the group hug stamp which is B Line on the LB stand I knew I had to have it. I had already spent my planned allowance, but this one made it go out of the window - I am sure you know the feeling!! The sentiments are from a brilliant value Kaisercraft clear set, there are about 10 stamps and they were only £2.99. These mixed font sentiments are great and I am really fussy about sentiments, they have to be just right or I would rather not use one at all!

I coloured with a mix of inks, I think I used Ecogreen Paris Trunk Parchment and DIs in Wild Honey and Vintage Photo. I stamped the images and sentiment in Ranger black archival. I should have masked the images before I added some of the scripts and textures as background from the Chocolate baroque Mail Art and Miniscripts plates. As a result I was less than happy that there is a halo between the images and background, slapped wrists for me for being lazy, time was against me!

Hope you all have a good Sunday, I am having a lazy one on the computer and crafting!

Elaine

Turquoise dancer

I have a few days off as well as the long weekend and I am letting myself craft every afternoon after doing other chores in the morning. Today I decided to have another inky play and this is the result.

I wanted to try and create a ripple effect that I had seen elsewhere. It didn't quite work as I hoped and will need more practising, but I was happy with the card I made in the end. I cut a number of concentric circles with my Martha Stewart circle cutter and then used these as masks while adding different colours of blue and turquoise ink with Cut n Dry foam and my new ink duster brushes, Tumbled Glass DI, Sailboat Blue, Stonewashed and Pool Adirondacks . I ended up with a bubble rather than ripples! Then I added the Lost Coast dancer silhouette stamp available from Happy Daze and added Tim Holtz and Inkylicious bird stamps, all in black archival ink. I have used these stamps together before, but I like the way they work together!!

Around the edge of the bubble I stamped Viva flourish stamps in turquoise. I added the happiness word with a Hero Arts stamp, again in black. To finish, I shaded the edges with Pool and Denim Adirondack dye ink. I matted the panel onto black.

I am off until Thursday, so I am looking forward to more afternoon play sessions.

Elaine x

A fairy landscape

I had a pleasant afternoon inking this card for one of our great nieces.

I used a mask for the sun made out of Eclipse tape, used a scalloped nestie shape for making the cloud effect and torn paper for the landscape. I used a mixture of different dye inks - Ecogreen Paris Trunk colours, some Distress Inks and Adirondack, all applied with Cut n' Dry foam. I stamped in black archival and Imperial Purple Versafine inks. I added ink shading to the edge of the card.

I used a motley selection of stamps! The outer maple leaf, small butterflies and toadstools are Lavinia, the Fairy is Chcolate Baroque, the grasses are Inkylicious and the trees and bird are Artemio. The words from The Secret Garden are a Jo Capper Sandon stamp by Stampotique. I finished off the wings with a little glamour dust glitter. Using this stamp inspired me to order a gorgeous illustrated version of the book as the present to go with the card.

This weather has been amazing and everything is coming on really quickly in our vegetable and fruit garden. This is some of our apple blossom.

This is exciting as this is quite a young tree, planted in memory of a dear friend. It looks like this could be the first year we get fruit. The pink blossom is just beautiful.

The variety is Ashmead's Kernel, a really old variety apparently raised in the seventeenth century by Dr Ashmead of Gloucester. We chose this apple because it was my favourite at an apple tasting at the RHS gardens at Wisley in Surrey. The fruit is described as having an intense flavour reminiscent of fruit drops and firm flesh. I thought it was delicious. We have planted a number of fruit trees in memory of lost friends, we think it is a lovely way to remember special people.

Hope you are enjoying your own gardens this lovely spring.

Elaine