Inking, stitching and a thank you!

I am back with another of my inked and layered cards made for another of my special crafty friend's birthday which was this week.

I inked my background with Distress Inks in Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers and Iced Spruce. I added some interest with a doiley stencil and then overstamped with a Woodware Script stamp and then a Just Rite Fern stamp. The sentiment is by Honey Do stamps. The darker stamping is in Chipped Sapphire. I mounted the panel onto a 6 x 6 black card. I always love black as the background to my inking.

Next I would like to share my finished Lily Pond blanket. This is the most complicated crochet project I have ever tackled, a Crochet Along project which is designed by Jane Crowfoot and published in 8 fortnightly instalments by Stylecraft Yarns. It started in April and I more or less kept up to date with the different sections, just hitting the odd point where I was very challenged and slowed down.

Although my blanket is not 100% perfect, I am really happy with what I achieved and I feel much more confident for tackling more challenging projects now. In fact I have already ordered the new Jane Crowfoot Persian Tile blanket kit which is really beautiful.

One of the blogs I enjoy following is Mitenska - a simple blog from the blustery north. It is the blog of Sarah, an artist and photographer, Mum, wife, sister etc. I love Sarah's blog especially for her beautiful painterly photographs which I always find such a pleasure to browse through. A while back Sarah had a blog competition to win one of her hand drawn and painted name paintings. I was the lucky person chosen at random and this is my name drawn and painted especially for me.

I am hoping my OH will make me a frame for it and the plan is to display it in a new studio space that I hope is in the pipeline for me in the not too distant future. Sarah's work incorporates lots of natural images and fine detail. Look at this lovely daisy. I can't tell you how much I wish I could draw like that.

You can see more of Sarah's work here on her blog and there are links to how to order similar things for yourself too. Thank you so much Sarah for your generosity, it was such a treat to get this in the post.

Hope you are not too wet wherever you are. We seem to have escaped the worst of the wet weather here, but I see not too far up the coast it has been really wet and there has been flooding. Typical summer holiday weather and so different from my last post!

Elaine

Green leaves

It is one of my special crafty friends birthdays today and this is the card I made for her.

I started actually making one of my leafy backgrounds, then I added so much detail over the top I completely obliterated much sign of it!

I used a number of different green Distress Inks to build up my layers. After the leafy layers, I added some colour through a doiley stencil. The sentiment is from Rubbernecker, one of many I have picked up at bargain prices at different shows at Ally Pally. I then added leaves around the edge using a Just-Rite fern stamp and a Papertrey Ink gingko leaf stamp. I finished by adding some shading to the gingko leaves with Prisma pencils and finished with some ink shading around the edge before matting onto a medium green background. This is a 6 x 6 card.

I am feeling very inspired to make nature themed cards at the moment as things are so lush in the garden. Currently I have some gorgeous lilies out just outside our front door. The smell is truly heavenly.

I also picked the first blackberries of the season yesterday which are in the fridge ready for a crumble tomorrow. It is lovely getting more and more produce from the garden as the weeks go on. Our apples are swelling well and our leeks are promising a bumper year. The courgettes are at that point where they turn into marrows when you have just turned your back for a moment!!!

The other delight at this time of year is picnics, I really love them and this was a spot we chose on Friday for our lunch on top of the cliffs. It was so peaceful apart from the sound of the sea lapping on the shore. Perfect peace!

Whatever you are up to I hope you manage to find some moments of perfect peace too.

Elaine x