Eastern Grasses

That's the name of this gorgeous new stamp set from Elusive Images - see here

Another rather unsatisfactory photo - it looks a long way away - was I looking through a telescope?!

In this project, I have combined the stamp with a lovely Artylicious background paper from my Graphicus Guild paper stash with a pale blue and lilac palette, which set the colour scheme for the project. The card is my favourite 8 x 8 size. I did make this a while ago, so I can't be sure which inks I used, although I am fairly sure the shading is done in Distress Inks. The leaves on the long strip are highlighted with Coloursoft pencils. The stamped panels are matted onto grey and lilac, with the greeting (also EI) embellished with blue pearls.  

A new bird stamp!

I have been really busy at work lately and haven't done nearly enough crafting lately. I gave myself some time off on Saturday and went to a craft show in London. This was a treat as I met up with my crafty friend Jo and indulged in some very enjoyable craft retail therapy. I bought one of the new Crafty Individuals stamps.  I adore this stamp and knew when I first saw it, I just had to have it!! I think it will be very useful for those ever problematic men's cards.

I stamped the image in black archival ink and then cut the tiles out separately. I masked the bird's heads with Eclipse tape and then added different shades of Adirondack dye ink with Cut 'n' Dry foam. Once I had built up the colours I wanted, I removed the masking and coloured the birds with Coloursoft coloured pencils. I mounted the tiles on a small hammered white card. These are actually wedding favour cards from the Paper Mills shop, but they make lovely small cards and have very nice card envelopes too.

I sent this card to another crafty friend Judith, who hasn't been feeling very well lately.

Elaine xx

A very frosty morning!

It's been a while since I posted, but I've been really busy and experienced considerable disruption thanks to the weather. Stupidly, though I think I was getting a little complacent, forgetting how cold it has been getting, because, guess what - I woke up today to ice on the inside of the bedroom window again and the water frozen again!!! There is an amazing frost here this morning - everything is sugar coated like this!

One of the reason's I have been neglecting this blog a little, is that I am excited to say I am part of a new craft blog venture with my distant crafting pals Jo, Judith and Lesley. We don't see each other very often as we live quite a long way apart. In fact Lesley and I have never met in person - only virtually!! We wanted to find a way to craft together across the miles and so we set ourselves the challenge of choosing one project a month from Craft Stamper magazine that we would use to inspire a project we would all complete in the following month. I was lucky enough to choose the first project which was Jean Hardy's Enveloped Elegance from page 34 of the February issue. As I have said before I am a big fan of Jean's work and I know I have set a hard challenge for some of the other girls. This is all about us going outside our comfort zone and trying new things and I know we are all going to interprete this project in very different ways. Having chosen the project, I think I am going to be the last one to complete my project though! You can see our new blog here. The others are streaking ahead and there are various posts so far of the materials we have all chosen and sneeky peeks of work in progress.

I put together a kit of materials for my niece's birthday today - Happy Birthday Hannah - to get her started on book making and art journalling. She loves her present and as she is doing a graphics course I know she will get stuck in and make great progress.

Here is the card I made for her. She loves black and white photography and dictionary definitions, so I chose a design I hoped she would like. The photo isn't great as I had to take the picture in artificial light, and the flash kept bouncing off the glossy paper.

I used one of the new Crafty Individuals stamps of tree silhouettes. I stamped these in black archival ink onto glossy paper. I am not keen on glossy paper even though it is great for really sharp images, but for a photograph-like project it was just right (apart from being impossible to take a flash photo of). I cut the panels of the stamp up into individual images and mounted them on black card I had punched with a film edge punch and matted the whole thing onto silver satin card. I used a dictionary birthday definition stamp I got from the bargain bin at a show and finished off with leaves punched from a printed page with a Woodware punch and edged with Weathered Wood Distress ink and silver maple leaf brads. 

Keep warm everyone! 

Lovely snow!!

We may be snowed in at the moment, but the upside is that we have the most beautiful views around our garden and into the surrounding countryside. I just had to share some of the photos.

This was what greeted me when I pulled the bedroom curtains this morning - ice on the inside of the window. This was after I thought to myself that it hadn't felt so cold getting out of bed after all!!

The pattern reminded me of the Elusive Images Ornate Leaf stamp that Helen Chilton used to stamp on glass in the latest issue of Craft Stamper!!

This is the sun rising over our veg garden.

The view across the countryside from our front gate.

The views from my shed today.

Other bits of the garden.

This is one of our wild visitors looking for food. We really love rabbits and we have made sure the birds and animals have been well fed over the last few days.

Keep warm and safe everyone and above all, try and take time to enjoy the beauty of this unusual weather.

Happy New Year and more Patchwork Butterflies

Happy New Year everyone!

I am now back to work after a nice long Christmas and New Year break at home. We have generally escaped the bad weather down here, although it is now snowing as I type and we have a completely frozen water supply! 

I have enjoyed some really good play time over the holiday. This is one card I made using the fantastic Elusive Images Patchwork Butterfly plate again - I am in love with this set of stamps. This time I used one of the smaller butterfly stamps.

This was another hard card to get a good picture of. I stamped the butterfly 4 times on green parchment in black Perfect Medium and then heat embossed in Moonglow Angel Wings Gold embossing powder. I absolutely love the Moonglow powders and treated myself to a whole new set of colours over the Christmas break. I then mounted the butterflies onto a sheet of butterfly paper sent to me as part of my Graphicus Guild membership. The whole thing is matted on a couple of layers of green Remake card and finished off with green dew drops and a nestie cut sentiment.

I'll post a couple more of my projects over the next few days.

Special Christmas Cards

I needed to make some special cards for friends and fellow crafters. Here are a couple I was quite pleased with. It hasn't been easy to take good pictures in these dull weather we have been having.

First of all the card I made for my crafty friend Jo.

This card uses the beautiful Websters Pages papers and I must acknowledge the inspiration I got from Paula Whittaker's Cardcraft Creations blog (see the link to the right) to use the papers in this way. I cut out the corner designs from the Snowflakes and Feathers paper, using a scalpel - I am a nervous user of craft knives, but I did OK! I backed these corners onto the lovely warm peachy snowflake design on the reverse of the paper. I added embellishments of some distressed sheet music, a little wooden fretwork Christmas tree decoration, some articificial ivy and holly and some Prima hydrangeas with pearl centres.I finally added a stamped sentiment from a Waltzing Mouse Stamps Christmas set on another piece of the Websters sheet, cut out with a nestie.  

The next card was made for a swap between Graphicus Guild members, where those who want to take part are randomly allocated a person to swap with. This is the card I made to send.

I used a fabulous Bo Bunny snowflake paper, that was sent to me instead of another BB paper I had ordered - I couldn't complain, this paper is luscious!

I used a butterfly stamp from the new gorgeous Elusive Images Patchwork Butterfly plate, embossed in Moonglow Teal Obsidian powder onto parchment. I then added some fine transparent glitter and some little silver gems. After cutting out the butterfly I made some wire antennae, tipped with pearl beads. 

I matted the whole design onto dark blue and then silver mirri board. The sentiment is from another company whose name I have forgotten! Before stamping the sentiment, I stamped a very pale blue background with an Eluisive Image snowflake stamp, although that doesn't really show in the picture. This was cut out with a nestie, a few tiny transparent stars added and then matted onto another nestie shape cut out of teal stardust card.

I finally added some chipboard snowflakes decorated with glass glitter and teal organza ribbon. As the card was so heavy I decided to decorate a little easel to match.

I loved making these cards knowing they were going to other creative people who would appreciate the effort that had gone into them!

Christmas cards!

I must confess to having a serious aversion to making Christmas cards early in the year. What I had perhaps underestimated was that having made most of the birthday cards for my family and friends this year, there would be more people expecting a handmade card. When I worked it out I thought I needed well over 20 - and I am not a fast card maker - oh dear!!! I needed to get my ideas in order!

Anyway, in the last 10 days or so I have got my act together and made a reasonable number. I never enjoy making a batch of the same design, so I have done a bit of a mix and match. Here are three of the design types I worked out.

First of all I used the lovely Sugar Nellie limited edition Cherub stamp. One version uses the hearts in the original design in a rather pink, girly version.

The blue design uses a little Elusive Images snowflake to adapt the design slightly, with a computer generated sentiment. 

Both versions have been coloured with Coloursoft pencils and highlighted with very fine glitter.

The next designs used some warm coloured backing papers from Websters Pages, K & Co and Bo Bunny. I used various Nestie shapes and stamped a Hero Arts sentiment and edged with stamps from an Artifacts set of fir branches. I finished off with this lovely green and cream gingham ribbon - my favourite of the year and a couple of Prima hydrangeas.

Finally, I used a snowy cottage stamp from Sleek Designs. Again, I used a Nestie shape to mount it and added a computer generated sentiment, backed onto Websters Pages and Basic Grey Wassail papers. This is a simple uncluttered design, but I felt it worked nicely. 

At least I have made a good start now. I need to make some more, but hope I can reach my target and get them in the post very soon, so as not to disgrace myself completely!!!!