A little bird told me

I recently wanted to make a simple card to let someone know I was thinking of them. I love this little bird image and have used it a lot for Christmas cards. This time I changed the colour scheme a little!

I stamped the bird image onto a white background and added some stencilling and ink shading with distress inks. I then stamped the bird image a second time, cut it out and inked it again in some darker colours. I wanted to add a little extra touch to the bird and used a scrap of metallic wrapping paper and a little red heart to catch the light. I finished with a little punched leaf in the bird's beak before sticking it all onto the background.

I am still keeping very busy with my crochet projects. I am working hard to keep up with my Moorland CAL blanket designed by Lucy at Attic 24. I am about a week behind, but hopeful of catching up as there is an extra week built into the timetable. I keep promising I will not start new projects and then something comes along to tempt me so much my resolve fails me! The latest temptation is the Scheepjes Hygge shawl CAL designed by Kirsten Ballering which is due to start next week. I have bought the kit, but do not plan to start mine until I have some other projects done and dusted. I opted for the gorgeous Rainbow colour way as it is so bright and cheery.

This project is made from two of my favourite yarns so it is going to be a joy to work on. The unusual thing about this crochet project is that it includes cross stitched detail worked on the crochet background so it will be very interesting to see how that works out! Wish me luck!

Hope whatever you are up to February is being kind to you. Here the first snowdrops are opening and I even have an advance party of daffodils joining in. I know they forecast some colder weather again, but today the sun has been shining after a week of wet weather and it really feels like there is a touch of spring in the air.

Elaine

A Year of Inkscapes - February

Here is my next panel on my calendars. I wanted to catch a sense of the chill of winter with seedheads, mistiness and muted colours.

Inks are applied with a mix of Clarity Stencil brushes and round Ranger Ink blending tools and a lot of elbow grease! Sentiments were all positioned with the assistance of a MISTI stamp positioning tool.

Inks: Distress Ink - Milled Lavender, Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire
Stamps: Kaisercraft Script, Inkylicious Wild Allium and sentiment, Penny Black Nature's Friends

Woke up it was a misty morning!

Well the freezing fog forecast has certainly arrived here this morning, but it is very beautiful!

I have finally got back into my teeny indoor craft space to make some much needed cards. The temptation of sitting with my knitting and crochet by the cosy wood stove in my freezing house has been too much, but I needed a kick to get back to my papercrafts! I was given a couple of unexpected Christmas cards by some ladies in my exercise dance class. I decided I would give them new year cards, but felt that I wanted something with a message that might be able to be displayed a bit longer. A good job as for various reasons tonight will be my first class since Christmas!

 

 

I went for my favourite style of ink shaded background, stamped a background stamp lightly using a couple of shades of ink across the stamp for variety and then overstamped with the sentiment and main image. I have to say I do love the ability to restamp over black images the Misti gives me. I know it is an expensive tool, but it has allowed me to do something I have never managed before with other stamp positioners. I was very interested to see the new Tim Holtz stamp platform to be released later this year. It has some interesting design features, like the reversible lid to allow for stamping rubber or clear stamps.

 

Stamps: Kaisercraft sentiment, Impression Obsession background swirl, I think the dancing lady may be Lost Coast

 

Inks: Distress Inks: Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers, Wilted Violet,  Chipped Sapphire, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry, Barn Door and Aged Mahogany. Versafine: Onyx Black.

Several knitting and crochet projects are keeping me busy. I have vowed to finish some things off and not just start new ones, but I have not done well so far. I have started the Moorland blanket designed by Lucy at Attic 24 and made a reasonable start on that. It is a gorgeous colour palette, although I have struggled a bit to master the pattern, it is the lining up of stitches that bamboozles me sometimes! I now have 4 blankets on the go, so I really must rein myself in! Still I should be cosy next winter!!!

I have also made time to organise my book jar for this year. I started this idea at the beginning of 2016 when I realised I had 130 books waiting to be read! I kept a book diary to keep track of my random selection of titles from the jar and by the end of the year I had read 59! Needless to say more new books have been added, but I am already on book 3 of this year, with 101 in the selection for this year so far!

Whatever you are up to, I hope you are keeping as warm and cosy as possible. Some books about the Danish concept of hygge have slipped into my reading. It makes so much sense to me, I naturally enjoy cosiness, and this time of year and with the sorry state of things in our world, there is a real need for comfort, companionship and simple pleasures.

Elaine x

A Year of Inkscapes - January

Happy New Year!

As soon as I saw these black do-it-yourself calendars, I knew what I would do with them as I love to mount my ink shaded cards onto black backgrounds. I decided to make 5 calendars for special crafty friends and one for myself. What I failed to realise initially that this meant that I would need to make 65 inked panels for each month and the covers. Phew that was a bit of a labour of love. However I am really happy with the results.

First of all here is my cover. I wanted to try out the new Concord and 9th alphabet stamps I had treated myself to, enabling me to get a customised calligraphy like font.

Inks: Stampin' Up -Pistachio Pudding. Distress Ink - Cracked Pistachio, Chipped Sapphire. . Versafine - Onyx Black
Stamps - Concord and 9th Upper and Lower case Sophisticated Script, Inkadinkado
Stencil: Tim Holtz Wildflower

Inks are applied with a mix of Clarity Stencil brushes and round Ranger Ink blending tools and a lot of elbow grease! Sentiments were all positioned with the assistance of a MISTI stamp positioning tool.

Here is my panel for January depicting the aurora borealis.

Inks: Distress Ink - Picked Raspberry, Cracked Pistachio, Blueprint Sketch, Wilted Violet, Chipped Sapphire & Black Soot. Versafine - Onyx Black
Stamps - Stampin' Up - Wonderland, Quietfire Sentiment.

Copper snowflakes

This is a card I made for a special friend. I started with a background made with Paper Artsy Infusions.

I added some snowflakes embossed in copper EP and then mounted the panel behind a die cut square aperture. I added die cut snowflakes and a sentiment using a copper coloured pearl card.

Elaine

Recycling Christmas cards

Although it is lovely making completely hand made cards, I do feel guilty about the lovely cards we get sent that just go into the recycling. This year I have made a couple of cards using cards we were sent last Christmas. I have combined them with die cuts and a stamped sentiments.

The first design used a mixture of Marianne, Memory Box and Avery Ellle dies and a Stampin' Up Embossing folder.

This cards uses Crafters Companion and Memory Box dies and a Kaisercraft sentiment.

I know these are very simple designs, but it feels right to try and save some of these lovely cards we have been sent and to give them a new lease of life.

Elaine

December is here!

I seem to have been AWOL from my blog for absolutely ages. Life is mad! Anyway, with Christmas looming like an express train, I decided I better get on with some festive posts! I have been making some batches of simple cards.

This card is pretty flat ideal for posting.

Stamps: My Favourite Things Snowflake Flurry; WPlus9 sentiment
Dies: WPlus9
Inks: Distress Inks - too many to mention!
Other: White embossing powder

Hope your own plans are on track for getting organised for Christmas

Elaine