Some Stitching At The Stampman & 100 Followers

Hello lovely Crafters.

I am so thrilled today as I have at last reached that magical figure of 100 followers. I can scarcely believe it really. When I first set up my Blog two and half years ago I never thought anyone would follow and then when Sally became my first follower I was jumping up and down with excitement. Not only was Sally my first follower, she has continued to leave regular comments and has now become a firm friend. I am blessed with so many regular followers who I now count as true friends, some of which remain cyber friends and some which have become very special real life friends so thank you all and welcome to my new followers. I appreciate and treasure every comment you leave.

I will be having some blog candy to celebrate but am going to make you wait until September when things quieten down a bit round here and I can do it properly.

Now, onto crafty matters. Sue is hosting The Stampman challenge this time and has asked us to get stitching on our projects.

For my design project I decided to hand stitch, which I love doing on my scrapbook layouts, but have never done on a card before.


I was inspired by an article in Craft Stamper this month by Rachel Jackson where she stamped using the watercolour technique with pencils. I used distress inks instead and created a background by just splodging some mustard seed onto watercolour card and then spritzing with yellow cosmic shimmer mica powder mixed with water to make it all run and then over stamping with a script in Antique Linen.

The Aspects of Design Flowers were inked up with various distress inks and spritzed with water before stamping and once dry I over stamped with neat ink.


I cut out and coloured a flower with more ink, added a french knot centre and sprayed the whole thing with mica powder before adding it.


The red mat is Barn Door wiped onto more watercolour paper and overstamped with the same script stamp from the Aspects of Design Nautical Set and then I stitched all the way round using some decorative thread I've had for years.


I used a different thread for the French Knots. They are not as neat as I'd like, the thread was a bit fluffy for doing this with.

The rest of the team have made some gorgeous creations so why not pop over to the challenge site to have a look and then show us some stitching on your creations. The winner will receive a £10 voucher to spend at The Stampman as always.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend, whatever you are up too.

WOYWW-A Pile Of Paper!

Evening folks. I thought once we got into the Summer Holidays the weeks would slow down a bit but no, it's Wednesday in the blink of an eye and time for WOYWW and another nosey around everyone's interesting and creative workspaces. Why not pop over to see Julia HERE and join in the fun.


I am sharing my dining table now with my little mate and fellow crafter DD. She is making a paper model of Neuschwanstein castle that her Dad found for her on the internet. We visited it last year for real so she's enjoying making it although there is a lot of fiddly cutting out.

I have just started an exploding box for my Aunt and Uncle's Golden Wedding Anniversary on Saturday. I sat and made the gold roses in front of the TV last night and am going to add some butterflies to them too. As I type it is much further on and just needs putting together so I may actually get it finished tonight. No coffee, frothy or otherwise on the table this week although the eagle eyed will spot my Jelly Babies.

Can you also spot the dragon game? I had a sort out of DD's wardrobe at the weekend and have a pile of baby things to go in the loft until we can decide what to do with them and this game was one of them. Of course they were all long lost treasures and need to be played with again. This is one of those that you push pegs in and try to avoid popping up the dragon.

Do you remember the start of my blue canvas the other week? Well, the finished thing was delivered to my Mum for her birthday last week so I can share it with you now.


I loved every minute of creating it and just kept playing until I was happy. I paint fushioned Sheena's lovely daisies using grey as the base coat rather than the pale blue. I like the shadow this gives.


They were then over sprayed with denim glimmer mist which also made the dye ink stamping underneath run, another accident I liked. I over stamped again mainly with bubble wrap and then traced on the word and painted it with Forest Moss Distress Ink.


Mum was delighted with her gift and has it hung in her new conservatory and I already have plans buzzing around for my next creation. I love this way of using the Paint Fusion stamps.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a good week. We are keeping our fingers crossed for some sunshine, so far all the week has given us is cloud.

WOYWW

A blink of an eye and it's Wednesday again, how does that happen? I hope where ever you are in the world you are having a good WOYWW and life is treating you well today, even if the weather isn't if you live here in the UK. Is this July or October, I'm not really sure. We had three solid days of rain, then yesterday was gorgeous and hot and then back to rain today!!! I hope it cheers up for the school holidays!!

If you haven't discovered the heady delights of WOYWW yet, then pop over to see Julia, HERE and join in all the fun. Even my Hubby gets involved. As he left for work this morning he asked what I was up to "apart from WOYWW of course".


Here's my desk this morning. Not a lot happening really. I'm just getting a few cards made to stock up my supplies as I'm not sure how much crafting I'll get done over the next 6 weeks. The weekly routine disappears when DD is at home and we're out and about much more so I'm just trying to get ahead of myself for once. My friend, Sylvia, would be proud of me for having a frothy coffee on my desk this morning. She says that's the only way to drink coffee.


I'd also like to share with you another card I many for Sheena Douglass' Create and Craft shows recently. This one didn't get shown but you know how much I like triple embossing so I couldn't resist having a play with the lovely WOW embossing powders.


They are such unusual colours and are perfect for this technique. I used the flower barrow from the "Wouldn't It Be Lovely" stamps and also had a play with the rolled flowers. These were my first attempt but I have a feeling they will be appearing on my cards much more in the future.

I'm so sorry I didn't get round many desks last week, I will do better this week, but thank you so much all you wonderful WOYWWer's who leave such lovely comments, I really enjoy reading them.

Thanks for stopping by.

Ooops Late Again

What has happened to the weather, it's been so soggy this weekend hasn't it. Yesterday was torrential rain that soaks and today is heavy mizzle that soaks. I hope it hasn't spoiled anyone's plans too much. We've had a nice time doing a bit of crafting, cooking and playing board games, which has made a lovely change.


I even managed to get my design project ATC done for The Stampman ATC swap mid month inspirational nudge, yes I know it's a few days late, sorry about that. Janet asked us to think Vintage this month so I used these lovely Non Sequitur stamps. Jill has them all half price on the web site and they are gorgeous so make sure you have a peek.

I used various distress inks to build up the background and then cut out the rose and elements to add some depth. Stickles were added to the rose head for some bling. I love a bit of sparkle!!

Short and sweet from me today, I'm needed in a game of scrabble, so thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Anything Tim At The Stampman

It's 6pm and the first time I've sat down all day, I even missed lunch. It always make me laugh when people say "oh, you don't work, what do you do to fill your day?" In my case I don't know how I found time to work, the days are so busy, but I do know how lucky I am so you won't hear any grumbles!!

Mrs Stampman has set us the challenge of "Anything Tim" over at The Stampman Challenge this time. It always sounds such a great theme but I have to confess I didn't know where to start with this one. I love using Tim's stamps and inks but when I see some of the amazing projects people do using all the ideaology metal pieces I know I could never do anything in the same league. Some of my Teamies are masters at this so make sure you pop over to the blog to have a look at them.

I decided to play it safe and go with a Scrapbook Layout for my design piece.


I used Tim's Compass mask and Brushed Corduroy and Forest Moss Distress ink on a plain piece of card stock and then stamped on it too before spraying with some perfect pearls and distressing the edges for my backing paper.


The Alphabet was cut with the Vintage Market Sissix Die and then stamped on and some Stickles added. It was stuck on with silicone glue.

The Tattered Flower was one I had in my box made from cartridge paper that had been inked and stamped with Broken China and I layered it with the elegant flourish stamped with Forest Moss. The little bits of chain had alcohol ink applied to tie in the colours.


I made my metal embellishments by silver triple embossing using one of the stamps from the Urban Chic set which I love.

I think the rest is pretty self explanatory, I don't want to bore you with loads of detail except to say the photo is of one of my favourite places, Lake Zell in Austria.

I'm sure this theme will inspire loads of you to get your Tim things out and the team can't wait to see what you create. As always Jill is offering a £10 Stampman voucher to the winner.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the weekend, whatever the weather. It has just started pouring down here which, I think, is a sign of things to come.

WOYWW and More Sheena Samples

Is it really Wednesday again? I seem to blink and the week has whizzed past in a blur and it's time to post another workdesk. Maybe it's that reason why it always seems to be Wednesday!!!!

Anyway, here's my desk this week in a state of cakiness again. You should have seen me madly washing and cleaning my craft desk down so that no bits of embossing powder and ink find their way into icing, that would not be a good look. Luckily over the Summer months I do most of my crafting downstairs at the dining table so that I can have the door open and get some fresh air so my cake area was pretty clean and craft free this time.


I have been asked to make a sponge cake and just green ice it and nothing else. The lady who ordered it is going to turn it into a garden and has made all the decorations herself. I can't wait to see some photos of it.

If you are wondering why I am showing you a green cake on Wednesday you need to pop over to see our esteemed WOYWW Leader, Julia, who will explain all HERE.

Did you manage to catch any of Sheena's shows on Create and Craft today. I was so excited to see lots of my cards shown and Nigel even commented on two of them.....fame at last!!!!!!

Here are two of them. The first one is another of Max and Molly on the beach just painted in Faded Jeans Distress ink. All the mat layers were done with the same ink just using the cloud stamps off the same set and embossing and edging them with WOW embossing powder. This was my hubby's favourite
.

And the second is from the "Wouldn't It Be Lovely" set. I've seen this technique used lots of times around Blogland with trees and so tried it with this elegant trio. The main image is coloured with pro markers and I made the edging strips just by stamping some of the elegant curly wording on the same set with Broken China Distress ink to get a random pattern.


Right, I'm off to see if I can get round a few more desks than I managed last week so thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your week.

A Hint Of Christmas

Evening lovely Crafters. I hope you had a lovely weekend despite the mix of weather we had. For once we choose the right day to go out and had a lovely walk in The Dales with a pub lunch, sat outside in the sunshine on Saturday. Although we took all the wet weather gear with us we spent the whole day in t-shirts so were really lucky, especially as it rained for most of yesterday.

The reason for my recent spell of busyness and lack of blogging is due to the fact that I've been up to my eyeballs in lovely stamps, embossing powders and distress inks making lots of samples for some upcoming TV shows Sheena Douglass has on Create and Craft on Wednesday of this week.

She is revisiting her stamps from pre fusion days and it's been lovely to play with them all again.

I enjoyed the Christmas sets most, probably because it's so long since I played with glitter and snowy scenes so they came out fresh and this is one I made with the Bah Humbug set.


It was stamped onto watercolour paper with Chipped Sapphire distress ink and then the detail was painted in with Brushed Corduroy. The Chipped Sapphire ran as well and although I initially panicked I was really pleased with how it turned out. One of those happy accidents. Some diamond Shrinkles was added for that winter frostiness.


I used Chipped Sapphire and Dusty concord for the sky and masked out the moon, then sprayed the whole thing with a blue mica spray before adding santa in his sleigh.


The sentiment was stamped onto shrink plastic which had been cut with a Nestie and I created the background paper by embossing some snowflakes from the set with platinum WOW embossing powder and then wiping more Chipped Sapphire distress ink over the top.

I apologise for giving you Christmas in July and next time I promise there won't be a snowflake in sight.

Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW

Evening lovely Crafters. Here we are at Wednesday again and I've been really naughty and missed the last couple of WOYWW's. Talk about withdrawal symptons. I've had plenty on my desk but nothing I could share with you at the minute so I thought it best just to keep quiet for awhile but normal service has been resumed thank goodness.

Here's my desk this morning just as I left it last night.


I've just started a canvas. Something I've never attempted before but my Mum asked me to make her one for her new conservatory and bought the size she wanted. I have lots of ideas flying about in my head and spent a lovely hour last night slapping paint on and stamping and masking.


I'm quite happy with this as a start for the background but think I need to start playing with darker colours to build it up at bit more. I intend to paint some Sheena Douglass Paint Fusion Daisies on it as the main focal point. With anything I create I tend to have a general idea and then just start and see where it goes so who knows what will happen.

I've missed everyone else's desks over the last couple of weeks so am looking forward to having a good nosey later on. If you want to join me then pop over to see our esteemed leader, Julia HERE and find out what it's all about.

Just before I sign off tonight I thought I'd share a couple of photos I've taken during this beautiful weather we've been enjoying lately for no other reason than they made me smile.

Here is one of our cats, Nerys, enjoying the garden


and this was an amazing Mackerel sky last Monday morning when we had the really hot weather. It only lasted about 10 minutes and then it was gone. I just had time to nip in for my camera.


Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the rest of the week.

Alcohol Inks and/or a Sketch at The Stampman

Afternoon everyone. I hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine again.

Things have quietened down around here for now so hopefully I'll be back to posting a bit more regularly. We are also getting towards the end of Wimbledon, another big distraction for me. I'm typing this right at the start of the Murray Nadal match so that I can settle down and watch it right to the end but I'm not telling you who I'm supporting!!!!

Over at The Stampman Challenge Blog, Brenda has challenged us to get messy with our Alcohol inks and combine it with her sketch if we want to although you can just use the sketch or just use your inks so how flexible is that?
I decided to go for both for my DT card. I sometimes find a sketch keeps me on track when card making as I tend to struggle with the layout.


For the inky background I squirted some Lettuce and Stream alcohol ink onto my craft match and then some blending solution and swooshed around some cheap photo paper. I know some people say this paper doesn't work and you should use glossy card, but I've always found it fine and it's cheap as chips.

Once I was happy with the result I stamped on top of it with various stamps from the Aspects of Design Butterfly Garden plate using black Stazon. I put the paper on top of the inked stamp and then used my fingers to press, you can also slowly peel the paper away bit by bit to check you have good inky coverage, laying it back on and pressing again if not.


I inked up two mat layers, one with Broken China and one with Faded Jeans Distress Ink and then masked off a panel on my base card and stamped butterflies with Broken China, sponging more colour around the edges.


A Papermania punched butterfly with added stickles and some gems and a ribbon and the jobs a good 'un.

The rest of the DT team have been very busy creating some gorgeous things so why not pop over to the challenge site and take a peek and then get yourselves busy. The winner gets a £10 voucher for The Stampman as always.

Thanks for stopping by. Must dash, I have an important date with the tennis now. Have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine if you can.