Fluttering By With Some Sheena Peeks

Evening lovely Crafty Friends. It's been a beautiful day here in Yorkshire today and I've had a much needed afternoon in the garden taming the Jungle. It's so nice to be outside again.

I've even seen some butterflies, which seem to be very rare this Summer so it was a delight to create more with one of the new stamp sets from Sheena Douglass being launched on Create and Craft this Friday, 31st August. This one is full of Butterflies and Dragonflies from very large stamps to small ones and they really are a joy to work with.

Here are two of the cards I created with them.

I used Distress Inks to create a background and dropped the new Luminarte pourables onto it to create lovely shiny splodges before using the sentiment stamp. The butterflies are also painted with the pourables.

With this one the dragonfly was painted with the pourables and I made a masking tape ribbon with them before stamping the small dragonfly on top. Masking tape is my new discovery at the minute!!!

There are four new sets being launched altogether and they are all as yummy as this one. The shows are scheduled for 10am, 1pm and 6pm so I hope you'll be able to catch one if not all of them.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow when I'll be back for my much needed fix of workdesks. Oh I have missed them.

Animal Crackers

Afternoon lovely Bloggers. It's a sign the schools have broken up for Easter, the weather has changed back to grey, cool and damp. Lets hope it brightens up for the weekend at least. We have lots of garden plans to be put into action but they'll all be put on hold if it rains!!!

During the gorgeous weather last week I had some DT projects on the go for Sheena Douglasss and kept popping inside to do a bit in between the sunbathing!!

I can share them with you now as Sheena will be releasing them on Create and Craft tomorrow so look out for her shows.

They are called "A Little Bit Different" and I bet they make you smile.

I love this duck, coming from the Midlands "Me Ducks" is a term of endearment close to my heart.

Well, short and sweet from me today, I'm trying to catch up on all the jobs that went by the wayside last week due to the sunshine so thanks for stopping by and enjoy your week.

WOYWW 144

Morning lovely crafters and dear WOYWW friends. I had to absent myself last week from the Workdesk loveliness due to real life just getting in the way, so much so that I knew I wouldn't have the time to visit many desks and I really missed being part of the gang. So I'm back in class this week and raring to go.

Here is my desk as of last night. I apologise for the poor photo, the glare from my glass mat and all those plastic bags played havoc!!! I'm fed up being so disorganised and Di has really shamed me into getting my stamps into some sort of order. I don't quite have her skill at making them look so professional but at least they are now all in a ring binder on laminated sheets where I can lay my hands on them straight away.

As you can see I don't even organise in a very tidy way, there is stuff everywhere and this morning I found a tiny flower stamp floating around my desk and I have absolutely no idea where it belongs!!

I have stuck all my H20 paints onto old CD's, a tip Sheena shared on one of her programmes, and it felt very daring throwing all the lids away but I have to admit having them like this makes them so much easier to use. I don't have a spindle to stack the CD's on yet but have added that to Hubby's to do list!!

Well I've shared mine so let's see yours. Pop over to see the Desk Headmistress, Julia, HERE. She works very hard at keep her unruly class of deskhoppers in order and we thank her every week for her hard work.

Before I start checking out everyone else's desk I thought I'd just share another sample I made for Sheena's recent shows.

I have to thank the talented Barbara Gray and her pattern building for the inspiration for this one. I tried stamping just the corner from the Happiness stamp set inked with H20's and this was the result.

I used the same corner but inked with very watery paint and randomly stamped for the background and a glass bead I found at my local garden centre coloured with a promarker for the centre.

Well, it looks like it's going to be a day of April Showers here in Yorkshire so I'm off to get a cup of coffee and have a look at everyone else's desks so enjoy the rest of your Wednesday and thanks for stopping by.

On The High Seas

Evening lovely Crafters. What a difference a day makes. After such a wet day yesterday, it's been glorious here in Yorkshire today. Even the chilly wind is allowed when the sun shines. I've washed everything that hasn't run away and even cleaned my windows. You know what that means? It's bound to rain now for the rest of the week.

Just before I go for a nice soak before bed I thought I'd share with you another sample I made with Sheena's new collage stamp. This is gorgeous, perfect for those men in your life and very easy to decoupage up.

I stamped it with H20's initially and when dry just outlined the coast and the writing with a glue pen and gold embossed it. The boat was then stamped and gold embossed about four times so I had plenty of layers to make the decoupage good and deep. I painted the boat with the same H20 as the background before layering it up.

The background is a Tim Holtz embossing folder with the H20 painted inside the folder before the card was run through the cuttlebug. I picked out the edges with the gold ep again just to finish it off.

Well, my bubbles await to I'll say thanks for stopping by and I hope your Monday has been a good one. We are going to a funeral tomorrow, the second in five days. The sun shone for the first one so I hope it shines tomorrow too.

Sheena's New Stamps

Afternoon lovely Crafters. I hope I find you well and looking forward to another weekend. I must apologise for my lack of blogging this week, time really has caught me out at the moment.

If you managed to catch any of Sheena's shows on Create and Craft today you will already have seen her gorgeous new stamps. There is one more at 6pm if not.

I had a great time playing with these, especially with the H20's which I have really rediscovered again. I never realised they could be so versatile and the more you play with mixing the colours up the more amazing things you discover.

I used the age old cling film technique for this background, where you just splodge colour all over the card and then wrap it up in cling film and let it dry. Would you believe that purple colour started off as a dark turquoise green and this is what happened when it mixed with the orange. I loved the combination, so much so that I was reluctant to use it.

I stamped the archway stamp and sentiment with black archival and clear embossed it and then stamped just the arch into air drying clay, cut it out and let it dry before painting it with more H20's. The matting layer was just the same colours painted onto card but in the reverse order and the corners stamped with the turquoise colour. You can see what the original colour looked like on those.

Hopefully, I'll share the other stamp with you tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by and whatever you have planned this weekend I hope it's a good one.

A Few H20 Samples

Evening all. I hope you all wrapped up safe and warm and out of this wet and windy night. I can hear the rain lashing the windows as I type but it's all snuggly here with Christmas songs on the Ipod and the tree lights twinkling. Yes, I think Christmas has arrived at The Craft Garden, although Christmas cards are STILL being made!!!! I seem to be making a real job out of it this year and keep finding other things to do, naughty!!!

Anyway, as I haven't done anything else crafty over the weekend I thought I'd share some of the cards I made for Sheena Douglass' shows on Create and Craft last Friday. Not many were actually shown on the programmes and as I made quite a few it seems a shame not to share them with you , my blogging friends, instead.


The first one is gold embossed with gold sparkly WOW powder and painted on black card. I love this effect, it's a bit like stained glass.

This was strips of air dry clay with Sheena's fern stamps pressed in and dried. I then painted them with the H20's and rubbed mica powder over to highlight them. The backing paper was made by stamping with paint using the same stamps.


The last one is the violets from the "Wouldn't It Be Lovely" set of stamps painted with the H20's. I made the backing paper by just splodging colour onto watercolour paper.



Right, I'd better go and get those Christmas cards finished so that I can post them tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely evening.

WOYWW 131

Morning everyone. Another Wednesday closer to Christmas. I think I need to hide in a dark corner for a while and calm down. The weeks are just flying by in a blur and I don't feel at all ready for the big day. How are all your preparations going? I bet you are all organised.

Another WOYWW and today there is no crafting happening yet....... Christmas cards HAVE to be made later, or at least the important ones. I think I may have to resort to bought ones for those distant relations that have no idea I craft!!


Instead, there is cake make happening, or rather there was at 9.15am when I took this photo. The cake is now out of the oven and smelling delicious. It's just a plain sponge but I make one every year for the Husband of a good friend who sells my cards in her shop as a thank you. It's his birthday on Saturday so that gives me tomorrow to decorate it.

Don't forget to share your desk with the rest of us by visiting the Head Deskmistress, Julia, HERE.


I must also share with you this exciting parcel that arrived this morning from the lovely ladies at the Just Traceys challenge. I was thrilled to win their recent sketch challenge with the LO of my dear Hubby enjoying the sunshine.

Just to prove that I have been busy creating and not just sitting with my feet up thinking about Christmas cards instead of making them, here's one of the cards I made for yet another up coming show on Create and Craft with Sheena this Friday. This time she asked us to play with the new Twinkling H20's and I've had a great time with them. I've had some of the old ones for years and used them to colour the odd butterfly and that was about all but to think about using them in different ways has been exciting. The new colours are beautiful. I think they will quickly become a firm favourite.


Apologies for the slightly out of focus photo!!!


I just clear embossed the tree, the beautiful colours didn't really need anything else.

For those lovely WOYWWer's who asked for the Christmas Pud recipe from last week, I'm going to do a separate post after this one so that I don't bore the rest of you to death with miles of typing to read.

Now, time for a cup of coffee and then those Christmas cards!!!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Wednesday.

Some Sparkly Love

Afternoon lovely Bloggers. I hope you are all having a lovely weekend and haven't suffered any damage from the winds during the night if you live in the North of the UK. It banged around a lot here and blew the bins over but I think it always sounds worse than it actually is at night, especially as our bedroom faces due West so we get the full force of it on our windows. I put my head under the covers and I think that was the best place to be.

It's lovely and sunny today but the wind is freezing so I am going to make my Christmas puddings in a minute.

Before that I thought I'd just share another of my Sheena Douglas samples using the Luminarte Radiant Rain sprays and rub on foils. If you are interested in more ways to use these, there are some brilliant tutorials on Sheena's blog which are well worth checking out. You can find them here.


I sprayed some core-dinations paper with the pearl gold spray through the rose stencil and although it doesn't show very well in the photos, it just gives a subtle background on this lovely turquoise colour, one of my favourites.


I cut out the card and stuck it to these Heart chipboard shapes and inked the edges before adding the foils and some silver embossed swirls. The paper flowers were made from white cartridge paper edged with broken china distress ink and then sprayed with the pearl gold spray.

You may be able to spot it in real life on Sheena's shows on Create and Craft tomorrow. She is doing 4 shows, the first at 9am so don't forget to set your Sky Box if you are at work.

Right, I'd better get on with those puddings so thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday 129

Afternoon folks. Here we are at Wednesday again which can only mean one thing, it's time to get those desk out again and bare all!!!!!

Well, not much happening on mine today I'm afraid. I have some lovely new stamps to play with which haven't made it out of the packets yet but that's about all.


I've been busy today doing Housework.... yes I know... a naughty word, but we were beginning to disappear under the dust and although I have a very understanding Hubby who never complains and would get the hoover out himself, I always feel guilty if he does.


I've also brought in my Lantanas to try and get them through the winter. I put them in the Conservatory last year and lost the lot so this year they have pride of place in my craft room so that I can nurture them.

I've shown you mine so lets see yours. Pop over to see our honourable leader, Julia HERE and get desk hopping. I will try and get round more desks than I did last week. Apologies if you stopped by here and I didn't manage to return the visit. DT work has just taken over lately.

Talking of which here's another of the projects I made for Sheena with the Luminarte sprays.
I've become totally addicted to doing canvases, everyone will be getting them for Christmas at this rate, and the sprays are great for adding some shimmer.


I stencilled the pale yellow painted background with white acrylic paint through a leaf stencil and then used a bigger leaf stencil to dab clear ink through so that I could clear emboss the stencilled shape. The sprays then picked out the leaf veins.


I added a Paint Fusion pine branch and cone and painted in the word and then stamped with bubble wrap and various swirls using the daubers as ink to add darker detail. They tend to just evolve and it's knowing when to stop, never easy!!!!! I hope I got it right.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your Wednesday.

Another Sheena Peak

Afternoon lovely Crafters. Another week has sped by and it's Friday again. It'll be Christmas in a blink of an eye at this rate.

I just popped in to give you another Sheena sample to tempt you with these lovely stamps.


With this card I used three different plates to create a typical Lakeland scene using just distress inks for that soft light. The tree was embossed with Bark and Olive WOW embossing powders and cut out before being stuck on. You could emboss straight onto the card if you feel brave enough. I didn't with this and find cutting out quite therapeutic really.

Don't forget to watch Sheena's programmes on Create and Craft on Sunday. There's bound to be lots of inky techniques occurring.

Sorry to be brief today, there's lots happening in The Craft Garden at the minute and time is pressing.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Another Sheena Sneaky Peek

Morning lovely Crafters from a damp drizzly Yorkshire. It's definitely an indoor day today so lots of crafting is going on.

Before I get involved with anything I'd like to share with you another card I made for Sheena Douglass using her gorgeous new stamps.


These are something a bit different, lovely silhouette flowers that you can get all arty with. I stamped these onto glossy card with versamark, white embossed them and then rubbed distress ink over the top. I then stamped the flowers onto the base card in the same colours and added one of Sheena's lovely new greetings.


Hope you like it and if you're really good I'll be back tomorrow with yet another one.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your Thursday whatever you are up too.

WOYWW 125 & a Sneaky Peek

Morning lovely Crafters and WOYWWer's. Here we are again at another mid point of the week and a beautiful sunny one it is too. I know some of you haven't been so lucky this week but for once we've had a lovely week of mild temperatures and sunshine, perfect for half term.

I've had a busy few days having some lovely trips out and then grabbing a few hours in my craft room doing DT work for the launch of a new set of gorgeous stamps from the lovely Sheena Douglass on Create and Craft next Sunday 30th October.

More of that later but in the meantime, as the cards are now parcelled up to be sent off to Douglass Towers this morning, there is nothing, not a jot, on my desk as I tidied up and put everything away ready for the next project.


Doesn't look tidy to me I hear you cry. Well, when I went up to take my photos late last night I'd forgotten I'd got a load of papers out looking for my MOT and Insurance documents to tax my car today. Don't you just love having to do these jobs.


Just to give you a glimpse of the other side of my desk, the one I normally keep hidden, you can see the organised chaos. I like to keep all my Nesties and embossing folders close to hand so they sit in a basket on my desk all mixed up with my cake decorating bits and bobs and other crafty things.


My ribbon stash is also outgrowing it's space, can you ever have enough ribbons?

If you have something interesting happening on your desk today or just want to share your crafty space then pop over to see the Desk Headmistress, Julia HERE and share it all with us.

Now, back to Sheena's gorgeous new stamps. These have been right up my street. Those of you who know me well know of my love of The Lake District so when these little beauties fell through my letterbox I was thrilled to discover they are all Lakeland inspired. I feel like I've been travelling sitting at my desk.


Here's a Sneaky Peek of one of the samples I made. The sets all combine beautifully to build up scenes but I love these rowing boats so I decided to keep them simple and just used Vintage Photo Distress Ink for it all.

The rest of the team have produced some gorgeous creations and you can see more by popping over to Sheena's blog.

I will share some more with you tomorrow.

Well, better go and get the car taxed and then I think we are going into Leeds for some lunch and a look round the big shops, now there's an adventure for you. I used to work in Leeds every day but now we go once in a blue moon so it really does feel like an adventure.

Thanks for stopping by.

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.

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.

A Field Of Poppies

Evening lovely Bloggers. How's your week going? It's been grey and cold here today after some lovely sunshine earlier in the week. The weather doesn't seem quite sure what to do with itself at the minute does it?

The flowers are beginning to make an appearance now though which is wonderful. I saw my first daffodils today so Spring is definitely nearer than Winter I think.

I have been playing with more of the great new stamps from Sheena Douglass this week. Anyone who knows me will know how much I love my garden and plants, there is a constant battle from now on for my time between gardening and crafting so to have some gorgeous flower stamps to play with is my idea of heaven.


These poppy stamps are great as they come in separate components so you can build your design as you go. I haven't mastered the painting technique for these yet so decided to paint them with Barn Door and Aged Mahogany Distress Inks and decoupage them. A few flowers were finished with pearlescent paint. The middles were done with texture paste before being painted.


The background was done with Peeled Paint DI. I blended it with cut and dry foam, spritzed it with water and then stamped some pale poppy leaves all over before edging it with more Aged Mahogany and gold embossing.


I also made a bookmark with the same stamp using grungeboard. The background was painted with Cosmic Shimmer Angel Gold sparkle paint before the leaves and poppies were stamped on and painted with acrylic paints. The paint is so thick it doesn't matter if you stamp the flowers over the leaves as long as the leaves are not painted too darkly. I added gold embossed swirls for a bit of bling.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the end of the week. Thank crunchy it's nearly Friday!!