Scorching Saturday

Hasn't it been HOT!!!!!! What a gorgeous day. Hope it's been as good for everyone else.

I've done absolutely nothing today apart from pottering in the garden, filling a paddling pool (again), drinking coffee with my Sister-In-Law and reading a book. What bliss.

It's now 10pm and I shall do a bit of crafting with a cool glass of wine-does that sound tempting?

I have managed to finish a few more cards with that box of glimmer misted papers I found last week, so I thought I'd share another one with you tonight.


I had sprayed the background with starburst stains and already stamped a blue fern on this one, but it didn't really work and had been left in the box so I decided to change the colour scheme and stamped other Artylicious meadow flowers in a green and then the main one in fuchsia pink. I then inked up a piece of stampboard in the same blue as the background and stamped the same flower in the pink and just placed it on top to give it another dimension. The edges of the stampboard were sanded back to make them stand out.

I stamped the main white card with the same flowers but in a paler blue ink and just added the sentiment and some blue organza ribbon.


The main stamped image has a lovely golden sheen to it when the light catches it from the starburst stains.

This was definitely a case of leaving something alone when it was not working and coming back to it with fresh eyes.

Thanks for looking and have a great Sunday.

Summer's Here

We got up to glorious sunshine this morning and as everyone had the day off we decided to make the most of it.

Freya wanted to go to the seaside but it seemed a shame to waste several hours of lovely weather sitting in a hot car so we opted to stay nearer to home and went to Knaresborough instead which is only about 20 minutes away.

It is such a pretty town with a lovely market place and a small castle perched up on the hill looking down to the river. We sat for ages at this view point in the sunshine while Freya played on the grass and then walked down lots of steps to the river walkway.


We had lunch in a cafe right on the river bank and watched people coming and going in rowing boats and I took both these photos from our table, one looking on way and one the other. It was a real holiday atmosphere and was lovely and better still, when we decided it was time to go home we were back in our own garden within half an hour.


We really do live in a beautiful part of the world and sometimes it's good to remember how lucky we are and really appreciate it.

Alcohol Ink Flowers

A few weeks ago I saw this interesting technique being demonstrated on a lovely blog Scrapperlicious and decided to give it a go.

Alcohol ink is applied to acetate using the felt tool and then blended with the solution, like you would do on glossy card.


The flowers are stamped on using stazon and I hand drew the leaves with a permanent marker as I didn't have any stamps. I added some extra detail with a white gel pen. They were then cut out and you can use them on anything you want.


I put them on a scrapbook page but you could just as easily use them on cards. They give a kind of stained glass effect.


I think if I make them again I shall probably stick to just a couple of colours, these may be just a bit too mixed up but it's nice to find another use for the inks.

Bits and Pieces

While I was hunting in the cupboard under the stairs for the cushions for the outdoor chairs I discovered a box full of bits of glimmer misted paper that I did ages ago but had never got round to doing anything with.

This got my creative juices flowing and I spent the afternoon yesterday trying to make something out of them. This is all I came up with.... but at least it's a start!

The background was a butterfly glimmer screen sprayed with a mixture of buttercup Crafty Notions spray and a green starburst stain for the shimmer, not sure of the shade now. I edged it with chestnut whisper ink.

For the first piece of stampboard I traced the pattern of the butterfly and then painted it with the sprays but in the opposite colours to the sprayed version. This was edged with Kangaroo Moon glow powder and I traced the pattern with a green stardust pen. It was then embossed with clear powder.


The second square was painted with the same inks and then sanded back and the message stamped on in stazon.

The colours are not the ones I usually reach for but they matched the sunshine of the last few days and I was quite pleased with the end results.

Now, what can I do with all the rest of the pile!!!!!

Beautiful Sunshine

Well after all the rain, wind and cold we've had here in Yorkshire over the last few weeks, today has been totally glorious and hot and we had a rare day with nothing to do but enjoy it.

Freya had her paddling pool out and we had to drag her in for her tea. She's a real water baby and has spent the whole day jumping and splashing about. Oh to be young again!

I actually managed to get my summer bedding planted up and out of the greenhouse, which was fit to burst. Normally I am far more organised and pots are planted up ready just to be lifted out into their summer places, but this year everything was still in plugs getting very over grown and desperate to be replanted. It was a bit warm to be working but I'm so pleased it's all done and we can now sit back and let them do their thing and hopefully give us glorious colour all summer, if the sun continues to shine that is.

Because it has been such a lovely day and the flowers have sung out I thought I'd just show you some of the lovely things I have flowering in the garden at the moment. As you will see, the trend is blue although that is completely unintentional.

My favourite flowers of spring are Aqueligas, of which I have many, most of them blue!!


And for scent you can't beat Wisterias. I have a standard one which is truly beautiful and all day you get wisps of it's beautiful smell. We also have one over an arch but that is not at it's best yet.


The delicate Brunnera has done so well this year and has been flowering for over two months with it's little forget me not flowers. I have just bought a white one and I hope it will do as well.


These seed heads were from a very early flowering clematis which was fabulous this year and these heads give a second season of interest and last for ages.

The Alliums are just getting to their best.


Just to ring in the changes, I have lots of maples,can't get enough of them although they can be a bit difficult sometimes. This golden one has been lime green and is now tinged with red, just beautiful.


I hope it has been as good for you. Lets hope this is the start of a lovely summer!

Oriental China Blue

This weeks Tag It On challenge was to use the colour china blue and Oriental.

The colour did not pose a problem, I love blue, but the Oriental did. I don't do Oriental!!!! and don't possess any Oriental stamps. Time to get my thinking cap on.

After a few days pondering I decided I needed help and went to raid my Mum's craft stash. She does have Oriental stamps and lots of them. Now the inspiration flowed.


I sponged blue ink over my tag with a very coarse sponge and then stamped all over with a little blossom stamp in the same blue and rubbed darker ink around the edges. The large blossom vase was stamped onto acetate and cut out and then glitter was applied to the blossoms on the reverse side and I coloured the vase with a permanent marker. The bird was stamped onto a bit of spare card and painted with sapphire glimmer mist.

The Chinese writing was taken from a layout out I did last year of the Olympics when I found all our names written in Chinese and thought it would be fun to use them so I copied mine again for this tag.

Apart from my layout this is the first really Oriental thing I have done and I really enjoyed being challenged. Thanks Dragonsdream!

Problems With Internet Explorer

I've been having a panic tonight because a lot of blogs I've tried to visit have been coming up with a warning and then aborting the blog.

Luckily, one of the blogs I visit has been experiencing the same problems and found out that this is due to an Internet Explorer problem.

If anyone else has been coming across the same thing, you need to access the Internet through a different browser. I'm currently using Firefox, but if you have Google Chrome that works too. Any of these can be downloaded free.

Hope this helps. Now I'm off to catch up with what everyone has been up too!!

Have a great weekend!

A Lovely Award

Just as a post script to today's post. I got interrupted earlier. I would just like to say a big thank you to Megan who gave me this lovely award. I will pass it on when I've had time to think about who to send it too.

Tempted Again

Like so many crafters I love buying new stash and just looking at it planning what I will do with it when I've finished all the other things I want to do and slowly running out of room to put it all. I only have a corner of the living room for crafting and I seem to spend more time reorganising to fit it all in than actually being creative with it.

So this year I decided to try and not buy more but use what I already have. Up to now I've really enjoyed looking through stuff to find what I want or trying to be creative to come up with the things I want to use and have found lots of things I'd forgotten about.


Unfortunately, though, there is an awful lot of temptation out there and I have succumbed a few times, especially with new stamps, but then Jill at The Stampman started showing techniques with moonglow mica powder and offered it at half price. Now that is TOO much temptation. I've been dying to try this for ages and this seemed too good to miss out on so off went the order and the lovely powders duly arrived and I have not been disappointed, they are really lovely to work with. It is like magic watching your stamped design appear when you apply the powder. My sort of crafting.

This is my first attempt. I decided to start small and used a set of free Papermania stamps that came with a magazine. This was then mounted on pearl paper. I edged the dark paper with the powder and then did the vellum the same. The whole was then put on a plain white card. I don't like things to be too dark and thought this just showed the shine off a bit better. The vellum was attached with a couple of brads.


I shall definitely be having another go, it is quite addictive and is another way of using all those stamps I bought!!!!

Thank you for looking and I hope you stay dry whatever you do today. It is absolutely pouring down here again this morning!!!!

Such A Small World

I know I've said it before but I'm going to say it again. I just LOVE this blogging world. In the last week I have met (in cyberspace you understand) two lovely ladies who live nearby and another lady who stayed at the same hotel as us on holiday last year. I am constantly amazed at what a small world it is and I feel honoured to know you all. It is lovely not being a lone crafter anymore.

I know I rabbit on a bit in my posts so I'm going to try and be brief tonight, I have an hour of the Chelsea Flower Show, best week of the year and then my favourite film, Message in a Bottle, on Five, better get the hankies out!!!! so not much blogging time.


I have made a card today using the Crafty Individuals stamps from the blog candy I won recently. They are something different for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed using them.

The cuttlebugged background was glimmer misted with denim and key lime pie and I inked the matted card with colorbox pigment inks.

The tags were stamped onto paper sprayed with moonglow using colorbox inks and each had an eyelet attached and a bit of interesting fibre to make them realistic.


See, I can be brief when I try!!!! Thanks as always for visiting. I'm off to drool at some lovely gardens.