Coneflower Birthday

Hi all.  I have another feminine birthday card to show you today.  I used a stamp from Serendipity Stamps called Coneflowers which in latin is the Echinacea of which there are many different colours including the yellow/orange I have used here.  It is interesting that the purple/pink variety is also a herbal remedy popular as a treatment for colds and also to help prevent them, so a pretty flower with a use.

I decided to get a bit more arty with this one and started with a snippet of white card just a little smaller than my white square card.  I decided to use some Distress Inks blended with blending foam over it before stamping the flower.   I tried to lay down the background colours keeping the area where I wanted to place the stamp a bit lighter, so used the Mustard Yellow lightly in those areas and then the Tumbled Glass all over the the rest darkening the corners a little, especially the top right hand one, with Stormy Sky, and then I added a little Adirondack Eggplant.  I decided to bleach some of the colour out by splashing some water on to it and then blotting it with a piece of kitchen towel.

I continued by stamping the image with Versafine Smokey Gray ink and coloured it with a waterbrush using the Mustard Yellow DI on the petals, and a bit of Spiced Marmalade for shading, and some Adirondack Eggplant on the centres of the flowers and the darker part of the butterfly, and some Peacock Feathers DI and a little of the Mustard Yellow DI round the edge.  The two leaves were coloured with Mowed Lawn DI.

To finish I stamped the sentiment with the Versafine Smokey Gray ink and whilst wet heat embossed it using WOW Clear Embossing Powder.  I also felt the water drops were a bit too prominent so I used some more of the blue and yellow inks over the top, especially darkening over and around the flower to make it stand out.

Before I go I would like to welcome three new followers,  Sally H,  Hazel and Kathy K who are all wonderfully creative ladies and I'm sure they would love you to vist them if you haven't before.


Thank you for coming to look and for all your comments which I really appreciate.

Pat  x

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Serendipity Stamps Challenge - Just Add Water.   (I am so pleased I was chosen the winner of this challenge)
Uniko Challenge No 34 - Flowers.
The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge.
Artistic Stamper - All Things Bright and Beautiful.

Rudolph Days Challenge for July

Hi there everybody.  Another month has flown by and the Rudolph Days Challenge is here again.  I am lucky to have been chosen to be part of the Design Team by Mo of Scraps of Life by Scrappymo.  The challenge runs from 25th to the end of the month and there is always a lovely prize up for grabs.  How strange to be making a Christmas card on the hottest day of the year.  I think since we have lived down here this is the hottest it has ever been and I was feeling so hot and sticky that I decided a fairly simple card was the way to go.

I started by choosing the colours and at the moment I am quite fond of kraft with red so decided to go with that and thought a wreath design might be quite nice.  I think my most favourite thing is snowflakes so a snowflake wreath it is.

I found a snippet of kraft card and cut it to just a little more than 4" square.  I decided to finish the edge using my MFT Dienamics Basic Stitch Lines.  There are six different ones and I went for the cross stitch edge.  I then matted this on to a snippet of gold mirror card which I had cut with a new/NBUS set of Tonic Scalloped Square Layering Dies.  It is a lovely large set with fourteen different sized dies.

I found a gold coloured lightly patterned paper from a freebie pad by Bo Bunny which I have had for several years.  I have a set of two snowflake dies by Craft Emotions and I used the smaller of the twos dies and cut out some snowflakes.  I thought I would add a bit of sparkle with some WOW Gold Sparkle Embossing Powder so I pressed the snowflakes into my Versamark Ink quite lightly as I wanted a random gold finish not complete coverage, and then heat embossed with the powder.  I then glued these on to the topper.  I used my Collall photo glue so that I would be able to move them if not quite right.  The first time I found that I had them too wide apart so fiddled a bit until I had a tighter circle. 

I found a snippet of red card and cut it to fit the white square base card leaving just a small white edge.  I again used the Tonic Scalloped Edge Dies.  I then dry embossed it using a Crafters Companion Snow Flurry Embossing Folder, which I used twice to cover the square snippet of card, and I glued this to the base card.

I mounted the topper on to the card and then finished with a die cut sentiment which I backed with Stick It adhesive, and then using a narrow red ribbon I made a triple bow and attached this to the bottom of the wreath.

Thank you again to Mo for choosing me for the Design Team and please do go and check the challenge out and see what the other DT members have done.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and see you again soon.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 239 where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.
Happy Little Stampers July Christmas Challenge - Gold.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Add Some Texture.  There is texture to the wreath and added ribbon.
Happy Little Stampers July Anything Goes wih Dies Challenge.

Guess Who?

Hi there.  Well, I expect by now a lot of you will have realised that the delightful Darnell is in the country and visiting lots of places and lots of blogging friends, and I was so pleased to be one of them.  My DH and I picked her up from Salisbury last Thursday and went with her on a visit to Stonehenge, which we had visited, but many many years ago.

The weather was kind to us and we had a nice couple of hours there before getting back in the car and continuing the drive to Taunton, where she was staying for the night.  We did show her a little of the Somerset countryside on the way, also a thatched cottage, there are obviously quite a lot down here but this one was right by the side of the road and therefore easily accessible for a photo, and also one or two old churches, and I think she was a little perturbed by the size of the lorries we encountered on some of the smaller roads which she felt were a little close for comfort...lol.

After a short time to freshen up we met up with the two other ladies Hazel and Linda and their other halves for a meal nearby and thank you to all for a wonderful evening.  The gentlemen were very patient when we four started talking about cards and the other ladies she has seen and is due to see in the time she is here.  I'm sure they think it is some whole new and strange world we bloggers belong to...lol, but they did their best to look interested.

                                      

                 From left to right: Hazel's DH, my DH, Darnell, Linda, Linda's DH, me and Hazel.

The next morning we met up with Darnell at the hotel and took her to another meet up a little closer to Bristol going via Taunton station to pick up Kath who came with us to the lunch where we also met Anne who was a good friend of Karen - Serendipity Dragonfly, who sadly passed away earlier in the year.  Karen's husband Tony also joined us and it was great to meet him, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable lunch.  The time passed quickly, and it seemed no time at all before Kathy K. arrived to pick Darnell up for the next leg of her journey (sorry, not in the photo).

             
                     From left to right: Me, Darnell, Kath, Anne, Tony, and my DH took the photo.

I was so pleased and excited to be able to meet Darnell who is known and loved by so many in Blogland, and she was so warm and friendly and just as much fun as I thought she would be, and it is a couple of days that I will always remember, and I wish her well with the rest of the trip and a safe journey home.  I'm sure she will be pleased to sleep in her own bed again by then and will probably need a holiday to get over the holiday! 

Pat  x

Holy Island Northumberland

Hi there everybody.  My DH has just had his birthday and we have just returned from  a wonderful holiday in Northumberland which is a magical place, especially Holy Island which I think is my favourite place up there, so much so that I felt inspired to create a little watercolour scene of it.

I used a little set of Windsor and Newton watercolours which I bought to use for outdoors painting and intended to use whilst away, but although the weather was not too bad and we did have some lovely sunshine, the weather tended to be rather windy and not conducive to sitting for very long so I painted this on my return using one of the photos that DH took whilst we were away.  I think lots more practice is required with watercolour and I could have been bolder with the light and shade but he did say that he liked the card so I think there may be hope for me yet.

Before finishing here is a little selection of photos which my DH took of Holy Island just to give you a flavour of the place.

               The castle itself was closed the day we visited so we had to view it from a distance.

                                                 

                                      This is a slightly different view than the one I painted.

          Tide coming in and when it reaches the causeway it covers it very quickly.  There are lots
          of signs warning you not to try to cross once the tide reaches the causeway and I can
          understand why.  There is a refuge which you can climb up into if you should get
          caught by the tide ....  no room for the car though!

         There were a huge number of seals hauled out on the sand bank which were a long way off
          but the zoom has caught them better.

           Whilst parked on the causeway these swans flying in caught my eye.  DH was busy taking
            photos in the other direction so I quickly shouted to him and he turned just in time to
            catch them.  They fly a lot faster than I realised they could.

         This picture was taken further round the coast and shows Bamburgh castle on the left and
          Holy Island more distant towards the right of the picture.

        This is Budle Bay which is an inlet just round the coast which is very popular with birds at
         low tide.  I can't get the photo any larger here, but at normal size you can just make
         out Holy Island which is on the horizon half way along that lower cloud.


I hope I haven't bored you too much with our holiday pics.  I won't tell you how many DH took, suffice it to say rather a lot!  It's 400 miles away from where we live but I do hope we manage to get there again some day as Northumberland is beautiful!

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Create a Scene.
Everybody Art Challenge - Summer/Holiday.
30 Day Colouring Challenge

Cheeky Robin

Hi there.  This card was made for my cousin's birthday this week and made from yet more freebies with a recent magazine and I used every component.  There was an embossing folder, a border, the bird and teacup stamp and four pretty papers.

I started by finding a snippet of white card just a little smaller than the white square base card I tend to use, and embossed it with the folder.  I took some Adirondack Pink Sherbet Ink and a brayer and rolled the ink over the raised flower pattern.  Being a freebie the embossing isn't quite as deep as it might be and it did leave some ink where I didn't really want it but after adding some Bundles Sage Distress Ink using blending foam, on the rest of the background, I decided it just gave it a sort of vintage look so thought I would use it.

I took another snippet of white card and stamped the sweet teacup stamp using Versafine Smokey Gray Ink and then stamped just the teacup again on to a piece of the freebie paper, and after cutting and adhering to the stamped image it was coloured using my Spectrum Noir Coloured Pencils.  I then die cut with a stitched square die, and to keep the vintage look I inked round the edges with the Bundled Sage DI.  The waste piece I trimmed up and decided that I would lay the image mat back into it  leaving the extra piece on the bottom for the sentiment, but before doing so I coloured the outside piece with the Pink Sherbet Ink again using blending foam.

After adhering the embossed layer to the base card I decided to add the freebie border across the card before adding the image layer, and taking another snippet of white card I embossed this and coloured it using the Pink Sherbet Ink.

I finished by taking a further snippet of white card which was backed with the Stick It adhesive and after cutting it out I coloured using more of the Bundled Sage DI including the fiddly little dot for the 'i'.

Thank you for taking a look today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenge:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 237 where we use up our snippets of card and paper etc.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Flora and Fauna.
Happy Little Stampers July Challenge - Anything Goes with Dies.
Penny Black and More - Anything Goes with a Stamp.

Floral Heart Anniversary

Hi there everybody.  I'v got another Anniversary card today and decided to get the kraft card out and a stamp from Indigoblu called Poppy Heart which I haven't used for a long long time.  I also used an XCut Embossing Folder called Hearts and Kisses which doesn't seem to be available anywhere at present.

I stamped the heart on to a snippet of kraft card using Brilliance Moonlight White Ink and then, as it stays wet for a fair time, I heat embossed it with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.   I coloured it using my Spectrum Noir pencils.  I then die cut it using a stitched square die and mounted it on to a snippet of red card.  I had hoped the white ink would look crisper and that the heat embossing would make it stand out better than it did.  I also regret going for the pencils rather than my Promarkers as on the kraft card the greens have come out very pale too.  

Then using a snippet of white card I embossed with the Hearts and Kisses EF which I extended to make it square.  I decided to ink up the raised pattern using Festive Berries Distress Ink and a brayer as it makes a neater job of it, although a little of the ink got on to the background it wasn't too bad.  I adhered this to another snippet of kraft card.

I finished by mounting the background layer and the image on to a square white base card and added a gold sentiment.

As mentioned above I wasn't totally happy with this one but I think it has a sort of folk art look about it and therefore the rather rough finish goes with it OK.  Thank you for dropping by.

Pat  x

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 236 where we use up our snippets of card and paper etc.
Penny Black and More Challenge - Anything Goes with a Stamp.
Inkspirational Challenge - Anything Goes with Red.