In The Garden

Hello

I had meant to post this card in time for the Allsorts 17th birthday challenge, but sadly didn't get there in time. Now I see that their challenge theme is in the garden. Perfect for this card. When I saw this stamp and stencil set, I just had to buy it. It is by Kristina Werner with Concord & 9th and it is called flower field.

I stamped the image and clear heat embossed it and then used the matching stencils to colour it. The stamp set contains 6 different sentiments. This thank you is one of them. The little bee is from the sweet bee stamp set also by Concord & 9th, and I am afraid I can't remember which set the little dragonfly comes from.

I coloured the bee, dragon fly and the flower centres with sparkle pens. I used Catherine Pooler inks with the stencils. You can see the sparkle on the next picture. This is a large 6x8 inch stamp and as this card is 7x5, I have had to trim the panel down a bit.

I am sharing this card at:

Allsorts #851 - Anything goes from the garden.

Triple B June

We Love Stamping June '26 - Sports and Hobbies. Gardening is my hobby

I don't normally make large cards so having stamped the image several times I managed to make a number of metric A6 cards (2per image). Here is a selection. I have used Catherine Pooler inks.

This one had some glossy accents added to the flower centres.

Instead of using the matching stencils for this last card I painted it with my Gansai Tambi gem colour metallic watercolours. Because the image is quite large it was easy to watercolour and it made me wonder why I had bought the stencils, but they do give a different look, which I really like.

As this stamp was so large, I did have some difficulty getting really good impressions. Eventually I found a way that worked. I placed the stamp in the bed of my misti stamping tool and put the paper on the lid. I was able to get a much better impression with this method. I was getting quite frustrated with it, so I am glad I found the solution. The stamp lines are quite thick and ink kept getting trapped on the stamp so cleaning it was a challenge too. I do love the results though, so I am glad I bought it.

In my Garden
I am going to finish with a few picture of my garden. June is its time, mainly because of the 2 rambling roses that grow along the fences on both sides. Sadly since they came into flower, we have had a lot of wind and rain, but they still look fantastic and smell pretty amazing too. They will be gone in a week or so, meaning that it is important to appreciate the moment. I am doing my best to do that despite the rain.

This is rosa glauca. I love its grey/green leaves and pink and white flowers.

Some more views:

You can see some of my succulents in these if you look carefully.

Lots of photos today. Hope you don't mind.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

Card Chain Challenge May Reveal

Finally, I am back. I realised it is exactly 2 months since I last posted. I didn't take part in the April card chain challenge. It was the first month I had missed since I started playing back in 2018. Life just got too much for a little while and I had to take a break, but things have settled down now so I hope to be around blogland a little more, but maybe not quite as much as I used to be.

Today is the 2nd of the month so time for the Card Chain Challenge big reveal. This month 24 card makers took part and I sent my card to Daja in Germany.

This time I decided that I would like to used one of my neglected Spellbinders Pressplates. This one is called 'a friend like you bouquet', which I thought was perfect for the themes of floral and friendship.

As this is quite a large plate I have made a 7x5 inch card. I pressed the plate onto watercolour paper using brilliance pearlescent olive ink. The 2 sentiment plates are from the same set and I used brilliance rocket red gold ink. The small sentiment reads happiness is having a friend like you. It is quite small and unfortunately a little hard to read, but I decided to go with it anyway.

I splattered the panel with some gold watercolour paint and then coloured the image with coloured pencils. I quite like the soft look on the textured paper. I finished it off with a piece of real ribbon and a few rose gold gems. I managed to get an image on the insert by taking the paper to the plate and rubbing it firmly to transfer the ink. I didn't want a deep impression on the insert. It worked reasonably well. I splattered the insert with the gold paint too. Just for once the post worked really well. I posted it on the 9th of May and Daja, who is in Germany got it on the 12th.

I was very lucky to receive this gorgeous card from Tina in Slovenia. It's a beauty, thanks Tina, and for the little extras you enclosed.

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th to sign up here

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

Card Chain Challenge March Reveal

Today is 2nd of the month so time for the Card Chain Challenge big reveal. This month 25 card makers took part and I sent my card to Dagmara in Poland.

This month I used the colours, the theme of house or home and friendship, and the technique of patchwork.

Last summer I bought a cute little pack of 2inch square pieces of fabric, which has been sitting on my desk waiting to be used ever since, finally its turn has come. I picked 2 pieces that I thought were good for the colours and if you look closely you can see little houses on the peach pieces. My fabric pieces are only 2inch square but they were still too big for my card so I cut them into quarters. Originally I had intended to sew them together to form the patchwork, but I was running late and thought it would be too much faff to get my sewing machine out. Instead cut the edges so that the pinked edges where on the outside and I used fusible web to glue my fabric to the panel. At the end of the day this was probably as much faff as getting my sewing machine out! Fusible web is brilliant at gluing fabric to card though and if I had used my sewing machine I would have had seams to contend with. I do still have an ambition to use sewing on my cards though.

The panel was cut with a craftaddiction UK scalloped rectangle die. The edges of the matt under the panel were inked with Catherine Pooler flirty fuchsia. I used an extra strip of the fuchsia at the bottom because the panel wasn't the right size to give even borders. I hate it when I get uneven borders and don't usually buy die sets that don't work on metric A6 cards. I obviously failed this time. If I use an American A2 sized die I always use a card base that is 4 1/4 by 5 1/2. I found the foiled sentiment ready in my stash and cut the lily of the valley with an old creative expressions die. I don't think this will ever be one of my favourite cards, but it will do.

I was very lucky to receive this gorgeous card from Kathy in UK. Isn't that gnome cute? and the colours are so happy and spring like. Thanks Kathy, I love it. This was Kathy's first time on the chain, I hope it won't be her last.

And before I go my February card from Dee in Kenya landed on my doormat last week and what a beauty it is. Thanks Dee.

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th to sign up here

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

PS. I am sorry I have been absent from blogland for a few weeks. I just seemed to run out of time, but I should be back soon.

February Card Chain Challenge Reveal

Today is 2nd of the month so time for the Card Chain Challenge big reveal. This month 24 card makers took part and I sent my card to Gundi in Germany.

From all the options this month I chose to use the colours, dies and the theme of friendship.

The lattice pattern is an old Spellbinders shapeability die which I cut from some bluey/purply coated card. The thin frame dies are from Heffy Doodle and I used two small square and I banner die. So that's 6 in total. The stamps which are new to me are from a set by Clarity Stamps called just silhouette framers sampler. There are 20 small silhouette images in the set plus 6 sentiments. I now have 3 of these sampler sets and love them. Have a look here. They are such good quality too.

I stamped my focal point image in Catherine Pooler crushed violet ink and I was going to heat emboss it, but the image was too fine for that so I covered it with versamark and heat embossed the whole area several times, so it has quite a shine. I used Catherine Pooler lime ricky ink to create the green elelments and I love how it works with the other colours. The sentiment was stamped in lime ricky ink and then clear hear embossed. Unfortunately I did get a little shadow from the embossing, but decided not to worry about it. I stamped different images from the set on the insert and envelope.

Unfortunately I am still waiting for my card card from Dee in Kenya, so I can't share it with you today.

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th to sign up here

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

CAS + Dies

Today I thought I would share this card that I made with my favourite turnabout stamp. I hope you like it.

I just love the way this stamp forms a perfect circle. I used Catherine Pooler inks in cummerbund, catching rays, pucker up and in the park. I cut the numbers from the centre of the stamp and was a little annoyed that the 0 went very slightly wonky!

I thought I would share it at seize the birthday challenge 320 with a topping of CAS with dies. I hope it passes the CAS test. I am not sure myself. I have used circle dies, number dies, a pinpoint leaf die and a panel die. That's quite a few dies.

i have no time left tonight to find more challenges so I will just stick with the one.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it.