Be Brave... Adventure awaits you (Bunting swap)

I am taking part in a six month long bunting swap on UK Stampers and this is month one. I will admit I hadn't realised each month was going to be a different theme and I've yet to reconcile myself with how this will look should I decide to string them all together at the end of the six month swap...but more importantly for me, I hadn't spotted the themed aspect and I really hate themes. While I appreciate that many people find working to a theme helpful, for some reason when I am faced with a theme, all creativity vanishes and I am totally bereft of ideas...

But sign up for this I did and so here we are... the first theme was travel so I thought maps.... so I made my base bunting from an old card board box that some A4 card came in and I covered that with map paper and topped with three shades of distress oxides. I over-stamped the whole thing with a paper artsy script stamp (not really visible in the rather horrible photo) using tumbled glass distress oxide. The main image was stamped onto linen paper using black archival ink, cut out and adhered  and sealed using mat gel medium. I added some Tim Holtz  tiny words stickers for the wording Be Brave... Adventure awaits you...  Some charcoal pencil, black inktense pen, wink of Stella and silver uniball were used for highlights and it was finished. This piece is going to Germany and I hope my swap partner will like it.

Until next time
Cxx

Anniversary card

I made this card for my brother and his wife for their wedding anniversary today. I used white linen card panel and using a stencil, inked the circle with distress oxide inks. The birds were stamped in black archival ink onto a separate piece of linen card, fussy cut, coloured and adhered to the card front. The hearts were punched and fixed with glue dots. The anniversary greeting was stamped and  the linen panel was matted onto silver before being affixed to the card front....and job done!

 Even though the birds are rather budgie like, I hope they will get the love birds reference and wont be scratching their heads and wondering why I put budgies on their card 😀

Until next time
Cxx

Every leaf....

I have more recently  been kiboshed by a particularly nasty summer lurgy that came suddenly and refused to budge, hence the long absence...but  some weeks later I am beginning to feel human again (Thank  goodness) and today was the first day I managed to spend some creative time... and so I made this card for my swap buddy Suzanne.

While I was battling lurgy the latest release of distress oxides landed here and while I knew they were here, I didn't have any oomph to even open them - but I am going to make  up for that now.

This card was a plain white base into which I blended  oxides ripe persimmon  and mustard seed. I over-stamped this with  a paper artsy script stamp using old paper oxide which provided a subtle layer. Then I added the leaves  and hedgehog in sepia archival ink  over the top and coloured the leaf pile with distress markers.

 Leaves, hedgehog and sentiment were all from a magazine "freebie" that my husband picked up for me while I was bed-bound (bless him) and I quite enjoyed working with them and as they are versatile I will get a lot of use out of these.

Once everything was done and dry I matted the panel onto some Kraft card and then onto a thick white card base. It will go in the mail tomorrow and I hope Suzanne will like it.

Until next time
Cxx

Summer fun at St Joe's

So once I week I volunteer at our local hospice (St Joseph's) as part of the Arts Programme there. I work with patients in the Day Hospice and for the past few weeks we have been busy making things for the big summer FUNd raiser... which is tomorrow.

So we made some giant flowers ...over a foot wide and very bright and colourful

Over thirty layered paper flowers of assorted sizes

We also made  a whole swarm of butterflies; over one hundred hand decorated beauties  ranging in size from 6 inches to one inch. 

These are going on the wall to show the way out to the garden. It should be beautiful.

 Tuesday and Wednesday Art Groups  at the Day Hospice  also made banners and giant fruit decorations. It should be an amazing  summery display and the FUNdraising team are busy putting everything out today. 

The patients and other volunteers had great fun undertaking these projects over the past few weeks. We have a recycled mosaic project coming up ion the near future...so watch this space 😉

Until next time
Cxx

Happy Birthday ... a blast from the past

This pretty simple card was made using elements from a card making kit I bought when I first starting making cards...many years ago. I stumbled across it when I was looking for something else and decided it really was about time to put it to good use.  

I teamed it with some patterned paper I have in my stacks and added ink edging and a coordinating sentiment panel to pull it all together and complete the very simple design.

This is part of my use it or... policy and I intend to be brutal  as part of my clear up/clear out craftroom project.

Until next time

Cxx

Be Amazed... a tag

Decided to try something different ( for me) and made this very simple tag using modelling paste through a stencil  and then added acrylic paint and spritzed it to allow the colours to run where they will. Once dry I added wink of Stella to the flower petals and some grey splatters. It's no masterpiece, but I was quite pleased with how it came out.
Until next time
Cxx

Go Wild....

Made this birthday card for my nature loving brother in law using stamps that came "free" with a magazine (inflated mag price to cover the stamps of course so not really free but I love these stamps and so it was worth it.)

The giraffe was stamped onto white textured paper and coloured with promarkers before being adhered to the card front. The silhouette and sentiments were stamped using archival black ink.
I am happy with how this came out and I am pretty sure he is going to love it. Happy Birthday Charlie!
Until next time

Cxx