Happy 2020

Wishing all of my crafting friends and followers, a very happy and healthy 2020 xx 

Merry Christmas Room

I have spent all of December making this little scene. It  is far from perfect, but at least I finally finished it in time for Christmas. 

Wishing you a wonderfully happy and magical Christmas time xx

Bah Humbug

This is most definitely not my own sentiment! I have made this for some one who is a real Bah Humbug person. I used a Christmas Carol stamp set, and stamped out the houses and Mr Scrooge, and coloured them all before fussy cutting and adhering them to my prepared canvas. I found an old fashioned lamp stamp too, and just in case things were not gloomy enough I added in Eeyore! 

I generously used texture paste smothered with fine glitter for snow, and added a small twig as a tree. After stamping and colouring some holly leaves at the top of the canvas, I flicked white acrylic paint over the scene as falling snow. Of course I did not forget to add the large Bah Humbug sign to the tree!

Thank you for visiting xx

I would like to enter this small canvas into the following challenges.
Lost Coast Portal In The Deep Mid Winter

Artistic Stamper Christmas 

Star Of Wonder

I have made this canvas for a friend, who lives opposite the golf club, so he often has foxes visiitng him. One winter he took many photos of a fox happily playing in the snow outside his house. So I tried to recreate that scene for this canvas.

I used a wood fox from Calico Craft Parts, and painted him with acrylics, and added a fluffy tail from some needle felting wool. A brick stencil was useful to suggest his house, and texture paste covered with glitter worked as snow. I also added a some twigs and trees, and my finishing touch was to add battery operated lights.

Thank you for visiting me today, how is  your Christmas crafting going. xx

Festival of Remembrance

It was an honour to attend the Royal Festival of Remembrance at The Royal Albert Hall yesterday evening. At one point it looked doubtful that I would be well enough to attend, but fortunately, I was able to pay my respects to all those including many members of my own family who fought and died for our Great Country. It was moving, beyond words. 

Lest We Forget

Her Majesty The Queen, and members of the Royal Family.

After The Queen had left, they played Land of Hope and Glory, and the armed forces mingled together and some picked up handfuls of the fallen poppies.

Moon Gazing Fox

It is good to be crafting again, after being very unwell. I am rather late with my second guest project for Calico Crafts, and I want to thank them so much for being very kind and understanding.  I love creating with their products which are fabulous, and there are so many to choose from! The possibilities are endless. There are more details about my Moon Gazing plaque over on Calico Crafts and Parts blog, so I hope you can pay them a visit. 

I also need to thank Happy Little Stampers for selecting my Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder watercolour card as a winner. For some odd reason, which I still have not worked out, I am unable to comment on some blogs and Happy Little Stampers is one of them. 

Thank you for visiting me today, I hope you all is ok with you, I will visiting everyone’s blogs soon. xx 

Blackberry Wood

Hello, how are you? I hope all is well with you as we move into Autumn. 

I am thrilled to be guest designing for Calico Craft Parts  today. It was so much fun using their wonderful wooden shapes. You can create all sorts of wonderful things with them! I have written a little step by step on how I made my BlackBerry wood above, I hope you will pay the  Calico Craft blog a visit. 

Take care xx

Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder

The new fab Craft Stamper magazine is out now, so I can share my card which was in last months edition. Thank you to Trish at Craft Stamper for including my card.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges 

Penny Black Animals

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge

Paperbabe Anything Goes

In a world where you can be anything be kind

Another card featuring one of my favourite sentiment stamps, “In a world where you can be anything be Kind” I love swans, they are so elegant and majestic. We have a pair of beautiful swans  living on our local pond.

I used water colours to create my background, and various stamps. I added some brown fun flock to the reeds, to give them some texture. 

Thank you for visiitng, I would like to enter this card into the following challenges. 

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge 

Craft Stamper Challenge
Paperbabe Anything Goes

Courage Dear Heart

“But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear heart," and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.”

 C.S. Lewis,  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 

 I used watercolours  to create my background and versafine black ink to stamp over the top.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges.

Penny Black Animals

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge

Craft Stamper Challenge

Golden Wings

Well the sunny weather has certainly returned with us here, with temperatures up to 31c !

I have been relaxing doing some drawing and painting. I used the Paperbabe template for my face and neck, I altered it a little and then drew the rest. I discovered that I am not too good at drawing fairy wings! I used a gold pen to draw in lots of little details on the wings to try and improve them !

I would like to enter her into this months Paperbabe Challenge “Gold” her earrings and hair pin thingy are also gold.

Let’s hope this lovely weather lasts, thank you for visiitng me today xx

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I’m following the Yellow Brick Road today with this mixed media canvas. 

I would like to enter “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” into the following challenges. 

Artistic stamper Anything Goes

Lost Coast Portal Anything Goes

Thank you for visiitng xx

Love the simple things

The weather outside doesn’t exactly look like beach weather today. So I thought I would share a beach themed card, and we can pretend that we are there!

I created my background with watercolours, and I  also used them to colour my little girl too.

To create the sand, I used acrylic paints in raw umber and white and mixed them together with some coarse marble dust.

I would like to enter Love the Simple Things into the following challenges.

Artistic stamper Anything Goes

Craft Stamper Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers Watercolours Anything Goes optional Ocean

Lost Coast Portal Anything Goes

Thank you for visiitng xx

Artist Trading Coins

I have been creating a lot of artist trading coins recently, they can be quite addictive! Artist trading coins are 2.5 “ circles, which are decorated in any way imaginable. They can be made from mdf, chipboard or thick card. I have been using the mdf ones, but I have recently ordered some blank chipboard at coins for a change. You write your usual artist details on the back as you would for the more traditional artist trading cards. You then of course swap them with other  artists.

I thought I would share some of my coins and ideas.

I edged the coins above with pearls.

I heat embossed these Classic Pooh stamps. These stamps were some of the very first stamps I owned.

I edged them with some bead gel.

I heat embossed these flowers, and added little pearls to them, and edged them  in more white pearls.

I created the background for these coins by making a lace design on my gelli plate, and laying the coins down onto it.

I covered these coins with some vintage pages from an Alice In Wonderland book.

Heat embossing various stamps to create a little scene.


Back to Classic Pooh to conclude.Thank you for visiitng xx

Golden Tammy

Hello how are you? It’s August already, I  hope you are enjoying a happy summer time.

I am thrilled that this month I have a card in Craft Stamper magazine. I used a gorgeous stamp set by Phyllis Harris, who is one of my most favourite artists. 

There are lots of fabulous summery projects in Craft Stamper this month!  You can buy single print copies,  and digital copies from www.pocketmags.com. or to buy subscriptions, www.mags-uk.com. Overseas subscriptions are available too!

Take care xx

Bubble background

Hello how are you today? I have been playing with bubbles which is always fun, and this time it was crafting too! I was experimenting with making bubbly backgrounds. I have tried this before without much success. This time was a little more successful, so I thought I would share my discoveries.

I began by putting some inexpensive acrylic paint in a shallow bowl, and adding some fairy liquid and water. I used a straw to blow into the colourful liquid to make bubbles. I soon discovered that I needed a lot more paint, fairy liquid and water than I thought I did. After adding more the bubbles overflowed the top of the bowl, hurrah! I lowered my Mixed Media paper onto the bubbles, but this was not too successful. So I went with a scooping motion, and scooped the bubbles up onto the paper and left them to pop naturally.

This was a lot more successful! I only used red, blue and a purple, but I will try more colours next time. 

I hope I have inspired you to play with bubbles and make some bubbly backgrounds xx

I would like to enter this card into the Craft Stamper Challenge Anything Goes and 

Paperbabe Anything Goes

Happy Alice In Wonderland Day !

Happy Alice In Wonderland Day! You can find more details about this special day here 

To celebrate the day I have made this tea party scene. I used Alice and the White Rabbit which I made with air drying clay used in a mould. I painted them with acrylic paints. You can’t have the tea party without a Mad Hatter, so I drew him and coloured him with watercolours. 

I added lots of little Wonderland details underneath the table.I stamped a tiny Queen of Hearts playing card, and a “Drink Me “ tag to tie onto the little bottle.

I found the little tea set at Spitafields antique market, I don’t think it is actually an antique though!

I stamped some rabbit paw print marks onto the base of the table 

I must dash now as there are jam tarts to make for our Madhatters tea today, and lots  of decorations to put up. 

I would like to enter this little scene into the following challenges 

Artistic Stamper Celebrating Women

Craft Stamper Anything Goes

Lost Coast Designs Celebrate it

Bear Hugs

Hello, and welcome to my blog. How are you? Today I have some Bear hugs to share with anyone who needs some.Bear hugs are the best hugs of all!

I began creating my bear hugs card, by stamping out my chosen stamps from the set. I added colour with a dash of my watercolors, and fussy cut all of the images.

To give some dimension to the  bear I used an Embossing tool on his ears, and outlined his arms and legs using it too. I adhered all the images with sticky pads which also raises them up from the card. The crown looked a little lacklustre, so I raided my bits and bobs box, and picked out some little pearls to add a touch of sparkle.

I swished some watercolours over the background card, and stamped a few starry wands in the background  too. Not forgetting to add the all important “Hugs” sentiment. 

I would like to enter  Bear Hugs card into the Craft Stamper Challenge 

Swing on By

Hello, thank you for stopping by, and I hope you are enjoying the warmer weather.

Many thanks to Rosie from  Papercrafter for including my card above in this months fab issue. 

Sorry I did not take any step by step photos, but I have written a few lines below. 

I used the wonderful fairytale stamp set which was a cover gift on a previous issue. I  began making my card by  stamping, water colouring,  and fussy cutting my chosen images. 

I added flowersoft and some crumpled rose petals to the ropes of the swing. I press a lot of flowers, and this is the perfect time of year when  the garden is full of so many beautiful and  colourful flowers. 

I embossed the branches  and hung my swing from them. The  fairy wanted to enjoy the flowers so I stood her up on the  swing. I used sticky pads to adhere my images to the background which I had previously created with watercolours.

Thank you for visiting today.xx 

. 

Alice In Wonderland Inspiration

Hello, I hope all is well with you. We  have sunshine here today, at long last!

Today I am sharing some of my recent Alice In Wonderland makes, incase anyone needs a little inspiration to enter the Alice Day Challenge at UK Stampers which is kindly being hosted by Sid. 

This card features one of my favourite quotes. 

Alice Artist Trading Coins

I used some of my Alice clay mould characters on some tags. I wasn’t thrilled with how they came out, I may try resin in the moulds next time.

A simple Alice card, made with gorgeous papers from Craft Box. These papers are included in my prize for the winner of the Alice Day challenge.

I hope I have inspired you to join in with the challenge. Take care, and thank you so much for visiitng xx

Snowglobe card

Hello thank you for stopping by today, I hope you are well.

I am taking part in a year long challenge at UK Stampers, called Just One Stamp. You exchange a stamp each month and create something with it, on a round robin sort of basis. This month I received a lovely Church stamp, after some thought I wondered if it might fit inside a snowglobe stamp I had. 

I began by stamping the snowglobe on a sheet of copy paper and cutting out the inner part of the globe.I then used this as a mask, and postioned it over the top of my previously stamped globe. I stamped the church through the aperture of my mask, and removed the mask, leaving the church stamp inside the the snowglobe. 

Pink,is my favourite colour, so it features on most of my creations, even Christmas cards! I can honestly say I have never ever made a Christmas card so early in the year as this before!

Thank you for visiting me. I would like to enter this Snowglobe card into the following challenges.

ABC Christmas cards M is for Masking

Craft Stamper Anything Goes

Morty on the beach

I hope it is not pouring where you are today, it certainly is here! June already and no sunshine yet! 

Today I would like to introduce you to Morty, a gorgeous new stamp by my friend Tracey Easson. She has dedicated her new range of stamps to the memory of her beloved father. 

I created  the background with watercolours and stamped Morty onto card before water colouring and fussy cutting him. He wanted to have fun on the beach and build a sandcastle, so I drew him a bucket and spade. After drawing a sand castle I added some texture paste to give it a grainy look, and painted it in a sandy colour. 

The seagulls, starfish, and shells are from Crafty Individuals, and also a Stamp Set which I think was made by My Favourite Things. 

Thank you for visiting me today.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges 

craft Stamper Anything Goes

Artisitc Stamper By The Seaside