Back in the saddle!

Hi everyone and a special welcome to my two new followers, delighted that you have chosen to follow my blog :)
We had a lovely time in Spain in a small town, Comares, on top of a mountain and this was the view from our terrace  

It was very hot for September and we took it easy, either by the pool or venturing out in the car for lunch! This was a favourite overlooking Lake Vinuela.

One of the highlights of our trip was meeting up with Florence, who I'm sure many of you know from her amazing artistic blog.We were part of the original DT on Kylie's Addicted to Stamps & More blog and arranged to meet for lunch in Periana in an amazing spot with our respective partners. We arrived at 12.30 and eventually left at 6.30 having all got on like a house on fire 

The only cultural visit was to the Alcazabar citadel in Malaga that we hadn't visited before and I was inspired to go by this amazing piece of art on Flo's blog, check it out! Here are a few pics of the citadal:

And finally one evening we were having dinner and watched an enormous harvest moon rise up behind the mountains and on the way home we saw a shooting star for the first time!

I've been busy making a card for my wonderful DIL's 30th birthday next month so you'll have to wait for that one and also a couple of commission cards but nothing I can show yet.

I had a great crafty fix on Saturday at the BSS fair at Ally Pally and managed to spend a few pennies on a couple of Sue Wilson dies and some card stock.

hopefully I will be back soon to show you some cards

Specially for Marie!

Morning everyone, I hope this is going live at the correct time as it is a scheduled post and I will be away :)
At Addicted to Stamps and More the challenge is Anything goes with an optional twist of Get Well / Thinking of you.
 But this time it is a little bit special as it is being dedicated to Marie, one of the original DT who has some health problems at the moment. As a previous DT member I wanted to join in and wish Marie a speedy recovery and I made this card in her honour:

Recipe:

EF Sizzex sunburst

Spellbinder flourish die and large label shape

Tattered Lace floral die

Very best wishes Marie, hoping to hear some good news from you soon:)

Less is More week 187-Lucky Dip

Hi it's me again after only two days, hope I didn't scare you :)
I've not entered any challenges for a while but I saw today's LIM post and it struck a chord, so here I am.

As this is a five Saturday month, we have an extra challenge for you which is always a Lucky Dip, which basically means that we choose whatever we want!!!!!

We have another song theme which this time is... 

I do like to be beside the seaside!

Anything with a reference to the sea or the beach or things nautical will be fine as long as your creation is Clean and Simple!

We are also lucky enough to have a Guest Designer with us this week and I know that this person will be hugely popular with you all... it is the inimitable

Darnell

I love anything to do with the sea and have made a few cards lately with a nautical theme so I had a look through my stamps and this is what I came up with:

The stamps are freebies from a magazine and and coloured with a water brush and SU Marina Mist and  Soft Saffron. The die is part of an Xcut scenic set.

Well that's all from me for a couple of weeks but I hope to check in now and again if the internet allows:)

More birthdays!

Hi everyone, well it's beeen nearly 2 weeks again since I last posted,  but here I am with a couple more birthday cards and a commision card to show you.
This will be my last post for a couple of weeks as we are off to Spain for a couple of weeks of sea, sun and sangria :) I hope to have a reasonable wifi connection but we are up in the mountains so it may be hit and miss but it will be wonderful!
Anyway here are the cards I wanted to show you:
Today is my eldest son, Dominic's birthday and being a writer I wanted something personal so come and see what I made:

The background stamp is Impression Obsession bookshelf, stamped and water coloured and cut and embossed with create a card decadence die. The nibs and sentiment are by Hampton Arts and it was very well received :)

This box card is for a friend whose birthday party we are going to on Saturday evening and I used an old Papermania Oriental stamp set and the flowers are spellbinders daisy die and the butterflies are SU embossibilities.

This is the commision card for new grandparents using create a card embossing die with spellbinders mats and a memory box pram die.

Finally a card for a friend whose birthday is while we are away, using papers from Debbi Moore  on a stepper card.

                                                  Adiós por ahora :)

Coolio!

Hi everyone it's been 2 weeks again since I blogged but apart from lots of birthday cards that I have to make in August I seem to have lost the urge to join in with any challenges.
I'm not enjoying the squally showers but I do appreciate the drop in temperature!
We were in Portsmouth last weekend with Charlie for his dad's birthday and we had a lovely weekend. Thankfully the weather on Saturday was brilliant for the BBQ and it was a great success.

We had a very enjoyable evening, with friends, at the theatre on Thursday seeing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with a nice meal before hand.
So here are a couple of the cards that I have been making:

This was for Keir and cut using my Silhouette. We had bought him a new state of the art BBQ for his birthday and so this was appropriate :)

This was for a male friend using the SU wetlands stamp set which is a go to for male cards.

Today is my friend Thelma's birthday and knowing that she likes iris's I made this card using the Romance create a card die and spellbinders iris die

Finally this card is for a friend whose birthday is tomorrow and I used craftwork cards flip card and one of their pads for decoration.

Charlie is coming up for the bank holiday weekend and we are having a BBQ on Sunday as it is my eldest son Dom's birthday and we are having a bit of a do!  I have made his card but will leave it for my next post, not that there is much chance of him looking at my blog!! :)

Hope to catch up with you all soon 

Catch up!

Evening all, well I didn't get round to making a card for last week's LIM challenge but I did have a few other crafty projects to finish and thought I'd just post a few photos to show them.
Yesterday we were at our last wedding for this year and what a wedding it was! Beautiful setting, stunning bride and a wonderful day:) I made another tealight card, the last one was for Kate's sisters wedding in May, this one has a vintage, village fair theme, come and see:

Front of the box

Front of the tealight card

Inside the card

The centre tealight has a butterfly on it and during the wedding service a butterfly flew around the church, a blessing perhaps?

 The next card was a commision for a thank you card with a nautical theme and this is what I came up with:

and finally an acceptance card to a 50th birthday bash.

I didn't get many photos from the wedding but the ones I did get I have played around with in Craft Artist and this is the result:

The happy couple

Old friends sharing their day

It was a long day yesterday and so we took it easy today as we have a busy week ahead culminating in a weekend in Portsmouth for Keir's birthday (Charlie's dad).

Hope to catch up on all your blogs tomorrow:)

I'm back!

Afternoon all, wow I can't believe it's been nigh on 3 weeks since I blogged but this is the first free weekend we have had for about 5 weeks!
 Our Rock choir concert was a great success and we even had an encore:) We are on a break now and will be back singing in September.
We have been so lucky with the weather it was amazing down in Devon and of course ate and drank too much! Last weekend we were back down in Portsmouth again with great weather for picnics and bbq's:)
Anyway back to crafting of which I haven't done a lot and only have one project to show you which is a thank you box card that I made to send to our friends in Brixham, come and see:

I used Craftwork cards Harbour paper pad to cover the box and cut out some of the elements for the pop up effect. Had to use this pad it's so beautiful and of course it was off to Brixham:)

The only other thing I've been doing is a couple of scrapbook pages with photos of who else but Charlie:

I hope to be back with a card for this week's Less is More challenge and next Saturday we have another wedding and I have a card to show you then:)

Once again I'm sorry for my lack of commenting but I have been checking out your blogs and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!!!

Happy birthday Kylie!

                             
Afternoon all just a quick post to show a digital card I made for the wonderful Kylie, owner of Addicted to Stamps and ACAS challenge blogs, whom I'm sure you're all familiar with :) I was one of Kylie's original DT and was delighted to meet her for lunch, along with several other blogging friends, when she was in London earlier this year.
Apologies Kylie for it being digital but it's been a bit hectic and I'm getting ready for going away again tomorrow inbetween watching the Wimbledon Men's final!

Lots of friends have been posting cards on Loll's blog for Kylie's birthday celebrations so pop over and check out some amazing creations!

I will be checking on your blogs while I'm away but may not get time to comment so please forgive me:)

Catch up!

Hello everyone I'm just popping in to say hello and to say sorry for not commenting on your blogs but we got back yesterday from a few sunny days in the IOW and are off again on Monday to the south west for a week!
The weather was very good to us and we had a great time with Charlie and too much to eat and drink:)
I am busy practising for our big concert on Saturday as I didn't have an opportunity to do any while we were away, it might have scared off the locals!!
Monday we are off to Somerset to stay for a couple of days with Karen and then on to Brixham for 5 days to friends who have a lovely bungalow, high up overlooking the harbour and Torbay. I'm looking forward to sitting on the terrace with a glass of wine, hopefully the weather will be kind to us:)

Thought I'd share a couple of photos from the IOW, well you didn't expect me not to, did you?

Strangely all my photos bar a couple seem to be of Charlie and I took over 70 :o)

Setting a precedent!!

Hello everyone, well I think I'm setting myself a record by posting 4 days running! But while I was creating the last card I came across another stamp that I wanted to use for the LIM challenge, come and see;

This lovely hibiscus stamp is from a very old SeeDee set called tropical that I came across last night. Karen bought me 9 sets years ago and the happy birthday set is one I go to regularly and I hadn't looked at this set for ages but realised it had a grunge type stamp in it, result!! and a lovely sentiment font. I stamped using grey versafine and used Su inks on an acrylic block and added them with a water brush.

Off to relax again in the garden, strange how having been retired for 4 years I still enjoy the weekends:)

Ooh just found out my last tag with the mermaid on is in the hall of fame over at the Q&Lchallenge:)

Less is More week 177-theme

Help I'm on a roll, 3 posts in 3 days, I think I may have sunstroke!!

Well it's Saturday and time for a new Less is More challenge and this is what the team want:

Our challenge is to use

WATERCOLOUR

It doesn't have to be a complete work of art (although we know that many will be just that), but if you could  include water when adding colour to your project that would be wonderful.

There are many watercolour stamps around, where colour is added directly to the stamp  rather than adding colour to an outline image. Distress Inks can be used, watercolour pencils, background washes whatever your imagination dictates.

Please remember to keep it CLEAN & SIMPLE and don't forget that
WHITE SPACE

I have used a Jenny Mayes sketchy stamp, stamped with grey Versafine and watercoloured with DI's. I stamped a strip of card with the grey ink and left it without colour. The sentiment is an old SeeDee one and the topper was diecut with a spellbinders die.

I have another stamp ready to use so I may be back sooner than you think!!

I've had a very relaxing day swinging on the garden sofa reading my book:)

Q&L challenge

Well there you go no posts for ten days and then 2 in two days! This time it's my tag for the latest Craft Barn challenge and the two words they gave us are PROUD and VINTAGE. Again I am going with lyrics rather than quotes and I suppose the most obvious song was Proud sung by Heather Small at the 2012 Olympics.
We sing this a lot at Rock Choir but the first song that came into my  head was Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival which was a huge hit in my youth, January 1969 to be precise:) You can hear it here.
Once more I've used Craft Artist to create my tag as I find it's the easiest way to print my lyrics, come and see:

I couldn't find  a song with both words in but the paddle steamer on my tag is very vintage;)

The weather is set fine for the weekend so enjoy.

Less is More week 176-one layer

Evening all, gosh it seems ages since I posted a card but the days have just whooshed by, as Darnell would say :)
Last week I was busy practising for our show at the Highgate summer fair which was a great success. We were very well received, a large audience and lots of people coming up afterwards saying how much they had enjoyed our set :) We are busy practising again now for our big concert on July 5th at St Mary's uni in East London.
Tuesday I had a dental appointment as a crown had fallen out and I was a bit worried that my wisdom tooth was loose.Anyway to cut a long story short I am now minus two teeth!!! A complete medieval practice but it didn't hurt and have not been in pain since although I had to have a couple of days on baby food! Back to normal today.
This week's challenge over at Less is More is as follows:

Once more it's One Layer Card time and

 the title of our challenge is 

OFF THE EDGE

I used some old SU two step stamps but I don't know the name and the reeds from the Wetlands set. The sentiment and dragonfly are from a SeeDee set. The lighting wasn't good so I've shown two photos as the dragonfly with the glitter looks a totally different colour!

I've been busy playing with Craft Artist and making some scrapbook pages of Charlie using an out of the frame technique which is cool, come and see:

I also made a card for Dom to give Jim for Father's day and as he is into his shed and gardening I went with this:

I had a beach chalet stamp and used it to create the shed adding the side to give perspective and embossed it for texture. This is where the SU hardwood stamp would have come in useful :) The wall is a TH ef.

Sorry for the overlong post I should have told you to settle down with a cuppa or a glass of vino:)

Ooh and I nearly forgot, I was showcased this week at Less is More, so exciting!! 

See you all soon

A LIM card using NBUS!!

Hi everyone from a very hot and sunny London:) It's got very cloudy now and we are forecast some light rain this evening but the rest of the week looks fab! I hope it lasts for Saturday as we are singing at a summer fair in Highgate and I don't like getting wet!
Anyway back to my card which I am entering in two challenges this week, the first being Less is More, come and see:

For our Colour Challenge this time we have

The colours in your bedroom!

 That should give you the chance to work with colours you love!

 My bedroom is taupe and turquoise and I have used a NBUS stamp set from Artemio. I used an SU punch to create a partial aperture and then punched out the whole flower and added a WOW sentiment.

There is a new challenge on the block originating from Darnell of the fabulous djkardkreations and it is to make a card using at least one NBUS which is her acronym for "never before used schtuff ". The theme is Anything goes but with friendship in mind. Although my card doesn't have friend on it it is for a friend's birthday next month. Do pop over and check out the criteria and the wonderful cards that Darnell creates. There are prizes to be won as well:)

Q&L challenge

Hi there, wow what a beautiful day we've had, perfect temperature and a lovely breeze:) if only this would continue for the next 3 months!
I'm in plenty of time this fortnight for the Craft Barns's Q&L challenge where the words are MOUNTAIN and MISTAKE. Lots of choice for lyrics with mountain in them but I've gone for a song by Savage Garden that I hear a lot in the car, come and see:

I created the background in Craft Artist and cut out the mermaid, added some glitter to her tail and popped her up with pinflair. I inked the edges and used a swirly stamp to over stamp for more depth. I stapled the ribbon on for a change:)

If you aren't familiar with the song you can check it out here.

Hope you all have a good weekend with some sunshine!

Less is More week 174-Lucky dip

Evening all and I'm back with a card or rather two for this week's challenge over at Less is More:

As it is another 5 Saturday month we have another Lucky Dip Challenge.

Our Guest this month is 

Margaret K 

well known to so many of your for her fabulous cards.

Our challenge for this time's Lucky Dip is to use 

MORE THAN ONE STAMP

It seemed such a simple challenge but I hate too much choice:) Just think how many stamps we own and then to choose more than one but with no theme to inspire, OMG Chrissie don't do this to me!!!
Anyway having calmed down my first idea is my 2nd card but I'm not that happy with it as the idea in my head didn't seem to translate to the card so I had to resort to my favourite stamp set SU's Everything Eleanor. I was inspired by a card I saw on Rosie's blog ( amazing cards ) using this set and so this is my CASE of it, come and see:

Stamped with SU Soft Suede and Marina Mist and the label and flowers are popped up on foam pads. Sentiment is a WOW one.

The freebie stamp this month from Craft Stamper is from Chocolate Baroque and is Rennie Mackintosh inspired. I have a set of Ali Reeves templates and this one looked perfect for this style and I just sponged some Shabby Shutters DI into the panels and cut out 2 circles popped up to display the stamp coloured with Copics. My first attempt I used a black pen to outline through the template but the finish was too harsh and so I went back to the DI's.

Enjoy your week:)