Makes from Clarity Cumbria day

Hello Lovelies! How are you today? I hope you are well and happy and if not sending you hugs xx We're good - the girls are very excited as its sports afternoon this afternoon. I will enjoy watching that - then doing the teas and icecreams.

So I want to share with you today what i did at Clarity Cumbria on Saturday with the lovely Jo Rice - it was a wonderful day - we did 4 full cards plus tried a further technique. Here's all of them together then I'll take you though them one by one:

We got the hummingbird stamp as part of our workshop fee - which was a mere £25. Really good value!

Here's the first card:

We used the Gingko stencil to make this - I treated myself to some Clarity stencil brushes when I was there and they made this background incredibly quick and simple. Make number two involved the shaving foam technique.

I then used charcoal to shade the birds and stamped the flowers and coloured them then added. Whilst we had the shaving foam out we also applied it through a stencil - I bought this stencil whilst I was there and enjoyed smearing the inky shaving foam onto the stencil. This is the effect - I'm hoping to try filling the white bits in with distress inks to finish this off ... watch this space.

Such a cool technique - looking forward to playing with this idea.  The next piece was a tag - this is my favourite.

I used a variety of stencils to do the background then added the fussy cut birds and other items. Here's a close up:

and finally - the last make of the day!

simple stamping and embossing then painting with perfect pearls.

I really had a fabulous time and will be going back as soon as I can! Thanks to Jo for such a fab day and to Jo's sister for great cake and a fab shop service!!! 

Have a great Monday!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Angels at the Christmas Card Club

Hello Lovelies! How are you today? Good I hope! Well I had a fabulous day at Clarity Cumbria yesterday but more of that tomorrow when I'll show you what we made - it really was a fabulous day though and I highly recommend it to anyone!

Its a very special Lady from the Christmas Card Clubs Birthday today - so Happy Birthday to you Karen - I really hope you have a wonderful day and get thoroughly spoiled! Talking of the Christmas card Club - its time for another make and this time our theme is Angels - well I had many ideas for this one mostly involving LOTV stamps of which I have three suitable contenders - however, at the last minute my hand wandered into my crafty individuals draw and pulled out the stamps on this card:

Such a beautiful image - i do love this one and that Christmas background is making another appearance. Here's a closer view of the angel.

I think I need to use versafine next time I stamp it. 

When I was in the crafty individuals draw in my attic I also came across a pad of paper so I made a second 'cheats' card - this is also along the theme of angels - just a bit of glue and it was good to go! Lol!

Its a great page - and I think makes a great card - no sentiment required!

I'd like to enter the first card into the following challenges:

SSSwedsimonsaysstampblog - AG

Fab n funkyfabnfunkychallenges - Christmas

CHNC extra craftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge2- AG

CHNCcraftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge - sentimental

Hope you have a great Sunday - we have the staging rehersal for the girls dancing show next weekend. Thats after my run this morning - it should be an 8 miler - not sure how thats going to go down but I'll try my best!!!

Big hugs to you and thanks for visiting!

Rachel x

In the garden at WOW challenge

Good morning lovelies - well today I have a lovely treat - I'm off to Clarity Cumbria for a days workshop with Jo Rice. I'm hoping to post my makes on Monday - I say hoping - as long as time allows.

My lovely Lucy came home yesterday afternoon - full of tales of games and good food, fun and friendship. Sounds great! A big thanks to all concerned for organising such a fun few days.

Onto today - I have a little sign I've made to share with you - but first here's something from my garden - my first ever dahlias - cut and sitting in a vase in my kitchen - I'm well chuffed with them! There's a few of Penny's giant sweet peas in here too!



Okay - time to see my make for today - to make it I used a sign from thatcraftplace and painted it with silkies from Imagination Crafts. I then used an Imagination Crafts stencil and more silkies to add the daisies. Whilst this was drying I made the heart - to make this I heated some UTEE in a meltpot and added some rudolph red wow powders - I was quite surprised to find it going pinky white - anyway - then I added some tropic red cosmic shimmer powder which made it a deeper pink. Once melted I poured this into a WOW powders mould - its a gorgeous mould and you will be seeing much more of it. Then I left it to set - just a few minutes - and added it to my sign. Finally I added the lettering.

I'd like to enter this into the Gardens challenge over at wowembossingpowder this month.

Hope you have a great Saturday and looking forward to catching up with your makes when I get home!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

CC3 challenge: Distress watercolour

Good morning lovelies! How are you today? I'm good and will be even better tonight when my big girl comes back from her school residential. She's been away at Ambleside since Wednesday and I'm so looking forward to giving her a big cuddle and finding out what she's been up to. I bet they've all had a fantastic time. I do hope the midges weren't too bad though!

Today I have my make for the latest CC3 challenge hosted by linda ledbetter. The theme this fortnight is Distress Watercolour which you’ll find on page 39 of A Compendium of Curiosities, Vol. #3. As with every challenge, the team will be selecting a “Curiosity Crew’s Choice” winner who will receive a fantastic collection of Tim’s products, courtesy of Tim himself and Mario! To be eligible to win this prize package, you must visit each of the team members’ blogs and leave a comment there. 

All our odd-numbered challenges are sponsored by the wonderful online shop, INSPIRATION EMPORIUM! Joy and the IE gang will award an incredibly generous FIFTY DOLLAR gift certificate to one lucky, randomly selected participant.

Anyway - here's what I did - would you believe its a Christmas Card!

The background has been made using aged mahogony and weathered wood distress stains and pumice stone distress ink. The sentiment was made using the embossing folder from TH.

The topper is where I used the distress watercolour technique. I used aged mahogony and weathered wood distress for this using the techniques from the book. 

I would like to enter my make into the compendium-of-curiosities-3-challenge-5. 

Hope you have a great day! I'm off to the gym today - I think I'll do my gym routine then a class called metabolic effect. I'll see if I like it! Then its gardening club followed by cleaning!!! Lol!! Sounds like a good day to me!

Hope you have a good day and thanks for visiting!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

add gems or beads at Lavinia

Morning lovelies! Its so nice to have blogger back to normal isn't it! Well hopefully you've got it back to normal - no excuses now for me for not visiting though lol!!!!

Today I have a quick card to share with you that I've made for the Lavinia challenge. I had one of their 6x6 cards that came in a pack of stamps and it came in useful this week as I seem to have very little time - also I'm currently in the throngs of TV sample making so thats taking up most of the available crafting time. Anyway, having this card meant I was able to produce a card very quickly to the theme of the current Lavinia challenge. Here's my card:

I used several stamps - all Lavinia and simply overstamped onto the card.

Then I added some pearls and gems...

And mounted it onto a card - about 5 mins this one took! And I think its lovely!!

I'd like to enter this into the laviniastamps challenge-6-add-some-beads-or-gems. 

Before I go I'd just like to thank you all for your lovely comments and wishes for my mums birthday. She had a lovely day and liked all of her goodies! Here she is at the pub we went to for lunch .

she looks a bit surprised - perhaps it was when the bill arrived - lol !

Big hugs and thanks for visiting. Hope to see you again soon.

Rachel xx

Clean and Simple at Creative Inspirations

Morning All! Well blogger is still misbehaving! I'm wondering if this is the end of the road for the dashboard - I seem to think it was this time last year that the blog lovin thing came about - and we all joined but then nothing happened to the feed - what do you think? Hopefully we're back to normal now and you're wondering what I'm going on about!!! Anyway apologies if I haven't been to see you - its just so tricky! I don't know who has been publishing and who hasn't!

Onto today - its a Clean and simple week at Creative Inspirations - and I've used a stamp set from Creative Expressions:

Very quick and simple this one - I needed to get this made quickly - but I think it works. What do you think?

This week the prize is being provided by our Natalie! 

One lucky winner will receive this gorgeous selection of Joanna Sheen Dies!

So if you fancy winning these, join us at Creative Inspirations this week.

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Happy Birthday Mum!

Good Morning to you all! And especially to my lovely mum who is 21 again today!!!! She's obviously a miracle worker as I'm 46 lol!!!! Anyway - the makes I'm going to show you today are both for my mum - one is the card I made for my dad to give to her - the second is a canvas I made for her based pretty much on the one I did with Hels in a workshop back in February. So first the card.

My mums fave colour is orange and fave flower is the poppy - hence the chocolate baroque image and the colour. The image has been coloured with promarkers and the background created using distress inks and more stamps from chocolate baroque and inkylicious. I bought the ribbon from thatcraftplace.

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:

Allsortsallsortschallenge: How does your garden grow

OCCourcreativecorner: Flaming June

Pan pastelpanpasteluk: Flora and fauna.

Next is the canvas - see the original here with details on how to make it.

I hope you like the canvas mum - I wanted to do an orange flower but things didn't quite work out like that - thanks to Mo and Anne for letting me have a die cut to make the flower in the first place! 

I'd like to enter my canvas into anythingbutacardABAC - summer lovin'.

If I haven't visited in the last day I send my apologies - blogger is bing very naughty and only putting up one post on my dashboard - I don't know why - and when i click view more nothing happens. Not sure what has gone wrong but hopefully it will sort itself out!!!

Big hugs to you and thanks for visiting today!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Tims tags June

Hello Lovelies! How are you today? I hope you had a fabulous weekend! We had lots of fun yesterday too - the girls had their dress rehearsal for the dancing show they're in on the 5th July. Oh they did look gorgeous!!!! I'll post some photos when its showday!!!

Today I have my entry to Tims tags June to share with you. I love the technique he used this month and for once am pleased with my tag - although its fairly similar (broadly) to Tims.

Here's Tims tag with a link to his method:



Here's my tag:

I followed Tims method but I used two masks - the bubble one and the sunburst one. 

Here's a closer look ....

and here's my attempt at the ribbon - I didn't have the right sort so just had to use some white stuff that was lying around - I used stains to colour it.

I'd like to enter this into timholtz 12-tags-of-2014-june.

Thanks for dropping by today and i hope to see you again soon!!! 

Big hugs 

Rachel xx

Blog Hop for That Craft Place

Morning all! How are you? I hope you are well and happy! Thanks for all your comments yesterday - I think I've caught up now - but apologies if I managed to miss you - it wasn't intentional. The school fair went well - it was really lovely - and we made £460 to boot - so thats brilliant!

I'm taking part in a blog hop today so why not come and join us on our blog hop for 

http://thatcraftplaceblog.blogspot.co.uk/ - That Craft Place. Here's the blurb.....

We are having a wonderful Blog hop to show case our amazing Design Team. The 

theme is Anything goes and  don't forget to enter into our challenge with the same theme too.

Here are the links to Shop and Groups related to That Craft Place. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/271008489659989/ TCP facebook Shop 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/184329015068367/ Natter page 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/756886094323719/ Ditzie Digi Design's inspiration 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DitzieDigiDesign Our Etsy store 

We give away freebies in the Ditzie Digi Design group once a month so please hop over and say Hi 

Here's the main prizes for the bloghop but many of the participants are also holding a small candy for their piece from the blog hop - including me! 

 1st £10 spend in That Craft Place

 2nd £10 DDD esty store 

 3rd £5 That Craft Place 

 4th £5 DDD etsy store 

Now to win the main prizes you need to make sure your a member of each group. 

Now the amazing Design Team have some inspiration on there blogs and ( some of the DT ladies are giving away there creations to one lucky blogger ) so make sure you hop by and give them some love 

Love & Hugs 

from all of us at 

That Craft Place

Here's my piece - its using the image from DitzieDigiDesign called Mr Steam. Its an 8x8 canvas. You can win this and a selection of docrafts steampunk stuff - sorry I haven't had time to take a picture!!

I coloured the image using spectrum noir pens and fussy cut him. Then I got on with the canvas - I had all sorts of items from That craft place and used many of them to create the textured background in this piece. Once dry I did some layering using stencils and texture paste and after that was dry i set to with acrylic paints and mica sprays.

In this closer shot you can get a better view of the image and also the dutch doobadoo stencil that i bought from That Craft Place. 

So on the hop you should have come here from erin and your next stop is suzi.

I hope you find the time to join in with the hop! I will draw the winner of my piece and extra candy from the comments left on this post! 

I would like to enter this piece into the following challenges:

TPSthepapershelter: ABAC

Rhedd and Rosiesrheddandrosies: AG

SSSMonsimonsaysstampblog - AG

CVCcountryviewchallenges: Only men allowed

Thanks for visiting me today and I hope to see you again soon!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Faux bleaching technique tag

Morning all! this is a scheduled post - I have my school summer fair today. Hopefully it will be a big success - we've worked hard and are all looking forward to the day! I let you know how it goes soon!

I have a second entry to the craft stamper challenge to share with you today - its a tag I made using a round piece of cut and dry foam this time to act as the faux bleach tool.

The stamps are from Sheena Douglass. I started with the background and used blue and green distress inks to create it - then used water on my cut and dry foam and blobbed the water on the tag and blotted with kitchen towel. I then stamped the seaweed images.

I stamped the seahorses and painted with distress inks. The seastar was coloured with spectrum noirs.

I'd like to enter my tag into the following challenges:

Craft stamper craftstamper- take it make it challenge June

Crafters CompanionCraftersCompanion: Tags, bags and boxes.

Thanks for dropping by today - I'll catch up as soon as I can!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Tag it at Crafty Individuals

Morning all! Phew - well I'm glad thats mad Thursday out of the way for another week although it was even madder than usual yesterday as I had to go to a guiding meeting last night - I don't know when I'm supposed to craft - lol xx

The theme at Crafty Individuals this month is tag it  - now those of you who visit regularly will know how much I adore Crafty Individuals stamps and I was fortunate enough to win on their April challenge - so my entry for the june challenge involves the stamp I chose as my prize. Here's what I did:

I made the tag first - its a size 8 manilla tag that I have coloured with distress inks (mustard seed and tea dye mainly) then put it through an embossing folder (Darice) and rubbed staz on Over the top to bring out the pattern.

Next I did the main stamping - the chickens - I stamped with momento after first adding antique linen distress ink to the card I was stamping on. Then I used spectrum noir pens to colour the birds and the eggs.

Finally I created the bagground using scattered straw and antique linen distress inks and spritz and flick technique. Then I used elements of the build a meadow set to randomly stamp in archival sepia ink.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Individualscraftyindividualsblog: Tag it

Fashionable Stamping Challenges:fashionablestampingchallenges Birds and bees

Thanks for dropping by today and I hope to see you again soon!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Bright colours and a sketch at Little Claire plus a cloud tutorial

Good morning lovelies! I hope you've been enjoying the weather - its been roasting here - I went for my run at 9 yesterday morning - oh my - it was a very hot and sticky 6 miles even at that time. I've got 4 miles to do today - at 4.45pm - and I'm hoping things aren't quite so warm!!! The things we do for fitness and charity eh?

I've made a card for the latest challenge at Little Claire - they have two prizes this month - a beautiful bunch of goodies or a GDT spot. I'm crossing everything in the hope of a GDT spot - the stamps are lovely and I would really love to work with them ..... and alongside the lovely diane again! Anyway - here's my make - using the changing tree and education stamp sets - I made a card for my Rainbow helper Alice who has been sitting her A levels this summer.

I made a bright distress ink background using mustard seed, ripe persimmon and spiced marmalade. 

I stamped the tree image and many other of the smaller images to complete the tree. The owl had to be in there - Alice's mum is Brown Owl for the brownies. The images were coloured using spectrum noir pens. I also added some dots of pen to fill the tree out a little.

I added some flowers from Sweet Lilac.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges

Little Clairelittleclairesdesigns - Sketch plus bright

Now I have a little cloud tutorial for you - its not brilliant but I've tried to get across to you what i do.

Step 1 - you need - a clarity cloud stencil, card, stencil brush and blue ink/pastel. I've showed this using faded jeans but you can use most blues - I often use a lighter one but this one shows up better for the camera. The card is up to you - I use the reverse of centura pearl for most things.

 Step 2: I lay the stencil over the card and then lightly brush the brush into the ink or pastel. Next I run this lightly over the stencil. Next I start to move the stencil down the page repeating the steps. I try not to have the stencil in the same position but shift it along so that different shapes build up as you can see in the next picture.

Finally remove the stencil to reveal the whole effect.

There's nothing magical or difficult about this technique - its just a case of having the stencil, some ink or pastel and a brush. It takes a matter of minutes to do. I do tend to put the sky in last on scenes - and mask off the foreground - I may add things to the sky afterwards but the main sky is done usually for me towards the end of a scene make. 

I hope that is useful!

Big Hugs and thanks for dropping by! Rachel xx

Tie it up at Creative Inspirations

Hello lovelies! How are you today? Are you enjoying the good weather? Its been fabulous here - a bit hot for running which is whats on the agenda for this morning - but I'm not complaining lol!!!!

I have my DT card to share with you today for Creative Inspirations. The new challenge which starts today is called 'tie it up'. Here's what I did:

The image is by the paper shelter who is the sponsor this week. I've coloured her using promarkers and then cut with a spellbinders die. The papers are from LOTV. The flower was made using my cornflower die from tonic. Here's some more details of the challenge and the sponsor.

This week's challenge is Tie It Up!

All you have to do is include a bow on your creations!

This week's prize is from THE PAPER SHELTER and is a $20 GIFT CERTIFICATE!

"If you are looking for fun, cute and lovely digi stamps for your paper-crafting or web design projects, The Paper Shelter is your one-stop boutique! This growing catalog of high-quality digi stamps with many different kind of options offers a multitude of themes such as everyday items, holidays, special occasions, children, adorable characters and creatures. Stamps are available in standard black and white line art, as well as in pre-coloured format. Images are wonderful for colouring and make perfect additions to greeting cards and scrapbook albums. In "The Paper Shelter" you'll also find great other resources for all crafts (or digital) projects, like Paper Packs, Printables, Accessory sheet, etc."

Check out what lush makes the others have created and enter the challenge here. 

I hope you have a good Wednesday - I've got my rainbows again tonight - I'm going to be mostly indoors tonight as I don't want a repeat of last week - far too scary! Although maybe I'll be brave and try to repeat the activity with safeguards in place.... that would be the best thing to do I think but I'm not sure that I'm ready for that yet!

Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you again soon!

Rachel xx  

faux block bleaching technique for craft stamper magazine

Morning all! I hope you are well and happy! I've got more red and butterflies to share with you today - I seem to be in that sort of a mood. This is a card I made with the craft stamper take it make it challenge in mind - and also the wings and things challenge at AVJ. Here's what I did:

I started by laying down the colours of distress ink - festive berries, spiced marmalade, mustard seed and ripe persimmon - then I attacked the ink with a cut and dry foam pad loaded with water and mopped off the colour as I went along. I love this technique and hope to try it again very soon - its fab.

Next I did some stamping using stamps from the dylusions on the edge range  and also Tim Holtz stamps - from the Mariposa set and also a sentiments set.

I fussycut the Mariposa image and added it to the card.

I would like to enter the following challenges with this card.

A vintage Journeyvintagejourney: Wings and things

Craft Stamper:craftstamper Take it make it challenge June: Faux bleach blocking

My mums craft shopmymumscraftshop: ink it up

Pan pastel ukpanpasteluk: Flora and fauna

Hope you all have a great Tuesday - I'm off for a swim this morning then will be heading to see my mum and dad.

Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you again soon! 

Hugs

rachel xx

Red at the artistic stamper

Hello Lovelies - well thanks for all of your well wishes for the moonlight walk - I managed the 25km in 4 hours and 9 minutes - and ached all of Sunday!!!! Raised a little money for the St Johns Hospice - this is the same charity I will be running the Great North run for in September. Here's me and my friend Emma at the start of the walk:



We weren't smiling quite the same 4 hours later but we finished it in good spirits! I definitely paid for it on Sunday though ..... I hope todays run goes okay lol!!! I think maybe at this point you will be thinking I'm a bit of a nut case - but believe me I'm not as crazy as Emma - would you believe she cycled 75 miles on Saturday before doing the walk in the evening? And then she was having to leave the house at 10am on Sunday - as she was teaching the sunday school lesson. Now thats pushing it!!!

I want to share my card for the artistic stamper challenge this month - the theme is all about the colour red and I've used some artisic stamper stamps to make this card:

I used distress stains and inks and the flick and spritz technique to create the background. I also used the garden greens die fromTH so this card has a strong TH influence. The background stamps are from a plate called insects and butterflies from Artistic stamper. 

The words are also from the Artistic stamper - I found some great stamps at the last show I went to. The flowers I made using the tonic cornflower die. I did have another picture but blogger keeps crashing so I'll leave it here for now!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Artistic stampertheartisticstampercreativeteam: colour it red

AVJvintagejourney: Wings and things

my mums craft shopmymumscraftshop: ink it up

I hope you have a good Monday and I thankyou for visiting me today. Look forward to seeing you again soon!

Hugs

Rachel xx