Critters at the christmas card club

Afternoon all! How are you? Thanks for your lovely comments on yesterdays post - it was a great workshop and you'll be seeing that technique I used on that canvas again very soon - loved it!

Today there's a new theme over at Christmas card club - this fortnight the theme is Critters - my critter is a deer! Here's my make - unfortunately only 1 card this time around - I'm slipping!!!

The image is from Crafty Individuals and is stamped in sepia archival.

I'd like to enter this into allsortschallenge-feature-creature

Hope you're having a great day - we're hopefully in London! 

Speak to you soon!

Rachel x

Clarity Cumbria March

Evening Lovelies! Well its been a fabulous day! I've been to Clarity Cumbria hosted by the lovely Jo Rice - and this is what I've been doing - first off the main event which was a canvas - I adore this!

We used grunge paste, a stencil, black gesso, gilding wax and alcohol inks. Thanks for this technique Jo - really love it!

Next is a card:

This was a simple one using a stencil, adirondack inks and stencil brushes. Finally another card:

This is another one using the stencil brushes, stencil, torn paper, sharpie pen and fine pen plus fairy stamps from the wee folk 4 set.

I hope you have had a great day - I'll be round to visit shortly!!!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Cake tastic and an Easter Basket

Hello Lovelies! Well it has been a busy old day and one I started with a small hangover! Drama group finished early last night so we retired to the pub and I think I may have had one wine too many! Oops! Nevermind - I feel okay now!!! Probably did me good too!

At the end of the day I went into school to man the PTA cake sale - the children had been invited to enter an easter cake into a competition and all participants got a chocolate mini egg. The winners - one from the juniors and one from the infants will be announced tomorrow - the turn out was amazing - I have never seen such a spread of cakes! Here are Lucy and Penny's cakes:

This one is Lucy's.

and this is Penny's! They both did very well!

And so to coffeepot last time - we made Easter Baskets - here's mine - I filled it with cadburys hereos - and gave it to Barn Owl who was leaving brownies tonight!

I used the bird and flower stamp set from Clarity. The papers are from Tim Holtz wallflower set.

I hope you have a good Thursday Evening! I am struggling leaving comments just big hugs rachel xxnow - blogger is being a pest - I will try again but please forgive me if I don't get there - 

Animal Houses

Hello Lovelies! I hope you have had a good day - I've had fun - I was at school this morning helping out - they had a cow day for Christian Aid - and I was face painting - cows!!!!! It was fabulous! Really enjoyed it - it was good to feel useful too!!!

Tonight I have my row of animal houses to share with you that I have made for this months Crafty Individuals Challenge:

The pen holder was made from a tando creatives kit - I painted it all, stamped it with the Crafty Individuals Meadow set then stuck the whole thing together.

Next I chose my favourite Alice Palace stamps from Crafty Individuals - stamped them then fussy cut them and put them outside their little houses.

These are on the other side of the houses!!

I'd like to enter this into the craftyindividualsblog - crafty-individuals-march-challenge.

Have a great evening - will be around later to visit your blogs!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

p.s here's one of the cows faces  I painted on Lilly - this is after she had been at school all day!

Emotions Journalling

Hello Lovelies! This weeks prompt for journalling was emotions - I decided to explore negative and positive emotions and this is what I came up with - I wish I had used paints rather than pencils - another lesson learned! Hope you have had a good day! Hugs Rachel xx

Proud mum!

Hello lovelies! How was your sunday? I hope it was lots of fun! Its been stunning today here but very cold! I took my girls to their grading for Jujitsu today - they both passed - Lucy is now a brown and white belt and Penny is a purple belt - so proud of them!


They are so cheeky!

I made a card whilst they were grading using a new TH stencil and a paperartsy stamp - its for my niece who will be 9 in April.

I love this stamp - I seem to say that quite a lot don't I? Lol!!!!

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

countryviewchallenges: anything goes

Catch you soon - thanks for any comments! Big hugs Rachel xx

a touch of journalling, jumble, gardening and friends.

Evening lovelies! How are you? Its been a fine spring day here today and that has made what would have been mine and shauns 10th wedding anniversary pass quite well! I had a great evening with the girls yesterday - and then today we had a jumble sale at school for the PTA. We made around £250 so that was fabulous! Well done all! After a pub lunch me and the girls went home and my friend Julia arrived to help with the garden. I mowed the lawns and did some planters whilst Julia started some much need weeding - it was good working in the sunshine - beautiful. After tea the babysitter arrived and me and Julia went over to my friend sue's village where we watched an am dram performance of educating rita - it was fabulously well done - quite how they remembered all those lines is beyond me -  excellent!

So today is almost over - and before I turn in for the night I have some journalling to share with you -the first page came from the prompt 'collage' - I'm not very fond of it but feel I have to blog it.

There's a lot more writing on it that isn't very visible on the picture - can't say that I enjoyed doing this - and I think it shows - but I adore other peoples results - something to work on.

Secondly I like to share the trees I painted a couple of weeks ago at my art class.

A bit crude but I'm working on them - I might just add some grass and daffs in the foreground - watch this space!

Hope your Saturday has been good to you and that you have a good Sunday too - the girls are both grading tomorrow for jujitsu - must get to sleep now!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Timmy Time!

Good morning lovelies! Those of you with young children/grandchildren may well be singing a little tune just now. But its nbot that Tim I'm talking about - of course it is the gloriousness that is Tim Holtz - I saw the challenge for AVJ this month and just had to join in. I decided to decorate a worn cover for my 2014 tags. Here it is:

Thats a better photo than the next - but its not quite finished at this point!

This is the change piece - with the ring binder in and the round metal tag on the front. I've used many things Tim in the making of this: Two stamp sets - papers, distress stains and inks, layering stencil, lettering, chit chat stickers!

Here's a close up of the back:

And the front - before the change:

I would like to enter this into the challenge at vintagejourney happy-1st-birthday-avj

also craftstamper take-it-make-it-challenge-march

countryviewchallenges AG

I had a fun time last night at our village Institute - I went to see Mikado! It was very funny - great costumes and some fabulous singing! Well done to the cast! Marvellous job! I have some of the drama mums coming around tonight for wine and DVD! Looking forward to it!

Thanks for you comments and big hugs from me!

Rachel x

Imagination Crafts make

Hello Lovelies! How are you this evening? I'm good - it was a beautiful morning and I got out for a fabulous run - a hilly one but I really enjoyed it - a beautiful feeling when I had finished! Drama group came here this evening too and we had lots of fun! When everybody had left - myself and Lucy and Penny played with the prop box -

Don't we look gorgeous!!!!!

Today I've got a card for you that I made using Imagination crafts products:

Here's a closer look:

I've used a panel card, stencil and two colours of sparkle medium for the main part of the card plus distress inks and the same stencil to make the background.

I hope Thursday is good for you - I'll be off to see the Mikado in the village tomorrow night - really looking forward to it!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Coffee pot makes

Evening all! My ears are ringing with hundreds of happy voices - I've been to the Lancaster Music Festival in the Town Hall here in Lancaster - Lucy was singing in it along with her class mates and children from 9 other schools. It was a fabulous and happy event - really wonderful!

I hope you have had a good day and evening to - thanks for your kind comments on yesterdays card - you are very generous!

Tonight I want to share my makes from coffee pot yesterday - I did an exercise in stencilling and masking and using stencil brushes. Here's what I showed the ladies how to make:

I stamped the images and coloured them with spectrum noir pencils - then masked them off and applied the masks - then I used stencil brushes to apply either adirondack or distress inks over the top.

The ladies loved doing this - they all chose the toucan to do - but I enjoyed doing both - here's a close up of the butterfly one - this stamp is indigo blu and I'd like to enter it for the indigoblublogchallenge-25-spring-greens.

Big hugs to you! Have a happy Wednesday!

Rachel xx

Mums card

Hello Lovelies! How are you? I'm doing okay and feeling happy! Hope you are too and if not sending you hugs! I've been for a run today and also to coffee pot plus the dentist! Can't be bad! PTA meeting tonight too! Its going to be a busy week ahead too.

I wanted to share the card I made for my mum with you today. Its another one using the Chocolate Baroque stamp for february in their year of stamping. I chose the colour orange as its mums favourite:

I embossed the card in the background and coloured with distress stain - spiced marmalade.  The tulips were coloured with spectrum noir pencils - here's a close up:

I have used a sentiment on this so would like to enter this into the Spectrum Noir challenge this month (https://www.facebook.com/SpectrumNoir/app_600469859988196). Also I would like to enter it into the craftstamper take-it-make-it-challenge-march

Hope you have a good day tomorrow and thanks for any comments you choose to leave!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Happy Mothers Day!

Hello Lovelies and a very Happy Mothers day to you! I've had a lovely day and have been thoroughly spoiled .... cards, flowers, chocolates, my daughters and my mum and dad - what more could a girl want?  Its been fab - thanks all - and a big thanks to my lovely mum for some more fabulous flowers! My house looks like a florist shop just now - its beautiful!

Today I have my latest make for our lovely christmas card club - the theme is anything goes and was set by the lovely Sylvie. Here are the two cards I made for this one - using a die'sire create a card die.

I tried two different colourways - the first using distress ink, the second versa mark and gold embossing powder. Here's a close up:

this is a big change from my usual cards but I think it works! 

Big hugs to you and I hope you have had a wonderful day!

Rachel xx

Foxy Lady

Evening lovelies - how are you? I've had a relaxed day - one of my lovely friends gave the girls a bag of goodies each last night to give to me tomorrow - how thoughtful - it included some daffs so they have been taken out and put in a vase last night. Another very kind friend sent some flowers through the post today too - so I've been spoiled already! Here's my flowers!



I continue to be amazed by the kindness I have experienced since September - don't get me wrong I knew it was there before but it really is a beautiful discovery - I am very fortunate!

I have a swap card to share with you today - the theme was Foxy Lady - and this is my card - using clarity stencils and stamp.

I applied the back stencil then brushed on adirondacks in sailboat blue, butterscotch and raspberry.  Once done I added the lady stencil and used black dreamweaver paste. Finally I stamped the dream stamp then added to a card. I hope the lady I'm sending this to enjoys it!

Have a happy Mothers Day tomorrow - I'm off to a service at church with my girls then to my mums for Sunday lunch! I'll post my Christmas card club make once I get home!

Big hugs to you all and Happy Crafting!

Rachel xx

ATC swap

Hello Lovelies - how are you on this red nose day? I'm just back from bingo at school - we all had fun - one of the mums did the calling and she was brilliant - I think a good evening was had by all!

I took part in an ATC swap last month organised by Jo. The theme was hearts/love. These are the ATCs that I sent to Jo - I'm looking forward to getting mine back from the swap! Here's a close up:

so I used distress inks, jo's bubble stencil from clarity, clarity hare stamps and a chloe heart stamp. I do hope you like them - I did!

Have a great Friday night - I'll be around to visit your blogs shortly! 

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Coffee pot make

Hello Lovelies - how are you today? I hope you are fine and happy. Thanks for your lovely comments on my lavinia card - I love love love the stamp I used! So glad you did too!

Its been another good day - very relaxed today - I went to my body balance class today - my balance doesn't seem to be improving but areas of my flexibility are getting better so thats got to be good! This afternoon I went to acrylic painting - that was wonderful - I did trees this time - will finish it off and blog it some time soon - so much better than the crimewatch e fit I painted last week!!!

Today I want to share with you a wee box I made at coffee pot on Monday - Dawn ran coffee pot for the first time and she did these things with us that she had learned how to do on a cruise.

Dawns was very differently decorated but I had to do my own thing. She had spent ages cutting out the templates for us - well done Dawn.

I coloured the card using tattered rose and shabby shutters before pressing out the net - then I stamped the sheena stamps that Dawn had got free on a magazine. Finally I put the box together. I may put a little something in it for mum on Sunday - not telling you what yet!!!! Mum will be reading!

Have a great Friday whatever you're doing! 

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Add gems at Lavinia

Afternoon lovelies! How are you? I'm okay and trying to get a quick blog post in before I go and pick the girls up from school! Thanks for your kind comments on the journalling! Today I have a card to share with you - its been made with the Lavinia challenge in mind:

I stamped the seed heads in black archival, masked them then created the background using a joggles mask and distress inks (abandoned coral and mustard seed). I then removed the stencil and painted the heads with salty ocean distress ink. Finally I used a Tim sentiment at the bottom.

A closer look!

I'd like to enter this into the current lavinia-stamps-challenge-3-add-some-gems.

also panpasteluk challenge-5-stencil-it.

I'm off to the theatre tonight to see Bleak House - Looking forward to that!!! Big hugs to you!

Rachel xx

use a photograph journal page

Hello Lovelies! How have you been today? Good I hope! I've had a good one - although I've just come out of the attic and when I got up there there had been a disaster with a large pot of PVA - it must have fallen over when I was coming out of the loft on Sunday night and then my ladder landed on it when it was put back up - well I cleared up the mess as best I could but I think I now need a mat up there to hide what won't go away - I think my untidiness is begining to get to be a big issue!!!

Today I want to share my journal page with you from Thursday prompt which is 'photograph' - we had to use a photograph in our page. Here's my pages:

I've used distress paints to create the main background then inks with the blossom stencil. I've also used Tim lettering and some Dina Wakley stamps. I've also used the last piece of my homemade washi tape and some chit chat stickers!

Its very personal - I guess thats why I'm doing this journalling! 

Here's the pages I did whilst I was in the acrylic painting class last week - its my first attempt at a face - go easy on me - I know there's a lot to learn!!!

Looks like a crimewatch e fit - lol! Still - makes me chuckle!!!

Take care and be good - thanks for your comments! Rachel xx

Tims Tag March

Evening lovelies - I am watching Poldark as I write this so please excuse me if there's any gibberish! Its been a good Sunday - one spent at home with the girls - Penny baked a cake - a victoria sandwich - I'll post a picture soon - and we did a bit of gardening - got the onion sets put in and the leek seeds sown. I need to get hold of some broad bean seeds next and get them in pots to start off!

I also got time to do my Tim tag for this month. Love this one - and am very pleased with it. Here you will find timholtz 12-tags-of-2015-march but here's Tims version:

Absolutely gorgeous - I had most of the stuff so went ahead and made my version - its very similar to Tims original idea.

I used the same techniques outlined by Tim but had a bit of a happy accident with my mustard seed distress paint - oh my word it got everywhere - I have quite a few mop up papers. I also used abandoned coral, cracked pistachio and mowed lawn. 

I would like to enter this into timholtz 12-tags-of-2015-march. 

I promised you a look at Penny's cake - here it is:

She's so pleased with it - and so are we! Yum!!

Big hugs!

Rachel xx

Stencil box for Clarity Challenge

Evening All! I hope you've had a good Saturday - we have had a different but lovely day - its all been about visiting today! I took the girls around to a friends this morning and left them there whilst I went to meet the drama mummies for a brew at our lovely Institute. Then we picked all the kiddies up and went back to one of the drama mummies houses for bacon/sausage buns - the kids had a lovely time - and so did we mummies! We have even arranged a mummies wine evening around here so that will be nice! Evenings are definitely the most difficult time!!! We rounded it all off with a trip to my mums - wonderful!!!

So today I have got an ali Reeve flat pack stencil storage unit that I have built and altered with Clarity goodies.

Here's a side view:

I've used Jo's bubble stencil and a clarity butterfly.

I would like to enter this for claritystampchallenge 25 - ABAC

Hope you're having a good weekend!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

spring journal page

Hello lovelies! How are you? I'm okay - had a good day doing a body balance class followed after lunch by an acrylic painting class. I enjoyed that - I'll show you what I did when its finished - not happy with it yet - will I ever be? Good question!

Anyway - here's a journal page I did for the spring prompt from this weeks ArtJournal 15 - I've used a large Clarity stencil, distress inks and clarity brushes and a small ali reeve stencil with cosmic shimmer paste and a tim holtz stamp.

I've coloured part of the foreground with spectrum noir markers once the paste was dry.

Here's a closer look:

The letters are tim tiles - love these! 

I'd like to enter this into theartisticstampercreativeteam/marchs-creative-challenge-spring-is.html

I hope you've enjoyed your visit!

Big Hugs!

Rachel x

spring green at Indigo blu

Hello lovelies! How are you today? Thankyou for your kind comments on the coffee pot makes - I do love that stamp! The card today I'm going to show you includes a new stamp from Indigo Blu - I love her to bits - she is going to get a lot of use. Such a cool teenage girl image - love it!

I stamped the image then masked it off and created the background using distress inks (bundled sage and mowed lawn) and a mask from joggles then more of the new stamps from Indigo blu. Here's a close up of the main stamp:

I've coloured her using spectrum noir pencils. 

I'd like to enter this into the indigoblublogchallenge -25-spring-greens.

Big hugs!

Rachel xx