Clarity calendar challenge

Hello Lovelies! Have you seen the claritystampcalendarchallenge this month? Its quite a fun exercise involving trying to replicate a piece of clarity artwork.This month includes using the shaving foam technique to make a background and then adding to it.

This is my attempt at the challenge - I really enjoyed trying this - the foam technique is always fun and I never knew you could draw on top of it in this way - don't know why - but its quite exciting!

The stamp is such a fun one!

Here's a close up!

I would like to enter this into claritystampcalendarchallenge.

Thanks for this one Barb - it has been a revelation!

Hope you have a good Friday - I'm off to the hairdressers - going to have that appointment that I tried to have a fortnight ago. I may have a fringe cut in- we'll see!!!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Love at the Clarity Challenge

Hello Lovelies .. how are you this morning? I'm definitely getting there but still seem to have headaches and feel tired so I'm going to have another lazy day today I think!

Today I have a quick entry for the clarity challenge to share with you - its not perfect but I quite like it - all down to the fabulous stencil I might add!

It was very simple to make - I fixed the stencil in place and used clarity brushes to brush over some adirondack ink colours - raspberry, sailboat blue and meadow. Then I went around the stencil in a fine black zig pen and added the sharpie line around the edge.  Finally I added the clarity quote from William Blake.

That pretty much sums up love to me.

I would like to enter this into claritystampchallenge 36.

I hope you like it!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Paris skyline

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are okay.I'm starting to feel more human again - thank goodness. I'm going to take it easy for a few days yet - just to make sure I'm over it!!! I'm not used to being poorly! Its been a bit of a shock!!!

Today I have a card to share with you I made using a sheena stencil:

I used distress inks - picked raspberry, evergreen bough and old paper to create the background then added the stencil and applied blacksoot distress ink through it.

The central stamp is one from Tim Holtz.

I am going to have to get a wriggle on if I'm going to enter any challenges this month! It used to be a very important thing for me but these days I seem to get around to entering very few - must try harder!!

Have a good Wednesday!

Hugs

Rachel x

Bad Blogger

Morning all! How are you? Thanks for keeping with me despite my being such a bad blogger - I'm struggling for a voice at present and feel totally tired out so I have been taking it easy. I hope you don't mind. I will try and do some visits later if I feel any better.

Thanks for your kind comments on the cards yesterday - today I have a page from my wanderlust journal that I completed whilst in York - the theme was writing - and I was also dabbling with shapes from our visits. Here is my page:

I painted up the pages before we left then just added all the pen work whilst away.

The symbols were from events that happened whilst away - we watched this kids film called Zathura and that shape came from the game track shape from the film. The wheel came from a visit to the National Railway Museum.

More shapes - from our visit to DIG and the National Railway Museum. 

It was a good trip despite getting ill.

Thanks for all your well wishes for Penny and her party too - she had a lovely time - here's a peak at the cake my friend Danielle made for her!

She had a great time and thanks again for all the birthday wishes for her!

Big huggles.

Rachel x

Icicles at Christmas Card Club

Hello there! I am hoping normal service will be resumed from now - its been a funny few days in the Fisher household - what with me being significantly under the weather and then it being Penny's birthday and birthday party! Things have been a trifle hectic.

Today I want to share with you my make from the christmas card club this week - the theme was icicles.

I did struggle with this theme - but found this die so used that along with a paperartsy stamp!

Not very inspired I'm afraid but as I mentioned I have been under the weather!

Hope you have a good day!

Hugs rachel x

Red at Indigo Blu

Good morning Lovelies! I hope you are well and happy!

Today it is time for the start of a new challenge over at indigoblublogchallenge.  The theme of our hop and new challenge is the colour Red!

I have used some of the new stamps, from the recent release - and also cottage paints and an indigo blu stencil. Details and links are below but here is a look at my card first.

Items used:

word-blocks-1-a5-red-rubber-stamp-by-mike-deakin

lost-in-benidorm-a6-red-rubber-stamp

stencils-c51/stencil-texture-6-x-6

english-cottage-artists-acrylic-paint-postbox-red

english-cottage-artists-acrylic-paint-metallic-gold

tasty-textures-a5-red-rubber-stamp-by-kay-halliwell-sutton

I started by creating the background - I used texture paste through the stencil and once dry painted over with the red paint - then using my fingers I added some gold and also some watered down gold drips.

I also added some text script from the tasty textures stamps to the background in red archival - then I stamped the main two images and cut them and coloured them.

Here's a close up of some of that texture paste!

I would like to enter this into the craftstamper take-it-make-it-challenge-february.text me

I hope you can join us at Indigo blu for the blog hop and the challenge!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Penny's birthday.

Hello all! How are you today? Just popping in to let you know its my penny's 8th birthday today and this is the card I have made for her.

She's under the sea mad at the moment so I thought I would ink up some chocolate baroque stamps - hope she likes it.

The bubbles are by ryn and the words are from a clarity alphabet.

Big hugs

Rachel x

still life - wanderlust week 4

Hello Lovelies - this is a scheduled post as I should be away today at York with my little chippers - we've come to see whats happening with the Viking festival - looking forward to it!

I wanted to post this piece whilst I was away - it was in response to week 4 in the wanderlust classes - it was all about still life - this is the picture I composed and worked from to a degree.

I say to a degree because many things changed!

Here's my final canvas ...

And a closer look ...

closer still - I think I captured the main elements and am pretty pleased overall with the way it turned out - I haven't done anything like this ever really - interesting stuff!!!

Big hugs

Rachel x

beeswax!

Hello lovelies! How are you today? I hope you are good! This is my last post for a few days - its half term and i will be too busy with the girls to get on blogger - don't worry though - I will be back!!!

Today we are off to visit my mum and dad and hope to have a lovely time! I am still in the girls good books as I managed to make it to their recorder event at school - my hairdressers appointment was cancelled - so I managed to get along to it - and then I got a few bits together for Penny's party bags - its her birthday next weekend and her party a week today!!! So glad to have got that organised!

I have been having fun playing with beeswax for todays make - to my shame I have had it a very long time and never used it - but the challenge over at paperartsy made me get organised and so I have made a tag.

I had to use my bee stamp set again - and I stamped and coloured and fussy cut them - I added the stamps to a mop up tag that I had lying around. 

Next I used the meltpot to melt my wax and used a special hair paintbrush to apply the wax - this allowed the bees to stick onto the tag - makes it smell good too!

I think its an interesting effect! I am sure I should be able to make it better if i use it again! Its a bit on the thick side but it was fun to experiment.

I would like to enter this into paperartsy-topic-3-wax-challenge and also 

creativecarteblanche - try something new

welove2create challenge-4-anything-creative-mixed

Hope you have a great time - enjoy whatever you do on this Valentines day - I got the girls a choccy heart lolly each - I think they'll like that! 

Big hugs

Rachel x

ATC swaps

Hello lovelies - this months ATC swap was all about bookprint - I had fun putting these together:

I have to confess the book I used was a pretty horrid one - so apologies to you if you got any disturbing words on your heart - I tried to cover some of the bad ones up with the arrow - but I don't think I was entirely successful!! I remember doing a coffee pot with book print once - on that occasion I inadvertantly chose some racy pages - you should have seen the ladies faces - ooop!!!

Don't look too closely now!!! The background was made with distress inks and stencils!!!

Hope you have a good Friday - I'm off to the hairdressers - I feel a bit bad as I will be missing my girls performing recorder at school - I hope they will forgive me!!

Big hugs

Rachel x

sunburst meets Chocolate baroque

Hello lovelies! How are you? I'm late today and need to get a move on as I have a PTA meeting to go to - just writing this after having been to the Lancaster Museum on a school trip all about Vikings - very interesting stuff! Anyway - today I have a card to share with you made using the new embossing folder from crafters Companion and some older chocolate baroque stamps.

I made the background using distress inks - mustard seed, ripe persimmon and festive berries with a little picked raspberry - I smoosed them all over card using an applicator then used the sunburst embossing folder. Next I swiped over with a black archival pad.

The focal stamps are from Chocolate Baroque - two older sets - love these ladies! I have coloured them again with distress and fussy cut before mounting on the card. The background so made me think of art deco - thats why I used the inage.

Better get off to that meeting!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Tims tag February

Hello Lovelies! How are you this morning? I hope you are well and happy! I will be going to see my mum and dad this morning - looking forward to seeing them - things are okay with them at the moment - my dad is doing well!

Today I have my Tims tag to share with you - tim's tag February combines two wonderful techniques - monoprint and embossed textured paste. I'm so glad he's doing this as its great to be reminded of techniques done but sadly misplaced in the old grey matter! Here's tims beauty:



Not really feeling the Valentines theme this year so i went for one of adventure and a handsome sailor!!! Lol - you can't blame a girl can you?

I had lots of fun with this tag and enjoyed making the monoprint which you can vaguely see in the background - I used the bubble layering stencil for this.

The words were done with the embossing technique - I have to confess to being a bit quick on the uptake so landed up with embossing powder around my words as well as on them - nevermind - i don't think the sailor does!

A closer look and you can see I've also used some tape and some rubs.

I must say i do like this one - probably more so than the original which is a rare thing - Its all a matter of colours I think really - love the blues I used - salty ocean, peacock feathers, blueprint sketch.

I would like to enter this into timholtz 12-tags-of-2016-february

Big hugs to you and have a great day!

Rachel x

coffee pot playtime

Good morning lovelies! How are you today??? I hope you are well. I have my makes from coffee pot to share with you today - I took along two new sets of stamps from Tim Holtz and a set of background stencils from Clarity. We all had fun stamping and masking and stencilling. Here are my display cards:

These were to give the ladies a taste ...

Then I demoed making this one ...

and finally made this whilst the ladies were all busy playing.

I do love these crazy cats - they're fabulous!

I'd like to enter these cards into sirstampalotchallenge february-anything-goes.

Have a great day!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Winners of my candy

Good morning all! I hope you are all well! Just popping on here today to announce the winners of my blog candy - If you could email me to let me know your email addresses I will get the vouchers sent out to you. You have until midnight on Friday to claim your prize and I'll get the vouchers emailed out as soon as possible thereafter!

So here we go! Drum roll please:

First out was Helen (crafty Mama Mia)

next it was Samantha (of Craft room delights)

and finally craftyshe (at she crafts)

I look forward to hearing from you all and thanks to everybody for your kind words - I really do appreciate it!

Hugs Rachel x

christmas card club - texture

Hello Lovelies - how are you this fine morning? Just a quick reminder that my candy will end tonight - I will post winners tomorrow morning.

Its my turn at Christmas card Club this fortnight and I chose the theme of texture. I had a lovely time making a large masterboard including paint and ink and silver paste with a stencil and then I cut four backgrounds from it and made 4 cards including the lovely Tim Holtz snowflake that is embossed.

Here's the four cards i made.

Ans a closer view - I mostly fresco paints from paperartsy to create the background and also did some stamping with them - the stamp is a TH one. The stencil paste is silver and is from Wendy Vecchi and I used a TH layering stencil.

A final look to show the variety of texture that I added to my cards.

I hope you have a great Sunday - we are off to visit my mum and dad and then later the girls are going to a party!

Big hugs to you!

Rachel x

4th Blogaversary!

Hello there my friends! As a big thankyou for all your visits and kind comments over the year I would like to offer 3 people a candy!

To be in with a chance of winning one of three vouchers to spend in the wonderful Countryview Crafts you should:
a. be or become a follower.
b. Add the details of my candy to your sidebar if you have a blog - if you don't have one don't worry!
c. Leave me a comment below.

I will choose my winners randomly but two of them will be from regular commenters - you know who you are! The candy will close on 7th February.

I look forward to your comments!

Hugs

Rachel x

Countryview Crafts - More background inspiration.

Good morning all! I hope you are well today! Today its my turn over at countryviewchallenges to try to provide you with more inspiration to join in our Backgrounds challenge.

Today I have another journal page to share with you - this time I have made it mostly via brayering acrylic paints then added some stamps and stencils. Here's what i did:

Using paperartsy-fresco-finish-chalk-acrylics and brayer ...

I built up painty layers on my journal pages ...

Once happy I moved on to some painty additions ...

using a lid and paint ..

and a stencil and brush ...

I liked the look here - then i moved on to stamping ...

I used tasty textures stamps from Indigo blu

along with ranger-wendy-vecchi-archival-ink-pad---forget-me-not, archival-ink-pad---fern-green, 

This is the final page spread after adding more stamps:

I added the letters using sizzix-bigz-xl-alphabet-die---block-talk-lowercase-by-tim-holtz.

I hope you can join us over at countryviewchallenges this month - where you would be in with a chance to win a £20 voucher. 

Big Hugs

Rachel xx