Evalinas Card

Good Morning All! How are you? We are fine and well and looking forward to the last few days before school starts on Friday - we're off to the new chocolate place at Hawkshead today. The kids are doing a workshop - they will be making chocolates and chocolate molded things! Should be good!

Today I want to share with you a birthday card for Evalina - we met her on our holiday and she and Penny had a really strong friendship almost immediately. They did a lot of tree climbing together - hence the card!

I made the card by starting with brushed corduroy distress ink - I added this with a distress tool lightly all over the back of a 7 x 7 inch square piece of card. Next I used an A4 Clarity stencil and coloured in the green and blue with more distress inks. Next I used a water brush and distress inks as paint and added detail to the trees. 

Next I added the topper - LOTV - and the stamped letters - clarity!

I hope she appreciates this card - I am sure she will!

Have a great Tuesday!

Big Hugs

Rachel x

Here be Dragons!

Hello Lovelies! How are you??? I have been a bad blogger this past week - I have been away with my girls on an action packed outdoor adventure holiday - it was a family active holiday run by PGL and we went to Caythorpe Court in Lincolnshire. It was such a good week - more of that later!!!

Over on the chocolatebaroque blog today we are sharing some more quick cards - these are mine.

I have used distress inks, distress pens, stencils and stamps from here be dragons stamp set.

In both cases the image was simply stamped and masked and thenthe background created.

After revealing the image again they we coloured with distress pens. 

So back to my holiday - it was so very much fun - we all had a wonderful time and have returned exhausted but very happy!

these pics are all from an activity called 'all aboard' - three people had to climb this pole with three platforms plus a top platform - then all three had to stand on the top. It was great fun!!! All excellent tests of my upper body strength! 

I hope to be back very soon and around to visit your blogs as soon as possible!!!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

All things bright and beautiful

Hello there! How are you today? Its time for a new challenge over at indigoblublogchallenge today and the new theme is All things bright and beautiful.... I love this theme and have enjoyed making a card for your inspiration. Here it is:

I have used  4 stamps in the making of this card and also indigoblu paints and a stencil with thick slap it on. Details of these are here....

jewel-a6-red-rubber-stamp-by-kay-halliwell-sutton

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

music-hall-a5-red-rubber-stamp-by-indigoblu

limor-circles-a5-red-rubber-stamp-part-of-the-limor-webber-signature-range-by-indigoblu

stencil-vintage-frame

indigoblu-acrylic-paint-lime-marmalade, marshmallow, lemon meringue pie and cinderella.

I stamped the unicorn then masked it and created the painty background. when dry I stamped with cinderella paint for the circles and used the lime paint and one of the tasty textures stamps. Then I used thick slap it on through the stencil and topped with some glitter. Finally I stamped the sentiment.

I hope you can join us in this challenge - there's always a great prize on offer.

Big hugs

Rachel x

Lots of layers at Christmas card Club

Good morning all! Its a new challenge over at Christmas card club tomorrow but I have to post a day early .... so the theme was lots of layers... I have managed to make two cards all using lovely Tim Holtz goodies plus a stamp from Indigo Blu. Most of my layers are inky starting with brayered stains, water, then inks, more water, spray stain and mica spray stain before stamping up with yet more ink!!! Both have antiqued brass and ground expresso stains to start with then the pinky one uses tattered rose and victorian velvet whereas the bluey one used faded jeans and chipped sapphire. Here's some pictures....

Much inky fun was had making these.

Big hugs

Rachel x

Tims tag August and a few days away

Hello there - sorry for being a bad blogger - things have been pretty busy here and I haven't had chance to make much let alone blog!!!! But I am nipping on this evening having just made my Tims tag for August - oh I did have fun making this and I adore the result! Hope you do too...

I followed the techniques used by Tim in his tag here. I also added rock candy crackle to my diecuts - I love the effect.

I had to make the sea from other die cut words but I used TH products all the way through the tag. I also added distress glaze from the mosaic kit to some of the framework elements. The vegetation was cut using a TH punch.

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

We have had a few days fun and games over the last week. On Saturday, Lucy's birthday we went to the Forbidden Corner in Yorkshire.

It was a lovely day out with my mum and Shauns family - his brother and mum and brothers family came up to stay - it was lovely to see them all.

Last Tuesday/wednesday I met an old friend and we had a night at Ilam Hall Youth Hostel in Debyshire.

We had a walk to the stepping stones and then up Thorpe Cloud on the Tuesday. On the Wednesday we cycled the Manifold Trail ...

It was excellent fun and the weather was perfect! It was great to see my old friend Julie too - it had been too long!

Hope you're having a good time enjoying this lovely weather!

Off to check out what you've been up to!

Hugs

Rachel x

A tough day and a cute card!

Hello lovelies! Well its been a bit of a toughie today - we put Shaun's ashes into the churchyard in my village - he's been sat beside my bed since the funeral. Anyway, I decided the time was right so it was today. Shaun's mum and one of his brothers and his family came to be with us. Silvia - my sister in law is a florist and she put together these wonderful floral tributes for Shaun.

We all trooped down to the church and the deed was done. This is the stone that will mark his resting place.

the letters at the top are the equation that Shaun wrote and is remembered for in the world of physics! He was one very clever man - aswell as being incredibly modest and kind. We will always love and miss him.

My card today is one I made as a form of therapy - having just got the crazy dogs I had to ink one up.

He's my favourite!  So cute!

The background is distress ink and I also used a paperartsy stencil.

I coloured th pooch with spectrum crayon.

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

Hugs

Rachel x

fun at the hut

Good morning! I'm here with my second make for Countryview Crafts this month. The theme is hot summer day and I've had fun making a 3D piece - I hope you like it!

I started with a tando creative beach hut....

Next I painted it using paperartsy-fresco-finish-chalk-acrylics snowflake and south-pacific.

then I mixed some coarse texture paste with paperartsy-fresco-finish-chalk-acrylics pumpkin-soup and added to the base as a layer of sand.

Then I hit a wall! I wanted to add some characters but sadly all the stamps I had seem to have been used with a beach hut in the past. So I went a bit sideways and came up with this ....

I used the sheena-douglass-perfect-partners-day-of-the-dead---dancing-skeleton-thin-metal-die that I cut three times and stuck together having stamped with the dancing-skeleton-a6-rubber-stamp-set.  The hat I made using tim-holtz-idea-ology-textured-surfaces.  The letters are from letterpress by Tim Holtz. The sandcastles, ball and bucket and spade came from jofy-collection-jofy16 stamp set.

I hope you enjoyed my make - it makes me smile!

Hugs

Rachel x

Lucy's birthday card

Hello there - just a quick post from me - I wanted to post Lucy's birthday card before the deadline for the Creative chemistry 103 gallery - I used 2 techniques from the course in making the background in this card - distress embossing paste and also the distress mica sprays. The stamped image is from Trish Latimer.

I also used tims star stencil, lots of lovely distress inks and wow embossing powder. I also used some indigo blu stamps.

You can't see the sparkle - but it sparkles beautifully! I'm sure she will like it - her actual birthday is Saturday.

Big hugs to you and speak to you soon!

I would like to enter this into craftstamper take-it-make-it-challlenge august

Rachel x

tree atc swap and more tags!!!

Hello there. How are you? I hope you are well and happy! I'm squealing with excitement as yesterday me and my lovely mum and girlies booked to go and see my sister in New Zealand - a winter trip - so very excited!!! Not sure what school will think about it - but its booked now! I think the educational value to this is way higher than what they'll be doing at school!

I want to share my trees ATC swap with you - I suspect that this has gone missing in the post. I received a torn piece of the SAE that I sent with it  through the post... plus a card I posted at the same time didn't turn up so I'm not very hopeful of these having reached Jo.

I made these in the last Clarity Cumbria session when we were in Africa! Not literally of course!

I love the little pumba stamp - so much like the lion king!!!!

I have a couple more technique tags to share with you today too - 

This was the technique from day 3 inspired by the lovely Jenny Marples - well done Jenny!!!

This is my first tag from day 4!!! Distress crayons - alot to learn methinks!!!!

Hope you have had a good day. We have Shaun's brother and his family and his mum arriving tomorrow so please forgive me if I'm quiet - they are here because we are putting Shaun's ashes into the churchyard on Sunday - not a day I am looking forward to but I feel I need to do this.

Big hugs

Rachel xx

creative chemistry 103 day 2 and 3 plus a card

Hello there! How are you? Thanks for all your kind words yesterday - I do appreciate them. We had a good Sunday - I went to visit my mum and brought her home to stay - so she's still here at the moment which is lovely! We're going back to mums today though but its been lovely to have her with us.

Today I have a card to share with you I made using a visible image stamp ...

I love this to bits - a great distress background and wow what a wonderful statement!

Such a great image too. I think this stamp will be a firm favourite!

I would like to enter this into zest-zing-challenge - Thats Crafty

I've also got some more background tags I have been working on ... I have now finished day 2 and almost finished day 3. This tagathon is going to have to be put on hold pretty soon as I have family coming and really need the dining room to become a dining room again!!!

This is from day 3 ....

and this is from day 2.. 

Two great techniques that will be used very soon!!!!

Have a great Monday and enjoy whatever you do!

Hugs

Rachel x

Christmas card club: Baubles

Hello lovelies! How are you? I hope you are well and happy. We are good - tired after yesterday but it was a lovely day and we were blessed with the weather. Lucy certainly had a great party - it started on the treetop nets - with Penny and 6 friends.




Then it was time for lunch ... and that cake ...


next we did the treetop trek ...

    

and finally the triple zip ...

      thats me!!!!

A great day was had by all!!!

So today we have a new theme at christmas card club - I had great ideas for this one but only 2 makes have materialised - just too busy!!!

This one uses clarity stecils and some stamps from hobby art plus a magazine....

Very unlike me I know but I wanted something a bit different - a mixture of dies and not a stamp or ink to be seen!!!

Don't worry - normal service will be resumed shortly!

Have a great Sunday - whatever you do!

Hugs

Rachel x