Quick makes for Chocolate Baroque

Hello all! I do hope you are all well and if not I send you big healing hugs! Today I have two cards on the chocolatebaroque blog where the post is all about quick makes - 15 minute cards. There are always lots of ideas on there so do pop over if you get chance.

My two makes are quite similar - I have used the same techniques in both cases.

In both cases I stamped then masked the main image. Next I added more masks to create the border strip and blank off most of the card. Next I added distress ink to the main border and then used seasonal fragments to overstamp. Finally I removed all masks and coloured the main image.

This is the second one using exactly the same techniques but different stamps and colours.

I don't know if you saw the giveaway on craftyindividualsblog here. check it out!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Tims tag november

Hello there! Thanks for your kind comments yesterday - I really do appreciate it! It was another busy day yesterday - coffeepot courtesy of Diana and then the gym and finally a little rehersal for our Christmas production on Friday. Its a small play for the main youth group but we're having open mic after it and Elaine, Helen and myself are doing a little play - a modern day take on a bible story! It only lasts a couple of minutes so I hope I can manage it!

Today I want to share with you my take on Tims tag this month.



This is Tims tag and I used the techniques he utilised here. Here's my tag....

I used all the techniques Tim suggested but went for a butterfly focus using the lovely perspectives butterfly as the main image and nature rub ons.

I had fun making the wishbone into the butterflies antennae ...

and used the word wishes to echo the wishbone.

I hope you like it - it was a much needed hour in the attic for me and with the addition of the wishbone I am now happy!!!

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

Hope you have a great Tuesday!

Hugs

Rachel x

Mark Gould class at Ministry of mixology

Morning lovelies! How are you? I hope you are ok. We are all good and had a good weekend. I went to Jo Rice's class on Saturday and had a lovely time with my mum and girls - more about that another day ... Sunday the four of us went to see fantastic beasts and where to find them - that was good - Eddie Redmaine is such a sweetheart.

Today I want to share with you my make from Mark Gould's class at Ministry of mixology last weekend - what a lovely guy he was too - really kind!

my take on the class piece is a little different - I went brown where mark went blue and my central heart is different from the circle with the all seeing eye - the rest is pretty much the same though!

lots of techniques in the class - much of the texture on this place from tissue.

Lots of cracking too!

Great class Mark - loved it - thankyou!

I hope you like my piece and I'll see you soon!

Hugs

Rachel x

Mixed media at christmas card club

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are well. I thought I set up a post for yesterday but clearly not! Anyway - it will keep until tomorrow. Today I want to post my make for Christmas card club this week where the theme was mixed media....well being pushed for time I used a ready made painty background and stamped it up with a paperartsy stamp. I then coloured the stamp using pens....this is what it turned out like...

He's such a happy little fellow I just had to add the clarity word stamp 'joy'  to the card.

A closer look...

and closerstill...

I am sure he will come in useful when I finish writing my Christmas cards! Wish I could find my address book!!!!!

Hugs

Rachel x

Advent clock

Good Morning all! How are you today? Thanks so much for all of your help with the blogger problem I was experiencing yesterday - I wish they hadn't messed around with it - but at least I can now understand how to get to everything so thankyou one and all with your suggestions.

When I was in Coventry at the weekend I bought an advent clock kit in the shop run by the lovely Di.. I was very excited about it and set to getting it ready straight away. Here's my make ...

I used mostly decoart products throughout - the paints were quniaquanone gold, titan buff, light green, pyrol orange and raw umber.

I also used weathered wood to get the crackle on the frame.

The stencil I used is from indigo blu. 

Big hugs

Rachel x

Andy Skinner make

Hello all! How are you today? I hope you are good. Has anybody noticed changes on blogger? Whenever I try to get to my dashboard I just reach the indigoblu blog. Its really weird ...hopefully things will fix themselves as I have no idea why its happened! Any suggestions?

Anyway today I want to show you my make from the Andy Skinner Workshop I did at the weekend.

Obviously in fairness to Andy I can't reveal the techniques used - but there was plenty of them!!! Clearly I used the fossil stencil and the bubble stencil too. But there was lots to it!

Here's a close up of the stencil - Andy actually called me 'Fossil lady' as I was overheard talking about the way up in life of the ammonite. They're pretty amazing creatures! Or should I say they were!!

Closer still - I hope you can pick up all the details. 

I hope you have a good day! Please forgive me if I am absent from your blogs - unless you leave me a comment I won't be able to get back to you - unless my dashboard returns!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Sparkly stars for fiskars/wow

Morning all! How are you? I do hope that you are okay and are not being too affected by storm Angus . What terrible weather indeed! We have been quite fortunate here for a change! 

Today I would like to share with you a card i made for a joint Fiskars/Wow venture last week. It was all on facebook and the winners will be announced very soon!

Here's the complete make ....and a step by step.

I used distress collage crackle medium through a TH stencil onto a card and left it to dry.

I then used distress crayons to colour the strip.

Next I punched the stars then used a wow embossing glue pad, heated to make it sticky then added the sparkles. I then reheated to set the glitter in place.

Here's a close up of the star plus that crackle - love that!!!

Have a great wednesday!

Hugs

Rachel x

A super weekend and first mixology piece

Good morning all! How are you? I hope you are good. I had a fabulous time last weekend - spending a day at Indigo blu HQ with the DT plus a half day at a vintage market. It was a wonderful weekend - I met lots of people for the first time and it was really cool to put faces to names!


Kay was absolutely brilliant! She is so lovely! Aw such lovely people!

Then I hotfooted it to Coventry for the Ministry of mixology weekend - 3 workshops - Brenda Brown, Andy Skinner and Mark Gould. Lots of fun - and meeting up with old and new friends.



The lovely Anne Redfern - and the fabulous Kath Stewart plus me and gorgeous Mo Stokes.

The first workshop I did was with the ever so lovely Brenda Brown - wow - what a lovely lady! And what a wonderful project!!!


We used so many techniques and landed up with this brilliant vintage design - mum and dad feature in the project on their wedding day - full of hopes and dreams. I gave it to my mum on my return - bless her - it brought tears to her eyes! Maybe she loved it - or maybe she was just shattered after looking after my little beauties all weekend! And talking of them - they got their brown tab 1 belt on Sunday at grading....so proud!



Big hugs!!!

Rachel x

Glisten and sparkle at Indigo Blu

Good Morning Lovelies! How are you! Sorry for the lack of blog posts but I am frantically trying to get ahead of myself so that I can enjoy the Christmas period! Please forgive me - I will get back to normal soon!

Today over at Indigo Blu there is a new challenge starting - this time the theme is Glisten and sparkle so its perfect for your Christmas makes. Here's what I made...

I used some superthick slap it on and mixed it with teal luscious powders. Whilst still wet I added some unicorn sparkles to this and left it to dry. The words were from an indigoblu stencil - again I used superthick slap it on through the stencil then sprinkled on top with unicorn sparkles.

I stamped the buildings and then the snow globe and added glossy accents and more unicorn sparkles here. 

Here's a list of the products I used with links to the IB website...

slap-it-on-super-thick

indigoblu-stencils-c51/stencil-sparkle-and-glisten

unicorn-sparkles-magical-glitter

luscious-pigment-powders-25ml

I hope you can join us in the challenge - just use an Indigo Blu stamp in your creation and of course follow the theme!

I hope to see your entry over there!

Hugs

Rachel x

New Zealand Earthquake - and coffee pot makes

Hello all! Well its been a terribly scary 24 hours - my sister lives in Kaikoura in New Zealand where they experienced several large (7.5, 6.8. 6.2) earthquakes and aftershocks in that time. Thankfully I can say that my sister is safe - but it seems that the town is devastated. I do not have many details as yet - but from reading on the internet I can see they have no water and are cut off - the road networks look a real mess. Many of you will know that I planned to be going out there for a holiday in December with my kids and mum. This is very uncertain now - we will have to play things very much by ear. But at least my sister is safe - my heart goes out to all affected.

On a lighter note I went to coffeepot today - I was treated to using a rubber stampede stamp that Diana brought with her and managed to make a couple more Christmas cards.

What an unusual stamp - I love this!

I stamped this one in Versamark and added gold glitter embossing powder. I then used distress inks to paint the pear and holly and Noel letters.

This one I stamped in sepia archival and I used a gold pen to colour the letters and the star. The pear was stamped onto gold sparkly paper and added on top.

I hope you have had a good day!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Deer at CCC

Good morning all! Its Christmas Card Club today and our theme is reindeer. I have almost got my Christmas cards made for this year and since time is short I only made one card. Here it is.

I used a background I already had lying around and  added some textural stars I also had lying around! I cut the words using TH thinlets dies and cut the deer using a TH Bigz die. I then used a stencil to add the musical score to the deer using a TH stencil and distress ink. Finally I added some brown distress ink around the edges!

I am sure my teamies have some wonderful inspiration for you. 

Have a great Sunday - we are off to church with brownies for rememberance day.

Big hugs

Rachel x

Fiskarettes card - Just believe

Here's a bit of an unusual Christmas card for you! I shared it on the facebook page on Wednesday. I hope you like it.

The heart was cut using the fiskars cutting tool and shape template. The birds were cut using the punch.

The stamping was from Tim Holtz stamps.

I hope you like what I did. 

Have a great day!

Hugs

Rachel x

inspirational post for stamps and stencils...

Hello there!

I have an inspirational post over at stampsandstencils today. I have upcycled a box -

I hope you can join me over here to find out how I did it.

Hugs 

Rachel x

christmas cards for coffee pot

Good morning all! I hope you are doing ok and managing to stay warm in the cold - its freezing here - there's talk of snow which is quite scary!

I have my makes from coffeepot to share with you today - a relatively quick and simple make - most of the ladies managed 3 cards whilst we were there - so they must take about 20 minutes each to make!

All cards were made using the tim Holtz bigz dove die - I love it - it cuts beautifully and is so very pretty. All cards used masking - this first two was then repeat stamped with an indigo blu stamp ...

for these three I used TH layering stencils and various colours of DI to complete the vertical panel.

Quick and simple makes that went down very well! 

I do hope you have a great day! Its community Tuesday for me - 2 hours of tea making this morning followed by 2 and 1/2 hours in the school library this afternoon!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Stars for paperartsy

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are doing well. We had a good weekend and enjoyed the fireworks...hope you did too! Lucy and I had a lovely walk during the day on Saturday and on Sunday we did lots of visiting!

I have a journal page to share with you today. Its for the current challenge over at paperartsy where the theme is typography, fonts and quotes. I was particularly inspired by Claire Snowdon's post. Here's what I did...

I used eclectica-sara-naumann-13 and lots of lovely fresco paint applied with a brayer!

Love this quote!

I would like to enter paperartsy typographyfonts-and-quotes challenge

Have a great day - I'm off to coffeepot and am in charge - I will show you what we made tomorrow!

Hugs

rachel x

star card at Fiskarettes

Good morning lovelies! How are you? I hope you are doing well. We are good and looking forward to seeing Shaun's mum tonight - and mine. Both of them are coming to stay so we shall have a house full. Not an ideal time as the kitchen will not be finished until tomorrow when the decorator comes to put the paper up at last. I look forward to finally having it finished - but we'll just have to muck in until then!

Today I want to share with you another make I did for the fiskarettesuk facebook page. Its a star card for christmas made using a few fiskars products.

Here's how I made it....

I started by cutting a star from a card blank using the shape cutter and shape template.

Next I punched stars using a small punch....

and added them to the card blank ....

Next I added the same colour card to the large cetral star and added purple beads to the centre of the stars.

Finally I used the cut out star and trimmed it down, stamped on it and finally added it to the star centre.

A simple make - hope you like it!

Hugs rachel x

forever autumn - layout for Fiskarettes UK

Hello lovelies! On Thursday it was my turn on the fiskarettesuk facebook page. I used the intricate leaf punch to make this layout.

I ut a few leaves out then used the waste as a stencil and inked through. Then I added the leaves I had cut. The picture came from a set by Indigo Blu. I added the card-IO webs and finally the words - Forever Autumn.

The words reflect my love of the Justin Haywood song - we played it at Shaun's funeral. 

Have a great day.

Hugs

Rachel x