Paloma came to visit me

Hello all! I'm not sure how many of you know about Paloma - she is a dove of peace and started her travels in late 2015 visiting crafty people all around the world. You can find out more about here at this page.

She had a little fly around my garden this morning and settled on various plants. I took her picture each time she settled.

On this one she is on the plant given to me by my chemistry friends when Shaun passed away - she looks beautiful here I think.

Next she visited the rhubarb which is already growing well.

Finally she settled on a shrub in the front garden ... I think she had fun.

If you would like to be involved in the Paloma passport to peace project please send me your name and address - I have to send Paloma on to a lady in Australia so be prepared for a bit of postage money! She comes with a beautiful card and passport to peace that is passed on each time. I will be sending Paloma on her travels before the end of the week!

Have a great day!

Hugs

Rachel x

twofer!

Hello hello hello! How are you? Just a couple of days to get your entry in to our 30 minute challenge over at Countryview Challenges. I've got not one but two quick cards that it took a total of 25 mins to make - I didn't have time to stop and take pictures but they are pretty simplistic so I think I'll be able to talk you through them very easily!!!

All products used are by Tim Holtz and are from Countryview crafts. I used the following....

stampers-anonymous-tim-holtz-layering-stencil---floral

stampers-anonymous-tim-holtz-layering-stencil---roses

stampers-anonymous-tim-holtz-cling-mounted-stamp-set---runway

plus distress inks - tattered rose, ripe persimmon, picked raspberry, mowed lawn and peeled paint.

Both methods were the same - mask the rhs of the card and lay down the tattered rose then add the other colours through the stencil. Repeat on separate piece of card. Stamp runway girl on card then on separate card and paperpiece dress. Finally add TH words.

This one used the mowed lawn and picked raspberry but was done in exactly the same way.

I hope you have 30 mins spare to join us! 

Big hugs

Rachel x

Tripps card

Hello there! Well its been shocking weather today here - wall to wall rain - I hope it stops soon or the rivers might burst their banks again. That would be awful. I hope things are ok where you are.

This afternoon I thought I would take the opportunity and head into my crafty space to make something for the extended masking challenge over at paperartsy. I have sadly misplaced my masking fluid so had to do traditional masking. I masked of my little figure and surrounded him with beautiful makebelieve vegetation all from elenazinski stamps.

With his mask in place but the vegation left open I added a background using distress oxides. Then I coloured the veg in posca pens.

Here's a close up... I haven't tried painting with the DIO yet - something else to experiment with I think!!!

I would like to enter this into paperartsy-topic-2-masks-challenge

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Demonstrating to friends and distress oxide play.

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are happy! Feeling pretty good here. Thanks for your kind words on ysterdays post. Todays is the result of my day yesterday. After my swim I went over to pick up my friend Sue - she's one of my running buddies but also used to be my boss. We were going to meet at another former colleagues house (Julia) along with another chemistry teacher (Cheryl)! Julia had invited us over for lunch and demonstrations! Our brief was to do a demonstration for the others on something of our choice. I decided to make some backgrounds and introduced them to distress inks and also shaving foam backgrounds. Whilst there I also did some origami and played the ukelele. well when I say played .......

I stamped up the distress background I made with stamps from Visible image.

When I got home the postman had been - my new distress oxides had arrived - I got a few colours to play with - and had to make a background to put the topper above onto.

Here's the overall effect......

As you can see the finish is much more matt compared to the inks. I layered up the distress oxides - having wiped them across my craft mat and added spray of water. I also stamped with the orange distress oxide (think it was spiced marmalade) and it seemed to stamp well.

Here's another shot of that stamped image.

I am looking forward to playing some more - they do look like fun!!!

I'm off to the spa at whinfell forest today with brown owl! I hope its going to be a good one!

Hugs

Rachel xx

ATC swap - through the window

Hello there! Well its a busy old time at the moment - I am trying to get as many pieces made as I can before I head of to New Zealand for a trip to see my sister. So if things are a bit quiet for a few months please forgive me!

Today I have my ATCs to share with you that I have made for this months ATC swap organised by Lindsay mason - the theme is 'Through the window'. My ATC's were quick - but are true to my thoughts of through the window.

I see hope when I look through the window - especially at this time of year!

simple but I like them!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Love is all you need - reminder post for IndigoBlu

Hello Lovelies! Well its reminder day - just a week before our 'love is all you need' challenge closes over at Indigo Blu. So 7 more days to get your entries in - its a short month!!!!

I have been playing with Indigo Blu stamps, a stencil and gelatos to make this card...

I started by creating the background with gelatos then wiped over the damaged-damask stencil to remove/lighten some of the gelatos. Next I overstamped using the word LOVE  from the  word-blocks-1 rubber stamp set. On some white card I then stamped words and a moth from the grand-tour-ii-a5-red-rubber-stamp-by-indigoblu. I also stamped the head from beautiful-mind stamp set and then put the whole thing together.

Here's a close up - lovely stamps! 

Check out more inspiration here.

I hope you can join our challenge which you will find here.

Big hugs and have a great day!

Rachel x

Penny's Birthday!

Hello there! Its my youngest daughter Penny's birthday today - she's 9 today! I want to share with you the card I have made for her ... she is obsessed with under the sea!!!

She saw that piece I made for stamps and stencils and said she wanted it - anyway I thought I would make her a card with a similar design!

The background is made using distress inks and spray stain...

The wildflower dies  (sets 1 and 2 from TH) were used to cut out the vegetation - bigz dies were used to cut the seastar and seahorses. I used distress ink and clear rock candy to colour the seahorses and then more distress after the rock candy had dried. The seastar was covered with prima mini stones.

I stamped bubbles using a stamp from Ryn. 

I am certain she will love this!!!!

She had a pottery party yesterday - my friend Danielle came along and made pots with her and her friends .... and brought an amazing cake along too that I asked her to make!!!

Big hugs

Rachel x

CCC: snowy mountains and skies

Good morning! Well these fortnights keep rolling by don't they? And today its another Christmas card club. The theme for this fortnight is 'snowy mountains and skies. Lovely theme - I feel I haven't really done it justice - but I did my best in the time available! Half term eh???? Here's what I made....

Now I like this first one - the mountains show up and the 'finch' coloured as a cardinal I like!!! All stamps are Clarity.

The mountains aren't showing up too well in this picture - total white out!!!!

And this one is just wrong! Oh well! 

Thats my efforts for this fortnight - I hope I have better things to show you next time around!!!!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Chocolate Baroque Spring samples

Hello there! I wanted to share with you some more of the samples I made for the chocolate baroque shows on Thursday this week.. These were all made using the daffodil spring set - although the words came from the hare set!

This one is one of those visible image monoliths - I painted it using Indigo Blu acrylic paints then stamped coloured and fussy cut the daffs...

This background is distress paint then I used posca pens to colour the stamped image.

This one is mostly distress in the background and the stamped image also painted in distress.

More distress work!

I'll show you some of the other samples later next week. Me and the girlies are off to Jo Rice's class today with my mum! More stuff to show you from there I suspect!

Have a great day!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Makes from CB shows

Here are some samples from yesterdays CB spring stamps show. I've saved the daffodil samples for tomorrow....

This is made from the tulip bird stamp set - I stamped and masked then created the background using gelatos. I used babywipes and stencils to create the speckled background.

This one involved repeat stamping - the primrose comes from the hare stamp set and the other stamp is from one of the floral bird stamp sets. Colouring is by distress.

Brushos to make the background here then overstamping and colouring in pencils. The bird came from one of the flower bird stamp sets.

The bird was stamped and masked then gelatos were added to create the background..I also used babywipes and a stencil. The bird was then coloured in pencil.

The final bird from the flower bird sets - this one was again coloured with pencils, masked and then gelatos applied to create the background. A stencil and babywipes was used to create the spotted effect!

More samples tomorrow!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Quick makes for Chocolate Baroque

Hello there! How are you today? I hope you are well. I have 5 cards I made for the January 31st shows on Hochanda to share with you today - that was the launch of the kingfisher stamp set. All cards took around 15 mins to make - I'll outline how I did them each...

This one was simple repeat stamping in archival inks. The background was made using distress ink.

This one was stamped with archival onto yupo that had already been treated with alcohol inks. Then the image was removed leaving the ghost image. Finally I used archival and left it to get the black - simple stamping was done around the edges.

On this card I stampled in versamark and added white embossing powder - then I added brushos in the background.

I stamped the central image in green archival then masked it off using a circle - then simply added distress inks and overstamped. The lower layer was done in the same way.

and finally I used gelatos to create the background then simple stamped using black archival on top!

I hope you can see how quickly these cards can be made! 

Just a quick shout out too - Lesley is on Hochanda today at 7am, 11am and 3pm with some glorious spring stamps and samples! 

here's a sneaky peek from the shows....

Big hugs

Rachel x

Happy Valentines

Hello lovelies and a very Happy Valentines to you - for those of you who did not receive a valentines today for whatever reason - this one's for you!

Using Tim Holtz stamps and stencil - and distress plus archival....

My valentines day has been full of love - I have spent it with my girls and my mum - and managed a lovely run too! Me and my girls chose some flowers at the village florist yesterday and I made a rough arrangement that we took down to Shaun's grave this morning..here it is on his bench in my garden.

Big hugs!

Rachel x

Kingfisher set cards - more samples

Hello lovelies! How are you? I hope you're having a great weekend...its been lovely here. Young voices on Friday night was amazing - I was really impressed by what I saw and heard and the children just all seemed to be having a whale of a time. And the teachers have been amazing - what with all the rehersals and the very long day on Friday itself - we really are very lucky!

Yesterday me and my girls went to my mums and then brought my mum home and she and I went with 4 other friends to a ceilidh in the village last night - that was excellent fun - we danced all night!! And had lots of laughs whilst doing it!

Today we have had a lazy day - I did have a run first thing but since then we've been very lazy... A lovely lunch and a film on the sofa! Its been nice to kick back and relax!

So tonight I want to show you a few more of the samples i made for the Chocolate Baroque shows with the Kingfisher set of new stamps. They are now available on the chocolate Baroque website!

These samples are all made using the main kingfisher set but do include some stamps from the other set. This one has been made using distress inks for colouring throughout.

More distress inks used here too plus masking to create the scene.

This one was done using gelatos - both directly and as paints.

I still have more samples to share with you! And there's another show coming later in the week!

Hoping you're having a great weekend!

Hugs

Rachel x

Joe and Ben's birthday

Hello lovelies! Well I hope you are well - sorry I've not been by for a few days but things are currently mad busy! But today is the 11th birthday of my lovely friend Carolines twin boys - Joe and Ben. Joe is part of the drama group and is quite a character. Ben on the other hand is quiet and loves football. Chalk and cheese! I couldn't not use tweedledum and tweedledee from Visible image but I also added some crazy things to make it more like a birthday card! Here's what I made...

I do hope they like it!!! Dee and dum are from visible image as is the large circle stamp in the background. I stamped dum and dee, masked then created the background. I used the new TH scribble stencils in the making of that. Once I had unmasked and coloured dum and dee I cut and stamped the hats, ballooons and dickie bow (crazy things) then added the large number 11 (also from TH). 

My girls are taking part in Young Voices tonight at the Manchester Arena. I'm looking forward to it!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Coffeepot and crazy dogs

Hello there lovelies! How are you today? I hope you've had a good one - its been good here - I had the ladies over for coffeepot this morning and I showed them the delights of gelatos and also the crazy dogs - dies and stamps - we had lots of fun - here are the samples I made both as inspiration and  demo.

I used the gelatos in each case to make the background then used babywipes and stencils to add details...

This one and the next one includes the fabulous LOVE wordblock stamp from Indigo blu.

This final one is for a friend who has her birthday tomorrow!

The ladies loved them - so did I!!!! Such fun cards to make!!!

Its been a long old day so I'm going to sign off there! Still waiting to hear from Barb - my biggest winner of my blog candy!!! 

Big hugs

Rachel x