More paperartsy play

Hello there! Hope you are doing okay! We are all good. Whilst I was at Cumbria crafters I had a bit of extra time so I had taken along my paperartsy stamps to play with and this is what happened....

I made the tag first whilst waiting for things to get going! 

I do love these grasses - so very pretty - I added the white highlights once I got home...

This one I did after the card in Jo's class and used one of the papers from the shenandoah clarity pack. I think it worked well!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Cumbria Crafters - first visit of the year

Hello there! How are you? I am good and feeling quite relaxed. I had a good day yesterday - we all went to Cumbria Crafters in Lindale and enjoyed the day with the lovely Jo Rice. We started the day by making a card, then worked on a mixed media heart with foamiran flowers.

Here's both projects once they had been comlpeted...

to make the card was very quick and simple - we used some of the Clarity paper pads - I got the one called shenandoah.... we cut our chosen piece to 14cm x 14cm then did masking and stamping and added white. I used a clarity stamp set plus the chocolate baroque large crackle stamp.

To make the heart we covered an mdf heart in another piece of paper from the pad and then knocked back the colour with gesso, added gesso rings, stamping and splats of inkagold before working on making the flowers up from foamiran foam. To do this we used diecut flowers and heated them and shaped them and stuck them together then added stamens. Finally the whole thing was added to the heart along with twine. I think its lovely and was very pleased.

On Saturday evening I took my mum to see The Jetsons at a local village hall. It was great - they play mostly late 50's and early 60's music and you could tell my mum was having a great time! We even had a few boogies! All good.

The girls are both playing with lego now - all the homework is done and they are relaxing whilst I play catch up!!!

Big hugs all!

Rachel xx

walk with mother nature

Hello there! Well I was a little bit naughty the other day - I just couldn't resist two of the new stamp sets from Kay Carley at Paperartsy .... anyway, yesterday afternoon the stamps arrived and here they are already inked and used to make a pretty albeit summery card!

I think these stamps are stunning and were so lovely to use!

here's a close up.... now I need to be really good and not buy anything else until the end of february - I wonder if I can do it??? 

Hope you have a good day!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Catch those dreams!

Hello there! How are you? I do hope you are well! Its my turn to post on Countryview Challenges today - the theme is Anything Goes this month and you can link up with the challenge here. You never know - you could win a £20 voucher to spend in store!

I decided to use some Sheena douglass stamps and a die to make my card today - oh and some distress oxides!!!

Here's the card - I used the dreamcatcher die first off then stamped onto it and coloured using spectrum noir pencils.  The background was made using distress oxides in spiced marmalade, vintage photo and fossilised amber....there might have been a red in there too! 

I think its such a wonderful die - I used it with my coffeepot ladies too - they really enjoyed using it!

Once I had created these I took an A5 card blank and used the headdress of the indian chief stamp to stamp around the edges - then I mounted the card and dreamcatcher on top and finally added the sentiment which came with the dreamcatcher stamp set!

I do hope you can join us!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Christmas baking at CCC

Hello there! How are you? I do hope you are feeling good! I am pleased to have made 4 cards for this fortnights CCC where the theme is Christmas baking. All different too! So here we go ....

This is my favourite - I used a sheena embossing folder and stamp set and added some extra biscuits too - looks yummy! 

This one has an LOTV image - cute!

This one uses stamps from the lovely Mr Holtz ....

And finally Tim Holtz meets Sheena Douglass! 

Really pleased with my start - thanks to the Christmas card club I manage to get lots of stamps used/re-used and make a pile of Christmas cards into the bargain!

Big hugs

Rachel x

ATC's

Hello there! How are you? I am feeling good - I finished work yesterday and spent some time in the evening celebrating by just playing. I decided to make some ATC's using products mainly from the paperartsy range. The theme of their current challenge is ATC's - hence my wish to join in.

I did three of them - I made the backgrounds first - I did a thick layer of gesso first and removed part of it with a piece of kitchen roll - it gave a great texture and so I left it to dry. After that I added more paint and used a Kay Carley stencil and the white gesso again.

To each I added a TH sentiment and a Zinskiart mini cut and colured!

This one looks quite surprised...

and this one very coy!!!! 

I wish to enter this into the paperartsy challenge here.

Off to do some job hunting!!!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Spirit of the wolf

Hello there! How are you? I do hope you are well.We are good and managing to keep warm despite this weather. I hope you are too! Today I have got one of the cards to share with you that I made with the coffeepot ladies on Monday. I made it using a stamp set and die that I got for Christmas - its a sheena pairing.

To make the background I masked the moon and then used distress inks applied with stencil brushes. The wolf and rock were painted with distress inks.

Big hugs

Rachel xx

My two new boys

Hello there! How are you? Was it a good weekend? I do hope so. Ours was quiet. Got the piano tuned and went to my mums for Sunday lunch. It was nice to have a quiet one!!!!

I have been using my needlefelting kit from the Makerss and made two new boys .....

Mr Badger and Mr Foxy are both made in a very similar way ....they were lots of fun to make and I have enought wool to make another one of each.

Here's Mr Badger who is a little bit chubby! His scarf is just a piece of felt.

Mr Foxy is more wirey and indeed wiley! Hee hee - his waistcoat is also just cut from felt.

I have the ladies coming today for coffeepot - I will be able to show you one of the makes soon but the other is one I have done for Countryview crafts so you will have to wait for that one.

Back to work tomorrow - three days to go before I finish.

Big hugs

Rachel xxx

Julie's card

Hello there! How are you doing? I am good and looking forward to a visit from the piano tuner today! It will be nice to have a piano that is actually in tune! Although I wonder how long it will last?

Today I am showing a card I made for my cousin who sadly lost her husband of more than 30 years last week. I really do feel for her - it was very sudden and unexpected.

The image I have used is from Indigoblu and I have coloured it using distress inks. I also added a little shimmer but that isn't showing up.

Hope you have a good day!

Hugs

Rachel xxx

More CB One day special samples

Hello there! Well today should be my last day at work until I find a new job! I think I will enjoy getting the time back to be honest! I need to learn to live a bit more frugally though!!!

I want to share some more CB show samples from last week with you - firstly there was two that I made in pottery to make plaques to hang on the wall.

I saw this first one on the shows -

not sure if i saw this one, however. I took the stamps to Pottyroos in Morecambe and used distress ink to stamp the images then painted them, I had to add the words and lines in black before firing took place as all that gets removed on firing. I will try some other onk types next time but I am pretty much at the investigating stage just now. 

My other samples were all cards ....

This one involved stamping and fussy cutting...

This one used distress to do all the colouring....

and finally I used the gold soft paste to create the background and decoupaged red flowers on top.

I do hope you like them - super stamps!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Uncle Bernards card

Hello there! How are you? Hopefully good and surviving the chilly weather! I have been wanting to use the stamp I have used in my card today for a while - its by Mark Gould and is sold by Chocolate Baroque. He's got 4 stamps in their catalogue and this is the first of two that I have. I made this card for my uncle Bernard.

I stamped, coloured and masked the image then used another chocolate baroque stamp from the year of stamping series to create a background. All colouring was done with distress inks. Lastly I added the ships wheel which is a tando creatives piece coloured with distress ink.

Here's a close up! Great image I think!

Hope you have a great day!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Christmas card club - gnomes, pixies or elves!

Good Morning! How are you? I do hope you are well and happy! I am good - my youngest daughter is over at a friends birthday party - it was a sleepover party and I need to pick her up soon. My eldest daughter had one of her friends over last night too. Looks like its just me who's billy no mates!!! Only joking - me and the cat are doing just fine!!!

Its the first of our fortnightly Christmas card Club posts today - the theme was gnomes, pixies or elves - well that posed quite a few problems for me so in the end I decided to use the Lisa Horton gnome again from Thursdays card ... here's what I came up with.

All of the background stamps are from chocolate baroque, the sentiment from Clarity. I am looking forward to seeing what my buddies came up with - I only made the one as I really wasn't overly impressed with my design!!!!

Hope you have a great Sunday - the girls are both back to school tomorrow and I start my final week of work! I have enjoyed it - and will be looking out for another job!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Chocolate Baroque One day Special

Hello there! How are you today? I do hope you are well. I wonder if you caught the launch yesterday of Chocolate Baroques One Day Special on Hochanda? It went really well! I think quite a lot of it sold out! I would still like to share a few of my samples with you today just in case it can tempt you to watch the shows!

These two are my colouring pages that I did using spectrum noir pencils....

This card used one of the stamps from the backgrounds set of stamps - I decoupaged the flowers.

This one used distress oxides to create the backing card and the bird and flowers were coloured using distress inks.

Please take a look if you get chance!

Hugs

Rachel xxx

Spring Chicken

Hello there! How are you? I do hope you are well. Its time for a new challenge at stamps and stencils and the theme this time is bright colours with a spring feel. Here's what Ruth had to say about the challenge.

Theme: On the Bright Side - It may still be winter but it's a brand New Year, the days will be soon getting longer, and pops of bright colours will soon start to appear in the garden. This month I'd like you to dazzle us by useing lots of bright colours in your Spring themed creations ...and don't forget to use stamps or stencils.

Well it all sounds lovely to me! I decided to make a card for my aunty who will be 85 next week. I thought along the lines of flowers and then came across a stamp set from Lisa Horton and decided to be a bit cheeky and make her chuckle!!!

The background was made using distress inks, oxides and a TH stencil. The gnome and chickens were made using leftover distress oxide coloured card and some red and yellow card plus a green pencil. I stamped in black versafine and fussy cut and layered up the colours. I do hope she isn't offended!!!!

You can see the amazing work from my teamies here.

Hugs

Rachel xxx

All things bright and beautiful

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are well! I have a card to share with you today - its one I made for my nephew Tate who has his birthday later this month.

I thought a nice bright card might warm his day!

To make my card I used distress oxides to create some colours on a piece of card then stamped using a woodware set of stamps and finally fussy cut my robot.

To create my card I used distress inks and then more colours through stencils.....

I do hope that Tate likes his card.

Have a great day!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Anything goes at Countryview challenges

Hello there! And a very happy New Year to you! May 2018 bring you health and happiness! Today we are starting a new challenge at Countryview challenges - nice easy theme so you can have a blast with your Christmas craft goodies if you were good enough for santa to have brought you some!!! Thats what I did for my inspirational piece. I decorated up an ATC storage case that my mum got for me and used a stamp set from Elenazinski that I got in the countdown to Christmas sale that Susan from Countryview Crafts did!

I started by assembling the ATC box and gluing then painting using Indigoblu paints. Once dry I stamped using some of the small stamps from the set in 'burning bonfires' and 'kingfisher'. I stamped the main images on card and coloured with pencils before fussy cutting and adding to the storage 'book' using glue and seal. The stamp set I used was Elenazinskiart set 13. I can't see it on the website currently but I'm sure it will be back!!

Here's the link to see what my super talented teamies made .... here ...and also to link up and join the challenge. You never know - you could win £20 to spend in store!

Hope you can join us!

Hugs

Rachel xx