A pocketful of posies .... and a puss!

Hello Lovelies! Well I've taken your advice and am resting up today - my back does feel better although there's still a niggle so I'm going to leave all exercise off the agenda for the next couple of days - in the hope that things feel better in the end! Thankyou for a reality check - I sometimes get lost in stuff!

I have a tag to share with you today - its using one of the new Indigo blu stamps - its a stunner of a stamp and i just had to combine it with some older stamps and stencils to create a floral background to go with their new challenge which is called a pocketful of posies.

Here's the whole thing - I started by stamping the image in versamark and adding black wow powders then heat setting. Next I worked with distress inks to build up the colour in the tag - I used mustard seed, ripe persimmon and dried marigold.

I added more interest and layers using the floral stencil - sorry can't remember the make - then added asome background stamping of indigo blu flowers in ripe persimmon.

I added the indigo blu friends stamp in black archival then darkened the edges with black soot distress ink and added the orange bow.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

indigoblublogchallenge-28-pocketful-of-posies

thatcraftplaceblog-challenge-tags

I'm off to gerdening club now - then i have tidying to do this afternoon and a walk this evening before heading out to the cinema to catch Far from the madding crowd. Looking forward to that one!

Enjoy your day - whatever you do!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Pink and blue at Lavinia

Hello there one and all! I hope you are okay? I've had a good day so far but my back is threatening to cause a wobbler at present - it was awful yesterday - but I swam today and it seems much less painful - so maybe I'll swim again tomorrow instead of running - unless i wake up in the morning completely pain free that is!!!

Today I have a card to show you again influenced by the online class I am doing hosted by Marije Kemper - its wonderful and I will hopefully get to do another session tonight before i go for my upstairs crafting session which tonight will involve another card and the start of my next journal page. Anyway here's the card:

I built up the background in dsitress using picked raspberry, spun sugar, salty ocean and faded jeans. Then I applied layering stencils from Tim Holtz over the top and also stamped using lavinia stamps in the same colours. Finally I added the stamping in black  - all lavinia stamps and created the hill for the hares to box on!

I think it works well - very pleased with this one!

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:

laviniastamps-challenge-5 - pink or blue or both

I hope you enjoy the rest of your Thursday - I'm off shortly to collect the girls and take them dancing - then onto Brownies!!! Big Hugs Rachel x

First play with sheenas victorian florals and coffee pot make

Hello lovelies ....how are you today? I hope you are well and good - if not sending you gentle hugs xx. Its an okay day here weatherwise - a bit more wind and rain than I was expecting but better than Monday and Tuesday, I got a nice 5 and 1/2 mile run in this morning then after a bit of shopping and cleaning I  worked in the garden. We have a party at Rainbows this evening and then ts time for drama rehersal. The girls are in a greek play based on the wooden horse of troy. Its very funny and I'm hoping it goes down well! Then tonight I'm hoping to get into my attic to make my christmas card club makes for Sunday! We'll see how that all goes!

Today I would like to share with you my first make using sheenas victorian florals. For this one I used the anemone set of dies and stamps.

The sentiment stamp is an old one - also from sheena. I created the background using aquatints from spectrum noir.

I cut and embossed the flowers using coordinations card stock then overstamped in hydrangea archival ink using the stamps.

I think they work brilliantly and look forward to using them again soon.

Here's the card we made at coffeepot this week - it was an exercise in masking - the stamps are from hobby art. Not sure about the sentiment stamp though. All colouring was done by painting with distress inks.

So there we have it! I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and I look forward to reading any comments you choose to leave! Big hugs!

Rachel x

Playing with chocolate baroque sewing stamps

Hello lovelies! How are you? I'm good and managed to run without getting soaked today! Every little helps! I'm hoping the weather is going to be much better tomorrow!

I have a card to share with you today that I made using stamps from the new chocolate baroque sewing stamps - they are a gorgeous set - I really enjoyed playing with these - especially after having watched the first lesson in my craftsy course by Marje Kemper. Such a wonderful teacher.

I used abandoned coral, frayed burlap and brushed corduroy distress inks to create the background and also some TH layering stencils and some of the smaller stamps from the sets,

The bodices and lace and pincushions were stamped separately and fussy cut before being added. I used distress markers to colour these in mowed lawn, peacock feathers and abandoned coral plus distress inks in AC and frayed burlap. The sentiment stamp is also chocolate baroque.

I enjoyed playing with these stamps and look forward to using them again soon! The card is for my swap partner in the current Joanna sheen card swap.

Big hugs to you and thanks for any comments you choose to leave. I'm off to see the English National Opera do Pirates of Penzance tonight - its live but in the cinema - looking forward to it!

Catch you later.

Hugs

Rachel xx

A wall hanging - spring music...

Hello lovelies - did you have a good day? I hope so! Its been very wet here - another soggy run done!!! I didn't last very long either! Rubbish - but hey! I went to coffee pot after my run - Diana was running things today - we did masking - I'll show you my card later in the week.

Today I want to share with you a wall hanging I made for the crafty Individuals challenge. The theme is Music. I added to my collection whilst at Port Sunlight and I have used 4 stamps to make this hanging - three of them new ones.

I used the very small set of square canvasses from Claritystamp and first painted them with smurf blue fresco paint from paperartsy.

Once Dry I stamped each piece with a background music stamp from Crafty Individuals. Then I used an extra stamp on each canvas. A floral one on top...

A birdie collage stamp from Crafty Individuals in the middle ...

and finally another CI floral stamp on the bottom. All colouring for the stamped images was done using distress markers.  Finally I added lace on the top and bottom canvasses and some words on the middle one.

I hope you like my wall hanging!

I would like to enter this into craftyindividualsblog-may-its-music-to-my ears

Thanks for looking and I'll be popping around to see what you've been up to later - first I'm heading into the attic for more playtime! 

Hugs

Rachel x

An outdoor weekend and a clock - clarity style.

Hello lovelies! Hope you're having a great weekend - we've had lots of fun - a successful brownie camp including pond dipping, feeding robins by hand, campfire songs and smores .... here's a picture of mine and penny's tent:



we actually got some sleep!!!! Brilliant!

This afternoon it was a school event for PTA - we did a sponsored walk. It was great fun despite being very muddy!!!





I think the children all enjoyed it and hopefully we will have made a few pounds too!

Onto my clock for the clarity challenge:

Its a small clock - only around 6 inches in diameter, It came in a kit from imagination crafts. I have used a clarity stencil and paper artsy grunge paste then covered the whole thing in black gesso once dry.

Then I added empire gold gilding wax to the raised areas before applying various colours of alcohol ink.

Finally I used another stencil to add the numbers using acrylic paint - not sure about those but I couldn't think of another way of getting the numbers on there.

Anyway, I would like to enter this into the challenge at claritystampchallenge-27 clocks.. 

and also welove2create challenge-10-anything-creativemixed media

Enjoy your evening!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Tims Tag May

Hello lovely people - how are you? I know I've been a bit quiet - a whole 36 hours without a blog post. But life's been pretty hectic. All good hectic - a great 8 mile run and a night out at an operatic evening in my village institute - and all the usual paraphanalia!  Plus I've been applying for a few design teams - there's some great calls out there just now - fingers crossed I fall lucky with one of them!!!

Today I have my tims tag for May to share with you - I followed all of the steps that Tim did - I chose the photobooth picture as it reminds me of pictures of my mum when she was young.... what do you think mum? I also used the ephemera that seemed appropriate and chose the colour orange as an overall theme - unfortunately I didn't have tims flowers and used the bitty blossoms instead.

I wasn't so sure about this tag when I first saw it - but I absolutely loved making it - thanks Tim for a a real eye opener!!!

I used a different stencil to Tim - I have the one that Tim used but I wanted something more feminine!

I love these little flowers!

I've ringed a couple of dates - May13th - my sisters birthday and June 16th - my nanas birthday!

I would like to enter this into the timholtz12-tags-of-2015-may.

Hope you all have a good weekend! We're off to brownie camp tomorrow - hope the weather is kind! Then we have a sponsored walk on Sunday - busy busy!!!

Have fun!

Big hugs

Rachel xx