hidden objects and first prize!

Evening all! I hope you had a lovely day! I had a great one - I took my good friend Danielle to the gym with me - we did a class (body balance) then went to the hydrotherapy pool and sauna before having lunch - a lovely girly day and catch up time! This evening I took the girls to see how they did in the flower arranging competition - well would you believe they were the only entrants in their class? And of course they got joint first prize!!! They were very happy - bless their cotton socks!!!

Tonight I have a file folder project to share with you - I made it to house two of the tags I won from the lovely alison bomber. She had made them at Ally Pally earlier this year. The challenge over at paperartsy is hidden objects so I housed these beautiful paperartsy tags in a file folder decorated with paperartsy goodies.

I used a variety of stamp sets and fresco paints.

The file folder is folded to create space for the tags.

Thanks so much Alison for these tags - I'll have to think of another way to hold the larger tags - need to get my thinking cap on!

I'd like to enter this into the paperartsy -topic-11-hidden-objects-challenge.

Big hugs and thanks for any comments you may choose to leave!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Swimming, Crafting and flower arranging!

Hello Lovelies! How are you? I hope you're okay and have had a good day! I've had a beautiful time today - I went for a swim and practiced some of the things I was taught yesterday - then I went to my mum and dads and had a crafternoon - we played with brushos - and followed a project from this months craft stamper - lots of fun - I will do a simpler version with the coffee pot ladies on monday I think. Here's the results:

I am very excited with this one - I think the techniques are brilliant - just follow them in craft stamper!

The stamps are paperartsy - i used  versa mark, white embossing powder, brushos, frantage, alcohol pens. My mum really enjoyed this too - I think I'll try applying it to my own version - altho' the design is so beautiful I daresay I won't get such fabulous results! 

Tonight me and my girls did some flower arranging - well they did it really - I just cut the flowers. We have a festival happening in the village at the moment - Lord Roger Montbegon was one of the 25 barons involved in the signing of the magna carta 800 years ago and he lived in Hornby. The play the girls did on Saturday was part of it and there is a flower arranging competition tomorrow - so the girls wanted to join in! The theme is Hornby. This is what they did.

I'll let you know tomorrow how they get on - but I'm very pleased with what they have done! And they had such fun!

Hope you have a good evening - its running away from me today - will be around to visit after I have done another post - I've got news!!! More of that soon!

Big Hugs

Rachel x

Fathers day card

Hello Lovelies - how are you today? I hope your Tuesday has been good. I've had a great day - a slow run but a good 5 miles! Then I went for a swimming lesson. I am rather slow so I'm hoping to improve - I learned quite a lot about front crawl - my technique was rubbish - I hope that with the improvements suggested today I can increase my speed in time. I've got two weeks to practice before the next lesson! I'll be swimming tomorrow so I'm hoping to put some of it into practice.

Thanks for your kind words on yesterdays post - I do appreciate them - I would like to share a make with you today for fathers day - my dad loves owls so the new owl stamp from Clarity was my stamp of choice.

I started by stamping the owl then colouring him with spectrum noir pencils. Then I masked him off and created the background using distress inks and clarity masks.

I added the geese from the new geese set then a sentiment and finally some vegetation from another clarity set.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

claritystampchallenge-28 - boys boys boys

littleclairesdesigns monthly-stamp-challenge-fathers-day

unrulypaperarts - the great outdoors

craftingforallseasons challenge-104-its-boy-thing

pennyblackatallsortschallenge-wings-fantasy-and-fiction

Hope you have a good evening - I'll be visiting later! Big hugs rachel xx

coffee pot cards

Hello lovelies - how are you? I hope you've had a good day. Its been good for me and my girls - I went to coffee pot and made two lovely cards then went home and did some gardening - my girls both had good days - little penny had a forest school day so she was playing in the forest all day! Wish they had done these things when I was at school!

Anyway - back to coffee pot - here are todays makes which focused on embossing powder. Thanks to Diana ... she got the ideas from a magazine - the main stamp came from craft stamper magazine.

I stamped on watercolour card using versa mark and then added white embossing powder then heat set. I also drew in the stalks with a versa pen and heat set white powder.

I used distress inks mustard seed, ripe persimmon and dusty concorde to paint the colours.

This stamp is a card-io one and was treated exactly the same.

The second card we did involved clarity glossy card and black embossing powder.

The stamps were indigo blu from a set that came free with a magazine once - and the card -io sentiment again. I used mustard seed and ripe persimmon distress inks.

I think both cards are a great combination of distress inks and embossing powders.

Hope you have a great day!

Big hugs 

Rachel xx

a thankyou, some birthday cards and the moonlight walk....

Evening all! I hope you've had a good day? Mine has been rather sore and sleepy but its been okay! The moonlight walk is over for another year - it took me 4 hours and 19 minutes to walk 25km. I found it very hard this year but we still managed to have fun!



This was a picture taken by the official photographer before the start - emma and myself are having a good chin wag - and I'm feeling a little chilly before we set off.



This is a selfie of the three of us that walked together - l to r - emma (runs coffee pot and runs and swims with me), me and Sue ( fellow PTA long term member!). A good night - and I hope the hospice had a good fund raiser - such a good cause - definitely worth the sore feet and legs I have today.

The girls also had a great night in their play - they did really well and the whole hall appreciated them lots - and excellent evening!



Last Sunday it was my birthday and I've finally got around to photographing the handmade cards I was given - thankyou so much you lovely people:

A wonderful set I think you'll agree! And here's a thankyou I've made (for my mum and dad) but I thought I'd share it with all of you!

The stamps are a JOFY set and all paints are paperartsy (smurf blue and snowflake white and tango). I also used a paperartsy stencil. 

I hope you have a great evening.

Big hugs

Rachel xx

A wonderful day out!!!

Evening all! How are you today? I hope you are well and happy! I've had a lovely day - I went down to spend a crafty day with Mo Stokes and Anne Redfern. We had a wonderful day - thankyou ladies for your wonderful company and hospitality - thanks Mo.... Here's what I made whilst there using one of the file folders from Astrid - thanks xx

I folded the file folder and then decorated it using yellow and green distress inks. I also used layering stencils, stamps and diecuts. Love the bee! And the mixed media die cut set!

I cut the bee wings from packaging acetate.

Inside I used the same inks and stencils and added a tag in one pocket.

This picture shows the colour much better - I also used embossing paste and  gilding wax.

The back is left plain!

I really enjoyed doing this and will do another one very soon! I hope you have enjoyed seeing what I made!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

craftstamper /take-it-make-it-challenge-june texture

welove2create challenge-12-anything-mixed

Big hugs to you and I hope you have a wonderful weekend - I've got a busy one as usual - the girls have their exam ballet lesson then its the play tomorrow evening - oh and i'm doing the 25km moonlight walk that starts at 10pm!!!!! Oh joy! I do hope the forecast is wrong and we get a dry night!!! 

Big Huggles!

Rachel xx

May ATC swap

Hello Lovelies - have you had a good day? Its been a scorcher here - just beautiful - started with a run this morning then did some shopping then waited in for the TV aerial repair folk to come - they never did but I managed to get 2 hours of weeding done so the garden is looking better. Then I picked the girls up from school and took them to a local tearoom where they like to have a paddle in the river - then it was off to dance followed by brownies - phew!!!! I sat in the back garden and had my tea with a glass of prosecco - very civilised - and I felt like I was on holibobs!!!

Today I've got the ATCs to share with you that I received/sent in a recent swap - the theme was flowers - here's mine:

and a close up ..

These are the ones i got back from my lovely swap partners.

Thanks to Jo for organising!

Big huggles.

Rachel x