My Lovely DIL loves Fairies!

Hi Everyone,

I do hope you get some of the lovely sunshine I can see through my window today although I suspect it's not very warm outside.  I shall find out shortly when I take the Snoopster for a walk.

Well, I sure made up for posting 2 days in a row didn't I?  Not a peep for nearly 2 weeks now but it's mainly because I have been making Design Team stuff which, of course, I can't show.  I did make a card for my lovely Daughter in Law last week though so I am sharing it today.  She loves fairies so I used Lavinia stamps to make her card.  They are what I call 'Fairies for Grown-Ups', Lol!  I love those silhouette stamps, have quite a few, rarely get time to use them - sound familiar anyone?

I used a Big and Juicy Waterfall inkpad to brayer the background colour.  I'm definitely a novice at brayering but I hope to improve my skills at a workshop with Lesley Wharton at Graphicus that I'm going to very shortly.  To add a bit of texture I picked up a bit of ink on a piece of textured sponge and dappled it very lightly onto the bottom of the image taking it over the edge and continuing onto the bottom of the card and I also echoed the hanging vine on the top of the base card too.  I added a little bit of Stickles in Patina on the fairy's wings and to the fairy dust she is sprinkling in the water.

All the stamps I used are from Lavinia except for the sentiment at the top which was made up from a very useful set of words and phrases from Elusive Images called Celebrations (there are 3 A6 plates in the range) and the grass around the fairy which is from Elusive Images Wild Meadow plate.

Thanks to all who visit and especially if you find time to leave a comment.  I hope to post a tag I made for a friend in a couple of days time.  Till then, hope your days are filled with as much sunshine as possible.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

PS      Ooooh, nearly forgot.  Have you visited our Craft Stamping Quartet blog recently.  My buddy Jo has posted the most gorgeous creation (the inspiration for which came from an Isabelle Norris project) and I'll be posting my own effort possibly later today.  I have to admit that I almost chickened out after Jo posted her's because I feel mine is rather lacklustre to say the least but then I decided it was only fair to show things I'm not happy with as well as things I am.

For a Very Special Friend

Good Morning Everyone,

I'm determined to be positive about today even though the weather is downright horrible!!!  I'm hoping it dries up just a little bit as I have to go down the road to let my friend's two dogs out at lunchtime.  Lucky lady, she's off to Bermuda to spend a week with her daughter who works out there and leaving her OH and the dogs to fend for themselves, Lol!

Anyway, I have a card I want to share with you (actually my other makes are all DT stuff so I can't share them much as I'd like to) which I made a couple of weeks ago for one of my Very Special Friends from the Craft Stamping Quartet.  It was a joy to make a card for Elaine, as it always is with these ladies because they and their friendship mean such a lot to me.

Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of the colours I used but for a change, I used Adirondacks mainly because I know they are Elaine's favourites and suffice to say, I used as many autumnal colours as I had in my collection (it turned out I had quite a few, Lol).  I started off by blending the colours over my cardstock starting with the lightest colour first and then before adding the darker shades I  placed a Tattered Angles Glimmer Screen onto my work.  There are a couple of different tree ones and I moved them around the card as I gradually built up the colour.  I then stamped the lovely delicate script stamp from the Elusive Images Antiquities (the same stamp is on a different DL sized plate too) plate all over, stamping off first onto scrap paper.  Next came the tree stamps from Tattered Angels and I'm pretty sure I used Adirondack Espresso for those.  I used the same colour background inks on a tag and then stamped a Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz quote from the Urban Chic set.  I think I used a branch stamp from the same set round the edge of the tag. 

I used a leaf stamp I've had for ages to stamp out lots of leaves inking the stamp with a couple of different colours and then watercoloured them using the Adirondacks.  When they were dry I cut them all out and gave them a thin layer of decoupage varnish (Wow, definitely needed a well ventilated are for that!), shaped them gently with my fingers and used dimensional glue to position them on the card.  The birthday sentiment is also from an Elusive Images set of birthday words.

Thoroughly enjoyed playing with this one especially as I knew it would be appreciated.

Before I shoot off to get some of those pesky chores out of the way,  I must apologise again for being so far behind with blog visits.  For some reason, life seems to be getting in the way of crafting and it's associated pleasures at the moment but I'm hoping things settle down soon.

Hope the weather isn't too miserable where you are and that you all have a lovely weekend.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Jo's Birthday Card

About a week ago it was my lovely buddy Jo's birthday.  As she is also a crafting buddy and one quarter of our Craft Stamping Quartet this card needed to be special.

Sometime ago Jo had admired a couple of cards I made using masking and blended Distress Inks together with overstamping so I decided to use this technique for her card.  I chose to use the Heidi Swapp hibiscus masks because I know they are one of Jo's favourite flowers.  Over the masked circle area I lightly overstamped with a beautiful script stamp from Elusive Images Antiquities plate.  I'd had this for ages and never realised how lovely and fine it is.

                                                     

The moths/butterflies were stamped onto acetate and heat embossed, cut out and attached just by their bodies which I decorated with sticky backed pearls.  These came from the EI Butterfly Poppy Collage plate and I love them stamped on acetate because they are so delicate.  The sentiment is from another EI plate called Birthday Words.  The only thing I used which wasn't from Graphicus was the hanging vine stamp which is a Lavinia stamp.
                                                                           

I've shown you two shots of the full card because I did this card the night before I had to post it (talk about by the skin of my teeth) so I took the pics in a hurry the early next morning before dashing to the post office.  Now I can't make up my mind which is the better shot so I've included both, Lol!

Thank you for visiting and commenting if you have time.  Have a good week everyone.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Birthday Card for my Crafting Buddy.

I'm well and truly hooked on the Heidi Swapp Mega Masks at the moment and I used one of the smaller circles on the sheet to create a card for my lovely friend Jo.

We met on the internet just over a year ago through our mutual love of Elusive Images stamps and our admiration of the company's owner/designer Glenda Waterworth, whose blog Artylicious, we both visited and commented on frequently. After emailing each other several times and talking over all things crafty we met irl at a Graphicus workshop and really got on well together. Since then we email each other on a very regular basis, supporting and encouraging each other in our 'crafty' endeavours. It's great to be able to discuss anything to do with craft and know that you're not boring the other person to death (as happens sometimes with my OH).

As well as emailing we do try to have craft related outings every so often and again, it's really good to be able to share the excitement of going to a workshop or a craft show with a good friend and I look forward to many more of these outings with Jo.

I know she's going to be feeling embarrased but I just have to say how much her emails lift my mood if I'm feeling a bit down in the dumps. She always manages to put something in that makes me smile and I know that she has at least one other crafty friend who thinks the same. So thank you Jo and a very Happy Birthday to you for last Sunday.

Now on to the details of the card and I'll try to be brief. I used DIs to blend a fairly light background to the circle and did position a small bird and branch mask (again Heidi Swapp) but I ended up almost obliterating it with stamping

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All the various stamps I used are from Elusive Images (available from Graphicus) and I stamped the little bird on the branch twice so that I could make it nice and bright and then cut it out and layered it onto the card. I then used Glossy Accents to give it shine. I stamped and embossed the bird with the curly tail and then coloured it with H20s, cut it out and positioned a feather behind the tail before adding it to the card on foam pads.

I blended chalk ink on the pretty block circle stamp and cut it out with my Nestabilities and then stamped the sentiment and inked the edges. Finally, I arranged the little flowers and added a bit of bling.

I think just about everything I used on this card I bought from Graphicus except for the basic card stock and the feather and self adhesive diamante stones which were in my stash.

List of EI stamps used : Damask Blocks

Design-a-Tree

Live out Loud

Curly Birds

Sentiment is from a Graphicus Guild exclusive stamp plate.

My Mum's Birthday Card and a Doggy Trauma

My Mum is 81 years old next Sunday and I have to say I hope if I get to her age I'll be in the same sprightly condition. Somehow, I doubt it because she puts me to shame now sometimes, Lol.

Anyway, this is the card I've made for her and it's safe to post as she doesn't even have access to a computer let alone own one. She does delight in sending me text messages though, in text speak I might add, from her mobile phone.

Originally, this started out as an A4 card and I used my new Mega Circle masks by Heidi Swapp. I had just finished all the blending, flower masking and stamping and then ....................... I dropped a blooming DI inkpad onto it. The air was somewhat blue, I have to admit. The only lucky part was that I didn't drop the inkpad onto the actual masked circle so I decided to cut it out and mount it onto another card rather than waste all that work. As you can probably see from the detail close ups, I blended DIs onto the background first then used a HS daisy mask and blended some more, removed the mask and did a couple of layers of stamping using stamps from the EI DL sized Lily themeplate and the Fantasy Floral A4 themeplate. Then after cutting the circle out I distressed the edge a little and then inked lightly all the way round. I then used a complete contrast DI in Broken China to stamp the humming bird by Inkadinkado which I versamarked all over, clear embossed and cut out. Using the same contrast ink I stamped quite a few flowers in two sizes again from the Fantasy Floral themeplate, cut them out, curled the petals a little, layered arranged them onto my card before fixing with silicone glue. The pretty circle block is from EI again and is one of their newest plates called Damask Blocks along with the sentiment from their very useful new Birthday Words plate. I cut this out using my scalloped circle Nestabilities. I also punched some leaf fronds from Core-dinations card using my Evergreen punch by Floral Punch Craft from The Hobbyhouse.

Almost everything I used for this card can be purchased from Graphicus/Elusive Images, my favourite craft shop as everyone knows.

Before I finish this post I'd just like to share a little bit about the rather traumatic week we've had with our little Snoopy. On Monday evening Snoopy thought he could have a little chomp on a nice fat bumble bee and live to tell the tale. Within seconds his face started to swell and before long he looked more like a Bassett Hound than the Jack Russell/Dachsund cross that he is. The swelling was so bad we got rather worried that it might affect his airways so felt that a call to the vet was in order. Result - a quick OUT OF HOURS visit for a steroid injection to halt the swelling at a cost of £62! Well, at least it seemed to do the trick and although it took a while for the swelling to come down, by Tuesday evening we thought he was fine. Uh Oh! Thought wrong! In the wee small hours of Wednesday (3 am to be precise) we were woken by Snoopy's panicked barking because he wanted to be let out. We thought that he'd settle after that but we were wrong again. 45 minutes later he started again and when I went to him this time he had been sick (too much info I know). I spent the rest of the night on the settee having 10 minute naps then being roused by a very poorly little dog being ill.

I have never known our little bundle of energy be so still and so quiet for over 24 hours. It's taken him most of today to get back to anything like his normal self and, of course, as he has spent the greater part of the last 36 hours sleeping he has just started to wake up - and it's nearly my bedtime and I haven't caught up on the sleep I lost yet. Whether it was the poison from the bee sting (after all, he is only small) or something else entirely that made him so sick I don't know but I hope it doesn't happen again.

The first of the photos is to show what he normally looks like and the others are taken about an hour or so after the sting.

Hopefully after another night's sleep he and I will both be fully recovered in time to enjoy the weekend - I hope!

Night Night! Sleep tight!