Quirky Village Scene

I was intrigued by some new Papermania stamps designed by Michael Powell which really made me think of Portmerion and the TV series from years ago called The Prisoner which was filmed there (hated to miss an episode of that one!!).  The scenes are unusual in that they are only partially coloured with some details being left as line drawings although of course there is nothing to say they couldn't be completely coloured.  However I decided to go along with the illustration on the packaging and used Polychromos pencils in many colours blended to create a similar effect to his watercolouring.  I found some toning background paper amongst my stash and used a Sizzix brick wall embossing folder on a piece of Core-dinations card to make this into a simple card.

Spring Flowers

Spring is just around the corner - it's official because at least two challenge blogs have chosen it as their theme for the month.  Make My Monday have a general theme of  Spring for the whole month with a specific theme of  Spring Flowers  for week 39.  Spring into Spring  is the theme of the month for the St Luke's Charity challenge.

I just knew that somewhere amongs my huge stamp collection I had a wooden stamp with daffodils and I eventually managed to unearth it to stamp onto watercolour paper and colour using Polychromos pencils.  Nestabilities were used to cut out the oval shapes and Spellbinders dies for the border; background paper is from a pad I've had for a long while and as usual the cover is missing - some stamping was added around the edge.  A stamped greeting was added along with a ribbon and scrap of floral paper from my bits box and that's it - two challenges covered with one card.

More Beadwork

Someone in our local craft group expressed an interest in making an amulet purse with my help so I thought I should maybe make one to test the design to see if it was 'beginner friendly'.  These can be made using a variety of beadwork stitches and fortunately I have a book giving lots of ideas. This one is made using brick stitch which obviously she will need to learn first but on the whole I think it would be reasonably straightforward to make once the stitch has been mastered.  I've used a mix of matte and shiny beads which give the design some variation and I left the bottom edge open so that it could maybe used as a scarf holder - a tip which was passed on to me by another friend - thanks for the idea.