Mucky Paws!

I went into the craft room this afternoon with something in mind to do and then ended up doing something completely different resulting in fingers of a most interesting colour.  In fact there are those who might think I was a heavy smoker if they spoitted them so a clean up is next on my agenda.  The talented  Hels Sheridan was demonstrating on TV in the week and I was inspired to have a go at playing with Distress Stains, Distress inks and masks to make a background for some dimensional butterflies made using Art Parts mouldable film.  This material can be heated and moulded easily and if you don't like the results, can be re heated to try again.  I started by sticking a page from an old book onto the film, stamped some butterflies using a Docrafts Urban stamp - these were then cut out and coloured using distrsss Markers in the same colours as used for the 'scene'. I only moulded the butterflies slightly being mindful of the postage rates on thicker cards but of course if they were on a box the wings could be much more curved.

I hope you've all had a good weekend - the sun is shining now from a blue sky but when I got up this morning it was snowing thick and fast but fortunately although it settled initially, it soon disappeared thank goodness. Yesterday afternoon we had thunder, lightning and hail so what next I wonder??

PS - I've just realised that the brownish shades produced by mixing yellow and purple might just qualify this for inclusion in the Sunday Challenge on Hels' blog - follow the link above.

Baby Girl

Blogging four days in a row - how is that for catching up??  Today it is a baby card using a super digi image from Sassy Cheryl - don't you just love the strand of hair with the ribbon bow?  Backing paper is from my stash and the other pieces of card were all from the oddments boxes.  Image was coloured with Promarkers and Flexmarkers, a Cuttlebug embossing folder made the dotty layer and the image is on  Spellbinders label die cuts. Sentiment produced on the computer and popped onto Stampin' Up punched shapes (the little flower trim was punched from more oddments of card (also SU punch).

Springtime

Here is the second quintile on the springtime theme for the Chocolate Baroque swap this month.  I used a stamp from the Paris set for the words on the little postcard and the remaining stamps were from the sets of Teeny Tiny stamps.  Background paper is from Essence of Nature CD. I must say I'm not sure quite what I'm going to do for their April theme but hopefully more of that later when I've had a 'think'. Thankfully the bitingly cold wind seems to have dropped so it is a nice walk for me this morning to spend time at my local craft group.

Heat Embossing

The challenge this week on Make My Monday is to use heat embossing and there are some great examples on their blog and a wonderful mid week motivation project by Suzi B. For my card I took some text paper from Papermania and some of their urban stamps on the same theme along with a Marianne die cut leaf spray and built up a monochrome collage to which I've added some ladybirds - also an Urban stamp recently released.  The ladybirds were stamped in black and embossed, then coloured with alchohol pen; a Versamark pen was used over the coloured areas which were then clear embossed before cutting them out and adding them to the collage.  Words were produced with a Dymo label machine.

Quintiles for March

Well - so much for my idea of blogging more regularly!  I see it is a week ago I last posted something but I really will try harder.  It is geting towards time to post off my Quintiles for this month's swap at Chocolate Baroque and the theme this time is 'spring' - I do wish someone would tell the weather that it should be warmer though as it still feels very much like the depths of winter with the biting cold winds.

I decided to use one of the CB Build a Tree stamps and added pink blossom with a couple of the smaller stamps in the set.  The background was done with distress inks and I've added a word from another set of CB stamps called Flora Bella, set into a bookplate from a Tim Holtz Sizzix  tag die. I'm off now to produce something for the second piece of work so watch this space.

Inspired by Nature

The challenge this week for Make My Monday is to use nature as inspiration and I've chosen butterflies for my card.  There are some lovely ideas on their blog and also a very pretty card for mid week motivation so do take a look by following the link. Backing paper is from My Mind's Eye and the stamp is from Penny Black with the flower heads stamped twice and cut out for dimension.  The butterflies were also stamped and cut out.

Covered Notebook

I really must apologise yet again to my followers and friends for my lack of blogging - 'things' seem to have been ganging up on me one way and another, culminating with my car breaking with a resounding bang and I'm debating with myself whether I should give up driving or get something to replace it and keep going.  Anyway you don't want to hear about my problems and I have been visiting blogs but sadly not always finding the time to leave comments.  I've also been doing a bit more stitching rather than making cards and I thought I'd show you a little covered notebook made from some cute fabric available in my local shop and a scrunched flower motif made using a clever Clover template.  Not exactly rocket science but it is a handy little slip on cover so that when the notebook is full it can be replaced with another one (I bought 5 for £1 recently - bargain I reckon).