April Quintiles

Well I must say that the theme for Chocolate Baroque Quintile swap this month really had me thinking - it was April Fool.  Of course I had to tie in the theme with stamps and/or products from CB so I ended up 'thinking outside the box' and went for Steampunk style.  To my mind there must have been people who thought that the early inventors of weird and wonderful flying machines were foolhardy to say the least.  The quotation is from Shakespeare and the images are of course Chocolate Baroque stamps.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other members of the group come up with for this month which has been a bit of a challenge!!

Blue Birds

A bit of hybrid crafting here with some of the elements being created using Docrafts Digital Designer programme.  The backing papers, ribbon and bow were printed as was the image - all arranged on the screen and then separated out for printing so that I could make up the card in the traditional way.  A Spellbinders shape was used along with a strip of embossed card as a border for the printed ribbon and bow. The sentiment was produced on the computer and punched out.  The actual image was a black and white one but I altered the colours within the software to tie in with the rest of the design.  Working out designs on the screen is a great way of being able to just print papers and other elements at just the right size, thus saving on ink and also not ending up with loads of scraps of printed papers - as you know I have a mountain of those already!!

Owl Shopping Bag

Well I've started unpacking my bags from the show and managed a quick photo of this owl shopping bag which I made.  It occurred to me that the Suffolk Puffs would make good eyes for an owl so I set about drawing a design so that I could applique it onto some plain fabric to make into a lightweight bag. The pieces were applied to the background using Bondaweb and then buttonhole stitched around by hand before making and adding the dimensional eyes.  Must get on now with the rest of the unpacking because I have a commission card to make today as well - all go here but it keeps me out of mischief!!

Apologies

I really must apologise for my lack of blogging (again) but my reason this time is that I've been busy getting things ready for a couple of days demonstrating at my local craft shop.  As they recently started selling fabrics I was asked if I could do something relevant and as I didn't want to be dragging a sewing machine along I asked if they could get in a supply of various Clover templates, which they duly did.  I've been working out various ways of using the Suffolk Puffs, or yo-yos, and making Kanzashi flower brooches in addition to making some bags, covered books etc to show just some of the ways of using both the templates and the lovely cotton fabrics.  It was a very busy time although extremely cold in a daughty marquee - I can say that trying to sew with fingerless gloves on and bundled up in cardigans and coats isn't the easiest but it was lovely chatting to the visitors, many of whom are regulars to these two day shows which happen in April and September each year in conjunction with a woodworking event.  My 'friend' Jill of Jills Quills very kindly popped a sneaky photo onto her blog of me at work!!  They pretty well sold out of all the templates and I guess some of the fabrics were sold too so my efforts were not in vain.  Hopefully I can come up with pictures of some of the items later when I've unpacked my bags.

Literature Challenge

The challenge this week at Make My Monday is another one inspired by literature and this time it is a book I've not come across called Garden Spells and fortunately we've been given a brief idea of what is within the pages.  I decided to go along with the floral theme suggested by this but of course didn't have any stamps of the flowers mentioned so have had to improvise by using what I had.  The daisy stamp is from Crafty Individuals and the other flowers are from my stash with the addition of a couple of die cut swirls.  Various oddments of card  have been used to add the embossed panel with a punched border and the sentiment is a Stampin' Up stamp popped onto a Spellbinder die cut. I have to admit this is very loosely connected to the theme but inspiration seems to be failing me this week - I did say before that literature isn't really my thing and I hope this will be acceptable for the challenge.  The synopsis provided did conjure up various ideas in my head but somehow they just wouldn't translate into anything workable with what I have in the way of stamps etc.and believe me I have plenty to work with - maybe too much and that could be the trouble!!

Bird House

This cute birdhouse image is a digi one from Sassy Cheryl which I thought would be nice for a New Home card. Image was coloured with alcohol markers and cut out with a Spellbinder die.  Backing papers were some which came free with a recent magazine and the flower (Marianne Die) and leaves (Cherry Lynne) were die cut.  Sentiment produced on the computer and punched (Stampin' Up).

Well there is a bit of weak sunshine this morning but still bitterly cold, at least it is dry so not all bad.

Sunday Stamper Challenge Week 250

This week is the 250th one on the Sunday Stamper Challenge - Ink on My Fingers blog - and the lovely Hels is offering some wonderful blog candy as a prize to a lucky winner.  Just look and see what is on offer. The theme always seems to be based on song titles, quite loosely so never a problem, and this time it is 'shiny happy people' so something shiny has to be incorporated, plus of course some stamping.  I made a shiny panel by embossing a piece of black card with a cuttlebug folder, spongeing it lightly with some acrylic paint and once dry it was rubbed over with Treasure Gold (actually copper), a Papermania Chronology urban stamp was used on card sponged with Distress inks.  Another panel of toning patterned paper was added along with some die cut cogs, also rubbed with the copper and finally some shiny gems were added for that extra touch of bling. The whole thing was layered onto a piece of Tim Holtz shabby vintage paper.

 and here is a photo of the brilliant blog candy

Good luck everyone