Hello....

... is it me you're looking for? Well I hope so! Here's another of these long lost panels that I rediscovered while going through my box of unused coloured stuff, or BUCS (in tribute to Darnell's NBUS!).

This one has only taken a year to get onto a card, so not quite as bad as last week's.... I wanted it to pop against the background, but also be sympathetic to the colours of the greys. They are ALL the Copic grey tones - N, T, W and C - so you can see the difference in them all.

I used some coloured paper I've had stashed away for 5 years and cut the panels to layer it up.

I'm linking this up to my old challenge The Flower Challenge, which Aileen set up and I see going from strength to strength. The theme this month is Anything Goes, which is just perfect for me. 

The lovely Viv did a very nice post about some of my wipes, which I custom made in some gorgeous Tilda floral hummingbird fabric. Thank you for your kind words Viv!

Hope you're having a good week so far. The sun has been shining and it's been nice to get out and about without getting damp.

Thanks for popping by and Happy Crafting Everyone!

Ruth xx

The Flower Challenge #21 - Use a Previous Challenge

No I haven't gone back to my old days of being on the DT, although I have to say I miss the camaraderie we had, no, I decided after seeing all the great posts from the team and the object of using any previous challenge I couldn't refuse to join in.

This one is for Challenge 17 - CAS. I love CAS and it's a great opportunity to focus on the flower itself. With this one, it's all about the colouring and I even braved some no line as well.

I stamped the Make a Wish image from Clearly Besotted onto some Strathmore Coloured Pencil paper with some yellow memento dye ink. I then got to colouring slowly and with very light layers using my Faber Castell Polychromos, trying my very best to give it some light source. I really struggle with this technique.

I went back in to give it some added depth with some black pencils in all the nooks and crannies as Kathy would say.

I haven't done much in the way of colouring for this current 30 Day Colouring Challenge, so it was nice to sit down and spend some time with me and my colouring medium.

I'm linking this up to the challenge at The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge and also the Flower Challenge #21 Use a Previous Challenge.

Thanks so much for popping by and happy crafting! :) 

Flower Challenge #16 - Reminder - Spotlight Stamping

Welcome back to the reminder post for this month's Flower Challenge #16, which is all about Spotlight Stamping.

I decided to use one small stamp and to stamp it several times onto some watercolour cardstock with Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink. I then took my Daniel Smith Hero Arts Palette dot sheet and coloured one of the images to spotlight it. 

I used quinacridone fuschia for the petals. Don't you just love the word Quinacridone? Being a bit of a linguaphile, I had to know more about it, and the quinacridone wikipedia entry is a wealth of knowledge - complete with a molecule!

I stamped the sentiment from Clearly Besotted onto some vellum with my as yet unused Stazon Ink - now that has an interesting smell!! - as I wanted to see how it fares. No wonder people love it for stamping on acetate, it works a treat. I wrapped the vellum overlay around the card and then attached it to a card blank.

I hope this gives you some inspiration and I can't wait to see what you come up with. Happy Crafting Everyone!

Flower Challenge #16 - Spotlight Stamping

Hi Everyone, Welcome to the first Flower Challenge of the New Year! What better way to start off than with some spotlight stamping, where you colour one section of your image to spotlight it. 

I made this card for my in laws as we were visiting over the Christmas holidays and it is their anniversary at that time.

I used a stamp from Winnie & Walter that a friend gave me for my birthday and said it would come in handy for this challenge - she was right!

I stamped the outline in Versafine Onyx Black onto some Bristol board, and water coloured in one of the roses with my Zig Twin Tip marker - one of the three I have in primary colours. I rather like them and they work well on the Bristol board. 

I then die cut it with one of my SSS Stitched Rectangles and adhered it to my white card base with some double sided tape. I then stamped the sentiment from an older CB set appropriately called Mr & Mrs, in Classic Cherry (Ranger Dye Ink) and cut it out and adhered it with foam pads for some dimension.

Some sequins in various shades of clear, pink and red added some sparkle.

I do hope you'll get time to join in and blow away all those cobwebs from Christmas. The challenge is on until 25th January as usual and I'll be back on 15th with some more inspiration. I hope you'll take the time to check out my team mates' cards too - some gorgeous examples!

Happy New Year and Happy Crafting Everyone!

Flower Challenge #15 - Reminder - Anything but a card

Hi Everyone - only 10 days to go until the end of this challenge - oh and Christmas as well! Ordered the turkey/chicken/ham? Thinking of last minute gifts? How about these that I made for this Flower Challenge reminder post?

 
Bookmarks! Really simple, really effective and pretty quick to stick together. They are made using the Avery Elle bookmark die and some scrap embossed red paper that I found in my stash. They were embossed with the Floral Fusion die from MFT - I aim to get my money's worth out of it as I've used it a lot this year.

I always make my bookmarks double sided, so on the other side I stamped the book carrying lady onto some white card stock and one of the quotes (Dr Seuss, guess which one?) onto the other.
 

I like to add these into cards that I send as they are thin and practical gifts that don't add too much to the postage.

Can't wait to see what you make. You have until 25th, so stop ordering presents and get making them instead :) Happy Crafting!

Flower Challenge #15 - Anything but a card

How did it get to December? I'm actually convinced it's still September..... This month at the Flower Challenge we are making Anything But a Card. That means anything - as long as it's got a flower as the main focus - from tags to fancy boxes.

I'm also thrilled that Michelle Short from The Card Grotto has agreed to be this month's guest designer. If you don't already know Michelle's beautiful work, take some time to look through 10 years of her makes on her blog.

I've decided to try something I saw on a YT video by Made Everyday. It combines my love of card making and my love of sewing. It's a mini journal.

I started by taking a piece of orange Simon Says Stamp card stock and folded it in half. I like the US sizes as they are a nice easy size to fold in half being 11 x 8.5 inches.

I then used my Precision Press to heat emboss the image from The Ton which I've had for a while and have been looking for the right kind of project.

I then took 3 sheets of plain white paper and folded them in half. I had to trim them to fit as they are UK sized.

I then clipped it together it with my quilters clips and sewed down the middle and then gently folded it over to make my book. This was so simple and it looks so good, I may start making these and sending to friends.

As always you have until 25th - in between cooking the turkey and that sherry you can get one done ;) - and I look forward to seeing all your projects. Happy crafting!

Flower Challenge #14 - Reminder - CAS

I love seeing all your inspiration on our challenge blog. Really you always pull out all the stops for us and that makes me so happy.
 

We are still on Challenge #14 which is all about CAS. So that's white space and limited embellishments. Does white space actually have to mean it's white? I don't think so, I just think it needs to be one colour, so I've gone with black this time and coloured my stamped image in with my Gansai Tambi Pearl Colours. Although it's not watercolour paper, if you're careful with it, it won't buckle.

  I simply mounted it onto a white card base and added the heat embossed sentiment popped up on foam pads on the bottom.

Can't wait to see what you make, so keep adding them to the Linky. Happy crafting!

Flower Challenge #14 - CAS

Thank you all so much for joining in with our anniversary challenge last month. It was so lovely to see all your beautiful cards and have you so enthusiastic about our challenge :)

This month our challenge is all about CAS - Clean and Simple - so we want to see flowers as the main theme, with lots of 'white' space and minimal embellishment.

Do you remember the card I made last month with ink swiping? I had two panels I didn't use, so I've used it up here and simply drew a flower using one of my Uni-Pin pens and fussy cut it.

I stamped the sentiment from Clearly Besotted (Brushed Greetings II) onto a white A2 card base and adhered the flower on with foam tape.

I love CAS, so I can't wait to see what you all come up with. You have until 25th to play and I'll be back with some more inspiration on 15th. Happy crafting everyone!

Flower Challenge #13 - Reminder - Use Your Favourite Flower

Hi Everyone! We are half way through this challenge, where we would love you to use your favourite flower. I've been loving seeing all your cards so far. 

Don't forget that this is part of a fabulous prize giveaway, with some amazing prizes from some fabulous companies, so read the instructions and join in! 

I used my favourite stamp again from Clearly Besotted, and this time I coloured it with my Polychromos pencils, which was nice as they don't often get an outing.

I then took a piece of white card stock and drew outlines of these arrows from a stencil in different coloured pencils and coloured a few.

I took a white A2 card blank and distressed the edges with some wilted violet and cut the stencilled panel down so there was a small border. I popped the die cut iris out using the matching die and atached it with foam tape on top. A simple sentiment from the Clearly Besoted Many Mini Messages set and a few sequins is all that was needed to finish it off. 
 

Hope you will feel inspired to join us. There are some amazing prizes up for grabs and I would hate for you to miss out!

Thanks for popping by and Happy Crafting :)

Flower Challenge #13 - Use Your Favourite Flower - VIDEO

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the Flower Challenge #13 - this is our One Year Anniversary. Can you believe it? A year! And so we have a fantastic challenge this month where you can win some amazing PRIZES - yep PRIZES, and you will want to go to the blog and read what they are - I would want to win these! 
 

 
Before I go any further...

*** PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS VERY CAREFULLY!***

I really don't want you to miss out!

 So, my favourite stamp is one from Clearly Besotted that is sadly discontinued. It's called Just Darling and it is my favourite flower in real life too - an Iris.

 

I've had this idea in my head for ages using the ink swiping technique that I was introduced to by Tracey. I didn't of course have the die, and I could no longer buy it, but having lovely crafty friends I managed to borrow it - thank you Lisa!

 

I have a video to go along with this process, so I won't go into much detail here, but it's a fairly simple technique of swiping inks onto a piece of paper. I have lots of little cubes of ink and these were the perfect size for this. Also I hope you'll forgive the messy enamel dots in the top left hand corner - it was all going too well with those until the inevitable splodge!

Thank you all for stopping by today, I hope this gives you some inspiration to enter and don't forget to follow the instructions or you won't be eligible for the prizes.

You have until 25th to enter and I'll be back on 15th with some more inspiration. Happy crafting!

Flower Challenge #12 - Reminder - Tic Tac Toe

Here we are again, the half way point in this month's Flower Challenge - Tic Tac Toe.

 

This time I've gone with the bottom line - White, Die Cuts and Colour. I found that I have a few flower dies that I've received with my magazine subscription to Simply Cards and Papercraft. This is an old Build-A-Flower type die where you get the different elements and stick them together to make a flower.

 
I found some scraps of blue Bazzill paper in my scraps box and managed to get all the petals for two flowers out of it, and some scraps of yellow and black made the stamens and centre. I bent the petals slightly before sticking them together to give them a bit more life.

I took an A2 (US) white card base and found a scrap stitched frame in my scrap box and attached it to the base with some foam tape. I also used some little bits of foam tape to attach the flowers. I applied clear Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen to the flowers and then some glossy accents to the centres. It is super shiny! A simple sentiment in the bottom corner finished it off.

See that shimmer! You have as always until 25th to get your cards up and enter. Happy Crafting and thank you for visiting me today. And look out for next month's challenge - we have quite a special anniversary challenge!

Flower Challenge #12 - Tic Tac Toe

Hello Everyone, I hope you've all had a great summer holiday. School starts again this week, so no doubt the weather will get nice and sunny ;)

It's time for another Flower Challenge - can you believe we are on number 12?? This month we have a Tic Tac Toe board for you to pick from (Noughts and Crosses for those in the UK who don't know).

And here is the board you have to choose from. You can pick a line, across, down or diagonally.

 I've gone with the middle line - Gems, Watercolour and CAS

I started with some watercolour card and heat embossed my image (Create A Smile Stamps) in clear gloss embossing powder. I usually use white but I've seen Michelle Short use a lot of clear and I loved the look so gave it a go.

I then got out my Gansai Tambi Pearl Watercolours and coloured in my image.

These paints are so creamy and so shiny too! I love how it turned out. I found I had a mask of the flower so covered it up and then added some less watered down paint to make brighter splatters.

I then cut the panel down and used lots of foam tape to attach it to my A2 (US) card panel and then stamped the sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black. A few gems from my stash in matching colours finished it off.

You have until 25th of the month to enter and I'll be back on the 15th with another post to remind you all again. Hope you are all having a great day. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Flower Challenge #11 - Reminder - Focus on Background Stamping

Hello Everyone! I am enjoying seeing all your fabulous cards for our 11th challenge. How quickly the time has gone! You still have time to join in this month. As usual the challenge ends on 25th of the month.

This card uses lots of those little stamps that you get in sets and often ignore - well I know I do. I won this set on an Instagram giveaway from the very lovely Rowena. If you don't know her stuff, please do check her feed out. She is very talented! 

I started by picking three of the tiny little stamps in the set and stamping them in a fairly random organised manner on a panel of Copic friendly paper. I tried pretty successfully to avoid the same stamps next to each other!

I coloured them in with very basic Copic colouring - either one or at most two colours. I then cut out the panel with my WPlus9 Sunshine Layers die.

I decided I needed to colour the Big Bear and Bird and give him a flower to hold. I used Kathy Racoosin's rag technique with colourless blender to give him some texture for fur.

Again no sentiment - I just can't seem to think of them at all!

Looking forward to seeing what you create. Happy crafting everyone!

Flower Challenge #11 - Focus on background stamping

Hello Everyone! Welcome back to another Flower Challenge. This time we are focussing on background stamping. I confess that when I make cards, I often see the background, well as background, so it was refreshing to try to put it in the limelight.

I must apologise because the photographs are quite bleached out owing to the sun - shouldn't complain, should I!

As you can see, I made two very similar cards using the WPlus9 DoodleBuds stamp set. The first is done with Hero Arts Soft Pool ink on a light blue card base, the other is the same ink on Neenah.

I simply stamped all the different stamps from the set across each card panel, fitting them in as well as I could. I was really pleased with the result. 

With the tone on tone card, I originally embossed the word 'blessed', but it looked odd, so I added the black die cut on top with the additional words embossed on a piece of the same cardstock. I did the same with the other card.

You have until 25th as usual to link up your project and I hope that you've got some inspiration from myself and the rest of the fabulous Design Team. Happy crafting!