Hello Summer!

Yesterday was the first day of the Meterological summer, the sun was shining and so to celebrate I took Suzi (my car) out with the roof down and all the windows open so she could pretend to be a cabriolet.  In reality I just headed out to go for some free range eggs from a local farm - the roof and windows were soon closed to try and tame the rather pungent farm odours.  

I was listening to the radio on the way back home and the news reader was telling everyone how we've just had the sunniest and warmest May since records began.  The words were hardly out of his mouth when the heavens opened, I had no jacket with me and from the short distance from car to house I was soaked!

It's been warm and sunny today but while I was taking photos of this week's cards I could hear rumbles of thunder in the background but the rain has stayed away (for now).

When I first looked at this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge it made me think of an opened envelope so I began to have a look at what I had that would work.  Originally I was going to have the background as text like a letter but when I couldn't find anything I liked to use to make it decided rather than an envelope I would make a pocket with a decorated tag to put into it.

While having a clear out I found the head of large artificial thistle and it reminded me that I had a couple of stamp sets that I could use in a card to put it to good use in some photos.

The tag was made using the Woodware "Thistle" and Crafty Impressions "Bonny Scotland" set.  I used a section of white ribbon which I partially unravelled to make the fringed pull coloured with the same markers as the image to give the appearance of a thistle.  Another piece of ribbon was unravelled to make a fringed bow.

It was only after I posted my entry into this week's challenge and was looking over what I'd written the following day that I realised what a numpty I had been - I hadn't coloured the thistle properly, too much purple!  This is what happens when you do things when you really ought to be in bed asleep!

This is what it should look like

and not this

I also managed to lose the large thistle head I'd found so had to dig out the Eryngium & Rose posy for the photos instead.

While the sun was shining and because it was the first day of summer I decided to colour the Woodware "Wiggly Stems" set in bright summery colours. Tonic Studios ""Hello from "Folk Heart" Layering Die Set. The background paper came from a magazine "free gift". 

Is it Spring Yet?

Last week we had "The Beast From The East" weather front that brought lots of snow and wind & this week they are talking about "The Pest From The West"!  Fortunately this time around it looks as though it is going to miss us over here in the Kingdom of Fife.

The snow from last week is almost gone, just the remnants of where it was piled up from path and road clearing & we can see the snowdrops and crocus in the garden again.

I've been staying warm indoors & been trying some crafty things I've been meaning to for a while now - been ages since I experimented with something messy!  I've had Brusho colour powders for ages but not really done much with them so I dug them out and had a play - should have worn latex gloves!  Got some backgrounds done and then decided to have a try at doing some resist techniques with them, faux bleach effect.  Out came the embossing kit and some new stamps to try.  Put the new stamp on to the stamp platform and started applying the Ranger Perfect Medium that I've had for a while but not used in ages - what a mess!  As I am applying it the Perfect Medium sponge (or whatever it is) decided that it was now chewing gum and left lumps all over the stamp - not impressed and not the kind of messy crafting I had in mind when I started!  Fortunately I had a different embossing pad and could use that instead.  I ended up trying the faux bleach effect with the Brusho colours and also using my Distress Inks as watercolours with two of my new Woodware floral stamps; "Wiggly Stems" and "Tall Flowers".  I used one of these efforts as the background to this weeks Freshly Made Sketches Challenge.

This background with the faux bleach effect was made using the Woodware "Wiggly Stems" and Distress Inks.  I originally had the Crazy Bird stamp also with the faux bleach effect but it just look weird - sort of had that "You're not really going to make me wear that!" look my son gave me as a toddler when I bought him a hat with teddy ears on! I soon changed it to a normally stamped  image instead.  The bird was coloured with Promarkers, which I then went over with the blender pen to give the appearance of watercolour and to try and tone to match the Distress Ink.

and using faux bleach effect on the Bird Crazy bird, not one of my better ideas - maybe a finer detail powder would be better.

The Woodware "Tall Flowers" stamp using same technique with Distress Inks

This is one of the Brusho backgrounds I came up with.  I had the stamp in mind when I was making this one so was trying to aim to get some of the colours in the areas I wanted to colour the flowers.  It's an A5 piece of cardstock which was cut down for stamping once it was dry.  Compared with the Distress Inks, the Brusho colours seemed much more vibrant and intense.