Alfie and The Aliens

Well, still waiting for spring in these parts.  I can remember bringing our son home 19 years ago and the cherry blossom being out on the trees in front of our house. Today the branches look bare.  When we got married 21 years ago (give or take a couple of days) all the daffodils that were out in bloom across the town in the grounds of the church but in our garden today our daffies are only in bud (maybe they'll make an effort for Thursday!).


I'm still working on putting together a selection of cards for my friend who is unable to get out and about since her stroke.  Her Great-Nephew has a birthday coming up so I decided to use the sketch at this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge to make a card for him.

Among my latest stamp acquisitions has been "The Blimps" by Woodware so felt that one of the little aliens would go well with some card stock I have had lying around for quite a while.  I've not used either of them before so I suppose for Alfie's card I'm going to be venturing into alien territory!  

After taking the photos, I thought that it might be an idea to use a googly eye on the stamped image to add a little bit extra dimension to the alien.

Metallic Monochrome

When I saw this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge I had a couple of ideas in mind but as usually what I had in mind doesn't always translate well in practice!

I had a play with some washi tape and some paper strips but just couldn't seem to get past the planning stage with them.  Then yesterday I saw something on a Facebook group I belong to and thought I would give it a try - elastic band stamping.  Just take an acrylic block, wrap some elastic bands around it, add some ink (or in this case I used a watermark pad) and use it to stamp your design.  I used a copper coloured embossing powder and was quite pleased with the result it gave.

I have only a few sheets left of matt metallic cardstock copper and not been able to find it again but decided to use it for this - I took a rectangular layering die to the inside of it to make the most of what I had left for the embellishments.

I have been making cards to give to my friend who is housebound so that she has some to hand when she needs them.  I am trying to cover all occasions so this will be one for adding to the pack I am putting togethr for her.

Vintage Car

Next week sees my teenage son reach 19, where have all those years gone?  He's been lucky in that here in Fife, regardless of when Easter actually is, the School/College Easter holidays tend to fall around his birthday - in fact he was born Easter weekend in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit so I suppose he could be the Easter Bunny! 

The 3rd of April is an important date in this household, as well as it being our son's Birthday it is also the 36th anniversary of the Battle of Grytviken (King Edward's Point) at the start of the Falklands War.  My husband was one of the 22 Royal Marines from HMS Endurance and NP8901 who were defending South Georgia against an Argentine invasion.  Unfortunately he won't make it to the reunion next Saturday but no doubt we will have a few catch up phone calls to make up for it.

With it being our son's Birthday I, obviously, definitely needed to make a card and, due to the fact that he is learning to drive, had already decided to try and incorporate one of my car dies into it.  When I saw this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge I had a wee smile to myself as it fitted perfectly with what i had in mind.

The car is paper pieced from a Sweet Dixie die called "Vintage Car", some irridescent sequins have been used as the headlights.  The scarlet red card is a gorgeous Craft Perfect Satin (matte) metallic - very stroke-able!!!  The embossing folder is Darice's "Diagonal Stripe" & Happy Birthday stamp is from Penny Black's "You're Retro" stamp set.

Products of Insomnia!

For a long time now I have been having problems sleeping.  Often when I'm using my stamps I'll stamp off a couple of extras and put them away to colour up on those nights when I can't sleep.  I also make up some backgrounds using Distress Inks and put them away in a folder for future use.  My friend is housebound so I thought I would start putting a few cards together for her so that instead of her spending a fortune on buying from online stores she could have some at home for when she needs them. 

I have accumulated a few now so thought I would haul them out and get some photos taken.

 Woodware Clear Magic "Jacqui's Garden" coloured using Promarkers.

Not entirely sure which way up is the right way up!

Woodware Clear Magic "Long Tall Flowers"

Woodware Clear Magic "Fairy House" with Couture Creations "Pure Pleasure" Embossing Folder.  Stamped and embossed with white embossing powder to give a faux bleached effect.  Coloured with Distress Inks.

Woodware  Clear Magic "Sweet Tweet".  Coloured using Distress Inks & Brusho powders.

 Tim Holtz "Mixed Media #5" Die Set with Distress Ink background.

Mushrooms or Toadstools?

The last few days have been a pain - quite literally!  The injection I get for my TMJ has been wearing off for the last couple of weeks and so the long wait until the next one (end of April) begins.  Headaches, earache and the worst toothache (pressure from the over-tightened jaw muscles) I have had in goodness knows how long.  I was taking muscle relaxants and strong painkillers and still the toothache persisted, then I remembered clove oil - only I didn't have any and it was the middle of the night so off to the kitchen and flinging things around the baking cupboard until I found the long lost jar of cloves.   Within about half an hour of sucking on a couple of cloves (tastes awful) the pain was gone!  It's amazing how the simplest of natural things can be more effective than mighty pharmaceuticals!

When I can't sleep and looking for things to do I sometimes will get the stamp platform out and make some images that I can colour in later another time I can't sleep.  What a difference having a stamp platform makes when you aren't very good at stamping right first time!  I got my recent Woodware stamp purchases out and got on with churning some out, some just stamped and some stamped and embossed.  I recently ordered a couple more but they won't be here until later in the week (I hope).

I had some images already coloured and had already been cut out in stitched circles and when I saw this week's  Freshly Made Sketches Challenge

I thought I might use one of those but in the end decided against it and went for a simple mat and layer style instead using one of the Woodware "Three Toadstool" stamps I had been colouring in.  I had originally coloured one in red like a traditional "fairy" toadstool and made it up but after looking at it a couple of times I decided maybe I needed a to be a bit more colourful instead and came up with this instead. For the band I stamped some of the grass from the bottom of the stamp onto some green cardstock and fussy cut it to make a foreground then added a sentiment and the small heart in heart die from the Tonic "Hello Beautiful Layering Hearts" set.  The shaded background gives the hint of a circle.

Lucky Charm

Just when you think the worst of the weather has gone, it decides to come back for more!  It's been really cold, with strong winds making it feel even colder but at least the snowfall has been light this time around.

I kind of got a little carried away this week making cards, well the weather was lousy and I wasn't going anywhere.  I had three attempts at making something for this week's  Freshly Made Sketches Challenge

 

The first two attempts were fine but just felt that they were, perhaps, just a wee bit too dark.  I had a couple of sets of stamps which I recently acquired and wanted to have a bit of a play with those, I thought that the Woodware "It's The Little Things" sentiment stamp "Nothing says Happy Birthday like a piece of folded card!" was quite amusing and decided to use that for the first one.  I had some matt copper metalic cardstock and went for a verdigris colour ing using distress inks for the front panels.

 

Still using the verdigris look, slightly darker  this time, I played about with some dies I had bought from "The Works" earlier this year, they have only started selling dies in the last 12 months, some branded names & some of their own.  The ornate & square dies in this card are from their own collection.

and for the third one I dug out an old set of matching stamps & dies.

Over the weekend it was St Patrick's Day with Ireland playing England in the Six-Nations Rugby Championship.  An Irish win on St Patrick's Day would see them with the Triple Crown and the Grand Slam. I didn't have anything with a shamrock on it but I did have the Lawn Fawn set with the lucky four-leaf clover on it so decided to use that.  I was making the card while the game was on in the background, it must have done the trick as they beat England 24-15 and won the Triple Crown (they beat Scotland, Wales & England), the Grand Slam (as the Triple Crown plus France & Italy) and ,of course, the Championship.

When The Boys Are Away . . .

Yesterday, Sunday, it was Mother's Day here in the UK.  However, hubby plans were to go to see his pals to watch the Old Firm game and teenage son was going away to Largs with his pals.  It was just going to be me and the dog at home!  When I mentioned this fact to aforementioned teenage son, he said "Just think about it, you'll have the house to yourself and plenty of peace and quiet!".  

Late on Saturday night I had an unexpected email from Amazon telling me that the Tim Holtz Mixed Media #5 die set (the one with the roses) that I had ordered ages ago was finally being dispatched out and would arrive the next day.  So with both boys away doing other things I would have a few hours to myself to play with my new dies.

I had everything ready and waiting for my parcel to arrive and quite literally just as hubby left the house the delivery driver arrived with my dies.  When I was playing I realised that one of the dies in particular was lending itself to making a card that fits in with the Freshly Made Sketch for this week.  

OK, I know, I already have one in this week, but . . .  

 

 

It had to be Distress Ink - Fired Brick and Barn Door reds with some Mown Grass, Peeled Paint for the flowers and an added hint of Wild Honey on the butterfly.  

Of course I had to play with the other two dies as well.  For the other rose die, I used Wild Honey & Mustard Seed with the same two greens as before.

The more ornate die I kept simple by just using it with a matt metalic gold cardstock.

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.

Sunshine

"Sunshine? You're having a laugh aren't you!" were the words of my darling husband as he saw the card I had made for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge.  Teenage son's comment "Oh, the irony of it!" I suppose sums it up!  It's supposed to be Spring but we have been in the midst of the worst weather we've had in Scotland for years! They have been calling it the  "Beast from the East" - a weather front consisting of lots of snow and strong winds.

My sister was snowed in for three days as she lives in a small village that the snow ploughs never quite seem to get to, the snow drifting up to chest height.  We've not been quite so bad, the only drift we have is where the snow has blown up about 2ft against the shed door.  Our wee Jack Russell has been loving it - hates to get wet but loves the snow!  I opened the patio doors and the snow fell in so I started making snow balls and, to the delight of Jack, threw them into the garden for him to "catch".  Our next door neighbour's teenage daughter and two of her friends have built an igloo in their back garden - it took a couple of days but the three of them managed to get in it.  It was really nice to see it finished off with fairy lights!

I'm pleased to say that the thaw now seems to be setting in and we can get out and about again - we even got mail today, hooray!!!

I had recently bought a Tim Holtz Mixed Media set from Amazon Warehouse that I had been wanted, it that said it had damaged packaging - there was a couple of quid off it and free delivery so I thought why not.  It turned out one of the dies had a slight kink in it but this didn't affect it.  The die I was looking at was a mosaic effect & I was wanting to use it but not sure how but on a look through my stash I found a Sizzix set "Rainy Days and Sunshine" which had, funnily enough, sun dies and a pair of sunglasses.  The light bulb went off when it occured to me that the mosaic could be the bottom of a swimming pool!

This is the sketch:

  
and this is my interpretation.  The pineapple top I am trying to grow is pretending to be a palm tree:

The backgrounds are three shades of blue Distress Ink - Broken China, Salty Ocean & Faded Jeans and three shades of yellow/orange - Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey & Mustard Seed.  The background was coloured then once the mosaic die cut place on top, more colour added to blend in the top layer.  The area under the die cut and the central area of the die cut were stamped with Perfect Medium and embossing powder added to try & give the "pool" a wet look.

It's not very obvious but I used a die cut of the mosaic design to emboss some texture onto the orange/yellow cardstock.