Beside the Sea...

Back in June I made my Dad's Father's Day card with the Hobby Art Stamp sets called Water's Edge and Shore Scenes. I used the Inkylicious waves stamp for the water. More recently I used the same stamp sets to create another scene for my Pearl Wedding Anniversary card for Steve.

These stamps are so beautiful! I think I might be playing with them some more soon. Both cards used a panel of silk art card for the scene and then the bird was coloured with Zig Clean colour markers on watercolour paper, cut out and stuck on with 3d glue.
Thanks for looking!

Lolly Stick Wall Art

After seeing Sandra's (Sandma Cards) wonderful lolly stick wall art as a sample for the last inkylicious show, I decided to have a go myself. I've been posting plenty of them on facebook but realised that I hadn't put any on my blog yet, so there are a few to see.

Here is how I secured the back and how to hang it

Each plaque is made by sticking large lollysticks together using hot glue. I painted them with either black or white acrylic paint then used ink dusters and inks over the paint. With the black one I used oxide inks and colourbox white pigment ink. For the white ones I dusted with distress inks and used watercolour markers, as well as stickles.   For all of them I used inkylicious stamps, ink dusters and stencils. If you want to know more feel free to leave a question and I will get back to you.
It is report writing season so I am spending all my spare time on those. I hope I will be able to see the wood for the trees by the end of the month and get more time in blogland after that.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments xxx

Inkylicious Samples

Hi There!
Long post alert (but mainly pictures)! Here, as promised, are my Inkylicious samples that are on Hochanda this afternoon. The stamps are all absolutely gorgeous and I still haven't stopped playing! If you want details about how I made them please ask. First up are the field poppy samples...

Next we have some seaside and beach scenes...

here is a summer meadow scene...

A couple of beach hut cards...

A moody moonlight scene...

Sunrise...

Sunset...

And magical unicorns!

I have had such fun and the stamps are still out and still being inked at every opportunity!
Thanks to Deby and Emma for sharing their wonderful stamps with me! I am so lucky!

Thanks for looking!

Coastal Scene

I stamped and water-coloured this scene whilst on holiday and it has been waiting patiently to be turned into a card. I used the Hobby Art Coastal walk and seashells set, and my colouring was inspired by the scenery we saw from the Pembrokeshire coastal path. Here are a few photos...

A walk around the Marloes peninsula was so good - great views, lovely sea and sands, lots of wildlife and wildflowers and the sound of the sea!  We took a boat trip round Skomer and were lucky enough to see seals, porpoise and dolphins! I took hundreds of photos, but these were the best!

 I am back at school and the children start tomorrow, so probably not going to visit blogland again until the weekend.
Thanks for looking!

August Challenge at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month and time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. Our theme this month is Anything Goes with a Stamp and a Die. Here is my card.

 This card was made for a dear colleague who has retired after 17 years at our school. I used two dies (Spellbinders circle and Go Kreate fancy rectangle), and a mixture of stamps from Inkylicious and Hobby Art. The seaside themed novelty buttons have been in my stash for many years, but were perfect for this scene. I used my ink dusters, distress inks and memento inks along with a white gel pen and stardust stickles to create the waves.
Our sponsor this month is Tattered Lace who are very generously offering one lucky winner a £50 store voucher to spend at their on line store. The award winning Tattered Lace company needs little introduction, they are synonymous with quality products coupled with the unique style and flair of Stephanie Weightman, you will find the whole range of products on the website here as well as regular inspiration on their blog here.

Do pop over to the challenge blog to see the beautiful inspiration from my very talented teamies.Thanks for looking and I look forward to visiting to see your entries

Puffins!

I realised that I haven't posted Meg's Birthday card yet, and luckily it has birds on it, Puffins to be exact - great for a couple of challenges!

The rocky ledge stamp is from Stampscapes, the puffin is from Crafty Individuals (CI - 349) and the grass, flying birds and posts are Inkylicious stamps. I created the background for the scene using my ink dusters and a mixture of memento and distress inks, and coloured the puffins and ledge with distress markers. I also drew the shadows of the posts with an antique linen Distress marker. Although you can't really tell in the photo, I used diamond stickles for the breaking waves. Meg loved it. Puffins are such wonderful birds, and one of her favourites.
Here is a close up

I am entering this into Allsorts challenge for this week where the theme is Birds and feathers, Fashionable stamping Challenge, where the theme is Flying things and My Time to Craft where the theme is Up, up and away.I am also entering this into the Crafty Individuals challenge for April where the theme is Nature's Beauty
Thanks for looking and I hope you had a good Easter. Back to work for me tomorrow. 

Boxes and Hearts

 Here is the box I decorated for Inkylicious. I saw it in Dunelm Mill for £3.99 and immediately loved it. It has a small chalkboard behind the picture, which I had thought about painting onto, but the colour and texture of the wood made me think of the beach, so I added a beach scene, using the windswept stamp, on silk art card and some shells. I ummed and ahhed about whether to add anything else, but Meg said it was fine as it was so I left it. 

 Here is a close-up of the lid. the larger shells were collected from the Norfolk coast a few years ago, and have been in a bowl in my bathroom ever since. the tiny shells were bought on the east coast - a bag full for £1.00! I found some sand in a bucket in my garage which we had bought a couple of years ago when nowhere had any salt left in the snow. I managed to spill sand all over my craft space and had to spend Sunday clearing it all off as everything was crunching! Next time I will use sandpaper - much less messy! Magic hands used it as the cup of chance on the show, which made me laugh - hope no more sand escaped!

I also found a wooden heart in The Range for 99p. I gessoed it and then tried stamping on it but the images lost their definition with water based ink and I didn't have the shades I wanted in any other ink. I gessoed and started again. Next I tried stamping in acrylic paint and it worked brilliantly. I used docrafts pearlised acrylic in blues and purples, dusting just a bit of purple ink over too. The sentiment was stamped in Versamagic ink and comes from the 'Simply Said' stamp sheet. They tried to show this on Create and Craft, but the lights were way too strong, and the pearlised paint reflected them!Hope this photo in my porch on a dull day gives you a better idea!
Thanks for looking!

More Inkylicious creations

 Here are some more of the cards I made using Inkylicious stamps for create and Craft. The first is done with Adirondack inks in peach bellini, Mountain rose, Denim and eggplant and my ink dusters.

 Here is a one layer card using 'Winsdswept', crushed olive , Tea Dye and broken china distress ink. The background is created with ink dusters. I then sprayed with walnut stain to get the grainy effect.

Two more one-layer cards using spring Distress Inks, Meadowlands stamp, some sequin waste and tiny script stamp.

 And finally two cards using the Daisy fields stamp. The first is done with tumbled glass, shaded lilac and chipped sapphire Distress Ink. 

The panel on this card was brushed with peacock feather, dried marigold and black soot Distress ink. The base card was stamped with aqua Adirondack and the delicate vine. I love all of these stamps so much I have still been playing with them, despite not needing to do more samples! Again, they all work in black and also in colour. Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments!

Get the TV on!

Hi There!
Hope you have got the TV on ready for the Inkylicious show on create and Craft at 11 am this morning.  Just to tempt you I am posting just a few of the samples I made with some of the gorgeous stamps I have been playing with.
Firstly there is Meadowlands...

Next we have Daisy Fields...

I've also had a good play with Windswept...

Aren't they gorgeous? So versatile too, as they can be used as silhouettes or coloured like I did with the last one. There are lots more too, which I will share with you in due course. Anyway, I won't keep you from the Telly. If you want any details about these please leave a comment and I will expand on what I used to make them.
Thanks for looking!

Seaside scenes

This months challenge for Craft a Scene is 'Beach Scenes', and as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to use my Inkylicious stamps again. With the weather as it was yesterday it wasn't feeling particularly like summer, so I made a rather stormy looking scene! I used my ink dusters on super smooth card with Distress inks in Stormy sky, tumbled glass and brushed corduroy, along with memento dessert sand. I masked the lighthouse before I began dusting and then coloured it with Distress markers afterwards, dulling down the colour with picket fence. The grasses were stamped in brushed corduroy using second generation ink.
The challenge at Allsorts this week is 'Oh I do like to be beside the Seaside', and I have to admit I do, even if it isn't good weather, so I'm entering this card there too
My second card is another Coastal scene using a Michael Powell stamp I bought recently - another lighthouse.

I coloured the scene with promarkers and used some snippets of paper from my stash - that border is covering a gap, as the stripy stuff wasn't long enough! The raffia was in my stash too and the shells were gathered from a Norfolk beach about seven years ago! I'm entering this in Di's Crafty snippet challenge.
Well, the weather has been a little better as Steve has managed to cut the hedge with only one interruption for rain. The sun has shone a few times too. I'm going to make some banana cupcakes now as we have three very ripe bananas in the kitchen that won't last much longer! Thanks for looking!