Back Crafting At Last

Thank you for all your lovely comments following the birth of my new Craft Room!! It is all finished now and I have been filling all the shelves and arranging and re arranging stuff! I don't seem to have as much as I thought I did now it's all tidy and in one place so I don't feel so guilty if I have the urge to add something. I will definitely share some photos with you when I'm happy I've finished getting it just right.

I needed something to sit on and during a visit to my Mum I asked her about an old stool she had. She said she didn't want it so I brought it home and gave it a crafty make over. It was pine originally and well worn from years of use so I sanded it down and painted it with the same emulsion I've used on the room. It took a couple of coats to get a nice surface and then I stamped on it with Graphite black Brilliance ink using various stamps including the Patchwork Butterfly from Graphicus, a Dawn Bibby flower and some Inkadinkadoo leaves for the sides and the legs. I found that using the stamps unmounted worked best as you can push them down more firmly onto the wood and bend them round the legs.


The top edges were aged with some Vintage Photo DI and then I coloured all the stamped images with watercolour pencils and went over with a water brush to get the colour into all the woodgrain. Stickles were added as a finishing touch and then my DH gave it a couple of coats of varnish to seal it all.


I really enjoyed myself and things kept getting added when suggestions were made by the rest of the family so it certainly ended up well decorated. I shall sit on it with pride!!

I've also just noticed that the Tuesday Taggers theme this week is Bugs and they have a lovely prize from The Craft Barn again. I know this is a bit bigger than a tag but I hope they won't mind if I sneak it in as my entry.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope your week is going well. I'm not sure what's happened to the Spring weather this week. Hopefully it will return for the Bank Holiday.

Christmas Is Coming.......

I hope you've all had a great weekend and your Christmas preparations are well under way.

We've spent the weekend putting up our Christmas Tree, No, it hasn't taken the whole weekend, we did go shopping and other things as well, and it's looking beautiful. I always think the house looks so cheerful with all the twinkly lights during these dark December days.

I've also managed to get some stuffing made and other bits and pieces in the freezer so I think we're getting there.

Only Christmas cards to write, pressies to wrap, crafty presents to finish, cakes to decorate........ ahhhhhh!!!!! It'll all get done, I'm sure.

I was feeling ok until a lady phoned tonight to ask me to make and decorate a three tiered Wedding cake for the 27th December, yes two weeks today!!!!! I never usually turn down requests but I had to for this one, I don't think it would be physically possible, but that doesn't make me feel any better. If she'd only asked a month ago it would have been no problem. I feel awful now!!

I've managed to get a bit of crafting done, finishing special Christmas cards based on the moon tag I did last week. Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments, I felt slightly overwhelmed! Anyway, I will show you them once they've been delivered so in the meantime I thought I'd share a non Christmassy card with you I did a few weeks ago.


This idea was demoed by someone on a Create and Craft show I saw but it was so long ago I can't remember who it was, so apologies for that.

The background was done with moonglow mica powder applied after the card was given a coating of veramark and then a swirl stamp was inked with versamark and pressed into the powder all round the edge removing it to show the stamp. Clear EP was heated all over to seal it and give it a glossy finish.


The dragonfly and flowers were Inkadinkadoo Mindscapes and were stamped in versamark on acetate and white embossed and then cut out.

Liquid Pearls were added as a finishing touch.

I enjoyed playing with this technique and shall definitely try it again with different colours.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you all have a great week. Don't work too hard!!

Where Does The Time Go!!

I can't believe it's Thursday already. Where are the weeks going, I really don't know, sometimes I wish they'd slow down just a bit.

I'd better get on with this post otherwise it'll be Monday again and I won't have done it!

Firstly I'd just like to say a huge thank you for all the lovely comments I've had recently. I love reading them and they are always full of such wonderful encouragement. The crafty blogland community is a lovely place to belong too.

It was my best friend's Wedding Anniversay back in September and this was the card I made for her.


Those trusty Inkadinkadoo mindscapes stamps again. I just love them. This time I inked them with the Muted Moods set of Colorbox inks which are beautiful. The image was clear embossed. The BP is an offcut of pink paper in my scrap box which was cuttlebugged and some darker pink ink wiped over to highlight the embossing. The blue BP was off cuts of Basic Grey.

The flowers were darkened with the same inks to match and some stickles and gems added.

I really must try using some of the sketches out there to alter my style. When I look back at my cards, they all tend to be laid out the same. It must be time for a change.

Thank you for visiting and I hope your week is going well.

A Few Cards

It's been a funny day here weather wise. One minute the sun is out and the next there is a heavy misty rain coming down, but the wind had been cold and strong all the time. Not a day for being outside. Where has the Summer gone, how I long for the warm sunshine again.

Whether it's the weather or just one of those days, but I have struggled all day with some cards I have been working on. They are coming together now but it's too dark to photo them, so I shall show you another day.


While browsing through the blogs earlier I spotted that the Allsorts challenge this week was to do a male orientated card so I thought I'd enter this one. I made it for one of our neighbours whose birthday it was while we were on holiday. He looks after our house with his wife when we go away and we'd be lost without them. He likes anything to do with nature so I did this little Inkadinkadoo Owl which was sat on a Nestie edged with some swirls. The swirls and corner stamps were from a little pack from Studio G. The greeting was printed on the computer.


The second card was one I did for my Mum's birthday recently. I have to be honest and say I scraplifted it from the very talented Brenda, hope you don't mind Brenda, but I just loved the design. You can see the original here.

The paper was from my leftovers box and is one of my favourite from Anna Griffin. I matted and layered it onto co-ordinations pearly paper and the lovely silver embellishment came in a pack that I've had for ages. I stamped the swirl twice to get that lovely effect. Lastly I ran the edge of the card through the cuttlebug with one of the new border folders. It's a bit difficult to see on the photo but just finished things off.

Thanks for looking today. I did manage to salvage most of the wet paper from the other day but had to reprint my photos. The layout is now thankfully finished and out of harms way. It's another thing waiting to be photographed in good light.

Have a lovely weekend.

Time Flies

This week's TIO challenge is Time Flies. It certainly does, I can't believe we are nearly in August, where has the last year gone!!!!

Both Freya and I have entered a tag again this week, but we did them separately so they are very different this week.


Freya stamped her butterflies (from inkadinkadoo) on vellum and painted them with gold glimmer mist to make them curl. Her background was sponged with chalk inks and the clock was taken from the internet and painted with pink glimmer mist. The little butterflies were stamped with pink brilliance ink.


I took a different clock face from the internet and liked the idea of a dandelion clock and the flying seeds. My background was sponged with the brown set of colourbox pigment inks and the dandelion (from Autumn Leaves, it was the Stampology Fine & Dandy set, one of my favourites at the moment) was stamped in black and clear embossed. I did the same for a second image on scrap paper and then just cut the seeds off. The clock face had brown ink applied and I hand drew the hands in.

Thank you so much for looking and the wonderful comments you leave us. I hope you all have a lovely weekend, whatever the weather!