INKY FINGERS

 Hello bloggers! Happy Sunday! and wow! We have more sunshine 😁It may still be cold, especially if not in the sun, but it feels so bright and spring like - it's so uplifting. There are flowers everywhere - what a joy! I finished off a couple of things I was doing this week and decided to make two into journal pages for my 'planner journal'. I love these dies because I can die cut the binding side but make the page any size I like - plus I already had some great planner page dies and they all work really well together.

Aren't these stamps (Art by Marlene) fun? Everything Marlene does is BRIGHT, so I had to follow suit. Her t-shirt is actually lime green and white but it scanned as aqua for some reason...??? It's an A5 page.

This is another one I began last year and finished off this week... I've used it before, but this time I'd cut around the top edge so that I could add it to any b/g - don't know why I ended up putting it back on white!

And a very simple one...The image is stamped and clear embossed, then I added colour in the darker parts of the flower and drew them out with water, hoping to create paler colour, but there's so little card remaining after embossing that it doesn't really show up. Nice, bold image, though. This is a 6" x 6" card.

I've just finished and photographed another book, so I thought I'd better post the first one I made after Christmas, when I hadn't been able to stamp for a month or so... but I'll put it in a separate post. 

 I've been making minibooks again, playing around with different ways of adding pages, with mixed results. These are two 'empty' books, made to add pages to. I used this Aall and Create stamp on the smooshed die cut cover, stamping and cutting out the bottles and the flower heads twice, to make them stand out. The one on the right is the back cover. Sometimes it's just a shame to add anything to a smooshed Oxide background because the ink effects are so beautiful 😊 

 

I’ve had a free day today, so I’ve been enjoying the quiet of my craft room… bliss!

Only 2 more days left in November… I thought I’d be relieved, but I’m beginning to realise I’ll miss my (almost) daily visits to the AEDM peeps… but I’m sure Christmas prep will soon take over! Good AND bad but definitely busy… and I can see most of you at Art Journal Journey.

Today, day 28, I’m thankful for flowers.

Earlier today, I went into my yard to check the bulbs I’d planted and was pleasantly surprised at just how many fuchsias are still in bloom. I love them at any time but they just looked especially beautiful this morning because I didn’t expect them. (I should explain that in England a yard isn’t a garden, as it is in the US, but a paved area behind the house, most often found in older terraced (all joined together) houses, like mine. This house is over 100 years old and was owned by the builder of the whole terrace – about 8 houses and 2 small shops - so it’s a little bigger than the others and had just been completely renovated when I moved in . I keep lots of pots of flowers, herbs, hanging baskets and other things there.)

My journal page is a stark contrast to yesterday’s plain page (now with more stamping and stencilling added) – it’s busy – way TOO busy, really but I was having fun I was in French mode, so did a lot of my journalling and stamping in French but the torn text is in English.

As usual, the die cuts have absorbed some of the Oxide inks behind them but I don’t mind that. The black flowers are stencilled, not stamped, but they are embossed because I used Versafine ink to stencil with.

I’d forgotten I also intended posting this pic of my favourite floral treat – when in season – I’ve only recently begun to love tulips, but love the fact that as they are decaying, they open up and gradually change colour, displaying an amazing range of hues and looking more and more beautiful – a bit like Autumn leaves. I keep them until they really are falling apart.

I made some cards for a couple of challenges, too.  In keeping with the Floral theme, I made this one…

…which fits in nicely with the challenge over at

Addicted to Stamps and more - photo inspiration

This one is for Moo Mania and More – Trees

I also made another tree card – I think the grey, dark weather was influencing my choices, today.

This one is for Time Out’s Black, White and one colour challenge…

and also for

Craft Creations, Anything Goes

and

Casology – Girl

I am, of course, also linking to AEDM

Thank you for stopping by

See you again soon, hopefully tomorrow

Cath

xxx

Catching up with my Month of Thankfulness.

So yesterday, I was thankful for Fun and Laughter… this page started life as a card, but I soon realised it wouldn’t be appropriate as a card, so I pulled out my 6x6 Kraft paper journal (reminded by Yvonne!) and attached it to a page, after stamping the words and drawing the speech bubble … then added Les Rats des Villes (Katzelcraft) as my imagination ran riot. I love the one slinking away on his belly…

I gessoed another page, then added Oxides through a stencil, using bright colours as a contrast to Weathered Wood, stamping the large Laughter (Hero Arts) a few times off the page. There were some larger die cut letters in my little box, and because I’d been colouring and cutting out les rats, I decided to stand them on the letters, with the top one running away from the girl with the shotgun...  It’s a bit busy, so the rats are almost lost, but  I just played around a bit until I realised I’d better stop before I made it any worse! Theoretically, it’s a continuation of the first page, but is actually on the page before… duh! It just happened!

I wanted to make another ‘Resist’ card for Fashionable Stamping Challenge, so I stamped an old word stamp on glossy card in Versamark, heat setting, then sponging Adirondack inks over the top, stamping the word background in the same colours as the background.

I was imagining butterflies on this, but took the easy way  cos I’ve cut out too many images and looked through my cut out basket. Ihis TH image worked well with the background words and I liked the fact that I wouldn’t have chosen pink for him… Hunting for some suitable words in my word box, I found these…

So today, I’m thankful for !IMAGINATION!

Allsorts’ challenge is CAS Christmas…I don’t make many Christmas cards, but I wanted to try out this die.

The black lettering is a little harsh, but I tried blue first and it was a little lost… if I do this again, I’ll stamp some watermark snowflakes in the background.

Finally, another Die cut… smooshed with Oxide inks, stencilled, the happy duck added,then the die cut Birthday.

I’ve never used as many die cuts in my life, lol. I love some of the latest designs but seem to acquire them just to look at - not to use… I especially like word dies.

I’m linking this to AEDM, Art Every Day Month

Watercooler Wednesday Challenges – Occasions

Penny Black and More – Make Someone Smile

Addicted to Stamps and More – Holiday

Thanks for visiting

See you soon

Cath

xxx

(Edited…)

(Please accept my apologies if you think I’m not commenting on your posts – I am!  Sadly, my comments seem to be disappearing into the ether, even if I click on Preview, which is my usual ‘fix’. So sorry. I’ll keep trying )

I woke up this morning to beautiful Autumn sunshine – again!  I really AM thankful for the mild Autumn we’ve had until now in NW UK. Seeing a bright, sunny day makes it so much easier to be thankful.

I made a quick, very simple journal page to celebrate it... the birds are die cuts and I really like them

I love trees and I know I’m not on my own… my sons have, in turn, called me tree hugger, tree woman and bird woman.  I think they think they’re insulting me but nah, I think it’s great! I’m a nature lover and proud of it and I DO hug trees – or at least touch them. There’s something very powerful about a tree and especially the older ones. They’ve seen a lot of history and withstood a lot, with storms, wind, rain, lightning, drought, snow… yet they stand tall and solid. You can almost hear them breathing if you listen closely enough…

This tree doesn’t look very old. It’s one of Lynne Moncrief’s stamp designs from That’s Crafty and there are some fab words on the plate, too. 

There are a couple of Winter Foliage challenges around – a little early for over here, but I thought I’d give it a go. I hunted through my ‘C’ (eeek! the ‘C’ word!) stamps and found this stamp. It came with a spider attached and a little verse about the legend of the Christmas spider. I didn’t want that, so I cut it off.

SSS Wednesday have an All that Glitters is Gold challenge at the moment, so I stamped the verse in Versamark and embossed, but the small font was lost in the dark background, so I stamped again on white and made a narrow tag from it. The small decoration (or spider’s webs…) are gold glittered.

This is a simpler version, with no background colour. I coloured the pine cones and the strings in gold ink. I decided to use a die cut word, so I inked it with Versamark ink, then embossed it with Gold Glitter EP. I haven’t used that for about 10 years! The gems were added as an afterthought, just to add more sparkle. The edges were dragged (roughly, as you can see) through a Gold Delicata inkpad.

The Winter Foliage challenges are at

Make My Monday and

Daring Cardmakers

Shopping Our Stash have a Tic Tac Toe challenge:-

We have a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday – Black, white and one other colour. I love black and white, but always enjoy a splash of colour with it.

This is a Lost Coast stamp (I think) and the background is a Darkroom Door stamp.

I had a few b&w ideas in my head, so I made this, too, with a bit more ‘smooshing’ of Seedless Preserve Oxide. I coloured the moths (Stampendous)  with Prisma pencils, then overpainted with watery Seedless Preserve ink. The lines and dots are from Paperartsy.

Double Trouble have a Black and White plus one challenge, as do Crafters’ Café, so I’d like to enter their challenges.

Thanks for looking

See you soon

Cath

xxx

The challenge at Allsorts this week is Autumn Glory, so I thought I’d play around a little more with Autumn shades. There’s also a Nature challenge on Alphabet Challenge.

This is one of two of my favourite leaf stamps – it’s big - this card is 6” square! I made a lot of cards with both stamps last year, but mainly the other one, so I thought I’d ring the changes and use a different word stamp.

I played with this stamp first, inspired by a card I’d seen at CAS Mix-up., but I’m not happy with the way it turned out, so I decided not to use it for the challenge.

I also made a monochrome card, using Gathered Twigs in both Oxides and Distress, though I first sponged the background with Antique Linen Oxide, stamping an old Hero Arts paper texture stamp over it in the same colour. I stamped the centre leaves in Distress ink, embossed them, then masked before stamping the others in Oxide. Using a damp paintbrush, I blended the colour I’d stamped, then added some second generation background stamping in Oxide. Third generation may have been better on hindsight. I then stamped the words in Distress Ink, clear embossed, and added some touches of Distress ink painting over all the  leaves and around their edges.

This This is for Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.

Shopping our Stash have a Smooshing Technique challenge, and since I love smooshing, I had to play! This card is A5 size – not small!

Addicted to CAS have a Diamond challenge, so I made this simple card as an experiment – I learned from it…

That’s all for now

Thanks for looking

See you soon

Cath

xxx