Clarity Challenge for July

This is the first of the Clarity Challenges I have taken part in, being a very new member of the Clarity club.  The brief was to use the Stampstamps, birds and some shrink plastic.

This pushed me to actually buy the Stampstamps, which I had been looking at for some time.  The picture were all bird pictures I had on the computer anyway,  I just measured them carefully so that they would fit inside the stamps when they arrived, and laid them on top of each other, using My Craft Studio to do the computer manipulation.  Then it was a case of positioning the stamps over the top of the pictures with the aid of masks to get the right overlay.   It did take six attempts to get it about right.   The Queen's head was taken from a real stamp and enhanced a little to make it more gold (to fit in with the gold medals achieved at the Olympics)

I used plain but smooth white card, then I brayered with Adirondacks to create the shadowing and shading around the edges.  I still need a lot more practice to get that right in the future.  Still, that is loads more time to play - goodie, goodie, lots more fun.

This was my very first attempt at shrink plastic and I was very wary of the technique and decided to follow Barbara Gray's advice and do it in the oven.  I used the Kingfisher stamp kit - the branch, the leafy twig and the bird itself.  I stamped the image with Stazon and left it to dry.  Then I coloured it with Derwent watercolours and Derwent Metallic watercolours.  The cutting out was a little challenging but worthwhile taking the time.  I put the resulting bits into a foil takeaway tray, quite a deep one, lined with baking parchment and then put it into my top oven (not the fan oven) for about 30 seconds until it had done its shrinking work.

After I had mounted the central topper on the square card, I used Pinflair Gel to attach the kingfisher and the branch at the top.  It may not be perfect, but I was quite pleased with this first attempt, and I hope it does justice to Barbara Gray and her wonderful stamps.

WOYWW - 168

Oh dear, it is worse than ever.  Never mind the push back or anywhere else.  The mountains are about to fall.  Added to that is the fact I have now lost so many stamps amongst the detritus, so a good sort out and put away is called for.

This is the tidiest bit - it gets worse.  Apart from the panic to get this month's cards done, I suddenly realised we are about to go on holiday and I have a mountain of  cards to do for early September, a load of sewing to shorten trousers for Geoff (denim jeans), baking to take away ..... and I WANT TO PLAY with my stamps.  That is one reason you can see my total stock of Adirondacks on show with a couple of Big and Juicys thrown in, post it notes with stamping masks cut out and a lot more.

Just turn to the left a little and it gets worse.  I won't bore you with a list of what you can find there, and just let you browse for yourself.  Just be careful - it might all fall down.  I will just point out the camera battery in the foreground.  You might know that as soon as I get my camera out to take a picture, the battery died.

In case you are wondering why I am showing you the shameful mess in which I was working (playing) yesterday, just take some time to pop over to Julia's place  where you will find loads of other desks to browse through each Wednesday.  I have been missing in action for a couple of months, due to lack of time.  I felt it was unfair to accept lovely comments from others when I could not find the time to return the visits.  Hopefully, things have calmed down a little and I will certainly do my best to get round as many desks as possible this week.

Pretty Petals - Homework Part 2

These cards were done in a similar way to the previous post, using the Clarity Pretty Petals Kit.  Instead of using an ink pad to colour in the petal shapes, I did them with several layers of Sakura pens to give them more of a shimmer.  I thought it suited the butterflies to be glittery too, and I enjoyed getting the glitter pens out again after forgetting them for so long.  

The sentiment is another Clarity stamp.  I found several of them that I really liked in the half price sale, and this is one of them.

 This last card is actually an easel card.  Like all the others, it was done on ordinary white card, but with this last one, I gave it a good dose of Crafters companion Spray and Shine after I had finished.  I did brayer the corners lightly to give it a halo effect before spraying.  Then I mounted it on black card and then onto the gold coloured card to match the flower. 

I was quite chuffed to see all my Homework cards shown on this month's Classroom show and to hear Barbara's comments about them.  It did give me quite a lift, so thank you, Barbara.

Pretty Petal Kit - Homework

I actually managed to get some homework cards done for the Clarity Stamps Pretty Petals Kit.  When I first saw this set, I knew it had lots of possibilities, so I finally bought the bullet and ordered it.  When it arrived, I was a little snowed under and did not have the time to play that I would have wished for.  For those of you who have not seen this set, it consists of 7 petal shapes, two of which are outlines, and a large butterfly (suitable for using with fusible film and fibre). 

This first card was done with one of the Big and Juicy ink pads.  The petals were just stamped as the border on the left, using the dotted border and the solid filler.  When they were dry, I brushed them over with Irridescent medium.  The humming bird is another Clarity stamp I found in a shop ages ago, and it just seemed to fit this project, although it took two days to find it.  Needless to say, it was exactly where it should have been, six inches from my hand.  Once it was dry, I used the Promarker thin black to outline it.

The second card also used the Pretty Petals, and was stamped with another Big and Juicy.  I used the solid outliner and infilled with the solid filler petal for the leaves.  I used the thin Promaker to draw in the stem and the leaf veins.  The flower itself needed some masking with post it notes to fit the petals together.  The sepals (the outside green bits - I had to look up the right name) were filled in with the dotty petal shape,  I actually used a purple Sakura pen over the top of the purple ink on the petals.

I will show the others I did later this week - when I can find what I have done with the photos.

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I love this stamp

This card is really a change ton the one I posted earlier, but I needed to add a bit more to it for our grandson.  All but one of these stamps are from the Clarity range.  The odd one out is the Happy Birthday and it shows.  The stamp nearly tore in two when I tried to remove it from the acetate. 

I found the spaniel in the 1/2 price sale at Clarity and knew I had a good use for it.  Again I used the Vintage Photo Distress ink pad, and coloured it in with a water brush.  The ball was sponged through a punched circle with a make-up sponge.  I used a larger sun/moon when I was brayering the background.  The tree was one of the split trees, and I used one of the leaf sets to decorate it (not to mention to cover up a couple of ink marks which appeared because I failed to take enough care with dirty fingers).  I did try to create a cloudy effect but that did not work, probably because it was just ordinary card rather than Clarity card.  The birds were from the Harbour kit, and stamped with second generation ink, as was the tree and twigs.

I might be in trouble for this card as our grandson desperately wants a dog, which is not a real possibility.  He will have to make do with coming to ours and walking one of our dogs. 

Quality counts!

I decided it was time to get back to the blog again, just as our internet access vanished,  Virgin had just told us that our speed was being updated to double speed, then ..... nothing.  Still, it is working again for the moment. 

Unfortunately, I could not upload my entry for Less is More as the cut off time had been and gone.  It was supposed to be a flat card with Fur or Feathers. 

The card will not be wasted as I know exactly who to send it to.  The spaniel was from the Clarity Stamp sale, and, as we have two working cocker spaniels, I had to have it.  I already had the tree which is another from Clarity.  I stamped the dog with Vintage Photo Distress ink, and used a water brush to shade it in.   Then I masked it off, and stamped the tree into the background.  The ball was done using a hole punched into.a small scrap of paper, a make up sponge and the Vintage Photo again.  That makes it easy to shade the ball to give it shape. 

The sentiment is just right for the look you get from a spaniel, but the quality of that stamp leaves a lot to be desired.  It was from a set of free see-through stamps I acquired, and partially tore through as I removed it from the backing.  I have been used to the sturdy firm quality of Clarity Stamps and treated in the same way, with dire results.  It was also much harder to get a satisfactory image when stamping with it.  Clarity may not be the cheapest, but they are definitely the best I have used.    Quality counts!

Quality is what I was thinking about when I dug out my elderly sewing machine out to do a bit of mending (it was bought new by my father for Mum (with all the attachments, and I persuaded her that she needed a new one when I got married - the new one was never as good or reliable).  It is a vintage Singer, made in 1949 in Kilbowie, Clydebank, weighs a ton, and just works.  It is electric with a knee lever to operate it.  All we have ever done to it is a bit of light cleaning and a little lubrication - oh and Geoff made up a new power cord when the original perished. 

However, today things went a little awry when the drive belt started throwing bits of green rubber at me, and the speed dropped drastically.  A new belt is required - horror.  Not bad, though, when you consider the original has lasted from 1949 till today.  and Singer still make belts for this machine.  As I said, quality counts.  When new, it cost the huge sum of £17-7s-6d, when an average month's wages would have been around £40.  (There is one on Ebay at the moment for £85) .  Hopefully, the new belt will arrive in a couple of days and I can get going again with this family heirloom.  (I bet the new belt does not last as long)

Although I have not blogged for ages, I have dipped in and out of many  blogs to see what you are all doing - some lovely work out there on show.

I am also entering this card into Pixie's Snippets this week - after all, the card was free old stock, and the one stamp was free with a magazine ages ago.  So, Di, please will you let me into the playground next week.  (I have missed this week).   I miss having my go on the swings.

Blooming corners again

I really love this Blooming Corner kit from Clarity, and keep finding new uses for it.  I needed a wedding card to send to America, so it had to be thin, but still be stylish.  I found the photo on the groom's Facebook site and used Roxio Photosuite to cut the circle out and fade the edges.  After printing it on to Clarity card, I stamped the images around it.  Promarkers, several layers of them to get the density of colour, gave me the shades I wanted.  Once it was cut to size, I brayered the edge in yellow to shade it in.

Matting and layering was done using purple sparkly card and pearlescent white.  I chose not to put a sentiment on the front so that it could be framed afterwards if desired.  All the writing goes on the insert, together with a border of stamped flowers and a brayered edge.

I hope this card does justice to Barbara Gray's stamps.

You may have noticed that I have not been blogging much lately.  I still love you all, but I feel it is unfair for you to take the time to leave me lovely comments when I have not even managed to answer some of yours from two or three weeks ago.  Once I have dealt with my backlog of cards, potting up plants, planting out and generally dealing with life, not to mention rotten and unreliable internet access I will be back.  I have still been looking at some of your lovely work and desks.  Having just looked at my filthy, glittery, mica covered keyboard, I see another urgent job to do.  See you all soon.

WOYWW - 156 Back from holiday

Thank you to those who emailed me to see if I was well, because I had been missing in action for a couple of weeks.  Your thoughts are so welcome and appreciated.  I am absolutely fine.  My reasons for being missing were holiday, a week in Norfolk.  Whoever decided we should travel on a Friday wanted shooting - I am sure it was not me.  The traffic was dreadful, especially around Norwich, with so many changes of lane and islands to negotiate, especially with a caravan on the back.  Our longest delay, though, was for the apparently notorious Elveden crossroads and traffic lights - we queued for over half an hour before we even got to them. 

We arrived on site around 3.30pm in brilliant sunshine, to be met with a very welcome cup of tea from the site wardens, before being shown to our pitch, just next to the dog walk - ideal for first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  We just had time to set up and put the awning up before the rain set in.  For the next three days, we did not turn the heating off in the caravan, and if you poked your nose out of the car at the sea, you risked having it blown off.

Then on Tuesday, we woke to brilliant, wall to wall sunshine and heat, and spent the rest of the week dodging from shade to shade to avoid sunstroke.  We had a great trip on the Broads from Wroxham, round a couple of the closer Broads, and the dogs were totally exhausted by having to be good and quiet and still for so long, tucked under the table between us.

Wednesday was harder, a walk round the grounds of Sheringham Park.  It would have been fine if we had not taken the signposted"short cut" back to the car park - BIG mistake, hard walking and in full sun (the moral was don't take short cuts - they take longer with much harder walking, and mobility scooters don't work on them).  On the positive side, the azaleas were glorious and beautifully perfumed, well worth seeing .

Our last day was spent on the Bure Valley Narrow Gauge Railway.  Again, very tired dogs, having to be so good for so long, again tucked under our feet in the shade.

My only crafting for the week was crocheting Jozarty's shawl/scarf, and I now need to find a charity shop with necklaces to take apart for the beads I need for the finishing touches.  Since getting home, I have spent a fortune online.  I needed some batteries for the smoke alarms and a few other bits of equipment, a Tilley Hat to protect me from the sun (have you noticed the change in weather already) and a batch of Aran wool to knit a sweater for my husband, the same as the one he used to have - that will keep me going for a while.

Sorry if this has been a little longer than ideal, Julia, but I have missed two weeks, so I hope you can forgive me.  Our internet connection while we were away was dreadfully slow and unreliable, so I soon gave that one up.  I hope you will find lots more desks to wander round if you just call in at Julia's Place.  If you are kind enough to visit me and leave a comment, I will do my best to get back to you asap.

Mica powders and Clarity adhesive sheets - messy fun!

This card is as a result of watching Barbara Gray on Sunday, and was great fun to do.  It uses Clarity Adhesive sheets, and the Clarity Lovescape set of stamps, and a mixture of mica powders.

I am not going to presume to tell you how to do this technique, I am not good enough.  What I will say though is that it is great fun to do, and I am still very inky and everything in sight is covered with shimmery mica.  The design is mounted onto Clarity white silk card, and then covered with Clarity film to protect the micas.

The base card is pale blue pearlescent, a ready folded card from stock, which I thought set off the mica colours best.  The sentiment is again, my one and only Happy Birthday stamp, used with a blue Adirondack (my brain has gone as I cannot remember which one).

I am now in the middle of trying to find a good way of backing it onto black card, but I need to go back to the drawing board for that one.  if I get it right, I will show you later.

Less is More - Yellow

This card is for this week's challenge for Less is More, which is to use the colour yellow.

I have to give credit for the sun idea to Emma Williams, who is one of Barbara Gray's talented team of designers.  I saw it done on one of her Create and Craft samples, and stored the thought away for future use.  It is just a case of dividing up a semicircle into segments and sponging different shades into each one.  I used one of the Big and Juicy ink pads, the Soothing Sunset one, and sponged direct on to the plain white card.

The glorious unicorn is from the Dufex range, and is one of a set of decoupage.  I just used the second layer as I wanted it to stay simple.  Sadly, a plain photo does not really do the unicorn justice as it catches the light beautifully.  I am very fussy about unicorns and they have to be good models of a horse before adding the horn.  This one is not too bad from that point of view. 

The sentiment is my one and only "Happy Birthday" stamp, and that again was stamped using the Soothing Sunset, covering two separate sections of colour to shade it slightly.

WOYWW - 153

My desk is a little tidier this week, mainly due to the fact that I wanted to play with mica powders today, and I did not want them mixed with everything else in sight.  You may wonder why I am showing you my desk and all that is on it.  After all, you may be new to the world of craft blogging, everyone is new at some time, and if you are, then you are very welcome.  Wednesdays are the days when our Lady Julia hosts us all at her place - Stamping Ground.  She very kindly allows us to join together and have the chance to get more inspiration from the work of others, and share our ideas and encouragement.  Some desks will terrify you and some will astound you, but you are welcome to all.  We just ask that you are patient with us and leave us a comment if you like what you see or have ideas to add.

I do have a couple of piles of projects off to the side, but not as much as usual.  Another reason for my tidy up was to find my Clarity Stamps Lovescape kit.  I knew I had it but it had got split up and distributed around my room.  You can see some of my mica powders and the brushes to applying them at the back on the right.  The little orange thing is my Fiskars finger scalpel, which is so easy to control as it becomes an extension of your finger.  My Ottlite is on show too, but as I took the photos on Tuesday afternoon, I did not need my light.  I could make do with that lovely yellow orb in the sky - I seem to remember it is called a sun, and it helps to make us warm too.  There is a small Really Useful Box at the back full of Promarker pen tops - I have changed all mine to the fine nibs, which I can remove if I really need to.  The yellow rubbish is the trimmings from the Clarity Adhesive sheets, which I used to make the two little pictures on top of the stack of white copy paper.

This is the first time I have tried this technique and it shows - I need a lot more practice to get the results I want.  I need to watch Barbara Gray a lot more to see where I am going wrong.  I think I need to take more time to mix my colours better before I start  - I never was the most patient person.  Slowly, slowly, catchee monkee, as the saying goes.  I am certainly not doing it justice at the moment.

I am off to bed now, so I shall be scheduling this post and link in properly when I get up.  I struggled to get round to all my visitors last week, and was horrendously late with some visits, for which I apologise.  I will try hard to do better this week, but please forgive me if I do not get there.    Thank you to all those who took the trouble to pop in during the week.  I really do appreciate all of you and especially what you have taken the trouble to write in your comments.

Pixie's Snippets Challenge 18

I actually managed two offerings for Di's Snippets Challenge this week, mainly by hunting through bits and pieces I had been playing with.

This first one uses another stamp from Barbara Gray's Clarity range.  I did the topper ages ago and it has just been sitting around in one of my many heaps of things to do.  It nearly had a complete disaster today, when I suddenly realised I had stuck it on the card upside down, but, fortunately, the silicone glue was very forgiving and allowed me to just lift it off and replace the right way up.  It was stamped onto Clarity paper, with Adirondack Slate, and then I think it was brayered with Big and Juicy Mountain Meadow. It was a while ago, and I did not write it down, so I am just guessing.  I think it is a lovely stamp, well two stamps anyway, and very adaptable.  I mounted the topper onto Clarity black card to try to keep the oriental feel.

This second offering was another play around with various stamps, and a bit of digital tweaking as well.  The trees were stamped, and then scanned, so that I could place them as I wished, changing the sizes to fit the perspective.  The church and the horse and carriage are Clarity stamps, while the fence is just put in with a thin black pen.  I used Adirondack Cloudy Blue and Slate for the sky, and just the Slate for the foreground.   It had been intended for the Craft a Scene Silhouette Challenge, but it did not go quite as I had intended.

Having now got into the playground in time for registration, I am now off to have a go on the swings, before heading out the the greenhouse to pot up some new plants, and hoping they do not die of frostbite this week.  Watch out, folks, for the icy slide over in the corner of the playground, and don't fall in the mud.  see you all soon.  xx Maggie

PS I hope you are feeling much better this week, Di, and ready to enjoy life again.  Take care of yourself.

Craft a Scene - Silhouette

I am quite cross with myself over this challenge.  When I first saw the brief, I thought "Great, I have loads of ideas for that one".  Sadly, those ideas never saw the light of day, as I got bogged down with other things, cards that were needed urgently, gardening, family ....  You know what it is like.  So here I am right at the last minute, throwing something together.

It is  a serious mix of stamps and styles.  The background is a Stampscape Stamp, which I received this morning from Nancy, as part of my prize for the Moonlight challenge - thank you, Nancy.  As you can see, I did not waste any time using this one.  It was not quite long enough, I did not measure my card first, so I managed to tack on another bit at the end.  The horse and carriage is from Barbara Gray's Clarity range.  Both images are stamped with Adirondack Pitch Black.  The sky is brayered with Adirondack Cloudy Blue, then over-brayered with Adirondack Slate.  The foreground is just the Slate.  The topper is then mounted onto silver mirri paper, and then onto Clarity Black card.

Next month, I am hoping that I might get at least one card done in good time, rather than a rush at the end.  Mind you, my school work was always done in a rush at the end, so nothing changes, does it?

WOYWW - 152

I was missing in action last week, mainly because I knew I would not have time to visit many people and I thought it was unfair for you to visit me, when I could not return the favour.  However, the mad panic to get cads done for this month is over and I am now working to do June and July.  So I am back, although a bit late, and here is my desk, well part of it anyway.  I am in the middle of putting inserts in cards that were already made, so that I do not have to panic when we come back off holiday.

You can see three that are now done, and with their envelopes, and to the left, a pile waiting for their inserts.  The little orange handled thing is my favourite Fiskars finger blade, which I find so much easier to use than my normal straight blades.  to the right of that are my sprung Fiskars scissors, and next to them the puffer brush for cleaning off photographic slides before scanning them.  As you can also see, my little Scottie is proudly displaying my beautiful WOYWW badge this week - it matches his coat perfectly.

I hope you have all survived the dreadful winds and rain, and no-one is suffering from floods.  We woke up on Sunday morning to find we had lost one of the trees on the island in front of our house.  We think it was a Mountain Ash, which are notoriously touchy at the best of time.  What amazed us was the almost total lack of root system on it, so it would always have been vulnerable to damage.  Fortunately it fell in a way that saved those near from damage, not like another tree not far away which fell across a main road, crashing into several new cars on the Volvo forecourt.  That tree had a preservation order on it and was huge.  At least, no-one was hurt.

I am looking forward to visiting as many as possible of you this week, but it may take a while so please be patient.  In the meantime, I hope you will find time to visit many more of the WOYWWers, hosted by the indefatigable Julia at Stamping Ground.  See you soon.

"Less is More - How Charming" and "Pixie's Snippets Challenge" No 16

This is my entry for this week's Less is More Challenge, the theme of which  was "How Charming!"  - to make and/or use a charm on your project.  This is one of those cards that really does not photograph well.

The base card is a deep purple card from PDA Cards and Craft, which I had already messed up, so I used it to play with rubbing mica powders into and around, mainly gold.  I had a small piece of deep purple mirri card which I put into the centre, and intended to put a complete Dufex decoupage on.  However, after I had stuck the base layer down, I looked at it and decided to leave it at just that one layer, and let the design speak for itself.

I did feel, though, that she needed a fan to hold, and spent a long time playing around with paper fans and all sort of other stuff, until I remembered that Shaz Silverwolf had told me about some embellishments being sold cheaply at The Works in town.  I had stocked up, including some silver coloured fans.  Now, silver just did not go at all, so it was out with the Dufex pens to colour one in to see how that worked.  It did take a bit of playing around to get just the right tone of gold, but, in the end, I think it worked.  I was able to just tuck the loop of the fan under her hand and, with a dab of silicone, glued it into place.

The final flourish was a thin peel off, just to give a frame for the main image.  I wish these cards showed up better on a photograph, but photos do not show shimmer and the play of light.  Perhaps we ought to do videos of this type of card.  My only other problem with this card is to find someone to send it to, someone that I can bear to let it go to, because I like it so much and I know I can never repeat the design as well.

I am also entering this into Pixie's Snippets Challenge,as it was put together with things from various bits and pieces I already had.

Less is More - Doodling

I nearly didn't enter this card for this week's Less is More Challenge, which is Doodling.  Looking down the other entries to date, I was so impressed with the wonderful work already posted, this card nearly ended up in the bin.  Everyone is so talented.  However, as you can see, I persisted and finished the card, and I am not too displeased with the result.

The outline of the sentiment is printed from the computer  (my writing is far too erratic to use) and then coloured in with Promarkers.  The outline of the vase and flowers are from Clarity Stamps Versatile Vase Kit.  I did go over the outline with my fine line black Staedtler pen.  I had done a test card on copy paper and found that the black of my stamp and the black of my pen were not quite the same.  I had forgotten that black has a huge number of variants, so I just went over the stamp to sort that out.  The flowers are just simply coloured with my Promarkers.

The vase itself is my first real attempt at Zentangle, and I did enjoy trying it out.  I tried to choose designs that would emphasise the roundness of the vase shape.  I think that one of the crafty things I shall take away on holiday this year will be a pad of paper and a thin black pen. so I can play in any free moment I have.

I shall do my best to get round as many of the other entries as possible this week (what I have seen so far, they are truly impressive), but please excuse me if I don't make it to everyone.  Things like gardening and visiting friends is starting to nibble away at my crafting time, and I have a lot of cards to complete before the end of the month too.  However, I do promise to visit anyone who visits me and leaves a comment.

WOYWW - 150

One or two people complained last week that I restricted the view of my desk to hide the worst of the mess.  I have had a little bit of a tidy up today, putting away the equipment from the cards I have just finished, so there is room to do the next project.  For those who are now wondering why on earth I would bare my desk to the nation (well, Blogland, anyway), it is Wednesday, which means the wonderful blog hop hosted by Julia, which is when we all wander round and see what all our friends have got on their desks.  If you want to join in, just go to http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk/.  some of us are tidy and some of us are not.  Like all friends, you must take us as you find us.  Whatever, you will find a real welcome, especially if you leave a comment, and if you need help or just a friendly word, you will find it there.

As you can see, I have been well looked after with hot drinks today.  I really must take the dirty cups downstairs when I go in a minute or two.  You may have realised by now that the photos were taken on Tuesday afternoon to take advantage of the natural light, but I still needed my Ottlite as the rain was hammering down (I know we need it).  My project for today is a bit of zentangle.  I have not done much of that, but I thought I would have a go for a challenge.  If it works, I can use it for a birthday card with a difference.  It is a combination of the Versatile Vase kit from Clarity, and a printed sentiment, which can also be zentangled.  To the side of that is another Clarity image - the two poppy stamps which fit together beautifully.

Moving to the left, you can see my computer monitor.  The wallpaper on the screen is one of my own photos of Marwood Hill Gardens in North Devon, a beautiful and very welcoming place to visit (dog friendly, too, we were met with dog biscuits for our two).  I love the beautiful silver birch bark on those trees.  You might also spot on the desk a little pot of natural dog treats.

Above my computer is a small notice board, on which you can see the lovely tag specially done for me by Debbie, a photo of the wedding of one of my school friends, ready printed to take to our annual reunion this weekend.  There is also my Patience Strong calendar, printed out from the Joanna Sheen CD.  I managed to pull it apart a couple of months ago, but I did finally get round to putting it back together again today.

As Julia has asked us to be brief, I think I had better finish for this week, and give you time to get round a few more desks.  Could I just add one little plea?  Blogger seems to have turned on the Word Verification on a lot of blogs over the last couple of weeks.  Please could you all check if this has happened to you?  If you do have it turned on, you may find that you are not getting as many visits as you do normally.

I will apologise if I am not very quick in getting round to visit you, but I will do my best.  Like many others, i now find it impossible to visit everyone each week, and find time to craft as well.  If you leave me a comment, especially if you add your number, I will get to see you asap.  I also visit anyone whose number fits the rule I have chosen for this week.   Have a great week, everyone.

Pixie's Snippets Challenge 15

 Not a lot to show for the snippets this week, sorry, Pixie.   I suddenly realised that I needed to complete six cards for my friends for next weekend.  Four of us meet up once a year, rotating round the houses, and next weekend is the date for this year.  We were at high school together, and were always very close, although we did not meet up much after school and university were over.  Since we have created our official yearly reunion, we have been lucky enough to have fabulous weather for it, so fingers are firmly crossed for next weekend.

As the Post Office has seen fit to hike the cost of stamps to such a tremendous amount, I decided that I would take all their birthday and anniversary cards with me for them to open on the relevant days throughout the year.  At least I can be sure they will arrive and not be battered in the post.

However, I did manage to put together a couple of cards for the playground from bits that had been started last year.  Both images were printed out last year, so I am not 100% certain where they came from.  I think that the cornflower is a Clarity stamp, but the poppy is definitely a digital image.  I am seriously into poppies at the moment, they are simple flowers and show the shading well. 

I hope I am going to make it into the playground this week as I am running late again.  If I get there, I will meet you over by the hopscotch place.  Have fun, all of you, and thank you, Di, for being such a patient and kind head teacher. 

WOYWW 149 Follow on - Narrow Boats interpretation

Working Narrow Boat "Aquarius"

When you go to caravan rallies, you can have a follow on rally afterwards.  We had our usual WOYWW yesterday, so this is my follow on explanation.  A number of people gave me credit for having drawn the boat myself.  I wish!!!  I am not that talented.  So I thought I should make things clear.  I am not clever but I do enjoy manipulating images to get what I want.  That is my excuse for this post.and I am sticking to it.

For those of you who saw my canal boat card yesterday on WOYWW, I thought you might like to see the original photo from which I took my traced image to add to my Clarity stamps.

Traced and inked image of "Aquarius"

The first thing I have to tell you is that it is a narrow boat, not a barge.  If we ever slipped up and called it a barge, we got thoroughly told off.  The majority of the canal network will only take the narrow boats, and not the bigger Dutch Barge types, and some locks will only take the shorter narrow boats.

The hardest part, once the tracing was done, was to stick to what I could actually see on the photo and not to add in the things I could not see, but know are there.  For example, I know there is some beautiful sign writing on the side of the tiny living quarters, which is just not visible due to the angle of the photo.  The size of the card also limited the amount of detail that could be fitted in.
 

Traced and inked image of bridge before I reversed it

The same criteria really applied to the bridge too.  The picture I took that from was actually reversed so that the tow path was on the opposite side.  This did not fit in with using the stamp of the horse, and it was easier to reverse the bridge than to reverse the horse.  I could have been very nit picky and drawn all the bricks on the bridge, but I think that would have been too much detail for the size of the image, hence the artistic licence again and the roughly drawn huge blocks.   All bridges are numbered, as far as my limited knowledge tells me, so I chose the number of this bridge knowing that they would have travelled beneath it at some time.

Final Result (unless I decide to titivate it a bit more)

The colouring part of this card did show up the fact that I need more and varied greens, both in ink pads and Promarkers to get the real depth I wanted.  Failing that, a lot more practice in blending what I have to get the desired results.

Ingredients used:

White paper

White Centura pearl card

Copper Krylon pen

Tracing paper

Clarity Stamps - Horse, herons, bullrushes small and large (Canal barge Kit),  Geese (Small village set)

Adirondack ink pads: lettuce, cloudy blue, juniper, pitch black

Cut and Dry brush nibs

Promarkers: various

Pencil for tiny detail, like the fence on the hill and the obelisk

Brayer

Make up sponges

WOYWW - 149

I am only showing you a very small portion of my desk today.  Anything else would be too soul destroying, it is such a wreck.  I have had so much out all at once, Cuttlebug, Nesties, brayer, ink pads, Promarkers to name but a few.

Artistic licence

I started off with one of the cards I showed the other day, using Clarity Stamps Barge kit, trying to make a card for a friend with an old working narrow boat, but the stamp in the kit was more of a pleasure narrow boat, which did not quite fit.  So I managed to dig up a photo of their boat at the right angle for my purpose and reduced it to a line drawing, scanned that onto the computer, and did the same with a suitable bridge, put the two together digitally and printed them onto smooth paperstock.  Then there was a lot of masking and brayering, before using the Promarkers to colour in other parts.  I went back to the Clarity set for the bullrushes, large and small, the horse (Our friends don't actually have a horse, just engine horsepower, but we do have to have some artistic licence, don't we.  Nor is there a canal within sight of the obelisk at Eastnor, but I am doing this card so I can do what I want) and the herons.  The geese came from another Clarity set, the small Village kit.  they are supposed to be walking but I wanted them in the water so I just masked off their legs.  The bushes were from the same set.  I also used the Cut and Dry nibs to create tree shapes in the background, and finally a pencil to suggest a fence on the hill, and an obelisk on the other side.  to finish off, I used the Krylon copper pen to edge it before mounting it on Centura Pearl white card.  All I need to do tomorrow is a suitable insert and it can be sent off.

For those of you wondering why I should shame myself by showing the remains of this card on my desk, it is all part of the great desk visiting blog call What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, hosted by the lovely Julia.  If you want to see many varied kinds of crafting, this is the place to go to find the links to everyone else.  Everyone is welcome.  All we ask is that you read Julia's very small number of rules, come and visit us and leave us comments.  We will undertake to return your visit if humanly possible.  Go on, join in, you know you want to.  If you can put your number from WOYWW at the end of your comment, it makes it easier for us all to visit you.

Pixie's Snippets Challenge 15

I think I should get into school in good time this week, not lie the rush I had last week.  If you are thinking I am completely mad, you are probably right there.  However, these are my offering for this week to the fun challenge which is Pixie's Snippets Challenge.  It is all good fun - not clean cos it involves inks and glues and stuff.  The idea s to use up all the bits and pieces of stash that we all have left over, ie snippets.

This first one qualifies as I cut the topper (with my one and only set of nesties) from a discarded sheet of card which had gone wrong, but I was able to rescue enough for this card.  The stamps used are Clarity Stamps' Canal Barge kit.  I was in a bit of a rush to get this one done (not a good state when you are masking and using inks and Promarkers and anything else that fits), so I did take my inspiration from a sample card created for Barbara Gray's programme by Dee Paramour.  There are slight differences, not least because of my novice status, but also because I wanted a smaller card than the original.  The horse should ideally be further in front of the boat to give a better perspective.  Most of the shading was done using make up sponges and Adirondack ink pads.  I did not have a tree stamp small enough for this project so I just used the nibs to smudge them into the background.   To get the break between the topper and the base card, I edged the topper with the red Krylon pen.

This is another card that I wanted smaller than the original stamps allowed me to do.  These are also Clarity Stamps, the Blooming Corner kit.  To change the size, I stamped a good clear image onto very white card, allowed it to dry and then scanned it onto the computer.  Then I could shrink it to fit my snippet and the pale blue pearlescent card.  Once the printout was thoroughly dry, I sat down to the fun bit, colouring it in, using Promarkers, all in pastel colours.  I was short of some of the colours that Barbara Gray had used in her demonstration. so I just used the nearest colour available.  Doing the blue round the outside and inside edges does really finish it off, and tied it in well to the base card.  The skep (beehive) was really good fun to do, and I was busy thinking of what other cards I could use that on.  If you want to know how to do that properly, you can do no better than to watch the expert herself, Barbara Gray, on Create and Craft - it is the latest Classroom and well worth watching.  Forgot to say that I also edged the topper with the same blue Promarker that I used to highlight the flower border.

This is rapidly turning into a Clarity post.  This one is a Christmas offering, stamped and then coloured.  Then I used the Quickie glue pen and my lovely Martha Stewart glitter to pick out the sentiment and the holly berries.  Very simple and fairly quick to do.  All the bits, apart from the base card,  came from my bits and pieces box, and the peeloff down the edge was from a set I am trying to use up.

This last one is another Christmas offering.  I had already cut this one out so I am not sure who created the original art work.  If I come across the paperwork, I will give the credit where it is due.  Again, to avoid matting and layering (which makes it more expensive to send) I just added a peeloff round the edge to tidy it up.  As suggested by Di, I am also entering this final card into Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge.

Right, having handed in my homework for this week, I am off now to have a go on the roundabout and perhaps do some skipping, before the birthday party tomorrow (little granddaughter).  Hope they have got jelly and ice cream for afters.  I probably will not get a chance to get round everyone until Monday, so I will wish you all a very Happy Easter.  Thank you, Di, for being such a great headteacher and looking after us all.

WOYWW - 148

Before I show you my desk this week, I want to thank all those who visited me to ask about my bee plague and, more importantly, how Flash is (Flash being the older of our two mad working cocker spaniels).  He is a week into his painkillers, and all of a sudden, he is bouncing around as normal.  He has lost his fear of going upstairs or up steps, and  his tail is wagging madly again.

Now, onto the main purpose of this post, - the state of my desk, for the weekly meeting of the WOYWWers, hosted by the lovely Julia..  You missed the five minutes when it was tidy on Monday morning.  I am now back to my normal state of doing five or more things at one time. 

You can see some of my meagre stash of Promarkers, in use colouring in some Clarity stamps, and some other images printed off last summer.  My big problem with these is that I really need a lot more of the fine nibs to do the more delicate work and I am having to swap them from one pen to another, trying to remember to remove the ink from one before I start using the second colour.  Red in the middle of pale yellow is not a good look!

I was colouring a card when I realised I did not have an Anniversary stamp to finish it off.  So I printed one off in the right colour, but I did not want a straight cut piece of card to stick on.  Out came the Cuttlebug and my one and only set of Nestabilities.  Step by step instructions were needed to work out how to cut and then to emboss the Happy Anniversary print out.   I cringe every time I put anything through for fear that I might break an expensive plate.  I did get it done safely, and I will show you the result once the card has been delivered.

I have also been busy printing the DVD's I have just copied - the Barbara Gray shows from this week.  The printer threw a wobbly in the middle and had to be told very firmly that the tray WAS in the right place and I did want it to print.  At the same time, the computer threw a different wobbly, insisting the I had to sign in to XMarks, not letting me do anything else.  A bit of internet research solved that one.  

Then the Silhouette  decided it needed an update.  It is all go round here.

I hope you all had a good week, and I apologise for how long it took me to get round all those who visited me, and to all those I did not get to - I hope to visit you this week.  Have a good week and a very happy Easter.