May's Claritystamp Samples

Hello. I hope you're enjoying the bank holiday. We had a great time yesterday watching the amazing Tour de Yorkshire riders whizz past and Barbara's shows on Hochanda later. Such beautiful samples from the rest of the DT and the light panel is a great One Day Wonder. As Barbara mentioned, the DT were lucky enough to get one and it is a really handy gadget. It's so much easier than holding things up to the window like I've done in the past.

There was a bit of a retro feel to the show yesterday with some old favourites.  Although I'm a dog person I do love the cat stamps.

These are the cards I made for the show.  As always, I will be back to blog them individually throughout the month.

Lynne
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My Mum's 70th Birthday Card

Hello. It was my mum's 70th birthday this month and this is the card I made for her.

I created the scene around last month's New Design Stencil Club stencil (the trees) and framed it with one of my favourite foliage stamps from the Birdhouse Garden set.

I then got a bit experimental - I have a heart stencil, that I cut with my Cameo, and I brushed Distress Ink through it over the top of it all. I went heavier in some areas than others so it wasn't too uniform.  Luckily I really liked the result. 

Love you lots Mum. x

Stamps and Stencils Used

Birdhouse Garden Set

NDC 22 Stencil

Wheelie International Numbers

Numbers

Alphabet Word Chains

Word Chain 2

Word Chain 3

Wee Folk 1

Wee Village

I hope you have a great bank holiday weekend. Don't forget that Barbara is on Hochanda on Sunday (1st May) at 2pm and 5pm. There's also a One Day Wonder launching at 8pm, so that means 4 more hours on Monday too.

Lynne

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Filigraphy Hot Air Balloons and Flower

Hello. I wanted to get this post written yesterday but I had such a busy weekend and I didn't get the chance. Better late than never though.

This is the card I made for Paul's show on Saturday. I didn't really know anything about Monument Valley so I had a look at some pictures to see what it looks like. The sky seemed to be a lovely bright blue in most of the photos so I dug out my brayer and went for it.

First I stamped and masked the balloon, then I added the Monument Vally mask and brushed it in using Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo and Rusty Hinge Distress Ink.

When that was done I swapped the mask over and brayered in the sky. I used Stonewashed Adirondack and Salty Ocean Distress Ink for this.

I must admit I love the Filigraphy stamps in simple black and white but this one needed colour so I added some with my Spectrum Noir pencils.

I finished it off with some of the Line Sentiments.

I thought I'd add a few of my previous Filigraphy samples too as a couple were shown on Saturday and I know there are always new people who won't have seen them before.

Life is a Journey - blogged here.

Filigraphy Hot Air Balloons - blogged here.

Filigraphy Flower - blogged here.

I'd better get up to my craft room as I am a bit behind on my sample making. I know what I want to do for today's card, I'm just not sure how to achieve it. It could be a frustrating day.........

I hope you have a good week.

Stamps and Masks Used

Filigraphy Hot Air Balloons

Skylines Masks

Line Sentiments 1

Line Sentiments 2

Lynne

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Ewe Are How Old? - 50th Birthday Card

Hello. I couldn't resist doing a cheeky card for my friend's 50th birthday.

Instead of 50 candles on a cake, I have 50 sheep on a hill.

It was inspired by one of Barbara Gray's demos on the last Hochanda show, although Barbara used nice phrases like "Ewe are special", "Ewe are my sunshine" and "I love ewe".

I had no clue how much room 50 sheep were going to take up, so I started on the bottom of the card and worked my way up. I numbered the masks as I did them so that I didn't lose count. 

When they were all safely covered, I placed the torn paper so that a couple of them were above it and brushed in the hill.

I then used a Spectrum Noir pencil to add a bit of colour under their feet.

I used a mixture of Clarity stamps and a stencil to do the inside. She's a fellow Labrador owner so I had to get one of those in somewhere.

It's funny, whenever I buy cards I tend to go for humorous ones but as a stamper it's not something I make that often. I so enjoyed doing this one!

Stamps and Stencil Used

Wee Farm Animals

Alphabet Word Chains

Trees

Best Wishes Set

50 - Wheelie International Numbers

th - Numbers Set

Labrador - Thank You Framer

Don't forget that Paul Church is on Hochanda tomorrow (Sat 23rd April) with three shows - 11am, 2pm and 6pm.

Lynne

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Wee Spring Scenes

Hello. This is the last of my samples from Barbara's show..............

Clarity sample

...but it wasn't the first card I made like this. It was also my mother-in-law's birthday around the time I was making my samples and I was enjoying the new stamps so much .............

My mother-in-law's birthday card

............that I made her card with them too. I was really pleased with how it turned out so I thought I'd make a similar one for Clarity.

I did them both the same way - First I brushed in the daffodil frame using Butterscotch Adirondack ink and Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink. I then masked it off to work on the central panel. The images were stamped in place and masked off so that I could brush in the background. 

I do love the Picture Framer stencil. It's perfect for this time of year and works equally well in portrait or landscape.

I'll be back soon with some personal cards I've made recently. Funnily enough they all feature this month's stamps too. I do love them!

Stamps and Stencil Used

Wee Country Animals

Wee Village

Wee Foliage

Daffodils

Picture Framer

Wee Lynne

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Crazy About You

Hello. I'll keep today's post short and sweet after a rather long one last time.

This is the second of my samples focussing on the Word Chain Letters. After doing my driving test card I was lacking in ideas, so I thought I'd look through my stencils and see if it sparked anything. It did! When I saw the Cracked Box Frame stencil I thought "crazy paving", which led to "Crazy about you". 

I tested it out on a piece of card and luckily it was the perfect size for the aperture.

I ran the card and stencil through my Ebosser to emboss the frame and then sponged Sail Boat Blue and Eggplant Alcohol Ink though the stencil. To make it more defined I finished it off by brushing Faded Jeans Distress Ink over the top.

Simples!

Stamps and Stencil Used

Cracked Box Frame

Alphabet Word Chains

Lynne

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Farmyard Scene

Hello. Are you sitting comfortably? I have a feeling this could be a long post.

I could have been naughty and cloned out my wee accident with this one, but I couldn't do that to the real thing so here it is warts , or should I say coffee drops, and all.

I've done similar projects with the House stencil before (my favourites can been see here and here) but I couldn't resist doing another with the Wee Farm set. It's perfect for them.

I started off by placing the stencil on some paper to work out where I wanted everything and make sure the perspective was okay.

When I was happy with that I inked in the house and trees. I put the inner part of the stencil on that card and sponged on Jet Black Stazon. I kept the ink pad nice and wet by regularly applying the reinker, both to the pad and the Cut-N-Dry foam.

I then started the stamping with the fence but I messed it up and had to start all over again!

Eventually I got everything stamped neatly and I masked off the areas that I didn't want green. The hills were then brushed in. 

You can see I haven't masked off the fence. I was initially concerned about this..........

...........but when I was out with Maya I noticed that the wooden fences were all green anyway. What luck!

It was all going quite well, but then my luck changed. Hubby had brought me up a cup of coffee and I was walking across my craft room with it when I slipped on some plastic. Coffee and I went flying...........

 

...............and my lovely scene ended up looking like this! Thankfully it was only a dinky cup of espresso but it still made a mess. Because it's on smooth stamping card it blistered a bit too where the liquid hit it. As you can imagine, I was gutted! I'd spent ages planning and making it and I couldn't exactly stick a butterfly over them all (they were more obvious in real life than in my photo).

I couldn't bear to bin it, so I did what I could to rescue it - another horse and a tree behind the barn covered up two spots and a bit of black pen covered the one at the top. The only one I couldn't disguise was the one under my Wee Cow (and trying to do so made it worse), so I like to think that my Wee Cow has just had a wee. It's the country!

I actually liked the busier look of it , so I added a few more trees too, as you can see on the finished piece at the top.

It's not perfect but I really enjoyed making it, well most of it.

Stamps and Stencil Used

Cottage Scene

Wee Farm Animals

Wee Farm Scene

Wee Trees

Thanks for visiting. 

Lynne

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Forest Scene Gelli Print Card

Hello. I hope you're enjoying your weekend. Hubby's diving, so I've been busy sewing. It was going well until a minute ago, so I thought I'd take a break and show you another of my samples.

When I saw the Wee Country Animals stamps I wanted to make a scene using as many them as possible. That meant finding a tree for the woodpecker to cling to.

The Treescape stencil is perfect for what I had in mind. 

I used Warm Grey acrylic paint by System 3 on my Gelli Plate to take the print of the trees. Then I stamped the sitting bunnies and masked off their tails, so that I could brush in the background using Distress and Adirondack ink pads. Finally I added the rest of the animals and foliage black using Jet Black Archival ink.

Stamps and Stencils Used

Treescape

Wee Country Animals

Wee Foliage

Fly Away

Floral Figures

Alphabet Word Chains

I've finished my coffee and this post so I'd better go and get my unpicker out. 

Lynne

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Congratulations On Passing Your Driving Test Card

Hello. I really enjoyed making this month's cards and the Alphabet Word Chain stamps are one of the reasons for that. Deciding which letters you're going to use and combining them together is such fun. I made a couple of cards focusing on them and this is the first.

The front of the card is simply a torn up L plate...........

.............and when you open it up, it reveals the text.

My first idea was to cut it out on my Cameo but I then decided that layered up card might not rip that well. Instead I printed it out on card instead, using the Cameo's Silhouette Studio to draw it. 

I then ripped it in half, as if I'd just passed my test, and stuck it to the front of a gatefold card.

"Congratulations" and "Your" are Word Chain words which I combined with words I created using the alphabet.  I stamped them out on copy paper first. This gave me the chance to work out the combination of upper and lower case letters I wanted to use and see if I wanted to change anything (you can see I did). 

I cut them out, so that I could check how to position them, and then stamped them onto the card. 

A couple more ripped up L plates add a bit of colour inside.

Do you remember passing your test? 

It got me thinking about mine and I just found this photo of me after I passed, first time, nearly 30 years ago. Such a great day. I wonder if my Fiesta is still on the road? Probably not. I did love that car...........happy times.

Stamps Used

Alphabet Word Chains

Congratulations from Word Chain 11

Your from Word Chain 3

Lynne

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April's Claritystamp Samples

Hello. Just a quick post before I start cooking - Hubby will be home in an hour. I had so many things planned for today but I got a bit distracted by the Claritystamp shows and then one of Barbara's demos sparked an idea for a friend's birthday card and then it was now!  So I guess it's been a productive day, just not in the way I had planned.

Aren't this month's stamps fab? They are right up my street and I had such fun playing with them. I had lots of distractions when I was making them too as they were mainly done over the Easter weekend and Hubby was off work. He did keep me supplied with coffee though, although that itself caused a major problem. I'll tell you more about that when I blog the cards..............

Here's a photo of them all together. as always I'll blog them all individually throughout the month. I also have a few personal cards to share.

See you again soon.

Lynne
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Astoria Tops By Colette Patterns' Seamwork Magazine

Hello. I hope you're enjoying the bank holiday weekend.  Hubby and I had a fun time yesterday taking photographs - outside was too sunny and inside was a bit dark. We did get some useable ones though, so here's the first of my new tops.

I do love my Cath Kidston skirts but as they have elasticated waists (which I like to cover) it's awkward finding tops to wear with them that sit nicely. I thought Colette's Astoria top would be perfect as it's quite short and fitted at the waist.

It's made out of black Ponte Roma which was really easy to work with - I probably should have started my jersey sewing with this rather than the slinky stuff. 

Hubby thinks I'm too old for them but I think they're fab. They have a gorgeous garden gnome one at the moment which may have to join my collection..........

I made the size as small as it comes for this one. It's perfect with the skirts but too short with jeans - even I think I'm too old for flashing my tummy!

So I made another one to wear with them. This time it's in grey Ponte Roma and I lengthened the sleeves and body by 2". 

The sleeves are hemmed and the neck topstitched with my Janome Coverpro that I got for Christmas. I'm slowly getting the hang of it and I love it. It gives the garment a professional finish even for a beginner like me.

It's a great pattern and I'll definitely be making some more.

I can never resist adding pictures of Maya so here's another photo that Hubby took yesterday.  

One last thing, as I've been sharing photos of myself I'll share some news too - I've decided to ditch the hair dye. I am sick of having it done and it never looks as nice as my natural colour did, so I'm going to let it grow and see what happens.  It's a good job I like wearing hats as I think I'll have one on permanently for the next year or so............or I may cut it shorter..............or I may hate it and dye it again.

Can grey haired ladies still wear Cath Kidston skirts?  You bet!

I'd better crack on. I have Clarity samples to make and with Hubby on leave I keep getting distracted. Don't forget that Paul Church is on Hochanda tomorrow (27th March) with More Clarity.  11-12am, 3-4pm and 5-6pm. 

Happy Easter

Lynne

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My Dad's 70th Birthday Card

Greetings! I've been in sewing mode for the last couple of weeks but some new Clarity stamps have just arrived so I'm back in card making mode and thought I should say hello. I've not made any cards for a while but I do have one left to blog.

It was my dad's 70th birthday last month and this is the card I made for him. It may look familiar to NDC members as it's based on one of Barbara's January projects. When I saw it I thought it would work well for my dad as he is a keen birdwatcher. 

As I added the branch stamp I changed the sky to clouds and a sun so that I didn't have to mask it off. 

I'd better go and get started on my samples. If I can get Hubby to take some photos I'll blog my sewing until I have more cards to share - I've made 5 tops in the last few weeks. Let's hope my card making goes as smoothly......

Stamps Used

Garden Birds and Blossom Branches

Happy Words

Numbers

Wordpress Letters

Lynne

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A Groovi Mother's Day

Good morning. I probably couldn't have picked a worse day to blog my first Groovi cards, as all the DT will be sharing their masterpieces from today's shows on Hochanda, but they are appropriate for today so here goes.....

I did have a try at the Catterick Open Day but I didn't get my own until this week when Hubby bought me some bits for my birthday.  Thank you. x

I picked these plates as I thought they would make pretty Mother's Day cards and looked quite simple. The problem was I had to get them in the post the day after they arrived! That didn't give me any time to practise so these are my first two attempts.

This is the one I started with. I've also joined the Groovi Club, so I began by tracing out the ovals from the Mini Plate Mate for the text to see how it would fit. Luckily it was the perfect size for the centre of the floral wreath so I just took it from there. One of my favourite things to do in stamping is building up a picture with masking so I love how the Groovi system makes this so simple.

When I'd traced all of the design I coloured it in with my Spectrum Noir pencils. I decided to avoid the white work as I didn't have much time and I was worried about messing it up. 

I was feeling a bit more adventurous when I got to this one and decided to have a go at the white work. The only problem was I didn't have a clue where to do it. When you're not colouring it in is the white work the light or shade? Does it matter? I do know I need to do it for longer as mine isn't hugely white but at least I didn't go through the parchment!

I thought the hard bit was over when I'd finished that but then I had to make them into cards - I hadn't thought about that part. White work does not show up well on white card and different coloured card changes the look of what you've coloured. What to choose? In the end I used some of the Clarity blue pearl paper for both. Next time I will think about this before I start.

So many things I have to learn. If you have any tips for me I'd love to hear them. The main thing I've learnt so far is that Groovi cards are a lot of fun but can't be rushed.

I'll be glued to all of the shows on Hochanda today and Monday. I'm sure I'll pick up lots of hints and I know I'll be inspired by Barbara and the DT's samples.

Happy Mother's Day Mum. I hope you like your card.

Groovi Plates Used

Butterfly Wreath and Meadow Grasses

Lynne

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A Gelli Blast From The Past

Hello. Thanks for the comments on the last post - they did make me smile. Purple jumper has been popped in a charity bin. Its fate is now out of my hands. :)

Today's card also has me reminiscing.

Do you recognise it?

When I was looking through my Gelli prints for the last card I blogged, I also found this one. It's from an "In The Classroom With Barbara Gray" show on 3rd August 2013. I thought it should be made into a card so I added a bit to it, trimmed it down (as the middle was a little bit wonky) and did just that. 

I have missed those shows but Hochanda are planning on doing their own version; so that's something to look forward to.

 I used to move my stuff downstairs so that I could craft along with Barbara. 

These are my other pieces from this lesson.

The Birdhouse Set is still one of my favourites and I've used it so much.

Hopefully I'm getting better! Have you still got yours?

Stamps Used

Birdhouse Set

Leafy Swirl

Lynne

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Farewell Purple Jumper

Hello. Today's post is a bit different - it's knitting. Despite my Mum and Nan being good hand knitters it's not something I ever got into but in the early 1990s I did buy a knitting machine. This was much more me (you know I love my gadgets) and I made myself a few jumpers. I recently got rid of the machine after it sitting in the loft for many years and most of my knitting has also gone. It was mostly just plain jumpers and cardigans but there's one I am rather proud of. I know I will never wear it, as it's nasty acrylic yarn and so out of fashion but I haven't been able to part with it.................until now. I thought I'd put it on for one last time, photograph it, blog it and then bin it.

Fashion Police please note - it has been unworn, tucked away in a drawer, for about 20 years.

The photo shoot was very quick and I'm afraid this is the best one. I don't think I'll be getting a job as a knitwear model or Hubby as a fashion photographer! You can see the jumper though and that's what the post is about.

I think the pattern was created with the help of a punch card system but that's all I can remember. I don't think I could even cast on now! Still it was fun at the time.

So farewell purple jumper, you will still live on in blogland.

Lynne
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