Love Is In The Air

Good morning. How was your weekend? I had a fun one - It was Burns Night in the Mess on Saturday and that's always a good night. A room full of officers and their partners doing The Dashing White Sergeant after spending a couple of hours at the dining table drinking wine, port and Atholl Brose (love it!) is a sight to behold! Then on Sunday morning we had a surprise visit from my sister-in-law. She's not been up here before so it was lovely to show her where we live and she's not seen Maya for a few years. Happy times.

Today's card is an anniversary card that I made for Mum and Dad back in November. It sums up why I love stamping so much (you can make such personal cards) and is classic Clarity. Mum and Dad love bird watching and their anniversary is on the 11th November, hence the poppies. 

I used the edge of the Clarity A4 Blending Mat to create the hills. The poppies are coloured in with ProMarkers and I went around the edge of the scene with one of the brown Distress Inks.

To finish it off I gave it a thin black mat and mounted it onto some kraft card.

Stamps Used

Poppies and Field Mice Set

Bird Tree

Wee Folk 1

Thanks for visiting. I hope you have a great week. I wonder what next weekend will have in store for us?

Lynne

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Janet Clare's Artisan Apron

Good evening. I may not have got any Christmas cards made but I did make a few presents.

One of them is this apron that I made for my mum; I thought it was such a clever design when I saw it on TV. Mum wanted a new one with "Cute animals on it" so I thought I'd make it for her.

I found the perfect fabric in a local shop - Fletchers Fabric in York. It's lined with cream cotton lawn also from there.

Here's Mum modelling the back. It's great that there's no ties to worry about - you just pop it over your head. It was quite amusing watching her put it on for the first time though!

As it's quite a busy fabric I thought I'd do a spot of pattern matching on the pockets (I didn't worry about the back).

It takes a bit more effort but I think it was well worth it.

To do it I traced the pocket pattern piece onto a sheet of vellum (it's more substantial than tissue and I have lots in my crafty stash) and positioned it where it would go on the apron, matching up the notches. I then marked where the animals were using a pencil.

Next I matched up those pencil lines to the fabric and cut the pocket out. 

By turning it over I was able to use the same piece of vellum for both sides .

Lovely job! I think I'm going to have to make myself one too. A Labrador one would be fun.

Lynne

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Am I Late or Early?

Hi there. It was very strange watching Barbara at the weekend, not being part of the team anymore. I still have a few DT samples to blog though.............

................and this is one of them. I had intended to blog it before Christmas but you could say that I'm getting in early for this year!

I probably made it more complicated than it needed to be but this is the sort of stamping that I love. It may be a bit of an epic post but for once I remembered to take photos as I went.

The stag is done with Grunge Paste. As I wanted to keep that clean I did that step last.......

.............so I started off by marking his place with a pale Distress Ink brushed through the stencil.

I didn't want the scenery showing through him so the next thing I did was mask him off.

I stamped the cabin in place and did the same with that...................

.............before stamping the trees...............

................and brayering the sky. I used Denim and Black Adirondack ink for this.

Next up was the snow. I kept the stag masked off and used Weathered Wood Distress ink on a make-up sponge for this.

It's getting there and I've not made any mistakes............yet!

I put the Stag mask back in position and added the Grunge Paste. 

When that was dry I added the colour with several shades of Distress Ink on a make-up sponge.

I was really chuffed with how it was going, so I went to wash my inky hands before I messed it up.

Unfortunately my cuff was still wet and I ended up with a mark from the ribbing. I won't say what I said but I wasn't happy!!!!!!

I couldn't exactly stick a butterfly on it but the word "Christmas did the job. Phew!

As it's Christmas some glitter and Frantage finish it off. 

Stamps and Stencil Used

Stag

Cabin in the Woods set

Letterbox Sentiments

Before I go, I've turned comment moderation on as I'm getting a lot of spam at the moment. This means that your comments won't appear straight away but I'll add them as soon as I can.

Thanks for visiting,

Lynne

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Happy New Year, Some News and a Big Thank You

Happy New Year everyone. I've been meaning to write this post since before Christmas but I kept getting distracted. Anyway, I hope you had a good one. We've just had a fun week down in Norfolk visiting family and I want to get this written before I get distracted again.

It was a really hard decision to make but I have left the Claritystamp Design Team. I've had a fab 3½ years but I feel like I need a break. I've not been making any of my personal cards recently (I didn't make a single Christmas one) and I really want to get back to that and just have some fun without worrying if what I've done is good enough.......or original......or if people will like it.  I know, I worry too much!

I'd like to say a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been so lovely to me over this time. I've met some great people through it - the rest of the DT, fellow Clarity fans on Facebook and at the shows, and of course Barbara herself. Your kind comments on my blog have meant so much to me.

I have a couple more Clarity samples to blog but I'm not sure what I will do with my blog after that. I'm not a prolific card maker so there could be big gaps between posts, or I may just add them to Facebook or my Pinterest boards.

This cards seems an appropriate one to add for New Year's Day.

I hope you weren't celebrating too hard last night!

I used a Tim Holtz technique to create the background - I pressed Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks onto the stencil, spritzed them with water and then pressed the stencil onto the card...........

 ...........to get this. Tim uses the mini pads but I don't have any of those so I had to use my regular sized ones. I was worried that they wouldn't work as well but it ended up quite colourful. It needed something else though.

So I put the stencil back in place and went around it with a black pen.

Much better.

I then removed the centre part with a craft knife and matted it onto some black card.

Some Stickles glitter glue in the centres of the stars and the word "Celebrate" finish it off.

Stamps and Stencil Used

Basic Backgrounds

Wordpress Letters

I'd better go and get unpacked and put up my beautiful 2016 Claritystamp calendar. I hope it's a great year for you all.

Lots of love,

Lynne

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Christmas Ornaments/Baubles

Hi there. I'm taking a break as I've just messed up yet another card. I don't know what's up with me lately. Anyway I thought I'd share one from yesterday's Claritystamp show on Hochanda that went more smoothly. It seems appropriate to be blogging it today as I started putting up my Christmas decorations yesterday. Have you got yours up yet?

I used a Spellbinders 2011 Heirloom Ornaments die to cut out the baubles then created a little scene  in each one.

The first one features the cat and the beautiful little bird in flight (I love this one and think it's going to be used a lot!) with the Wee Trees (I chose the ones that look wintery).

I used Cobalt Archival Ink for the stamping. The cat and bird are first generation and the trees are second. 

The edge of my A4 Clarity blending mat was used to tear a copy paper mask for the hills. 

Some glitter on the trees and a ribbon to hang it from finish it off.

The second one focuses on the tree. This time I added a little moon to the sky with a Post-it mask.

The third and final one is obviously my favourite - it has a Labrador on it! She's looking out for her owner coming over the hill, although if this was Maya she wouldn't be sat there waiting patiently!

Stamps Used

Animals from the Thank You Framer Set

Wee Trees Set

Letterbox Sentiments

Before I go I just thought I'd share a couple of my old Challenge Blog makes from 2013 and 2014 again as they were among the decorations I put up yesterday.

I do love getting my decorations out again each year. The posts on them can be found here and here.  

Since I started writing this Hubby has come home and figured out how to save my card. I'm off to my craft room to see if it works. Have a good evening.

Lynne

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Simplicity 1606 Dress and Debbie Shore's Bobbi Bow Clutch Bag

Hello. I'm not entirely sure why but I've wanted to make a camouflage evening dress ever since we got married, over 26 years ago....................

...............and I've finally done it! I even made a matching clutch bag. Can you spot it?

It's camouflaged!!!!!

We had great fun at the party last night and my dress was a bit hit. It made me laugh as a couple of people thought I'd been chopping up hubby's combats! Don't worry though he's not running around with bits of his uniform missing - I did buy the fabric.

The photo above was taken at the end of the night as I was going up to bed............

................so here's a better one taken in daylight. It's a Simplicity Amazing Fit pattern (1606) and I was really pleased with how it turned out. It's not perfect but I learnt a lot and it probably fits better than my shop bought dresses.

The clutch bag is from the CD-ROM that came with issue 2 of Debbie Shore's Sew Inspired magazine. I was happy to find out that they work perfectly on my iMac - everything can be accessed through Finder, including the video links in case anyone else is wondering this.

I'll definitely be making them both again in a more normal evening style.

Before I go, don't forget that Barbara has a Claritystamp show on Hochanda this Sunday (6th Dec) at 2pm.

Lynne
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Layered Leaves

Good afternoon. It was a close call but I have just finished the hem on my dress, so it's ready to wear to tonight's party. My Clarity samples are also done and in the post so I'm happy.

This card was a bit of stamping fun - lots of masking.

I started off with the bottom right leaf and added the leaves/flowers behind it one by one, using the solid part of the stencil as a mask. 

The flowers are coloured in with Spectrum Noir pencils and I finished it off by brushing some Distress Ink though the Trellis stencil for a subtle background.

Stamps and Stencils Used

Leaf Set 2

Line Sentiments 1

Line Sentiments 2

Trellis Stencil

I might pop back tomorrow with a quick post on my dress if I get a decent photo of it. I hope you have a good evening. I think mine could be an interesting one!

Lynne

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