A card for Jill .

At last Xmas cards are done and dusted. Tonight I had time to play with my Black Friday bargain from Craftsulove. It's the Tonic studio ' Deck the hall ' die. Needless to say I didn't use the frame with the words. It's a card for a friend who has her birthday on Christmas Day.

Three times today!!!!!'

This is a selection I made for Emma. I prefer the one on the right for colour but I just had to use what I had. There was a deadline to meet.

The one I forgot.

Christmas

At last another blog. Christmas cards done and dusted and in the post shortly. Two are variations on a theme done with Janet Pring and Lesley. The ornament is made with on of the spellbinder dies. I've made these in a mauve as my daughter likes a more contemporary card. I, on the other hand are a traditionalist through and through!!

Meet the pacas.

This blog was for cards but I could not resist sharing the arrival of the new lawn mowers. They arrived three weeks ago to help cut the grass and definitely not to produce wool for me to spin. This is Kim with her cria (baby) called Rory and Drew with her cria Geno. This is Felicity,with the two boys who were only 9weeks when the picture was taken.

Another Sunday with Janet

I have not done much crafting lately as gardening and travelling have got in the way. It was lovely to spend Sunday at the Clarity workshop with Janet Pring at Great Blakenham. I love the abstract stencil we used on the first card, there was lots of cutting out but we made our own ink pads with reinkers for the leaves and the petals. The second card was much easier to to do using the stamp from the first card. The third card was great fun to do. We used shaving cream and the reinkers to obtain the multi coloured background then used the foam to stencil the flower. I took the foam off through the stencil and used a heat gun to dry it. I found it difficult to use a fine liner to outline the leaves and petals as the tip seemed to get coated by the foam remnant on the card. Perhaps a different pen would do a better job.I would like to use this technique again but have more of the background showing as it was so 'pretty'.

Stencilling with Janet

These are the cards I made at Janet's Clarity workshop at Great Blakenham last Sunday. One card used the inny and one the outside of the stencil. The third was done using a gelli plate and sponge for the mottled effect. This one used the outside of the stencil and then the scene created inside the frame. The border was done with a grass stamp, stamped all around the outside. This used the inside of the stencil to create the 'tree bark' effect using three colours. The outside of the stencil was put in place and the scene created. This used the gelli plate and a sponge to get the mottled effect.

Made with Lesley

I've not had chance to do much crafting as gardening takes over at this time of year. I did however have a day crafting with the ladies at the day run by Lesley Buckle. These are a few of the cards we made.

Guest card for the April Clarity challenge

This is my guest card for the clarity challenge. It took many attempts before I was happy with what I had done. I used Terra cotta,the bird table kit,sheep from one of the christmas sets and the cloud stencil.

Out of my comfort zone!

These are the cards I made at Bawburgh with Janet Pring. Two were certainly out of my comfort zone but loved them when they were finished.

Cards made at Blakenham

Prize draw

I was delighted to find I was the winner of the random draw for the Clarity challenge....Love and Romance.

Now getting the hang of importing pics, so while fresh in my mind I've added two of the cards that I made at Janet Prings Clarity workshop at Great Blakenham.

A simple but quick card with many variations using memory box die chloe stem. I have made this adding gems to the flowers to enhance then stamped a message across the bottom.

Love and romance

This is the card I made for the February Clarity challenge. I always seem to be on the drag as I change my mind a dozen times about what I am trying to achieve. I used the Clarity card stock and cut out my own heart stencils.I masked the card and brayered the heart using Adirondak Wild Plum. Using the small heart mask I sponged several around the page. I stamped the roses using versamark and masking the small hearts as I went.I brayered the whole page with wild plum then polished off the versamark. With a fine pen I outlined the hearts using a dot and a dash. Black was too severe but I did not have a fine pen in the right tone. I stamped the message using the letterbox kit in the plum and used fine embossing powder to glaze. The outer layer of the mount was achieved with the plum on white and by masking the roses as I went.

New beginnings

This is my card for the Clarity challenge New Beginnings. It is based on one I did for the arrival of my great nephew. From a personal point of view I think I 'over cooked' it. As Barbara would say, 'you can add it, but you can't take it away.'

This was my card that I put forward for the December clarity challenge. The mount is a Crafters Companion brown which looks much nicer than on the picture. It caught the light too much. I was delighted it finished in the top 5.