Addicted to CAS - #21

Hello everyone - it's that time again...........here is the latest challenge from Addicted to CAS.  Here are the details.  Your host is the very talented Harriet and here is the code word she's chosen: 

This challenge is Sponsored by -

 

 

who are offering a prize of a

$25 gift voucher!

Both of my cards use digi images but I'm afraid I don't know where they originated.  I've printed these images out and used a simple frame for each.

 

 

For the violin I've used my square nesties and turned the central one into a diamond shape.  I die cut four strips of music using my MB Virtuoso Music die and sponged lightly with Distress Ink Old Paper.  These were then added around the frame.  The sentiment was computer generated and die cut using Petite Labels One and again sponged inside the label die.  

 

 

 

For the umbrella image I used my square nesties and Labels Twenty-Seven and die cut the frame which I then put through my machine in a Cuttlebug music embossing folder.  I added some acetate to the inside of the frame onto which I'd stamped one of the stamps in the Raindrop Set (Designs by Ryn) using StazOn Timber Brown.  The border stamped on the base card is one of the background builder sets from Clearly Besotted.

Well, that's enough from me........it's time for you to pop on over to A2CAS to check out the inspiration the rest of the Design Team have come up with.  We can't wait to see your entries and visit your blogs.

Have a great weekend.

Last photo...........promise!!!

Happy Friday everyone.  Well, I can't believe that this time last week I was sitting in a traffic jam trying to get to Daventry for the Oyster Stamp Retreat.  This week's flown by.  I've finished off our last project that we did with the divine Miss Martine of Ab Fab Designs.  It was nearly our last project on Sunday and one and a half hours was no way enough time for 10 of us to finish this gorgeous card.

I posted a photo of Martine's card the other day, but here is my version.

  

Recipe:  Heartfelt Creations Sunkissed Fleur stamps and dies, Creative Expressions Heart Lattice embossing folder, Wink of Stella brush pens, Liquid Pearls, Spellbinders Enchanted Labels 28 and Twisted Metal Tags & Accents, Bling on a Roll (from Oyster Stamps)QuietFire Designs Sentiment & Frame stamp, We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board, vellum, embossing powder, bone folder.

I'll own up now..........I added the flower inside by the sentiment as I got a small ink mark; then I was too quick to close the envelope and some Liquid Pearls got on the inside flap.........hence the three flowers inside!!!  See, happy accidents; serendipity at work yet again - hehe!

Thanks for dropping by.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and special birthday wishes go out to my eldest nephew Dominic; have a brilliant time.

WOYWW 220 and more of the crafty retreat photos

Hi Everyone........well the weekend is fading away (but not the feeling of enjoyment and pleasure in meeting so many lovely people).  Apart from finishing off my Advent Christmas Tree I've been busy doing stuff in the garden today and I'm now just trying to sort everything out and put it away (neatly......!).  I took so much stuff with me - I suppose going in the car made that easy but it was a case of "well, I might just need that".............  anyway onto the subject in hand.  It's the lovely Julia Dunnit's What's on your Workdesk Wednesday and so I thought I'd post a picture (or two) of my desk today.

 

My desk loaded with goodies I need to put away - a total mixture of stash I purchased over the weekend and the goodie bag that Tracey & Graham gave us all.  Anna Marie's Christmas Tree stamp set, Wink of Stella brush pens, Distress Stains, Studio Multi-medium matte, Pack of Ice Resin, Fran.tage, Heartfelt Creations new Christmas stamps that match their absolutely GORGEOUS 12x12 pad (oh and the die to match.....!  hehe), some Spellbinders dies which were in the goodie bag, La-La Land stamp, another Heartfelt Creations Luscious Cherry Swirls (goodie bag), Dazzling Diamond self-adhesive Bling Bling.

 This is the card we made with Paul Church using Jayne Nestorenko's bauble stamp set.  In front is a paper folded Christmas tree that Anna Marie showed us how to make out of vellum........ I'd been playing with the new Inkadinkadoo stamp system and suddenly thought it might make a good tree so cut around the design and folded.........might do some more of these; they looked gorgeous in the vellum.

 This is the lovely Christmas card we made with Anna Marie using her new Christmas stamps and on the right of the card is the rolled and cut paper Christmas Tree and the loopy item you can see behind the stamped pine cones is made of jute.  On the top left under the embellishment we actually have real live moss - Anna Marie loves to use it and I can see why.  It is so soft and seemingly it never dies or loses it's colour.  She sells packs of it and I can see me buying some more.

 Here is a better picture of the mixed media canvas I did with the lovely Neet of Hickydorums - we gessoed the canvas, coloured it with Pan Pastels and then played!!!  If you pop over to her blog then you can see exactly what we did at the retreat including the Ice Resin pendants.  The bling underneath the canvas is this amazing HUGE sheet of bling which you can even die-cut as it's made out of some sort of resin.  You should see what Martine does with it.........especially her shoes!

 The little girl image at the back is one of the colouring projects we worked on and it's waiting to be made up into a card.  In front are some of the vellum flowers we made to go on Martine's gorgeous card (see yesterday's post for details).

 Sorry about the quality of this photo, the light was coming in from the window and bouncing off the sellophane wrappers.

Hopefully, by this time next week, my desk might be a tad tidier!!!!  Don't hold your breath though!!!!!  lol

Thanks for dropping by.

Oyster Stamps Craft Retreat

Hello everyone - well, what a weekend, what fun!!!  Must admit it didn't start off too well.  I had decided to go up to Daventry on Friday so I'd be rested and ready for the start at 9am on Saturday.  Left home at 2.30pm for what should have been a 2 1/2 hour journey.............arrived at the hotel at 7.15pm!!!!  Nightmare - traffic jams, accidents etc etc.  Still at least I got there safely and met up with Martine, Tracey, Graham, Tom, Paul, Neet and Jacqui - it was a glorious day and we were sitting out on the terrace having a drink (or two!!!).  This is the view we had:

Whilst we were sitting chatting this lady came up who everyone seemed to know and was introduced to me as Jane.  Lovely lady, very pretty with a great sense of humour.  She went a little while later and I said to Tracey I'm sure I know her...........well, of course I did - it was Jane Nestorenko!!!  She has lost such a lot of weight and looks years younger than the last time I saw her on TV.  She lives quite near and had popped in to see Paul Church as he was using some of her Christmas stamps in one of the workshops.  We all piled back into the hotel to get some dinner and then had a fairly early night.

The next morning we all met up for breakfast at about 8am and then had the intro to what was going to happen during the next two days.  There were 40 of us at the retreat and had four workshops going at a time - so I was on table 1, then moved on to table 2, etc etc so we all completed four workshops on both days.  Jacqui Dennis took us for a colouring tutorial, the amazing Neet took us for some mixed media  and we had a great time using Ice Resin, Martine took us for the advent Christmas tree (see the photo below) and Paul did a Christmas card using Jane Nestorenko's Christmas bauble stamps. 

 

Behind each window is a folded sentiment (you can see some unfolded on the left of the tree) and I used the Twelve Days of Christmas sentiments and then stamped others making 24 in total.

On the second day Anna Marie arrived, hot-foot from her show on C&C the evening before, along with her hubby Tim who set up a mini shop of Anna Marie Designs goodies.  We did a great workshop with Anna Marie using some of her new Christmas stamps and various embellishments she sells.  She also showed us how to make a rolled and cut Christmas tree - so effective.

We finished off our mixed media projects with Neet next - it was so much fun and even the ladies who hate getting mucky really enjoyed themselves!

The third workshop was with Martine again and I show a photo of the card we were making - beautiful vellum flowers, coloured using Wink of Stella pens, with an envelope enclosed in the centre of the card plastered with bling!!!  Definitely a Martine card.  Unfortunately as time was limited we didn't have a chance to finish it but have brought it home to complete.

 

 

 This is Lorraine holding Martine's card

The last workshop was with Paul who was showing us the geared system that Inkadinkadoo have come up with.  If you're really into pattern building then it's ideal but must admit it wasn't my "thing".


Oh, did I mention that there was a fairly large Oyster Stamp shop on site?????   hehe............ well, you couldn't expect anything less eh?  Must admit I came back with more baggage than I went with! lol  We were also given an amazing goodie bag from Tracey & Graham which contained stamp sets, Memory Box dies, Spellbinders dies, Distress Inks, Distress Stains, packs of card, and several other bits and bobs.......it was so generous of them.

I have got loads of photos but there are also lots on Oyster's Facebook page but will try to post some more during the week.

Right, just going to see what's for dinner..........talking about which, after a great journey home on Sunday evening (2 1/2 hours as it should have been......) I came into the house to the wonderful smell of roast lamb............my wonderful hubby had cooked dinner for me.....mwah!

ADDICTED TO CAS - Challenge #20

Happy Saturday everyone - hopefully as you are reading this I'm just arriving at my hotel for the great Crafty Retreat organised by Oyster Stamps..........can't wait; wall to wall crafting with Paul Church, the amazing (and blingy!!!) Martine Smith, Neet Hickson, Jacqui Dennis and the fab Anna Marie - not to mention Tracey & Graham.

Anyway, back to business.  The last two weeks have flown by and there were some lovely entries for our Summer challenge, but it's time for a new challenge at Addicted to CAS and this time your host is the fabulous Florence who has chosen the code word:

Our Sponsor for this challenge is:

who are offering the winner FOUR images of their choice

I've used a Delicious Doodles image for my card which is the lovely scene of beach huts........this time of the year "Holiday" only meant one thing and yep anything beach, lazing around etc although some of my team mates obviously thought Christmas!!!  lol  I've printed off the image and coloured using Pan Pastels, die cut an aperture in a square piece of card using Spellbinders and then I embossed my Memory Box Big Splash die cut on the top and bottom of this card for some texture.  Both the sentiments were free digis that I've cut out and coloured with Pan Pastels.  I popped the frame up with d/s foam pads and did the same with the sentiments. 

Please pop over to Addicted to CAS to see the great inspiration cards made by the Design Team.

Now it's your turn - lets see what amazing creations you come up with for this code word - as usual the only stipulation is the your card must be CLEAN & SIMPLE to qualify.  Can't wait to come and visit to say hi.  I'll be back after the weekend to catch up with you all and, hopefully, show you some photos.

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you soon.

Craft Club samples

Hi Everyone - hope you're all keeping well.  Very strange weather at the moment in Somerset - rain, sun and very, very humid.............not nice.

Right, this is a very quick post as I'm trying to get all my craft room stashed into bags to take to my crafty retreat tomorrow!!!  lol

It was our Craft Club meeting last night and we did two projects with the girls.  The first one was triple time stamping and they all made lovely cards.

 

The second project was white embossing images and then using a variety of methods to colour them in.



As I said, a very quick post - if there is anything you want to know just let me know and I'll respond when I get back.

Have a great weekend.

Clearly Besotted Challenge #3 - Colour Inspiration

Well at last I've managed to join in with a Clearly Besotted challenge (this is the third one so far) and here is the colour inspiration that Stephanie has given us:

For this month's Clearly Besotted challenge, I have a very pretty colour palette to hopefully inspire you to join in, I'd love to see you use some, or all, of the following colours on your projects (pretty please!)....

For my card I've used the lovely Twinkle Toes stamp set and matching dies and one of their Background Builder stamps.  I've stamped the ballerina in three colours (which are actually very close to the ones given here but you know what photos are like!!!) and die cut them.  I cut a piece of card using a nestie to mount them onto and threaded a pale pink organza ribbon through the outside.  I scored two lines in the middle of the card blank and then stamped the music background builder across the card.  The two sentiments come from the same Twinkle Toes stamp set and I've used Petite Labels 1 to die cut them; I then sponged some DI Spun Sugar around the dies.  The card candy was just punched out of white card, coloured with the same green ink and then I used an embossing tool and foam mat to shape them.

Thanks for dropping by.  I'll be back on Saturday with a new challenge at Addicted to CAS (although I'll be winging my way up to Daventry for my Crafty Little Getaway with Oyster Stamps).

Less is More - Week 132 One Layer

Hello everyone - hope you're having a great Saturday.  It's been a really long day for me as I've been up since 5.30am as we had the village breakfasts this morning.  This is something we do on six Saturday mornings during the school holidays for everyone travelling down to Devon and Cornwall on holiday.  We've been doing this for about 45 years (not me you understand!!!  lol).  Anyway it's a great experience and raises valuable money for various village organisations.

So, when I got back I cut the grass and then did some gardening so I wouldn't feel guilty coming upstairs to my craft room later on and then we popped in to a lunch party we were invited to.  This week I've been busy making samples for our craft club evening next Wednesday and also my DT card for Addicted to CAS for next Saturday.  Then I spied the new Less is More challenge which is:

For our 

ONE LAYER

 challenge this week, we would like to see 

NUMBERS!

Just one would do, but you may have as many as you wish!

My card is very simple and everything I've used has been from the Stampin Up "Memorable Moments" stamp set.  Now you won't believe just how many photos I took in every position in different rooms just to show that it's all been heat embossed with silver detail e/p!  I'm still not sure you can see it properly.  I started off stamping the frame and embossing it and then I used the matching Framelits Labels collection of dies just to emboss the shape around the frame.  I added the 25th and then Happy and Anniversary and everything was heat embossed.

Thanks for stopping by - hope you all have a great weekend.

The Male Room - Anything Goes

Afternoon everyone - hope you're all having a good weekend.  Very overcast and breezy here today but still warm.

There is a new challenge on the block called The Male Room which, as it says on the tin, is for men only cards.  I think most of us have trouble with cards for men - such difficult creatures eh? lol

Their first challenge is Anything Goes and as I needed to make a card celebrating my youngest nephew's 30th birthday I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.........so to speak!

This card actually didn't turn out how I envisaged at the beginning.......but that's often the case eh?  I started with the clock which is a Papertrey die, as are the hands and numbers.  Die cut from bronze mirri card with black for the numbers and hands.  I mounted it onto a scalloped circle which I sponged with DI Gathered Twigs.  The kraft card blank is Anna-Marie Designs.  The mats have been die cut using Spellbinders Grand Squares and embossed using Embossalicious Dotty A4 e/f.  The top sentiments are Clearly Besotted Shine Bright and Make a Wish sets.  The main sentiment is SU Memorable Moments die cut with SU Framelits.  I die cut his name Keir using Memory Box Large Classic Alphabet.  The metal elements are from my stash.

Whatever you're doing have a great day.  Thanks for dropping by.

Addicted to CAS - Challenge #19

Hello everyone.  We've whooshed around to Saturday once again and it's time for a new challenge at Addicted to CAS.

For this challenge your hostess is the creative Sue who has chosen the code word:

Our sponsor today is:

Joanna is offering this prize to the winner of the challenge - a $20 GIFT VOUCHER

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO READ OUR RULES HERE SO YOU ARE IN THE RUNNING FOR THIS FABULOUS PRIZE!!

Here's my first DT card.  I've used a Stampin Up stamp (second one below) but it's obviously come adrift from it's box so I'm not sure what it's called.  I've stamped it in Memento ink on a scalloped circle die cut (which I then put through with a smaller scallop die to emboss the shape and then sponged with DI Tumbled Glass).  I've coloured using Flexmarkers, added some ribbon which has been added to the circle with a pearl brad.  The sentiment is SU Circle of Friendship and is really a Christmas sentiment but I masked the words in the centre before stamping it and then added a flower image.

For my second card I took a piece of cream card and used my nesties to die cut an aperture and then put it through my machine with an embossing folder (Spellbinders M-bossabilities Garden Lattice).  The sentiment is Stampin Up and was again die cut using the same nesties and for the mat I used the waste from the first die cut.  I stamped the couple sitting on the beach (Stampin Up) and coloured using my Flexmarkers.  I used Distress Inks for sponging the sun and sky.   I added the image to the back of the aperture and then popped the whole lot up using d/s foam onto the main A5 card.

Please go on over to Addicted to CAS to look at the inspirational cards the rest of the DT have made for you and then we all look forward to visiting your blogs to see your lovely creations.

Have a lovely weekend - happy crafting.