Spring tulips

Evening folks, hope you're all fit and well.  I've a few days off work now for Easter, so will be closing the office (bedroom) door and trying to switch off.  I've only to check in briefly on Saturday and Sunday, and the rest of my time is my own till Wednesday.    Top of my To Do list is tackling the weeds in the garden and maybe powerhosing the drive, so hopefully the weather will co-operate.

I've spent the last few evenings in front of the telly colouring this gorgeous Penny Black stamp, it's one of my very oldest stamps and still gets inked.  It was definitely a good purchase!  My own tulips still have a bit of growing, they'll be another week or two yet.

Coloured with polychromos and clear bling added, plus a little bit of orange bling in the middle of that ribbon on the pot.  My lovely ombre DP was a recentish purchase from the Range, before the world closed down that is!

• Penny Black and More April - anything goes
• Time Out #159 - inspired by words - I went with the garden part of the quote
• Your Next Stamp #136 - pastels
• Allsorts #566/567 - something old something new

Getting ready for Easter

Evening folks, hope you're all fit and well.  Strange times we're living in, and definitely not an experience we'll be looking to have again!  I guess I'm lucky that I'm able to work from home - it's such a strange experience working away in the spare bedroom in my slippers and comfy joggers!

I've had zero mojo but figure we're in this for the long haul, so I've been making myself colour in the evenings and got down to putting some of them together today.
This first one looks so much better in real life!  These little Stamping Bella stamps are the ones I'll be using for this year's Easter cards.  Coloured with polychromos and glitter added to the lighter stripe on the egg.  The greeting is also cut in sparkly card.

• Sweet Stampin - make your own background
• Cute Card Thursday #627 - Easter
• Simon Says Stamp - anything goes
• Word Art Wednesday #432/433 - anything goes

And here's the same wee cutie, I think I might draw in a bit of grass or something to ground her a bit.  The dazzle at the top is a little silver heart that objected to the camera.   I've no idea where my 'Happy Easter' stamp is, so I'll be using this die cut for the time being.  Doubtless it will turn up after Easter ;)

• Addicted to Stamps #382 - make your mark
• Layout from Freshly Made Sketches #428

Rockin Robins

I'm a bit behind in my Christmas makes this year, this is Number 3, I'll need to have a better output rate than 1 per month!  I won this Clearly Besotted set a while back and thought I'd get some ink on it.  I'm sure I have some red glitter somewhere, so I'll have to hoke it out, it would have looked better with my red sparkly card.  Actually now I think about it, I could have paper pieced their bellies!

• Layout from MFT Wednesday Sketch #480
• ABC Christmas - F for freebie
• Word Art Wednesday #430/431 - anything goes

Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge

Workmates Leaving cards

I had a busy evening making cards for a couple of colleagues who are moving on.  Sometimes it's nice just to sit down and colour, there's nothing but bad news on the telly! Between Coronavirus, the environment, Brexit, the economy, wars and hardship, good news stories are few and far between!  It was nice to totally switch off with my biggest issue being how to create waves without adding extra layers ..... I used a wave border die and used the negative side as a template in case you're interested ;)

Now what has a dude on a boat got to do with a good luck card? Well, nothing! Other than Gavin has a beard and smokes!  I dressed him in his football team colours, he might but most likely won't even notice ;)
Images from Jane's Doodles; coloured with polychromos; sparkle added to their shirts and clear gloss to their eyes and the pipe.
I faffed about for ages trying to finish this card, cutting stuff out, throwing them away etc etc and then added the gems and hurrah, that it was all I really needed!

• Tuesday Throwdown #452 - good luck
• Daisy Chain #39 - use dies
• Your Next Stamp #134 - get lucky

For this one I used an oldie LOTV stamp and some gorgeous new dotty DP from The Range.  If I was making this again I would have used a white strip instead of the kraft, it kinda dulled the whole thing down :(

• Layout from Freshly Made Sketches #426
• Allsorts #563 - lots of dots
• Crafty Hazelnut's patterned paper challenge March 2020

Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring challenge

More sympathy cards!

I spent this weekend making sympathy cards to try and get my stash up, I hate making them so hopefully this will do me for a while!
I've also been on a mission to get some of my wee scraps from my MFT pile used up, thus the stripey theme!

This first card uses these lovely roses from Clearly Besotted.  Coloured with polycromos and the flowers covered with my sparkle pen.

• My layout is from Sketch Saturday's free for all challenge #599 - I chose #498
• The Flower challenge #42 - anything goes
• As You Like It - favourite flower - I've already submitted a daffodil card for this challenge, so thought I'd enter roses as my favourite summer flower.  I love the old fashioned really scented blooms , it's always a disapointment when you see a beautiful rose and then when you go in for a sniff there's no smell! 

This one uses a Penny Black stamp - again coloured with polychromos.  I read a tip on The Daily Marker blog to use a marker on your image first before your pencils and it definitely does make a difference.  I think I need a bit more practice though and if I was making this card again I think I would maybe do the vase green instead of bright yellow!

• Penny Black Saturday March - anything goes / Spring florals
• Pixies Snippets Playground #373 

The Daily Marker colouring challenge

Spring daffodils and a massive Easter egg

So that was another weekend of pretty rubbish weather courtesy of Storm Jorge, of course the sun came out this afternoon when it was too late to go anywhere!
I did manage to get a wee break in the showers to get my winter pansies and primulas deadheaded, it's good to see that spring is most definitely here.  It won't be long now till my daffs are blooming, so I thought I'd use them on one to add to my sympathy stash.

This image is from Clearly Besotted, coloured with polychromos - I'm not a massive fan of poetry but I always think of William Wordsworth's host of golden daffodils when I use this stamp!

• Addicted to CAS #179 - symmetry (though my image isn't 100% symmetrical!)
• As You Like It - favourite flower - I have loads of favourites but I love to see daffodils as it means the longer days and better weather (fingers crossed) are on the way
• Penny Black and More March - spring flowers

And here's a fun Easter card using one of my new Stamping Bella images.  I've popped her up on one of these little boingy spring things ... I bought some recently after not being able to find the ones I already had, and then spent about half an hour this evening trying to find the new ones that I'd put "somewhere safe".  It drives me absolutely crazy looking for stuff!  

• Layout from Freshly Made Sketches #424
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Clearly Besotted Colouring Challenge Day 1

Sympathy Tulips

As usual I've no sympathy cards in my stash, I need to just sit down and make a load of them to get them out of the way!
For this one I've used my lovely tulips from Power Poppy - coloured with polychromos.

• Layout from Try Stampin on Tuesday #445
• My Time to Craft #426 - no digis allowed
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - add a sentiment
• Sweet Stampers #41 - hearts and or flowers