Christmas baubles

Evening all, how are we today?   We had a grey damp old day here, but such a beautiful sky at sunset.  I think we were totally spoiled there with a few weeks of sunshine, hopefully that wasn't summer!

I finally got round to making another Christmas card.  At the start of lockdown I'd thought I'd get a good headstart but it hasn't quite gone to plan.
I think the thing I love most about card making is the colouring in and will happily spend a few hours in front of the telly with my pencils on a cutie like this :)   No new stash shopping for me so this stamp is an oldie from Marianne Designs that I first used back in 2012!

• Layout from CAS Colours and Sketches #368
• Tuesday Throwdown #456 - doodle something (my borders)
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - anything goes
• Your Next Stamp #137 - stripes

Baby Ellie

Hi folks, hope you're all safe and well.  Sorry I've been MIA - I'd totally lost my mojo so thought I'd give myself a wee break from crafting and blogging.  Anyway, I'm back with this old Wild Rose Studio stamp from maybe 8 years ago or so.  Someone told me once that elephants were bad luck on baby cards, I've no idea if that's true or not but I haven't paid any heed to it anyway ;)

Coloured with polychromos.  When I coloured my green balloons I also added a hint of the pale yellow to pull the two colours together and I like how they turned out.  I hadn't planned on adding the tag at the top but the obligatory dirty mark needed hiding!

• Layout from AAA Cards #163
• Addicted to CAS #183 - animal
• Retro Rubber #133 - anything goes
• As You Like It - favourite non birthday occasion - well I love making Christmas cards but I'm not in the right mood for them, so my next favourite is baby cards.  All those cute images and soft colours, and of course that they're for a brand new baby!  

Sparkly birthday cake

Happy Easter folks!  A different one than usual, but sure aren't we blessed to be fit and healthy, a roof over our heads and food in the cupboard.  We've had a lovely bright and sunny weekend - it was t-shirt weather out in the garden yesterday but we were back to our cosy coats for our walk this evening and I was wishing I had put on my hat and gloves!

This evening I have this cutie from Stamping Bella, she's a pleasure to colour but I always kinda struggle with her curly hair.
I also struggle with adding bling!  I reckon there must be a trick somewhere on how to do it, it always takes me aaaages to decide on where mine is going!

• Sweet Stampin - the great crafty bake off
  
• Word Art Wednesday #434-435 - anything goes
• Fab'n Funky #476 - birthday
• Moving along with the times #117 - diamante embellishments

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