Clearly Besotted July/Aug Teasers Day 4

Hello everyone! Hope you’re well today and not struggling too much with the heat. I love the sunshine but the heat…not so much!

I said yesterday I was bringing you a two-fer..well in fact it ended up being a three-fer. Let me start with the dud, and the evolution of the card! We just can’t love everything that we make- so I thought I’d show my process. It rarely happens that I try and improve my cards- I’d be more likely to ditch it and start again.

I kind of liked the ring from Ring Around Summer but who knows what I was thinking with the odd green lines- they’re not even the same shade!! So I decided to pull the ring off and try again. I’d coloured the images in with Copic markers and simply stamped with grey hybrid ink. So.. onto number two.

So adding the butterflies creates movement but I still didn’t love it. Full disclosure.. I just put the ring onto the back of the original card so I now have a ripped back -so if I need to send it, I’ll have to cut the front off and add it to another card blank. I should not have been so lazy and just popped it onto another blank. Duh.

So, I decided to go simpler still.

So I stamped in grey ink, added a violet grey and a darker grey to make the ring look dimensional and then coloured in the toucan. I trimmed out the inside of the ring and popped a dark purple strip behind it. It’s hard to see the colour from this photo.

The purple (despite it being my least favourite colour) gives a good contrast for the toucan. I prefer this card but they’re still not my favourite cards. I hope though, it gives you lots of ideas of how to use the set (plus my paddling pool card from Sunday).

I hope you’ve got time to visit the Clearly Besotted Blog, then onto Lisa, Michelle and Francine Vuilleme plus seeing Mona and Alberto over on Instagram.

See you tomorrow for Release Day!

Itty Bitty Card & Lots of Play!

Morning (she says, in Policeman Plod tones!) – today’s project comes to you thanks to Itty Bitty stamps (Unity), twine and stitching (I’m sounding like the end of a Sesame street programme). I was playing around with the speech bubble stamp which would be perfect for a scrapbook journalling spot and decided to stitch it up. I seem to be sewing on card a lot at the moment. I wanted to add some colour with twine- initially I though I’d do bows on the butterflies- but that looked wrong & then I went to attaching one piece of twine that morphed to five & then I thought it would be fun to echo the chevron pattern of  the paper with the twine. My cards end up being completely random. Some are designed in my red design book, most are not.

This card was chiefly designed for Make The Day Special blog;- the girls over there are brilliant and hilarious.

The kiddos this week are being weaned off electronic devices including TV. For some, it may seem stupid- but the kids would spend all day glued into some grid, web or channel so I wanted them to exercise their creativity and have some less timetabled fun. We happened to pop into a charity shop (or thrift store!) & saw ‘Guess who’ which is a game I love & have always wanted to get it for the kids. There, waiting for us was Battleships, Game of Games (a new one for us) & Connect 4. We have had so much fun!

Even Will, is learning fast how to navigate grids & tactics with Battleships. He loves being able to play a game all by himself & there’s the sound of kids having fun. Granted, we’re going over being a good sport, not sulking & cheering on others (do those lessons ever end?!) but that truly was one of the best £9 I’ve spent in a long time. The kids seem proud of their ability to last the day without TV (although they’re getting to watch something at the end of the afternoon- I’m not a total ogre!).

I just need to play a little more now. Maybe not battleships, but ‘sit on the sofa without getting off, and minus the guilt’! Any of you faring well with that game?! 😉

 

See you when I’ve learned how to play that one successfully!

xx

 

Butterfly Tag & Incorrect Assumptions!

Butterfly With Copics & Free Entertainment

Happy August everybody. It’s just lovely weather this morning ( uh- I sound so British again- blethering on about the weather !!). Today’s card is I’m response to Just Us Girls challenge and here’s the inspiration pic

So pretty- isn’t it!
Here’s my take on it.

I have been experimenting ( aka learning!) with some Ciao copics that I found in a random bookshop at half price. I discovered that acetate requires a different treatment but you can build up layers using a ‘dotting’ motion and keeping adding ink over the previous dried ink. I’ll never be a colouring in girl but I quite liked messing around with shading images. I was inspired to join in after seeing Virginia’s card which is so lovely.
I found the embossing folder and thought I’d cut out the sections- took way too long and the CS wasn’t very happy about being tampered with either. The paper behind is some Simple Stories Summer Fresh and I’ve been using this over the past couple of days ready for a commission to make Christmas cards using non- Christmas paper.

I’m trying to get into the stride of the summer holidays- nearly have this relaxed mornings and lack of strict routine nearly down pat 😉 !! This week we’ve been out to friends, parks and the kids have been pretty creative in their playing. The best day was where they took over the dining to make one massive ‘den village’

They used up most of the bedding I own and apart from some territorial tantrums and border division disputes, they played really well. They even got a lesson in folding bedding at the end ( see- educational and useful!!). Today I’m going to do Geocaching finally. We need to find some little ‘treasures’ in case we need to replace whatever iseft for us to discover.
Will see you when I’ve managed to coerce the kids away from the ‘lympics’ ( as Will calls them). I’ve been loving how it’s inspired them to create their own events. This mornings event was ‘long distance silence’ and Will awarded his big sister a ‘brown’ ( bronze!!). I’m rather liking this event- maybe I should do lots of training with them!!
Xx

Bliss Bag & Sale-a-bration Blog Hop

 Good morning!! Hope you’re not shivering away like me! Isn’t it freeezing?!  Today I’m part of a blog hop organised by Pat with all the ILWS gals. There are 4 separate hops all using the Sale-a-bration sets so as to give you all some inky inspiration with using them. If you click on that ILWS link, it’ll show you the whole list. My round starts with me- but you may have come  from the lovely Hayley, so a big Hi! and welcome if you did.! I haven’t seen her blog post yet but I’m looking forward to peeking later! 

I’ve got 2 very different projects. The first was an idea of mine to use butterflies from ‘Bliss’  instead of a hot air balloon carrying a birthday present. The design needs a bit of reworking but at least it’s nice and bright! I had fun making the ‘strings’. I used the different ink refills to dye some plain embroidery thread. I just put a small amount of water in different plastic cups and added 4 drops of ink from the refills. Add lengths of string, leave for 15 minutes, then remove and let thread dry. To get a truer colour I probably needed a few more drops of colour. Ah well, I had fun playing! I’ve also entered this in Stampin Royalty

 for their challenge ‘Anything with wings’ . I’ve used the Happy Birthday from Punch Bunch and just cut offthe 3 edges of  the scallops. Onto my second project- a very hastily sewn ‘Bliss’ Bag. The light was chronic yesterday- and even messing around on Photoshop didn’t help any! The colour on the bag is as true as I could as I could get it ! The central panel was made from a cotton baby cot sheet I didn’t need any more. I stiffened the thin sheet with some interfacing. The ink stamped really crisp images. I used Pear Pizzazz and Old Olive ink. I added the designer buttons whilst munching my breakfast in a cafe this morning.  As a result of going to a place called the Quarter, I want yoghurt, muesli and fresh fruit for breakfast tomorrow and possibly all next week! The next stage of the hop is heading over to Blue Angel’s . I went for a nose yesterday and she’s got some beautiful cards on there.

On a personal front I was thinking about lots of things that I love whilst I was in town yesterday. My eldest boy has a real nonchalant disregard for his appearance, and I love the way he just doesn’t mind! I had to force myself not to comment as I looked on at this very scruffy but incredibly happy little guy. I also love learning how things are constructed. I was so excited browsing through bag patterns and picked up a few. Wish I’d taken more notice during my Textiles lessons. It’s never too late to learn something new, so you might find a few more bags popping up on here. I also love just looking around. I was like a little kid after popping to town yesterday, with so many inspiring images in my head. Oh to have time to write them down nevermind actually create something.  

Off to tidy up- normal energy levels are returning slowly!

If you want to visit the other blog hops-

Round 1 blog hop- Sarastamper

Round 2 blog hop- my-next-chapter

Round 3 blog hop- here!

Round 4 blog hop- creatinwithkirsteen

Card recipe: Crumb cake and Whisper white cardstock. Inks- all the ‘brights’ colours. Rhinestones. Marina mist satin ribbon. Stamp sets- Punch Bunch & Bliss. Linen thread. White embroidery thread (from my stash)

Bliss Bag- white and patterned cotton. Pear Pizzazz and Old olive ink. Designer buttons. Pear pizzazz ribbon.