Christmas at Easton

Morning all!
Happy Thursday to you - last Thursday, I did my regular spot at the Easton Craft group.  We made a start on Christmas cards....I know it may seem a bit early, but if you are sending lots of handmade Christmas cards, you have to get ahead or you will end up like me, scrabbling around to make a whole load at the last minute!!

I always like Christmas cards to be fairly flat, so you don't have to pay extra postage

For the first card, we stamped the baubles, then masked them and inked the pine leaves stencil over the top (I used three different colour greens)
Remove the masks and colour in
Draw a line to hang the baubles from
Add your greeting

For the second card, we used the starry stencil to create the background, then stamped and coloured the small, round Santa stamp

For the third card, we squished some versa mark ink through the stencil, then added perfect pearls.

The doves are stamped, cut out and matted on to a die cut circle (Not sure what the strange,white on the centre of the Doves is - it is not on the actual card, just there when I scanned it!)










Thanks to all the ladies for making it a fun evening and especially thanks to the cake-makers!!
Looking forward to the next one!
Janet xx

A cold, wet Sunday!

Hello Bloggers,

How is your bank holiday weekend going??  Mine took a bit of an unexpected turn on Sunday when I was nominated by Barbara Gray to do the ALS/MND Ice Bucket Challenge.  Barbara nominated the whole design team and it has been great fun to watch all the videos of everyone getting buckets of icy water thrown over them!!

I couldn't get the video to upload on here, but I have got a link (click on Ice Bucket Challenge, below) so you should be able to see my challenge

My Ice Bucket Challenge

Hope you enjoyed that!  It was actually good fun, if a little cold!

Back to cards next time
Janet xxx

German samples - for Christmas

Good morning all,

How is the bank holiday going?  Has it rained yet?  It has here a bit, but we have had some lovely sunshine too, so can't complain.  

Have you seen that Barbara is doing the Ice Bucket challenge to raise awareness and money for research into ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) probably better known as Motor Neurone Disease, a horrible degenerative disease which leaves you paralysed.  She has set up a page to donate if you would like to - see her facebook page for more details.

Today's card is the first of the samples I did for the Christmas show on German TV.....

I used a combination of the kits from the show:
Deer from the Winter Wonderland set,
the trees are the repositional trees set you get three trees on the mount, but you can take them off to use individually
The star was in the set with the log cabin

I decided to do a black and white card - I stamped the lines of trees using a copy paper mask, make sure the bottom part of the tree is on the mask and stamp a couple of times without re-inking to get the faded trees more in the distance
Stamp the deer in place and the star, then use the copy paper to add bits of shadow
I put a gem in the centre of the star and added some glitter to the trees and snow
The 'Frohe Weihnachten' greeting comes from the International Christmas Greeting set

Hope you like it thanks very much for visiting  Janet xx

Funky foliage

Good morning all,

I hope you are all feeling good!

Today's card is done with the lovely new Funky Foliage Collage and repositional Funky Foliage stamp sets.  This is one of my favourite designs of the recent new stamps from Clarity and I love some of the work that has been done by other Claritystampers.

This is the card I did for the TV.  The background was one I found in my stash ,I used distress inks squished on a glass mat, spritzed with water and picked up on the card.
I did all the stamping with black archival, then coloured in with pencils
To add a bit of extra interest to the background, I diluted one of the green brusho paints on a mat and picked up the paint on one of the leaf stamps and stamped on to the card
Once all that was dry, I squiggled a couple of black lines round the edge and stamped the 'Good Luck' from the brilliant line sentiment range. I added a squiggle to the ends of that too.
Mat and layer with matching card

Hope you like it.
Thanks very much for stopping by - hope you have a wonderful day
Janet xxx

Lacy Swallows

Good morning everyone, 

I hope you are having a great weekend!  I have another fairly relaxed one, planning and preparing for workshops.

I have two cards on here today, both using the lovely Lacy Swallows stamps....

This is the first card, I kept it all one colour - Cornflower archival ink
I stamped the 'so sorry' from the new line writing set  (these are one of my favourite styles of wording - very useful!) I wiped a little bit of ink off each end of the line before I stamped it, because I didn't want it to be quite as long as it actually is.
I stamped a lacy swallow at each end
For the main piece of the card, all I did was add some ink round the edge of the card and add a few gems and mat on to matching card
For the background piece, I stamped bits of the tail and wing of the larger swallow and added some extra ink.

For the second card, I stamped the birds on double-sided adhesive, then covered one side with acetate and used gilding flakes on the back, then cut them out and mounted on a black strip of card across the centre of white card, mounted on to black.  I stamped the lovely heart line from the same set of line sentimens and added a couple of gems.  I added a few dotty designs with a silver pen

Hope you like them, enjoy your weekend

Janet xx

A go with Brushos

Morning all,

I have got lots of cards to post this month because Barbara is doing extra shows.  She did two hours on German TV yesterday and is doing five hours of Christmas on C&C on Thursday - so get a picnic sorted!  My day off work is Thursday, so guess what I'll be doing!!   I wasn't asked to do samples for C&C, mine were all for Germany - more of them in the next few blogs....

This card is one of the samples from the last show

I have just treated myself to a set of Brusho paints - these are little pots of crystals which 'explode' when you spritz them.
The stamp here is the 'Lupins Bunch' and the stencil is a new one 'Stone Wall'
I stamped the Lupins Bunch first, then diluted a red brusho and painted the actual lupins
I wet the rest of the area slightly
I gently sprinkled a tiny amount of various colours on the stamped image (go very easy here, you only need a tiny amount!!)
Then I spritzed with water
I put a few of the various brown crystals on my glass mat and spritzed them, then picked the colour up on a sponge and sponged the colour through the stone wall stencil - avoiding my flowers

Trim and mat onto matching card

Hope you like it!
have a great day
Janet xxx

Lazy Day

Hello Bloggers,


For the first time for a long time I actually have both days of the weekend off  - no workshops to do, so I caught up on some much needed housework and gardening yesterday and today I read a book!  Hasn't happened for ages, but I did enjoy it - of course, what I should have been doing is tidying up the mountains of craft stuff that seem to have accumulated round the house!


Today's card is the first of my samples from the last TV show

I found a piece of background card I had in my stash, it is linen cardstock and it is coloured by squishing some distress inks onto a glass mat, spritzing with water a picking up with the card - this would have been a second run, judging by the more muted colours ( the first run always come out quite bright!)

I thought it would go well with the Fairytale stencil, so I simply attached the stencil to the card and brushed some grassy ups and downs using a copy paper mask.
I used blue for the sky - I was lucky in that there happened to be a light area which made a good sun!
I also added the Heart grasses along the bottom edge
I dragged the ink off the stencil with a sponge to give a bit more depth (especially round the girl)
I also ran round the whole thing with a fine blue pen to give the shape more definition.

Remove the stencil, trim and mount.
Hope you are having a great weekend and the weather isn't too bad for you
Janet xxx

Happy Thursday

Hello folks,

I didn't realise how long it is since I blogged!  It is nice to get back to it.  I have had quite a busy time craftwise recently - two Claritystampers East workshops and the Diva Red one with Moira.  All good fun though and lovely to spend time with all those crafty ladies.

These are the cards we did at the two Claritystampers East workshops in Bawburgh and Great Bakenham, all using a combination of the Roseart stamp along with the Flexible Urn (so called because you can use it either way up) and the small Crackle stamps

This card is all done with gilding flakes, the vase is stamped on one side of a double-sided adhesive sheet which is covered with acetate, and cut out
The other side is covered with gilding flakes and burnished using a sponge finger
The stamp is stamped with FlitterGlu (I think there is a Crafty Notions glue that may work too) Add some of the glue to a piece of cut and dry foam and use that as an ink pad, so you stamp the image with glue rather than ink
The stamped image will stay tacky until you cover it with gilding flakes and again brush off with the sponge finger.
I 'inked' round the edges of the card with the glue inkpad and added more flakes
Mount on to another piece of black card and tear along the bottom edge

For the next card, mask off a rectangle in the centre of a piece of card, then stamp the crackle all round it.  This is a very clever stamp because it will fit together whichever way round you use it and if you leave a bit of a gap, you can simply add a few lines with a black pen.
Remove the mask and stamp the vase in to place, mask off the top of the vase and add the roseart stem
Stamp the vase on a piece of copy paper and cut out, so you have a vase-shaped apertute, the place that over you stamped image and stamp the crackle through it
Colour in bits of the carckle on the vase and round the frame
Put the mask back over the vase and cover with versamark ink, then remove the mask and add clear embossing powder and heat - this will give the vase a nice sheen.
Cut to size and mount up

This is a nice little card, stamp the circle from the remountable Baubles set onto a small square of card, and also onto copy paper.
Cut out an aperture on the copy paper and place over the stamped circle, then stamp the Roseart through the aperture
With the mask in place, add some colour - either by dragging ink with a sponge, or using a stencil brush
For the background, use stamp the Roseart all round the edge of the card in black, then add the crackle in a colour and add a bit of extra ink round the edges
Mat it all up on coloured card
It would be nice to do a Christmas version of this...


Thanks very much for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed it!  Have a wonderful day
Janet xx