Stencils and Doodling

Good morning all,

I hope you are all keeping well and staying safe.
Today's cards both feature stencils from Olga who has been creating a range of beautiful, large intricate designs.
If you know me, you will know that one of my favourite things to do is to draw round stencils, it takes a while but I find it very relaxing..


For my first card here, I brushed ink through the stencil #84 Profusion then removed it and drew all round it with a fine black pen.
I used the lovely #13 Bursting Buds die by Bipasha to cut out the centre, I also cut the die in black and white card then pieced the bits back in, so the die cut pieces are embedded in the design rather than being on top.
I added a few extra buds too.












FOr the second card, I just added ink then drew round the stencil, added a few splatters, some washi tape and a sentiment
#86 Twirling Tendrils
The sentiment is from stamp #255 Bird Lover by Janet Klein

Thanks very much for visiting, all products used are by AALL & Create for information about products and stockists visit www.aallandcreate.com

Janet xx

Floral Dies

Good morning,
I hope you all had a good weekend, it was lovely and sunny here, so I spent a lot of time relaxing in the garden.
My cards today go back a bit, to the time when AALL & Create introduced floral dies to the range.  It is no secret that I am not keen on cutting out, so I was really pleased to see these...

The gorgeous floral stamps by Olga are some of my favourites in the range.  I love leaving them black and white, I think they look stunning!

I kept it fairly simple for this one; the central square is a background I found in my stash, I added some black ink through the Weathered Tiles stencil #59 by Abs and tore it into a square.
I stamped the sentiments from stamp sets #229 Blooming Field and #232 Friendship both by Olga round the edge of my base card.
I stamped out the flowers from #229 and used the matching dies to cut many layers of different colour card and glued them all together








A close up to show the layers...there is no need to stamp the lower layers, just lots of die cutting!

Then just assemble it all on the card

For the second card, I just stamped everything in black and die cut the main image, added a couple of layers, so it stands out from the card and added a few black dots...













All products from AALL & Create, for more information about products and stockists, see www.aallandcreate.com
Stamps used #229 Blooming Field and #232 Friendship by Olga
Dies #15 and #16 Blooming Field 1 & 2
Stencil #59 by Autour de Mwa

Enjoy your day
Janet xx

All About Africa

Hello folks,

I am sure many of you will know that we were due to visit Kenya in March.  We had our suitcase pretty much packed and were all set to go to the hotel near Heathrow the next morning, when we heard that the Kenyan President was going to deny access to foreigners....I was totally devastated!  It was not just a holiday, it was going to be time spent with my lovely friend/unofficial adopted son, Sammy.  I was so looking forward to seeing him again.
I sulked big time for a couple of days, but the situation here in the UK got worse and it was obviously the best thing for us to go later when all this is over. 
The situation for the guys in Kenya though is pretty serious, many, many of them rely on the tourist industry for their income, there is little or no government support, so they are in danger of going hungry
I made this card when Kenya was very much on my mind and in my heart.  The main image is a painting by Sammy and the background is simply multiple stamping using the fabulous #312 Mini Tribal stamp by Abs.

I posted all of this on my fb page a while ago and several people said they wanted to help, so I set up a fundraiser and have so far raised £700.00 which is amazing and I am very grateful to everyone who donated.  I have sent some of the money to Sammy and he has been buying food, soap and facemasks for many local families and neighbours.

The best part of all of this for me is that Sammy has been giving food to some street kids he has seen there.  This means sooo much to him because up until a few years ago, he was living on the streets himself and knows exactly what it is like.  He has always wanted to help those kids and it is his dream and goal to set up a school to provide free education for them.  Distributing the food to them has given him a sense of purpose and he is even more determined now to achieve his goal, but first he wants to get them food!

Sammy bought big sacks of maize, paid for it to be ground into flour and took it to families in the slums of Momabasa

This is the miller














This lady was supporting 6 kids on her own


















Food for families

 With the kids on the streets..Sammy went back three days to provide them food

A single young man enjoying a cup of warm tea and a chapati

Thank you so very much to everyone who has donated, as you can see it is making a difference to people and providing food at least for a while.

If you would like to help, any donation is very gratefully received and a small amount of money here goes a long way in Kenya and helps many people..

Here is the link to my fundraiser
Supplies for Sammy, Friends and Family





Janet xxx

A Skull Challenge

Good morning,

It is an amazing thing to be on a design team, especially for such a lovely company as AALL & Create, it is very exciting to get a whole batch of new stamps or stencils to work with, as I am sure you can imagine.  There are pressures though!  Sometimes you have to make things when you are not really in the mood, or you are tired, sometimes you will be asked to work with designs you are not so keen on.  I do LOVE pretty much all the stamps from AALL & Create, but I don't like skulls!  I know they are currently popular and many people love them, but they are not for me...

Soooo a little while ago one of the stamps that was in the show has a skull.  I have most of the stamps already, but not this one so Abs said he would send it to me if I used the skull.  (He was joking and of course there are many other lovely elements I could have used)
I decided I would use the skull, just as a little challenge to myself  - I am trying to get out of my comfort zone a bit this year!!

I thought I might as well go for it and do a page rather than a card - another 'out of my comfort zone' venture!

I started by creating a background on mixed media card.  I used acrylic paints and stencils.  I wanted to make it fairly masculine, so I used red and black paint, but very lightly.

After I pulled the print. I stamped and embossed the image, then coloured the circles and wing with diluted acrylic paint

The skull didn't stand out enough, so I stamped that onto white card, cut it out and glued over the top

I used the matching stencil #47 Circle of Life to add some Grit Paste and the sentiment comes from #86 Zara by Fiona

I have to say, I love the result!

Wishing you all a lovely day

Janet xx

Stamps used: #56 Vintage Grafitti by Olga and  #86 Zara by Fiona
Stencils used :#52 Quadrilaterals, #53 Florastella, #47 Circle of Life all by Olga
#56 Barbary Stars and #68 Ice Cracks by Abs

For more information about AALL & Create products and their stockists visit aallandcreate.com

A Floral Fence

Good morning everyone,

I thought I would do another post while I am in the mood...  I looked back and realised that it is 6 months since I last posted so I have a lot of catching up!
This year my New Year's Resolution is to do more than just cards, so I have been doing some different projects; this is one of them.

I used lolly sticks for the background...

I started by laying out 8 sticks and glued two more along the front to stick everything together. 
I used several colours of Izink Ice glazes to cover the sticks
Once dry, I added some stamping with #312 Mini Tribal  by Abs to add to the background
I added more Ice Glaze through stencil #2 by Abs
On separate card I stamped the beautiful flowers from stamp set #265 Blooming Poppies, #270 Just Grow #273 Unfurling Petals all by Olga
I added Ice glaze over the top to colour all the flowers, then cut them out and added them in place on the stick background.
The sentiment comes from #273
I added some white splatters as a finishing touch

I had a lovely time making this it was really good fun to do something different!

For information about AALL & Create products please visit aallandcreate.com

Enjoy your day!

Janet xx

Back in Blogland!!

Hello, hello everyone!

I have decided to revive my blog again after a few months off.  Sorry about the long break, but I got out of the swing of it, I will try and get back to regular posting

How are you all doing, locked in?  I had three weeks at home which I loved, plenty of time for crafting and trying out new techniques and experimenting with all those things I bought but never got round to using.
I am back at work now though, so I don't have as much time

I will start by catching up a bit with some older projects, then I have a few step by steps to share in the next few days...

On Wednesday 22nd April, Leonie is featuring AALL & Create stamps and stencils on her Let Leonie Loose shows on Hochanda, so I will show a few projects made with the products from the shows

These are all made with the range of lovely whimsical characters by Janet Klein for AALL & Create, don't forget to tune in on Wednesday for inspiration from Leonie

For more information about AALL & Create products and stockists, please visit aallandcreate.com
Have a wonderful day!
Janet xxx