Pumpkin Patch Halloween

It’s a new month so it’s time to launch a new challenge over at Country View Challenges which is Halloween or Harvest, which is being hosted by the lovely Miriam.

For this challenge, I’m had fun creating this Pumpkin Patch Halloween page using Sizzix Thinlits by Tim Holtz.

The chipboard page was covered with a square of mixed media paper using a glue stick, which was first stamped using a Doorway Finnabair stamp and black Archival Ink. Then I stencilled the large moon using white DecoArt acrylic paint and I coloured the night sky around it using Peacock Feathers, Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot Distress Inks with a blending tool. I used the same Distress Inks to add some texture to the moon itself and I added the black foreground using black DecoArt acrylic paint.

The bats and pumpkins were die cut using a Pumpkin Patch Sizzix Thinlits set by Tim Holtz from different coloured Kraft Stock Classic paper pad by Tim Holtz. To finish, I splattered the page with black DecoArt acrylic paint.

For more inspiration please see the amazing creations from my fellow Design Team members over at Country View Challenges. I hope you’ll join us, it would be lovely to see you there and you never know, you might even win a £20 voucher for the Country View Crafts shop! Before you enter, please read the rules.

There seems to be some spooky goings on at Lytham Hall with pumpkin banners.

As well as this fabulous pottery pumpkin guarding the pumpkin patch.

Wishing you a Happy October and I hope that you’re staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenge

As well as Country View Challenges , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Elle from Empire of the Cat is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and her theme is Fairytales, Folklore & Fables – Tell Me A Story so I’m joining her with my Pumpkin Patch page as Jack-o’-lanterns are part of folklore tradition.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #177 – Anything Goes challenge with my Halloween page.

LTCCB#71 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my Pumpkin Patch page.

OCTOBER – Anything Halloween challenge over at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge with my Pumpkin Patch Halloween page.

Embossed Autumn Leaves

Over at Try it on Tuesday our challenge for the next 2 weeks is Emboss It; this can be wet or dry embossing.

I had fun creating this autumnal page which features both wet and dry embossing techniques.

I started by covering the page with Driftwood DecoArt acrylic paint and when dry, I stamped a woodgrain stamp from BoBunny using some Moonlight White Brilliance Ink over the top. Next I used a Typewriter embossing folder by Tim Holtz and a leaf and swirls embossing folder to emboss some autumnal coloured masterboard that I had left over from a previous project; the masterboard was coloured by smooshing Rusty Hinge, Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks. I then dragged a Ground Espresso Distress Ink pad over the top of the embossed paper to highlight the embossed patterns. Next I fussy cut the letters and some of the leaves and swirls from one of the embossed papers, and I edged the rectangle of embossed paper using some Vintage Ivory embossing enamel by Stampendous. Then I arranged everything onto the page with two chipboard birds which were also covered using the same embossing enamel.

As we’re celebrating autumn and T Stands for Tuesday, here’s my green tea with a piece of homemade pumpkin roll filled with cream cheese frosting – Happy T Day everyone!

Hope that you’re all staying safe and well!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Neet from Hickydorums is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Fur and/or Feathers so I’m joining her with the birds on my page.

MIUCB#61 – Anything Goes + Optional Smooshing over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with the embossing techniques and smooshed masterboard embossed pieces that I used to create this page.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

Look for the magic

Over at Sparkles Monthly Challenge, we are launching a new challenge today which is Mushrooms and other Fungi.

I had fun creating this art journal page of mushrooms and autumn leaves which was inspired by a red-capped mushroom that we saw on one of our walks around Lytham Hall.

I started by stencilling Vintage Photo Distress Ink onto the page using a stencil from Creative Expressions. Next I stuck the mushrooms in place which were washi tape stickers and for the foreground, I arranged some leftover papers and autumnal leaves; the leaves were either die cut or stamped and cut out from papers coloured with Brushos or Distress Inks. I used the Vintage Photo Distress Ink to colour the wording, which was a Sentiments sticker by Finnabair. To finish, I had fun highlighting the mushrooms with a white gel pen and then I splattered the page with both white and black DecoArt acrylic paint.

I hope you’ll join us at Sparkles Monthly Challenge too, for more inspiration please check out the amazing Mushrooms and other Fungi designs from my Sparkles Buddies in the Design Team too; we would love for you to join us so please be sure to check out the rules here.

This is the red-capped mushroom that we saw on our walk at Lytham Hall; it seems all we needed to do was “look for the magic” (smile!).

I hope that you are staying safe and well!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Sparkles Monthly Challenge , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

LTCCB#71 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my mushroom page celebrating autumn.

T Day ATCs and a Big Thank You

I had a lovely surprise in the post, some happy mail from Bleubeard and Elizabeth which contained the napkins from the napkin swap to celebrate T Stands for Tuesday 9^th Anniversary – thank you so much!

Although it wasn’t part of the napkin swap, I created an ATC for each of those taking part; so today I’m sharing how I made them (smile!).

Using some old playing cards as my base, I started by covering the front of 9 cards using some Pébéo white gesso with a brayer and left them to dry. Next I added some torn Dictionary page pieces over the top using Liquitex matte gel medium. When dry, I coloured them using washes of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Kuretake Watercolour paint and then I stamped them using a Fragments stamp by Tim Holtz and black Archival Ink.

I used a couple of die cut sets to cut out the teacups and saucers, the flowers and little bird from some coloured papers. The teacups and saucers were stamped using the Fragments stamp and Moonlight White Brilliance Ink. Everything was arranged onto the ATCs using Liquitex matte gel medium along with various DoCrafts stickers to create the “T Day” wording and a number “9” which was die cut.

For the reverse of the ATC, I covered the back of the cards with black DecoArt Acrylic paint and I stamped the Fragments stamp using the Moonlight White Brilliance Ink. The wording was printed using a Dymo Letratag Label Maker and I stamped the “Handmade with love…” using black Archival Ink; everything was stuck in place with some of the die cut flowers.

As you may know Bleubeard and Elizabeth kindly sent some amazing postage stamps as part of the napkin swap which you can see here – thanks so much, they are so beautiful!
It looks like I may have the pink flowered international stamp that was mentioned on Bleubeard & Elizabeth’s blog post last week – yippee! Also the black and white washi tape was holding the ATCs together which I plan to recycle.

Of course all the napkins are fabulous and I received so many that I couldn’t fit them all in one photo (grin!).

I can’t wait to get creative with them on my art journal pages – thank you so much to everyone who sent napkins for the swap! Also a big thank you to E and Sharon for organising everything – you’re both stars!!!

I had such a lovely surprise when I found all these stunning ATCs amongst the napkins; from top left to right we have Sharon, Elle, Lisca, Bleubeard & Elizabeth, Chris and Mia). It was so kind and thoughtful of everyone – thanks so much!

All the teacups featured on this post allow me to join this week’s T Day – wishing you all a very Happy T Day!

I hope that you’re all staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my ATCs.

LTSCB#157 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with my ATCs that I created from old playing cards.

Challenge #62 – Anything Goes at Ally’s Angels with my handmade ATCs.

MIUCB#61 – Anything Goes + Optional Smooshing over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with my smooshed watercolour background my ATCs.

My Heart

It’s a new month so it’s time to launch a new challenge over at Country View Challenges which is Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness.

The lovely Debs is hosting and says that the title for her challenge is inspired by John Keats ode to Autumn, in particular the first stanza, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. So think of the colours, ripened fruit, late flowers, watery sunshine, swelling nuts and gourds, anything you associate with early Autumn.

My page captures autumnal leaves as we’ve noticed on our woodland walks that the leaves are falling early this year, with layers of leaves already forming on the woodland floor.

I started by covering the chipboard page using white gesso and when dry I rubbed some of the gesso off using a baby wipe to give a distressed look. Then I used a Falling Leaves stamp set by Tim Holtz to layer leaves around the edges of the page using quite a few different colours of Memento Ink; the colours included London Fog, Pistachio, Toffee Crunch, Rich Cocoa, Love Letter, Dandelion and Potters Clay Memento Inks. The wording was a sticker which I edged using a Cold Grey Faber-Castell marker. To finish, I splattered the page with black DecoArt acrylic paint and added two sparkly Gumdrop Heart gems.

I created this page with my hubby in mind as he loves autumn and this season brings both birthday and wedding anniversary celebrations – “when I follow my heart it leads to you” (smile).

For more inspiration please see the amazing creations from my fellow Design Team members over at Country View Challenges. I hope you’ll join us, it would be lovely to see you there and you never know, you might even win a £20 voucher for the Country View Crafts shop! Before you enter, please read the rules!

Wishing you a Happy September and I hope that you’re staying safe and well! x

Challenges

As well as Country View Challenges, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #175 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

LTCCB#70 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my autumn love page.

Lake District

When sorting through some boxes at my mums, we came across some old maps from our holidays when I was younger. I have so many fond memories of those holidays that I decided to create this Lake District page (smile!).

I started by stamping a Tiny Dots stamp from Kaisercraft onto the background using Picked Raspberry Distress Archival Ink and black Archival Ink. Next I stamped some ferns over the top, as they are native to the Lake District, using a Leaf Prints stamp from Tim Holtz and some Peeled Paint Distress Archival Ink. Then I applied some white acrylic paint over the top using a brayer to push the images and colours into the background. I ripped a Lake District map, keeping the corner image, “The Lake District” wording and die cutting the birds and branches from it using a Silhouette Birds and also a Small Tattered Florals Thinlits set by Tim Holtz. I edged all the paper pieces using a black Faber-Castell marker and then I stuck them in place using a glue stick. To finish, I added the wording which were from a Kaisercraft Sticker sheet; they read “Happy”, “When I look back I want to remember this moment” and “Beautiful”.

I have fond childhood memories of visiting Kendal, Bowness-on-Windermere, Ambleside, Grasmere, Hawkshead, Keswick and Grange-over-Sands in the Lake District; I think this bird is adorable as he looks like he’s fell walking like we always used to on our holidays (grin!).

Here are the old maps from my childhood that inspired my page – don’t you just love the raven on the English Lakes front cover (smile!).

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen When We Were Young so I’m joining her with my Lake District page which was inspired from happy times when I was young.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #174 – Anything Goes challenge with my Lake District page.

LTSCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with the old maps that I used to create this page.

MIUCB#60 – Anything Goes + optional Clean & Simple over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with my simple design of stamping and map pieces on this page.

Be Yourself Be Happy

It’s a new month so we are launching our August challenge today over at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog which is Anything Mixed Media Goes.

My mixed media page was inspired by pretty pink roses and showcases Stamperia images and papers (grin!).

I started by applying Liquitex Parchment acrylic and white acrylic paint to the background. When dry, I stamped a crackle design from BoBunny using Terracotta Memento Ink and a Script stamp from Kaisercraft using Toffee Crunch Memento Ink. All the papers and images were from Stamperia; I fussy cut the roses, trellis, butterfly and birds and then I arranged them with the arched window which was die cut using a Cathedral Window Sizzix Bigz Die by Tim Holtz. I even used the window cut outs, that were leftover, as fence panelling layering everything together using a glue stick. To finish, I added a Kaisercraft sticker which reads “Be Yourself Be Happy”.

For more inspiration please check out the amazing creations from our Guest Designer and my fellow Design Team members over at Creative Artiste too. All you need to do is to use three different mediums on your projects to join our mixed media challenge; I hope you are inspired to join us, it would be lovely to see join you there!

The roses on my page reminded me of these beautiful roses that my sister kindly bought for my mum; we always had roses in our garden growing up and I remember the wall of our garage being totally covered with soft pink roses like these (smile!).

I hope that you’re all staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely  Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen When We Were Young so I’m joining her with my memories of roses from my childhood.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #173 – Anything Goes challenge with my pretty garden page.

LTCCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my mixed media art journal page.

MIUCB#60 – Anything Goes + optional Clean & Simple over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with the techniques I used to create my garden scene.

Summer

It’s time for a new challenge over at Try it on Tuesday and for the next two weeks our challenge theme is Here Comes Summer.

I had fun creating the summer scenes on this art journal page; I hope you like it too (grin!).

I started by sprinkling the page with some Yellow and Lemon Colourcraft Brusho powders and then I spritzed the powders with water to disperse the colours over the page. I also splattered the two diluted Brushos colours around the edges of the page. For the silhouettes, I used stickers arranging the different elements together to create the summer scenes; for the boy fishing I added the flowers to the pre-cut silhouette and the flower scene was created from scratch using some flower heads, flower centres, foliage and grass stickers taking quite some time to put together. I added a zig-zag sticker along the bottom of each of the scenes and some rub-on transfers for the wording. To finish, I splattered the page with tiny flecks of black DecoArt acrylic paint.

The colours on my page reminded me of these pretty cat mugs that we saw in a local kitchen store; don’t you just love their expressions and the little bird that is perched on the end of their tails (grin!). I’m sharing these with the T Gang over at T Stands for Tuesday as I think Bleubeard and Squiggles will love them too – wishing everyone a very Happy T Day!

I hope that you’re staying well and enjoying your Summer so far!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to join the following challenges:

Art Journal Journey which is being hosted by the lovely Mia who has chosen Fish as her theme as there is a little fish that the boy has caught on his fishing line on my page.

I’m pleased to join Paperbabe Stamps and their #170 – Anything Goes challenge with my summer page.

Stars shine

Today I’m over at Country View Challenges sharing this art journal page as inspiration for this month’s Seeing Stars challenge.

I started by covering the page with white gesso and then added a layer of Bronze Distress Paint. When dry, I used a baby wipe to remove some of the Distress Paint giving the background a grungy distressed look. Next I used an AALL & Create Sparkles stamp set to stamp the starbursts using Elderberry Memento Ink and the Bronze Distress Paint. To finish the background, I splattered the page using black DecoArt acrylic paint. The owl panel and wording were cut from a Cosmos Stamperia paper pad and I die cut the stars from the paper using a Snowy Stars Thinlits set by Tim Holtz.

I hope you are inspired to join our Seeing Stars challenge over at Country View Challenges too, if you do, you’ll have a chance to win a £20 voucher to use on the Country View Crafts.

The owl on my page reminded me of the one we saw on a walk at Glasson Dock; it was such a surprise to see this Little Owl sitting in the tree looking right at us – we were so lucky that day (smile!).

I hope that you’re staying safe and well!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to join Paperbabe Stamps and their #170 – Anything Goes challenge with my starry page.

Seeing Stars

It’s time for our new challenge this month over at Country View Challenges which is being hosted by the lovely Sue whose theme is Seeing Stars; we would like to see stars as the main focus of your projects please.

For my page I used some lovely AALL & Create stamps to create this starry page.

I started by covering the chipboard page with black DecoArt acrylic paint and left it to dry, then I added some white acrylic paint over the top allowing the black paint to show through a little. Next I stamped the stars using Peeled Paint, Barn Door and Fossilized Amber Ranger Distress Archival Inks and then I covered them in complimentary WOW! embossing powders. I used the same stamp set to add the numbers using black Archival Ink and also splattered the page with the Inks and some of the black acrylic paint. To finish, I added the wording “Shine like the stars” and “Shine brightly” which were from a Metallic Sticker Book by Tim Holtz.

For more inspiration please see the amazing creations from my fellow Design Team members over at Country View Challenges.

Here’s the stamp set, ink pads, embossing powders and sticker book that I used to create my page; the shimmer and shine looks amazing close up (smile!).

I hope you’ll join us, it would be lovely to see you there and you never know, you might even win a £20 voucher for the Country View Crafts shop! Before you enter, please read the rules!

Wishing you a happy June and I hope that you’re staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Country View Challenges, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #168 – Anything Goes challenge with my freesia page.

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and their Anything Goes theme with my starry page.