Clarity Challenge... Vintage

Hello Clarity Stampers, It seems ages since I last blogged a Clarity Challenge card because we have been doing some renovations on the house, I was determined to enter this month's challenge so here I am puffin' and panting  last minute to get my card entered.

The background was made using my new gelli plate , I used Barbara's scrunched copier paper technique. I  really puzzled over which of my Clarity stamps was vintage and I finally settled for this  wild dogrose stamp which I stamped twice to make a frame for one of my favourite sentiment stamps. I gave my topper a torn edge which I inked and then I matted & layered onto some distressed card.

Phew there are still a few hours to go till the challenge closes tonight to I better nip over and try and get linked up. Looking forward to seeing what the next challenge is

Bye Annie xx

Fussy & Fancy Challenge #97 Sport

When I saw the theme for this month's challenge was sport I thought of some cute Lili of the Valley stamps I had bought recently. It was going to be something different for me because I am not very confident about my colouring in compared to the amazing work that we are used to seeing on F&F.

 I played about with some papers that were a freebie with a magazine and some spellbinders dies.... then I remembered I had some scrabble type letters amongst my stash, a bit of bakers twine and I was done.

So now all I have to do is wait to find a footie mad little birthday boy to give it to, I must say I really enjoyed colouring in this cute little image,  ... I am definitely going to get some more practice in.

Hope you will give this challenge a go and that you enjoy it as much I did, bye for now xxx Annie

Clarity August Challenge ...Animals

 

This is my entry for Clarity August Challenge which just happens to be Animals this month, since May I haven't had much Crafty time with having the builders in so after 3 months I was having withdrawal symptoms, as it is Bank Holiday weekend I have allowed myself some ME time.

 

 

This card came about by accident. This morning the postie delivered 2 letters one was an early birthday card from my lovely sister Sue the other was 2 clarity stencils from C& C.

The birthday card is really beautiful but I will save it for a blog entry on my birthday.... but I rang my sister to say the card had arrived safely and admitted I had opened it and how had she made the background .... so after lunch I came up here to the attic and using the dove stencil I tried to recreate what she had explained . Three attempts later I had a background I could use, so then I went on to make this card.

The background was made using Clarity coated card which I splodged with Worn Lipstick & Peacock Feather distress ink, while I was waiting for it to dry I coated the dove stencil with Perfect Medium and laid it face up on the base plate of my Grand Calibur and then carefully laid the clarity card face down onto the stencil, using my cutting mat to make the sandwich, because I only wanted to transfer the perfect medium evenly onto the card not emboss it. I undid the sandwich and sprinkled with clear embossing powder which I heated up, then I smeared it lightly with Black Soot distress ink and once dry I buffed it up with a soft cloth to reveal the pink and blue colour.

Anyway having spent a couple of hours making this background I thought I had better use it ... out came the Clarity Dove of Peace & Peace stamps and my card made. I realised that by using the doves and the decoupaged dove topper  I could enter it into the Clarity August Challenge 'Animals'. So I'm off to the Clarity Challenge page to enter .... bye for now xx Annie

F&F challenge #95 Bingo card

I love the idea of this challenge and my first instinct was to go for the 'Full House' and make what I laughingly call my 'Pizza style' cards with loads of embellies on, but this time I thought 'No' I would try to restrict myself to a few items and see what happened! so here it is:

 

I know the old saying is ' blue & green should never be seen' but I do like certain shades of green with blue. I found some coredinations card in a midnight colour which I ran through with garden trellis embossing folder when I sanded it back it was just a paler blue reveal so I swiped peacock feather distress ink over it and then that gave me my colour scheme - blue and teal.

The topper was made using Poppy stencils Fantasy Willow with dimensional paste ... a new technique for me .. it took several goes to get a result because I was being too heavy handed and squishing the paste under the stencil. I do love the effect which is much more dimensional than this photo shows, when the paste had dried I used my new fave thing ..gilding wax in fabulous patina colour this made the tree look even more pearly. The rest was just matting and layering which I die cut with spellbinders grand rectangles which are an absolute 'must have' for someone like me who can't cut a straight edge freehand. A piece of ribbon and a button and a stamped sentiment and I was done.

So my Bingo card line is Blue, Diecut and Ribbon ... not quite as minimal as I hoped as I did use a button and (teal) green from the other lines ... but I really did enjoy this challenge, I find doing these challenges really makes me think outside my comfort zone and  sometimes I like the end result! hope you have a go and enjoy yourself as much as I did.. Bye for now till next time xxx Annie

Fussy & Fancy Challenge #93 ... Lemon & Lavender

OOOH I have been such a naughty Blogger it's been a while but it's Fussy & Fancy Challenge time again so I need to do a quick post for my offering this month ... the theme is Lemon & Lavender. I do not use a lot of yellow in my cardmaking normally so I was struggling to come up with an idea... I must give credit the inspiration for this card comes from the Clarity DT team particularly Maria Simms.

 

I love this Clarity Stamp silhouette image of the children playing on a swing it reminds me of my childhood, running free and playing on a makeshift swing in the fields near my grandparents house. I also love this Clarity sentiment, the idea of sending someone sunshine to brighten up their day .... a real un-birthday card. I played around and decided a stepper card would show off the topper best, I used some of my precious Graphic 45 Secret Garden paper for the matting and layering, the shade of lavender was perfect with yellow.

Naturally there had to be flowers somewhere on the card and a stepper card gave plenty of smaller areas to put them, daisies seemed a natural choice.

 

 

 

 

A ribbon , a bow, some paper lace a button with some bakers twine and I was done, this colour scheme really grew on me as I was making this card, it looks quite Summery like those balmy days so long ago  :) Speaking of Summer must go now the garden is calling me ...my hanging baskets have been baking in the sun all day so they need a good drenching, bye for now xxx Annie

 

PS sorry this is late being posted up I had scheduled it to post automatically... and it didn't on the very day that I knew I was going to be busy with Nana duties and needed to behave .Never mind better late than nevr eh !! xx

On your Special Day

I had been asked to make a wedding card at very short notice, I didn't want to refuse as this particular friend  has paid me generously in support of my chosen charity ...our Local Hospice at Home which enables terminally ill to spend their last days in their own homes. I was undecided what to make and then I was watching one of my favourite crafters on C&C, Sue Wilson who makes beautiful cards using Spellbinders, she showed one sample and I thought that's it I can adapt that.....so here it is...

So that was on at lunchtime today and by teatime I had come up with twhen his. Sue Wilson was on again at 5pm and I sent in an email with a photo ... my email was selected and the photo was shown on tv I was over the moon that Sue said she loved it!! Just hope my friend likes it too.


Spellbinder dies used were: Enchanted labels 28, labels28 and lattice die, Bitty blossoms and the reverse side of their A4 Garden Lattice Mbossibility folder.

So at least I got an afternoon of craft in tomorrow the builders are back for 3 days so I will be back on Brewing duties, till next time  Bye xxx annie

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day to all the Dads out there, especially my 2 lovely sons, Mark and David who are both great Dads to their children, Rhiannon & Sion, and Lorna & Kate. I love being a Nana, although having 3 granddaughters after having two boys of my own was an eyeopener and my only grandson Sion, who is so like his dad when he was young , reminds me of happy days as a very young mum.

This is a card I made this afternoon for DH from his boy Jasper (our 4yr old Black Lab) that's him on the front of the card. Kate took this photo when she found him lying on the top of the stairs waiting for us to come home. The lettering was done using Clarity Letterbox set a very useful set.

 

 

This is what I put on the left hand flyleaf, I used Serif craft Artist to put the same photo in a doggy frame and added one of their embellishments, I love being able to use their drop shadow effects to make the picture pop out of the page.

 

Must dash now as I seem to have lost a couple of ours up here in my Craft Attic :) xxx Annie