Pink cats

31 Mar 2018 1 Comment

by Helen in Cards, CAS, Friends Tags:

Recently I’ve been making cards to sell to raise funds to buy an activity table for people with dementia (ToverTafel). I’ve found that cats are popular so I’m making more cards with cats on…  This card uses the colours from the current Color Throwdown as a background.

The sentiment is Uniko Organic Wishes and not sure where the cats come from!  The background is watercoloured and finished with a chiffon ribbon.

Entered in challenges:

Color Throwdown #486

and Crafty Gals Corner (Anything Goes)

Haiku:

Sitting down to read
The black and white cat leaps to
distract or comfort?

Grand teal

27 Mar 2018 2 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, floral

A quick one today following the sketch at Just Add Ink.

The basis of this card is a background created with Peacock Feathers and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink, and Perfect Pearls blue spray which gives it a fabulous shimmer that you can’t see in the photo. The circles were stencilled with a Woodware stencil. A simple plain blue layer, and some very old stash I’m trying to use up… bubble letters (source unknown – they’re not in their packaging!), Birthday stamp in Memento black, and a K’ology Grand Adhesion blossom.

Entered in Just Add Ink #401…”Sketch” challenge.

I think it needs something more – but have run out of time tonight. I might revisit it at some point!

Haiku:

Papers pile like leaves
The joy of discovery
Something still has use!

Inspired by Stephen Hawking

25 Mar 2018 10 Comments

by Helen in Cards, Masculine, Quotations

A couple of masculine-intended, space and science inspired cards today. The late Stephen Hawking was inspirational in many ways, even though that was the last thing he intended to be. These cards are both based on a quote from him. I wanted to celebrate his life and work.

The first is about the stars. I’ve been fascinated since a little girl by the wonder of what might be “out there” but in recent years I’ve mostly been looking down at my feet.  🙁  Chiefly because of varifocals, but that’s another story…  Now’s the time to remember mankind’s ambitions and our own, and feel humble in the face of the Universe.

This is Uniko stamps: Seeing Stars, with Peacock Feathers and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks, including blended on the mat, and a computer-generated quote.

Entered in The Male Room’s Space/Science challenge #81.

   

and Watercooler Wednesday’s WWC162 – Charlotte’s Masculine “Anything Goes” Challenge

and Addicted to Stamps and More’s Challenge #284 – Clean and Simple

This computer-generated quote is framed with ink colours (a mixture of Distress Oxide, Catherine Pooler ink and Colorbox to find the right colours and coverage!) that reflect the colours of a thermal imaging camera, from yellow (hottest) through orange to purple (coldest). The OH has just acquired a fab gadget – a thermal imaging camera that attaches to his phone. We’re going to use it to find the spots in the house that need most insulation. So I guess next weekend’s predicted cold spell will come in handy again…

This quote will go to anyone who needs a bit of a boost…

And is entered in Cards in Envy’s No Patterned Paper challenge

Haiku

As we gaze at them
The stars wink out one by one
All come to an end…

Teal at work

18 Mar 2018 3 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, CAS, Masculine

Here’s a card with Sheena Douglass cog stamps, watercolour and Distress Ink (plus a Uniko Simply Said sentiment).

I’m running out of time now – back at work tomorrow and likely to be very busy!

Entered in

Seize the birthday Teal and White!

and

Inkspirational’s Word prompt, Challenge 156 – Work. Those cogs do all the work…

Haiku:

Hoping for pensions,
We learn how we’re really seen:
Cog in the machine

Caught a bug?

18 Mar 2018 7 Comments

by Helen in Cards, CAS, Get well soon

There have been a lot of sick people this winter and I suppose it’s nearly over  (though the deep snow outside doesn’t look like it!). However, there’ll always be a need for a cheer up card for people fallen ill.

I love dragonflies (think a dragonfly is my totem – if not a dormouse!) and this is an attempt to be a bit more light-hearted with them. The sketch has come from Freshly Made Sketches and was surprisingly difficult to achieve, not least because I don’t have a sentiment with the full phrase and needed to mix computer-generated text with letter stamps.  If I find a suitable stamp, I might try again with one-layer.  The same green inked background as in my previous posts… and some bling.

Entered for

Freshly Made Sketches #328 – A Sketch by Linda

CASology Week 291: BUG

and Crafty Gals Corner Challenge #161 ~ Make it Green

Haiku:

Flit from place to place
Seeking to be well enough
To return to life

Seahorse and sequins

18 Mar 2018 2 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, CAS, Friends, Ladies

As soon as I saw this (free L’Aquarelly) sentiment I knew it had to be the one I use on the birthday card for my friend who loves wild swimming.

The seahorse and seaweed are also L’Aquarelly. The background is Distress Mermaid Lagoon and Peacock Feathers sponged onto the background and stencilled with Mermaid Lagoon Distress ink and Chestnut roan chalk ink through the Woodware Francoise Read circles stencil. The brown mat and stamping is in Chestnut roan chalk ink, with the seahorse painted in dilute brown watercolour so it looks slightly transparent, just like a real seahorse.

A tiny pearl for the seahorse’s eye.I knew I had some turquoise sequins somewhere, to put on the bubbles, inspired by the CAS on Friday Celebrate Sequins challenge. Took a long time to find them! And I can’t believe how much old stash I have: embellishments and “toppers” I have grown beyond…

Entered in Just Us Girls #432- Color Week

and CAS on Friday  Challenge #128 – Celebration card with sequins

And my friend is also a great haiku fan so here is hers:

Celebrate friendship:
Plunge into azure waters.
Swimming is heaven.

Green bird and an Irish Blessing

17 Mar 2018 8 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, CAS, floral

Happy St Patrick’s Day! There are consequently quite a few green challenges around at the moment. I have a St Patrick’s Day set, but it’s unmounted rubber and of course I have run out of mounting foam and accidentally bought cut-and-dry foam so the stamps aren’t stamping very well…

So this is a watercoloured background, blending three colours of my Caran d’Ache watercolour paints, with bird,  blossom and sentiment stamps from a magazine.  I painted over the flowers with dilute white gouache just to pick them out a bit.  It’s also very green – not turquoise as it looks in the photo!

I am entering this one in:

Cards in Envy: Green Things

Simply Create Too #136: Use Green

The Card Concept #88 Monochromatic Green. I was inspired by the many different shades of green in the picture to create this Clean and Layered card.

My second card is one-layer, created by masking off a square and colouring it in virtually every green ink I have:  Docrafts green dye ink, Lime Pastel and Olive Pastel chalk ink, Distress Cracked Pistachio and Distress Oxide Peeled Paint. Then spattered with water. Amazing it has worked!  Stamped trees and birds from Inkadinkadoo Delicate Branches and an Irish Blessing from my St Patrick’s Day set (very old Club Scrap?).

It isn’t as skewed as it looks in the photo!  (Snowing hard when I was taking the photos so not easy to get right!)

CAS-ual Fridays: Going green

Stamplorations: Spring and Faith. a nice fresh spring green with a St Patrick’s Day blessing – nothing more spring than that!

Addicted to CAS #132 – Birds

And the Haiku for today:

It’s snowing again!
Spring blossom nearly popped out
But we’ll have to wait…

Grungy label background

16 Mar 2018 2 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, CAS, floral

I thought the photo inspiration at Inspired by All the Little Things (Inspired by #81 {with Kelly Lunceford}) was gorgeous this time, and I loved the grungy labels and the green and white flower feel particularly – and the jars and bottles but I have left those out in this one.

It is Distress Oxide background (Wild Honey, Fossilised Amber, Peeled Paint and Hickory smoke) created as described in my previous post, but also with a stamped label-type text (L’Aquarelly) in Peeled Paint. Then embossed flowers from the Uniko Organic Wishes set and a Uniko Simply Said sentiment.

Entered in the Inspired by All the Little Things (Inspired by #81 {with Kelly Lunceford} challenge.

Here’s the picture:

Distress oxide yellow peril!

14 Mar 2018 9 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, CAS

It’s been one of those days. Settled down to do some crafting and spilled a pot of painting water (luckily fairly fresh water!) – all over the table and my trousers. {sigh}  Then I dropped a Memento black ink pad juicy side down on the gold/beige carpet (thank goodness I had some stamp cleaner which seemed to get it up!). Painted an owl which looked rubbish – tried to stamp a sentiment, smeared ink everywhere on the card.

What can a crafter do?

I abandoned the cardmaking and went out to buy more stash…

Came home with some distress oxides and a stencil. And then made a mess, especially with a brand of spray ink new to me that turns out to stain EVERYTHING! Just as well the tablecloth has yellow in it. My fingers look as though I’ve been addicted to nicotine for forty years (never smoked in my life).  I am not sure what is wrong with me today!!!

I eventually produced this, with which I’m reasonably happy!

Distress oxides (Wild Honey, Fossilised Amber and Peeled Paint), first stencilled using a sponge, then blended onto the card for the mats and spritzed with water – loving the effect.

Woodware circles stencil

Stamped Sentiment: Uniko Happy Succulents and a free sentiment set from a magazine.

My first successful stencilling, and loving the distress oxides, so not a wasted session after all!

Entered in Uniko’s 6th Birthday Linky Challenge

Watercooler Wednesday’s WWC161 – Helen’s “All About Occasions” Challenge

and Sweet Stampin’s Inspired by a song (The Windmills of your Mind: I was humming to myself all the way through – “like a circle in a circle…” which is wrong because actually it’s “a circle in a spiral…”)

Haiku (because continuing the theme I’m going to circle dancing tonight…):

Forget all the mess
Enjoy creativity:
dance in a circle!

 

Bold bird

12 Mar 2018 2 Comments

by Helen in Birthday, Cards, CAS

A second post today, with a card using the sketch from The Paper Craft Crew, and warm, bold, bright colours to chase away the winter blues!

Strips from my experiments with dragging the Kaleidacolour inkpad, a L’Aquarelly bird painted with watercolour pens and ceramic drops from Papermania.

I’m entering this one in the Paper Craft Crew  PCC283: Sketch Challenge

and Time Out’s Challenge #104 Bold

So pleased that my card Pink sympathy  was  one of  CAS on Friday’s top 3 for challenge #127 which was a one-layer challenge – I always find one-layer very challenging so am really pleased to have succeeded in making that one!

Haiku:

Rain through the window,
Pounding the roof above me
I craft, unconcerned…

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