2 stamped cards using new stamps, inks, pens and paper pads (as well as promarkers), very different to my usual style

Do you buy new stash and then not get around to using it, and it sits on a shelf or desk just waiting to be used, well today I have used a combination of new brand new stash along with unused stash I've never used before and the result was 2 stamped cards. I have kept them both simple, so its just about the stamping as I am new to both techniques.

the first card is a Four Seasons card featuring the same tree stamp from my brand new Woodware Woodland stamp set which arrived today as well as Dew Drop Memento inks and Spectrum Noir pens I've had for some months but never used, and a few Promarkers from my older stash.

                                                             'FOUR SEASONS'

I stamped the tree trunk four times onto white card with Rich Cocoa Memento ink then coloured the trunks with Cinnamon and Satin Promarkers, but changed the seasons of each tree with different dew drop Memento inks and Spectrum Noir and Promarker pens for the leaves to mark the four seasons, I was inspired to make this card as its coming to the end of summer and I just love the rich colours of autumn.

The Spring leaves were stamped with Bamboo Leaves Memento ink and coloured with LG1  Spectrum Noir pen; the summer leaves were stamped with Cottage Ivy Memento ink and coloured with LG2 (greens) Spectrum noir pen, the butterfly from the same stamp set was stamped with Rhubarb Stalk Memento ink and coloured with Poppy and FS8 (pink) Spectrum noir Pen; the autumn leaves were stamped with Rhubarb Stalk Memento ink and coloured with Cadnum Red Aqua Promarker pen, and the fallen winter leaves were stamped with Rich Cocoa & Tangelo Memento inks and coloured with Cinnamon Promarker and Cadnum red Aqua Promarker pens.

All the elements were cut out and adhered to a cream 4" x 4" card base using Wackytac adhesive sheet.

                                                       ''SPEEDY RECOVERY'
                                              (marks are on scanner, not on card)

the 2nd card is my first attempt at patterned paper piecing and features the owl on branch and mushrooms from my new Woodware Woodland stamp set, stamped with Rich Cocoa Memento ink onto white card and 3 different patterned papers from the K & Co 'Amy Butler Belle' 6" x 6" paper pad which arrived yesterday, bought on ebay last week. I cut out all the owl elements and adhered them using Wackytac adhesive sheet which is great for fiddly pieces which it is hard to use glue with. the mushrooms were stamped twice onto white card using Cottage Ivy and Rhubarb Stalk Dew Drop Memento inks and coloured with LG1, LG2 and FS8 Spectrum Noir pens and Gold, Poppy and Cream Promarkers, cut out, layered together and adhered onto a 4" x 4" black scalloped edge card with foiled sentiment added.

Made another 8 cards this week

I am really enjoying crafting at the moment, especially Christmas cards, as I enjoy the weekly challenge to make at least 1 Christmas card a week for Snoflake's Christmas card challenge on Docrafts, here are the 7 cards I made along with my father in law's father's day card.

I coloured a donated stamped image with promarkers, mounted it onto foiled patterned card, then onto an Anna Griffin shaped Christmas card, and added ribbon and a sentiment.

Hunkydory die-cut decoupage mounted onto foiled patterned A5 card

Traditional Christmas decoupage layered onto glittered card, holographic card, patterned paper and A5 card, finished with peel-off sentiment.

Donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered onto foiled and glittered card, satin card and square card base, sentiment added.

Donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered on foiled patterned card and onto DL card base, finished with sentiments and glittered brad.

decoupage layered onto holographic card, patterned paper and 6" x 6" square scalloped edge card, finished with matching sentiment.

donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered on foiled patterned card, satin card, patterned paper and onto pearl card base, finished with sentiment and brad.

 Die-cut forever friends decoupage, layered on holographic and satin card and onto square card base, finished off with buttons from my stash.

Two 'Back to School' swap tags

I am quite behind on my monthly themed tags for the swap on the scraboooking forum on the Do Crafts website, mainly due to poor health, but today I sat and really enjoyed making two tags for the September swap.

                    The first tag uses House Mouse decoupage.

I layered the decoupage onto Websters Pages 'Petite Papers',(a 6" paper pad which came free with Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine) then onto copper pearlised card for tag base.

I embellished the tag with a Docrafts 3D tag, a leaf brad, paper scrabble letters which came free inside a craft magazine, and finished the tag with chiffon ribbon from my stash.

This second tag, I used a donated stamped image of a schoolgirl (sorry don't know the brand name) and coloured her with Promarkers. I 3D'd her onto lined floral school paper and again used the paper scrabble letters (both free in a craft magazine), then onto copper pearlised card for the tag base. I finished the tag with East of India maroon twine.

I enjoyed my crafting afternoon and aim to make some more tags tomorrow, Fi x

Made 4 tags for monthly swaps this week

It a bit of a week, on Tuesday teatime our irgin tivo crashed, along with their internet and our landline phone. Most houses in our road were reconnected in 2 hours, but 2 houses weren't and one of them was ours! We were finally reconnected on Friday lunchtime, butonly after the 2 Virgin tecvh guys came back 3 times.

One bonus to not having any internet, meant that instead of chatting to my dear friends on DC, which I really missed, it gave me the excuse to craft whilst watching DVDs we had had for ages and never got round to watching, my favourite was 'Atonement', but I also loved the cartoon 'All dogs go to Heaven' (our daughter is called Anner-Marie, like the girl in the story, and she had the film on video as a child and then bought it on DVD for her daughter, and mum!)

I belong to a monthly tag swap on the scrapbooking forum on DC, but had had no mojo and some poor health recently so had got behind.

August's theme was magical, we make a tag for our swap partner and the host.
This first tag is the tag I made for Kelly

It features, a ready-made tag, fairy pyramage, holographic peel-off butterflies and Papermania adhesive gems, and finished off with pale blue satin ribbon.

My 2nd tag was made for June our host this month

I coloured a donated stamped fairy image with promarkers. The tag is made from white hammered card, I stamped a frame acrylic stamp with clear embossing powder and brushed over it with Perfect Pearls 'Blue Patina', the first time I've used Perfect Pearls, saw the technique when Chloe was demonstrating on her Ideal World craft show last month. I used 3D sticky pads to attach the fairy to the tag and finished it with blue fibres.

September's theme is 'Back to school', which had me stumped, then I found some pyramage of a teacher. This tag is for June, my 1st partner for September. I aim to make my 2nd partner and the host tag for September next week.

This is a very simple tag, just using pyramage and red satin ribbon.

In December we are going to make 11 Christmas tags, one for each partner we have swapped with all year, so to save postage I made June's Christmas tag.

I used a donated Penny Black Christmas mouse (adore this image) and coloured it delicately with promarkers, I embellished the image with Papermania adhesive gems and layered it onto pearl card then made the tag from Kanban 'Blue Christmas Paisley' card, I finished the tag with with pale blue fibres.

we are away all weekend visiting our son Dan and his partner who live in Bristol and are in their final year of their law degrees, so will try and leapblog a bit Saturday morning, before we go, but then will try and catch up on Monday, have a wonderful crafty weekend everyone, and thankyou for any comments, your comments are so encouraging and each one is so appreciated, Fi xx

a thankyou and a birthday card (both using promarkers)

This week Andy and I went on a mini break to Herefordshire and stayed in a superb 4* farm guesthouse for 2 nights, I took some of the dfonated stamped images and enjoyed sitting on the bed in the early evenings colouring with my new promarkers which I just LOVE and can't wait to add more colours to my collection. this first phot ws taken at a superb pub where we had dinner on Tuesday evening.

This 2nd photo was taken just before we left the guest house to come home on Wednesday morning.

The first card I made was for our church admin manager Mike who has been arranging for homemade evening meals to be brought round to us til I'm well enouight to prepare evening meals myself, either cooked by himself or from other memebers at church who know us, all have been yummy, I gave him this card card and told him  I tried not to make it too girly, to which he replied humourously "I'm in touch with my feminine side!"

6" scalloped card and floral paper edged with TH shabby shutters distress ink. donated image coloured with promarkers and embellished with London Line gems, card finished with red card candi, red spotty grosgrain ribbon and printed 3D sentiment. the message on bouquet of flowers says "thanks Mike".

The 2nd card was made for our great-niece Grace's 1st birthday, image coloured Friday evening, card made today.
I used another donated, diecut and embossed LOTV image and coloured it with promarkers, added grosgrain robbon, blue card, and London Line pearls, the paper is from Wild Rose Studio 'In Love with Japan' 6" paper stack, all on my favourtie 6" scalloped edge card base.

Been a bit of a month!! and first attempts using promarkers

As many of my friends already know on Wednesday 29th August I had a mild TIA (mini stroke) won't bore you with details, but got wonderful hubby and great support from family, friends and neighbours, excellent paramedics, fab new GP and superb pain consultant and slowly taking it a day at a time, I will recover. Still waiting for ressults of CT scan ths week from my ENT consultant. For now Carrie is living with her dad and other grandma as I'm not well enough to have her home yet.

Been left quite weak but hubby Andy and my mum gave me craft stash funds, so I bought tons of craft mags with fab cover gifts and also subscribed to Quick cards, purely because the subscription gift was 20 promarkers, which I've wanted for ages but couldn't afford til now. the other night, when unable to sleep, coloured my very first topper with promarkers and today made it into a quick card for a dear friend Sylvia on Do Crafts.

 Blogger won't let me upload the card, but this donated PB hedgie image was my 1st attempt at promarker colouring a topper, enjoyed it and it relaxed me, tho know I've a LONG way to go and so much to learn and more promarkers to add to my collection of around 30 so far!

I also received some die-cut embossed images from another DC friend and coloured 2 of them in this afternoon, making one into Andy's anniversary card, sorry don't know brand of stamps.(poor quality of images is down to scanner, and marks are on scanner, not toppers. Andy accidentally left our camera in our car and took it to work today, thats my excuse).

top image hasn't been made into a card yet, bottom image 'together forever' has been made into my anniversary card to Andy for our 28th wedding anniversary on 22nd September,when our daughter has booked a restaurant for 9 of us to go out and celebrate his 52nd birthday and its a double celebration as we got married on his 24th birthday! I've coloured the topper as close to our hair colours and the clothes in our fave colours too.

Promarker colours used:
Satin
Dusky Pink
Blush
Coral
Cinnamon
Cocoa
Pastel blue
Duck Egg
Amethyst
Aubergine
Poppy.

As Andy doesn't like anything too fancy I just added distress inks and put the topper on a pre-printed card

Tim Holtz distress inks used:
Shabby shutters
Tattered Rose

Happy anniversary and birthday Andy for this Saturday, you are my rock and so good to me, love you more each day and hope we have many more happy healthy years together, no matter what life throws at us!!
Fi xxx