INKY FINGERS

Wow! It's such a long time since I blogged, but I haven't stopped creating - not completely.

Sadly, my eldest son was found dead last year and, as you can imagine, I was devastated. It's amazing how grief dries up all your creativity. A lot of my creative friends have also passed away this last few months - some very, very close to me. I've missed them and I'm sure I will do in future. 

But the biggest tribute is to continue creating, don't you think?

I'm just going to post one or two of my bits and see if anyone looks these days - I've so lost touch with all the blogs, the challenges, etc. Emotions don't ask permission to mess with your life.

I really liked the larger flowers in Lou Withers' Studio Light Just Lou range, so I played with watercolouring them in different colourways. I did have a plan to use them as book covers - they're a lovely size for a nice big journal. (Yes, I'm still making lots of books, mainly with Studio Light dies!)

That was originally Happy Sunday! Oops! I hope you're all well and enjoying the last little bits of Summer. It's been a lovely week here and I hope it has where you are.

I have a couple of cards for you to see. I actually added the Happy Birthday to this so I could enter it into the Birthday challenge, then didn't manage it, and that's probably over 2 weeks ago! It will come in handy. As you can see, the little masked minx on the left has been dying her bunny to match today's outfit - poor little bunny. I quite like this stencil. I think it's a Uniko stencil and I like it because it's irregular. I used Oxides for the ink sponging.

Challenge Up Your Life, Circles

Creatalicious, Anything Goes

Try it on Tuesday, Summer Blooms

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, Anything Goes

Thank you for calling in today

Back soon

Cath

xxx

I used it on this one, too. Just a play with some Paperartsy stamps.

And another over a stencilled background..

Then, some simple ink blending for a change...scan on the left, photo on the right. I really like the way this one turned out.

  

And for a bit of fun. Another stencilled and stamped background and one of those images that always makes me smile. 

Linking to 

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge, Occasions

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, Heat Embossing

We Love Chocolate Baroque, Favourite Stamps

Retro Rubber, Anything Goes (Lady with broom stamp)

Challenge Up Your Life, Circles

Stamping Sensations, Any Celebration

Thank you for calling in today

Back soon

Cath

xxx

Where did the year go? Just popping in to share some of my recent creations... no excuses for delaying - it's just been a time for doing other things. We just had a 5 and a half day conference' at my church (streamed live instead of the usual camping holiday) which was brilliant, but it was an all day thing. Even though I didn't get to the afternoon sessions, I was doing other things, so I've just been going straight to bed when I did get home. 

I'll check current challenges but I just want to share what's in my folder, so will try to do that this week. The cards I'm posting today feature my favourite colour combinations - definitely feel good colours for me. They also feature mostly florals. Isn't it strange how we go through phases of using different types of images? 

This is one of my favourite Paperartsy stamp sets. These stamps just go so well together and fit a variety of purposes. The Friends stamp is an old Hero Arts stamp I've well and truly had my money's worth from. I love it and use it over and over again.

The next two cards are cut from the same background piece I made with one of my favourite stencils and a Hero Arts background text I'd just unmounted and put on EZ mount.

This was a birthday card for a very special lady. A friend's mum was 80 a couple of weeks ago and I actually got to see her last month, too - which was lovely, though it made me miss my own mum, who's been in New Zealand for 13 years now. My mum wouldn't have appreciated this card, though. She's much more a floral, pastel and traditional die cut type of lady.

Linking to:

Addicted to Stamps and More, Make Your Mark

Retro Rubber, Anything Goes (Paperartsy stamps around 12 years old)

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, Birthday challenge All and Create (second card)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, Anything Goes

A Place to Start, Create in 'Your style' - any or all the above

Allsorts, Anything Goes (Optional roses)

We love Chocolate Baroque, Favourite stamps (Thanks, Brenda)

Challenge Up Your Life, Circles

Thank you for calling in today

Back soon

Cath

xxx

 Hello friends. Almost back to normal now - whatever normality may mean to you 😊

I'm trying to reclaim some time for crafting, so this is what came out of my daily (well, almost) playtimes.

First of all, I'll show you Bees and Blooms, because the theme over on Make My Monday is Anything Airborne. Yes, it's another Janet Klein image - but I do love them. This is a photo, and it looks very washed out, so I'll also show you a scan, which is VERY different - and, as usual, it's half way between the two. It is very bright, but that's because I used Ripe Persimmon and Abandoned Coral, with a bit of Squeezed Lemonade, using one of my favourite all time stencils to add some interest This little one doesn't require much colouring but is fun to play with. The words are from a whole plate of Bee words which have come in handy since bee mania began. The white lines are added with a stencil (Uniko).

This was in my 'half done' basket, so I decided to finish it off because I do actually like it and I love tall cards. I was trying to use up my old Ecoline watercolour inks with a new (at the time) leafy stamp and an old leafy stencil. I have a real weakness for leaves and always have had. It was really tough to find a background colour to match, so I ended up going with white and the nearest shade I could find to the leaves - everything else changed the appearance way too much.

A gift from a friend, I stamped these flowers (Studio Light) onto a tag I'd used some of my favourite colours on. I'm really not happy with these flowers. I think I'll have to restamp on white and layer over the top. One of my favourite types of background on this tall (22cm) tag. I used the Uniko stencil on it, again - with Moonlight White Brilliance ink.

Linking to the following challenges

Make My Monday - Anything Airborne

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, Fun and Quirky

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, Anything Goes

Country View Crafts Challenge, Use a Stencil or Two

Everybody Art Challenge, Anything Goes

It's good to be stamping again 😉 

I''ll be back to share more in a day or so - too many to share at one time. I'll also do my best to visit some blogs this week, tennis allowing 😎 I love watching Wimbledon! 

Thank you for calling in today

See you soon!

Cath

xxx

 A fun playtime today 😁

I couldn't resist this elephant stamp from Katzelcraft, and of course a couple of other small items somehow found their way into my shopping basket 😖 I just don't understand how that happens. Does it happen to you, too?

Anyway, I cheated because I made this background either just before or just after Christmas, when I tried out some watercolour paints on watercolour paper, trying to get a deeper result with them. They are plastered on, so far from a watercolour effect, but that was exactly what I was after at the time. I can't tell you how many images have been on this piece, waiting to be glue(d down, until I changed my mind - again! But I decided it would be a perfect place for Ms Picasso Elephant. I did also end up, somehow, with the Les Pabos sheet I used last week. I have no idea what Pabos are...I should ask my friend in France. She has grandchildren, so maybe she'll know. I just know they make me smile.)

So this is coloured with pencils - a variety of types, with some blending experiments, too. Some is finished off with Inktense pencils and acrylic paint pens because I wanted the vivid rainbow look on Ms Picasso's painting. I thought she'd enjoy a pedicure, so I painted her toe nails to match her beret, and added a few red jewel like dots - the dots were part of the image, so I just coloured them. I used some oddments for the background, which was stamped both in grey and in white - and an Aall and Create Circles background stamp.

 Yay! I stamped...I've been colouring some images the last few days and today I just felt the urge to make something. So, knowing I have a few KCUK birthdays coming up, I made this. They're not colours I use often but I love them. It's Ripe Persimmon, Abandoned Coral and Toasted Marmalade. They work well together. I think they almost look like Pomegranate shades or Watermelon.

Hello! Happy June!

I'm here to share the last book I stamped. I've made so little since then but I'm so yearning to get back in the creative space and play again, weather and 'sorting out' allowing 😊 Some of my shelves are looking quite bare, but that's deliberate and it makes me happy. I'll be starting to put some online this weekend, all being well.

This one is a bit of a strange shape - again - because I kept adding to it, as I so often do and got in a bit of a pickle with the closure, etc - but what's new?  It's Janet Klein themed again - these images are so much fun to play with and to colour, plus the pages are small enough to be relatively quick to decorate.

So here it is...

  

 Thought I'd shock you and post next day 😍

I found my photos of the book I made for an old friend...a friend I really love and respect, to be honest.  Although more my mum's age than mine, her youngest son is the same age as my younger son and they were best friends at school, until we went to live in France, many, many years ago. She's now one of a group I belong to in the church I'm currently at, and always someone to turn to - a real spiritual Mum. Because of lockdowns, we obviously haven't been able to meet up for the last year, communicating via Whatsapp  instead. The first day we were able to meet up again - socially distanced, in our Community garden - was her birthday, so I was asked to make something for her. 

It was a disaster from beginning to end. I started by trying to make someone else's design - very NOT 'me'. Because of the mess I was in with medication problems I had, I tore it up and restarted it 3 times and was tearing my hair out by the time I finished it, crying every time I went into my craft room.. So, I decided against the die cut book and made a concertina. I still tore out pages and started over again a couple of times, but that was mainly because no matter how hard I tried, I ended up with marks on my white space every single time I touched the book. So by the time I gave it to her, some of these pages were missing - mainly tag pages - but  I'd added a couple, too. I did a LOT of die cutting, as you can see - plus all the pages and layers I threw away!

Front of folded book

Just been catching up on a friend's blog posts and thought I'd put some more up here. I've done so little since Christmas, other than a few important occasion things. Life has just been focused on other things. I'm also still 'sorting out' my room and getting ready to clear all the stuff. Some of it is photographed and ready to upload. I just brought in the dies so I can take photos, but not in this dark, dreary weather. I'll have to wait until it's sunny again.

So here are a few things I made earlier 😊

Oops! I had a blip - and lost a week 😉 But I'm still determined to clean out my last year's folder, so here are some cards I made towards the end of last year. I've had this post waiting to upload for a week - so sorry. In between, it was my birthday and lots of other things have happened. I'm also working on a special project for a friend's 80th birthday, so it's been a little busy.

This was a Christmas card for someone special. I love Wonky Tonk images, but they're a little limiting. I was practising watercolour with these - lots of room for improvement, but I really enjoyed it and spent a while on them. I used irridescent inks on part of her hair and gel pen for her earrings. It's never easy to stamp words on watercolour paper, especially without a stamping platform. The stars are Jane Davenport and I used a deckle edged die. I cut off her hair... gosh, it's a long time since my own hair was that long! Long hair always looks so good on other people.