Introducing Poppy

Those of you who have been following my blog for a year will know that I had to have my lovely dog Bonnie put to sleep last February. As I have health issues I had thought that I would not be getting another dog. However, the more time that passed the more I was missing Bonnie. Instead of getting easier it was getting harder so in the end I decided that I just had to have a new dog.

I should like to introduce you all to my lovely new Heinz 57 Pup who I have called Poppy. She pops around all over the place, doesn’t run, but bounces in a poppy fashion so the name really suits her. She is a cross between a full Jack Russell on one side and a Jack/Yorkie cross on the other. Her face is quite yorkie, her back legs Russell, and her markings Russell, but other than that everyone who has seen her in the fur says she resembles a Guinea Pig as she is rather wide in the beam and has the most peculiar walk.

She came to live with me late on Friday and already she is sneaking into my heart. I think perhaps I should have called her Mischief as I can already tell she is going to be one of those naughty little dogs who gets into all sorts and then looks at you with that ‘who me Mum’ look on their face and gets away with all sorts.

Anyhow enough boring rambling now for some uber cuteness. If cute offends you look away now, cos this was described by a friend as ‘an explosion of cute’. A few, so far, lol, of my favourite Poppy pics.

The first one is my Daughter with Poppy.

 

Aren’t I just the cutest little thing

This looks like an excellent place to go to sleep

Snuggled up on Em’s lap

Being caressed by Cupcake Charlie Bear. The bear is 7.5 inches tall and I have put her against Poppy for size comparison.

Oakley and Seth Charlie Bears and Poppy – Oakley doesn’t look happy, lol

and my personal favourite

Oakley, looking really worried, Seth and Poppy

Poppy had only been with me about an hour when I came back from the loo to find she had pushed one of the minimo bears on their backs and was giving it a good licking so I had to move them all out of her reach, and this is the closest she will get, when she is asleep!

I doubt if I will be getting much chance to craft for the foreseeable future. I have paper everywhere, and I don’t mean the craft sort, and every time I sit down Poppy wants to go out, bite me, or just generally be a pickle. She is having 40 winks right now, so I thought I would get this done while I had the chance.

Prismacolor Pencils

I have another Sheena image here. I just adore this little girl, she reminds me of me as a child, although I confess I hated those flouncy dressed my Mum would dress me in, and this one might be a little posher than I was used to! I was that blonde haired brown eyed angel though, PAH!, that didn’t last long, lol

I have coloured her in with Prismacolour pencils and OMS. This was not my usual card and I found it a lot harder than usual as the card seemed to want to keep hold of the pigment in the pencils and not let me spread it like my normal card does. If there is anyone out there that can recommend an EXCELLENT cardstock for blending the prismas on please either drop me an email or leave me a comment with a link!!

The papers are a combination of a delicious freebie that came with Cardmaking and Papercraft last month, and some Nitwits designs paper. The paper ribbon is made using the EK Success Scroll Chain Punch which I fell in love with the second I saw it. It was punched from plain white card and I coloured it with inks from the Hydrangea Big N Juicy pad. The ribbons, fibres, flower and gems are from my stash.

I am entering her into

Raise The Bar – Oh To Be A Kid Again – Use an image of a child

By The Cute and Girly – Bling it On – Hopefully my glittered flower and gems qualify

Stampin’ For The Weekend – New and Blue – The Blue bit is obvious and the new is covered by the Sheena stamp (newly released) the Kate Night paper, and the scroll chain punch.

Pile It On – Anything Goes

Stamp, Scrap and Doodle – Anything Goes

Stamp Something – Anything Goes

The Craft Barn Wishing Well Challenge – Pigment Pencils – in this case the Prismacolour Pencils

Crafty Cardmakers – Spotlight on Pencils

Did you spot the cheeky moment?

Paper Piecing

The image used here is another of those from Sheena Douglass, and it’s one I am particularly fond of.  It is all on an 8” square scalloped blank, but these images lend themselves to larger cards beautifully. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, the leaves are from two sizzix dies of a set of three. 

I stamped out the little girl and coloured her in with Prismacolour pencils, but the best bit is the little girl’s frock. Obviously it is not going to show up in a photograph but I printed out a dotted pattern onto fuzzy paper that I had as part of my prize at Crafty Computer Paper a couple of months back. I then stamped the little girl onto the fuzzy paper and cut out her dress only. I shaded it with Faber Castell Pastels pencils (chalks) and then paper pieced it onto the image which I had stamped onto white cardstock. I loved the feel of the card and it would make a great card for someone who has a visual impairment as they would also have the texture of the frock to enjoy. It felt like she was wearing a soft velvet dress. Obviously the paper would also make excellent paper to portray the fur on animals.

The patterned paper is from the Prima Annalee pad and the mat is cut from some cardstock that looks a bit like Bazzill Bling, but isn’t, lol, and was cut out with a Marianne die.

 

I should like to enter her into the following Challenges

Raise The Bar – Oh To Be A Kid Again – Use A Child Image

Pile It On – Anything Goes

Stamp, Scrap and Doodle – Anything Goes

Stamp Something – Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday – Monochrome – I realise there is a little green in there for leaves and grass, but peach grass looks rather strange! LOL Feel free to remove if it does not meet your requirements though

CCM Spotlight on Pencils

This week over at Crafty Cardmakers we are spotlighting pencils and want you to produce something coloured only with pencils. Now these can be plain old fashioned children’s colouring pencils, prismacolor/polychromos/coloursoft (ie blendable or pigment pencils), charcoal, artist, or, as I have done below, watercolour pencils. Please note all other colouring methods, ie, inks, distress inks, markers are not allowed. To qualify your colouring medium needs to be a pencil.

We are thrilled to be sponsored by Derwent Pencils who are offering the lucky winner a Tin of 12 INKTENSE pencils. 

Pen and ink offers strong, intense colour combined with a translucent effect. Now you can enjoy these distinctive qualities in an easy to use pencil. Inktense has a highly blendable texture and comes in a range of 71 jewel-like colours, plus a non-soluble outliner which allows you to draw outlines that are permanent, even when water is applied. Apply pure, vibrant dry colour then wash the pigment out completely to leave an ink-like effect. Once dry, the colour is permanent and can be worked over with other media. The possibilities are endless, the results stunning.
Inktense pencils can be used on fabric to create interesting silk paintings and unique quilting projects.

They do a huge range of pencils from watercolours through to metallics and coloursoft, something for everyone, do go check them out!

I have used their Inktense pencils on my card, and cannot recommend them highly enough.

My image is from Funky Kits and is one of the gorgeous new Sugar Nellie digital downloads, this little lovely is called Joy Sitting, and isn’t she just the sweetest thing. I coloured her with the Inktense pencils in these colours, for the skin I used first Sicilian Yellow and then blended over the top with Carmine Pink. For her dress I used Deep Rose, Thistle and Fuchsia and for her card I used Shiraz. I am sorry, I forgot to write down the colours I used for her hair – oooops! But the ball is Iris Blue, as are her eyes.

I have trimmed her out with a nestie and used a couple of other nesties to mat her onto. The paper is from Prima’s Fairy Flora pad, and the gorgeous leafy die cut is the new Marianne Forest Garden die. I loved the way it sort of matched into the pattern on the paper. The pink for the mat and farthest background is from K&Co’s Sparkly Sweet pad, the ribbon and flower are from my stash, but I did glitter up a few petals to make the flower.

Please pop on over to the CCM blog and check out the other DT’s gorgeous creations, and while you’re there, hopefully you will be inspired to join in.

I should like to enter this into a couple of challenges

Raise The Bar – Oh To Be a Kid Again – Use an image of a child on your project

Pile It On – Anything Goes

Stamp Scrap and Doodle – Anything Goes

Stamp Something – Anything Goes

Two more ‘Sheenas’

Here are a couple more of the samples I made for Sheena Douglass to showcase her newest stamps in the Little Bit Sketchy range.

The first one is using the little girl from the Busy Doing Nothing set of stamps. I have coloured her in with Big N Juicy Inks from the Hydrangea Inkpad, which I also used to edge the scalloped card base which was originally white.

This one is quite simple with just a bit of glittery matting, a flower embellishment and the lovely jar of flowers which I trimmed up to show how easy a stamp it is to cut around. I used a little glossy accents on the water line in the jar, but that sadly is not showing up too well on the photo. It shows up a little better in the pic below.

The final card is one that was shown on both the 12 noon and 3pm shows. I wasn’t able to properly hear the 3pm show as sadly I do not have Sky or Freesat so was watching online, but the lovely Nigel May picked up the card and read the back to see who had made it and said it was made by Linda Lyras! Sheena looked a little bemused before she realised, I think, that he had read out my Christian name and the method I had used to colour the images in with. Bless him, he was giggling when he realised that he had named me after some watercolour sticks!

Anyhow, as my new name suggests the images were coloured with Lyra Aquacolours, having first been stamped onto watercolour card with black archival ink. I stamped the sentiment from the stamp plate with the little boy and girl and the dandelion clocks from the Time Flies sheet, so there was a little bit of all the new stamps in this card.

I made the scrolls and flowers using various Marianne dies, and it was matted onto some dark red card and some card from the DCWV Old World Stack. A decorative punch in the corner and a couple of dragonfly brads finished it off. This was a lovely big card, a little similar to the one I made for my Daughter’s birthday last Wednesday, but this was slightly smaller at 10” wide. Sheena was spot on though. If you wanted to make something nice and large to hang on the wall, or has been suggested I think on Craft Telly to make a plaque or portrait for a nursery these stamps would be absolutely ideal. I do have another idea which I might try and get done in the week if I have time.

 

 

 

da Lyras!

 

PS Check back later for the Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight

Sheena 5 and 6

Don’t forget Sheena’s shows tomorrow on Create and Craft TV at 12 noon and at 3pm.

Here are a couple more peeks. I do actually have a few more but I will blog them later after the shows tomorrow, or perhaps Sunday.

I thought I would show two different colouring methods for the same image today.

It’s back to the Two Of Us stamp sheet.

The first one is using Lyra Acquacolours again. These are rapidly becoming a favourite of mine. They look like children’s old fashioned pastel crayons, but you just wet the end and they become a gorgeous watercolour paint.

I trimmed the image up with a circle nestie and have sat it over two Marianne Frames. The strip at the bottom is made with the EK Success English Ivy border punch which I first put through an embossing folder before I cut it. The BP is from the gorgeous MME Christmas Glitter Stack. There are loads of lush papers in there that are suitable for both Christmas and any other thing you might fancy.

The row of sea embellishments were from a cheap children’s bead kit I bought on Ebay years ago. I knew they would come in handy!

The next card I did with my promarkers.

I made a mask of the boy and girl and used stormy sky DI to bring some blue in around them to represent a hot sunny day. They are again matted onto a small slice of the  same BP as above, which in turn is on a sheet from the Basic Grey Curio pad. When it arrived I was disappointed with the Curio pad as there were way too many papers that had a dark edge to them and I thought I had actually wasted my money, so I used the English Ivy punch to go around and trim the dark edge away and found I liked what it left me with, matted over plain white card it really makes the pattern pop and gives an interesting feel to the BP.

Just for interest below is a reverse of the above image before I stuck it down. Excuse the mess but I wasn’t intending to use that side, however, it has given me some ideas for a possible future card as I think it looks quite ethereal.

It certainly emphasises how much promarkers bleed and how you couldn’t use them straight onto your card as they would show through the other side.

Hopefully, time permitting, I should be back later tomorrow with a few more of Sheena’s samples, although they won’t be sneaky peeks by then, lol

Sheena Sneaky Peek Number 4

This is another from the Time Flies sheet, this time using most of the stamps.

I swear when I coloured these images the skintones looked better than they are doing in my photos, but as they should by now be with Sheena I can’t check. But they definitely had shading, which doesn’t appear to be showing up here. Or maybe the dull fairy came and wiped it out when I wasn’t looking, lol

Anyhow this little one is coloured with lyra acquacolours, as is the dandelion which I cut out to make a cute embellishment. The bottle, jar of flowers and this dandelion are three really useful sized embellishment stamps for filling up those corners. You know the ones, those we hate to leave blank and scrabble around for something to put there. Well with Sheena’s latest designs she has cracked it!

The paper is from Basic Grey’s Marjolaine pad, and the second I saw it, it reminded me of dandelions, and if felt like the perfect sheet for this design.

The image is sitting on a nestie pendant shape and there is such an embarrassing tale to tell with this. Having trimmed myself out the dark blue nestie shape and also one in the light blue which is behind it, to see which I preferred, and having decided in fact I liked the dark blue against the lighter blue as a background I then spent well over an hour trying to fit the dark blue nestie into the cutout of the light blue nestie. Of course, I hadn’t cut it central to the paper so it meant trimming and adjusting and trimming some more to make an acceptable mat so it wouldn’t be all skewhiff. Didn’t matter what I did, it just didn’t look right, and then it hit me. Numpty Linda. Cut a square of light blue paper and just lay the dark blue nestie shape on the top instead of trying to assemble it like a ruddy jigsaw. Down there for dancing……. not too sure there is anything up here!

Back tomorrow with another, and in the meantime don’t forget to check out the other DT members who are now over there on the right in my sidebar. >>>>>>>> just under the ‘email me’ button.

Sneaky Peeks a la Sheena

This should have been sneaky peek day 3, but sadly yesterday just ran away with me and I didn’t have time, plus I did have a special card to make for someone rather important ……….. my Daughter. As I used a couple of Sheena’s stamps on it I will show you that one as well as the second ‘official’ sneaky peek. Obviously Em’s birthday card will not be appearing on a television screen near you any time soon. Unless she wins 20 squillion on a lottery and they want to interview her, at which point it might be in the background, lol

Anyhow to the official sneaky peek card.

The stamp sheet is called ‘Just the Two of Us’ at  least the sentiment is. It has on it the little kids in their bathers, a bottle with two straws shaped like a heart, the straws that is, not the bottle, three heart shaped clouds and the sentiment.

I used a background sheet from the Cute Companions range, showing a beach hut, and the beach for my background, adding a couple of sandcastles to it as well. At the top I stamped the clouds and then masked them out and dusted some stormy sky DI just to darken the sky up a little.

The little kids are coloured with prismacolour pencils and OMS. I also found some scrapbook paper that had a sort of look of waves about it and I stuck that at the bottom of the beach scene and then to cover up the join I placed the image over the top on foam pads.

I actually used the sentiment from the Time Flies sheet as it went well with the picture I think, it also shows the versatility of all the sentiments, and how they can be mixed and matched because I then added a couple of words with my printer to tie in with the  ‘Busy doing Nothing’ Sentiment from the Busy Doing Nothing set of stamps.

The whole thing is on blue shimmer paper which in turn is placed on an A5 card which I dusted to match the colour of the beach.

Now to Em’s birthday card. I used two of Sheena’s children images, the little girl from the Busy Doing Nothing Set, and the little boy (or girl depending on how you colour him/her) from the Time Flies set.

I had just got the gorgeous Palm Edger EK Success punch and was desperate to have a go, so I worked out how many repeats it took to go around the card and how wide the card would need to be, and then I stamped both images into the centre of some watercolour card.

The images are watercoloured with Lyra Acquacolours.

I dusted around the edges of the card with broken glass DI. The whole lot is matted onto two sheets from the DCWV Old World Stack. With four expensive prima flowers as embellishments. I particularly love the one at the bottom, as it looks like cloisonne metal. Not sure what it is made of as it does look like metal but appeared to be maleable, although I didn’t risk bending it too much cos it was too expensive to snap, lol

I deliberately avoided a sentiment on the card, cos you never know, she might fancy hanging it on the wall, lol

The whole thing was HUGEEEEE 12 inches wide and 7.5 inches high, and I had to make my own background card from two sheets of 300gsm scrapbook card glue together.

The good news, she seemed to like it, lol

Anyhow, back tomorrow with sneaky peek 4. Meanwhile don’t forget to check out the DT posts which can be found by clicking on Sheena’s name above and checking out her blog list.

CCM Challenge 37 and a Sneaky Peek from Sheena

Hi everyone. Sorry I have been absent since my last post for CCM back in December. Boy what a busy time of year. Christmas, my birthday, New Year and I have also been busy beavering away with some new samples for the lovely Sheena Douglass, using her latest range!

I have been double sneaky with my first sneaky peek as it is also my first card for Crafty Cardmakers’ new year, Challenge 37 – Use red and a die cut. A nice simple challenge to start off the new year.

We are being sponsored by One Stop Card Crafts who are offering the winner a £10 voucher to spend in their store.

Now onto the card……. oh you are so not going to believe the range, which is a little different to Sheena’s usual style, but nonetheless gorgeous. I am thrilled to be the first of Sheena’s team to be debuting the first of these stamps which is called Time Flies. It’s an A6 stamp sheet, with the main image which you can see below on my card, a sentiment, also on my card and some dandelion images, which I have not used here, but would make great backgrounds, or additions to the main image.

I think this little boy is so cute and I have enjoyed coming up with ideas for this little fella and the other stamps which will be released on 15th January on Sheena’s shows on Create and Craft TV at 12 noon and 3pm.

For this card I have used Basic Grey’s Curio paper pad for the BP, and the die cut element is a nestie which I cut the centre out of so that my image could be framed, rather than just layered onto it. To tie in with the red theme I placed the cut out area from the black frame over the image and inkdusted with barn door and fired brick DIs around the edge so that it would show red through the frame once assembled.

The little chap has been coloured in with Lyra Acquacolours. An organza ribbon, overlaid with a picot edge ribbon, complete the card.

I shall be sneaking a new peek each day this week, so I hope to see you back here then.

Don’t forget to check out Sheena’s blog and you should find link’s from there to the other team members’ blogs.

In the meantime, get your creative juices flowing and pop on over to Crafty Cardmakers and fire up your crafting mojo (if you have not yet done so) and enter our competition. Come on, £10 on offer and all you have to do is your favourite thing………. C R A F T ……

oh yeah, that and win!

Don’t forget to check out my teamies’ blogs, especially as we are delighted to have taken on two new ladies in the form of Donna and Gill, and I am sure they would love to have a visit from you too.

See you all tomorrow and Happy New Year all.