Gift for Teacher??

Morning all, just a quick post from me today as I'm home trying to catch up on all the washing, ironing & changing beds etc, then off into my craft room, hopefully. Not bothered that the sun is breaking the pavements, it's crafting for me today.

The girls at PAPERMILL DIRECT asked the DT to make a few little gift idea for children to give their teachers at the end of term......I thought these little bookmarks were a cheap & cheerful gift, although if the teacher was 'incredible' a bottle of Vino could be added, LOL (Got to say at this point, that I had no time for teachers whilst my youngest son Adam was making his way through school....almost every one said he made no effort, and would only be carried through life by his smile, so consequently he got little or no encouragement from them.....HOWEVER....he went on to get a University Degree and now has THREE businesses....I rest my case!) ( no offence to any teachers reading this, maybe Adam just didn't have the right ones)

Anyway, here is what I came up with....... Don't forget to pop over to the Papermill blog and see what else the DT have made, there's some fab inspiration x

All cardstock is from

PAPERMILL 

and this one has been coloured with Pan Pastels and stamped with 2 foliage stamps from

LAVINIA

The sentiment is computer generated.

These gorgeous inks are part of the Colour Chemistry range from

the lovely Lynnda at

OAK HOUSE STUDIO 

I LOVE them!

Again, the stamps are a selection from 

LAVINIA

This last one is using 

OAK HOUSE STUDIO 

 inks,

and a lovely selction of stamps, also from

OHS

The ribbon has been coloured to match.

Hope you like these little gifts, let me know what you think.

Catch you all in a couple of days, enjoy the continuing good weather.....

Barbara

xx

Where has the last week gone......?

Hiya everyone, hope you're all enjoying this fab weather....we shouldn't be surprised though, it is Summer after all ;-)

I had a great day on Saturday at Newbury Racecourse, with my lovely cyber-friend, Elaine (Elaine and I met on facebook, and meet up whenever we can, along with our 'partners in crime' Joan and Janet )...it was the Artstamps Exhibition......we spent loads of money on stamps, stencils & inks etc. now I just need to find time to use it all.

We said hello to Tracey & Kev from Lavinia Stamps and Lucy from Sweet Poppy Stencils, and of couse bought loads from their stands ;-)

Anyway todays cards were made to show that you don't need to have thousands of Lavinia stamps to join in with the challenges. Clean and Simple cards can be made with one or two stamps, as you can see here.

All cardstock from 

PAPERMILL 

coloured with Pan Pastels

Sentiment - Sheena Douglas

Foliage Stamps - LAVINIA STAMPS

This card uses just ONE  Lavinia stamp, 

Creeping vine, 

HERE

Last but not least, this card is made using the Fuchsia  

HERE

The gorgeous inked background is made with Colour Chemistry Inks from 

OAK HOUSE STUDIO

I love all the new colours, they're so vivid....watch this space, lots more samples for OHS coming soon!

Well, that's it for today....don't forget to pop over to Lavinia Stamps Challenge Blog - HERE and enter the challenge....the prize is a whopping £40 to spend on Lavinia stamps!

Please leave a comment if you've enjoyed looking xx

Barbara x

Lavinia Stamps - Challenge No.5

Morning everyone, from a very sunny Bath.....I'm in the pet shop today working, so if it takes me ages to write this post, it means I'm busy with customers....Yay!

Anyway, today sees the start of Challenge No.5 over at the wonderful

LAVINIA STAMPS

The prize is a MAHOOSIVE £40 to spend on Lavinia products, and all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to create something with a DIE-CUT or PUNCH, using their stamps.

Here is my Design Team creation for this challenge

This card was made with 'white linen' cardstock from

 PAPERMILL

and coloured with Pan Pastels. (Papermill card covers beautifully with PP's!)

I've used Spellbinders Grand Scallops and 2 sizes of Classic Circles, and of course my beautiful Lavinia Stamps.

The ribbon was coloured with PP's too, a little Glossy Accents on the flowers, and tiny sentiments from LOTV finish it off.

I've got to admit I LOVE this card, 'cos it's MY fave colours .... hot & firey (just like me, LOL)

Hope you like it.....don't forget to pop over  HERE to checkout the rest of the DT creations, there's some real 'works of art'!

Catch you all in a day or so.

Barbara xx

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges :-

ABC challenges 

Artistic Inspirations 

Crafty Boots Challenge 

Creative Creations Challenge 

Cupcake Craft 

House Of Gilli 

Imagination Crafts 

Make It Monday 

Pause, Dream, Enjoy Challenge 

Catered Crop

Joanna Sheen Challenge 

Krafty Hands  

Home from Holiday and Raring To Go!.......

Hi everyone, thanks for taking a few minutes to checkout my latest makes.

Just a short post today as we're heading off soon to babysit Eva for a few hours while Nick and Emma use up some vouchers they have for the fabulous Bath Spa, and on a glorious day like this, it will be a fabulous view from the rooftop Spa. 

I've missed everyone so much since we returned home from holiday, especially our gorgeous little girl, she is adorable. It will be great to have lots more cuddles with her today ;-)

Anyway todays post is to show off this weeks 'Special Offer' from

PAPERMILL 

50 A4 sheets of Shiny Red Card, 300gsm for only £4! (fabulous quality)

It 'screams' Christmas to me, so I just had to make........Christmas cards!

The white linen cardstock on all three cards is from Papermill, of course.

It was very hard to photograph, because of the reflection.

Very Clean and Simple

I love these little charms, they're so effective as a focal point.

Hope you like them.....as you can see, I've reverted back to more CAS cards, my faves!....

Catch you all tomorrow with my DT cards for the new Lavinia Stamps challenge.

Enjoy the rest of this gorgeous day xx
I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Delicious Doodles
Five Simple Things
Catered Crop
Crafting when we can
Christmas in July


 

Just a Little Holiday Post....

Afternoon everyone, from a quite blustery Croyde, in North Devon. We're here for a week, enjoying some surfing and baby-sitting......guess which one I'm doing :-)

We arrived Friday afternoon, Alan, Nick, Emma, baby Eva and myself.....sitting in the garden of our fabulous holiday home, with a nice glass of wine waiting for Adam getting here. I knew he was going to be late because he had a few things to do.....what I hadn't expected him doing was picking up my lovely bro & sis-in-law, who live in Darlington,  from Tiverton station and bringing them here to spend the week with us! All the secret plans for the whole week had been going on since January.......how they managed it, I'll never know! I was overcome with emotion, and almost fell off my chair, LOL.  Anyway, we're having a fab time, loads of cuddles with Eva, board games, tons of laughs and plenly of vino collapso... hic! 

I won't waffle on further as we're going out to eat soon, just wanted to show you the latest cards for 

PAPERMILL DIRECT

made with the fab Ivory Flax Embossed Card, 300gsm which is on Special Offer this week at only £5 for a small box.

All cardstock from Papermill , of course.

The sentiment is from Sheena Douglas

Dies from Spellbinders and X-Cut.

Embossing folder from Crafters Companion

The sentiment again is from Sheena Douglas

Hope you like them......please leave a comment if you've visited, I love reading them all.

Don't forget to pop over and checkout the Special Offers from Papermill.

I might be back later in the week to let you know if the sun appears!

Catch ya soon,

Barbara xx

Clean and simple again....

Afternoon everyone....the sun is shining here in Wiltshire, whoohoo! Hope it's the same wherever you are too.

Another quick post from me today as I'm working in Adam's shop, and just blogging inbetween customers ;-)

Thanks for all the good wishes re-my recent craft fairs.....it was a cracking weekend and I sold almost £300 of cards....Yeah! Some people were actually buying 5 or 6 at a time, and I had so many lovely comments that I was positively beaming. 

Anyway, here are a couple of clean and simple cards that sold very quickly. I did find that the 'clean' cards sold first, compared to messy, inky ones, so there might be a moral to that story!

I re-did the bow after I'd taken the pic, as it seemed to have come undone.

All cardstock is from 

PAPERMILL DIRECT

The gorgeous flowers are from

PETAL LU

Marianne die and sentiment from Inkylicious

Hope you like them.....it would be great if you could leave a comment if you've visited

Catch you all in a day or so,

Barbara

xx
I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Bearly-Mine
Flourishes
Ladybug Crafts
Make it Monday
Melonheadz Friends 

Back to Clean & Simple..........

Evening all, welcome back to my blog.  Well, it's been bloomin' cold here today....windy and rainy, nothing at all like Summer. However I'd rather be 'above ground' with bad weather, than 'below ground', if you know what I mean!  Hope you managed to catch some warmer weather, wherever you are.

Just a very quick post tonight, as I'm preparing for 3 full days of craft fairs, starting tomorrow. I have about 300 cards in stock, so hope to sell at least 100 over the next 3 days ;-)

Last week I realised I needed a few more baby cards, and once I started, I couldn't stop.....just very, very simple CAS cards. I love seeing lots of white space on cards, and I'm quite comfortable not throwing tons of stuff on.

ALL cardstock is from  

PAPERMILL

The pretty flower is from

PETAL LU 

 ......just one flower was needed, to each card, but I think they're a nice addition.

The 'Baby' die is from Marianne.

So, there we are, two very simple cards.

Hope you like them.

I'll be back in a couple of days to show you the rest of my baby cards.

In the meantime, have a great weekend, whatever you're doing.

Barbara

xx
I'd like to enter these cards into the following challenges :-
The Paper Shelter
Bearly-Mine
Deep Ocean Challenge
Riley & Co

A Bleaching Tutorial for Papermill

Hi everyone, Barbara here with my very first tutorial for Papermilldirect......it may drag on a bit, so I'd suggest you grab a cuppa before you start reading! ;-)

I know lots of you will already know about bleaching techniques, but for the newer crafters, I hope you find this informative.....

Ink a piece of white hammered card with distress inks or distress stains..... I've used stains.

Cut out a 5" x 5" square with a die.

Make a bleach-pad with a few bits of folded kitchen roll and bleach. Choose your stamp and randomly stamp over the inked card with the bleach.

 Have a well ventilated room and clean your stamp immediately!

On this card I've used a new butterfly design from  

OAK HOUSE STUDIO

With a smaller square die, cut out the centre of the stamped card.

Mount both pieces onto black card.

Mount the small square onto the large one, with foam tape, matching the design.

 I have dyed some silk binding with the stain, and printed a little sentiment onto a scrap of inked card.

Stamp and cut-out 2 butterflies then position them on the corresponding bleached image.     Mount the whole piece onto a base card.                                                                          

Here are a few more finished samples to show how much the bleach 'lifts' certain colours.

White linen card from Papermill
sentiment & butterflies from the lovely Lynnda Worsnop of Oak House Studio

Flower stamp from Sheena Douglas

 Dylusion inks

Sheena Douglas flower stamp & Lili of the Valley sentiment stamps.

Phew, that's it.....I do hope you'll give bleaching a try, it's really very easy.

Barbara.x

Papermill Special Offer No.3.......

Morning everyone and welcome to my new friends and followers....(as well as the old crowd, of course, LOL)

Just wanted to tell you about this weeks 'SPECIAL OFFER' from

PAPERMILL

Gorgeous charcoal coloured card
Over 70 sheets for just £4...... check it out HERE

Ok, I won't rabbit on today as Alan's parents are coming to see our gorgeous little Eva, and I have loads to do, so here goes.....

 CARD No.1

All cardstock from Papermill

Background on this card coloured with Pan Pastels.

Stamps from LAVINIA and Stamp-It (Australia)

I really like this charcoal cardstock....it's coloured right through (no white core).

 CARD No. 2

 The background on this card haas been made with Spray Inks from

 OAK HOUSE STUDIO

 It was very tricky ( read that as 'losing my rag' with it!) getting all the words lined up UNDER the die-cut....it was almost launched out of the window a few times, I can tell you....LOL

 CARD No 3

The background on this last card was made by brayering gold acrylic paint over white linen card. I wanted the texture of the card to show through.

I think this is a very simple, but effective card....love the two colours together.

I heat embossed the Sheena Douglas sentiment with 

 Oak House Studio

fine detail embossing powder.....best around, in my opinion.

Well, that's it for today, hope you like them all. Have a fabulous weekend......I'll catch you again in a couple of days.

Please leave a comment if you've enjoyed looking,

Barbara xx
PS. I'll be back on Sunday with a bleaching technique tutorial for Papermill
xx
I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Chalk N Stock
MilkCoffee Challenge
Paper Crafting Journey
Creative Belli Blog
Paper Pretties
Simon Says Stamp Challenge

Perfect Sentiments Challenge
The Stamping Chef
Stampin' Royalty 

New Home.....

Hi everyone, welcome back to my little piece of blogland. Hope it's sunny where you are today....

Just a very quick post as I'm off to complete a couple of orders....they're piling up again and you know how much of a procrastinator I am....need to 'TRY' to get ahead of myself ( *say's she, thinking...that will NEVER happen!* )

Anyway....needed to make a couple of (very) quick New Home cards for a customer.....very 'flat' she said, so I've gone easy on embellies this time. She loved them, fortunately and has ordered a few more, she must have loads of friends moving house in the near future. LOL

All cardstock is from  

PAPERMILL DIRECT  

I've used a digi-stamp this time, but can't remember where I bought it from, sorry. I do love the different little houses.....

Coloured-in with Promarkers, and a bit of glamourdust thrown in for good measure.

Bish-bash, 10 minute job ! ;-)

Do you like them??

Hope you can leave a comment, if you've enjoyed looking, catch you all tomorrow.

Enjoy the sun, wherever you are.

Barbara xx

I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Papertake Weekly
Passion for Promarkers
Through The Craftroom Door
Created with Love
Make It Monday

Lavinia Stamps - Lavender Challenge

Morning all, and welcome to the weekend, whoohoo!

Well, here we are with our FOURTH Lavinia Stamps challenge.....I just can't believe where the last 3 months have gone.

This month the challenge is simply LAVENDER, and the prize again is a whopping £40,

so get out your Lavinia products and ENTER....what are you waiting for??

Here are my DT creations.....and I'll have a couple more to show, as the month progresses.

 Coloured with Distress Inks

I've used 3 different Lavinia stamps on this tag :-

Fairy dust sentiment, Stars, Daydreaming silhouette,

and a mask to do the grass.

All stamps available

HERE 

 CARD TWO

All cardstock is from 

Papermill Direct,

inked with distress Inks.

Stamps used are :-

Cherry blossom branch, Stars, Fairy dust silhouette and Fairy dust sentiment.

(2nd generation stamping, as I wanted 'soft' effect)

Glamourdust on the wings and 'sprinkles'.

CARD THREE

Same cardstock and inks as previous.

The images were stamped onto a sheet of white linen cardstock,  cut into three pieces and mounted onto Papermill navy card.

Stamps used on this card are :-

Daydreaming silhouette, Creeping Vine, Willow, Vine (new) and Happy birthday sentiment.

Grass made with a mask.

Phew, think that's about it for now.....if you entered the May challenge, check back to the Lavinia Stamps blog on 4th June, to see who won the £40 worth of products.

Catch you all in a couple of days, have a good weekend.

xx
I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Chocolate, Coffee & Cards
Five Simple Things
QKR Stampede
Stampin With The Dragon
Crafty Calendar
Digi Designs
My Creative Moments 

New 'Special Offer' from Papermill.....

Morning everyone......the sun is shining, whoohoo!

Thanks for popping back to checkout the latest 'Special Offer' from

PAPERMILL

Today sees the start of a great offer on some lovely cream card...... It's 270 gsm and you can get a small A4 box right now for only £5 !

Why not sign-up for the Papermill newsletter, that way you'll get all the special offers direct to your inbox.

I've made 3 cards to show how nice it is.....the colour varies due to the light at the time of photographing, it's a really lovely rich cream colour in real life.

Various embossing folders (it embosses beautifully)

Butterlies are the new stamps from 

OAK HOUSE STUDIO 

Here I've inked and stamped with Distress Inks and stamp from Tim Holtz. The word stamp is from Inkylicious

This card is simply made with Papermill cardstock, a Sheena Douglas sentiment stamp, and gorgeous flowers from 

PETAL LU

(all handmade, in tons of different colours.....you must check them out!)

Don't forget to pop over to the PapermillDirect blog HERE to checkout the other DT creations.

I'll be back tomorrow with my Lavinia DT samples.

xx
I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Milk Coffee Challenge
My Heart Pieces
Five Simple Things 

Hedging my bets........

Morning everyone, hope the sun is shining wherever you are......it's a fantastic day here in Wiltshire.

My lovely sis-in-law Ros, is staying with us and Nick, Emma and Eva are coming over for a Sunday roast, so we're in for a great day.

Well, I'm hedging my bets at the mo, 'cos 2 lots of Nick & Em's old Uni pals are awaiting the arrival of first babies any time now. Thought I'd make a couple of simple cards whilst I had time......Might get to use them both, if the right babies appear, if not, I'll just have to do a 'quick-make'!

I saw a similar idea somewhere on the internet. Not sure if it was Pinterest or a blog, so sorry that I can't link back.

The white linen cardstock is from 

PAPERMILL

(of course!)

The gorgeous flowers are from 

PETAL LU

(so pretty)

The patterned papers are from my stash.

All the dies are from 

Spellbinder

Sentiments are computer generated.

Hope you like these little cards.....please leave a comment if you've enjoyed visiting.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.




I'm entering these cards into the following challenges :-
Created with Love
Kaboodle Doodles
Love to Scrap
Make it Monday
There She Goes
613 Avenue Create
Challenges 4 Everybody
Crafting When We Can
That Craft Place