Purple Agapanthus

 

This is a purple and lilac version of the pink Agapanthus cards I posted yesterday and these two are for Aunties celebrating their birthdays this month.

Mary celebrates her birthday on Monday and unfortunately she'll be in hospital as she fell and broke her hip two weeks ago and has had to have a plate and pin fitted.  It's an accident that she could have done without at this time as she was widowed at the end of last year and is still coming to terms to being on her own.  This accident now means that she'll lose her independence for a while as she was still able to drive so could get herself out and about.  Hopefully it will all heal well and she'll up and off again before too long.  I'm also sending her the card I made for last week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge, as I had her in mind when I put it together, in the hope it cheers her up a little.

The other card is for the Auntie who's card making got me interested enough to have a go.  Each year she used to send us her hand made Christmas cards which we loved and have kept.  On each one she would print her intitials and the year somewhere on the design so it became a competition to see who could find it first.

 

Esther is a very talented lady and not only does she make cards, but she's a dab hand at baking and has supplied oatcakes for Orkney Rose, she's decorated wedding cakes for local brides and makes beautiful flower arrangements and wedding flowers.  Here's a picture of her at work making her oatcakes.

 

 These past few years she's taken a keen interest in water colour painting and has attended classes held by local artist Jane Glue.  Creating pieces using water colours is her main interest now and at Christmas we receive cards which are prints of her work.  Here is a photo of the card she sent for my birthday last month which is an original.  One to keep and treasure.  

I'd like to enter these cards in the following challenges

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 61 - Monochromatic Magic

Challenge Up Your Life Challenge - Monochrome

Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Thank you for reading today.

Liz xx

More Agapanthus

Having said how much I like the Agapanthus stamps by Stampendous I thought I'd share some pictures of cards I've made with the stamps before I started this blog.  At the moment all three stamps I've used are on sale at the Glitterpot.

On these two the Agapanthus Cluster stamp was inked with purple Encore Metallic ink and stamped on to the topper.  The backing papers were from an Anna Griffin kit which came in a beautiful box decorated with a large grosgrain ribbon. This was my first craft purchase from QVC.

 

On these two I coloured the Agapanthus Cluster stamp with pens before stamping on to the topper.  The backing paper was created using the Agapanthus Bloom stamp.  It too was coloured with pens and stamped repeatedly over the card using the "huffing" technique until all the ink had been used.  I love putting lime greens and purples together.

On this one the Agapanthus Cluster was again coloured with pens but unfortunately the first impression didn't stamp cleanly so I stamped out another one and used a tip from Anna Griffin and wove the two together.  One image was cut in to strips vertically and the other horizontally and then the two were woven together to create the image again.  The Agapanthus Cluster was used to create the backing paper for this one.

The next two cards were made using the Agapanthus Cluster again and the inspiration for them came from Kim Reygate's book Rubber Stamping which is available at Sir Stampalot.  This is one of the best books I've bought for introducing different stamping techniques.

On this one I've used the Agapanthus Cluster for the main image and also for the backing papers.  For the main image, and the decorated paper to the left, the stamp was coloured with pens and stamped on to card but on the left it was stamped on to vellum with Versamark ink and then chalked in colours to match the pen inks.  It gave a lovely soft focus effect

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For this one the Agapanthus Stamp was coloured with pens again to create the topper but stamped repeatedly using the huffing technique so that there are faded images in the background.  Unfortunately all these cards have been scanned so the quality of the images aren't very good.  I hope it gives you a taste of the fun I've had creating with these stamps though.

I'd like to enter these cards in the following challenges

Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Thanks for reading

Liz xx

Agapanthus

 

There's a flurry of birthdays during this coming week with three Aunties and a friend all celebrating so it was time to give Mr Crafting Mojo a shake up.  I decided to take a card design I'd made before but make it in different colour ways and here are the first two in shocking pink.  The card, ribbon, and ink are in Rose Red and Melon Mambo from the Stampin' up range as is the stamped sentiment.  It fits inside one of the Spellbinders nestabilities classic ovals dies perfectly.  Although I had matching Stampin' up paper I decided it was too dark for this project and used paper from a pad I bought from Create and Craft many moons ago, in the Alan and Barry days.   

The stamped image on the topper was made using a Stampendous stamp which is called Agapanathus Cluster.  I first saw this stamp being used on QVC by Dawn Bibby and loved it.  She used it to demonstrate a bleaching technique.  It looks good stamped in one colour of ink or coloured in different colours with pens.  I've also added the Agapanthus Long and Agapanthus Bloom stamps to my stamp collection and used the Agapanthus Long to decorate the inserts for these cards.  The peeloff butterflies were put on to acetate, cut out and then the wings folded back before being attached to the card.  This was another tip I picked up from Dawn.

 

These two cards are heading off to opposite ends of the country as one is heading north to Orkney and the other south to Dunstable.

I'd like to enter these cards in the following challenge
Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 61 - Monochrome Magi
Challenge up your life - Monochrome
Make It Monday - Anything Goes


Thanks for reading today
Liz xx

Penny Black Saturday Challenge Week 186 - Floral Frenzy

This is my entry for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge this week which is Floral Frenzy.  This is the first Penny Black Saturday Challenge I've entered this year as Mr Mojo seems to have got the post Christmas blues.  However, when I saw the challenge this week was Floral Frenzy it got me tempted back again.  I knew I had this Penny Black image called You Are the Bestest already coloured using Promarkers so it was just a case of deciding what to do with it.  I follow Kittie Caracciolo's blog KittieKraft and had seen how she created frames around her images and decided I'd like to try this.  There's a tutorial on her blog.

I managed to make the frames and had decided that I'd use the small flower Tonic punch to make little flowers to help frame the image too and then I remembered I had an X-cut corner punch which would also tie up to the floral theme and punched out the corners of the top frame and added coloured paper behind so the punch outs matched the flowers. Lines were scored across the corners too.  When it was finished I really didn't like the coloured paper showing through so chopped off the punched corners and added another two layers underneath so that I could still have the punched corners.  Although the card ended up having more layers than I'd planned the alternating colours around the edge worked quite well.  One of those "happy accident" moments and probably one I wouldn't have thought up but may try again.

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges

Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Animal Antics

Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Thanks for reading

Liz xx