Vases and Vanilla

The current theme at The Butterfly Challenge is Vases and/or vanilla. I've taken the easy way out for this and used vanilla card stock as my base. I've also used these colours from Colours and Sketches:

I've stamped the JOFY image with Chocolate Chip and coloured the flowers with plum and coral pencils as the closest I had to these colours. I've added water using a Versafine pen and clear embossing powder. And the teeny tiny butterflies were on the free Hummingbird set I used in my last post which was free with Simply Cards and Papercraft

Something Exotic

The new challenge at Less Is More is Something Exotic. A little while ago I saw a beautiful hummingbird stamp on Darnell's blog and I so wanted it but as I'm supposed to be destashing I resisted. And then I saw the same stamp on Di's blog and was so tempted but again managed to resist. And then my copy of Simply Cards and Papercraft popped through the door with this hummingbird and embossing folder set as a free gift. It's a fabulous freebie and as well as the hummingbird and 5"x5" folder you get 7 sentiment stamps, a frog, two flowers, a leafy branch and the teensiest ever butterfly stamp which is so cute

I coloured it with various orange and yellow watercolour pencils and blended the colour with a clear Wink of Stella brush

Des Abeilles

I bought this stamp set after doing a class with Jo Firth-Young and although I've used the other stamps, this is the first inking for the sentiment - and it fits perfectly with the challenge at Less Is More  which is Something French. It's also a one layer week so I've stamped and painted directly onto the card blank. I was going to add some lines around but didn't want to mess it up!

The sentiment says " the hum of the bees is the voice of the garden".

JOFY sets 14 & 36
Fresco Paints Prawn, Tangerine Twist and Pearl Glaze

Too Late

I saw this sketch at Colours and Sketches before I went on holiday but didn't get a chance to enter the challenge

but I liked it so thought I'd combine it with the latest colour sketch:

I only had Marina Mist and Night of Navy so the base of the butterfly is a snippet of an unamed blue from my stash. A combination of my favourite butterfly dies and an old Fiskars border punch called Treading Water. I remember when this punch first came out (way before dies were popular over here) and it was very difficult to get hold of. The sentiments are from Stampin Ups Because I Care set

And because the current Butterfly Challenge is Punches and/or Pink I've done a pink version:

All the pink card is from my snippets folder so I'll be taking this to Pixie's Snippets Playground

I Really Shouldn't Be Doing This!

I'm in my craft room to make my hubby his 60th birthday card but despite weeks of planning, I just can't get started on it. It's not until 2nd August but we're off to the Czech Republic first thing tomorrow so I really must get it done. But then I came across some eggshells left over from another project and thought it would be great for the Less is More challenge which is Tactile. I coloured the egg shells using a mix of Buff and Mocha Fresco paint (best I could find to make a Tip Top Taupe colour), Ocean Teal gilding polish and Banana Fresco paint to match as closely as I could the colours at Colours and Sketches this week:

I cut a strip of double sided sheet and stuck one side onto the card before sticking the eggshell to the other side. I then added white glitter to catch in the cracks. (the stray teal pieces are actually deliberate in case you were wondering). The sentiment is computer generated

I'm counting the eggshells and snippets and taking this over to the Snippets Playground
And because I've mixed the Buff and Mocha Fresco paints I'm entering this into the Party Artsy colour mixing challenge

Now to get back to that card - I wonder if he'll really mind if I buy one at the airport tomorrow!

Indigoblu Summer Poppies and Meeting Blogging Friends

I made these cards last week using up some pages left over from a book folding project (and similar to the yellow one I made a couple of weeks ago). And they fit perfectly with the July challenge at Indigoblu which is Summer Florals

 

 

I used Poppy Meadow stamp set and Dusty Concord, Festive Berries, Mustard Seeds and Peacock Feathers distress inks with some Fresco paint for the stamens

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to meet some fabulous blogging friends thanks to the wonderful Darnell so I made these into some thank you cards (but totally forgot to photograph the final result - doh!) Darnell is on a tour of the UK and Southampton was her first stop over so I had to take the opportunity to meet her and I'm so glad I did. It was like having her blog talking to us - she is so funny and wonderfully kind. If you are meeting up with her on her tour you're in for a fabulous time. 

I've pinched this picture from Darnell's blog although you may have seen similar on the other girls blogs too

Back row: Debs Willis, Christine Smith, Anne Ray, me, Di Wray, Mrs A

Bottom row: Sue Steed, Darnell, Jane Willis, Chrissie Stokes

Thanks girls for such a fun afternoon x

Purple Denim

I've finally said goodbye to my purple denim jeans. They were my favourite for years until I put on so much weight I couldn't even get them over my knees! They were the first things I got out when I started to loose weight and I was over the moon that they finally fitted. Despite being too scruffy to wear outside, they saw me through the winter indoors until there was just too much glue and ink on them from the craft room so they were relegated to the rag bag for the charity shop.

And then comes along Mrs A with her latest Butterfly Challenge theme of Denim and Dimension. Well, out came the jeans and off with the little ticket pocket for my card.

I've added some 3D foam to the inside top of the pocket so it will stay open and the three full butterflies have 3 layers to them

I'm also entering this into the challenge at Watercooler Wednesday (a new challenge to me) which has the theme of  CAS Butterfly

Well, my jeans are well and truly rags now

Opportunities - Y is for Yellow & Years

I've been having a play with some JOFY stamps and Fresco paints this afternoon while watching the tennis. I did a class last year with Jo and bought these sets and I'm ashamed to say I've only ever used one of the stamps.

I started with some offcuts from a book folding project and stamped and painted some butterflies before cutting them out. I then looked for a whole page to stamp on and noticed that this one had a date on it and would be perfect for the Butterfly Challenge Y is for Yellow an/or Years. I tore around the page so it would fit on an A6 card and edged it with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. I then stamped and coloured the flowers. While painting the "grass" I accidentally got water on the top of the page and the frayed burlap ink stained the page so I put it to one side and started again. However, I really liked the stain once it had dried so decided to work with that. I stamped the butterfly on the page so I had the antenna and then stuck the page to a cream blank leaving the edges of the page free before sticking the glazed butterfly on top

This is the frayed burlap stain at the top and you can just about see the Pearl Glaze I put over the butterfly

Although I've put this on a card blank, I may cut the back off and add it to a journaling book 

JOFY stamp sets 32 & 33
Fresco Paints - Banana, Tangerine Twist, Guacamole, Tinned Peas and Pearl Glaze

Because the butterfly was stamped on an offcut of book, I'm going to take it over the Pixie's Snippets Playground - it's been so long since I played along

Y is for Years and/or Yellow

The latest theme at the Butterfly Challenge is Y is for Years and/or Yellow. I don't have any milestone birthdays coming up so I've just gone for the yellow theme.

My card was made for last weeks card class as an example of Triple Stamping. I used a Stampin Up set called Greenhouse Garden and a butterfly from another set together with my Robert Adams die

10 Minute Card

My OH has been away for 10 days and I thought I would have plenty of time to craft but I've spent most of the time sorting through my stash working out what I can bear to let go. I did get rid of a lot of Stampin Up bits on a Facebook page and the last parcel went in the post today although there's still a box full to be sold. Now to sort and picture the rest of it

I realised when I was out today that this is the second week of the Butterfly Challenge and I've haven't entered yet and as I'm out all day tomorrow, I knew it would have to a quick card but I wasn't expecting it to be this quick. The theme is Oval and/or Olive so I've used oval punches to create my butterfly. I've followed this layout from The Paper Players which is a new challenge to me:

The papers are from a very old paper pad called Little Sizzles which I found during my clear out over the last week and as I love the colour tones in this it made it into the keep pile

Now to start clearing up before OH comes home tomorrow - I seem to have piles of craft stuff in every room!