Happy New Year!

Hope you've all had a good break over Christmas and New Year!  I had a lovely time up in the north with my family enjoying such delights as a Santa Steam Train special trip, including visits from elves, magicians and a brass band...

This New Year there are some wonderful new goodies from Stampin' Up! There is a new Occasions catalogue with products covering Valentines, Mother's Day, Easter, and lots of spring/summer themed things. Then we have the Sale-A-Bration promotion that runs from January until the end of March, and you can earn freebies for every £45 spend from any of our catalogues. You can also earn more goodies by hosting a party, putting in an order over £200 or by joining up to Stampin Up. So lots to be thankful for!

I love the dragonflies stamps and dies  ( Dragonfly Dreams Photopolymer Bundle [144728] £42.25 ), watercolour pencils ( Watercolor Pencils [141709] £14.50  ) and the colouring-in papers that are free in the Sale-A-Bration catalogue ( Inside The Lines Designer Series Paper [143830]  ) .  Can't wait to use them and show you what I come up with.

Hope you have fun looking through the catalogues. If you would like a paper copy, drop me a line and I'll pop one in the post for you as soon as I can.  I'm sure you'll love them as much as me!

See you soon,

Helen x

Oyster Catcher Pendant

I love, love, love the Wetlands stamp set. Mainly due to this image which is of some wading birds that look like Oyster Catchers to me.  Which reminds me of my favourite place, Anglesey.

For the pendant I coloured the background with Stampin Up inks and an Aqua Blender on watercolour paper and then constructed the pendant. Lovely isn't it and the inks blend so nicely.

I wear this all the time now and have had some lovely compliments.  I've entered it into Michelle Last's creative challenge and you can vote for the entry over on her blog today.

Hope you like it!

Helen

Product List

Wetlands Clear Stamp Set

[126697]

£16.00

Watercolor Paper

[122959]

£4.50

Aqua Painters

[103954]

£15.50

Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad

[140931]

£6.50

What a view!

Well my recent card creation really fitted with my experience this weekend!  But we'll get there in a minute.  I love this stamp from Sheena Douglas.  It reminds me of the beautiful Lakes and North Pennines. I've used it in the past to create a 'Rainbow Bridge' card using subtle pastel colours.  This time I've used my Aquamarkers to create a more autumnal look. Couldn't resist photographing it on my bench with some real autumn leaves! The leaves on the card are more Sheena stamps and I've intensified the colour with Distress Inks (Rusty Hinge is just perfect with a bit of Shabby Shutters!).

So getting back to the weekend.  Well I went with my family to visit a barn conversion my sister and brother-in-law are working on in the North Pennines. And guess what, it rained and it rained and it rained.  All the way they were pointing out of the window and saying things like 'this is the fabulous view of Crossfell, this cafe looks over the Eden Valley, the view of the hills from here is stunning' etc, but in reality all we could see was a bank of cloud through the steamed up windows! You had to laugh really... I've just seen a quote online that the Hartside Pass on the way to Alston is a route named as one of the World's Top Ten Most Scenic drives by the AA. If only... So I had to imagine what it might look like and thankfully I had this card fresh in my mind. But seeing the barn and spending time with family made it all worth while!

On taking the picture above I was interrupted by a little visitor - my furry buddy Thomas.

He was obviously protecting the card from any intruders (OK he was yawning!). Couldn't resist showing you...

Jenny Wren

You will probably start to see from my blog that I love all things nature and marvelling in the wonder of creation! Birds, trees, wildflowers, animals etc. you'll find them cropping up time and time again in my creations. When I saw this little Wren stamp on special offer on the Joanna Sheen website it just hopped into my basket all on its own, rather like a cheeky little wren itself! My family are all nature-nuts too so it was the perfect little image for my big sister Rochelle's birthday card. And thankfully she loved it and has just sent me the picture as I was, shall we say, time challenged to get it to her on time so there was no time to take a photo.

If you want to know the 'recipe' the wren has been coloured in with water-colour pencils. I have used nesties labels 1 to mat and layer onto the craftworks cards base. The green card has been run through the cuttlebug in the swiss dots emobssing folder. A simple card but it actually took ages to get the colours and layout just right (and two rejected wrens that have gone on cards for other people!). Oh no I feel bad about rejecting the wrens now... they were reassigned to other more suitable projects. That's better! Can you tell I work in HR?!