MOVING ALONG WITH THE TIMES #193 FOUR LEGGED FRIENDS

A fun challenge for you this month with us here at Moving Along With The Times - let's see your four legged friends featuring in your projects.

I've used these ever so cute guinea pigs by Anita Jeram from her set Paint The Town.  I love how messy they are getting with that paint!  

I stamped the images first and then created a soft water colour background with my Winsor & Newton water colour paints. 

LOVE TO CRAFT #94

We are back with our penultimate challenge for 2026 at Love to Craft - don't the years go quickly! 

I'm apologising in advance because my project is a Christmas one - well winter one really. We have had so much hot weather here in Wales that I needed to cool down with a winter project lol!  It's a little accordion book which measures approx 3" x 2".  I used stamps by Tracy Evans Boutique Designs for the berries.  The Christmas carol quote is from Alison Bomber.  The little snowflake is from Tim Holtz Ideaology from a few years ago. 

I love making little books out of packaging and the cover of this was from an Amazon box.  

I've popped it on my Etsy shop and will probably make some similar over the next few months. 

PEARLY SPARKLES - #123 PINK, PEARLS OR SPARKLE

Welcome back to another challenge at Pearly Sparkles.  In honour of our founder Traci we always choose Pink, Pearls or Sparkle for our September challenge as they were her favourites. 

This is a challenge for me too as I don't have many pink things - or so I thought - and then I spotted 3 Distress Inks in Pink and a Versafine Clair Ink in Pink. I used water colour paper and smooshed the three Distress Inks of Spun Sugar, Saltwater Taffy and a touch of Victorian Velvet.  I then added lots of water to get the water marks.

I used my Lavinia stamps for this card.  I stamped the tendrils in Versafine Baby Pink and then clear embossed them. The fairy is called Seren, which means Star in Welsh, and I stamped her and embossed her in black embossing powder.  I added extra sparkle pens for her lamp and her hair.  I coloured her wings in Renaissance Watercolours which give a lovely shimmer. I added some extra Lavinia stamps to help ground her and the sentiment is from an old stamp set.

PAPER ARTSY GUEST DESIGNER - WHAT THREE THINGS

I was delighted to be contacted by Paper Artsy to be one of their Guest Designers for their What 3 Things slot.  How exciting - I had to say yes.  You can see my full piece on the Paper Artsy web site but here is a short snippet of what I received and what I created.

Click here to go to Paper Artsy web site for the full disclosure and to see what other crafters did with the same products.

What 3 Things - Fiona Whitehead 

For this challenge, PaperArtsy sends the same three items to 3 people from our blogging team. It is really interesting to see how each maker comes up with different ideas and techniques with the same 3 items.  Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a colour product. We have no clue what PaperArtsy HQ is going to send, the whole idea is to do something crafty in our personal style restricted to these 3 items.

I received these three things - I received this delightful set by Sara Naumann ESN39, a Paper Artsy Stencil by Sara also PS203 and Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Wisteria opaque.  

I was intrigued by that Wisteria paint - that's not a colour that's really in my colour palette and teaming it with a Christmas theme was indeed a challenge.  But I ended up loving the colour and will definitely combine it with other colours in the future.

To see my whole process do pop over to Paper Artsy - especially as I had such fun with that stencil and created quite a few backgrounds to play with.  

Here's my finished card for the blog -  I love how that Wisteria colour looks - a cool shimmer for a winter's day.  I have created more projects with these 3 things and will show them on here at a later date.

I'm adding this into the following:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - AG

Unicorn Challenge - Layer it up  

Stencil Fun - AG 

Simon Says Stamp Monday - lots of layers 

Cupcake Inspiration - in the garden 

Inkspirational - Garden 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE #524 - ANY OCCASION

Welcome back to ATSM and our Any Occasion prompt.  I've left my card with no sentiment so that I can use it for any occasion when the need arises.  

I've used the lovely new rose stamp from Alison Bomber's set AB059 for Paper Artsy.  I just love these roses.  Having watched one of Alison's videos she was talking about creating white roses with just a touch of colour.  I used my Winsor and Newton water colours to create this card - using a very soft grey on the actual rose.  I did a light colour wash of light blue around the stamp just to make the rose stand out a bit more and accentuate the whiteness of it.  The sentiment is from the same set simply stamped and is a quote by William Shakespeare. 

I'm adding this into the following:

Little Red Wagon - Quote 

Dream Valley - AG 

We love stamping - summer blooms 

Inkspirational - Garden 

Beautiful Blossoms - AG 

Creative Crafters - AG 

SCS - Nature

CREATIVE ARTISTE MIXED MEDIA #129

Welcome back to another challenge at Creative Artiste where we want to see your mixed media projects.  Please remember our rules state you must use at least 3 mediums on your project.  I am sharing a page from a recent book journal I have recently finished.

I used an old book that I had been using as book pages and once I'd used quite a few I decided it was time to use what was left of the book as a journal in its own right.  I recently downloaded some papers from Etsy - my first time trying this method of gathering craft stuff and I was delighted how it worked out. I downloaded Sam Poole's gorgeous bird papers so decided my book was going to be a nod to her papers and I used them through the whole book.  This is just one of the pages and I'm also showing the front and back of the book.  The book has now made its way on to my Etsy shop where you can see the rest of my pages if you are interested.

I started my page by adding white gesso to the book page and you can see a faint trace of the words underneath.  I then added some of the lovely Paper Artsy paint in Seaglass which is a lovely pale blue.  My sort of colours at the moment.  I added some Texture Paste in white through a Tim Holtz Stencil.  I added one of the birds from the papers.  I also added a pocket and added a tag for extra journaling. I finished the page off with various motivational sentiments.  

I'm adding this into the following challenges:

Creative Fingers - AG 

Paper Rock Scissors - AG 

Creative Inspiration - AG 

Ellibelles Garden - from the garden 

Unicorn Challenge - Layer it up 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE - #523 - BIRTHDAYS

It's been a while since I used my Visible Image stamps so I had a dig through what I had and remembered this lovely heart stamp called Follow Your Heart which I thought would be perfect for our challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More this week which is birthdays. 

I stamped the image first then masked it off to stencil behind it with an old dotted stencil and Distress Ink in Squeezed Lemonade and Ripe Persimmon.  These colours remind me of old sweets we used to have as children called Fruit Salad! I used the same colours to colour in parts of the stamp.  The sentiment is from an Anita Jeram set called Birthday Wishing and I thought it was great to use on a birthday card. That reminds me that I should also get that whole set out and have another play with it as it's great for birthdays too.

I'm adding this into the following:

Simon Says Stamp Monday - Birthdays 

Neglected Stuff Challenge - AG 

We love 2 Create - AG 

Polkadoodle - AG 

Inspiration Station #88

Welcome back to Inspiration Station and I hope our lovely picture inspires you.  

I've used the lovely set by Tracy Evans Boutique Designs TE33 called Sunflower. I masked off the middle portion first and added the background with a leaf stencil from my stash.  I stamped the flowers the bee and the sentiment with Rusty Hinge Oxide and then clear embossed them.  I then added a wash over them all with Rusty Hinge Distress Oxide, Wild Honey and Iced Spruce.  I added the bird in black Versafine and added the sentiment just above. 

MOVING ALONG WITH THE TIMES #192 FEMININE

Our challenge this month at Moving Along with the Times is something Feminine.  I'm off to a friend's son's wedding next month and was creating this tag for their gift and thought it would be perfect for this challenge.  She definitely looks feminine.  This is one of Tim Holtz's Paperdolls. 

The base of the tag is from a gel press play with some Paper Artsy ink in Sea Glass and Steel Grey.  I then cut out some paper flowers and hearts and added them to the background.  I added extra detials with the word Happy and the Love which is a die cut.  The wording on the circle is from a book and I added an extra heart.  

PEARLY SPARKLES #122 - SUMMER HOLIDAYS

We are celebrating Summer Holidays over at Pearly Sparkles this month.  I remembered this very old Stampin Up set - one that I've kept for years as it's a firm favourite.  It's called Summer by the Sea and I love the image of the little boy with the sand castle.  

I created my background using watercolours by Winsor & Newton and using my new Fuumuui brushes. I added some birds to the sky from a great stamp set by Waffle Flower called Wild Birds.  The sentiments are also from SU from old sets I still use for scrapbooking.

I'm adding this into the following:

Inkspirational - Beach Vibes 

Allsorts - colour of summer 

Send a smile 4 kids - AG

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE #522 - CHRISTMAS

Christmas in July here at ATSM - hopefully if you join in all year you will have made a great start on your Christmas cards.  I'm using one of my all time favourite  sets here.  I just adore the shine you get on those bells just from the way the stamps are cut.

The stamp set is an old one from Sunny Studio called Holiday Style.  It comes with these gorgeous branches too - which I've inked in Versafine Shady Lane and then I went over the stems with a marker pen.  The baubles are a three stamp set to create the shine and it can be a bit tricky to line them up but when you get them they shine perfectly.  I've added some extra red and white twine to them to have them hanging from the branches and added some red enamel dots. The sentiment is a simple one from the same set. 

I'm adding this into the following:

Little Red Wagon - Christmas in July 

Unicorn - No Design Paper 

Make My Monday - Christmas in July 

Peace on Earth - Christmas 

Avenue613 - Holiday

Dragonfly Dreams - Christmas Sparkle 

Inkspirational - Christmas in July 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE - # 521 MAKE YOUR MARK

Welcome back to ATSM and a chance to get your colouring mediums out to play be they paints, marker pens, pencils etc.

I'm sharing a recent watercolour I created for a competition at a local event later in the month.  Wish me luck.  The paints I've used are Winsor & Newton - a mixed palette of lots of lovely colours.  I used my new Fumuui brushes to create the scene.  I don't really consider myself an artist as I normally rely on stamps but this was free hand and I'm pleased how they turned out. 

I'm adding this into the following:

Papercraft Challenge - Summer 

Allsorts - AG 

Inkspirational - summer mood board 

As You Like It - my first time creating free hand watercolour flowers and I loved doing it 

Ellibelle's Garden Party - from the garden 

The Sisterhood of Crafters - Flowers 

I mentioned above that my watercolour painting was for a local competition.  I'm delighted to say I won First Prize.   A huge achievement as I consider myself a crafter not an artist and it was among some pretty tough competition.  

INSPIRATION STATION - #87

Welcome back to another month's challenge at Inspiration Station and our prompt photo for you this month is Christmas in July. Where will you get your inspiration from?

I chose that back fence as my starting point using some old paper from Kaisercraft I had in my stash and aging it with some Distress Ink.   I created a snow scene with the middle panel and added a Tim Holtz Stag Die to the snowy background. I used some patterned paper for the stag which also had deer images on it.  I also added a deer charm.

I'm adding this into the following

613 Avenue Create - AG Any Holiday 

Dragonfly Dreams - Christmas in July added sparkle 

We Love 2 Create - AG 

Krafty Chicks - Christmas 

Creative Knockouts - Christmas in July 

Craft Rockets - Animals 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - 4 legged friends 

FabnFunky - Christmas in July