TOTALLY TREES, LOVELY STITCHING, DANEBURY IRON AGE HILL FORT

HA! I bet that heading made you look twice - not often you see an Iron Age hill fort on a crafting blog.  But I thought I would share some pictures with you.

I'm lucky enough to live near one of the most important Iron Age Hill Forts in my area in Hampshire, UK, called Danebury.  Its a lovely place to walk my dogs and the views are wonderful.  You can see why they built their fort though thousands of years ago.  Its also a very peaceful place.

I love trees, especially Yew trees and there are some magnificent samples at Danebury. Here are my dogs around one particularly wonderful Yew Tree.














There are even wild ponies on the fort.














The Inner Ring of the Hillfort

 
  













It got me thinking of making a tree card when I got back home so I turned to Totally Trees for some inspiration.
 

I've used Island Indigo cardstock and ink and a gatefold card (I think that's what it's called) which I had left over from making some of the mice cards at Christmas.  I've added some Blooms and Bliss Designer Series Paper which looks a bit like leaves I think.

The image was stamped with Island Indigo Ink and then double stamped with the detailed image in Versamark and embossed with our goreous Copper Embossing Powder.  I've also added some of our Copper Metalic Thread around the cardstock.

If you can see I've used the square Stitched Framelit but turned it into a rectangle thanks to Dawn Griffith's instructions.

I used the Lovely Stitching for the sentiments and also embossed them in the Copper Embossing Powder.  I've used one of the Banner Framelits to cut out the smaller sentiment.  Popped onto dimensionals just left of the tree it helps to keep the card closed.

I love the look of this copper on the Island Indigo - I can see I'm going to be doing this a lot!

As always all products can be purchased from me if you are in the UK.  Just click on the logo below to be taken to my store.

 HAPPY CRAFTING

 

LESS IS MORE - 300TH CELEBRATION - BANNER'S FOR CHRISTMAS

I haven't had the time lately to join in with any challenges but this one over at Less is More caught my eye this morning.

I was having one of those Monday's when I had no mojo and couldn't settle to anything.

I took the dogs out for a walk in the country.  It is still beautiful weather here in the UK - one of the warmest October's I can remember - reminds me of warm Houston weather.  So we did a bit of Conker gathering and blew the cobwebs off and I came back and did a bit of crafting.

Some of these conkers and the leaf are actually bronze mixed in with real - can you tell which is which?
 

 Tegan (Welsh Springer red and white) and Bracken (English Springer) enjoying their walk

My card for the Challenge uses two stamp sets and a thinlet.  The mistletoe comes from Banners For Christmas - this isn't a set I've seen used an awful lot yet but I love this mistletoe stamp.  Here I've turned it right way up to represent a bunch of flowers and stamped it with Versamark and our Gold Embossing Powder.   I've used the Celebrate stamp from Here's To Cheers.  I used one of the bauble thinlets from Merry Tags to cut out the bauble shape and then stamped inside it with Versamark and embossed with our Gold Embossing Powder.

A touch of gold Baker's Twine and some Basic Rhinestones finishes off this card - which has a lot of 'white space' - okay red!

 Thanks for coming to see me - do leave a message or come and visit me at my YouTube channel to see some of my tutorials.

Happy Crafting

 

SIMPLY SKETCHED SATURDAY CHALLENGE - MERRIEST WISHES, MERRY TAG FRAMELITS

It's time for another Saturday Sketch Challenge and this month our sketch was chosen by Sally Shaw.

This was the sketch we had to work with.

Here is my card - I actually have to thank my dear husband for the inspiration for this - he saw me sitting looking at the sketch - having discarded a few ideas into the bin when he thought the stripes looked like ribbon - Eureka! as they say!

I used Cherry Cobbler cardstock for the base and some of the Designer Series Paper This Christmas Suite. The Ribbon is Mini Striped Ribbon in Tip Top Taupe but it looks almost silver against the paper.

I've used the Merry Tag Framelits again - love these with a bit of Smoky Slate Cardstock.  The Banner and Sentiment is from Banners for Christmas with a touch of Dazzling Diamonds around the outside.  On the cardstock just on the bottom left I've used one of the trees from the Foxy Friends set with Versarmark just to add a bit of interest to the cardstock. 

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO BE TAKEN ON TO  ANNA'S PROJECT

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO BE TAKEN BACK TO LOUISE'S BLOG

 

 

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY ON OUR BLOG HOP AND HAPPY CRAFTING 

 

 

 

POOTLERS BLOG HOP - NEW CATALOGUE

 Welcome to the Pootler's Blog Hop - I hope you are ready to see some wonderful Christmas inspiration.

In case you hadn't heard our new Winter Catalogue went live on 1st September.  Full of lots of Hallowe'en , Christmas and New Year goodies and also some lovely autumn stamp sets too.

I absolutely love making Christmas cards and what better job than to be able to make them in August/September!


For my card today I am sharing this lovely card made with a few of our new sets and some adorable accessories.

I started out with a card base made from Smoky Slate.  I used a new Versamark pad to stamp some of the sentiments and a lovely accessory stamp from the Banners For Christmas set.  Regular readers to my blog will have seen the state of my Versamark pads.  And whilst they still work when they are covered in ink - its no good if you want to do tone on tone so I had to bite the bullet and buy another one!

I then added some of our Warmth and Cheer Designer Washi Tape - this then gives such a versatile card base for lots of different ideas.

 I'm a traditional girl at heart - so Christmas to me is reds and greens and traditional style stamps - so I adored this stamp set Christmas Magic when I saw it.

One of my favourite Christmas films of recent times is Polar Express.  May I bore you with a little story about this film.  We used to live in Houston, Texas when the children were small.  Our first Christmas out there was spent in very warm weather and on Christmas Eve we decided to go to the local cinema to see the new film Polar Express.  Imagine our surprise and delight when we came out of the Cinema to see it was snowing.  The first time in Texas in 50 years - it was so magical and everyone was out calling out Merry Christmas - which is unusual in America as its normally Happy Holidays.  A very special memory and all evoked by this little train stamp!

 I've coloured just parts of the train using a Blender Pen and Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler.  A touch of Wink of Stella on the steam makes it shimmer slightly.  I've used some of our lovely Candy Cake Lane Baker's Twine with the added sparkle and wrapped it round the card and added some of the lovely Mini Jingle Bells.

Well, there's another tale.  Attempting to thread the bells with the twine.  An Eureka moment when I used a touch of Washi Tape around the end of the twine which helped to thread them a lot easier, as shown below.

 A touch of dimensionals to pop the train onto the card base and that's my card done.

 I hope you like it and it gives you some inspiration for your own Christmas cards.
 

 Now pop along on the blog to Jillian's fab blog to see what she has for you..

or pop back to our fabulous Sam Hammond to see her project

And don't forget - if you would like to get your hands on any of the goodies shown above just click on the image of the new catalogue at the side of this post.







 

'B' FOR BIRD

The challenge over at Watercooler Wednesday this week is anything to do with the letter 'B'.  Well that gives us a wealth of ideas but my first one was the beautiful bird from Picture Perfect.  He has been in his box for a while so I thought it was time I gave him some wings again.

 I used Always Artichoke for the card base and stamped some of the leaves from this set as a background with Versamark.

The paper is from the gorgeous Serene Scenery 6x6 Designer Series Paper pack.  Oh my this paper is so lovely if you haven't tried it yet I would urge you to.  It really is paper you just want to look at but I now make myself use it!

The touch of our new Burlap ribbon seems to blend in with the mood of this card.  The bird was initially stamped in Smoky Slate, then Early Epresso then Pear Pizazz and cut out and I added dimensionals to give him some movement.  A touch of Wink of Stella to make him sparkle.

I'm singing along to 10CC whilst writing this - one of my favourite bands in the 1970's yep I'm that old lol! and it's so good to hear them again!