Celebrating May

Hi everyone, it’s May Day already … where is the year going to? April has flown past, so it’s time for a new Lavinia calendar page. This month’s calendar illustration was the cute mice celebrating and generally having a good time, so I thought I’d go with that. It’s also my birthday this weekend, so the celebratory vibe is also a nod to that! Also after nearly a month without a post on here they are suddenly coming along like buses - that’s two in a couple of days!

I cut a piece of stamping card 19.5cm x 14.5cm and stamped Teapot Cottage and the Fairy Path. I then masked them and created the landscape and sky by blending Elements inks using hill and circle masks. With the masks still in place I stamped flowers sprouting from the teapot and Tilly the mouse emerging - I always think she looks so joyful! I then removed the masks and stamped the meadow flowers, bench with a birdie perched on top, and more dancing mice. I added some background trees on the hills and stamped foliage and blossom on them using the tiny stamps which come with the Spring Trees. I coloured the teapot and path with Zig pens, and dotted the meadow flowers with white Posca topped with Spectrum Noir sparkle pen. I added some bluebells and yellow poppies to fill out the base of the scene, and added various white Posca and pastel pencil highlights to the scene. I finished off with  a butterfly and flock of birds in the sky. 

Confession time … the swirling mist coming from the teapot spout is to hide a few marks where my pink blossom somehow ended up in the sky as well as on the trees!

Stamps: Lavinia Teapot Cottage, Fairy Path, Bench, Tilly & Tango, Summer Flower, Wild Poppies, Garden Poppy, Bluebells, Dandelions, Tree Scene, Small Trees, Spring Trees, Magical Mist, Fairy Bugs, Bird Collection, Birds;

Media: Lavinia Elements inks (Olive, Pine, Lime Pinch, Blue Atoll, Lemon Drop, Sundance); Versafine Clair (Nocturne, Morning Mist, Shady Lane, Avocado, Very Peri, Baby Pink, Golden Meadow, Portobello, Acorn); Kuretake Zig Clean Color watercolour pens); Sakura Stardust pens (pink, yellow, clear); Spectrum Noir sparkle pen (clear); Posca pen (white); pastel pencil (white);

Tools: Lavinia Hill, Mini Hill and Circle masks.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Addicted to Stamps & More! #516 - Make Your Mark

Ally’s Angels #105 - Anything Goes

Crafts Galore Encore #147 - Anything Goes

Crafty Gals’ Corner #276 - Anything Goes with option Spring

Creative Artiste #126 - Anything Mixed Media Goes

Double D - Tea or Coffee

Ellibelle’s Garden Party #14 - Anything In or From a Garden

Four Seasons (May) - Spring

Lavinia Creative Challenge (May) - Flower Spirits

Love to Craft #91 - Anything Goes

Outlawz Anything but a Card (May) - Anything but a Card

Paper Funday #86 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Simon Says (Monday) - 4 Legged Friends

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes

Word Art Wednesday #750/751 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Hope if you’re in the UK you enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend, whatever you’re doing.

Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,

The Wanderer Returns!

Hi everyone, I’ve been MIA for most of April, as my mojo has been on a long exotic holiday, and I just couldn’t seem to get motivated or inspired to make anything! Yesterday, however, I had to sit down to make my latest calendar page, so while I was in the mood I also made a card using a statement sentiment stamp that I picked up in a charity shop a few weeks ago, but which I haven’t inked up until now!

I cut a 14.5cm square of white stamping card, and stamped the Inkylicious Spatter Circle XL, which I had inked with bright pink, orange and yellow Elements ink and spritzed with water. I stamped the sentiment towards the right using Nocturne Versafine Clair, then die cut a black mesh panel and a couple of white daisies to place on the left. I coloured the flower centres with the same pink Elements ink, and added some gold Posca brush pen highlights both to the flower centres and the text. I matted the stamped panel onto a black border and card blank, then attached the die cut pieces.

Stamps: Inkylicious Splatter Circle XL, Stampendous sentiment;

Media: Lavinia Elements inks (Pink Elephant, Russet Orange, Lemon Drop); Versafine Clair (Nocturne); Posca brush pen (gold);

Tools: Visible Image Broken Mesh die; flower dies from Amazon.

Challenges I would like to enter: 

As You Like It - Favourite Brights or Pastels (and why)

(I love both depending on my mood, but I particularly love how the vibrancy of bright colours can make black and white elements ‘pop’)

Beautiful Blossoms #40 - Anything Floral Goes with optional Mood Board

Crafty Catz #712 - Anything Goes

Daisy Chain #106 - No Design Paper

Girlz Creative Splash It With Colour #20 - Yellow and/or Pink

Girlz Rebel #51 - Flowers

Paper Funday #86 - Anything Goes with option Die Cuts/ Punches

Path of Positivity #140 - Anything Goes Positive

Pearly Sparkles #118 - Something Old, Something New

(Sentiment is new to me, flower and mesh dies are old)

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Make It Feminine

Triple B (April) - Birds, Butterflies and/or Blooms

Unicorn #119 - Use Dies

Word Art Wednesday #750/751 - Anything Goes

Word Power (April) - Sentiment as Focus

I’m still not feeling massively inspired, but I did enjoy making this so hopefully I’ll be back before too long with more new makes.

Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,

C.R.A.F.T. #777 - Guest Designer

Hi everyone, I’m here again with another guest designer card for this fortnight’s C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - that’s twice on the trot! The theme for the next two weeks is 

*** Seasons / Weather / Anything Goes ***

The fabulous sponsor for this challenge is Polkadoodles 

.. who are offering a fab prize of 3 Digi images from their store.

The design team have made some gorgeous projects to inspire you, so please do visit the challenge blog to check them out, and to link up your own entries. 

Here is my card for the challenge - I decided to make a cheerful spring card, using a beautiful Tracy Evans spring floral stamp which I bought last year but hadn’t inked up until now. 

I took a snippet of white stamping card and stamped the focal flower, then stamped some coordinating script beneath it from an older large Tracy Evans stamp. I coloured the flowers and background with Zig pens , blending out the background with my Zig blending pen, then added Wink of Stella on the flower petals and white Posca spatters. I die cut a large frame from a snippet of green gingham paper, then cut my image snippet to size and attached behind the aperture. I stamped the sentiment onto separate card then die cut, edged with green ink and attached, and attached the finished panel to a card blank. I felt it still needed something else, so I retrieved an experimental coloured flower from the bin, fussy cut it out and attached in the top right corner. I then added a couple of stamped bunnies to finish and highlighted them with white pastel pencil.

Stamps: Tracy Evans Boutique Designs TE47 Wild and Free, TE32 Alpine Florals; AALL & Create #266 Daisy Elegance; Penny Back Spring Magic (2852C);

Media: Versafine Clair (Nocturne): Kuretake Zig Clean Color watercolour pens; Lavinia Elements ink (Line Punch); Wink of Stella (clear); Posca pen (white); pastel pencil (white);

Papers: from my stash;

Tools: Hunkydory Moonstone Duo- Stitched square dies.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Beautiful Blossoms #39 - Anything Floral Goes (3rd entry)

Card Concept #225 - Spring Flowers (2nd entry)

Creative Moments #280 - Bunnies and Blooms (3rd entry)

Paper Players #779 - Tic Tac Toe

(Die cut / Flowers / Layers)

Papercraft #128 - Joy of Spring (3rd entry)

Passion for Markers #831 - Dies and/or Punches

Sparkles #198 - It’s Springtime! (3rd entry)

Snippets Playground #529 - Use Snippets

Sweet Stampin’ - Spring or Easter (2nd entry)

Word Art Wednesday #746/747 - Anything Goes 

Thanks very much to the C.R.A.F.T. challenge Design Team for asking me to be guest designer again this time.

Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,

April in the Secret Garden

Hi everyone, this week it was time for me to get busy again to make my Lavinia April calendar page, and this month I managed to complete it with a day to spare - woo hoo! I was racking my brain trying to think of something slightly different from my previous springtime calendar scenes whilst incorporating the bunnies that illustrate the page, when I suddenly had a mini brainwave! I’ve always thought that the flowers which form part of the fairy stamp ‘Moments Like These’ look rather like open tulips, so I decided to use the fairy but also incorporate the flowers into the foreground too - a lot of very fiddly masking was required there, let me tell you!