White Embossing and Bleach

Evening,

Painting with bleach, is the nearest I like to get to housework. I love the effect that you get when you paint a stamped and embossed image with thin undiluted bleach.

Here are several cards made using fabulous floral stamps designed by my friend Jane Gill for Woodware.

I have stamped and embossed in white for all of the cards

but I did try a variety of cardstock, as not all will allow the colour to be bleached out.

It is amazing the variations you can get just with black cardstock.

And then of course there is always dark blue.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx

Thank You for Letting Me Join In

Evening,

I spent a very enjoyable morning with an old friend, and lots of new ones at 'Stitch and Bitch', a Wednesday morning get together to stitch, drink tea and coffee, and bitch (talk) for England.

Having recently moved in with my Mum, I met up with an old friend who suggested that I join the group in the New Year, and I have been looking forward to it ever since. It is seen as an opportunity to take any stitching or knitting project along and work on it uninterrupted by life while in the company of good friends. It's a fabulous idea and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I am already looking forward to next week lol.

I rarely do stitching on cards, and I haven't taken any pictures of what I managed to get done today, so here is a Thank You card instead. It's got ribbon on it. Does that count?

The background is created with a Multiple Resist technique with a stamped and embossed image over it.

I painted the flowers with bleach and then wrapped the panel with a piece of ribbon. The sentiment is a Peel-off.

Here is another Thank You card using diecuts on an alcohol inked background.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx

Black and Gold and Gilded

Evening,

I do love Black and gold, it is such a classy colour combo.

Of course a great way to add gold to a card is with Gilding Flakes and DSSSheets. I used a rose die on the black cardstock and then added the gilding flakes once I had attached the panel to the sticker paper.

Same idea here along with a large background die and stamped sentiment.

I used a fabulous old peel-off and some gems on this card.

I have various tubs of Gilding flakes including this one that combines gold and silver for a more subtle look. Once again I used a die cut and stamped the sentiment with Cosmic Shimmer Flake and Glitter Glue before adding the flakes. This glue means that any stamp can be used with the flakes.

I inlaid a couple of diecut leaves to this embossed panel.

I ended up with various small strips when I trimmed the gilded panels, so I used them behind this stamped and fussy cut floral image. Waste not want not as they say, or sad horder as my kids call me lol.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx
 

Thank You

Morning,

When you have the huge amount of cards that I have yet to blog, it becomes difficult to decide which one to share next, so I decided that perhaps I would check out a few challenges to help me out.

The Alphabet Challenge Blog has a brand new challenge for 2023, Thank You, so I thought that would be the perfect way to start.

 Here are a couple of cards made using some more of Jane Gill's stunning floral stamps.

I have several cards to send to thank people for their Christmas gifts, so these will be perfect.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx

Thank You in Black, White and Green

Evening,

I can't believe that today is the last day of November. How did that happen. The last few months seem to have flown by.

Here are a couple more cards made using one of Jane's floral stamps.

There doesn't have to be masses of fancy colouring to create a card, I just used a stamped and embossed image that I die cut into small squares for these two.

I used the same design in the background as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx

A Floral Thanks

Evening,

I don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods, but the fields around here are looking more like lakes!!

I do love stamp sets that come with co-ordinating stencils and dies.

This set is from Pink Fresh Studio and is one of my purchases from my last visit to Sir Stampalot, way back in March.

The background was created using my trusty Gelli Plate, inks and bubble wrap.

I used up the leftover stamped, coloured and die cut flowers on this second card. I am trying very hard not to have loads of leftover bits and pieces. 

It doesn't always work, but on this occasion they co-ordinated rather nicely with a piece of background that I had amongst my stash of bits and pieces.

This time I used a large Birthday greeting and a kraft card base.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx
 

Thank You... For Your Kindness

 Evening,

It's been another wet and miserable day here. 

I had to walk to Horley and back today to get my Covid booster, rather unsuccessfully dodging the torrential rain. 

One delightful car driver decided that it would be a jolly wheeze to drive as close to the kerb as possible and soak me. To add insult to injury he then turned around and drove on the wrong side of the road through a huge puddle thus soaking me again!!!!!!!!!! I so wish that I had been able to catch his registration number as my friend has just informed me that it is an automatic £1,000 fine.!! Oh to have been a fly on the wall when that letter arrived.

Since Mum came out of hospital in September, after fracturing her pelvis, we have been lucky enough to have a fabulous team from Reablement to help her in the bathroom each morning. They are a lovely bunch of ladies, always smiling and helpful and eager to put Mum at her ease.

Our care package changes next week so we will have a new set of people to get used to. I do hope that they are as kind as the last. It is certainly not a job that I would like.

As we are currently writing a couple of Thank you cards, I thought that I would share one that I made earlier in the year to send up to SirStampalot.

I used a layering die, cut from white and glitter card.

The background to the card is created with Distress inks and then I used a die cut flower as a stamp. Stack several of the die cuts and stick them to an acrylic block. Use vellum for the last layer in the stack so that the water or ink that you use to stamp with doesn't soak into the cardstock.

I added some diecut and coloured flowers and foliage to the corner of the frame.

I added some tape to the back of the base flower to keep all the die cut pieces in place, and then added a second flower for added dimension.

I used the stamp that I created with the die cut flowers to stamp the background on this second card. It's only small, but I hate to waste any bits and pieces.

I've finally dried out, and so far I haven't had any ill effects from my Covid jab.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx

Chalked Agapanthus

Evening,

In any stamp range there is always one design that seems to become a firm favourite.

That was definitely the case with the fabulous agapanthus stamps from Stampendous.

I used versamark ink and decorating chalks to create a soft stamped panel,

which I chopped up and then matched with some Bazzill cardstock and vellum.

As well as the single flower head, there was also this spray. Definitely in my all time favourite stamp selection.

I added various sentiments, peel-offs and card strips to finish these cards.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Hopefully with a little crafting thrown in.

Hugs Kimx

Chalked Thanks

Hi All,

Many years ago I was lucky enough to be involved in writing articles for several different crafting magazines.

One of these involved creating a box of cards as a Thank You gift.

I chose to use a combination of Decorating Calks, Versamark and Vellum.

I used a variety of stamps including ones from Impression Obsession and Hero Arts.

I stamped the images onto the cardstock or vellum using the Versamark ink pad, and then added Decorating Chalks using a cotton wool ball. 

I also added some stamped and embossed sentiments and even a few white inked sentiments as well.

I still have the box of cards from the article, although the box has become a little battered over the years, so I decided to repurpose it by turning the lid into a further square card,

and the sides of the lid into strips across these smaller cards.

The kraft coloured sentiments on them are from Stamps by Me, and are actually wide Washi Tape with a co-ordinating die so that you can cut out a heap of them all at the same time........very useful.

I'm on extra babysitting detail today as Becki's child care has let her down. It's a shame it is so miserable today so we will be stuck in doors for most of it. Still, we will be backwards and forwards to the school for drop offs and pickups, so I'm sure that there will be plenty of puddles for them to jump in. They are all busy playing at the moment, so I snuck in the chance to write my post a little earlier than usual.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hope you have a great day.

Crafty hugs 

Kimx

What do you give a 91 year old?

WARNING PICTURE HEAVY POST

Evening All,

I find that birthday prezzies are always a bit of a challenge, but what on earth do you give a 91 year old?

Several years ago I gave Mum a large box of handmade cards, along with a stash of peel-off sentiments in various colours. 

I have topped it up on several occasions.

So I decided that this year I would give her a new box (aka M&S Shortbread biscuit tin) only this time I would also add in enough postage stamps for each card since it has become so expensive to post them.

I was going to stick the appropriate postage on to each card,

but decided that as she may need to hand deliver some of them,

I would just put L (large) or ST (standard) in the top corner of the envelope so that she would know which stamp she needed if necessary.

I tried to cover most occasions for which she might need a card,

and of course the peel-offs will help her transform one without a sentiment on it already.

Mum writes a good letter,

so I even added in a few notelets.

I finally managed to deliver her gift in person this afternoon,

due to a lift from a good friend.

Of course I also included some thank you cards,

which I'm sure Mum will make good use of.

Typically I couldn't escape work even when I was visiting Mum. I got a phone call from Boss to ask me to get to work at 4am tomorrow morning, so I hope you will understand if I get to bed now.

Hugs Kimx