Springtime Parchment

Hello there,

Well, after a trip to the opticians yesterday to pick up my new glasses I experienced a strange occurrence! On the way home in the car I decided to put on my new sunglasses (well, it was nice and sunny) - but something didn't seem right. They didn't seem quite as clear as my old glasses! So, after a bit of swapping with my new clear glasses, new sunglasses and my old clear glasses, I realised that I could actually see better out of the old ones! How does that work? So when I got home I rang the opticians to query it - I was told that my eyes might need to adjust to the new ones and to try them again tomorrow! I have never experienced this before when starting out with a new pair - so the saga continues. I have to ring them back on Friday if there is no improvement!

On a crafty note, we have a brand new challenge starting today over at Cardz 4 Galz, and this week Amy has chosen the theme of

'SPRINGTIME'

Here's what I made using my new (very addictive) Groovi system from Claritystamps ...

I started with a piece of A5 parchment and built up the border and the '9 square' grid using the Nested Squares. I then filled each of the squares with a selection of tiny elements from the 'Butterfly Wreath', 'Meadow Grasses' and a couple of different 'Border' plates. The 'Spring' lettering was done using the alphabet from the Groovi Plate mate.

I added just a little white work with my embossing tool and had to chuckle as I worked on the tiny dots in the border area (I could hear Barbara in my head saying 'Up, Down, Left, Right, and Round and Round'!) to get the perfect dot! I then worked in some colour to the whole design using my Derwent pencils and attached it to rose pink card using the original Groovi 'Corner Punch'. I must say, I was pretty pleased with the result - hope you like it!

Hugz, Jan xx

Mums Rule!

Hello there,

I'm back today with a brand new challenge over at Fantasy Stampers (my own challenge blog) and the theme for the next two weeks is

'MUMS RULE!'

Now, as a few of you will know, my mum is really poorly at the moment and we don't know exactly how long she will be with us. So, not wanting to tempt fate, I left this one right until the last minute to make - I do hope she is well enough on Mother's Day to enjoy it.

I have been playing with my new 'Groovi' system from Claritystamps and have been looking at ways to combine this very addictive technique with my stamping. Here's what I came up with ...

I began with the parchment element - stamping out 'Tilda and her Bunny' with black archival ink (and I did it first time, without smudging the image!). Then came the hard part - leaving it alone long enough for the ink to dry!! So I chose and cut the components for the rest of the card while I waited.

Once dry I began working on my Groovi board using a mixture of different plates and borders to come up with my central focal design. Once finished I added some whitework to the parchment and some colour to the stamped image and other areas of the design using my new Faber-Castell colouring pencils that Santa brought me.

I cut around the edge of the parchment design and secured it to the cardstock square using four pink brads, and no card would be complete without a selection of die-cut flowers (which were cut from scraps of the background design paper).

I hope you will come and play along with over at the challenge.

Hugz, Jan xx