Beat the Christmas Rush - the August edition

Oh gosh what am I like, I quickly got some cards made, got them photographed and then completely forgot to blog them.  Anyway I am here now - better late than never LOL!!

I had a pile of Brusho backgrounds that I made a couple of months ago so I picked out those that I thought best suited Christmas.  I then found a suitable collage stamp from Visible Image in my bag of shame.  Mr P bought me a lovely new heat gun for my birthday so I used Gold and White embossing powders from Stampin' Up.

I then added Frantage embossing enamel to the outer edges of each panel and heated from underneath to give a lovely textured frosty look.  I then made card blanks from black Bazill cardstock,

I really enjoyed doing something different and apart from the Frantage which had to be done one side at a time they were pretty quick and easy to make.

If you are busy making your Christmas cards ahead of time please do share them in the linky below

Memorandum Monday

No sooner has one Monday gone then another one arrives in its place - so it is time to give Sian a wave over at From High in the Sky and report on my weekend.

Saturday was the Eurovision Song contest - so in line with family tradition I joined my Mum to watch it.  We don't take it seriously - it is always quite a giggle and we enjoy Graham Norton's funny commentary.  A special touch was asking everyone to raise a glass to Sir Terry Wogan at song 9, luckily we had just refilled our glasses with Prosecco.

Sunday found me busy crafting - I had a wedding card commission to finish (I will share very soon) and then I decided to get messy with Brushos - I haven't made any backgrounds in ages and I have depleted my stock of them.  So the kitchen and lounge looked like this - good job Mr P was at work and wasn't around to witness the mess - luckily I always put down loads of plastic so it is an easy job to clear away.  Empty pizza boxes that previously contained scrapbook supplies make a very good base for doing the messy crafting in!!

My next job is to overstamp these and gradually turn them into cards.

Monday seems to be a day for receiving happy post, first up I took delivery of these lovely notebooks - I'm planning to keep a travel journal on our grand Scottish road trip in June and a book with gridlines appealed - it made sense to avoid postage charges to order two and whilst looking up journal ideas I stumbled across a thing called bullet journals - hmmmm I think that second journal might come in very handy.

And the second bit of happy post was a lovely birthday goody bag from my dear friend Fine Bear Ted - he celebrated his 21st the other week and this is him with the card that I made for him.

The goody bag contained lots of sweets, a cake (which Mr P took to work), some novelties and a rather fetching pair of monkey sunglasses.

If we get a decent summer I will wearing the glasses a lot!!

Have a great week everyone - I will be making more holiday plans and getting ready for an imminent trip to Yorkshire.

Blogtober 2015 Day 11 - Indigo Blu girl meets Brusho background

I've just found in my 'to be blogged' folder a couple of cards that I made a little while ago when I first started playing with Brushos.

The stamp is a freebie one by Indigo Blu that I got with a magazine.

I added tiny gemstones to some of the flowers in her hair.  A really quick and easy card to make once you have made your background cardstock.

As soon as my fundraising is finished I must get playing with the Brushos again - I have some ideas for Christmas cards.

Thank You Wings

The challenge this month at Penny Black and More at Allsorts is Wings.

I had some leftover Bister backgrounds from making Richard's birthday card, so I die cut them with some Lawn Fawn and Memory box stitched edge dies.

Using Penny Black T for transparent set 'Social Butterfly' I stamped and then cut out some butterflies and a dragonfly from some of the scraps left from the die cut backgrounds, these were stuck onto the background with pinflair gel for some dimension.  The smallest card, the butterfly from T for transparent set 'Snippets' was stamped directly onto the card. 

The sentiments are from sets 'Snippets' and 'Heartfelt Thanks'.  The blue hearts are from Poundland.

Happy Birthday Mr P xxx

It is Mr P's birthday today and I've made him something a little bit different for his birthday this year, usually he would get something with a cute Penny Black image on it.  I have been enjoying playing with Brushos and those images just don't go with the lovely backgrounds.  I have recently bought some Bister which is very similar to Brushos in how you use it but it is more predictable as to what colour you are going get.  I have only got two colours so far - blue and brown and they work beautifully together.

I used a Papermania Wellington stamp which I watercoloured first with Derwent watercolour pencils and then masked the image so that I could make the background with the Bister.

The Happy Birthday sentiment is from a Stampin' Up set (Butterfly Basics) and the Husband sentiment is from the same Wellington set as the bear stamp (by Papermania).

I wish I knew where the lovely blue/brown organza ribbon had come from it, it was my last piece and a perfect match for the card.  The bling hearts are from Poundland.

Adventures with Brushos - the blue/orange ones

Unintentionally this week turned into a Brusho themed week on the blog so I might as well finish up the week with more cards made with Brushos.

I wanted to get away from the butterflies and make some more masculine ones so used this lovely lighthouse stamp from Kanban.  The sentiments are by Personal Impressions.

But then the overwhelming urge to use butterflies overtook me again.  I made this card for the Fiskarettes UK Facebook May challenge which was to use the colours ice grey, slate grey, light blue and orange.  The die cut and stamped butterflies are all from Stampin' Up, the sentiment is by Hero Arts.

I was left with two small pieces - enough to make two mini cards and when I turned them over I thought the patterns/colours on the back were more interesting.  The butterfly is a Hero Arts stamp and the sentiment is by Penny Black.

I am now kind of addicted to making backgrounds with Brushos so expect to see them used on plenty more cards in the future, especially as there is a techniques article on using them in this month's Craft Stamper which is giving me lots more ideas on how to use them

Adventures with Brusho - the Beat The Christmas Rush ones

After having such good fun playing with Brushos on our crafty weekend away in March, I bought my own so that I could play further at home.  I decided to turn my first batch of backgrounds into Christmas cards.  Warning this post is photo heavy!!

Freebie Hot off the Press Deer and Snowflake stamps with a Penny Black sentiment.  Bling from Majorcrafts.

Kanban Decorations stamp with Penny Black sentiment and bling from Majorcrafts.

A big thank you to Sue for being the creator/organiser of Beat the Christmas Rush.  Sue has now handed over the reins to me to run, so I do hope that you will still all join in.  It is very simple, just make a few Christmas cards each month so that come December you will have a lovely pile of handmade cards ready to use.  I've added a linky below so please add your cards there and each month I will pick a favourite to feature the following month.

An InLinkz Link-up

Adventures with Brushos - the purple/blue ones

As promised here are the cards that I made with the purple/blue background sheets -

 Kaisercraft image stamp and Penny Black sentiment

 Penny Black butterflies and fluttering sentiment and Stampin' Up birthday sentiment

 Kaisercraft butterflies and Stampin Up sentiments

 Kaisercraft sentiment and gemstones from Majorcrafts

Adventures with Brushos - the green/yellow ones

Following on from yesterday's post, here are the cards that I made with the green/yellow background sheets.

Penny Black sentiment and Kaisercraft image -

Stampin' Up sentiment and Penny Black butterfly stamp -

Kaisercraft image and Stampin' Up sentiment -

Tomorrow I will share the purple/blue ones

Adventures with Brushos - the pink cards

Whilst away at Meadow Barn and with the help of Sy I made lots of different Brusho backgrounds.  I have now chopped them up and made a large pile of cards with them.

These are the ones with the pink/orange card

Kaisercraft stamp and Stampin' Up sentiment

 Penny Black butterfly stamp and Stampin' Up sentiment

Penny Black stamp 'Wistful' and sentiment from T for transparent set 'Heartfelt Thanks'

All the bling used is from Majorcrafts.  I will be back soon with the purple and green/yellow cards

Getting messy with Brusho

Most of my crafty friends know that I am not one for doing messy crafts - I hate the clearing up, I'm really clumsy and usually end up wearing more ink than ends up on the paper and I just hate having inky fingers.  BUT I have been really loving seeing all the super work out in blogland of Brushos.  It just so happens that a friend that I spent the weekend with, has Brushos and offered to bring them along so that I could have a play with them.  (If you don't know what Brushos are, they are a dry crystalline powder that mixes with cold water to form a painting medium.  The colours are really intense and a little goes a long way).

So look at me getting all messy and playing - note I'm wearing an apron and gloves - all was well until I took my gloves off and picked up one of the wet sheets - at least I now know that Garnier Body scrub will remove the purple and blue ink that stained all my fingers!!

Once the backgrounds were dry I was then able to make some cards

These use a Technique Tuesday stamp and the sentiment is from Stampin' Up Butterfly Basics set.

 These are from a new Penny Black T for transparent set called Snippets

 I've still got several more background sheets to play with and I will definitely be getting some Brusho to use myself - thanks Sy for taking the time and trouble to show me some techniques for using Brusho.