New Home

Our Nephew and his wife have bought a new house.  They have moved from the north of Scotland to Southampton, have to go where work takes him.
They post photos on Facebook so members of the family and distant friends can see how they are getting along changing and decorating their new home.
I made this little card for them using Rubber Dance stamps.  I swiped some Cosmic Shimmer Chalk Cloud across a piece of watercolour paper and then stamped the houses and sentiment. 

I stamped the first three houses on a separate piece of card, used some more Chalk Cloud to colour, then fussy cut out the single house and garage and adhered it over the initial stamping.  I attached the paper to a white base card and added a plain white insert.
Leaving the insert plain meant we could write a short message to them both before posting it in a decorated envelope - of which I didn't take a photo of course!

A Birthday

My eldest daughter turner 50 years this week.
There!  I've said it!
I cannot believe that she has reached such a great age.  A half Century.
For reasons that we wont discuss here, my daughter and I have not spoken for years ..... but she is often on my mind.
Yesterday she was fifty - I've written that as it doesn't seem such a large number that way.
She was such a pretty, dainty little girl with big blue eyes - her father's eyes.
As she grew up she kept her daintiness, always being slim.  She grew into a boyish teenager following heavy rock groups, introducing me to a varied selection of music and the New Romantic performers.  
I queued for several hours, while she was in school, to buy tickets for Duran Duran when they came to town .  I managed to get a work experience for her and a friend with Durannies Fan Club.  She would go up to town with a couple of friends and wait outside hotels for the 'stars' to leave or come back from a concert.....Wham, Thompson Twins..... They were exciting times for me as I struggled to bring up all the children on little money.
She came with me when I moved to a new home, seemingly taking it all on board as I poured out my woes to her.  
She went straight to work from school and I am proud to say never out of work.  She would  spend Friday and Saturday evenings out 'on the town' with friends and/or work colleagues, often rolling in very much worse for wear.  
She did all the things that growing children tend to do nowadays..... bought a house, married, divorced, had a child ..... we argued.......
Now there is nothing .......
But she is there in my heart .... she is my daughter.
I hope she had a happy birthday .......

WOYWW #461

What'sOnYourWorkdeskWednesday - if you want to find out more then checkout the WOYWW tab at the top of the page - and our thanks go to Julia for hosting this weekly meet up.

What a busy week, creating and experimenting and contacting and travel arranging and computering and ...... the list goes on!

But here we are .... an oasis in the week ...... What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday ....

the desk .....

Just finished a birthday card involving dachshound dogs and about to start on St George's Day cards.  A few pieces of water colour paper with wipe offs from the card and..... and ..... four new brushes!!!  They are supposed to be ergonomic but when I tried ergonomic equipment before it made my hands ache.... we will see .....They look pretty and they were the right price (which helps!).

Today I am without Little Soldier (boo! hoo!  😢) but we will be together on Friday so I will fill my days with creating and visiting.

Hope the weather is better where you are, enjoy your week.

Alphabet Swap - Y & Z

So soon have we reached the end of the Alphabet ...... hope there's another one coming up, maybe techniques, colours, subjects .... I don't know ..... you think of something!  lol

Y is for Yacht ..... nope!  not this one!!

I painted this, again from the web, but not looking good! 

I outlined the sails .... still not good...... abandon ship!

Y is for Yucca and Yule



I found a window backdrop on the web and sized it down before printing, then printed it out followed by printing the yucca plant in pale grey shades.  I coloured in the image using Inktense pencils then gave it a waterwash.  Once it had dried I fussy cut the image and adhered it to the greeny painted basecard. 




I received this card by return and am blown away!   

How clever!

A yule time fairy with golden hat and wings.  The letter buttons are a great finish.

Thank you Kate.

Z is for ZigZag and Zentangle
I thought of Zentangle than decided that I'm not really that good but I do have a zigzag stencil given away free with a magazine some time ago .......
I used my DO inks to create the background for this card and then stamped the sentiment onto the pattern, once the ink was dry of course!
I used one of the gnome stamps, colouring his hat using the stencil and watercolouring the rest of him.  
I fussy cut the image and used a 3D sticky pad to attach him to the card.

I received this gorgeous Zentangled card by return so am REALLY pleased that I didn't try it.  

This is a brill example of the Art of Zentangling.

Thank you Mel.

March Swap

I decided to use my spare Zodiac cards for this month's swap.

I rather like the way these have turned out ....... considering I only have four distress oxides.  I filled in the Aries and Taurus images with the same colours but using the inks as paints, straight from worksheet to card.  I used the red ink for the background on the Gemini and used a silver pen to follow the lines of the image to show the design a little better ...... then added brown strokes ...... and a touch of grey......

Taurus                       Gemini                        Aries

I love the way these inks can be used to give so many different colours and effect.  I can definitely see why they are raved about on the Web!  Taurus is just one colour as is Aries..... 

I received the following cards by return.

Such pretty papers, decorated so daintily.

Thank you Madge.

Easter Monday

Easter Sunday