Monthly Challenge

This month's verse for the monthly challenge on the Craft Barn blog asks for fruit and hunting. I managed the fruit (pumpkins) but decided to depict the birds (hopefully) flying away from the hunter's guns. The stamp is part of a Heartfelt Creations stamp. I coloured it in with coloursoft pencils and added a couple of extra pumpkins to fit the page. The birds are from a Crafty Individuals set.
I was too late to participate in last month's challenge but have managed to catch up although without the added twist of a tractor.

The die is by Spellbinders. I have always had problems getting a good cut with this die but adding some quick release foam to the die and using a metal shim improved things considerably.

Monthly Challenge

This month's challenge on the Craft Barn blog is to add gillyflowers to our page. I had to check and see exactly what gillyflowers were and discovered they can be stocks or pinks. This is a very simple page as my shoulder makes anything more elaborate problematic. I've used a Hero Arts flower, coloured with picked raspberry DI. I have added apricot coloured raindrops(!) and the all important verse.

Monthly Challenge

There's been a lot going on in my life right now which has made it difficult to sit down and craft but I wanted to complete this month's challenge on the Craft Barn blog. The twist this month is to include a bunch of flowers. I thought this stamp of a girl picking flowers fitted the bill. I bought this stamp in a sale and have no idea of the brand. I added some diecut clouds and a floral border as her bunch of flowers is looking a bit meagre.



Monthly Challenge

I had the perfect set of stamps for this month's verse in the challenge on the Craft Barn blog. It's by Hobby Art and although I had bought it sometime ago it had not been used. I used pencils and Distress Inks to colour in the scene and heat embossed the lambs with white embossing powder.

Monthly Challenge

Continuing with Sara Coleridge's poem 'The Months' we have to include a daisy or primrose on our page. My previous pages have all been outdoor scenes, this month I've brought the flowers inside as April is usually the month when the garden produces blooms that can be cut and enjoyed indoors. My page shows a freshly picked basket of flowers (including daisies) on a red gingham tablecloth. The shelf above has a vase of primroses.
Here's the link to the Craft Barn blog with all the other entries.

Monthly Challenge

Continuing with the Garden poem for the Craft Barn monthly challenge we have to add a daffodil (preferably dancing) and a hare.
I am finding it very hard to get enthused by this challenge but I've started so I will try and finish. I have chosen a postcard format with a landscape orientation and am finding that once the required elements are added there is very little room for further creativity. I'm probably the only person having this problem but it accounts for my rather lacklustre pages so far. Perhaps by the time we get to October or November I will have got into my stride with this size.
Fortunately I received a daffodil stamp in a freebie set with a magazine recently and whilst I have no hare stamps I do have my Alice Palace bunnies which I thought I could use. I was searching online when I came across this colourful hare which can be purchased as a print by Fox. he seemed suitably mad March hare-like so I decided to incorporate him in some way. I was given several packs of glitter flourishes recently which I thought would be good for depicting the swirling breezes. The daffs were coloured with coloursoft pencils.
That's it for this month, as ever I am curious to see what everyone else has made.

Monthly Challenge

Continuing with 'The Months' poem by Sara Coleridge for the Craft Barn blog challenge we have to use the verse for February with the addition of cherubs and a heart. It took me a while to get my head around this but here is the result. I brushed faded jeans, spiced marmalade, worn lipstick and tumbled glass DIs over the page and then stamped the B Line Designs image (yes it's more likely a river than a lake but it was one of the few expanse of water images I had). I decided that the only way I could incorporate my (punched) cherubs would be by them holding the verse with a small heart embellishment. I have stamped a raindrop image around the sides and along the bottom in Brilliance platinum planet which catches the light and gives a watery effect.
I am very intrigued to see how everyone else manages the cherub and hearts on this page!

New Year, New Challenge

Having completed the alphabet challenge on the Craft Barn blog last year I was interested to see what the new challenge would be. This year they are taking Sara Coleridge's poem 'The Garden Year' one verse/month at a time. You can read all the details for the challenge here.
Having decided to take part, much time has been spent settling on a format. I finally chose to use a rough postcard size 16.5 x 10cm which I will bind into a book at the end of the year. I had problems punching the binding holes after the pages were complete last year so I have done all the hole punching in advance this time.
For January the added twist is that the page has to have 'a bird in a wellington boot'!!!! My drawing skills are non-existent and I had no welly stamps so I spent a while trying to figure out how to deal with this. Twelfth Night came to the rescue - as I was taking down the Christmas cards I noticed one with 2 girls in wellies and miracle of miracles the snowy scene they were in was surrounded by a frame which had a couple of robins. Just get your magnifying glasses ready...

Not a great pic but it's white on white with some glitter so it was never going to come out well. My base page has been embossed with the Cuttlebug snow folder.  I cut Memory Box's Country Landscape with a different brand of white card  - it's a slightly different white so the die cuts stand out a bit more. I coloured in the trees and roofs for some pops of colour to complement the wellies and robin and added glamour dust for some sparkle. The blue bits along the left are the holes ready for binding .
A tough start to the challenge but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's.