I'm baaaccckkk!!

Hello there!! I am back from my 3 week trip home to England to see family and friends, and to visit a nutritionist that specialises in Endo. I had such a wonderful time, and got to catch up with so many old friends- but gotta tell ya, I think I need a holiday to recover from that holiday, wow I was busy! Here's a quick run down of my adventures:

I landed in London on the Sunday and met up with one of my old school friends who lives down there and she was kind enough to take me out to a yummy restaurant for some good English grub (steak and ale pie!!) and then give up her bed to me for the night- thanks Bec!!!

Here we are at Liverpool St station, before we said goodbye and I headed off to my next stop....

On Monday, I had my appointment with Dian Shepperson-Mills. She is a nutritionist who specialises in healing endometriosis through diet and supplements. I found out about her through her book Endometriosis: A Key to Healing through Nutrition and had been wanting to be able to see her in person so I could get a plan from her set up just for me and my symptoms. I was really happy to be able to get an appointment with her while I was back, and it was well worth it. She had endo herself, and so completely understood when I was trying to describe or explain symptoms and pains I had experienced- I have always struggled to put some of it in to words so others could understand it, and she gave me the words- it was wonderful! Anyway, without going into too much detail, we went over all my issues and developed a supplement and diet plan that  I am to follow for a month, and then I will have regular appointments with her on Skype where we'll discuss my progress and tweak the plan as needed. I have to admit to a shaky start to it though- I have to avoid wheat and cow's dairy, and well I was on holiday, in England near Christmas..... there were a lot of tempting treats I just couldn't resist. Now I'm home though, I am back on track and taking this really seriously. I really want to get off all my meds and be able to control this disease on my own, so I have to put the work in.

So, after London I got the train up to Norfolk on Monday evening and headed back to Mum and Dad's house. The next few days were filled with visiting family, shopping in Norwich, and just relaxing and catching up with my parents. Then on the Saturday, I headed up to the Midlands to stay with my best friend Dawn, and her husband and baby for a few days. Her baby, Madeleine, was christened on the Sunday, so we had lots to get done, making food for the party afterwards and getting everything set up. I was honoured to be asked to be Madeleine's Godmother, so Sunday was a very proud day for me, and I was so thankful I was able to make the trip and actually be there for her special day. Here's a pic of my little princess during the service, isn't she just adorable!

It was sooo cold in that church!!! The service was lovely though, as it was a christingle service also, and we sang Oh Little Town of Bethlehem at the end, which really got me in the Christmas spirit!! After the service we had a little reception/party at the village hall. Our other good friends, who I haven't seen since Dawn's wedding last year were there, and it was lovely to catch up with them. It's funny how I am apart from them for so long, and we really don't have that much contact when I'm at home here, but as soon as I am back with them in England, it's like no time has passed at all- we were chatting away like we'd only seen eachother yesterday!

Once the Christening was all over, I had another 2 days to spend with Dawn and Madeleine before I had to head back to Norfolk. We had a lovely time, taking Maddie to her swimming group, walking the dogs, going out for lunch, and having lots of baby play and cuddles. I fell in love with my little God Daughter so much in those 2 days, she's just such a happy little thing, but wow I did not realise how much hard work a baby is lol!!! If and when it does finally happen for us, we definately have a huge life change coming lol!!

Once I was back in Norfolk, I got to catch up with some more friends, had a lovely lunch with my friend Jo who was so sweet and had gone out to get stuff that fitted in my new meal plan and made me a lovely bacon and potato soup, using goats milk!! It was yuummmmy- and I would even go as far to say it rivalled Panera Bread's soup, it was that good!! I also got to go out for a meal with the friends in the pic above in Norwich, we went for a yuuummmmy carvery at a pub in a village just outside the city. We had so much fun there, I don't think I have laughed that much in ages!! I stayed at my friend Debbie's house that night and the next morning took her adorable puppy, Marley, out for a long walk in the woods, and then had a quick shopping trip before she took me home to Mum and Dad's.

On the Sunday, Mum put on an Early Christmas!! We had my grandparents over and had a lovely Christmas dinner, with christmas music playing in the background, followed by Christmas pudding and games! I really do miss not having christmas with family now we live out here, so it was so special to have that lovely day. On the Tuesday, I got to have a nice lunch and chat with my godmother, and then we met her husband, and Mum and Dad for a lovely meal in the evening. Then of course Mum and I had to fit in a trip to the new Hobbycraft store that just opened in Norwich!!! That night we had lots of fun drinking wine and making cards- I taught her some of the techniques I've learned the past couple of months and she loved it!!

Hard at work!!!

 A glass of White Zinfandel, and card making= heaven!!

Mum was very proud of the card I helped her make to put the Starbucks giftcard in that she is giving her friends for Christmas!!

I had such a lovely time with my family and friends, and I'm so thankful I was able to take the trip, and that hubby didn't mind being left at home working for 3 weeks while I was off playing :)

Gotta tell ya though, I was so happy when I landed back in LA and got to see my hubby and come home to my furry babies!!! California is truly home for me now, which just makes my heart smile :)

I have a busy few days ahead of me now, getting unpacked and set up for Christmas- so in case I don't get to post again before..... Merry Christmas to you all and your families xxxxx

PS- Hubby's got me the new Hero Arts catalogue as one of my pressies... can't wait to snuggle up in front of the tree on Christmas day and look at all the scrummy new stamps and inspiration from the designers, eeek!!!

A quick hello!

Phew, this has been a whirlwind trip so far! I got into London on Sunday afternoon, and haven't stopped since then with visiting with friends and family and of course a quick shopping trip in the city! I have a little alone time this afternoon as both of my parents are at work and I don't have anything arranged with anyone, so I'm recharging my batteries snuggled up in front of the fire with Mum's laptop.

I think I picked the wrong time to be out here, with all the issues the snow is causing! They are just not used to getting so much snow at once out here and the airports have been closed, trains not running and people getting stuck out on the roads- apparently they haven't heard of snow chains :-) I got here just in time though, as the day after I left London to head up to my parent's house in Norfolk was when the snow got down to London and ground everything to a halt. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it will have all cleared by this time next week or I might not be able to get my flight home back to California!!

It is beautiful here right now though, when you are not having to be outside braving the cold. I wanted to give you a little peak, so took this picture a little while ago out of my parents' bedroom window, overlooking the fields behind us.

My goodness, Mum's poor old computer just took about half an hour to upload that one photo so I think that will have to do for today lol!

Gotta run, my poor Dad is a postman (mailman) and has been out in the cold since 7am this morning trudging through the snow delivering letters, and he just got home- off to make him a nice hot cup of tea to warm him up!

Hopefully I'll be able to get online again soon. I'm going to stay with my best friend for a few days on Saturday and probably won't be able to get online, but will try to get some better photo's taken and up here next time.

Until then, hope you are all having a fab week!

Lynsey x

Leaving on a jet plane!!

...don't know when I'll be back again....lol! Well actually, I'll be back in 3 weeks as I'm almost finished packing for my trip to England tomorrow. I'm so excited to see family and friends again, and also for my appointment with the nutritionist in London who specializes in treating endometriosis. I'm sure I won't be taking her instruction on board immediately seeing as I have so many social events planned while I'm home, but I'm excited to hear what she has to say so I can get into it when I get back to the US and start taking control of my health.

My husband thinks I'm crazy as I keep adding a few more things here and there, and have a whole stash of stamping stuff in my case filling any little space I had left!! Does that mean I have an addiction?! lol! I really want to be able to teach my Mum all of the wonderful things I have been learning the past few months though, she's going to be my guinea pig at my first ever stamping class lol! I know we'll have so much fun with it as she likes cardmaking too, but just hasn't been introduced to stamping yet- I'm going to get her hooked like me!!

ha, I don't think I've ever typed lol so much in one post- can you feel my excitement ;-)

Anyway, just wanted to pop on and let you all know I won't have forgotten you, I just won't be able to get online as much. I will be taking lots of pics though, so will try to jump on from time to time and show you what I've been up to, and maybe some cards Mum and I have been creating!!

Wish me luck for my journey- once I arrive in London I have snow and Tube strikes to contend with!! Wish I could just hit the fast forward button and go straight to snuggling up in my parents living room in front of the fire with a cuppa!!

Oh, and still no final word on the house......ugh!

Have a great few weeks

Lynsey x

EIC challenge #115, and some Thanksgiving thoughts

The Etsy Inspired Challenge has some great inspiration this week over at Queen of Tarts Cakes Etsy store. The artwork on these cookies is just amazing, look at these...

Don't they just look too good to eat- though I'm sure they are delicious!

The challenge this week was to create a project inspired by this store, and using squares in honor of this week's sponsor Inchie Arts. I had so much fun with this, I ended up with 3 cards!! Once I got started with my square punch, I just couldn't stop creating lol!

The first image at Queen of Tarts that inspired me was this:

It immediately inspired me to pull out my Fern stamp and get stamping :) Here's the card I created for it below:

I heat embossed the fern stamp with shabby shutters distress embossing powder onto kraft paper, and then used my 1inch square punch to punch out three squares from the image and inked the edges in vintage photo and shabby shutters distress ink. I loved the beading look of the icing on the edges of the cookies too, so pulled out my scallop border punch and to create a white back panel, which I also inked slightly around the edges, and then adhered to the green card. I adhered the squares using foam squares, and then used my Crop-A-Dile tool to set the eyelets, adding a piece of inked kraft with the stamped sentiment. Finally I threaded the ribbon, and added ribbon tabs to the top of the card, and rounded the top corners using my Corner Chomper. I thought this will be a great card to use to write to my Grandfather, as most of my cards are quite feminine!

The next piece I used for inspiration was this beautiful plate of flower cookies:

This was the card I came up with, and with all that pretty pink I'll be entering it in the current challenge over at Wee Memories also!!

I heat embossed the flower stamp using Worn Lipstick Distress embossing powder, and then cut it into 1 inch squares, inking the edges in the same colour Distress ink. I adhered all of the squares to a piece of kraft paper, and distressed the edges of the kraft paper using scissors. I inked the back of the clear acrylic tag with pink sherbet and pearl mixitive Adirondack alcohol ink, and then stamped the sentiment using Stazon. I threaded the tag onto some twine, and then wrapped the twine around the image, tying a bow on the side where the tag sits. I adhered the panel using foam squares to a pale pink card, and then inked the edges with Worn Lipstick Distress ink, and finished the card with white gel pen stitching, and a bronze pearl in one of the flowers in each square.  

Finally, who can pass up the chance to play with gingerbread men at this time of year?! Look at these Hawaiian themed guys, aren't they fun!!

Seeing as I had just bought my first pack of kraft paper, and I hadn't used my Cricut in a while, I figured it would just be rude not to put them together and make me a gingerbread man :)

This cute card was soo easy to make! I just searched online for a gingerbread man coloring page and traced it into SCAL to create an svg to cut using my Cricut (it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is lol). I cut the shape out of kraft paper, and then used my Snow Writer to create the face and buttons. I used that 1 inch square punch again to cut out the four pieces from patterned paper for the background, lightly inking the edges with vintage photo Distress ink to stop them looking so harsh against the green card (a Jennifer McGuire tip!) I adhered the squares to the card, stuck the gingerbread man on with foam squares for dimension, and then used my white gel pen to 'stitch' around the panel. No stamping at all, except the sentiment inside the card!!

I had so much fun playing this weeks EIC!! Can't wait for next week, I'll be playing with my Mum from her living room in England- I'm so excited!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I hope you all have a lovely day with your family and friends, and take a minute from all the craziness of hosting etc to think about what you are thankful for this year. I know for me, I am so thankful to have learned this year just how much my husband loves me, and how much he truly meant those wedding vows 5 years ago. I'm thankful that he has been so strong for me this year while we have dealt with me going through numerous surgeries, doctors visits and nasty side effects from horrible medications, and that he is willing and able to support us both financially while I take time out to regain my strength and improve my health. I am thankful that our marriage is stronger than ever, and that even though this year didn't turn out at all the way we hoped, that we both have the strength and character to join together, keep our heads up and march into the next year, still feeling positive and determined that everything will all work out the way it is supposed to.

I'm thankful for my cuddly kitties, who keep me company during the day, and provide plenty of comic relief when its needed!

Lastly, I'm thankful to have discovered this wonderful world of stamping and cardmaking, and for the wonderful friendly, supportive, and inspiring community that comes with this new love of mine!

Lynsey x

Advice needed!

I have a couple more projects today inspired by the perfect pearls Holiday Inking class on Two Peas last week. I really like the colours in both, and had fun trying out new things to make accent pieces on each card- however the first has a major oops that I need your advice on, as you are all so much more experienced than me, and so very talented :)

For this card I ran a piece of acetate through my Texture Boutique with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, and adhered it to a white card. Then I covered a piece of cardstock with Dusty Concord Distress ink and pounced Blue Patina, Green Patina, and Pewter Perfect Pearls over the ink with a paintbrush, and then spritzed it with water to set the pearls. I inked the Hero Arts Flourish Pine stamp with white Color Box ink and stamped it over the pearly paper. I cut a piece the length of the card and used a Fiskars border punch to punch the top and bottom pieces. I punched a circle, using a Fiskars circle punch, ran dry adhesive all over the back and then looped silver ribbon around the circle, forming a flower design. I squirted some glossy accents here and there to make sure it stayed put and then adhered another punched circle to the back to make it easier to mount to the card.

 Do you see the big oops?! How about a close up....

Apparently I cannot use Glossy Accents to adhere acetate to a piece of cardstock that has been covered in perfect pearls lol!!! So.... what would you have done to adhere the piece, or otherwise stamp the sentiment on the circle? I tried stamping directly (using Stazon), but I think due to the perfect pearls it was very dull and did not stand out at all. My 'fix' was to stamp on acetate and stick it over- but you see how well that worked lol!! I'm thinking now in hindsight that embossing would probably have been my best move, right? But are there any tricks for adhering acetate to paper without the glue showing through?

I had some scraps of that pretty stamped metallic pearly paper left over, so I used it to make another quick card.

For this one, I ran a white card through my texture boutique using the Swiss Dots folder again, and then punched two more circles from the paper, adhering them to the card. I then took a strip of the left over paper, punched it using the border punch, and using my Martha Stewert scoring board, scored it at 1/8 inch intervals. I then formed the paper into a rosette and stuck it to another punched circle, putting a large blob on Glossy Accents in the middle to make sure it stays put! I then added the purple ribbon to the top, and tied a bow with the silver ribbon, and adhered it to the rosette with more glossy accents.

I loved how the rosette turned out, and it took me forever to get that cute little bow looking right- so I thought lets do a close up of a yey to counteract the oops above lol!!

I really liked playing with my perfect pearls finally, and love how the techniques turned out! Looking forward to hearing your tips for me on how to avoid my boo-boo in future :)

Lynsey x

Coming out of hiding...

Ok, I've been hiding because I'm scared to tempt fate and yet completely unable to keep my mouth shut when I have possible exciting news!! Here goes- our offer got accepted on the house!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yey!!! It's being sold by HUD so we had to bid online and our offer got accepted, but now we have to wait for them to actually sign the contract and send it back to us before the acceptance is official, and then of course we have all the inspections etc. Hence the not wanting to tempt fate by announcing too soon- fate please be kind to us :-)

You may have noticed I changed my blog header a little. There used to be a blurb about keeping positive while dealing with Endometriosis and Infertility, but with the direction I was heading with my posts on my blog it just didn't seem fitting. Plus, Endometriosis doesn't define who I am- there is so much more to me than the health issues I have, so why do I want that to be the first thing people learn about me when they visit my blog?! As for the infertility, well how can you be positive about that if you're labelling yourself as infertile- I'm 28 for goodness sake and with everything else going on with my health in the past 3 years we have probably actually 'tried' for a total of 3 months (TMI, sorry!!). Even 'normal' couples often take longer than that to get pregnant, so I refuse to believe that we have fertility issues yet. For now I need to focus on getting my body as healthy as I can, and then we will start trying for a baby again. I am flying out to England on Saturday (yey!!) and have an appointment with a famous (in endo circles) nutritionist called Dian Shepperson-Mills who works with women like myself who have endo and want to have a baby. I've also been looking into Acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine as an option to try too, as I'm so fed up with being on the meds I take- and I can't be on them forever as there is no way we will get pregnant if I'm on meds that put me in chemical menopause is there!!!

Anyway, enough of all that- moving on to fun stuff.........

I've still been in that distressing groove, and also have been having fun with the Holiday Thinking Inking techniques with Perfect Pearls from last week.

I really loved the combo of Aged Mahogany and Forest Moss that I had used in previous Christmas cards so I had to pull out those inks again to create this card shown above. I inked up a piece of cardstock and then sprayed the Hero Arts Flourish Pine stamp with a mixture of water and gold perfect pearls (mixed in a mini mister) and stamped it onto the inked piece. The water on the stamp created a lovely faded effect on the card, and the perfect pearls added lots of shimmer! When the image was stamped, it picked up the ink from the cardstock, so I put it to good use by stamping it directly onto a white piece of cardstock to make the piece for the sentiment. To make the card base gold, I inked a white card with aged mahogany and then pounced on gold perfect pearls with a paint brush, then sprayed it with a little water to fix the powder. You can't really see it in the picture, but the flower is a little glittery also- I just sprayed the perfect pearl/water mix onto it until it got nice and covered in gold. I finished off the card with some distressing on the edges of the inked piece, and a red gem in the middle of the flower.

 The background of this second card was created by spraying the flourish stamp again with the pp and water, and stamping it directly onto the card. There was still some ink on the stamp from the first card, so it gave the background some nice definition. I found the santa image stamp in the $1 bin at Michaels- score!!! I didn't think it would stamp well, but it was actually really nice. I stamped him onto a piece of tan cardstock using aged mahogany distress ink, and then inked the edges with frayed burlap. While the santa image was still a little wet, I smudged over it a little with the blending tool to give it a softer, more aged look. The brown mat was made by stamping Hero Arts La Lettre onto a piece of ColorCore cardstock with walnut stain distress ink, and then sanding over it liberally to give the faded look. I distressed the edges of the santa image and the mat by running the blade of my scissors up and down (I really should get one of those distressing tools!!). Finished the card off with a flower and a little twine wrapped around the mat, and a bronze pearl in the center of the flower.

 This snowflake was another $1 bin find!! I stamped it twice onto tan cardstock using pumice stone distress ink, and then cut each out to make square pieces. I distressed and inked the edges again and then adhered them to a mat, again made using ColorCore cardstock, stamped with La Lettre and sanded to distress. This time I wrapped the twine around the middle of the mat, tying a little bow in the middle and using Glossy Accents to adhere a green pearl in the middle. I used foam squares to mount the mat to the card, giving some more dimension. I love the colors in this card, I think it's one of my favourites so far!

Lastly, a couple more cards using the same techniques I talked about above. The folded piece on the bottom card was originally going to be a rosette, but it wasn't long enough lol so it became trim instead!! I had seen this on another card on Flickr (don't remember who it was, sorry) so when the rosette didn't work out, I knew exactly what to do with it!! The flowers are by K&Company, I love them!!

Phew, another long post! Can't wait til this house drama is sorted, then maybe I can get myself into a routine of daily posts so I don't take up so much of your valuable time when I post!!

Lynsey x

Nothing like a little distressing to clear your mind!

As I was saying the other day, we're in the middle of trying to buy a house at the moment and it's taking a lot longer than we anticipated to hear back from the sellers. This has left us in a prolonged state of waiting, with butterflies in our stomachs, hoping, but trying not to get our hopes up too much! You know the feeling! I sat down to do some cardmaking on Sunday evening and decided to pull out the Distress embossing powders I had bought last month but not put to the test yet. I had the faded jeans and shabby shutters colours and thought they would be good to do another take on the card I did using my paint dabbers on the flower stamp to create grass and sky in the background.

I stamped the Hero Arts Flower Medley stamp onto white cardstock and heat embossed the faded jeans and shabby shutters distress powders, rubbing over the image when it was set to remove the release crystals, creating the distress effect. I loved the distressed look it created and carried it on by distressing the edges of the piece by running the blade of my scissors up and down the edges to give them a torn look. I did the same with a piece of brown textured card stock and adhered the image to it at an angle. I wrapped twine around three times, tying a small bow on the left side. I then stamped a cream coloured card with Hero Arts La Lettre in Antique Stain distress ink several times, wiping off ink on random parts of the stamp before stamping to create an old faded look. I went back with antique linen on a blending tool to distress the edges of the card, and also frayed burlap on the very edges after distressing with my scissors as I did with the other pieces. I adhered the pieces onto the card at an angle and then stamped the sentiment which I altered from the Hero Arts Everyday Sayings by cutting the stamp in half and mounting it on my clear block in the desired position.

I loved how this card came out and once I had one done I got in the distressing groove!! Here's some more I created....

I had some samples of ColourCore cardstock that I had received which as the name suggests have a coloured core and are designed to be sanded to created a distressed look. I pulled these out and went to town on a red piece in the card above, sanding and using my newly (to me!)  discovered technique of distressing the edges using scissors. I stamped La Letter in frayed burlap and sanded over it again. I love how the piece turned out almost looking like fabric with all the texture and faded colour. I used my Hero Arts Handwritten Christmas stamp, using the masking technique to change its layout. I stamped Hero Arts Flourish Pine onto a cream card and distressed the edges using scissors and inking with antique linen. The felt poinsettias and leaves are by Making Memories and I picked them up at Target. I stuck them on with Glossy Accents and then embellished with stick on gems in the centers of the flowers.

 Next up is a really simple card I made using a seahorse stamp I had bought from a designer on Ebay and hadn't been able to work out a way to incorporate it into a card yet. I just stamped the image using Vintage Photo onto a piece of cardstock, and inked over with antique linen and frayed burlap using the blending tool, and once again pulled out those scissors to distress the edges! I used another piece of the ColourCore cardstock, this time in brown and sanded it a lot to give it a really distressed look, again with the scissor distressing too lol! I just adhered the pieces onto a matching coloured card and stamped the simple sentiment also from the Hero Arts Everyday Sayings underneath in Stazon.

 Then I moved on to this little owl stamp I got in a set of bird stamps (can't remember the manufacturer, sorry) at Joann when I went on my very first ever stamp supply shopping  trip a couple of months ago! I kept trying to use it, and really wanted to use it in a card for my grandmother who collects owl ornaments, but was never happy with the results. I finally got one I liked!! I used the same techniques and inks as in the seahorse card, just using patterned paper for the mat this time. I also stamped Hero Arts Design Block Flourish onto the card with frayed burlap and swiped the blending tool along the edges to blend. The card has a glossy finish to it so the ink didn't soak in well. I blotted over it with a paper towel to pick up some of the sxcess ink and it gave it a more soft, smudgy look that I thought really matched the feel of the card. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Birthday Messages.

The colour scheme and idea to add the beads on wire wrapped around the image was inspired by the current Etsy Inspired Challenge,  in particular this necklace from their featured Etsy store Happy Day Designs:

 I just love the look of the turquoise and browns together. They have lots of other beautiful beaded necklaces also, lots of fun 'window shopping' over there!!

Finally, one last card made using all the same techniques and supplies as the cards above, using another stamp I had bought and not found use for yet!! I just had to get this stamp from the Tim Holtz collection for Stampers Anonymous, after all it is my personal mantra... and the inspiration for the name of my blog!! This time I stamped Hero Arts Dots and Flowers on the green distressed cardstock panel, and the card, again wiping off ink in parts of the stamp before stamping to create a more distressed effect.

Oh what a fun stress relief that was, I am now hooked on distressing!!

Thanks for stopping by

Lynsey x

Yey!

Just wanted to share that I was so excited to find out today that my Holiday Inking Tree was recognized in a tweet by Hero Arts!!

It was such a lovely surprise, and confidence booster for me as a newbie stamper/cardmaker. I have to admit I was starting to get a little intimidated by all the wonderfully talented crafters out there and thinking that my efforts just didn't match up. I have a horrible habit of wanting to be the best at everything, and giving up if I can't be, and it has really been great for me to try to push past this with creating cards. All of your lovely comments here, and on Two Peas and the Flickr pool have really helped!! A funny thing is I almost didn't post this card as I didn't like how the background turned out LOL, just goes to show you can be your own worst critic!

Sorry if I am a little over excited, and gushing over just a little Tweet, but this is huge for me having only been doing this for a little over a month :)

I saw a quote on someone's blog today (sorry I don't remember who it was...) that said:

"If only the birds with the sweetest voices sang in the trees, the forest would be a quieter place."

That really made me think and encouraged me when I feel so inadequate compared to all those super talented ladies out there.

I'll be back tomorrow with some more cards I created today- having fun with distressing!!

Lynsey x

Lazy Sunday

Don't you just love lazy Sundays? Hubby has been out mountain biking this morning so I have been snuggled up on the sofa with a cup of tea and my laptop having a look at all the wonderful creations people have posted over the weekend. I've also been considering signing up as a Stamping Up! consultant. I was thinking about looking into it in the New Year once we are moved into our new house (hopefully) and settled. I figured it would be a good way to maybe get to know people in a new town, and make a few pennies to support my new hobby. From what I could see there is only one lady in the town we're moving to who does Stampin Up, and by the looks of her event calendar she isn't very active with it, so I'm thinking it might be worth giving it a go. But on the other hand, if I don't know anyone in the town, how do I even get started? hmmm. This was just a thought playing around in the back of my mind, but then this morning I found out that the company is doing a deal where their starter pack is 50% off until November 30th- so now if I'm going to do it, now would really be the time to get signed up.......oh what to do, what to do!!!! What do you think?

I wish Hero Arts did a consultant program, I'd sign up for that right away!!! Or Ranger, that would be a good one too!

I also had time to take photos of my most recent projects this morning, and even managed to get a Thinking Inking challenge card up and posted at Two Peas before the challenge deadline LOL. I really loved the sticky back canvas tree Jennifer did in this weeks Holiday Thinking Inking and it really was as easy at she made it look! My double distress in the background didn't come out as well, but I think that was due to the stamp I used for the first layer, it didn't have enough stamping to really be effective. Anyway, here it is...

I stamped Hero Arts Starry Sky (S5448) onto a glossy card with Distress Embossing Ink, heating it until it was really dry,  and then used Broken China Distress ink, wiping it directly onto the paper and wiping off the excess with a cloth. This was heat dried also and then I stamped a snowflake from Inkadinkado Snowflakes set several times around the card, again using the embossing ink, and heat dried it before applying several layers of Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink. I followed Jennifer's directions on how to make the tree, tearing strips of sticky back canvas and twisting them sticky side in, and sticking them to a triangle covered in dry adhesive- it makes a lot more sense when you are watching the video LOL. I stuck the tree to the card and then used Snow Writer by DecoArts to make snow at the bottom of the card. Once the snow was on I thought the background looked too muted so I stamped a few small snowflakes around the sky using Color Box white ink, and added gems to the tree for a little sparkle. The sentiment is from an old Hero Arts set.

Look at these little Santa Hats

Aren't they just sooo adorable! I picked them up at Target on Friday, and as soon as I saw them I pictured my new little birdie stamp wearing them, he he , soooo cute!

I stamped my little bird from Hero Arts Birds and Branches and coloured him to look like a robin using distress inks mixed with a little water and applied with Tsukineko Fantastix. The cardstock pilled a little from the water but it kind of made it look like feathers... kinda lol! I cut him out and put his little hat on and then stuck him onto a second image I had stamped onto white cardstock. I inked the background with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and  made a little pile of snow for him to stand on with Snow Writer. The mat was made by running a piece of cardstock through my Texture Boutique with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, and then inked with fired brick and sanded lightly. The sentiment, from Hero Arts, was stamped using black Stazon and then it was adhered to a metallic brown card.

Another quick card using those cutesy santa hats...

For this card I just embossed a piece of white card with the Hero Arts Rain Drop Background and A La Mode sparkle embossing powder and then cut strips of patterned paper from the DCWV Christmas Combo matstack and adhered them to the card. The circles were cut from the same paper stack, using my Fiskars circle punch, and then adhered to the white embossed piece. Finally the three little santa hats were stuck on the circles, using a little Glossy Accents to make sure they stay in place! Since getting into stamping and distress inks I have really ignored my piles of patterned paper I've had sitting around for years since my attempt at Scrapbooking ages ago! The current Wee Memories challenge- to 'dust off that patterned paper' really inspired me to go through my paper and get it onto a card!! I had actually bought this matstack this year when I first planned to make my own cards, and then added it to the ignore pile LOL, so it was good to get it out and use it!

I made a bunch more cards this weekend too, but I'll save them til later in the week so I don't go on forever here again!!

Hope you're enjoying your lazy Sunday!

Lynsey x

Just a quick note....

Just wanted to jump on with a quick post as I did tell you to 'watch this space' for an exciting update today!! Unfortunately I can't report good news yet- and apparently won't know now until after Thanksgiving :( As it's really not an exciting enough thing to keep everyone in suspense for that long, I'll spill the beans!! We're actually in the process of acheiving one of our 2010 goals (as I talked about in my first blog post), and are trying to buy a house!!!! I say trying as we've put a bid in on a HUD home, but the asset managers that are dealing with this house are changing hands or something so while they used to approve or deny bids on a daily basis, they were only going to do so today and the 26th of this month. Well today came and went with no news, so our realtor did a little digging and found out that the company decided to just look at and approve/deny bids on the 26th, arrggghhhh! We've already been waiting a week, and now it looks like we'll be waiting two weeks more..... hopefully not to just be let down at the end of it all! So think positive thoughts for us everyone- we love this house and are really worried that now it's available for another two weeks, more people will see it and put competing bids in.

So, seeing as that is going to be all going on for the next two weeks, and I fly out to England for 3 weeks on the 27th I figured I had better get out of this stress induced funk and get on with Christmas card making!! I've been stamping up a storm in my craft room this evening, but need to wait for good light before I can take photos and share. Hopefully I'll get to do it tomorrow, but we're thinking we might head out for the day and try and forget about all the house drama, so it might be a couple of days before I get them posted.

Anyway, enough of my pointless rambling!!! Hope you all have a good weekend- I'm off to the Hero Arts Flickr Pool for more inspiration...

PS- Do you think it is normal that one of the reasons I can't wait to move is so I have an excuse to get this so I can CASE Virginia's lovely cards to make our new address cards?!!!!

Lynsey x

Catching Up...

Hi all! Sorry it has been a while since I posted- I know what you were thinking, there goes another new blogger running out of steam after two weeks!! I have no excuse, other than being distracted with a few stresses in life- its still all going on now, but I'm hoping to be able to report a positive outcome on Friday...watch this space!!

With everything going on I kinda lost my crafty motivation for a bit, but I have still been hopping around on all the wonderful blogs I follow, and checking in at the TwoPeas and Hero Arts Flickr Pool galleries and getting all inspired by the creativity out there! I have done a little stamping here and there though, and thought it was about time I got them posted on here!!

First up, I wanted to say a huge thanks to Daria (DJC) over at Two Peas for the oh so cute Hero Arts Birds and Branches cling stamp set she sent me after I won the random drawing for a RAK in her Stamptoberfest challenge. I couldn't wait for it to arrive, and as soon as it came in the mail I sat myself down and had so much fun playing with it (after perusing the HA Flickr Pool for inspiration of course!!). Here's what I came up with so far...

I stamped this little guy onto two different patterned papers and then cut the wings from one and body from the other and after stamping him again on some white cardstock I adhered the body over the white cardstock image, and used foam dots to adhere the wings, giving them dimension. I coloured the crown and beak using prismacolor pencils. I created the background by stamping the flower stamp from the same set repeatedly using bundled sage and peeled paint Distress Inks. I then inked over the bottom with bundled sage, and the top with tumbled glass to give the look of a sky. The orange piece was inked in spiced marmalade and then I ran it through my Texture Boutique using the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Everyday Sayings and was stamped using black Stazon.

I also made another quick birthday card which I have sent out to one of my friends back in England...

This was a really easy card. I just stamped the big birdy onto white cardstock and then stamped the balloon (from Hero Arts Birthday Messages) to look like he was holding it, cute huh! It made me smile! I adhered it to a metallic blue card, and then to add a little detail I used my new Martha Stewart Score Board to score a border around the image, and then used a white gel pen to make little dots inside the border. Finally, as I thought he needed a little dressing up, and because I am becoming a little obsessed with gems, I put purple gems over each of his white spots on his back. Simple, but cute, I thought!

Thanks again Daria!!

Phew, this is going to be a long post as I still have 3 more projects to show you, hehe!! I guess I have been a little more creative in my blogging absence than I originally though.....

Next, a couple of cards inspired by Jennifer McGuire's Thinking Inking Holiday series over at TwoPeas. I can't wait to see those videos every Monday morning, with only a couple of weeks left I will miss them when the series is over! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the projects focused on stamping with paint. I had bought a set of Paint Dabbers after watching the original series of Thinking Inking but hadn't used them yet, so after watching the new projects I was determined to give them a go. I picked up the Hero Arts Flower Medley stamp at Michaels (along with some other goodies of course, hehe!) and thought it would be perfect to use with my paints.

I inked up the stamp with Lettuce and Pool Paint Dabbers to give the effect of grass and sky, and stamped it onto white cardstock. Then I coloured in the flowers using finger daubers and Wild Honey and Scattered Straw Distress Inks. I dry embossed the white piece using my Texture Boutique and Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, and then stamped the sentiment from the Hero Arts Birthday Messages set using black Stazon. I tied a bow around the card with ribbon, adhering it with Glossy Accents. I adhered the pieces onto a metallic brown card and added a little dimension and shine using gems in the center of each flower, and a pearl in the middle of the bow. This one will be going to my Nan for her birthday at the end of the month, and I'm excited to be able to give it to her in person as I will be in England for her birthday for the first time in 5 years, yey!!

My next card inspired by the Thinking Inking classes used the technique Jennifer explained, using alcohol inks on sticky back canvas. I had both of these items and had not been finding much use for them, so as with the paint dabbers, I was excited to get some new ideas.

The colour combo for this card was inspired by the current EBTKS challenge. I inked a piece of sticky back canvas with various blue (can't for the life of me remember which, sorry!!) alcohol inks, adding a few drops of pearl mixative to give the fabric some shimmer. Once it was dry I white embossed Hero Arts Snowflake Tree onto the canvas, and 'stitched' around the edge with a white gel pen. I stuck it to a metallic card and stamped the sentiment (from Hero Arts Holiday Cheer Messages) using black Stazon. I couldn't resist some pearls in the center of some of the larger snowflakes on the tree, and a snowflake button stuck at the top!

Finally, I wanted to try my hand at stamping on candles again. Anne Gaal's November blog challenge is to stamp on a candle, and Hero Arts Blog challenge this month is to create a handmade gift (or gift tag), so what better time to have another go at it!!

I stamped Hero Arts Blooming Butterfly onto tissue paper with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink. I then wrapped the tissue paper around the candle and heated over the image with my heat gun until the wax melted through the paper. Once the image was completely melted onto the candle, I trimmed off the excess paper and again gently heated over the edges until they melted into the candle. I added a ribbon, and pearls, all adhered with glossy accents to add a little more prettiness to an already pretty candle!! This will be going to my best friend for her birthday, yey!!

Ok, I think I'm done.....oh wait, I must report that I have been progressing slowly but surely with Weight Watchers! I weighed in today and got my first 5lb sticker, yey me!! You know what that means- time to order my first 5 Copics, wahoo!!!

Last but not least, I have to take a quick moment as tomorrow is Veteran's Day to say how proud I am of my husband, Jason, who served 11 years in the US AirForce, and also to thank all of the men and women who have served in both the American, and English military, past and present. You are all in my thoughts every day.

Lynsey x

Christmas is Coming....!

I've had a great time today playing around making Christmas cards! I'm flying out to England for 3 weeks at the end of November so need to have all cards and gifts made/ purchased by then, and as tomorrow is the last day of the Hero Arts challenge I figured today was a great day to jump in and get started!

I had lots of fun with my Hero Arts stamps, embossing powders and of course my Distress Inks! I don't think I'll ever get bored of watching the embossing powder melt, or trying out different colour combos with my inks!

Here's what I came up with, which is your favourite?

Oh, and in other news... I started Weight Watchers last week. After all the meds I've been on, and sitting around a lot more, and well okay eating too much (!), I decided as part of my taking time out for me I need to lose weight and get down to a healthy BMI. Anyway, I had my first weight in today and I lost 2.6lb, yey me!! I've decided that I will reward myself with a Copic marker for every pound I lose, that way I won't feel as guilty for buying them, hehe!! I'm going to propose this plan to hubby tonight, I already have my first colours picked out so he really can't say no!! Thinking that I will save up until I have lost 5lb each time and then buy them to save on shipping, or maybe 10.... though don't think I can wait that long!! It's good motivation for me though as I'm determined to lose at least 2.5lb this week so I can place my first order!! No Halloween candy for me then, well maybe just one piece!!

Lynsey x