Summer Sun.....

is definitely shining this week, here's hoping it lasts until the weekend! CBH this week have set the theme of summer, and when I think of that, holidays come to mind. So my interpretation is this skinny below:

I stamped the cute lion (from Magnolia) onto the background and again on a separate piece of card. I then coloured both with watercolour pencils. The leaves I punched from patterned paper and chalked the edges to define them. Then I placed the leaves around the edge of the lion, and cut the head out of the second image and layered on top with foam pads to raise it off the surface, and did the same with the top layer of leaves. I cut the grass and layered that at the front. Hope you like the end result.

Three weeks until my summer holiday starts, and counting........

Look Into A Face.....

and what do you see?

This is the theme for TMTA this week, for which I created this ATC:

First I stamped the face and masked it to stamp the crackle effect. I then added colour with chalk eye and then the beads and flowers to complete.

Recently the hours are rapidly passing into days, and the days into weeks! Where does the time go when you wish you could spend more time doing the things you really want, but just don't seem to get the chance! At least the sun is shining and the birds are singing..................

As Mad As A.......

Box Of Frogs!

What a great saying, a good friend of mine introduced me to that saying, it took me a while to really get it though. It must be a Northern thing! Frogs is the theme over at TMTA this week and I chose to illustrate another frog quote using a cute stamp by Rachelle Anne Miller. I stamped it with Stazon ink and then added colour using watercolour pencils. I then hand wrote the quote, used a fineline pen around each word, cut and adhered to the ATC. Finishing touches were added with Stickles. I love this quote, and sometimes wish we could all do this!

Blog Award

What a nice message awaiting me on my return home today. Loretta left a blog award for me - thank you very much.

It is always lovely to know others like your work, I have been rather busy over the last few weeks, my mojo is slowly returning but I just have not had the time to do as much of my own work as I would like or post as frequently as I would like. Hopefully I will get the chance to do more of my own work soon.

So for the rules of this award:

1.Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who granted you the award, and include their blog link

2.Pass the award to 8 other blogs that you have newly discovered.

There are many wonderful blogs out there, but I have chosen the following that offer a world of inspiration. So, in appreciation of their wonderful blogs and the inspiration that they nurture in each of us, when we visit their blogs I give this to:

1. Nancy

2. Scrapbook Sisters

3. Jeannie

4. Kris

5. Taluula

6. Duda Daze

7. Frankie

8. Scrapperlicious

Click on each name to find some inspiration when you visit their wonderful blogs. Get ready for a mouth watering experience...............

Completed Layouts

CBH this week have a free challenge, so I have chosen to share with you a few layouts that I have finally finished! They have been sitting half done in a large stack of UFO's, but having recently been to a shop crop at Scrapbook Sisters, I had the opportunity to put the finishing touches to them. The layouts involve cutting of patterned paper, stamping and adding embellishments and doodling to finish. I hope you like the end results.

Compelled by Circles

Today I have chosen two layouts I completed a while ago of my mum and I, using a lot of cut and punched circles, and buttons as embellishments. I love these layouts, partly because of the shapes but also the colours of the papers, they worked well with the photos I had. I created these at a fortnightly class I attend at Scrapbook Sisters. They also fit the theme this week for Created by Hand of circles. I do tend to use a lot of circles in my work, there is something strangely appealing about the shape!

That Creative Thing.....

It has been a while since I have had the flair or desire to create anything worth blogging about. Thanks to all of you who have queried my absence from here, it has been a rocky couple of months. A friend and colleague went missing and the resulting outcome was not a good one, we lost a good person (even if he could be stubborn and grouchy!) Needless to say, I lost my mojo and all flair to create anything inspiring! As Karyn kindly said - my mojo went to someone else who needed it more at the time (I like to think that we all share our mojo and inspire others to create when they need the encouragement to).

Then exam time hit us at school and I became inundated with sorting out students exam requirements and chasing them for coursework! Will they ever learn that a deadline is a deadline? But the sun is now shining, and things are starting to look good again, and I have started to create for pleasure, and want to do so! So here I share with you two ATC's I created for TMTA this week on the theme of Egypt.

For the left one I stamped hieroglyphics onto greaseproof paper and added a touch of colour, then tore the edges, crumpled it and added some chalk eyes to distress to look like an old parchment. The background is created using acrylic paint and chalk eye around the edge. The parchment was added using glossy accents.

The right ATC was created by stamping King Tutenkahmun once on the ATC and again on a separate piece of paper to use as a mask. The mask was laid over the top of the stamped image and the background colour added up to the edge of it using acrylic paint. Once this was dry the mask was taken away and detail added to the stamped image using blue pen and white and gold metallic inks. Chalk eyes were used to finish the edges.

I hope you like the end results, and thanks again for your messages. I hope you are all well and each have a share of that mojo!