Hello Blog Land!!!

Long time no see!!!

I've been having a bit of an odd time for the last week or so. A mixture of work and not feeling so good with a dash of having a good think about what I want to acheive in the coming year.

The card I posted with the pregnant lady went down really well and I have had orders for other cards for other occasions from it which was a lovely surprise.

We are busy at the shop still with Christmas workshops and I did my first Monday class last week. I over-ran by about half an hour but that was due to serving customers at the same time so I didn't do too badly I don't think.......not when you consider that I can run over even when Deb is there to see to the customers........I do have a tendency to talk a lot.......lol!!!

Deb made the mistake of letting me have a look at one of our suppliers catalogues last week and saying that if I wanted anything to write it on the list. As you might guess the pen ran away with me a bit and I came home yesterday with a bag full of goodies. Three Cuttlebug embossing folders, a set of four dies and a large single one, six Adirondack ink pads to complete my collection of the earth tones, two ink rollers, a Brilliance ink pad and I can't remember what else although Deb gave me an early Christmas present of one of the Basic Grey packs with the papers, die cuts and alphabets. I was nearly in tears. It was the Periphery Collection which is just beautiful and I can't wait now to have a play with it..............just a few more weeks and then my time at home will be my own for a while.......yay!!!

The card I have posted today is my first attempt using Stampbord. I have packs and packs of it in my drawer but just haven't had the time to do anything with it but I needed to do something with it for a future class. I have to say that it won't be this card as it took me hours to do but I had fun with it.

The background is alcohol inks on white gloss card. Meadow and Lettuce with Gold Mixative. I then stamped the large image from my Elusive Images Holly set in Sage Ancient Page ink over the top. It doesn't stand out a lot as I wanted a very subtle finish.

The gold lines across the bottom are done with PVA glue which has been covered with embossing powder and heated. The gems were pressed on while there was still some wet glue but it didn't hold them so I lifted them off and re-attached them using Glossy Accents.

The Stampbord was inked with chalk ink pads and then stamped with the holly stamp in one corner. The rest of the decoration was hand drawn.

I scraped some of the drawing off and recoloured with a gold pen for the flourishes and an Adirondack pen for the dots.

Holes were made with my Crop-adile and threaded with eyelash fibre.

I am quite pleased with the effect but I'm looking forward to having a more in depth session with the Stampbord.........especially the larger pieces.

I played hookey today from the work I was doing at home to make a card for the DCM challenge. I will post that tomorrow as it is not quite dry yet and I don't fancy glue all over the scanner bed.

Best go and grab a couple of hours sleep as I have an all day class tomorrow at the shop. I have one Friday too so I will have done four days this week........no wonder I am shattered.

Ooh forgot to say a huge thanks to Andrew, Tanya and Alex at TandaStamps for the lovely welcome when I popped down to see them last Wednesday in Bridport. They very kindly showed me how they go about making the clear stamps and it was fascinating.

Night night then

Sheila-x-