Newton’s Nook

It’s summer!

Happy Friyay everyone!

Today I’m celebrating the return of British summer as I know it (ie rain, chilly etc). The heatwave lasted a little too long for me and the garden and I’m very happy that temperatures are much more bearable.

I’m also celebrating the three-week adoptoptoversary of my mum and dad’s new cat, Oscar. Their resident cat, Minnie, is adapting well and less feisty than we all expected her to be! To mark this occasion, I inked up my latest Newton’s Nook purchase and tried to replicate Minnie and Oscar. It’s fair to say Oscar has a VERY healthy appetite so guess which cat he is!!

I’m entering this into the current Inky Paws challenge which has the a summer/beach theme!

Have a great weekend!

LucieG.

Find Your Paradise

Happy Saturday everyone. Although looking at my card, maybe that should be Happy Caterday!

I finally managed to get my hands on some Distress blending brushes and couldn’t wait to use them on my more intricate stencils. I love that I was able to get great coverage without getting the brush caught in the plastic. Yep, I think I’m going to enjoy using these!

To create the background, I added a layer of Antique Linen distress oxide ink on my base card, applying it slightly heavier in the bottom right corner, near where I planned to stamp the image. Then I splattered some ink using a paint brush. After stamping Newton, I lifted the Antique Linen colour from the image and then coloured it in using regular distress ink.

I then use an Echo Park Paper Co stencil to create the palm tree background, applying regular distress in with the distress brush. I didn’t bother masking the image off as it was easy to avoid stencilling in that area – thanks to the precision of the brushes!

Anyway, I’m entering my one-layer card into the current Timeout Challenge. The theme is ‘holidays’ which really means ‘vacation’ to me (one layer is the optional twist)!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Newton’s Easter fun

Hello everyone!

Although I try not to buy Easter sets, every year, a few break my resolve. This year, I couldn’t resists the Newton’s Nook Newton’s Easter set. Isn’t it cutte!

I used my twinkling H2Os to colour the image and then applied some distress ink – using a heart stencil from Simon Says Stamp. The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

I’m entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge (anything goes) and the Just Us Girls challenge (CAS).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Newton’s Feathers

Happy Friyay everyone!

I stumbled across a new challenge this week – the Twofer challenge. Basically we need to make two different cards for two different occasions using the same stamps and/or dies…. Interesting!

The January challenge theme is ‘feathers’. Perfect opportunity to dust down my Newton’s Birthday Flutter set which I have had in my craft room for YEARS but have never used. Whyever not? It is such a cute set…

Anyway, my first occasion was birthday and I used the cheeky Newton’s sentiment! I coloured all the images with my Twinkling H2Os and then masked them off whilst I blended some distress ink into the background. In hindsight, I really should have coloured the cat orange like my mum’s sweet cat who loves stalking birds!

My second occasion is ‘missing you’. Once again I coloured all the images with my Twinkling H2Os and then masked them off before doing some ink smooshing! I cut the image using a My Favourite Things stax die. When I popped it onto the Kraft card, I felt ‘something’ was missing, so I embossed a frame using a larger die from the set – I really quite like how this turned out.

Anyway, I’m also entering these cards into the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge (birds of a feather)

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Stencilled trees

Happy Christmas Saturday people!

It’s been a while (ie a couple of weeks) since I posted a card of a Christmas tree! I have so many Christmas tree dies and stamps, I love them!

For these cards, I decided to used the technique I learnt for this tag. I created two  rainbow stencilled backgrounds using an Altenew stencil and a Newton’s Nook stencil. I then embossed over the stencilling with clear embossing powder. I covered the rest of the card in a few different shades of distress ink and wiped the excess ink from the ‘baubles’ and snowflakes.

I then cut the card using a simple tree die from Poppystamps – I must confess, I wasted spent quite a bit of time trying to work out the ‘best’ part of the card to cut, but I think I would have got a nice range of coloured baubles and snowflakes whatever I did.  But, well you know what it’s like, trying for ‘perfection’!!!

To create the card backgrounds, I applied some glitter paste through two stencils (a Tim Holtz stencil  and an Echo Park Paper Co stencil which is fast becoming one of my favourite stencils (star stencil)) and a little distress ink to ‘ground’ the trees. To finish off the cards, I stamped a sentiment by My Sentiments Exactly.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Naughty, nice or purrfect?

Hi there!

The theme for this week’s Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is ‘furry friends’ – perfect opportunity for me to ink up a new Newton’s Nook Designs set that I treated myself to last week!

I coloured the image using my Twinkling H2O paints and then fussy cut it as I don’t have the coordinating dies. After embossing the sentiment onto a strip of cardstock, I felt that the card still needed a little something extra. So I used a stencil to add a subtle background – I love this technique as I think it really helps to ‘anchor’ an image.

I’m also entering this into the current CAS Mix It Up challenge where the theme is stamping, glitter and own choice (stencilling).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.