WOYWW 730: Holidays or Not

 Welcome to my half term contribution to WOYWW - a blog link up that has been going for over 14 years thanks to Julia (and others) at Stamping Ground.  Please visit to find out more.

The recorder concert at the Anglo-German Society in Lichfield on Friday went very well.  My brother (musical director) provided the English version of the script and it was up to me to provide the German.  This is one of four pages which I managed to complete on Friday and which passed muster with the native speakers.

Apart from my #dailydrawing2023 there has been no craft on my desk this week.  I am fully immersed in writing the 303 report comments which are required shortly after half term. I did take the first weekend off but am now trying to get through 40 comments a day leaving very few for when I return to school on Monday.  Afternoons are spent out with hubby as he has this week off work too.  If I don't get round to everyone this week, that is the reason why.  Happy WOYWW!

Black and Silver Henna Congratulations

I decided to go with a dramatic silver and black theme using these Congratulations Henna KISS stamps.

Peace on Earth and Good Will To All

I decided to work on kraft card using the new Winter SHAC Framer stamp set from Clarity Crafts.

All Occasion Notelets

I made a selection of simple notelets using three of the new Occasion Sentiment stamp sets from Clarity Crafts.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

These lovely new SHAC Framer collections make fabulous cards.  Here I used the Spring set.

Die cut a topper from Clarity stencil card using the 4” x 5” nested ovals die and a topper from Rainbow River companion paper using the corresponding picot die.

Add the A5 square SHAC Framer from the Spring set in Nocturne Versafine Clair ink.

Colour the flowers using Faber-Castell Polychromos (#134, #135, #125, #112, #266, #166, #112).

Add the verse sentiment in the same ink as before.

Add the dotty stamp to the sentiment in Seedless Preserves Distress ink.

Stamping directly along the bottom of a 6” x 6” white card blank, add stamps 4 and 5 in a row in the same black ink as before.

Add colour to the heads using the corresponding solid stamps in Seedless Preserves and Picked Raspberry Distress inks.

Colour the stems as the topper.

Add the dotty stamp to the top of the card in the same colour inks as the flowers.

To finish, mat up the topper and add it to the front of the card.

Happy Anniversary Henna

These new Henna KISS stamps from Clarity designed by Tina Cox are fabulous.  Here I used the Happy Anniversary set to make a card.

First Kiss Remembered

I already have the larger version of this stamp set, but was really glad when the bijou version was released.

Cut a 5” x 5” kraft card blank in half. Die cut a mat from Clarity stencil card using the 5.25” nested squares picot die.

Using a stamp platform, add the Bijou love Heart in Black soot Distress Archival ink (leave the stamp in place on the platform).

Colour the panels of the image using Derwent Inktense pencils blended with a watercolour brush pen (#400, #520. #700, #900, #300, #230, #210, #1400, #1210).

Once dry, replace the topper in the stamp platform, ink the stamp with Versamark ink and heat emboss with detail white embossing powder.

Add the Love outline to the topper in the same manner.

Colour the letters in the same manner as the heart (#400, #210, #900. #1400).

Add a drop shadow to the letters and heart using the same colouring method (#2120).

Mat up the topper and add it to the front of a 6” x 6” kraft card blank.

To finish the card, add one of the KISS Words stickers to a strip of kraft card, mat onto stencil card leaving a narrow border top and bottom. Add it across the card and trim the ends.

WOYWW 729: Post Anniversary Blues

Welcome to the start of year 15 in the annals of WOYWW - please visit Julia at Stamping Ground to find out more.

My desk shows some of the lovely ATCs I have received despite only participating in the PIF with one ATC made.  From top left - Christine, BJ, Mary Anne.  From bottom left - Helen and our fearless leader Julia complete with badge.  Thank you so much everyone; they are much appreciated and were lovely to come home to after a busy day at work.

Having really enjoyed a face to face workshop with Maria Moorhouse in Hadnall (Shrewsbury) on Saturday, I woke Sunday morning with a cold and by the time I went to bed I had a really sore throat too.  Woke up Monday morning feeling even more lousy and with no voice so I was sensible for once and sent in work - slept over 18 hours in 24.  I avoided my recorder group yesterday afternoon too so I would be well enough to go back into school today.

Just about managed to keep up with my #dailydrawing2023.  Stay safe and Happy WOYWW.

A Doodle ATC and Matching Card

The prompt for the Clarity Worldwide ATC swap for May is Doodle.  Here is the ATC and matching card which I made for my partner.

Rainbow Thank You Hearts

 I went with my signature rainbow colours using some of my favourite Distress colours to make a thank you card with Clarity Crafts New Design Club stamps from April 2023.

Gold on Blue Mandala

I worked with embossing paste through this lovely Clarity New Design Club stencil from April 2023 to create this card.

Word Chains

The Word Chains stamps from Clarity Crafts are useful for all occasions.  Here are some of the projects I have made with them with links to the full project below each picture.

See HERE.

A Paris Scene Tag

The current challenge over on Tag Tuesday is Travel and a couple of tags had a Paris theme so I decided to join in with this one.

I had a piece of copy paper that I had used to clean up my ink mat.  I decided to use part of it as a background for a tag and see what I could make of it. 

I chose an interesting section of the clean up sheet (copy paper) and added it to a #8 manilla tag, sealing with matt medium, drying and trimming. 

Looking through my stamps, I came across the Sketchy Paris Fashion set (Clarity Crafts) and decided to make a scene with those.  I started by stamping the Eiffel Tower stamp in Watering Can Archival ink.  I made the mistake of forgetting to remove the blue layer of ink which comes on the stamp as a quality control measure to check that the image is complete.  It came out rather more blue than grey; I didn't make the same mistake again lol.

I then added the sketchy lady from the same set in the same ink.

Finally, I decided to give the lady a four legged friend, using one of the stamps from the Wee Fashion accessory set (umbrella) this time in Jet Black Archival ink.  I also used one of the masks which come with the stamp set to mask off the image of the woman.

I added a horizon using Hickory Smoke Archival ink and a sponge and also sponged on some Dandelion Archival ink at the bottom of the tag.  Then I removed the mask.

The figure was coloured in using my Faber-Castell Big Brush markers in shades of yellow and warm grey.  I also used the same pens to add dots of interest to areas of the background, blended out with the tip of a cotton bud (Q Tip).  The outer mask of the smallest moon (Moon masks) was used to help add a moon behind the Eiffel Tower; then a Black Pitt Artist pen was used to draw in a lead for the dog.

A sentiment from the Small Talk Occasions sticker book by Tim Holtz was cut into three and added to the tag to complete the piece.