Thursday, 2 April 2026

C.R.A.F.T. #777 - Guest Designer


Hi everyone, I’m here again with another guest designer card for this fortnight’s C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - that’s twice on the trot! The theme for the next two weeks is 

*** Seasons / Weather / Anything Goes ***

The fabulous sponsor for this challenge is Polkadoodles 


.. who are offering a fab prize of 3 Digi images from their store.

The design team have made some gorgeous projects to inspire you, so please do visit the challenge blog to check them out, and to link up your own entries. 

Here is my card for the challenge - I decided to make a cheerful spring card, using a beautiful Tracy Evans spring floral stamp which I bought last year but hadn’t inked up until now. 


I took a snippet of white stamping card and stamped the focal flower, then stamped some coordinating script beneath it from an older large Tracy Evans stamp. I coloured the flowers and background with Zig pens , blending out the background with my Zig blending pen, then added Wink of Stella on the flower petals and white Posca spatters. I die cut a large frame from a snippet of green gingham paper, then cut my image snippet to size and attached behind the aperture. I stamped the sentiment onto separate card then die cut, edged with green ink and attached, and attached the finished panel to a card blank. I felt it still needed something else, so I retrieved an experimental coloured flower from the bin, fussy cut it out and attached in the top right corner. I then added a couple of stamped bunnies to finish and highlighted them with white pastel pencil.


Stamps: Tracy Evans Boutique Designs TE47 Wild and Free, TE32 Alpine Florals; AALL & Create #266 Daisy Elegance; Penny Back Spring Magic (2852C);
Media: Versafine Clair (Nocturne): Kuretake Zig Clean Color watercolour pens; Lavinia Elements ink (Line Punch); Wink of Stella (clear); Posca pen (white); pastel pencil (white);
Papers: from my stash;
Tools: Hunkydory Moonstone Duo- Stitched square dies.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Beautiful Blossoms #39 - Anything Floral Goes (3rd entry)
Card Concept #225 - Spring Flowers (2nd entry)
Creative Moments #280 - Bunnies and Blooms (3rd entry)
Paper Players #779 - Tic Tac Toe

(Die cut / Flowers / Layers)

Papercraft #128 - Joy of Spring (3rd entry)
Passion for Markers #831 - Dies and/or Punches
Sparkles #198 - It’s Springtime! (3rd entry)
Sweet Stampin’ - Spring or Easter (2nd entry)
Word Art Wednesday #746/747 - Anything Goes 

Thanks very much to the C.R.A.F.T. challenge Design Team for asking me to be guest designer again this time.

Take care, and thanks for visiting.
Hugs,

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

April in the Secret Garden


Hi everyone, this week it was time for me to get busy again to make my Lavinia April calendar page, and this month I managed to complete it with a day to spare - woo hoo! I was racking my brain trying to think of something slightly different from my previous springtime calendar scenes whilst incorporating the bunnies that illustrate the page, when I suddenly had a mini brainwave! I’ve always thought that the flowers which form part of the fairy stamp ‘Moments Like These’ look rather like open tulips, so I decided to use the fairy but also incorporate the flowers into the foreground too - a lot of very fiddly masking was required there, let me tell you! 


I cut a piece of white stamping card 19.5cm x 14.5cm, and created the background hills and sky by blending Elements inks using hill and circle masks. I then stamped the fairy, masking the flowers and stems with low tack tape, then stamping them using appropriate colours of Versafine Clair. I stamped the Spring Trees on the right mid foreground, and used the matching small foliage stamp to give them a cloud of green leaves. I stamped the tulips from ‘Moments Like These’ in the foreground in various colours, then added the bunnies. I added a little foliage amongst the flowers and hanging foliage top right, and a flight of geese. I coloured the fairy wings with Sakura Stardust pens, and added white Posca and Stabilo pencil highlights to the scene. Finally I thought that the centre ground still looked a tad bare, so I stamped the Secret Garden sign, then stamped again onto kraft card, cut out and attached before attaching the finished panel to my calendar.

Stamps: Lavinia Moments Like These, Spring Trees, Vine Flourish, Flower Pots, Wild Hares (large), Ducks, Secret Garden Sign;
Media: Lavinia Elements inks (Blue Atoll, Pine, Lemon Drop); Versafine Clair (Nocturne, Avocado, Hawthorn Rose, Cheerful, Summertime, Portobello); Sakura Stardust pens (pink, yellow, orange); Posca pen (white); Stabilo pencil (white).

Challenges I would like to enter: 

Beautiful Blossoms #39 - Anything Floral Goes (2nd entry)
Card Concept #225 - Spring Flowers 
Creative Crafting Uncles #75 - Spring and/or Easter (2nd entry)
Creative Moments #280 - Bunnies and Blooms (2nd entry)
Fab ‘n’ Funky #634 - Easter/Spring
Love to Craft #91 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)
Love to Scrap #178 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)
Mix It Up #82 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)
Papercraft #128 - Joy of Spring (2nd entry)
Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes
Sparkles #198 - It’s Springtime! (2nd entry)
Sweet Stampin’ - Spring or Easter

Take care, and thanks for visiting.
Hugs,