Time Flies

And it certainly does! I've had the base of this tag sitting on my desk since Tuesday (it made an appearance on my desk this last Wednesday!) and I just wasn't sure what to do with it.

It's an ordinary manilla tag, run through my lovely 'Bug with a beautiful embossing folder that came with it. I inked over it with Tea Dye DI to bring out the embossing even more and then edged it with Walnut Stain.

Then on Friday the back issues of Craft Stamper magazine that I had ordered arrived and with the February issue was this rather fetching little pocket watch and 'Tempus Fugit' script. So I tore a piece of card and inked with my fave combo of DI's; Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain. I flicked a bit of water at it and once dry the script was stamped in black StazOn and the watch in WS. And then that was it again for a couple of days.


Anywho, over the weekend I finally finished it! I wrapped the panel with a bit of twine and layered on foampads. The watch was stamped again, this time in black, onto white card and inked (AL and TD). the little inner dial and the hands were glazed with a Sakura glaze pen.


I cut some wings out, using a template, from a grey-ish board for a different colour and inked and stamped with TD and WS.


The letters were torn ransom stylee from the freebie newspaper we get here and aged with those same inks.


As this weeks theme over with the lovely Hels at the Sunday Stamper is brown I thought this was a very apt project.


And also, there is not a flower in sight so I will also enter this into the Creative Card Crew's 'no flowers' challenge.


Charli x

Never-ending Nature

Phew, I am just in time to enter the Sunday Stamper's challenge, which this week has been 'nature'.

Also the Take a Word prompt was 'birdlife'. So with those two ideas in mind this project was born:

Last year for Mother's Day I made my Mum and MIL never-ending-cards and my Grandad was thoroughly fascinated by Mum's; kept playing with it and thought it was really complicated (of course I didn't let on how simple they actually were lol!!). So I decided that for his birthday this year I would make him his own to play with.

I chose to use my gorgeous bird stamps (from 7 Gypsies) -I've had them for a good while now and I still reach for them all the time! And chose to go with neutral colours for a masculine look and a natural feel.

The base and panels were made from white card, inked up with DI's (Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain). All stamping was done with black StazOn and the two darker DI's. The panels were layered onto black card and it was all stuck together using a combo of DST and gluestick. It took quite a while to do - 14 rectangular panels and 24 squares, plus the layers argh!!

Well I think all that work was worth it as I love the outcome. Just need to sort out some wording for it now, but as his birthday isn't until June I've got plenty of time to find something appropriate!!


This is also being entered into Simon Says Stamp Challenge, which this time around is Anything Goes!


Thanks for looking, I now have to try to remove the Walnut Stain Distress Ink from my fingers....


Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

Purrfectly Masculine

I often struggle with cards for men, that's one reason I love Distress Inks so much as I find the right colours offer a good masculine look.

This time I was a little lost when trying to think of a design I could use for a male cat-lover.... then I saw the challenge for the Secret Crafter this week is a patchwork background, and that seemed to ignite a spark of inspiration.

Also I'm entering this card into Sarah Hurley's challenge of four-legged friends!

I took a plain white A6 card blank and drew a diagonal grid of one and a half inch squares using a brown Indian ink pen. I then lined the squares with faux stitching (I just hope the 'imitation patchwork' still counts for the challenge lol).


The rows of blue squares were coloured with Weathered Wood and Faded Jeans, and just Faded Jeans. The green columns are Tea Dye and Forest Moss, and Forest Moss and Walnut Stain. I inked the squares by masking them one at a time with sticky notes.


The panel was made in the same technique; a square of white card split into 9 one-inch squares using the same pen, then little crosses added to the joins to represent stitches.


This time, the 5 paler squares were masked and coloured with Antique Linen and Tea Dye with the stamping of the little cats and sentiment done with Walnut Stain. The other squares were WW and FJ, overstamped with FJ; and TD and FM, overstamped with FM.


The finishing touch was to add the trim twice around (its really thin!) and knot it.


In my opinion a purrfectly masculine card!


Happy crafting,
Charli x

Mother's Day

Yes, I know its still a good few weeks away, but I'm trying to be super-organised this year. Plus its the current challenge at C.R.A.F.T.

This card is also eligible for the Alphabet Challenge - R for ribbons.

And it was supposed to be entered into last week's Tuesday Throwdown, whose challenge was tags, but I forgot to upload it yesterday... ooops!

The card is a trifold a little smaller than DL, and I cut 3 panels and 3 pockets; some were run through my new Cuttlebug V2 (love, love, LOVE my new 'Bug!!) and inked up. The other panels were inked and stamped. 'Happy Mother's Day' was stamped in black StazOn and everything else was done using Distress Inks (Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord).

The tags are chipboard flower fairy ones that I've had lurking for a while; they were a craft mag freebie. They were layered onto silver mirri and threaded with white shiny organza ribbon.

Then I added some little sentiments onto the backs.

And here is the card for my MIL; my first 'double twisted easel' -catchy huh?!
I really like how this one turned out.

Pale pink pearlescent card run through the 'Bug. White card layers inked up. Flowers were stamped and cut out, the pink ones were inked and over-stamped, the lilac ones were put through the 'Bug too (can't you tell its new?!) and then inked. 
Sentiment was stamped in StazOn, roughly masked off and over stamped with a floral journalling panel.
Obviously all inking was done with DI's, this time it was Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Worn Lipstick.


Charli x

Under the Sea

That's the new challenge over at Crafts and Me.
Now if I think of under the sea, I think of mermaids; my fave image of the moment is this gorgeous flippered gal from ching-chou kuik. Speaking of favourite stamps, that just so happens to be the theme for Sweet Pea Stampers!


And what colours say 'underwater'? Blue and green of course. Guess what? Yup another challenge, this time Crafty Creations are asking for a feminine birthday card in just those colours (and the perfect way to move on from all that pink yesterday).

And to finish off, Simon Says Stamp Challenge has a recipe of 1 image (the mermaid -check), 2 papers (the dotty one and the stamped/inked one -check), and 3 types of embellishments (shaped beads, gems and string -check!)


Image stamped in black StazOn and coloured with DI's using the watercolour technique (Faded Jeans, Weathered Wood, Forest Moss, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain); plus fleshtone watercolour pencil; cut out and layered onto foampads.
Strip of torn white paper inked with Weathered Wood and scalloped border stamped in Faded Jeans to look like scales.
Torn strip of green dotty paper, edged in Forest Moss.
Torn piece of white card stamped with sentiment, coloured WW and edged in FJ; wrapped with strand of string and adhered with foampads.
Beads threaded onto knotted string double strand.


Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

Sweet Simplicity

Lately I've been doing alot of projects where I use lots of colours to colour a stamped image, and a fair bit of papers for backgrounds and things, but yesterday I had the urge to just simplify everything.

To make this card I literally used about one and a half sheets of A4 plain white cardstock, 2 Distress Inks (Dusty Concord and Forest Moss), 2 floral stamps, the sentiment stamp with black Staz-On, and a strip of plain white satin ribbon.

I think when you keep all the 'ingredients' simple and white, it allows for more creativity.



Firstly, I scored, folded and trimmed a sheet of card down to standard DL size. Then measured the stamp I wanted to use and found that it would fit a 2x3" panel perfectly. I cut 3 panels to follow the sketch over at Cards and Things.


I stamped the image onto each panel using Forest Moss, then used a wet paintbrush and smidge more ink to colour in the leaves.


The flowers themselves were stamped onto other card in Dusty Concord (I love how those two colours give a vintage feel without being really girly), using the same method to fill in the blooms. Once they were dry I cut them out roughly and layered them onto foam pads.


I cut 3 panels slightly bigger, and three more a little bit bigger still, then inked them with the Distress Inks, alternating the colours of the panels; then layered them up.


I drew a line across the base where I wanted the ribbon to be and masked off the top portion with sticky notes. I chose a small flower stamp that was easy to ink by pressing the flowerhead onto the purple and the stem onto the green, then blotted it on scrap paper each time before stamping onto the card.


I coloured the white ribbon with the Dusty Concord and stuck it down with DST as wet glue would've made the colour run.


Finally I added the sentiment in black to the right hand panel, and added all three on foam pads.


Incidently the theme at Lexi's Creations is 'flowers' so I'm entering it there too.


Wishing you all a great weekend; we're off for a family gathering so should be good fun!


Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

By Royal Appointment

Once again I was in the mood for getting my hands all covered in ink this morning; I suppose I need to make the most of it while its half term and I don't have work to go to!

I managed another three-for-one, well I suppose technically its a three-for-three lol; I haven't made an ATC for so long that I just couldn't stop at one!!

So this little set of three Royal ATCs are entered into:

Simon Says Stamp and Show 'stripes'

Sunday Stampers 'numbers'

and The Crafty Pad 'red, pink and black'

 The ATC bases and the inchies on the first one were cut from an old cereal box. All were created with plenty of stamping, masking and inking (coloured with Victorian Velvet, Worn Lipstick and Barn Door Distress Inks). A couple of bits cut from some old playing cards, crowns stamped and cut from white card and some'coins' punched from silver mirri coloured with black ink.
You can't see it but the crowns on the inchies and the ones from white cardstock are highlighted with a Sakura glaze pen.

Incidently, all 3 ATCs are available if anyone wishes to do a trade, either the whole set or individually. Just leave me a comment here and/or click the link at the top of my blog to email me.

Charli x

PS. The stamped stripes were done with another background stamp I made myself with some strips of craft foam and a lid from a small cigar tin. Here is a little pic of it and the harlequin design I made a while back and used on my tag here.

A Three-For-One

This morning I decided to spend some time getting all inky and messy, with some inspiration from a couple of challenges.

First, Play Date Cafe has red, green and black as their colour scheme.
Second, Simon Says Stamp and Show are asking to see a tag.
And lastly CRAFT Challenge want 'not a card', which a tag isn't; so here we are:

Barn Door DI was blended around a manilla tag and edged with Walnut Stain.

I stamped the keys around the edges using black Staz-On and made a couple of masks from sticky notes. Using the masks I stamped over the keys with the script background and Tim's ticket block.

I added the  harlequin backgroud (that I made myself from craft foam glued onto a block) with Barn Door.

The letters were stamped onto inchies and then inked with Forest Moss, edged in Walnut Stain, then I used a wet paintbrush to lift the colour from inside the letters for a bleached effect. The centre one is glued down flat and the others are on foam pads.

The bird, from a Seven Gypsies set, was stamped using Walnut Stain DI and then the colour was blended out using a wet brush. He was cut out and attached with foampads.

The puzzle piece was inked with Forest Moss DI and a crown (from the same set as the bird) was stamped in Staz-On and coloured with green watercolour pencil.

The tartan ribbon adds a finishing touch and ties the colours together.

Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

Another Great Sketch

The challenge over at Sweet Pea Stampers is a beautiful sketch by DT member Vanessa.

This paper is absolutely lovely, fab colours, and is a sheet from a book of free paper from an old craft mag (wish I knew where I could get more). I cut a square down into the blocks on the sketch and adhered them to a square of silver mirror card.

The image is yet another gorgeous ching-chou kuik meraid, stamped with black Staz-On and coloured with Distress Inks (Weathered Wood, Victorian Velvet, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain and Forest Moss) using a waterbrush. I cut around it using a pair of decorative edged scissors, layered onto more silver mirror card and mounted onto foam pads.

The flowers were punched and ribbled until the layers peeled apart and were coloured with Weathered Wood and Victorian Velvet DI (which match the paper superbly).

The finishing touch is the text, a quote from Hans Christian Andersen that was included on the ching-chou kuik stamp plate.

Charli x

A Winged One

I made this card using one of my gorgeous new Ching-Chou Kuik stamps, and as luck would have it it's suitable for entry into a couple of challenges.

Firstly over at Crafts and Me the theme is Time To Spread Your Wings, meaning anything with wings, which this gorge mermaid-fairy definitely has.

Also the requirement over at Fab'n'Funky Challenges is to make your own embellishment/s, which I have done with my distressed paper flowers.

The flowers were punched from ordinary white cardstock, and run through my paper ribbler/crimper/thingamajig in all directions until the layers peeled apart, then coloured with Distress Inks (Dusty Concorde and Milled Lavender). The centres were doodled on with a gel pen.

As for the rest of the card, it was a white square base card and I cut the front off then folded it in half so that the image could stand above it and it would still fit in the same envelope. I used some temporary adhesive to attach some star-shaped sequins to the bottom corner to act as masks, and inked the whole card with Milled Lavender DI and edged it in Dusty Concorde. I stamped the script background in black Staz-On.

The image was stamped in Staz-On and coloured with watercolour pencils. I trimmed her down and rounded the top corners before layering onto purple holigraphic card. It's attached to the base with foam pads and the flowers were added with mini glue-dots to allow the petals to maintain dimention. The finishing touch is the 'Do you believe' stamp that came on the same plate as the image.

Gifts!

Ha, so much for me posting at least once a week, but am having real problems getting online at the moment.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics of some of the gifts I made for Christmas just gone.

 I made 4 of the jewellery boxes, in varying colours, and 2 of these frames - plus another type of frame too but as yet I can get no photo (can you believe I forgot to take photos before I wrapped them all and gifted them to family?! Luckily these were given to my mum so pics were easy to get)

 The jewellery boxes were little plain wooden ones with magnetic catches. First I gave them a white emulsion undercoat (have a big tin in the cupboard from repainting the ceiling lol) which gave a nice worn look with only one thin coat applied.

Then I added some subtle colour; for the box in the picture I used Dusty Concorde Distress Ink, but only to the flat areas, staying away from the edges to maintain the "shabby chic" effect. I then stamped onto it using Dusty Concorde, Forest Moss and Walnut Stain DIs, blotting the stamps for a paler, more distressed look.

The flowers were made by stamping out 6 petalled flowers - 3 large and 6 small - onto plain white cardstock. I overstamped them with a script stamp and cut them out. The flowers were inked alternately (on both sides) with Dusty Concorde and Milled Lavender DIs. There are lots of tutorials online on how to make the flowers, I simply used only 3 layers for mine, adding coordinating seedbeads into the centres, and inking a couple of the removed large petals for leaves coloured with Forest Moss DI.

Once everything was glued on I coated it all in watered down PVA glue, including all the petals.

This frame was again given a coat of white emulsion, then lightly coloured with Antique Linen and Tea Dye DIs. I stamped the script backround in black, the flowers in Forest Moss and Tea Dye, and the birds in Walnut Stain. Crowns were added in Tea Dye above the birds and at the top of the base. I made sure to stamp the birds' tails on the outer edges too.

For the 'roof' I inked a book page in Walnut Stain then tore it into strips and glued them down overlapping, with watered down PVA glue, which I then coated the whole thing with; adding the wooden bird embellisment to the bottom corner.


I have to admit, I really enjoyed making them and was very pleased with how they turned out. And most importantly they were very well received! I'm planning to make a stack of them to sell this year at a craft fair.

Will try to post again ASAP.
Take care and happy crafting,

Charli x

Feelin' Blue

For this card I followed the lovely sketch set by Sweet Pea Stampers, and as I used my witch for my last beermat, I decided to use my fairy (ching-chou kuik) this time.

I swear they won't always appear as blue-eyed brunettes(can't think why I do that lol), in fact I have stamped out a few of each image ready to be coloured - making each one different.

Anyway, back to the card. Over at the Crafter's Companion blog the challenge for this fortnight is monotone, hence all the blue; and I think this stamp looks even more gorgeous in mixed shades of blue.


Again, I coloured her with watercolour pencils, masked her off and covered the background in Weathered Wood DI and edged it with Faded Jeans DI.


The paper in the very background is from the Kate Knight stack; the bright cyan paper is from some candy I won from Tuesday Taggers a fortnight ago; and as always there is a bit of book page (think I'm getting slightly obsessed with using it!), coloured with Weathered Wood.


The blue heart is ready for a greeting, when I find a use for this card; and it was a bit of a personal challenge to myself to make a girlie blue card.

As a finishing touch, as the challenge that started over at Crafty Creations today is 'magical' I added silver glitter glue over her wings for a bit of fairy magic.

Charmed, Enchanted, Bewitched

After going for a couple of drinks at our local for a friend's birthday, I came home to find that a handful of their uniquely shaped beermats had ended up in my pocket! A very odd occurance but hey, now they're here I may as well alter them.

So here is my project for the Darkness Inspiration challenge- Bewitched.

First I spent the better part of an hour trying to get the top layer off of the darned beermat (the others I have peel off easily; not so with this one - in fact there is still a little bit left under where the image is!)

I coloured the background Forest Moss DI (see! a new colour at last!) and then edged it in Faded Jeans. Then I took another torn out book page, coloured it with Weathered Wood (my other new DI) and stuck it down, trimming around the beermat and edging again with Faded Jeans.

Next I stamped out the Tim Holtz ticket block stamp, this time leaving it in tact rather than cutting them apart, to use as another background - tinting it with Weathered Wood (my new fave!) and then using a cottonbud to add Forest Moss around the edges of the tickets; again sticking it down then trimming it down.

The image is one of the gorgeous ching-chou kuik images, made by Sweet Pea stamps and bought from Crafts and Me. I coloured her with watercolour pencils then painstakingly cut out a mask from sticky notes and coloured the background with Weathered Wood, Faded Jeans and Forest Moss.

I used my brass stencils to do the wording with my brown Indian ink marker, using the same ink colours; added an eyelet and a strip of lace(ish) ribbon, some silver gems and finally a bit of silver glitter.

This piece is also being entered into the following challenges:
Crafts and Me - sparkle (the gems and glitter)
Crafty Pad - ribbon (the strip bowed at the top)
Fab'n'Funky - no designer paper
Crafty Creations - make your own backing paper (I did mine with a stamp, book page and planty of Distress Ink!)
and finally, Lexi's Creations - animals (her two adorable kittens)

Take care and happy crafting

Charli xx

First Altered Beermat

I have sat here since the end of the Easter holidays with a nice pile of circular beermats in front of me, waiting (and waiting, and waiting) to be altered.

Finally I got around to having a little play with one. I was relieved that the top layer of paper (the bit with the advertising on) peeled away neatly, leaving me with a blank canvas.

I have been drooling over all of Hels' beermats over at Ink on My Fingers, so it seemed only fitting that I would enter my first attempt into the Sunday Stamper's big special challenge to celebrate 100 weeks. The theme was FREE, under the song title of Free as a Bird (so I added a little bird to mine). Take a look as there is some SERIOUS candy to be won!!


This was nice and simple to do. I covered the base with Antique Linen DI, a bit of torn book page coloured with Worn Lipstick DI, a distressed paper flower and stamped elements all coloured with the same DIs plus a hint of Tea Dye DI too.


I loved making the masks for the various colours on the Cute Companion and completely love the tickets; they are one of Tim Holtz's stamps and come all joined together in a block but I very patiently cut them all down and went to work with the DIs!


The finishing touch was a gold eyelet and a strip of old-looking lacy stuff (from a bag of lace from the charity shop) which has allowed me to hang it on my notice board.

Will need to do more beermats now! (well I do have 29 left in my pile!!)


Take care and happy crafting

Charli xx

Terracotta and Turquoise

Over at the Play Date Cafe this week the colour scheme is clay(terracotta), turquoise and cream with a hint of silver/grey.

So with that in mind I made this card for a colleague's 50th birthday.

I chose a cream base card to keep it simple; Tea Dye DI is a very terracotta-ish colour when applied to white card so that is used on the layers, numbers, brushed across the paper flower and on the topper (using the masking technique to colour the roses darker). A strip of turquoise-blue mirricard was put through the ribbler (or whatever you want to call it) and lightly sanded to bring out the silver from underneath the colour. Some torn turquoise mulberry paper and a bit of old book page finish it off nicely.

This card also fits into the Crafty Creations challenge of distressing, as well as the Distress Ink, tearing and sanding, I also distressed the edges of the card layers with the blade of my scissors and made a fab distressed paper flower as per the instructions HERE (except I used a 2p coin and scallopped edged scissors instead of a punch). Well worth a look if you haven't seen it already!

And Another One

Next up is a card I made for a good friend of my husband's (luckily he doesn't look at my blog as his birthday isn't until 21st!)

It's my first proper 'distressed' card and I'm really pleased with it as it certainly seems quite masculine, which I usually find quite difficult (I can do girlie and non-gender-specific, but proper blokey cards are a challenge for me).

It uses paper from a fab masculine stack I found made by Paper Cellar. And the base is a white card, coloured with Antique Linen DI (of course!) and edged with Tea Dye DI, as are all the panels. The cake was a gold peel-off coloured with a brown permanent marker and coloured with DI (I promise I will get more colours soon!)

I really like the layout and it's my take on the great C.R.A.F.T. challenge sketch (all I did to it was add the rectangular layer and the greeting)

Also the theme over at Tuesday Taggers this week has been birthday cake/balloons.

Something Darker

This fortnight is the first time I have entered the fab dark/spooky challenge over at Darkness Inspiration.

The theme this time around is 'On the Graveyard'.

As yet I have no dark themed images or stamps so I kinda had to 'wing it'. (Sorry about the poor quality of the image - very tricky to photograph so much acetate!)

I chose to make an ATC. I started by covering a blank of white card with Antique Linen DI; then punched a circle from the sticky part of a sticky-note (be warned- it doesn't stick well when the inks still damp!) and placed it down for the moon. Then I coloured over it all with Faded Jeans DI; some Tea Dye DI for a cloudy look, black grass stamped across the bottom and some birds drawn on complete the base.

The tombstone was cut (freehand) from a drinks can and embossed with R.I.P. then coloured over with black Staz-On using a cottonbud and added some stamped grass. I shaped it slightly and raised it on foam pads.

On some acetate I stamped more grass across the bottom, a couple of drawn on birds and then the 'dark angel' type silohuette (cannot spell that word lol!) which was hand drawn and coloured with a black permanent marker.

A Couple of Queens

Here are my entries into the Small World of Inchies challenge, which is Royal Ladies.

The inchie is simply covered in a piece of aged text, the Queen cut from a stamp, a small stamp that vaguely resembles a crown and the word 'Queen' cut from a magazine.

The twinchie was a first for me... well two firsts actually. It was first ever twinchie, but also my first collage piece.


The background has multiple layers; I used Distress Ink (Antique Linen) and then stamped the flourishes randomly onto the base. Then covered it with some inked, crumpled tissue paper and stamped more flourishes. One more layer of inked and creased up tissue paper (with Tea Dye Distress Ink around the edges) and more flourishes around the edge.

The queen was cut from an old playing card -her hair, eyes and lips were coloured with markers. The crown was cut from a book page and inked (same DIs there!).


The hand (which due to blurry pic is hard to see) was cut from a magazine and to make the flower that the queen of clubs holds I used the fab Papermania Make Your Own Brad kit. I used the smallest sized punch and cut out the club from the playing card, attached it to one of the gorgeous brads and added the clear dome sticker over the top.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out and appologise for the poor quality image - I had to take it using my phone's camera.


Looking forward to a full days crafting tomorrow so hopefully I will be back with more project photos then.


Take care and happy crafting,

Charli xx

Altered Tag

Here is my latest project.

The tag came from a pair of jeans from a very cheap but popular clothes shop here in the UK. I loved the organza ribbon overlay and the rainbow print background.

First off, its quite flimsy so I backed it with card to give it some strength. I stamped my 'Happiness' stamp (from previous project) over the 'Denim Co' with black ink.

A piece of white tissue paper was coloured with Antique Linen Distress Ink, crumpled and lightly brushed with Tea Dye to emphasise the creases. This was layered over the base to tone down the rainbow, which is still faintly visible.

I used Antique Linen again to tone down the white ribbon (after placing a scrap of paper underneath to protect the rest of the tag) and took my permenant brown marker and  drew the tree onto the organza. Using black ink I stamped the bird (from one of the Cute Companions plates) twice onto the ribbon and twice onto the tag beneath.

The finishing touch was to write the word 'FLY' using the same marker, this time on the ribbon and the tag under it.

This is my entry into the Tag You're It challenge: "On a Bough".

Off to work on another project now....

Take care,

Charli xx

Third and Final

I really have been a busy little bee today, but I think all this variety after so long of making nothing but cards has refreshed my creative muse.

This time around I was inspired by the challenge over at Lexi's Creations which is to alter something.

I have a few of these little tins - from when my hubby tried to quit nicotine by smoking cigars instead of cigarettes - but I thought these little tins were adorable so I kept a handful.

This particular one holds paperclips, ring pulls and such.

I covered it with torn pieces of a book page (a book I have nodesire to read again that was bought as a holiday read from Poundland! I also stained it the old-fashioned way with actual tea!) and plenty of PVA glue, which has the added bonus of a glossy finish. The tree I drew with a lovely brown Indian ink brushtip marker that I have had for years.

The "magpies" are actually a little bird stamp that's more akin to a blackbird but with the beak made longer and more rounded and the tail made much longer - and also the colours - I think they may just about pass for magpies; they're stamped onto aged inchies.

The numbers in the rhyme and the inchies also qualify for the Small World of Inchies challenge with the theme 'Numbers'.

Thats all from me for now. Hopefully I will be back in a day or two with some more new creations.

I shall also blog-hop around to view the other entries to the challenges I've entered.

Take care and happy crafting!

Charli xx