THE JOYS OF GRANDPARENTING, Rediscovering Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter had owned her first Lake District farm, Hill Top in the village of Near Sawrey, for a year when she began work on The Tale of Tom Kitten. She shows Tom and his sisters living in the farmhouse and getting into mischief amongst the flowers of the beautiful cottage garden that she had created herself.

Three little kittens, Mittens, Moppet and Tom Kitten.  They had dear little fur coats of their own and they tumbled about the front door and played in the dust.  The little kittens mother, Mrs. Tabetha Twitchet expected company for tea and so she fetched the kittens and washed and dressed the girls in clean pinafores and tuckers.  She Tom had gown, and he had outgrown his finery.  His buttons burst off.  Mother sewed them on again.  Mother Twitchet unwisely turned them out into the garden to be out of the way while she made hot buttered toast. She directed them to "keep your frocks clean children, you must walk on your hind legs, keep away from the dirty dust ash pit, and Sally Henny Penny, and from the pig's sty and the puddle ducks.  They fell outbut later finds them in total disarray.   Moppet and Mittens walked down the path unsteadily.  Presently, they trod upon their pinafores and fell on their noses.  When they stood up, there were several green smears....

You tube has the stories, all complete, read in lovely English accents ready to stir young and old imaginations.  Happy Times.   

The card is created with a rubber stamp from Crafter's Companion.  Copic Markers were used for coloring.

Let us Grow Old like Beautiful Lace, Cherished and Treasured and Cared for with Grace

I made this embellishment for a birthday card for my sister.  You can see the full card toward the end of the blog.  It turned out to be one of my all time favorite cards.  Maybe that is because of the sentimental value.  Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are centered around watching my sister draw and design clothing.  When she was in high school drawing was one of her favorite past times.  My mother had a desk from her childhood that she refinished and put in my sister's bedroom.  My sister would sit for hours drawing ladies with fashionable clothing.  Her dream was to be a designer of couture clothing.  My grandmother, mother and sister all sewed clothing.  I remember once my mother making turquoise (my favorite color) look alike dresses for the three of us.  They had those twirly skirts and mine had a big black K in a beautiful font on the bodice. I loved that dress! My sister helped me with my first sewing project in junior high school.

I started with Ranger Archival ink and stamped the image below on Cryogen card stock.  The image is an unmounted rubber stamp from a show...so I'm not sure who it belongs to.  If anyone knows, I will be happy to add the name here.  

Colored with Copic Markers below:

I used the Brother Scan'n Cut to cut out the image.  It did a great job!  And then I tried free hand writing the poem that I wanted to use and cutting that out.  FABULOUS!  This just amazed me that it would cut such a fine line.  So much fun to use my new Christmas present!!  Thank you to my wonderful husband!!!

So Cool!

Next, some deckle edged vanilla cardstock.

I found this really cool paper, Botanique!.

Add caption

I cut out layered ovals and mounted the sewing girl with pop-ups.

Colored up some scrap lace left over from a wedding recpetion invitation...

Added some tiny buttons. And a row of edging cut out on the Broteher Scan 'n Cut.

Voila!

I entered this card in the Bloggers Challenge - A Feminine Touch found on Lisa Somervilles' site. Check it out! Click HERE.

A Scottish Highland Dancer from Highlander Celtic Stamps adorns this colorful plaid background card.

MAY 3, 2013

I entered this card in the Bloggers Challenge - A Feminine Touch found on Lisa Somervilles' site.  Check it out! Click HERE.

The upper stamped layer is cut with a  Spellbinders frame, stamped and then colors added with Copic Markers.  I used markers to color the dancer and airbrushing techniques for the background.

A Martha Stewart butterfly dimensional out was added.

The second layer is a coral cardstock cut with Spellbinders Die cut.

The coral die cut was place on yet another Spellbinder cut out in black.

A frame of  color was added to the coral layer with a Copic marker and white pearls airbrushed with Copic Markers were place at the top.

Scotland's Poet by Highlander Celtic Stamps

Robert Burns 1759-1796, is noted as Scotland's National Poet.

"O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others

see us."  "The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry"

This beautiful stamp from Highlander Celtic Stamps was the inspiration for this tribute to the noted author.

All stamping on this project used Ranger Archival Ink.

 This stamp was unmounted and I stamped it using this Crafter's Companion Acrylic block which is shaped differently from  most acrylic blocks that we use.

 The Crafter's Companion has a rounded surface that allows the stamper to "roll" the stamp onto the cardstock.  The idea is to stamp without losing any of the detail of the stamp.  I thought it took a little getting use to, but did work well.  I will continue to use it for awhile and then decide what I think.

 I used a Spellbinders tag to cut the beautiful frame for the cameo of Burns.

 The blue size oval scalloped punch was EXACTLY the right size for the oval in the middle of the frame.

 I am not sure who to give credit to for this stamp.  If anyone knows, please let me know.  If I remember correctly I purchased it at the Stampaway Rubber Stamp Show in Cincinnati several years ago.  I remember that I had to look up the stamps in books and then they pulled them out of drawers as unmounted.

 I used Eclipse Paper to make a silhouette of the book and candle stamp to use as a mask while I stamped the written word stamp in the background.

The background stamp of writing is made by Inkadinkado.

The background layer and Burns cameo are both airbrushed with Copic markers and distressed using a variety of tools to give them a vintage look.

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 The card was then assembled and layered on a layer of butterscotch cardstock off centered on black.