Morning and welcome to another week.....

Morning readers,

Hope you all enjoyed a terrific weekend and that, if you got rain, you are keen gardeners! If you're not then - sorry! We got quite a lot of rain from Saturday afternoon through to around lunchtime on Sunday, some of it quite hard too! Suspect it put a dampener on the Balloon Fiesta so it's just as well we were up early enough on Saturday morning to get our balloon "fix" - pix posted on Saturday - see it here, if you are interested. It rained again last night, so hard we had to dash round the house pulling all the windows closed - arrggghhhh, it seems we're destined never to be happy about the weather we're getting!!!

It seemed like a good idea to stay in and craft especially as I had been in Cornwall and then Worcester (visiting friends on both occasions) so had been away from my ToC (that's Table of Craftiness) for what felt like AGES ...... some of you may be surprised to see a regular style ATC instead of my current obsession with ATCoins but hey .... time to move on before becoming a one trick pony!

My ATC

Materials used:

• ATC blank
• Snippets of card in light green and white
• On the white snippet I used a mini blender/foam pad to apply Memento Bahama blue ink over the card then placed a Stamposaurus "circles" stencil and applied the same ink (this time using a stencil brush) before replacing the stencil with a Memory Box "grungey squares" stencil and using the same ink/stencil brush method ..... I also applied the same ink through the Memory Box stencil to add a border to the light green base card
• Craft Emotions "Herbs branches" image (130501/1237) stamped using Memento tuxedo black ink
• Precious Remembrance Shop ("Positive Thoughts") sentiment stamped using Memento Paris dusk ink
• Before assembling I edged both the green card layer and the white image panel using the Bahama Blue ink, to define the edges

I'll be entering the above make for the following challenges:-

1. Pattie's Creations - challenge No. 149 - ANYTHING GOES
2. CardzTV - challenge No. 60 - ANYTHING GOES
3. QKR Stampede - challenge No. 38 - ANYTHING GOES
4. Catch The Bug - August 10th challenge - ANYTHING GOES
5. Take a Word Challenge - August 12th challenge - SILHOUETTE

And on to a card - doncha just love new stash? I met up with two pals on Friday (on reflection the M4/M5 on a Friday during summer break? NOT my best move but ... I'd far rather catch up with friends and get caught in traffic on the way home than not catch up with them). We visited the Crafters Companion store at the Evesham "Village" (previously known as the Country Park) .... I bought this little lot

Imagination Crafts stencils, two unmounted stamp sets from Sheena Douglas and
a set of backgrounds from Imagination Crafts

So, nothing for it but to break the seal on at least one item of stash .... I made this .... I'm pretty pleased with it, definitely a masculine feel to it - I can't help but be reminded of the album cover for Led Zep's first album!! Anyone else? AND I got to use two of my new stamps and one of my new stencils so ... calling that a result!

My card

And a closer view of the brown and grey stencilling

  

The front, back and inside of my card along with the front and back of my envelope

Materials used:

• Cream A2/C6, 250gsm, card and matching sized envelope
• Two pieces of cream 300gsm card cut to fit and one piece of Costco double sided card (patterned side up) cut to mat
• Imagination Crafts MA-46 stencil placed over the smaller cream panel and Memento London fog and rich cocoa inks stencilled through, using a stencil brush, I LIKE the colour gradation
• Sheena Douglass "Sketchy Jungle" images stamped using Versafine onyx black ink
• Creative Expressions "Urban Beats" sentiment stamped using Versafine onyx black ink
• I also used the stencil, images and inks to co-ordinate the insert, reverse and envelope

I'll be entering the above for the following challenges:

1. Stamps and Stencils - August 2nd challenge - INDUSTRIAL/GRUNGEY
2. Moving Along With The Times - challenge No. 77 - FOR THE BOYS
3. Southern Girls - August 9th challenge - STAMP YOUR MARK ON IT
4. Sasayaki - August 3rd challenge - MALE PROJECT
5. AllSorts Challenge - challenge No. 480 - BOYS TO MEN

And here's that album cover I was reminded of - sound ON and rock out!