Colour and lots of it!

This is my journal entry created for the Wednesday Stampers challenge this week who are asking for colour and lots of it! I needed to provide a contrast to the grey and wet weather we're having at the moment. Goodness only knows the garden needs it!

My favourite subject - colour- and a wonderful excuse to let loose but I had to stop myself from going too far with it or else it would end up looking like an explosion in a paint factory!

The stamp is by Magenta and is one of the first stamps I ever bought. It's been very under-used in the past, I think, because it's so big and it's never actually been used to it's full potential. Here I've layered it up and coloured it in using watercolour pencils.
http://wednesdaystamper.wordpress.com/

Greek column inchy.

This is my inchy for this weeks entry for Inchy by Inch. The theme is buildings. This stamp is actually part of one which came in a set from Primo Sculpey clay but I've used is so much for stamping generally as it's so intricate and beautiful. My inchy is based on the stunning architecture of ancient Greece which just blew me away when I first saw it. I couldn't think of a more fitting building to use (except for my house which I couldn't possibly do justice on an inch squared).

The little gem which looks like a little eye shining out, is actually from a nail decorating kit. A good tip for anyone looking for mini gems for inchies. These little kits are fairly inexpensive and are perfectly proportioned for working with something so small.

http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/

Personal pride.

Wow what a high I'm on right now!! Fuelled by nothing but adrenalin and pride - why?- because yesterday I achieved what I'd been training for and ran the 10km of the City Jogging in Luxembourg. It was extreemly hard work in the heat and at times in the full sun and I have to say I did walk some of the last 2km up hill, but I did it! Amazingly today I'm so full of energy and my legs don't ache at all!

A huge thanks to my mentors Lena and Peter (pictured) for motivating me and at times pushing me to go out and run because I'd never have done it without their help. Thanks guys your the best. So next is the semi-marathon I think and training starts next week!!! No excuses!

My gothic arch this week (ATC sized) had to show my personal pride and I created an arch with a door to symbolize the doorway to success, opportunity, inspiration, goals, achievement and focus. I don't care if anyone thinks it's a bit corny, I'm just so happy and it's the way I feel today!

Check out more little pieces of personal pride at http://gothicarches.ning.com/

Goodbye Primary!

It's been too long since I last made a mini album and for some time now I've been thinking about making an album using corrugated card as I love the texture you can create on top of it - plus it's free!!

The subject of this mini book is my youngest daughter who leaves primary school this summer and starts Lycée or secondary school in september. This is normally a big event for anyone, but this is particularly poignant for me as she's my last one and it marks the end of an era. Even though she's all grown up now and would hate me to say it, she's still my baby and I can't get my head around her starting "big school". This book will be a celebration of this important year and full of memories of friends and days spent just goofing around!

The Wednesday Stampers challenge this week is to create something/anything using the colours of your country's flag. I've chosen to create this first page in red white and blue because of course we are a family of Brits living here in Luxembourg. As it happens those same colours form the Luxembourgish flag too just done in a different way of course. I do often wonder what nationality my youngest considers herself as out of the three girls, she is the one born here. They've all been through the local school system and do feel more Luxembourgish than English most of the time but for the one actually born here that feeling must be stronger.

Anyway, as I finish pages I'll show you and good luck to all those newbie students out there, what an adventure!

http://wednesdaystamper.wordpress.com/

Shoe inchy.

It's been a fairly exhausting week made worse by some very heavy and humid weather. I love the hot summer sun but I hate it when it's humid. It just make you feel lethargic and generally yuck!!

The weekend was the big Luxembourgish music festival which is either absolutely roasting hot or extreemly wet (in true festival style) and this year was hot, humid and threatened thunderstorms which thankfully didn't happen! A great day was had by my two eldest daughters and by clicking on the link you'll see a photo of one of my daughters singing her heart out to one of the headline bands. http://kultur.rtl.lu/kulturpur/fotoen/2726/photo/2/?back=

If I didn't get time to do anything else I can always find a few minutes to put together an inchy. The one above is my entry to http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/ whose theme this week is "Shoes".

There are some great sales around at the moment and some wonderful bargains to be had especially on shoes. I'd love to own a pair like the one on my inchy but alas, it's been a loooong time since I wore heels!! These days it's comfy crocs, trainers or flatty sandals! The girlies however, are building up their collection so they now have a pair for every item of clothing they own and with their sizes being the same now, they swap all the time!

Anyway, whatever your style I hope you like my shoe inchy.

Rock and Roll card.

I made this card for the Wednesday Stampers challenge entitled "Rock and Roll".

Most of the card is quite blingy and shiny but sadly it's difficult to capture this in a photo. I tried outside in the sun and inside on my craft table but unfortunately neither were great!

I distressed the edges again (my favourite thing now!) to add to the over-all Rock-Chick grungy look.

http://wednesdaystamper.wordpress.com/

Celtic inchy

Today is Luxembourgs National Day and last night we were watching the fireworks until midnight with our good friends Lena and Peter. Earlier on in the day, they'd got me out on an 8km run which I was really happy to have achieved but my legs are feeling it. Today I'm more than a little tired!! So it's good that today is a lazy day with nothing to do but sit in the sun and craft!

The Inchy by Inch challenge this week is Celtic Symbols. I was already familiar with Celtic knots but it wasn't until I researched the subject that I discovered that some Celtic Symbols were less complicated and quite straight forward.

You can see some more examples here http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/

For my inchy I'd actually tried to draw freehand the symbol onto the background, then trace around it with a Versamark pen to emboss it, but somehow it just didn't work so small and left me with a bit of a messy end result. I decided to cut out the image I'd been using to trace and placed it on a circular background to hide the mess of the embossing! The result isn't too bad and to finish it off I used a brad in the centre.

Postcard/postal arch

Gothic Arches have chosen "postcards" as their theme for this week although by the time I'd finished with my piece it had turned into the theme "postal"!!

I started by distressing my background to within an inch of its life with Ranger distress inks and stamping a few postal stamps all over. The other collage images are either found or stamped onto paper and the penny black stamp was downloaded by my husband who didn't want to miss out on the fun. (He doesn't admit it but I think he was a stamp collector in his youth - he knew the exact stamp and date it was issued, I couldn't fail but be impressed!).

http://gothicarches.ning.com/

Owls and houses.

Last week I had a chance to play with an idea I've been harbouring for some time, which was to make a birdhouse using a template I'd downloaded from http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2009/05/introducing-bird-watching-additions.html It's the cutest design I've ever seen in a birdhouse and there is also a wealth of other templates for you to use for all sorts of things which will keep you busy for ages.

I had the owl stamps from Hero Arts to put on the front then found the theme for this weeks challenge on http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/ was Owls. It was easy then the create inchies using the same background technique and stamps. I used a Japanese newspaper as my background just for fun but I hope I don't offend anyone who reads Japapanese by using a bad joke or something (I think it was either the financial pages or the tv pages!)

A black and yellow retro arch.

Today is actually Mothers day in Luxembourg - hoooray for me!! Daughter number one was exempt of course seeing as she'd already mistakenly celebrated it a few weeks back, just as well as she flew to Egypt for a weeks holiday this morning! Daughter number three had made me a beautiful mosaic mirror frame at school and daughter number two generally made me feel loved and wanted with her presence all day!

Mothers day generally means a day let off chores and a jolly good excuse to do nothing except play really. So this afternoon I did just that, spending a few hours in the craft room with my youngest crafting.

Gothic Arches are back after a two week absence and the new theme is yellow and black. Tricky one, but for some reason it made me think "retro". I fumbled around in my stash for an appropriate backing paper and made it look even more retro by adding the yellow thread and found a retro looking cat on my computer. The font is 'font diner' which along with the little crown on the cats head, just finished things off nicely!

http://gothicarches.ning.com/