No Reply Blogger - Important Notice

I want to start this post asking you a question

ARE YOU A NO REPLY BLOGGER - Do you know if you are. I always assumed I was leaving comments on peoples blogs and they could get back to me. I mean I had supplied all my information, my emails etc.

But you know those times when you enter a comment and you are using your Blogger ID or Wordpress ID and don't have to enter any details about yourself.

Well I assumed it was all connected and people could reply but I recently (in the last month or so, hey it takes me a while to wake up ok!!) and I was told that I was posting comments and some people could not say anything back to me and if they didnt know who I was that was the end of the line because 'No reply blogger' doesn't show anything other than your first name as a clue.

Lucky for me it was pointed out  to me by a wonderful friend, and I must admit I scoffed to myself thinking I get comments from people but I did as suggested and went to one of my posts and sent myself an email.
 Sure enough when it arrived and I clicked reply then went up to my name in email address and clicked on the little arrow that allows you to open the email address it came up 'no reply blogger' so all I had was Aileen.

Now this is happening to me quite regularly where wonderful people are commenting on my cards, I may not know them because I don't recognise their name and their blog name isn't showing so I cant go check out their blog. I also cant reply directly to their comment because it is 'no reply blogger'.

I HATE THIS as I feel it looks like I am happy to have you comment but couldn't be bothered reciprocating or even looking at your blog. This is not so, so I want you to go check your self. Send yourself an email and see If it comes up 'no reply blogger'.

There is an easy fix and of course I deleted the email I received with it summed up perfectly as I love keeping my mail tidy. so its gone and the trash has been emptied as well so no retrieving it.

I can say whether you are 'Blogger' or Wordpress this can be happening and is an easy fix. If you are techno challenged then ask your husband, child or grandchild to fix it for you. You can do the first step:

1. Send yourself a comment from one of your blog posts.
2. Go to your mail and open the email.
3. Now hit reply.
4. Go to the top of the email and look at where it saysTo:
5. This will be your name and that little drop down arrow is there, click on it
6. you will either see your email - in that instance no need to go any further
7. or it will say 'No reply blogger' and there are quite a few of you darlings out there and you will need to
8. Blogger -here is a link to a  easy video tutorial for you 'no reply blogger' or
9. you can go to this link for step by step with pictures - they cover both blogger and wordpress.

Okay thats it, no card  with this post but thought I would share a photo from Aarons Engagement party holding onto my youngest grandson. It's so funny to see them dressing their children how we were dressed ourselves as children, fashion doing the cycle.

Now its time to go check your email responses.

LOVE hugs & kisses

Who needs an image when your 'love' shines through so well. I love this die and have done for quite some time. The last time I was ordering a couple of things I decided I just didn't have enough Love dies till I owned this one. Now I am happy (for now :)

I left all the cut out sections in place in this instance because I wanted the alcohol ink pattern to show through fully. This piece was one of those that just looked like a mess in the end and those very dark lines are when colour upon colour was added each time I changed my mind.

BUT use for die cut shapes and words and its perfect for visual impact.

I used double sided tape to hold all the pieces together then added double sided sticky foam so it was lifted off the card. All I had to do then was stamp the sentiment 'hugs & kisses and add a few enamel gems that reflect the colours in the die cut 'love'.

Alcohol Ink splatting is another form of colouring so will add this to

The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge Day 16

HLS July Anything Goes with Dies Challenge

Work It Wednesday June 2016 : Dies or Stencils

Pixie's Crafty Workshop : Pixie's Snippets Playground Week 238 Dies

Its been ages since I could play at snippets but today is the day. Die cut word and the alcohol ink piece is a snippet so I'm off to play.

Thanks so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

Hello tag card

I decided after seeing Donna's inspiration on Tag Your It

I had to have a go of at least trying to do it justice.

This is Donna's tag

and then this is my inspiration from it.

Mine is on a card because I will never use it otherwise.

Its amazing that you can sit and look at an inspiration piece for ages thinking about 

what you want to do then go to the craft room

Make a tag and then come out again to the computer to upload and realise that you have swung away from what you wanted to achieve and hadn't realised till I looked at Donna's tag again. But as they say its not to copy but to inspired.

Donna's tag inspired me to use ribbon, I hunted high and low for the type that Donna had used cause I know I was given some but alas the Borrowers have it at this time. My next inspiration was to take some sheer white and rub the Cracked Pistachio over it and I love what I ended up with. Soft and shiny and just a touch of colour. 

I watercoloured the flowers from The Ton using orange and yellow but the yellow barely shows up. I used die cut leaves as the leaf with the flower was just too fine for what I wanted. So I die cut the leaves and watercoloured with two different greens. I drew on the white dashed with a gel pen.

I squished my Pistachio ink pad onto acetate and added a bit of water and just kept dipping and swiping my die cut tag till I was happy with the colour.

Finished the card off by putting the card base through a brick wall embossing folder and added gold die cut hello and its all done. Next time I will try to give myself more time and go back and check on the inspiration as I work so I get all the elements I want. A migraine this morning meant a very late start and only 2 hours left till the challenge closes.

I hope you enjoyed your visit and come again soon.

Challenges : 

Tag Your It Challenge #51

The Daily Marker 30 Day colouring Challenge Day 15

Paper players PP#304 - A clean and Simple Challenge Using Watercolor

Stamp connection #15

Hi everyone Today's post is so exciting, because I was asked to participate in a  feature called "Stamp Connection". You have no idea how special this makes me feel as this is with Cornelia and Tanja and they have started asking others to join them in this monthly event. 

Connected through their love for card making, blogging 

 (Tanja from Little Art Cottage  andCornelia from Fun Stamping) decided to 

create a monthly project within predefined requirements. They show you the result 

every 3rd Sunday of the month and this is their fifteenth transatlantic get-together!

And because they have had such a successful year they thought they now

 invite somebody to play along to increase the fun!  

This month Cornelia  chose the theme, "Alcohol Inks",  and they invited me.

 Alcohol inks I love playing around with so couldn't wait to get started.

Alcohol Inks work best on glossy surfaces like Yuppo/ Glossy card stock and Acetate. I have never tried Yuppo before but had ordered some and it was just sitting there waiting for me to use it. Perfect excuse (as though one was needed). Before I go further if you haven't used Alcohol inks there are some brilliant videos on YouTube, just type in Alcohol Inks and go for it.  also be aware that Tim Holtz has just released six new colours and they look fantastic. they're bright and summer and fit between colours already available.

and while there check out the new colours in the enamel accents ohhh my goodness I know they will sell out of both products before I can get them and they look fantastic.

This is the card I made for today

I have written quite a bit down below about how I made this and other patterns using alcohol inks and in this instance Yuppo paper. I have die cut the butterflies out of the Yuppo then again out of white cardstock.

I found after doing my cutting that the die cut had not cut clear through so needed to do a bit of fiddly cutting work with a scalpel so need to remember to make a thicker sandwich for cuttlebug next time. 

I then trimmed a 1/4" for each side  of the white panel and turned the piece so they started in a different colour combination.I  glued everything down leaving the full butterflies with only the centre glued. Love it and the feel and look is wonderful.

I would like to enter this in a couple of challenges but will come back tomorrow once its live to do that.

Challenges:

The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge Day 14

AAA Cards Game #69 -One Favourite from your Stash

alcohol inks hit toenail on the head.

Pile It On Challenge #112 : Use Your Favourite Colour(s)

If you follow my blog then you know my favourite colours are rainbow colours, 

bright colours and this card is certainly it.  This card suits this challenge and the next challenge perfectly.

Virginia's View Summer Challenge #22 : Its All About Colour

Thank you so much Cornelia and Tanja for inviting me to play.

Now, it's time to go and check out Cornelia's and Tanja's creations. They're fabulous!

Cornelia- fun-stamping  

Tanja-  Little Art Cottage  

The following is information and photo heavy

The rest is for if you are interested in knowing more of what I did and the different mediums used and some samples i made.  

Samples I did first:

These are some of the ones I did with pouncing using my round blending tool and a small piece of felt, and twisting as well as pouncing and I really love the look I got. Each was two colours and a wee bit of silver or gold. Keep the darker colour to only a couple of dots then a few of the lighter colour and add a bit of blending solution. When it stops doing anything just add a bit more light colour and blending solution and keep twisting and pouncing. These inks dry very quickly so it is a short play time and no point in adding the blending solution to a bowl to work with cause it just evaporates (mmm wonder how I know that!!!)

All of the above ones were inks onto glossy card stock.

These ones have all been done on Yuppo, it is the most unusual product that looks like glossy card stock but feels like a type of plastic and cuts like one too. If you don't like what you see you can add blending solution, wipe it off and start again.

The rainbow one is just each colour added to a piece felt and pulled down the piece with the blending tool

The second piece is me experimenting with pulling colours, swirling , dropping ink and using a small cottonwool bud with a bit of blending solution to make those dots - lets pretend its the sea and a beach or a sun blazing down. Anyway get the idea, play.

The third piece again on yup, smaller piece, drops and blowing with straw and blending solution, got a bit carried away and it became rather heavy with colour so I put it aside to see if there was anything I could do with it later. 

These bits are done with different colours dropped onto acetate and blown with a straw. Then to get the action going I added a bit of blending solution to the end of another straw and flicked, a bit here and there, gave nice small action.These pieces look fantastic backed with some white paper then added to a card dark or white.

This lot is with the rectangle blending tool and a piece of felt. The felt I use I just went to a craft shop and bought a square probably 7 x 7" and just cut that up into little squares - cost me something like 50 cents for the piece so a lot cheaper than buying packets of felt to go with blender tool, they were also a lot thicker. 

In this instance I have added three colours each across the felt and a squirt of blending solution then pulled across the glossy card stock. The second one went first across then added a bit more colour of each to blender tool and came down the card. Nothing great but looks okay to use for die cutting. The third sheet was a mix or green, orange and blue for the strips.

This is those same sheets as in the first photo but the one that looks like a real mess is the inks blown on the glossy cardstock. Click on the picture so it enlarges and check out the silver.

 The silver, gold and copper don't spread and dilate like the inks but if you drop a bit of blending solution on the silver it tends to like bubble and spread and thin, looks much better with the inks.

I also did some sheets, where I dropped  some drops of the colours on my Tim Holtz sheet a bit of blending solution and then laid the glossy card stock glossy side down into the mix and squished and twisted and ended up with some really nice pieces but forgot to photograph the pieces. So busy cleaning up the mess.

I also have a piece of acetate that has each of the colours dropped onto it and the name written so you can see works together colours wise. The gold etc needs to be shaken vigorously and if you have had it a while quite a long time shaking to get the medium mixed well and looking good.

What I did find is my three greens are very close to each other and I don't know if its because Ive had them quite a while or just the way they are. 

But obviously I need more colours (lol) and some darker colours as I saw some things on Pinterest that really looked good but with dark colours.

Now finally we come to some of the results of this days play, told you I love this medium.

This is a card I did yesterday and that beautiful butterfly is from that small square of what looks like a total mess of colours.

See all those little butterflies they are all from that same little piece as the big one. These little butterflies come with a big one that gives you a solid outline of the lacy butterfly. The big ones come separately.

Check out the postage die cuts, perfect for the front of a card.

Here is some of my smooched ink on the mat used for the hearts die.

Check out this new double die I bought from Hero Art. 

Doesn't this look fantastic.

That little piece I put aside, I ended up using the Love word die, and yes I Love IT.

The blue and silver I have made into a snowflake shaker but not happy with how it sits in the card so back to the drawing board there.

Another of the squished inks and blending solution on glossy cardstock and then die cut twice. Once in white and once in colour and put the colour into the white outline and will do the reverse with the other.

I have so much left I will be dazzling you with cards for years with it. Firstly of course I need to finish off the die cut items and cards I have started. I hope this has given you something to think about. Don't forget to check out the new inks just released- rainbow of colours.

Honestly I reckon glossy card stock is as good as the Yuppo and a lot cheaper but thats me.

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

Butterflies are kisses blown by Angels

A very quick and easy card. the butterfly is cut from a piece of glossy cardstock that has been alcohol  ink splattered. I just used a mix of blues and pink and purple and a few random splashes of silver. Once dry I die cut this butterfly out. I then did the solid die cut in vellum but when looking at different patterned papers came across this piece and felt the solid form wasn't needed.

The paper has a wonder sheen to it and looks like the sky on a slightly cloudy day and my butterfly is fluttering past. Added the perfect sentiment and some clear clear dots.

Now I also did some colouring in today for the Daily Marker Colouring Challenge. I could have used the butterfly for my colouring but it was too quick so wanted to add something else.

Shame we cant add things like this to challenges, no card but lots of love has gone into this wonderful background. Cant imagine cutting it down to be honest.

After colouring everything I added gold highlights with my gold gel pen and some wee little white dots keeping them very small. These stamps all come from the same stamp set and are the extras that came with two oriental ladies and one young girl.

The funny thing is I bought the set for the ladies but so far I have now used all the background stamps and the girl who turned out to be very cute. Still to get to those ladies.

Challenges

The Daily Marker  30 Day Colouring Challenge: Day 12

The oriental background sheet

Also the Butterfly Card is Day 13 of the Colouring Challenge

Crafty Calendar Challenge: July : Dies and/or Punches

Couldn't find a button to add for this blog.

Die cut butterfly.

Crafty Sentiments Designs : Anything goes Challenge

butterfly card

Crafting from the Heart : Challenge 120 Anything Goes

Butterfly Card

Thanks so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

Awesome Card using the Faux Bleaching Technique

I finally got around to doing a couple of cards using the Faux Bleaching technique.

This is my card for today.

I white embossing these flowers from 'Inspired to Stamp' then masked the first lot and added another group of flowers to be stamped and white embossed.

Once I was happy with my flowers I used my blending tool and blended Blue Print Sketches and Wilted Violet all over the card front. I forgot to mention I used multimedia paper as I wanted to be able to use water to remove colour and not have the card front warp. This type of paper is brilliant for so many different techniques.

After I had finished blending, I got a small bowl of water, a paint brush and a couple of pieces of paper towel. Its just a matter of adding water with the paint brush, wait a few seconds then blot with the paper towel. In some instances you might want to work the water a bit with the brush then blot so you can remove more colour. Really how much you remove is totally up to you. What you are comfortable with.

After I had finished I let it all dry for a bit then went over the petals with my 'Wink of Stella' just for a bit of shimmer.

Then I decided to be daring a do a bit of water flicking by getting water on the brush (light load as its better to do more than to do too much in the first place). I  tapped the brush on my extended finger to flick the water on the card front and different waiting times meant different coloured splats.

Finished off by die cutting 'Awesome' out of the panel and again in white. Saved all the little bits to put back in and inset the sentiment.

Attached the panel to a black card and finished.

Challenges

The Daily Marker: 30 Day Colouring Challenge Day 11

Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge #202 Make Your Mark

Using Blending of inks for making my mark, just not sure this

is correct. Please let me know if its wrong and I will remove.

Mod Squad Challenge Blog: Distress Ink Lifting

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.