A Box of Delights from Ranger Ink

Back in January I was watching a Facebook Live from Ranger Ink showcasing the new products they would be launching this month (Feb 2020) after showing them at Creativation 2020, when Ranger Ink's social media lady Kelly Kronowski made an announcement. If viewers shared the video and left a comment they would be entered into a draw, and 5 people would be picked to win a selection of the new goodies.

This was on the 6th January the day before my birthday, I shared and commented like many others and carried on enjoying the live and getting excited about the new products being added to all the lines that Ranger stocks. To my surprise 3 days later I was tagged in a post by Ranger to say I'd won! YAY! I gave Kelly my details and started to wait for my goodies to arrive.

This morning I had a delivery from UPS and I almost ripped the package out of the UPS delivery dudes hands as I yelped "YAY it's my prize", which made him laugh a little lol! I skipped into the house yelling to the cats its my prize, bounded up the stairs and opened my box of delights. I was blown away to find way more goodies than I thought I was going to receive, I thought we'd get an ink pad and maybe a stencil or something, but nope! My prize box contained one of the new Silicone Mat's, a pack of Grey Embossing Pens, 2 of the new Archival Ink Pads (Coastal Coral & Seafarer), a jar of Stickles Glitter Gel (Asteroid), 2 of the new Perfect Pearls colours (Poppy & Iris), the Hello Sunshine Stamp Set and a Treading Hearts Stencil 😁

As soon as I opened the package I started to play, and so far I've created 3 cards with my goodies. They are pretty basic because I wanted to focus on using just the items I got in my prize package, I almost did it, but I had to use a couple of other Ranger products on two of the cards.

The first card I created I blended both the Coastal Coral and Seafarer Archival Inks through the Treading Hearts stencil, where the inks met in the middle they created a purple grape kind of colour, which surprised me. Before today I'd only used my Archival inks for stamping, I'd never blended with them!

I stamped the 'Hello Sunshine' sentiment a few times in the centre of the card using the Seafarer ink and then stamped over the top with some Ranger Perfect Medium and brushed over some Iris Perfect Pearls to give the card a little shine. I've had Perfect Pearls for a while, I have about 12 colours in my collection but until recently when I saw Simon Hurley use them they had been sat in a drawer forgotten about. To be honest I'd forgotten all about them, but they are back on the play list now.

For my second card I decided I wanted to use the 'Sending Smiles' stamp, I was so happy when I opened my box because I really liked the Hello Sunshine stamp set and it was high on my wish list, I can't do calligraphy, but love the effect, so having stamps that can help me achieve the look is brilliant.

The card is a lovely CAS card I used a few of the stamps from the set, and turned the gorgeous 'Iris' colour Perfect Pearls in to a paint, to fill in the open areas of the sending smiles stamp. I used Jet Black Archival Ink from my stash and some Ranger Super Fine Detail Clear Embossing Powder over the archival ink and I added some 'Sunflower Sparkle' Perfect Pearls to colour in the sun.

For my third and final card, for today at least 😆 I made good use of the Coastal Coral Archival Ink, first I stencil it on to white card stock using the Treading Hearts stencil, then I added some of the super sparkly Stickles Glitter Gel over the top, boy is it ever super sparkly.

Whilst I left the panel to dry I die cut a heart and used my blending tool to colour it with the Coastal Coral ink, I used it to colour the edge of a white card base. I decided to do some tone on tone stamping with the ink using another stamp from the set. In hindsight I should have heat embossed the ink to make it stand out more, but as I said above I was trying to use just the supplies I received.

I'm a fan of Ranger products and have been since I first started crafting when I discovered the wonderful world of Distress Inks and then Oxides and now the new Simon Hurley ink line! I think we focus on the brands that we forget who is behind them, I have NEVER been disappointed with any products I've bought from Ranger, they are always of the highest quality and last for ages. I hadn't used any of the Letter It line before, my head filed them into craft supplies for Calligraphy people, but they are not, the line is perfect for people like me and has so many uses. I'll be adding more of the Letter It range to my stash over the next few months. I have also got a lot of the new Simon Hurley range on my wish list as well.

Receiving this package has made me look at the Ranger Products I have in a different light, its opened them up and made me realise that I can blend with archival inks and use Perfect Pearls to make gloriously shiny paint. THANK YOU so much Ranger Ink for your generosity and for sending some lovely, crafty sunshine and smiles across the pond. I can't believe that I got the chance to play with some of the new products before they hit the stores in the UK, I am truly blessed 💖💋

Frugal February Challenge

February Theme Challenge 'Love'

And as fast as that we streak in to a new month! Hello everyone, blogging has been slower than I anticipated this year, there have been some life changes making the need for creating a downstairs craft space necessary. Then my PC C: Drive died resulting in almost a week without a PC and worry that I'd lost all my craft related photos, but thankfully my hubby had mirrored the drives so everything was backed up YAY!

That meant I didn't lose anything data/file wise, but I did lose the programs that were installed and the C: Drive which has meant several more days of getting my PC back to how it was before.

As a result there hasn't been much time for crafting, or craft spending! Which is good because spending was starting to get a little out of hand again and I need to stop and take stock both literally and figuratively!There's a meme that does the rounds, and I think I've mentioned it before about crafty spending being a separate hobby from crafty making, and if that's true I was becoming more of an expert in spending than making, and that has to stop, before we lose the roof over our head lol!

So this month I've set myself a challenge to keep to a fixed budget of £100, this amount is to include my monthly colouring class and Stampin Up class, and a SU club I'm in where we spend £15 minimum a month. It also has to include any craft magazines I buy (I cancelled all my subscriptions) and any supplies or extras.

January Colour Challenge

Last year I started to help out the creator of a Facebook group called Craft Carnage and after a while Sarah the owner of the group made me an admin and now I set challenges and swaps for members to take part in, we have four weekly mini challenges every month and we also organise individual challenges like our  Frugal February Challenge.

We also organise swaps for events like World Cardmaking Day, Halloween and Christmas, and we have lots of swaps and challenges planned for the rest of 2020, feel free to pop over and join us if you are so inclined.

All the photos in this post are of cards I have made for some of the challenges so far, we have colour palette, theme, materials, and sketch challenges that rotate each month that also take in to account seasonal events like Mother's Day, Easter, Holidays etc.

January Sketch Challenge

The current challenge for February is another spring inspired colour palette challenge and I'm hoping to use dies and items I have in already to create my card. That way I can incorporate the mini challenges in with the Frugal February master challenge.

The first card pictured in this post was for the mini theme challenge, I knew I wanted to use my wreath templates to create a circle of hearts, but I didn't know if/or where I had any small solid heart stamps. So yesterday I sat for an hour trawling sites looking for a set of small heart stamps.

After that hour I came to my senses and started to go through my boxes of stamps and dies and although I didn't have a dedicated set of small solid heart stamps, I discovered I do have several stamp sets with small solid hearts in. The ones I used came from two Altenew sets Crafty Friends and Crafty Life that I've had for a while and not used, the sentiment also comes from one of those two sets.

I used 4 different colours of Memento dewdrop inks and some Nocturne Versa Clair ink for the sentiment which I then added some clear embossing powder to, to make it stand out more, the enamel hearts and dots I won in a raffle at my Stampin Up class last year and I hadn't got round to using them yet.

Towards the end of last month, I came across a video by Kristina Werner detailing a challenge she was setting herself for February that she called Capsule Papercrafting. Her aim is to pre-select a set of tools and mediums, stamps and stencils and use only them for the month. If you're interested check out the video below.

I decided that I would follow Kristina's example, so far I've selected a couple of things but not everything, as its now the 5th Feb I need to get my skates on lol! Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have everything together that I intend to use. The goal for me is to go box 'shopping' that means I hit all the boxes and tubs of supplies I have and find items I've bought and never used BEFORE I buy new items.

If I see a project I like, before I hit search to find the stamps and dies others have used, I ask myself what I already have that I can use instead. As far as stamps, stencils and dies go I have lots of choice, so it shouldn't be too hard. My problem is choosing which inks, pens or pencils to use, I can't plan ahead of time what projects I'll be doing for the whole month and would hate to have the creative urge to work with say my Brusho's or Pixie Powders for a project and not be able to. Thinking cap on, and I have to make sure that whatever I do includes only things I already have!

Parkrun & Health Update

Since the beginning of January I've managed to lose just over 7lb, still a long way to go, but I'm happy with that. I also walked my 2nd Parkrun on the 29th January, my foot played up royally after the New Years Day walk, and after a non-Parkrun walk I did on the 15th Jan, but at least I tried again, recovery time is getting better thanks to the stretch exercises I'm doing which is good, and hopefully with those and losing more weight I will continue to see an improvement.

One week 2 I came last (well one before last as the tail walker is always the last to finish). Technically though I was the last park runner to walk across the finish line 😥 I was slower this time and I believe it was because I decided to walk to pounding dance music, and I think I pushed myself too hard when very fast tracks played ::note to self you cannot go up Cardiac Hill in time to Darude's Sandstorm!::

Pushing myself at a stupid pace required me to recover for longer periods of time thus slowing me down, and the whole process took me 6m 25s longer than my first time. ::Further note to self don't wear a coat to Parkrun you get too flipping hot even on a cold day!:: Check out my new running trainers as well, after Parkrun number 1 Si took me to Decathlon to get some running clothes (trainers, tops, and a sports bra) it's ON!

I admit I was rather annoyed at myself at the end of week two because I was slower than my first week, but lots of people pointed out that I had actually finished a 5K again, which was an achievement in itself, which it is I guess 😁 I need to focus more on just doing it and less on trying to beat my best time, the more I do it, the fitter I'll become and hopefully the faster I'll get! I'll be doing my 3rd Parkrun this coming Saturday and plan to do it without music, walking at my own pace and not the musics pace! Because of my foot problem I've settled on the idea of doing Parkrun every other week until my foot is better, the weeks in-between I will be volunteering as a Marshall or as a token sorter.

Last weekend was my rest weekend but I still went to Parkrun but as a spectator to watch Simon complete his 50th Parkrun, I am so proud of him, its been wonderful to see him go from someone who couldn't run more than a few paces to someone who can run 5K in just over 23 minutes, fingers crossed that will be me one day! This week I will be walking to the pace of my own body and see what happens, I do like music when I walk, so I guess I have to find something that goes with the pace I can currently walk, until I do I guess silence will be golden lol!