Monday 23 November 2015

Last week for Challenge #52: Anything Goes at Unstampabelles.....


Just have to share this photo with you
Isn't it a corker!
Now that is the real Australia!

The Evolution Of The Bum photo snapped by Lea Atherton, has won a top award global agent Getty Images’ competition . Picture: LEA ATHERTON

The Evolution of the Bum features seven naked blokes from the ages of 2 to 84.
The Evolution Of The Bum photo snapped by Lea Atherton, has won a top award global agent

Apparently, when organizing this photo, the photographer told the fella's she didn't want to see any jiggly bits!

Well, the challenge at Unstampabelles does say Anything Goes!!!
I'm sure there is a flower or two in the bush around them too to fit the TWIST

My Christmas card is recycled and has no naked men on it


Do you get sent cards at Christmas that are so good they cannot be thrown away - I don't mean handmade, I mean commercial? So do I.


This image of the small penguin was one of them
A great image and a good design
Why throw it away - recycle it!


So I made a bendy card out of it.


You can see the card had a sentiment on the bottom and I left it there




It is hidden by the arms of the bendy card
The red felt flower just went exactly!



I added some embossed strips and a die cut and some blingy bling
The commerciasl card has a sheen on it and made it a bit hard to photograph in places

Hope you like it!

You can also go to Unstampabelles and see what else the DT has provided for inspiration

Cheers,

I will enter this in the following: 
Crafty Calendar Challenge: Embellish and sparkle
My time to Craft: Let it Snow
Alphabet Challenge: Tis the Season






Saturday 21 November 2015

Crafting with Dragonflies has a new challenge

Hello all - we are once again challenging your Christmas card making skills over at Crafting with Dragonflies:  by asking you to add a ribbon to your card!


I don't know about you but I have a LOT of stamps and dies for Christmas ( I really mean a LOT) and papers too - I seem to accumulate them year after year, and then I cannot decide what to make or how to make anything from them. This year I was determined to use my dies at least once on a card - to justify their purchase more than any other reason!

This card is a result of that - I loved this die when I first saw it and was determined to use it this Christmas - it makes such a great silhouette effect. 


A Stampin' Up embossed sentiment in gold EP, on a Whisper White card with some Poppy Parade ink smeared around - I then attempted to draw a line around the oval and have discovered that my hands are not letting me have the fine motor control I used to have!


That is half the reason that I used the sparkling snowflake dies - to distract from the wobberly line
They were die cut from a Sizzix die

The mount is one of the last pieces of Poppy Parade (such a pity that colour is no longer available) I had - used because the ribbon I had originally chosen to use was that colour - it was also too wide for the card and had to be swapped out for this one; still red with gold trim but more narrow and the red is a bit darker.


The background paper is also from SU's Holiday catalogue


Tried several ways to get the gold to show properly


Finally, holding it in the sunshine did the trick!

Hope you like it

Why not enter your own version of Christmas card with ribbon over at

where my other DT teamies have made some lovely things and they are also on display



Monday 16 November 2015

A quick post for Unstampabelles Midway in the November challenge

Welcome to my blog. I am just posting about the card I have made for Unstampabelles Week 3 (midway), late as usual. I have been making Christmas cards and listening to the cricket and suddenly realised I had not made or posted my card. I knew what I wanted to make and quickly  assembled the materials - except I forgot to use heat resistant ascetate and had to start again and just use ink to colour the swirls instead of embossing powder.


I embossed the ascetate with swirls


Added some prima flowers and a rub-on to a tag


Die cut a square and added the ascetate window


Drew around with a gold pen and had a wobble in the hand at the end - bugger

No time to fix

So, it is as it is........

Tuesday 10 November 2015

Knee deep in Christmas things.........

....making Christmas cards at the moment......



You know when you purchase a magazine and there is as 'free' gift with it - well, this set of cards came from one of those and it had 6 cards with a printed background already, and some foil sheets, along with a great embossing folder - yep, all in the one set. So I made up the six cards this afternoon. Even if I sold them for $3 a card I would pay for the magazine, and still have the folder to use again as well as some extra foil.


 Here are the six cards completed - some follow the magazine suggestions and some don't


Some were the same  because I wanted to see how the foil worked with the folder - nice and crisp outlines and I was able to cut off the sentiment and reattach where I wanted it to go.


Luxury ribbon from a gift!


This one required the foil to be cut up and glued to card and then attached - good idea that woked quite well so that's added to the memory banks!


This one had a white circle in the middle so I cut that out and put some foil behind it - simple!


The first one - just followed the magazine and added some bling


Stamped and embossed in green SU powder into the white space printed on the card, added a strip of washi tape and a Hilde pointsettia that I had coloured recently and fussy cut out. I made two of these nearly the same - Hilde flower coloured slightly differently. 

Then I cut the front off one card, die cut the centre from the circle and made my first shaker card, using an image from LOTV that I stamped and coloured with Copics ages ago. 


I must say once I remembered to put the acetate on  FIRST before laying the dimensional blocks around the edge of the circle things went swimmingly and I enjoyed making it. 


This last card would suit the current challenge over at 

I will enter this one in the following challenges:
Christmas Card challenge: Anything Goes
Penny Black and More: Christmas - my image is hand stamped and coloured









Monday 9 November 2015

Second post at Unstampabelles for November





What is Remembrance Day?

Remembrance Day is a memorial day which take place every year so that countries in the (British) Commonwealth can remember members of the armed forces who have lost their lives serving their country.

When is Remembrance Day?

Remembrance Day is always 11th November (11/11). It was on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, that combat in World War 1 came to an end in 1918.

Remembrance Day has been observed since 1919

At Unstampabelles this month the Challenge#52 is Anything Goes
with a twist of Flowers

and this is the prize - a poppy die


I decided for the second week I would make another Remembrance card
One specifically for the 11/11 Armistice Day or  Poppy Day


I had already cut two of this word die so used the second one again on this card


My background was created by me in word, and then printed off onto some card
The die is from Memory Box


I kept it simple


I hope you like it.

Remember you cannot use stamps (digital or rubber etc) in an 


project but we would love you to put your ingenuity into operation and create something unique and different and following the theme of 

Anything Goes; with a twist of Flowers


I will enter this in the following challenges:
Addicted to CAS: code word HERO




Some news:
Fellow crafter AussieAnnie has had to start her blog over, and is rebuilding her followers and so I have decided to put her Blog Candy here and link it to her new blog so you can find her again, and if you were a follower and lost her or would like to be a follower, you can click on this link and find her again! Besides, it's a great blog candy as you can see!


Annie's Blog Candy -  ends on the 5th December



Sunday 8 November 2015

Late for Dragonflies Challenge #47: Let it snow!!

My apologies to all - I am late with this for the current challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies Design Team.



Here in Tassie lately there has been a sprinkling of snow on the mountain even though we are in spring - but that is Tassie weather! However, the last week has been quite sunny if on the cool side, with an  occasional sprinkle of rain rather than snow - we really need a good downpour having just had the driest October on record!

We are continuing to have lovely aurora's though


Taken at Blackman's Bay - just down the river from here.....
(named after a Mr Blackman!)

I just love the way that the Milky Way shines through it too

I made my card for Crafting with Dragonflies after seeing it on a Facebook Group I belong to (of Australian and NZ crafters) and loved it so much I copied it!

It makes such a quick card!



It uses the embossing folder and stamp set that came with a recent magazine purchase


Some torn card and some added fine glitter, a bit of yellow pen work for the windows......a mount in black an a white card base  - all done!

Hope you like it and that you go across to 


 and see what else the other DT members have created and then add your card!

Cheers!




Monday 2 November 2015

November and Unstampabelles Challenge #52

Hello Peeps! 

Before I begin on the card I have made, I want to share a visit Hubby and I had to the north-west of Tassie for a couple of days to visit the Tasmanian Craft Fair at Deloraine. We drove up on Friday and spent the afternoon at the Fair before driving through to Hawley, a small seaside town on the North coast and spending a night at a place I have always wanted to visit because of its quirky reputation, Hawley House. The drive itself was so picturesque and we saw all the lovely Hawthorn bushes lining so many of the the roads out in full flower. I took some photo's of Hawley House to share


Taken yesterday morning after breakfast, before going back to the fair for another look-see and then driving 2 hours home! The house is nearly 200 years old - very old for Australia: we stayed in the stables on the left hand side window closest to the pond. Dinner and Breakfast were in the main house hidden behind the trees


Reminded me of the doorway into the secret garden.........


View through the drawing room window
It lived up to its quirky reputation but was fun!

Time to show the inspiration piece for the newest Challenge at Unstampabelles

Anything Goes!

Twist: use flowers

This die is the prize (random draw)


So what do I associate November with?  Firstly, I associated it with the Day of Remembrance
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month
Lest we Forget - particularly in this troubled world we are in today, and in light of the 100th Centenary of  the various battles of WWI this year - especially across France.

So, that brought to mind the poppy as the flower to use



I am in  love with paper piecing my dies at the moment too, so used champagne gold sparkly card to inset this diecut


Can you see it shine?


Thought the peace dove was suitable for this, carrying not a sprig of olive but a poppy


...the waste of war: the destruction, the hurt, the deaths, the injuries, the uselessness of it all
It proves nothing


The sun is shining through the broken wall as the bird flies across the sky

Too deep?

Perhaps.........
What can you create - without using stamps - for Unstampabelles Challenge #52

Anything Goes!


Sunday 1 November 2015

Purple Team Time Again for Eclectic Ellapu

Happy November!



Hello everyone - isn't Spring lovely? I love Autumn too so for all those reading who are travelling into Autumn, this is not a competition. It is just that I have been driving around the last few days and the Hawthorn hedges are loaded with blossom, and all the gardens are full of Roses, Clematis, Rhodos and Camellias and the grass is still green.......very pretty!

The current challenge over at Eclectic Ellapu for the Purple Team is 

PURPLE TEAM
Altered Art

I am quite a novice at altered art but for quite a while I have been keen to dip in a toe in the altered book/mixed media thing and so decided to do that. Hubby purchased an old book for me at the local tip shop - forgot to tell him to get a thinish one! The rest of this post is mostly pictures and there are a lot of them -so a cuppa or drink of choice might be an idea!


I think he thought this was an amusing title to get me!


No, I didn't read any instructions at first - yes, I did later - yes, flying by the seat of one's pants is not a good idea! I glued together with gesso a wad of pages on both sides of the 'canvas' I was going to use and dried it (them). I made an error and taped the centre strip  - won't be doing that again.


I don't have Dylusional Paint sprays or similar  but I do have some Tattered Angels and some 'odds and sods' so used them


A bit of splattering with water add ink and paint as it dried


The stencil work with texture pastes - the flowers were done with a microbead paste - yummy. I was going to colour them but as this all dried the pastes drew in the colours of the sprays, so I just left them as it was, except for a bit of definition inks using TH Sooty Black mostly.


The longer I waited the more colour they adsorbed.


While they were drying, I stamped out some flowers and painted them with Dylusional Paints - this is where I discovered a little bit goes a very, very long way......


After painting the flowers I fussy cut them out and took to them with a white gel pen, as well as trying to give them some form with the stylus.


I covered another sheet of 12 x 12 with the paint left over but it all ran in together and became a bit murky after a while so I waited until it dried and gave it a spray with an iridescent gold spray - very sparkly now! I used it to punch out some birds and twigs and butterflies to add to my pages


Looks lacy doesn't it - lots of dimension going on here!


I scribbled some messages about love and its meaning around the spaces with a black fine pen, and added some TH words


Night time shot on desk


Day time shots outside


As a first attempt I was pretty happy with it. It has a lovely Spring feel to it.

If you want to play around or you are into altered art, 
why not make a project for Eclectic Ellipu this month! 

Scroll down to the Purple Team post and find your linky there