Time to Play

I'm a Lollipop Lady!!!

2012-02-01T00:00:00.000+11:00

I made a New Year Resolution to take the big plunge and just apply for DT jobs and guess what! I got the first two I applied for - I was so excited when I got onto the team at UnstampaBelles BUT.....drum roll please, now I am a Lollipop Lady as well!

The first Challenge for Lollipops is for fairy bread! That is the bread with 100s and 1000s sprinkled onto the butter on it! Just like in the picture!

An additional challenge is to add wings (fairies havethem so the bread should too ;-))

I will enter this in the Southern Girls Challenge - #37 Magic and Mystery

In my childhood, white bread always had a creamy look, was from a high tin and had a thick crunchy crust. It was usually spread thickly with yellow butter, and the 100s and 1000s sort of melted into the butter and coloured it again. We only had fairy bread for birthday treats - and usually only for my birthday as the boys weren't into fairies!! So my colours are not so much pink and green and blue on white, as yellow and green and red all melted into a sort of creamy yellowish/white background!

The card used for this is Stampin'Up's Pool Party, and I combined it with DP from Bo Bunny's Ad Lib 6 x 6 pad. The image is a fairy from Lili of the Valley coloured up with Copics, and cut out with the trusty Cuttlebug and a label die from Spellbinder. The backgrounds are also cut out using different dies from Spellbinder. The ribbon is SU's stitched Poppy Parade, the flourish is from a Cheery Lyn die, the sentiment is from Verve's Enjoy set and the sprinkles are from Annabelle's Stamps. I used Stickles on the wings and the fairy's hair and the flower. I also inked around the top die cut with SU Poppy Parade. Hope you like it!!

This one doesn't have the inking! See the difference!

Whine or Wine?

2012-01-29T18:27:00.002+11:00

There are so many lovely labels on wine bottles, and I have made use of many of these in my day - both the contents of the bottles and the labels!

However, I find it hard to remove some of the labels for my artwork - that's my whine! My hubby is a bit of an expert now, including filling the bottle with hot water and waiting, to applying (carefully) the heat from a hair dryer, to simply soaking in a sink of hot water. Some lift off OK and some don't. Oh well, youse takes your chances, eh!

This card uses an image from a wine bottle that obviously came off but had to be trimmed a bit, so I put the image inside a frame and you cannot tell it is a little worse for wear! Can you?

This is an outside shot

This is an inside one

These are the products used to make it - the backing paper is from Out of Print, the top DPs are from Jenny B's Studio, the frame is from Merci, the rub-on is a Kelly Panacci (Sandy Lion) which was worse for wear and had to be resurrected with black pen. The black ribbon (wide) is off a chocolate box, and the thin one is from clothing. The beads I made. The black and gold ribbon tape is from 7 Gypsies. You can just see another wine label (Annie's Lane) under the small papers pack, and I was contemplating using that instead of the one I did, as this card was made for my friend Annie's birthday! The black card base is a commercial blank.

Beautiful Day

2012-01-29T16:40:00.003+11:00

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary but I was teaching a Copic class in the afternoon so today my lovely husband took me to lunch at the beautiful winery Meadowbank, near Richmond today instead to celebrate.

Here is a photo (taken from the web) of the winery and the view - its greener today than this photo indicates.

The sky was a clear brilliant blue today as well!

We had a fabulous meal and shared a beautiful bottle of Chardonnay. The service was superb. Now, my hubby is sound asleep snoring on the couch upstairs with the TV on - it is 35 degrees outside,and although there is a sea breeze, we are tucked around the corner at our house and don't get it. The sky is still a clear beautiful blue and I have been able to go to the workroom and make a lovely card! What more could you want!

Here is my card:

The card used is SU Whisper White, Lucky Limeaid and Cherry Cobbler. The base card is Kraft from Papermania. The ribbon is a rich burgundy from my stash, stamped with SU Kraft white ink - using a sentiment from WMS - Little Trees. The centre sentiment stamp is a freebie from Craft Stamper magazine, by Banana Frog stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I coloured the centre of the circle with a Copic pen. The leaves are die cut using Sizzix Little Leaves from SU. I cut a circle using two Nestabilities (one inside the other) from the green card and then attached the leaves to it using glue to create the wreath. I took some flowers from I Brake for Stamps (red ones on wire and wound them around the card) and Peterloo (white ones glued on). I have tied a bit of seam binding ribbon on the side. I thought it looked quite pretty!

I had one leave set left over so added it to the inside of the card, which is layered in the red and then white card and stamped with a suitable sentiment from Stamp It.

Modem woes!

2012-01-27T13:32:00.001+11:00

My modem died on Tuesday morning at 10.20 am. Vale, modem - you have been a good friend for many a year. The Telstra technician who came laughed when he saw it and said it was one of the originals send out by Telstra when people first logged in with Broadband.

It took several calls to the Phillipines, and to mainland Australia, and then several more calls after the technician called to get up and running again with a new modem. Wonder if this one will last for more than 10 years?

Anyway, I now have a slim silver modem blinking at me and email again, as well as access to blogland! I only have 58 emails to deal with and am now up-to-date with all internet duties! Back to crafting..........

SILs birthday card

2012-01-15T15:17:00.001+11:00

Had to make a card for the SIL - he has a birthday later this week. It's busy in January!
I will enter it in the CES Challenge Blog - Vintage Darling! and in the Pattie's Creations Design Challenge - Fancy Fold.
Also for Aud Sentiments #45 Challenge - use scraps!

Base card is SU Crumb Cake (or Kraft) and SU Very Vanilla - my fold is a take on the Joy Fold. The brads are lovely vintage brads from SU and SU twine. The background papers are from the scrap stash. I just picked five papers that looked masculine and went together. The stamps are from Darkroom Door's Vintage Automobiles. The ink is Memento Rich Cocoa and Distress Antique Linen.

Unwrap the linen thread and it opens up.......

.....to this! I distressed and inked the edges of the vanilla card but didn't add ink to anything else. Keeps it a bit edgy I thought.

Beautiful day today and I went out with the camera to take the photos of the card and ended up playing with the camera for 30 minutes in the sunshine, learning to take close ups and stuff. They are not that good but better than I have done in the past. I must learn to use my camera better than I do.

Fern curl

Native bush - not sure of its name

Piece of the fence with old creeper root attached

Yet another one....

2012-01-14T16:56:00.000+11:00

This card went together very quickly from a previously coloured image and some scraps from the scrap stash drawer, and another Penny Black stamp for the sentiment. The image is an Annabelle Stamp image - Li'lle Monster.

I was going to enter it into CR84FN Challenge #45 - blue, yellow and orange, but I was too late to enter (sigh) but I am also entering it into Annabelle Stamps Challenge Anything Goes and the Card Crafters - Birthday Card challenge instead!

The die cut is a Spellbinders one in SU Marina Mist as is the ink. The orange card is SU Pumpkin Pie and the DP is from my stash and has no name on it so am unsure of maker. I coloured the image with Copics about six months ago and lost it in the mess of Christmas cards. The card is a commercial blank.

Keeping it Simple

2012-01-14T15:36:00.002+11:00

This is not as easy as it sounds. Susan at Simplicity has challenged us to make a card using a single layer, and the colours of pink and red only, no others. I have thought about this for a few days and yesterday I got a delivery from Stampin' Up with several new stamp sets. I tried them out.

OWL#74

The little pink heart is crooked - deliberately? - sadly, no. The stamp set used is a new one from the Summer catalogue called You Are Loved and the little pink heart is from an older set called I (Heart) Hearts. The ink is Cherry Cobbler and the pearls are white Kaiser coloured up with a Copic pen to match. The card is a glossy white commercial blank and I rounded the corners.

This is more than one layer but I like the simple look - again it is a stamp set from the mini called Pretty Postage and is punched out using the Postage Stamp Punch. The ink is Cherry Cobbler and the card is a commercial blank. In both cards I tried to follow Susan's rule of thirds when positioning the images.

More Maritime images

2012-01-14T13:05:00.000+11:00

The DP from Stampin' Up was so lovely and I had to make a card for my brother's birthday next week, so I used an image from the paper and made his card before I tidied up.

The ink used is SU Not Quite Navy, and the sentiment is from Stamp It. The card is SU Not Quite Navy and the DP is the one mentioned below from SU's Summer mini. Couldn't resist tying a bit of twine s well here. It is all fussy cut, including the mount and the banner. Took me about 20 minutes!!!!

I will enter this in Card Crafter's Circle. Their Challenge is for a Birthday Card.

Maritime Images

2012-01-14T12:14:00.001+11:00

A male friend of ours turns 60 tomorrow so this is his card, made using the Stampin' Up DP set in the new Summer Mini catalogue and the stamp set The Open Sea which matches it. I have CASed this card. Bakers twine also comes from this same mini - I used it a lot over Christmas on tags!

I will be entering this in the Annabelle Stamps - Anything Goes Challenge. Bye the way, Andrea has just launched five new clear stamp sets - very versatile and great for creating backgrounds as well as making great cards.

The sentiment stamp is from Penny Black and the ink used is SU Pacific Blue. The frame is a SU punch and the die behind the world is is from Spellbinders as is the circle.

Dandelion and Daisy

2012-01-12T17:17:00.002+11:00

I acquired a stamp set for these two characters and while playing around made this - I used the MOJO Monday Sketch Challenge #223 to create this and will enter it in the Challenge.

I used Bazill card for the blank; and the papers from Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose Collection (freebie in Quick Cards Magazine) booklet. The image is from Dandelion and Daisy Clear Stamp 9071000. I coloured it with Copics after stamping it out in Momento Close to Cocoa. The sentiment is in the same. Some die cuts and ribbon and pearls and the hearts border is a Martha Stewart Punch.

New Beginnings

2012-01-11T18:28:00.001+11:00

....is the name of the Challenge over at Lili of the Valley Thursday Challenge blog, and so I coloured up a fairy with my trusty Copics and am entering her in this challenge. I will also enter her in the CPS #250 Sketch Challenge and the Lollipop Ladies Challenge #37 Minties (red, green and white!)

I used a Lili of the Valley image and sentiment. The card is from SU - Pacific Point, Whisper White and Lucky Limeaide, with DP from Echo Park Dots and Stripes pad. Flowers are from Prima. The die cut frames are from Shapeabilities. The card is a commercial blank.

Still playin'.........

2012-01-10T14:54:00.000+11:00

I was asked to make a card for the son of a friend. He is working in the mines in WA and drives a Mac Truck. So, I had a look on the internet, and this is my take on it.

It is mounted on black card and I cut this out for the front part of the truck,and then using an enlarged computer image, I cut this out and coloured it (Copics), and mounted it onto a piece of scrap kraft which had gone through a Tim Holtz embossing folder. I added a sentiment cut using a die, and the numbers are stick-ons, also coloured using Copics!

You can see it open here

The inside has the same image used as a faded background, with the message printed onto it. This is mounted on some Pacific Blue (SU) and then onto the Whisper White and then onto the black. Cutting out the shape was not easy.

I am not sure if it will hold up as the fold is small and fragile.

I have several photos from around my garden over the last week - it is cold today but has been hot and muggy/steamy lately, not what we are used to and the plants have loved it!

African Lily

The jungle at the side of the house

Bloomin' Flowers

2012-01-06T16:46:00.002+11:00

I made a few this arvo while listening to Australia defeat India at cricket in the second test - magnificent game this one; so many hundreds and so exciting. Three Tasmanians in the team (over represented for the population compared to the rest of Aussie) and all have done well - life is good. Hilfy has just got his third wicket and it will probably be over in four days instead of five. OK, OK.....back to the flowers...........

I have purchased a few die cuts over 2011 and have the new triple punch from Stampin' Up, and so have used up some of the scraps laying around on the desk after the Christmas cards etc, and made flowers to compare and see what each die or punch can do. Still cannot make roses like Tillymint (you must give me a tutorial one day) who by-the-way has just been published in the latest edition of Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft (Congrats Sue) - however, I will practice!

Here are my attempts at creating a bouquet!

All of them!

I used glue stick and glitter on some of the die cut rolled small roses (Marianne dies), and added a few pearls in some. These are thin papers

These are the thinker papers

Two different sizes

Die cut Spellbinders Shapeabilities - Flower Creations in some lovely gold/blue embossed Japanese paper

The same die cut - this time SU Whisper White and Pacific Blue ink sponged onto the paper before it was taken out of the die - and the paper was also embossed prior to this and after the die cut was made.

These are the flowers from the triple SU punch and three brads from the SU set Everyday Enchantment

Three bigger rolled roses using a Die-namics die from My Favourite Things - the white one is a middle sized from Marianne.

The blue ones are Shapeabilities Daisy Heads - cut and embossed onto SU DP; the purple ones are from a Quick Kutz Flower set on thin paper

The Daisy Heads on SU White - cut, embossed and sponged with Melon Mambo

These are from a Marianne die set LR0196 and the card is from scraps of SU DP from the stash and the brads are cloth covered - I ran the glue pen around the petals and sprinkled them with glitter.

These are from a Die-namics die - a bit like an Aster Daisy

Playing Around

2012-01-03T18:39:00.000+11:00

The Christmas tree is down and the ornaments packed away; the cards are down and waiting to be dealt with (re-read with scissors to enjoy the greetings and save the useful stuff before I recycle the rest); the guest has departed and the room stripped, linen washed and dried and ready to make up the bed again.....the temperature was 32 degrees at its highest and the day was WARM (muggy)!

Sooo, what better excuse to play than that! I purchased a piece of clothing towards the end of last year and it had a label that had a silver moon in a circle. I took it downstairs and it floated on my desk for a while until one day I idly added a red velvet circle that was also floating. I liked the look but didn't get to make it up into anything until today. I saw the Annabelle Stamps Blog Challenge Sketch #045 and thought about what I could make and my eye fell on the moon - so it was done!

This is the back of the label about to be stuck onto the orange sparkly card

The sparkly orange card is the DCWV Citrus pack I have been playing around with lately, and the black card I die cut the black from the stash; the ribbon is from Papermania and the black stars are from the cutouts. The sentiment is a rub-on and the red circle is from the Jenni B Collection. The base card is a commercial blank. The bling stars are from Annabelle Stamps (they cover some of the writing on the tag). It's put together with double sided tape and dimentionals on the moon tag.

I was given some chocolates by a friend (thanks Deborah) for Christmas and liked the little box they came in - when opened out it became obvious it was a great template, so I used it to create my own little box. It is not decorated yet - but soon!

2012-01-02T07:00:00.000+11:00

My first project is for January Challenge #1at UnstampaBelles - how exciting to be involved with these Belles. This Challenge closes on the 3rd February, and is for Anything Goes.

The Sponsor of this Challenge is our own Merry Belle - Merry Made! She is offering the goodies in the photo below for this Challenge

Purple patterned washi tape, 15 origami papers and patterns, 3 Copic Pens YR07, Y06, R27, a roll of Sellotape - double sided tape 12mm x 10m.

If you are interested in seeing what other goodies our Merry has available- check out this link!

MerryMade Store

Now, my project for the Challenge:

My husband had a birthday just after Christmas (on the 30th in fact) and so my project is the card I constructed for him! He was a keen yachtsman and sailor, and we used to have a boat and sail/cruise often in the beautiful waters of the Channel and the Derwent River Estuary here in Tasmania. And of course, we have just hosted the annual Sydney- Hobart Yacht Race and King of the Derwent here in Hobart. The race starts on Boxing Day (Australian time) and concludes usually when the last boat sails in just before mid-night on New Year's Eve. So what better theme to use than a nautical one!

I used half a sheet of 12 x 12 Bazzil card to start with, and constructed a sweet box, with a folder card on top. This pattern I have had for a while but I do not know where I got it from (or who I got it from). I decorated the card using Marianne Design die cuts LR0199, and the clouds are Whimsy Stamps Cloud Die set. All the dies were cut using scrap papers - the launch is Co'ordinations; the yacht and clouds are from a shimmery card purchased some years ago in a pack and lost in my stash for a long time! The sun is from a sparkly DCWV Citrus pack and cut out with a circle punch (1"). They are mounted with dimentionals or double sided tape. The waves were created with Zva Creative crystal flourishes cut to fit. I added a tag with a hand-written message, plus a small metal charm of a nautical steering wheel. The numbers on the yacht sails are stickers and represent the age of the recipient! The message is inside and was computer generated onto white paper and cut to fit inside the card. The lollies were from Christmas (left-overs!) and are kept in by a small sheet of acetate fitted inside the box during construction.

A side on view

Sneeking a look inside the card - the sentiment inside was computer generated and printed off, and then glued into the card.

Websters Pages giveaway

2011-12-31T11:36:00.000+11:00

Want to win some lovely Webster's pages papers? I found this on someone else's site and went there and entered and am now encouraging others to enter as well - lovely new papers up for grabs! Go here to see! you can win the entire Sunday picnic Collection if you are the lucky one!

Last of the Christmas cards

2011-12-29T17:32:00.002+11:00

Here are the last few cards I made for Christmas:

The stamp is from Stamp-It and I used SU Black ink pens and an Old Olive SU pen for the holly leaves, onto SU Whisper White and mounted the image onto SU Real Red. I die cut a label and stamped a sentiment from Waltzing Mouse Stamps and mounted that with dimentionals. I finished it with bling. The card is a commercial blank from Regal Press. I made five of these and sold them as a set, with envelopes. I didn't have time for a box so just tied some ribbon around them.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas celebration with family and friends. Ours is on-going, not helped by the fact the my husband has a birthday tomorrow as well! My New Years Eve will be very quiet I expect - me snoring on the couch and hubby snoring on the other! We are off to the Taste Food Festival in a minute, and to see the yachts at the end of the various ocean races, including the Sydney Hobart.

Just wanted to add this photo of granddaughter number two, all dressed up to go to her school's formal - just prior to Christmas - note the sparkles in the corners of the eyes! Her shoes were at least three inches high and she could not walk that well, but she looked lovely and so grown-up!

Exciting News!

2011-12-20T11:18:00.002+11:00

I applied for and have been accepted as a Design Team member for a group called UnstampaBelles, where the aim is to create paper creations without using stamps of any type. It can be a challenge but it is so much fun! I start in January so just after Christmas I have to get my skates on and create my first card! I hope you all join me on the journey!

S'Mores..........

2011-12-17T18:18:00.001+11:00

I knew I had not made the last of the cards - I was asked to make some for selling so have made about a dozen more - here are some! I'll show the others later. Got my Christmas shopping nearly done today and put up the decorations and tree (finally). So, nearly there.

I used the freebie papers from Meg's Garden (magazine giveaway) and some of my scraps; the stamp is from Waltzing Mouse and the flowers are probably Prima.

This one has an image cut from Megs Garden papers I purchased this year, and added to the freebie background. Add some ribbon and bling.

Ditto this one.

Also made a card for a niece and her husband for the 25th wedding anniversary and a birthday card for the 98 year old MIL. You can see i ran out of room to put the small letters for counting.......both made in a hurry for posting! I used a lot of scraps for the MIL card.

I did it!

2011-12-10T17:32:00.001+11:00

Made my quota of cards - finished them today! I still feel as if I am on a roll and expect they will not be the last cards I make this year for Christmas. I have cased a lot of them and some are just straight out of my own little head! All the cards made today were put onto various commercial blanks.

Here are some samples of some cards made today. I ONLY have to insert the inners; write the Christmas letter; stamp the backs with my own stamp; write in the cards; put them into envelopes; create the stickers for the addresses and put them on the correct envelopes and then......Hubby will post them for me! Wonder when I will get all that done!!!!!

This is cased from one of the Waltzing Mouse team - no sure who - as I had the set but hadn't inked it all yet. SU card, scrap DP and Memento inks - Black and Grey, and stuff from my stash

I had three of these wooden deer - purchased in Melbourne last week - and was determined to use them. A doily die cut, some DP from last year and ribbon, and Annabelle sparkles, and Prima flowers

Same ingredients except for the felt circle from my stash and the old leaf whcih had been laying around for a long time!

I still had a few of the flowers left over, so this is one created straight from scraps, a rub-on and a doily die cut.

A tag, a rub-on, a doily piece aged with Antique Linen ink

These cards were created using SU card, and DP, rub-ons, Copics for extra colour at times, and a star punched with a Fiskars punch into SU glitter paper.

Sweet Sixteen

2011-12-09T17:03:00.001+11:00

That is the age of my second oldest granddaughter today. She is a diva - sings, plays cornet, plays soccer footsool, is in Rovers and generally is too busy for school! She is just finishing year 10 and will be going to Year 11 College next year - look out world! Did I get her card made ahead of time? NO. Did I spend all day today getting it made? YES. What is it about making a special card for a special person - why does it take such a long time? After I had smudged and torn my way through the card and covered up the errors - I was glad to hand it over. Last thing was dropping the sentiment stamp inside back onto the card after I had stamped the sentiment so nicely onto the inner and having to remove the original one and replace it with another. I usually don't stamp straight onto the inside of the card for precisely this reason - and it was a good thing too today!

I am going to enter it into CR84FN colour challenge #44: Coral, Pink and Aqua

Over a hundred now.....

2011-12-08T17:36:00.001+11:00

......and I spent five hours yesterday sitting on a stall selling Christmas stuff for Charity at the local public hospital, so didn't get much crafting time (grabbed a couple of hours in the afternoon)!

I really enjoyed playing with the alcohol inks and today I continued to play with my ink pads and 'painted' backgrounds a la Zindorf for a while, and then I went back to some wet embossing and then I just decided to make a stack using stamps, ink and bling! Here are a few examples of sets made. (I usually make about 6 of a kind - then I get bored and need to move on!)

I am entering the last one in several challenges:

ABC Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes

Creative Belli Blog Challenge - a winter theme

Gingersnap Creations - Starry Night

SU Baubles and punch, Cherry Cobbler ink and sentiment from Season of Joy; plus some bling. The flourish is from one of Waltzing Mouse's newer sets

Just using up some embellies!

Season of Joy tree, masking and dabbing and spraying with smooch spray (white and gold for the sun), SU ribbon and Stickles; SU Lucky Limeade and Island Indigo are the colours and the sentiment is white EP

Masking and sponging and the stag from SU Going Postal in Momento London Fog; Copics to help colour the moon and the shadow under the stag; tree 'ribbon' added an then all sprayed with white smooch after a rub-on was added for sentiment

Seventy seven and counting....

2011-12-06T17:14:00.001+11:00

Christmas cards made, that is. I have made a few today but got bogged down making ones using metal and alcohol inks, and only made four of these. Now I will have to make a few quickies to catch up as I need to make around 120 by Friday at the latest.

I am going to enter some of these in two Challenges: UnstampaBelles for using no stamps and Crafty Cardmakers for using embossing powder.

My first set were easy - some embossing using the Cuttlebug and some die cuts using three absolutely lovely Memory Box dies - a snowflake, a tree and a Frosty Border. Here are some examples - the base cards are commercial blanks (mostly) and the card I used for layering is mostly SU but there are some from the stash. It seems strange that they are winter themes and the sun was shining brightly this morning when the photo's were taken of the top three or four - makes the embossing look quite deep.

I am entering this one above into a challenge at UnstampaBelles: no stamps used to create a Christmas card. I seems strange making cards with no stamps but I like the look of these.

Thise one and the one below are also sprayed with white mica spray, and the stamp used is from Waltzing Mouse and is embossed with white EP. The gold bling is from Kaiser.

My frosty border broke so I had to use it differently

These are the metal ones - again embossing folders and the Cuttlebug, but it is metal shim being embossed and coloured. When dry I put black StaysOn ink over the top to try to highlight the embossing and I then used Versamark and clear EP to get a shine back on it. Some have two or three coats and some are done using UTEE. Its also quite interesting to see those commercial card blanks in real life and in the photo - they are much richer and more burgundy in real life - in the photos the blue is bleeding through and they look almost purple.

I am entering this in a challenge at Crafty Cardmakers, for embossing! It has both wet and dry embossing, as does the other three.

Only one coat of normal EP. The frame is Shapeabilities and the sentiment is SU

Two coats of normal EP. SU card as the base card.

This one and the one below both use UTEE - the sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse.

In real life that ribbon is a perfect match!

Jack's Birthday Card

2011-12-05T13:18:00.001+11:00

As you know I have been in Canberra celebrating our grandson's sixth birthday - here is the card I made for him using the SU set Under the Big Top that we got at the Conference last month. The papers and card are all from SU.

The first photo is of the two recycled and reused brown paper shopping bags that I decorated to hold his stash of birthday goodies, as well as the card, a trifold one.

Page one

Inside the card - sentiment is from a freebie set of stamps that came with a magazine

The second page (or third?) - this style gives you 5 faces to decorate

Then I had a party on Sunday here - a workshop to make some tags for Christmas. They all made five tags at least and they were all different - and I took them all off the SU site !

Charity

2011-12-05T11:45:00.001+11:00

Just a quick post - I am the sometime reader of a blog concocted by Jenny in USA known to thousands as The Bloggess. She can be irreverent but is always amusing and/or inspiring to read. I really love her page and it never fails to move me in some way. Today it moved me to donate to charity - perhaps it may move you as well. Here is her address if you don't know it: http://thebloggess.com/

A similar charity to the one mentioned for homeless youth in Australia is Swags for Homeless: here is their contact point www.givenow.com.au/swagsforhomeless/regulardonation

Merry Christmas

Summer is Here.....

2011-12-02T16:25:00.001+11:00

We have been on the big island for a fortnight, visiting family for various events and doing some travelling and sightseeing along the way. I have some photos to show you of places and people and events. We went to Canberra via the Hume highway after catching the night ferry across the Strait to Melbourne - it was a good crossing and we got an early start to Albury and were able to visit friends along the way, and stayed the night there. We got into Canberra just as Obama was leaving!

Hume Weir - full of water flowing into the Murray River

Canberra - looking at Parliament house from the steps of the War Memorial, down the Avenue and over the lake

Our reason for going to Canberra was because our grandson Jack turned six! He is very cute and so well behaved (mostly!) while we were there. His sister Lily, who is a delightful young lady, was also a reason for our visit as we had to meet her new kitten Zap - he was very cute and funny.

Jack eating his dinner!

Lily setting the table - notice she wrote the number of place settings on her hand!

While in the War Memorial I tracked down the position of my great-uncles James and William on the honour boards there of soldiers who died in WW1 - James died at Gallipoli and William died in France. I placed a poppy for each in remembrance. So many died so heedlessly in both the world wars - our family name is Laugher - and it is pronounced Law.

We then travelled to Melbourne, this time going across to the East coast of New South Wales, and travelling down the coast line visiting all the little villages - we stayed a night at Merimbula and another one at Lakes Entrance in Victoria before making our way into the city. My sister-in-law Judy and her husband Ken were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, with a party - it was great fun!

The party was at home (catered for) and she is carrying the wedding bouquet my husband gave her - a replica of the one 50 years ago. You can see they were married at 16! However, I can assure you they are both over 70.

My MIL was supposed to be there to help celebrate but the night before she got food poisoning! She ended up in hospital and is still there as I write this, but is feeling a lot better is not a little peed-off!

Not bad for 98 on Christmas Eve!

We arrived home on Wednesday morning after another good ferry trip back across the ditch. We got all the washing done on Wednesday afternoon and it rained a bit yesterday (Thursday) which was a good way to do things - this beautiful rainbow appeared outside the back door yesterday afternoon! The pot(s) appear to be either in the water of the bay or in the bushland over the road - must take a shovel and go digging..........

The wedding card for the niece!

The Anniversary card - it was a bit lumpy-bumpy so made a box for it . That's a Marianne die cut if you're interested. The colours are a bit washed out - the gold is richer and the green leaves darker.

Tag, you're it!

2011-11-13T12:58:00.001+11:00

I have made a lot of tags lately but need to make a lot more - however, here are some, using a variety of stamps - freebies, WMS and SU - and the die's are all cut from the SU Sizzix Big Tags or Spellbinders Labels 18. The string is either from Annabelles Stamps or SU Bakers Twine.

Then I made some vintage cards, using the new Waltzing Mouse stamps I received in the mail and a lovely Verve postcards stamp, with images from Meg's Garden Designs Galore series of 12 x 12 papers. Throw in some die cuts and lace, and background Figgy Pudding Christmas DP, some ribbon and sparkly numbers coloured with Copics and I had fun creating!

My Beautiful Nieces

2011-11-13T12:42:00.001+11:00

Yesterday afternoon we dolled ourselves up and went to a wedding in the beautiful Huon Valley, at a lovely winery called Home Hill. We were there to help celebrate the wedding of my goddaughter and niece Rachel to her husband (now) Michael. Her two sisters and Michael's sister were the attendants, and my great niece Chloe was the flower girl! Her brother was also supposed to be there but the attention was too much and he cried and ran away! What a beautiful day - I cried too. My brother and his wife walked her down the isle and the resulting ceremony was simple and lovely and the party afterwards was great fun!

Sister one - Louise - with the junior but shy grooms man Hugo!

Sister two - Kellie - with her daughter the flower girl!

Sister three - the bride! Walked down the isle by her proud parents.

During the ceremony -those are grapes in the background folks

Going off for photo's - party was inside later

Congratulations Rachel and Michael!

November, already!

2011-11-05T15:29:00.000+11:00

I was supposed to be tidying my area up and I found this sheet of Penny Black stickers that have been floating around for such a long time,so I made it up into six small note cards and then I made a box for them......I really was tidying up!

The inside has a single sheet of white with the sentiment 'just a note' from an MFT set. The card used is all SU and from the newest in-colours. The DP is all scrap pieces from my stash. Various dies are used to help frame the stickers in black SU card. The ribbon is from the stash.

Then I decided to make some Christmas cards, as I have CASed such a lot lately (I tend to copy/paste such cards into a word doc, reduced them in size and make then sepia or black/white so I just see the shapes an the sketch for the card, rather than be influenced by the colours so much; each page holds about six or eight CASed cards) so began on the first one on the page: it had an oval die cut holding an ornament which was what had attracted my attention to it - I only have ornate round or square dies, so decided to go with a round one, but then couldn't decide which shape to use, so ended up making six similar cards. It had began with an SU card showcasing the bauble punch - so I had punched out six baubles from bits of left over Christmas paper and they were all looking OK......took me two hours to make the six!

The sentiment comes from a set of stamps from a magazine - the only thing I had small enough to fit the SU punch tag I was determined to use; the bauble is from an SU punch, and I punched the top of each one again in gold card and glued it on but you cannot see it in most of them - to make an ornament top. The ribbon and string is from the stash, and the only ink used apart from SU for edging papers was the Momento Tuxedo Black. The card used to cut with the dies was also from my stash and is mostly shiny pearlised card in three different colours. The dies are either Die-namics (Doily Duo), or Spellbinders - Picot Edge Circle and Star Circle. The DPs are from the scrap box of Christmas papers. I know one set is from Basic Grey's Nordic Holiday. The bling is mostly Kaiser.

I am going to enter the Christmas Cards in the November Challenge at Samual Taylor's Crafts

There is only 57 days left until Christmas!!! So this months challenge is "Christmas Cards". Whether you have already made yours or still have them left to do then this is the perfect time to get ready. Well done if you have already made yours (unlike me!!!) and if not then lets get cracking with them.

So the challenge this month is "Christmas Cards" show us what you have been up to

This months prize is a Martha Stewart Double Craft Punch "Icelandic Snowflake"

New Goodies arrived in the post

2011-10-26T18:11:00.003+11:00

One of them was an embossing folder from Craft Concepts - Universal EF- Merry Christmas. Another was a lovely die from Memorybox called Flowering Christmas Tree. I used SU card - one of the new colours Lucky Limeaid and Whisper White - and made this. The star is a bling bit from Annabelle Stamps, coloured with a Copic pen.

The card I diecut the tree from is a sparkly DCWV - Citrus Cardstock pad I have.

I am entering this is My Time to Craft: Mostly White Challenge

The next card was cased from the internet somewhere last year. I do not have the details. The image, colours and ribbon/laces have changed. I used an image from LOTV - Christmas Candle, and coloured her with my Copic pens, and used some snow spray on her hood.

I did this before I put it through the Cuttlebug - tip for those who don't know: DO THIS AFTER! I then used two different circle dies from Spellbinders and a doily, a piece of card run through the embossing folder Snowflakes, and the edge of the white is by a MS edge punch. The ribbon is from my stash and the paper 'lace' is also. The card used is SU Pink Pirouette and Tempting Turquoise, with Whisper White.

This one is entered in Christmas Dies by Christmas Inspirations, found at http://natalduranteoanotodo.blogspot.com/
(I have now fixed the link!)

Diamonds are the girls best friend

2011-10-24T16:12:00.004+11:00

I have an SU party this weekend (Hi Natalie) and have put together a few templates for this as make-and-takes or demo's. I have another few ideas I am mulling over as well, so this may not be all there is to chose from yet.

I am hampered as I don't have a lot of SU DP in Christmas designs - in fact I cannot find any! I was sure I had some in the stash but must have used it all. Anyway, here are my cards:

They are a bit basic - the bauble and the sentiment are embossed with clear over Orchid Opulance (no longer available) so I would use either Rich Razzleberry or Perfect Plum. The green is Old Olive. The sets are Delightful Decorations and Baroque Flourishes, with the sentiment coming from Seasons of Joy. I used the bauble punch to make the shape, and lined it up inside with the Stamp-a-ma-jig. I pricked the line of holes for effect using the Mat Pack tool. The card is Whisper White and the DP is .........from the past!

This is it laying flat.

This one John didn't like, but I do - I have used a variety of stamps for snowflakes and randomly stamped them over the top of the card ( Island Indigo) with white ink, and then stamped some of the snowflake stamps from other sets with Versamark on Whisper White and embossed them with gold EP. They were then punched out with various size punches and added. The strip of Pool Party card has been off-stamped with white ink and the swirl from Hope, and then sprayed with gold Smooch glitter. The sentiment comes from a Waltzing Mouse set.

This is the diamond card - the shape is of course the reason for the name. The stamp set is Winter Post, coloured in with Copics, but you could use SU markers. I have cut the scalloped circle wit the die cutter and the circle is cut and embossed before being stamped and coloured, except I did put the background in with sponges before I removed it from the die. The gold card is from my stash.

It opens out a bit like a bon-bon. The sentiment is from an old SU set and punched out with an SU punch, and the edges inked with Poppy Parade ink. The card is a 12 x 12 bazzill and the DP is from Basic Grey's Nordic Holiday pad.

I clipped it so you can see what it looks like in the envelope.

Making them by the dozen.....

2011-10-23T15:00:00.002+11:00

Christmas cards, that is. I purchased a 12 x 12 sheet from Meg's Garden (actually, I purchased several other things as well, but this one is in red and white, with black line drawings - the Designs Galore - Old Fashioned Christmas on Red sheets) and then didn't quite know what to do with this one. I played around a bit and then came up with these I have made a baker's dozen from this sheet, and still have some small images left over,which I will probably put inside the cards when I prepare them for sending. Here is the batch, and I will show only one or two others - you will get the idea!

Sorry about the sun ruining the shot - came out just as I clicked it!

I used all Stampin'Up card, especially Whisper White and black, except for most of the base cards, which are commercial. I roughly coloured most of them with SU markers using the water paint technique and in the process discovered I can use my biggest acrylic block for stamps as a nice palette!

The embellies are all from my Christmas stash, except for this felt ribbon of flowers, which is out of my ordinary stash! This brad I have had now for three years and finally used it! The embossing folder is the Sissix Snowflakes one, and I also used Swirls a few times.

The sentiment is from SU

The ribbon lace is an SU punch.

Today has been such a beautiful day......

2011-10-18T18:01:00.000+11:00

So blue! And the temperature has been up to 23 degrees - lovely.

I have been at a funeral this afternoon (yes,another one!) for a colleague - a great funeral, warm and full of love and a real celebration of her life. I think I am 'funeralled' out! Vale Fay.

Painting class this morning, although I did not paint, but drew and coloured in with pastels for a new technique (resist) a plate of cooked trout! We will see what becomes of it when I add the watercolour! I painted a fish last week, using a new technique of adding tissue paper and PVC glue (sound familiar all you crafters?) for texture, and scribbling over my painting with ink and nib, and of blocking off some parts of the page with tape and then lifting it after I had painted in some of the background to create a faux background. This is going to be good for my craft I know it but at the moment my crafting ability seems to be at zero!

Here is my fish!

I have done some crafting - here is an attempt at a vintage card using an image from some of Meg's Garden papers - Designs Galore: Old Fashioned Christmas. I cut out several of the images and coloured them with SU inks and a watercolouring pen. The background papers are from K and Company - Die-cut Mat Pad Glad Tidings. I used a doily and coloured it with Distress Ink Antique Linen, and swiped some of it on the white parts of the images as well to dull them a bit. The card is SU Cherry Cobbler, and the ribbon is left over from last years presents.

The two cards below were made last week from a magazine I purchased which had some freebie papers and die cuts (sort of - I had to fussy cut them out) and I really just copied what was in the magazine as I had run out of steam at that stage and couldn't think to help myself.

Then I though I would play with some alcohol inks at the weekend and made some background papers which will appear in the future. I also put some onto a metal sheet (and some stamping tile and glass) and then stamped onto part of the metal with some StaysOn black ink using the SU stamp set - Merry and Type. I then fussy-cut these out and 'hung' them onto the card (SU Tempting Turquoise). I practised tying the small bows by using a fork as a bow-tie and attached them and added a bit of gold with some Copic pens. I put some ink around the edges of the TT card (SU Melon Mambo) and layered this up on some background paper from a magazine (unknown) that matched the colours and layered this onto MM and then put the whole on a commercial white card blank. The die cut label is from Sixxix and the ink is SU MM, while the sentiment is from WMS set - Tiny Trees.

This card below uses the same set and again is alcohol inks but residue put onto a scrap of SU Whisper White. It had a nice subtle look. Again I fussy cut and this time used Smooch Gold but it got smooched as well! I 'hung' these with a gold pen onto another piece of SU WW, and got it crocked! The sentiment is from the same set and stamped in SU Black. It is backed onto gold and then SU Calypso Coral. The background paper is scrap from last year and the ribbon is a Vandoras Christmas parcel tie. They are not that good - sorry but I thought I had better show that I was doing something even if they are second rate!

Life is not really for sissy's

2011-10-07T13:15:00.003+11:00

I have been a bit low lately and not done a lot of actual crafting, except to make a small Christmas tree ornament. However, Spring is coming in the garden and I have some shots to share:

My tree

Lovely iris

a low road - new track below the house

the Iris again

Rhodo's are such showoffs.

My bird - from painting class

Dashed off Dasher

2011-09-22T12:02:00.001+10:00

In 20 minutes would you believe! From conception to finish - a bit of a change from the way I have been lately. Anyway.......decided to enter the challenge at CR84FN: #38 - pink, grey and black. Found a scrap of pink Christmas paper from Bo Bunny in the stash, and a piece of grey card embossed with an embossing folder from Provo Craft, and away I went.

I decided to use the embossed card as a frame for a mounted section, so embossed the black and then cut it out, before wet embossing the SU stamp Dasher with white EP. I added some bling, ribbon and a silver sparkly foam star, and mounting it on the pink DP and then onto a black card base. Done.

Pretty in Pink

2011-09-20T12:16:00.004+10:00

I was playing around practising colouring with my Copics, and masking the image before spraying the background using my Copic air gun. I love this little stamp from Lili of the Valley, and used that as the image but it was VERY fiddly to cut the mask out and as I had four images to cover, by the time I got to my last two, the mask was tearing and not fitting as well. I used XPress Mask-It and if anyone had any advice on how to use it so it doesn't tear - glad to hear from you!

Anyway, this card used the first image so the masking is pretty good, and the spraying is not too bad - it wanted an ethereal look, so didn't go for a smooth background colour. I have a book of challenges so used that to inspire the direction of the card I made with one image.

Delightful Sketches #Girly Girl
My Favourite Things #37 - Sketch
Stamp Fairy - #Glitter (Ed - apparently you have to use one of their images so withdrawn)

The card stock is all SU - Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise, Regal Rose - and the DP is from Cosmo Crickets DeLovely Mini Deck. The flowers are Prima and the stamps are from Lili of the Valley. There is glitter on the wings, hair, wand and dress of the little girl and she is coloured with Copic pens. the sentiment is stamped in Melon mambo and the pearl stick is from my stash, while the little Kaiser pearls were white but I coloured them with the Copics as well. The lace strip is SU.

Playing with Alcohol Inks

2011-09-15T17:10:00.000+10:00

I have been doing a bit of playing with stuff I have in my stash - and decided to try my alcohol inks by Tim Holtz. I have six of these: Faded Jeans, Antique Linen, Barn Door, Scattered Straw, Forest Moss, Vintage Photo. I used the dabbed thingy and a sheet of shiny white from SU and created a background, and then stamped it with a wide variety of SU images from a number of different sets using StaysOn inks. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps - just arrived in the mail yesterday from their sale last month!

I then made six cards from the one sheet. I was trying for a shabby vintage look but I am not that good at it. Anyway, here they are - took me all afternoon. The flowers are most probably Prima and from the stash and so is the bling (Kaiser). The card stock is SU and the shimmer is SU's Smooch gold mist. I used the SU punch to create paper lace and various Spellbinders Nestabilities and Embossing Folders. Everything else is from the stash.

I am going to enter these in the Paper Creations Ink Challenge #8 which is Vintage or Distressed Look - mine are sort of vintage!

The whole sheet

The six cards

Making Christmas seem closer.....

2011-09-12T16:36:00.000+10:00

....by making Christmas cards! I have just had a big party for Stampin'Up so had to design/steal ideas for a demo and make/take card. Here they are:

This is the idea stolen from the SU website and used for my make and take - I changed the colour of the EP! It uses four out of the five of the new in-colours. All materials are of course from Stampin'Up.

My demo card - the client wanted me to demo the joy fold card, so we did it as a Christmas card. The background papers are from my Christmas stash, and not SU papers, and the stars are sticky embellishments but the rest is all SU.

The card closed.

This was going to be my make/take but after finding that double embossing needs care and time to get used to doing I decided on the other one - the baubles are punched out of card that has been dry embossed in the Cuttlebug and then wet embossed with Versamark applied with the brayer (carefully) and then the EP. The idea is that you get only EP on the raised sections - takes practice!

This is a sneek peak at a punch that will be available later this year, (and a stamp set to go with it) made with left over double-embossed card.

Hopefully I will get back to challenges soon - maybe tomorrow!

A Bad Week

2011-09-08T10:47:00.000+10:00

Started off last week with lots of final work for the Census, with my Collector's books needing to be reconciled and all the material needing to be counted (enumerated!) and sorted - took four days and a very sore back to complete. Then I took one of those phone calls that you don't like getting. News that one of my sisters had died on her way to an overseas holiday. So, not a lot done.

Since then I have not done very much at all, but today I completed a card I had started for a challenge two weeks ago and just never got completed. Here it is - Tilda has been masked and then the garden and wall stamped over her, and both were coloured with Copics. I then decided to cut her out with a die, and practice the technique of only partly cutting her out - didn't work that well but I get the drift on how to do it. The sentiment is from Lili of the Valley, and all the inks and card is SU. Flowers are Prima.

I also went to the SU Regional Seminar, and there were several make and takes - I made one but it is not very good - my mind was not engaged. Lots of lovely stuff and while I had no swaps made, some lovely people shared anyway - here they are:

My poorly make and take one, with SU materials of course, and we were all given this stamp set - Under the Big Top - and the wheels and box were made with punches and die cuts, and images coloured with SU pens in watercolour style.

Little envelopes stamped as well

Four small cards - I mucked up the celebrate banner

This is one lovely swap - the sparkle on the swirls is very pretty and the butterfly is gorgeous.

Another swap idea.

Then I was given a card last week as well from a friend to whom I have introduced SU and card making to, and this is her card to me -it's so good, thanks Gimi :

Still slogging through the Census

2011-08-25T14:44:00.000+10:00

However,while waiting for my team to call in with their numbers on Tuesday I made four quick baby cards. I also made boxes for several of the vintage cards with large flowers on them, and have now passed these over to my one sales outlet - my friend Denise, who is also my nail technician, and who puts them on display at her salon. I sell a few each month that way.

The papers all come from the stash or freebies - so are quite old and relatively cheap! The card bases are from commercial stock, and the small elements have been hanging in my stash for several years. I have used rub-ons and either SU ribbons, or scraps and bits of bling or other again hanging around for ages in the stash drawers, containers and desk! AND I have just noticed that the star on top has slid up off the star it was sitting on! Ooops! Oh well. The insides are all also decorated and contain sentiments on stickers still remaining from my Joann's stash that I purchased in USA (Denver) four years ago now!

Brakefast Club Summer Madness Swap

2011-08-20T12:54:00.000+10:00

I participated in this recently, and my card from Deb arrived a few days ago - it is quite lovely and really shimmers. With her card Deb also sent me a small present - so unexpected and so nice of her. My card created for Verna arrived yesterday so I can now put it up here.

Deb's card -- she painted the butterfly card with shimmery H2O's before punching out the butterflies.

Mine uses a Stamp-It stamp, coloured with Copics - I sprayed the background after masking my girls, using my new Copic Airbrushing System which as given to me by my husband for my recent birthday. Yummy! A die-cut labels frame and paper scraps to create the background, and some flowers from Prima. My conversation bubbles were free cut after I printed them on the computer.

Vintage, sort of......

2011-08-20T12:44:00.000+10:00

I got the idea of these from a recent copy of the magazine Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercaft. Labels and pink and cream, and vintage style was what I took from them, and this is what I ended up with.

They all use a commercial base card in heavy cream, portrait and opening from the bottom. The card has a bit of texture. The labels are cut from SU Vanilla and the background paper is either the folio sheet by Making Memories - Ava Ric Rac Ledger, or some free Hunkydory papers from the latest edition of Creative Cardmaking, an English magazine. The lace and ribbon is from the stash and the flowers or basically Prima. The crocheted flower is from Kaiser.

The pearl brad was coloured to match with a copic pen. The sentiment is from a set of sentiments from Lili of the Valley - and I used them in all four cards. The inks used are a combination of Memento Close to Cocoa and Tim Holtz' distressed inks, swiped around various edges as well as an occasional swipe with pink sponges as well (colours varied).

This image is a fairy from Lili of the Valley and it has been coloured with watercolour pencils (Derwent Inktense) and sprayed with gold mica spray - it is very shimmery. She is holding a small star from AnnaBelle Stamps.

The small flower stamped on the tag is from the SU set Silhouette Sentiments, embossed with clear EP -pearls added are from a pack I have with no name but they are a lovely dawn colour.

Again I coloured a pearl brad with copics but left the pearl stick as it was. Love those miniature roses from Prima.

2011-08-18T17:38:00.002+10:00

This is from AnnaBelle Stamps:

Can you believe we are a month out from our second birthday?? So we thought this year we'd throw a party, and we'd truly appreciate if you could help us send out the invitations in the form of this blinkie :

As a thank you to those who add this blinkie to their blog we have a little something for you :) Simply follow the instructions below and you could be the randomly selected winner of 2 6 x 4 sets of your choice!!

- Copy and paste the above code and add it to your sidebar.
- Include the blinkie in a post with a link back to this blog letting everyone know about our Birthday Celebrations, and where they can pick up their very own blinkie.
- Come back here and add a link to your post in the Inlinkz box below.
- On the 7th September we will select a random winner just before our party begins!

What a colour combo!

2011-08-18T17:28:00.000+10:00

AnnaBelle Stamps have had a challenge to use the colours raspberry, olive green and orange - I thought they sounded a lot like two of the new In Colours at SU - Lucky Limeade and Calypso Coral, and I added in Rich Razzleberry.

This colour combination is difficult I have discovered, after spending a lot of time trying to make one card with them and ripping it up finally (or in fact, ripping off parts and reconstituting it into a smaller card) and make three small cards and a belly band with the work done so far. I used a Kaiser clear cling stamp set (no idea of its name as I have thrown away its packaging) of foliage and the sentiment comes from a Studio G Clear Stamp set Series 46 given to me by a blogging friend Deb in USA from Hudson, Ohio in fact (more on that later). I ended up spending several hours and didn't like the finished product - too big - and so threw my hands in the air before making the items below:

Three cards inside a belly band - the band is made from the background paper I was trying to create but which was too loud for the card.

The three cards - I know that the coral looks more pink than orange but it really is more orange than pink! The base cards are black. The paper lace is from my newest SU punch.

I'm trying to give an idea of the size of the cards - about 3" by 3 and a half" so they are gift cards probably.

I made another card this morning - CASED it from a magazine - and it had to first stamp backgrounds of music/word/writing/numbers or whatever was suitable and then tear these into strips, glue to another base sheet and cover with a thin layer of white gesso paint. I think my layer is a bit too think or less opaque that it should have been. Once this is done I stamped it with a circle stamp and Momento London Fog ink. I cut it to size and layered it onto black and then gold card. My base card is black. I then used StaysOn black ink and stamped my image, cut it out and laid it on the base and traced around it lightly with a pencil. I removed it and using a paper stump I smudged the London Fog around the area to create an impression of a shadow for my image before I stuck it down. I added the little metal tag (coloured with sprayed Copic) and decorated this with a black bling and bling corners as shown. It's a very masculine card. I have some background paper left over so will try vintage again tomorrow!

Rolled roses

2011-08-16T16:06:00.001+10:00

I am learning how to make these, and after I rolled three from the same piece of paper from DCWV's Whimsy Stack, I decided I better do something with them. Most things are made with Stampin'Up product, except for the leaves (stash), the flourish dies which are Sixxix, and the pearls, which are Kaiser. I cut the rolled roses with a die from Die-namics (Just Right).

I will enter this in Paper Creations Ink, who are running a challenge called Show Us Your Flowers. and Creative Card Crew, whose challenge is to make the flowers.

The colours of the card and the inks are Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and Pool Party - four of the five new In Colours being issued next month. The stamp sets are Delicate Doilies and Happiest Birthday Wishes from the new catalogue. The lacy strip is a new punch. The sentiment stamp punches out with the old scalloped circle punch.

Wooden pieces

2011-08-14T15:51:00.000+10:00

I ~~stole~~ borrowed some wood veneer from my hubby's workshop to see if it was stampable, and it is. I stamped it with Momento Close to Cocoa and then had to go over it with fine black pen, to define the images. I used the SU set Thanks for Caring, and the newest In-Colours from SU markers - Coral Calypso; Island Indigo; Lucky Limeade; Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder to colour the image and layered it up on card from the same set ( PP, CC and II). I smooched the edges with brown Momento ink.

The sentiment isn't straight and the rounded edges are hand done (badly) as the veneer was too thick to get into my punch, but now I know it can be done.

Another quick one

2011-08-11T11:56:00.000+10:00

Still knee deep in Census, but the night is over - now just have to get the forms all back! Made a quick card two days ago and have just found time to post.

This one uses SU products mainly, except for the Alchohol inks (Time Holtz Vintage) and the Copic pen to deepen the colour on the edges of the flowers. The flowers were created on SU Shiny White and the rest is Whisper White, Glorious Green and Old Olive. The EP powder for the sentiment is called Malachite (Judi-Kins). The stamp sets are Natural Beauty (for flowers) and Thanks for Caring. I used a Nestability label and layered up. The vine leaves are a die cut from BossKut. It was finished with three red sprinkles from AnnaBelle.

The flowers were first stamped with clear EP onto the shiny white card and then coloured with the alcohol inks before being fussy cut and then coloured a bit more with the Copics. The areas where I had coloured the flowers with the ink using Tim Holtz dabber thingy was too good to waste so I added a bit more ink and die cut the vines from it. As you can see the flowers and the EP have quite a good shine going.

Taking time to breath

2011-08-09T10:52:00.001+10:00

...and to share one card I sneaked in on Sunday afternoon while I was waiting for all my team to complete their deliveries (door to door) of the census materials. On to tonight .......Census night ........ when hopefully everyone will either do theirs on-line or on paper and leave the latter out for my team to pick up over the next two weeks!

I am going to enter this in Craft Us Crazy #14 Anything Goes

The outside light has changed the red card to a pink tone - believe me, it is SU Cherry Cobbler! The image is from WMS stamp set Roses in Bloom, stamped onto SU Soft Suede with Brilliance white ink. The rose was stamped three times onto shiny white photographic paper, embossed with clear EP (with difficulty!) and then I used alcohol inks on them - Tim Holtz's Distress inks Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Forest Moss and then topped with Barn Door. I then sprayed it with Tatted Angles red and some gold mica. I layered up after cutting out one whole and two part roses and added a jewel centre coloured with Copics to match. The red spots actually match the red in the base card and you can see this in the photo below - also the shine of the mica. I used a Shapeabilities Tag and added white satin ribbon and the sentiment comes from the same rodent set, stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink.

Big Week

2011-07-31T19:29:00.000+10:00

Just need to tell people that I have a big week coming up and just past - I have been paid by the Commonwealth Gov to assist with the Census as a Supervisor of Collectors, and its not a doddle of a job, I have to earn my money, so as the Census is on the 9th, I and my team are busy. I have a big birthday as well this week, so will be out or action for a few days, I expect! Have a good one and don't forget to do your Census if you are in Australia.......if you are in USA, get those pollies to agree will you, its doing great harm to our and everyone else's economy while they dither!!!

Whatcha got in your drawers?

2011-07-24T16:36:00.000+10:00

I've got lots of goodies in mine! Spent the afternoon ~~pretending I was~~ cleaning up by tidying up my standing desk (where I do most of my craft work) by painting, gluing and papering with My Minds Eye - Confetti papers a small Kaiser set of drawers I have had for a while now but not done anything with......and then loaded it up as I cleaned off the desk space (told ya I was cleaning up!). I think it looks sweet and the top of the desk did get a clean off and spruce over. I added the Kaiser locks but they are a bit big and make opening the drawers a bit hard but I am sure I will manage.

Don't look at it too closely as it is a bit rough. Hubbie certainly thought so - he was not that impressed with the painting etc. BUT I'm happy!!!!

A Stampin'Up sort of day...

2011-07-23T15:36:00.000+10:00

It is really lovely outside - a real bright blue winter's day, with the sun shining and the temperature below 10. I have been playing in the workshop, avoiding dealing with the corner of my space where the rain from last week got in and destroyed the carpet and mangled stuff in that corner!

I have a party next weekend where I have to create a demo and a make-and-take. So, after going onto the SU site, I have cased three cards and one idea for my demo. I will show the demo idea later, but here are my CASED cards - mmm, which one will be the MAT?

Perhaps I will make it Number 1. Any suggestions?

The card used is SU Rich Rassleberry, Sahara Sand, Whisper White and Pear Pizzazz, and the inks are PP and RR. I have used ribbon from the stash and Kaiser bling, and the punches are all SU punches. The frame in Number 1 is a Sizzix Big Shot embossing folder for SU called Framed Tulips.

Tis NOT the season but.....

2011-07-20T17:40:00.000+10:00

....the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge #117 says "Christmas in July" as it added twist, so I had to make a Christmas card, my first one for 2011.

Scraps of Christmas papers from my stock, the SU stamp Dasher embossed with Stamp It EP Egyptian Gold onto SU Confetti White card (which is also the base) and is all sparkly, a flower and a sticker from momenta. Recycled Christmas ribbon and that's all folks!

Gussy Up a book

2011-07-18T16:37:00.002+10:00

I was walking past a Specials bin in a city newsagent this morning and there was this little book, with a spiral back and kraft covers, and vintage looking pages. It was $1 and it called my name - I bought it and this afternoon I used some old stash to cover it and gussy it up a bit. The cover is where I was trying the resist technique (emboss with clear on glossy paper, cover with ink and wipe clean, polish with a tissue) for the first time. You can see it was not very successful as it was in the days when I was not very good at wielding a stamp or embossing stuff - not that I am much better now, but I do at least try to be neater and clearer. Anyway, I then used some ribbon given to me by Sue Walsh last year, from AnnaBelle stamps. Notice it has circles on it. I tied a big bead onto it to create a place ribbon, and tied on anther smaller bit for decoration to the spine. I then used two sheets of another pad I had picked up in one of those dinky little vintage shops, somewhere on the mainland while on holidays, because I liked the vintage look of the pages. I glued this inside the front and back of the covers.

I will enter this in AnnaBelles - Say it in Circles challenge, as it is using circles in the ribbon, on the face plates (well, technically they are ovals, but who is complaining, right?) and the flourish is circular, the flower is a circle and the brad in the middle of it is a circle, while the bead is a definite circle!!

Sorry about the photography - I think it is my camera on the blink.....

It is shiny so hard to get a good photograph of the bits......

The inside front cover........

A close-up of the flower - it is die cut with a Spellbinders Heartfelt Posy die, and held together with a SU brad.

I have 25 followers now - I feel so privileged that so many of you have decide to follow my blog and am delighted to welcome Sally as the 25th! I am starting to feel like a real blogger now!

Sunday Selections

2011-07-17T16:28:00.000+10:00

This is a photo sharing experience, by frogpondsrock.

Here is my photo to share:

It was taken earlier this year on a beach not much visited, late in he afternoon on a cold day.

Flowers

2011-07-17T16:01:00.000+10:00

This one was made quickly from a cased photo - with stuff left on my craft desk and some Cosmo de Lovely paper. A doily folded over, a die cut label, sentiment from a S2G stamp stamped with SU Tempting Turquoise, green ribbon. I used Kaiser bling and coloured some with pink Copic pen. The edge is a Martha Stewart edge punch. The card is a white commercial blank.

I am entering this in Scrappy Frogs Flowers Challenge and I was going to enter the Penny Black at Allsorts Challenge, until I read the small print as saw I had to use a stamp from them - sorry, I have some of your stamps but didn't use one in this and didn't realise until after I had entered it was a condition. My apologies.

Ed: I will also enter this one, as it fits the criteria also - no stamps - into UnstampaBelles Challenge#1

Pink and Blue

2011-07-17T15:01:00.002+10:00

I am entering this one in three challenges:
Lollipop Ladies #24 - Fairy Floss and Fibre
Mojo Monday sketch
Lili of the Valley - Pink and blue

It is a Magnolia (of course), coloured with Copics, and die cut with Spellbinders. The sentiment is from Lili of the Valley - Dreamy Days. The die cut behind the image is Nestabilities Fleur de Lis, and the one behind the sentiment is the scalloped circle, and the one below it is a straight scallop. The paper is from the De Lovely set mentioned below. The flower is a Prima and makes the fibre as it is made from fabric. The ribbon has been in my stash for so long I have forgotten who made it. The card is SU Pink Passion as is the ink used to stamp the sentiment and also swiped along the edges of the image. I finished with small Kaiser blue pearls.

Fancy Fold

2011-07-17T10:57:00.007+10:00

It was my DIL's birthday last week - can you guess how many fingers? (Happy Birthday Bea).

I am entering this in Delightful Challenges - Fancy fold card challenge and Southern Girls Challenge - Happy Birthday; and Craft Your Days Away - fancy folds.

Ed: I am also entering this into a challenge I have just discovered called UnstampaBelles Challenge - not stamps!

One sheet of cream Co'Ordinations embossed card 12 x 12 cut in half and rounded on one end. Then I edged this with cream lace, added the flower (Prima) and the Joy metal sticker, the metal clasp (faux) and the number which has been embossed with Stamp It Bronze Sparkle EP. Photo taken in late afternoon, hence the shadows.

Inside the card I used papers from the Prima Annalee collection, and some SU Vanilla card. The sentiments are stamped with Momento Close to Cocoa ink using Stamp It Birthday Sayings. The clasp is really held down with velcro dots. I popped in a small piece of lingerie to remind her of her youth!

Bread bag ties

2011-07-15T18:10:00.000+10:00

They were green so I couldn't throw them out and then I saw this in my journal so cased the card and made my stems and leaves out of the ties. It's just scraps from the scraps bag, cut into 2.5cm squares. Three flowers die cut and embossed from Heartfelt Creations (Spellbinders) Posy Patch set, three pearls as centres, and the sentiment comes from My Favourite Things set - Just my Type. It is stamped in SU Elegant Eggplant. The base card is SU EE card folded over.

I have been working (for money) the last two days and am drained and in need of a craft fix but happy! See you tomorrow!

Just Grey this time

2011-07-13T13:42:00.000+10:00

I was playing around with my SU set Baroque Motifs and Cased these two from my inspiration journal (collection of photographs torn from magazines etc):

This one uses three stamps from the set, some card scraps from the stash, some SU Grey card as the base, and a piece of a page from a romance book. Four red hearts punched out from another piece of scrap an a white brad and some white dots with a gel pen.

This one has a red heart on it (a sticker) but I have just noticed it has fallen off and reglued it. However, the weather outside is freezing and raining and I am not going back out to take another photo. It's on the top LHS! Again, I used pages from the book, glued to chipboard, embossed with white embossing powder, inked with Tim Holtz distress inks - Barn Door, Moss and Scattered straw. A bit of ribbon, three pearls from AnnaBelle stamps and some more gel pen. They look better irl!

Black, white and red all over

2011-07-11T12:32:00.000+10:00

No, NOT News of the World, but a set of cards in a box.

The box - I made it up in a sheet of Bazzill.

It takes four cards and four envelopes

See?

Card one - commercial blanks and a strip of Junkitz - Basics Skinny Strip, two scalloped squares punched with my SU punch, some red card trimmed to fit inside these and wrapped in white cord, with a white nail fastener by Scrapbook. The red square is mounted on dimentionals.

This is a white scalloped square inside the card, with a front aperture scalloped square punched out to fit over it. The jelly sticker (Me and My Big Ideas) fits neatly inside. The second photo shows it (sorry, the wind moved it as I was taking the shot just before the last shower of rain!)

This one has all of the above plus some black bling.

This one has bling, some scraps, a rub-on and a piece of black and white ribbon scrap.

They didn't take long to make and I thought it would make a good gift.

Brr, winter is here with a vengence

2011-07-09T17:15:00.000+10:00

It's cold, wet and windy, and there is snow on the mountains. Apart from that all is well.

I made this yesterday:

Some paper from the stash, a doily, smooched with Antique Linen and SU Soft Suede. A variety of vintage stamps - TJ Designs Song Bird, Paperartsy at Home Plate 2 and 5, SU Baroque Motives, Script stamp (?), and the sentiment is from SU Warmest Regards, embossed with Stamp It Egyptian Gold powder; and inks - Antique Linen, Soft Suede; Momento Desert Sand; some card - SU Vanilla and a cream Bazzill for the folded card; some recycled ribbon (from clothing labels) and a beaded button from a broken bracelet Add three pieces of blue bling by Kaiser, layer it all together and its done.

I will enter it into this challenge:

Crafty Catz - vintage looking

Wet dry embossing!

2011-07-08T15:39:00.000+10:00

Yes, you dry emboss after you have put paint or ink into the folder. So, I swiped the inside of the folder with SU White Kraft ink and then ran it through the Cuttlebug - interesting effect. I did the positive side and then the negative side, and find it hard to see which one I like best. I used only two colours - SU's rich razzleberry and marina mist, and even dyed some seam binding in MM to get ribbon to tone. It dried quickly in the gale force winds thundering into the bay at the moment! The cards are quite quick to make up once the ink has dried - and you need to wash the embossing folder straight away in warm, soapy water. I added some sparkle and coloured the stones with my Copic pens to get them to tone to the RR card. The card bases are white commercial blanks.

The first card uses a Verve stamp and sentiment and the second one is a Verve sentiment from the set Sweet Treats but I used a Fleur De Lis Square die cut. I lightly sponged on some MM and RR ink as well to this label.

I will enter this in :
http://audsentimentschallengeblog.blogspot.com/ as they want sentiments of two or more words. Either card qualifies.

Easy Being Green

2011-07-05T17:53:00.000+10:00

Maybe....anyway, I made this card quickly, CASing it from my collection of photos cut from various craft magazines, and placed in a journal (number 4) - to get into the journal, the card has to either have a good colour combo, a good design idea or a sentiment/image combo that attracts me. This card fits the first two. AND it's green.

It's dark and its raining outside, so I rigged up a light box thingy out of a shoe box to take this photo and get the correct colours. SU card of course, Vanilla, Mellow Moss and Cherry Cobbler. The MM card is dry embossed with a folder from Cuttlebug. The DP is part of a freebie from the magazine Simply Cards, and is sitting in my stash because it's good quality paper and pretty!

The oval punch from SU is mounted in the middle of a scalloped oval nestability, embossed, and the ribbon is SU Certainly Celery. Three bits of Kaiser bling and I smooched the edges of everything with Cherry Cobbler ink. The sentiment is a rub-on.

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes

Die Cut Dreams - a recipe: three shapes (rectangle, oval and scalloped oval), two colours (green and red) and one ribbon.

Life is about Living

2011-07-05T15:42:00.000+10:00

CR84FN Challenge # 33 said to use red, pink and neutral so I had a go because in my cleaning up I had come across some chipboard stickers as a freebie in a magazine (no idea which one now) so I used them along with a doily I had cut from SU Poppy Parade (red). I also have been using up all those ends of ribbons and cut-off bits of ribbons by applied them to one side of some XPress jak paper (double sided sticky paper). I then cut this to size and used it as a background. I had also experimented with making some little cut circle roses with a pearl brad through the centre out of the background paper so I added them. I mounted my muted (neutral) bits with SU PP card, and used a folded SU Pink Pirouette card as my foundation. I did some colouring on the image with SU markers, and swiped the edges of the background paper with Tim Holtz Antique Linen.

For those who had been following the rodent story, no more mice died in the adventure to date. Next stop for the traps, the workshop! Only then will I be happy that we have them all! Still have not discovered a nest but then again, still have not cleaned up all the craft area!!

It is a terrible day weather wise today, so I am bunkered down this afternoon - may be forced to create some more!!

And another one (mices) bites the dust!

2011-07-04T17:00:00.001+10:00

But, it is sad as they are really so cute! However, none last night, so the traps are now set downstairs in my space to see if there are any other mice running around down here, and if not, then they will go into John's workshop to see is he has any.

Meanwhile, I have started to clean up my space a bit - so not a lot of crafting is happening. However, I did this yesterday - when I was playing with the idea of using my Martha Stewart edge punches to create a frame. Not very well but I am going to enter it into the AnnaBelle Stamps challenge - Just Say It In Frames.

The stamp is from Sugar Nellie, called Hamish with Tractor, and it is coloured with Copics. The background is sponged with chalk and the sentiment is from Stamp It. The image is fussy cut and attached using dimentionals and the reason there is ribbon on it is that I tried to take the mounted image off and tore the background and could not be bothered to cut a new one - just added the ribbon trim! Very lazy!! The whole lot is mounted on some Laura Ashley card from a 2010 calendar (recycled), with a cream folded card behind it. Inside uses some more of the LA card and another Stamp It sentiment: see?

I apologise for the photo's but it was raining outside and cold, and I was in a hurry.

Success! Three Mices down!

2011-07-02T16:59:00.001+10:00

It's sad really, as they are so cute but they were running all over my craft space yesterday, and on the bookshelves and I even watched one shimmy up the brick wall! They knocked my template designs off the shelves and I know I now have to clean up my space thoroughly in the next few days to find the nest!

I have been sorting things to day and doing other (paid) work, so haven't made much except this - one of the things knocked off the shelf by a mouse was a little favour box made for me by my SU rep. I decided to CASE it - so here it is!

It is made with the SU Hope set, where $2 for each set sold goes to the Breast Cancer Research. The set will not be available after July, so if you are interested in it, let me know. I have made the box with SU DP that is no longer available but is still in my stash. I stamped the background words three times with SU ink Orchard Opulence (also out of date) stamped off, after masking off the H stamp which is stamped in Old Olive. I distressed the edges of the SU Whipser White square, and inked them; then distressed the edges of the green scrap piece and the purple Concord Crush (SU) piece. These are layered and then put on the outside of the bag. A bit of ribbon tied through holes punched by the SU Double Rectangle punch keeps it closed. It is big enough to put several small chocolates or similar.

My entry in the Southern Girls Challenge here gained me a top 5 position - yippee!

Still got mice - very small, cute ones!

2011-07-01T17:27:00.001+10:00

However, I have decided that I have to get nasty and kill them off, so some new traps have been purchased that kill them when they enter, so we will see what happens.

I was up to Michelle's blog in the Crop Stop Summer Blog Hop but have run out of time to complete the hop! Time and tide and all that.......however, I will put up the card I made for Michelle, whose theme was Nature.

The card is made using SU card of Chocolate and Cream. I stamped using SU Suede ink, and I swiped with SU Cherry Cobbler ink. I used a SU set Nature Walk, and the sentiment comes from part of the set Touch of Nature. I have fussy cut several things and mounted them and I have used a green branch punched from the SU bird punch. My card is a centre step card, which I have CASED from here. Anne's is much better than mine!

Mouse Update

2011-06-29T12:49:00.000+10:00

Nope, no deaths yet - escapologists did it again last night, after eating the peanut butter in the trap!

Meanwhile, I have little time to complete the summer hop for Crop Stop, and will have to get a wriggle on: this is number five - for Gloria - to use the colours of summer, namely orange/yellow; blue/green/; tan/brown and white only.

Found me a lot of scrap bits from the stash from a set of papers called Hooty from Sassafras. Combined them with some brown card folded ianto a square, from SU, and mounted them on some metalic Bronze card (SU), added a Prima flower, some ribbon, a punched out square stamped with part of a stamp from SU set called Happy Heart, with brown ink. It's bright!

I used the sketch from Mojo Monday #197 this week to follow for design. It's very bright!

We've got clever mices!

2011-06-28T18:37:00.000+10:00

Several weeks ago we started to discover small insignificant things that annoyed us around the house - a little puddle here, a bit of a mess there. Nothing smelly or nasty but enough to convince us that we were sharing our space with SOMETHING! As I am arachnophobic, I only hoped with wasn't a beastie with lots of scuttling legs. Then I found a small wee one in HUB's workshop downstairs and cleverly (I thought) captured it by the simple expedient of putting a block of wood over its escape hatch (the top of the garbage bin it was in). HUB came home and I pointed it out to him and he looked at the offender ( a field mouse) and then went and let it out in the garden because he has a soft heart and could not kill it either! Lately it has become obvious (small black droppings) that there is most probably a field or house mouse or several mice living upstairs in the kitchen with us. Soooo, sent HUB out for a mouse trap - being a traditionalist, he came home with two traditional mouse traps and set them with a piece of cheese. Next morning, nothing. I then set them the following night with bread and honey! Nothing. Two nights ago I upped the anti, and set them with bread, honey and peanut butter!!!! Yesterday, the bread was gone, but the traps were STILL SET. Clever mice.

I went and purchased more expensive traps - the kind that the mouse goes inside and the door shuts and they are trapped there. This morning, the doors were closed - AHAA, we thought; but, no mice inside (or bait). Very smart mice and starting to be well fed mice.

Today I was too busy, but I think I will have to get poison bait. Then we shall see if the mice are as smart as they seem!!!!!! I will try again tonight but I have a feeling they will just be dancing all over the kitchen floor and laughing with glee when they see those traps again - foolish humans, feeding us!

Here is a card I made for a swap at I Brake for Stamps Club. The theme was Wings, and I made this and sent it to the USA to Winsrella, who tells me she now has it. So, here it is, made with an IBFS rubber stamp.

Shimmery Tin

2011-06-26T11:48:00.000+10:00

The next item for the Crop Stop Challenge is for Heidi, who wants things to shimmer and shine. I have a collection of tines and boxes growing under my desk "this will be useful one day" so I thought I should start to make something from the stack just to prove to HUB that they are NOT RUBBISH.

This was a small tin of breath mints. The stamp is an AnnaBelle stamp Lil Bee's Big Flowers,coloured with Copics and fussy cut. The heart is from the stash, as is the white and gold ribbon. The pink shimmery card is scrap. The side card is a strip from some Best Creations sparkly card. The whole image has been worked with Spica pens and then sprayed with Mica gold powder in water. It has a subtle shimmer that does not show up easily, hence the four photos! I though I could either put sweets in the tin and give as a gift, or some small items or goodies for craft and give as a gift! Is it shimmery enough Heidi?

Rosemary's Challenge

2011-06-25T16:43:00.000+10:00

I also had a go at Rosemary's 3D Under the Sea one......boy, was that a challenge, lifting me right out of my comfort zone! I had to use digi's and I chose to colour in Copics, and my printer ink is not as fast as it should be......anyway, I did it!

Rosemary's 3D challenge is here:

As I said, I used digi's - the mermaid is from "Creative Mind of Sylvie" and the school of fishes is from I Brake for Stamps. The oceam is cut from SU Glossy White, with alcohol inks from Time Holtz on it and stamped over with a JudiKins stamp from a cube set with StaysOn blue ink. The sentiment is from a There She Goes set called By the Sea and is stamped with Momento Paris Dusk. I have layered up the 'waves' and put the mermaid in the middle layer - you can sort of see below. I coloured with Copics and used Spica pens and Smooch to put some shine on it. The background card is SU Daffodil Delight and it is all on a commercial blank (blue). The fishes also have a blue chalked background.

I have been doing things!

2011-06-25T15:37:00.002+10:00

Unfortunately, not as many as I would have liked, but I started painting again, and the government is currently paying me to do some work so I have to do something sometime, right? As well, I made a card for our son's birthday on Monday, and I couldn't put that up until he had nearly got it in case he did look at the blog (unlikely).

So, what have I done? I have done two more challenges for Crop Stop's hop. I have completed Kaori's song challenge (my summertime song is just that "Summertime.... and the living is easy, fish are biting........etc")

Here it is:

I will enter it into The Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge #113 as well.The stamp set is a Flourish set Kids at Play. The background papers are a mixture of Echo Park dots and Prima Annalee collection. The image is cut out with Nestabilities and the backing is from SU Bronze Metallic card. The trim is some lace from Webster's Pages. The sentiment is from the stamp set and is stamped in SU Close to Cocoa. The scallops are from a die and there is some bling and edges swiped with ink. The main image is coloured with Copics. The card is made using the SU Circle Scissors and SU Daffodil Delight card.

As I said, I have also made a birthday card for the son, and a card for a SU 'make and take' workshop I am taking tomorrow - this is CASED from a recent magazine. Here they are:

Matt enjoys cooking and is over 40!

I've fixed the too heavy button in this shot! Looks better now.

Monday..itus

2011-06-20T16:18:00.001+10:00

It's very windy, and that always used to make the kids go silly so guess that's why I have gone a little silly myself and decorated up a gift bag. Why? Crop Stop are having a summer blog hop and there is a challenge to complete 10 challenges before June 30th! Vicki told us to 'Think Pink' and create a project and that did it! It's all her fault!

(HUB just dropped a FULL bottle of white wine and broke it on the tiles in the downstairs bathroom (wine is being stored in the shower there - don't ask) and wine has gone everywhere. The smell is delicious but three towels later he is mopping the floor with hot water to get the sticky residue off - what a waste of lovely wine)

Anyway, back to ~~why it is Vicki's fault~~ the challenge at Vicki's blog: here is what I made up in PINK!

The front - it is a commercial small white bag, covered with some daisyanddandilion paper (freebie in a craft magazine) on both sides of the bag. Then I added a pink doily cut from my Cherry Lyn Doily Die from some scrap SU Pink Passion card to each side. On top of this I put a pink die cut from a Dielicious die - Lace Dies cut from some pink pearlised card scrap. A big sparkly pink brad attached these two items to the DP. I stamped the WMS banner from Bitty Banners (in PP ink) onto SU Whisper White scrap and got two sentiments from WMS sets - one from Asian Gardens and one from Sweethearts and stamped them onto the banners, cut them out and attached one each side as well. In order to close the top I tied some pink ribbon which says "Happy Birthday" on it, on the handle but the top still gaped so I fashioned a tag from a scrap piece of PP and stuck it to the back, and attached a fuzzy opener thingy underneath the front, with a pink button from the stash on top. You just pull it up and it opens the bag.

Side view

Back view

Sorry about the photography but it is blowing a gale outside and I had difficulty getting the bag to stand up and be counted.

Just Chillin'.....

2011-06-19T16:46:00.003+10:00

I had coloured this image under terrible lighting watching TV last week, and decided it looked a bit bright,but then AnnaBelle Stamps had a colour challenge to use Orange, Yellow and Turquoise.......well, it fitted right in!

The Sparkle Creation - Swimming Lucy - stamp colours up well with Copics, and I not-so-fussy cut her out and the layered her up onto the piece of SU DP cut with a Cheery Lynn Doily Die cut (DL104) layered onto a circle cut with my SU circle cutter. The flower is a white Prima, coloured with Copics and then sprayed with gold mica to make it shine. The label is a Spellbinders Just Right custom die, and the sentiment comes from a S2G's set. the tyre is actually orange IRL, but the evening light outside turned it darker. I have smooched around the edges of things with SU Turquoise ink, and I used that for the sentiment too. The blank folded card is SU Turquoise, and the other card is Pumkin Pie for the circle and Summer Sun (discon) for the label. I also used Spica pen on the girl to make her sparkle as well.

Close up of the sparkle!

I am also entering this in:

Challenge Up Your Life - Circles, because there are a few here!

Creations by GillM - circles sketch and a flower

Delightful Challenges - Anything Goes

Aud Sentiments - Summertime

Pink and Green

2011-06-18T16:58:00.002+10:00

A challenge - from CR84FN - to use pale pink, mid green and a neutral. Unfortunately I have missed the deadline - knew it was close but the card is made and this is it below.

ED: Thanks to Jenny, I am now entering this in Southern Girls - Anything Goes challenge - didn't know about them before!!! Do now - look out!

Took me too long to put all the bits together. I coloured the Sparkle girl image with Copics, and highlighted her with my Spica pens. The green frame is too big - there is too much of a gap between the sizes - I should have trimmed it. The DP in the background comes from a Basic Grey Hello Lucious pad, and an Echo Park - Dots and Stripes pad. The flower is a white Prima, sprayed with some Glimmer mist to turn it pale pink. The tag is cut from the Pink Pirouette (SU) that is also used as the base card. Some Melon Mambo (SU) is also used to mount the DP. Everything is swiped with Antique Linen ink.

Also entered in:

Colour Me Creative Classroom: Colouring up Brunettes - must use Copics

Make it Colourful - light reflection challenge

Winged things

2011-06-18T11:15:00.001+10:00

I entered a swap with the people at the forum for I Brake for Stamps Brakefast Club.

I posted off my card yesterday to USA, and in a strange turn of events received mine from USA as well yesterday! Mary (aka Loosy) made mine and here is a photo of it:

The first image is scanned and shows the colours nicely but the second one is a photo taken outside today, and it shows the detail and the sparkle! I LOVE the clouds - its a stamp apparently, and I really love the story it is telling - isn't that bear one lucky teddy to get all that fairy dust sprinkled over him! Bet he's tickled pink! The ear is mounted up on dimentional tape and is a IBFS stamp. I love the colouring of the wings as well. Thank you Mary!

Candle Love

Do you think anyone would like to receive these (or at least one of them) as part of a nursery package for a newborn? I thought they were sweet, but am not sure if they would be received well or sell - any comments?

They are made with $3.00 Kaiser stamps and some baby ribbon, coloured in with copics. I think the candles should have been fatter to show off more of the elephant shape and make it easier to add the sentiment - it tore on the boy's one so I had to remove it. Sentiment or no sentiment? Colours too strong? Any comments?

Been Travelling.....

2011-06-17T13:01:00.000+10:00

...over the river to Bruny Island. The people who live there call us mainlanders, we call people who live on the big island north (Australia) mainlanders.....so it goes. However, we caught the ferry across on Tuesday and spent a lovely evening with friends in their newly renovated little 'shack' - very warm and comfortable. The weather however while fine was COLD! There was a frost the next morning and I assure you I didn't put my toes out of bed before 8.00, so these photos were taken around 9.30 am and the frost was still there!

This is from the front balcony - can you see the reflection on the other side of the bay? Beautiful!

Looking up the bay - frost a water level and so still.

Later that day, entering Kettering (Tassie side) on the car ferry.

Looking north towards Hobart, about halfway across the channel between Bruny Island and Tassie - can you see that cloud laying in the horizon? Volcanic dust! I have been crafting yesterday but it is for a swap with I Break For Stamps, so will post off today to USA and not post until it is received over there. Click on the photos for a bigger view!

Volcanic sunset

2011-06-14T09:29:00.000+10:00

There is a volcano erupting somewhere in Chile, and it is sending plumes of dust into the stratsophere, which has drifted many thousands of kilometres across the bottom of the world towards us, and is now stopping our planes from flying in southern Australia. Out island of Tasmania has become isolated somewhat for a period as people try to get in and out without flying! The upside of all this is beautiful sunsets and sunrises! This was last night!

Mojo Monday

2011-06-13T15:55:00.000+10:00

OK, I may be late with this for Mojo but not for AB Stamps - it was following the design for Mojo Monday #194 and the challenge for AnnaBelle Stamps - say it in sponging and masking.

It's a Magnolia of course - Tilda with Ponytail, and she is sitting on a Magnolia armchair - that's my masking job! The sponging is pink ink around my mount and sentiment. The papers come from Cosmo Cricket's De Lovely set and the ribbon is from the stash but I think it is seam tape. White bazzill was folded for the card base and there are various dies - Cheery Lyn's doily die - Canadian; a JustRite label die and Nestabilities Scalloped Circles. I used a MS edge punch for the bottom of the paper strips. Everything is layered up!

There is a bit of Spica pen glitter on Tilda - you can see it better below! It looks like white dots.

Dancing Rodents

2011-06-12T15:41:00.001+10:00

I am going to enter the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge #51 with this card:

I am also going to enter it into the Colour Throwdown Challenge - baja breeze, so saffron and pear pizzazz.

My handmade flowers are cut from a pack of give away papers from My Minds Eye called Summer Papers using a MFT die - Daisy Spiral. My background DP is from the same pack of paper. The leaves are from a die by Sissix. The pink flower is by Prima, and my daisy's have a pearl centre courtesy of Kaiser (I think). The ribbon is SU So Saffron. Three pink bits of bling were added to the ribbon. The sentiment is stamped in Pear Pizzazz ink (SU) onto So Saffron, using a stamp from WMS - Asian Gardens. The DP is mounted onto a piece of Pear Pizzazz and the card base is Baja Breeze (SU) as is the small medallion one of the flowers is mounted on.

No challenges

2011-06-11T17:11:00.002+10:00

I have made several cards, one for an 80th birthday and one using some new SU materials - and I have a photo of several visitors to our winter garden. They were happily making a big mess! They pick off a bunch of berries from the Cottoneasta, and then nibble out the seed inside, and spit the pith all over the steps! So very refined - not! This is taken through a window, as they tend to fly away when I go outside - this is just two of the half dozen parrots working away.

ED: I have discovered these are Eastern Blue Cheeked Parrots, found in the Murrimbidge/Darling River area - a long, long way away from here! Interesting.

The first card is for the mother of my SIL, who turned 80 yesterday. She has a good sense of humour, so I thought she wouldn't mind this - also she is not a flowery person.

The image and sentiments are from a "My Favourite Things" set called My Type, which comes with a Die-namics die , allowing me to cut out the typewriter and the paper. The background paper is from a Daisy and Dandelion pack mounted on SU Regal Rose, the ink used is Momento Potter's Clay, and the doily, papers and cards have all been swiped with Antique Linen ink. The ribbon trim is from Webster's Pages. The card is a commercial blank. I distressed the papers also. Inside looked like this:

The numbers are from a K&C Co. set. The second card (using all SU products unless indicated) used some embossed Whisper White (Swirls) and some Daffodil Delight embossed with the Happy Birthday folder. The card blank is a commercial one and the white background is swiped with Pacific Point ink. I then cut out two frames, one in WW and one is Melon Mambo, and stamped the white one with Hello Blossoms - I inked the stamp with the Markers first, and then stuck on the Ice Cream Parlour buttons. I finish off with the Ice Cream Parlour ribbon strip. These last two items are a freebie from SU at the moment,

From 1-31 July, you and your customers can get an exclusive bundle of adorable ribbon and buttons for FREE when you spend $100 on Stampin' Up! products!

So if you like them and have an order, just contact me!

Magical Birthday

2011-06-08T16:12:00.002+10:00

My Lili of the Valley sentiment circle stamp set has lots of sentiments like this - so pretty. I cut it out with a Nestability circle die.

Today I am sharing a card made with a Sparkle stamp image, coloured with Copics and following a sketch challenge by Crop Stop. This also has an extra challenge of embossing, and the frame is embossed.

The frame is die cut from metal (from Ten seconds Studio), using a Spellbinders Frameability.The ribbon is silk and the pearls are from Kaiser. The ink was Memento Black. The background papers are from Echo Park - Dots and Stripes. I used a bit of Spica pen on the image as well to get a bit of sparkle on things. I fussy cut the image and layered up, using dimentionals. The base card is a piece of blue bazzil from the stash.

I spent the weekend in Melbourne at a Copic Project class and the Copic Intermediate Designer Training course, and have my certificate. If you want me to take a class just get back to me asap! Now I have to practice lots - what a shame! The weather is really cold, blustery and wet, so I am forced to stay inside. I am tucked up in the craft room with a heater and a never ending cup of coffee! Poor me.....

Two hours later.....
I then made another card with the same image (I coloured two at a time). Here it is -

Can you see the sparkle?

Birthday Hugs

2011-06-03T16:14:00.000+10:00

...to all those whose birthday falls into this weeks perimeter! I have completed a card for the Waltzing Mouse sketch challenge, and will make it by the skin of my teeth! The background was stamped with Tsukineko Splendour ink and let dry overnight. I used a stamp from the Victorian Fripperie set for this. I stamped a label from Vintage Label 4, and embossed it with clear EP. I die cut it with a Spellbinders Label 4, and inked the edges with SU Blushing Bride ink. I also inked the edges of the background paper. I used a piece of Gemstones Cardstock to back this and a Martha Stewart edge punch to decorate it. The lot is layered onto a piece of folded SU Bashful Blue card. My sentiment comes from WM Sweethearts and Half Pint Hero. The ink used for this is Momento Paris Dusk. The white twine is from AnnaBelle's Stamps. Kaiser supplied the bling.

For a few weeks I have been going to a painting class - mixed media and watercolour - with Terry Gough, and although it does not look like it I have learned a great deal from him. The following three images are class exercises. I go back in several weeks for term 2!

Autumn leaves - imprinting and masking

Winter colours and mist/rain

Autumn colours - other than flora

Crafting for Fun

2011-06-02T16:32:00.001+10:00

Or CR84FN #30 is issuing a challenge to use light blue, light yellow and kraft and create! So, I used this colour scheme and the CPS Challenge #220 sketch to create my next offering.

The card is made using mostly Stampin' Up's stuff, but the ink is Momento Paris Dusk, and the ribbon and buttons are from the stash. The bling is Kaiser. The image is SU's Sailing, and the sentiment is from Annabelle Stamps Treemendous set. It is just all layered together. The card is Bashful Blue and Barely Banana, with a bit of Brilliant Blue scrap to mount the image.

Tuesday Throwdown #57 wanted us to make our own embellishment, and I thought my two stacked buttons tied with string did that, so I will enter it into that as well. I found these two new sights as well, so will enter them as well.

Two Sisters Challenge is - Anything Goes
Dream Valley is - Stamp Something

From me to you

2011-05-31T16:59:00.000+10:00

Last night - about 8.30 pm - I heard a noise outside the front door. I thought it was a person crying - upon investigation, it was a possum, or rather three possums, having a fight. Two ran away but one stayed on the fence and allowed me to photograph him! Cute huh! He was young and healthy.

I made a card today but am not happy with it. It is for Annabelle Stamps sketch with bling challenge, but I not happy with it. However, I will also enter it into Crop Stop #21 challenge - Complimentary Colours.

I should have stamped the numbers strip in blue but I did it in black Momento ink as is the sentiment. The yellow card is stamped with Peach Parfait ink and Pacific Blue for the three parcels. The embossing folder is Lovers Lane by Country Companions. The stamps used were all from Annabelle Stamps - two background sets and Swingin' By, which is coloured with Copics. The scalloped strip is from a piece of stash card. Some ribbon and three sprinkles onto a base of cream. The main card is Barely Banana (old stock) and the yellow is Daffodil Delight. All the other card and ink is from Stampin'Up!

Dads

2011-05-30T17:46:00.000+10:00

Mine is no longer with us - he died nearly 30 years ago now but I still remember him as if he had gone yesterday, especially when I see my youngest brother who looks so much like him (pity about the hair, though - Dad has such lovely dark soft curly hair,John is nearly bald). I usually don't want to make Father's Day cards because the idea is still a little raw. Now, our Father's Day is celebrated in September, but I know that in other areas it is celebrated next month, so I made a Dad card, but thought it would suit a birthday as well as the traditional Father's Day. I am going to enter it into several challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown #50 - use stripes in your project
Sweet Stop sketch #110

Here it is:

It uses Verve stamps for the sentiment, SU card in Not Quite Navy and Cajun Craze, with Bordering Blue (an out colour now) as the base card. The DP is an old piece of Junkiz Boy Plaid (my stripes), and I used Kaiser Fozz Felt (blue stars), some dark red ribbon and a piece of blue string (from my stash) to make the three stripes in the sketch, but I took a liberty with the third strip, and made it across the sentiment instead of behind it! It is all layered up! I threw around a little Not Quite Navy ink as well to soften the edges. Oh, and there are four blue brads!

Dropping you a line

2011-05-29T16:06:00.000+10:00

This stamp is from Lili of the Valley Ltd in the UK - such simple lines calling out to be coloured in - and the sentiment is from Flourish - the set called Kids at Play. I decided to enter a sketch challenge from Papercraft Star #47, where you not only have the sketch but the challenge is to use 1 colour cardstock, 2 coloured pattern paper and 3 pieces of bling. My card is SU Real Red, the two patterned papers come from Cosmo Cricket DeLovely mini set and the bling is the sparkly red brads.

I coloured with Copics and the scallops are cut using a die in the cuttlebug. The little fish was in my stash.

One Layer Wednesday

2011-05-28T17:18:00.001+10:00

This Challenge site (One Layer Wednesday) used images from the Cake Wrecks blog to challenge us to create a card - mine is not suitable for the challenge because it has too many layers, but I took a look at the site and found a cake by Poppy Belle's Cakery in pink, brown and cream with stripes and used the colour scheme with MOJO Monday's Challenge #192 sketch to make the card. It took me all afternoon!! I did clean up and put away a few new toys that had arrived earlier in the week and that I hadn't done anything with but drool over until then. One of these was a stamp set by "My Favourite Things" - called 'Enjoy the Ride'. Another item was two new Magnolia stamps - they had such a pretty pink and cream striped paper backing them I couldn't throw it out. So, the card:

It took me a while to colour the image (watercolour using Inktense pencils), and then I angst over whether what was essentially a square could be cut out with the circle die, but I did it anyway. I backed that onto a scalloped circle in Pink Pirouette, and layered that card behind the stripes as well,. The brown is Early Expresso. I knew I had a tag die that would suit but it took some locating, and I had already cut out about three others as I came across them (just in case) but none of them looked quite right. This one is Sixxix. I thought I would go overboard on the Martha Stewart border punches.....and it all became bigger than Ben Hur! The whole thing is mounted onto a folder piece of Vanilla card. I then added some pearls, ribbon and some white twine for the tag. The birthday sentiment is from Verve.

I am also entering this in Delightful Challenges - Tags.

The photo below is of inside the card.

CR84FN

2011-05-28T11:42:00.000+10:00

I decided to have a go at a challenge this morning, so looked at the colours of CR84FN challenge #29; these always seem to me to be the colours for sympathy cards ( plum, light plum and kraft), so that's what it became. I used the sketch at CPS #129 to create the card and all the card itself is made with SU products except for the bling, which is Kaiser.

Here it is:

The ink colour is Elegant Eggplant. The image behind the sentiment is stamped in Momento London Fog and coloured in using Copics. Both it and the sentiment are from the set Thanks for Caring and so is the inside sentiment. The DP is a scrap of old SU DP. The ribbon is from stash and the central panel was die cut using the Spellbinders Nestabilities Ovals and Scalloped Ovals in the Cuttlebug.

I am crafting all day today so look out!!! Have a good one folks.

Two more cards CASed

2011-05-26T16:03:00.001+10:00

These two are also from 'Stamp It! Techniques' - a USA magazine. This time the pages are 17 and 19. My first card is quick and easy, and mostly made from scraps on the desk i.e. the kraft is left over from the last crafting effort, and the clear EP was also sitting there. The journalling mini paper is from Jenni Bowlin Studio - Vintage Cream Line. The stamp is a SU Motorsycle, stamped in SU Brocade Blue ink and embossed. The word is from Annabelle's Treemendous set. Some string and three pieces of bling completed it - oh, I swiped the edges in the blue ink as well. It can be a birthday card or just a card for Dad.

ED: I was invite to enter this in the Kraft blogspot even though it is a Cased card. So I will.

This one used the Waltzing Mouse stamp set Victorian Fripperies, and the SU tag stamp and punch To and From Tag, some white EP, some green bling, lace and ribbon from stash. I stamped and embossed the white edge and then fussy cut it out, stuck it on some green bazzil and added the white lace strip. The bottom of the card has been stamped and embossed with the big background stamp from SU - Lace. I masked the inside of the tag so that it was clear, and then stamped into it a sentiment from the WM set and embossed that. That green is such a lovely clear colour - it always makes me feel happy.

More CASing

2011-05-25T18:19:00.001+10:00

In the first one (page 14 of the American mag mentioned below), I used a tag off a new windcheater I purchased for my DH - he needed one without paint stains, or food stains or just plain stains - which I painted with white acrylic paint first. I then stamped and embossed with clear EP, using the flourish from the SU set Bliss. I then stamped it with a script stamp in Momento London Fog, but the ink just disappeared into the paint.....interesting........so I sponged it with some SU Sage Green ink - that held up. I then stamped the same flourish onto the bottom of a piece of folded SU kraft, and used a bit of green scrap to decorate the page. I punched this with a Martha Stewart edge punch first and swiped it with the Sage ink. I also swiped the edges of the kraft card. I then decided that the whole thing looked too flat, so I added some rik-rak and buttons, and stamped the word (from a WMS set called Victorian Fripperie) in the same ink. Better, but not much....but I left it as it was.

The second one was also cased, but the original used pumpkins! I used some freebie stamps from the Craft Stamper magazine, and some beautiful EP called Sparkle Ebony. I tried to take the photo in the fading winter light, so that the sparkle would show through because it really is lucious. I used two images only, and mounted them on to some blue scrap (I think it is some SU card that is no longer made). I coloured each image with a different Copic, and added some bling. I put them onto a white commercial blank. I quite like this - the black EP looks so thick and the sparkle makes it look special.

Recycling and CASing

2011-05-24T17:50:00.000+10:00

I was given three smallish bookmarks by my husband this afternoon in passing - they had been in one of the frequent charity begging letters we get here (they seem to pass information between each of the groups or NGO's re names and addresses). I immediately knew what I would do with them and so I cut off the bottom piece which gave information re the roses and the painters, and mounted them on some SU Handsome Hunter, and using some SU Cranberry Crisp as my base card, I placed them on the card as seen below. I used one of my Spellbinders Shapeabilities Frames, and the HH card scrap to cut a frame and then cut another in SU Cream, and trimmed it to fit into the frame. I then used the SU set Thanks for Caring for the sentiment and the inside to create a sympathy card. The ink is SU Handsome Hunter. John is always sending out sympathy cards these days, so thought it would be useful - he was chuffed!

The second card is cased from my American magazine, page 12, but while I used the colour scheme and the sketch, the stamp set is from Annabelle 'All Things Grow' and I used one image to stamp the SU Always Artichoke card with SU Handsome Hunter ( it was on the desk!) and then used the Cuttlebug again and some Nestabilities - circles (green scrap) and scalloped circles (in kraft) and another Annabelle image, as well as the sentiment (in SU Poppy Parade) - I also swiped the circle edges with this. Three Annabelle sprinkles and some Kaiser ribbon, mounted on SU Poppy Parade and then onto a card made from folded SU Kraft. Again, the Annabelle set was used inside the create a male birthday card for a family member, perhaps.

It was pretty late when I photographed this and a bit dark outside, so it looks a little darked than it is IRL.

Spread your wings....

2011-05-21T16:53:00.000+10:00

......the stamp said, and so I decided to have a go at something different.

The first card I have to share is one I made to highlight a stamp I got on my June Craft Stamper magazine; it is a stamp by Toby Tumble and is called Cuddly Buddly! I used my Copics to colour him, die cut him with a Spellbinders Nestie and then put him in a commercial card that had already been dry embossed with some words. I also die cut a butterfly and added that as well as a handmade flower. Three Annabelle sprinkles were used for the body of the butterfly

The second card is made after I bought and read a magazine from USA called Stamp It! Winter 2011 (this version was on techniques) which I only buy occasionally as it is so expensive here. However, this one has lots of great ideas in it so I forked out. The two cards were made using embossing differently.

Number one uses the flat side of a butterfly stamp to create a basic shape, and use this to stamp in Versamark, load it with EP and build up several layers doing this before turning the stamp around and stamping into the hot EP. You then cut out the butterfly and make a card with this element. I made three butterflies and used lots of different EP before settling onto my Pipe Dream Opalettes - Tropicals. I then used a Tim Holtz embossing folder in the Cuttlebug, with some Co'ordination brown card, lightly sanded, of wood grain, and a Spellbinders Shapeabilities label. I stamped the sentiment with Memento brown ink and sponged the label in both TH Antique Linen ink and some gold Pearlex. This is hard to see in the photo. I also rubbed some of this over the butterflies to make them shine.

The second card in this series used watercolour paper (SU) and embossing with clear EP. Then use dye ink - my Tim Holtz distress inks were used, a green, red and blue one - and apply the ink, creating a gradient effect. I spritzed it with water and then put some gold Pearlex into a spray bottle of water and lightly sprayed the mixture over the paper as well. I dried it off with the heat gun carefully, and used a tissue to clean up the embossed bike. I then stamped the sentiment with black Memento ink and trimmed the piece before rounding the edges. I put some green silk ribbon and some twine onto the card and added the image with dimentionals.

This is a close-up so you can see the shine a bit better - it actually looks really good IRL!

Another week gone!

2011-05-15T17:38:00.001+10:00

Just like that! I have a new part-time job and it is taking more of the part than it should at this stage, but hopefully it will settle down.

I haven't had time to craft until today, so made a card to fit several challenges. I used the Mojo Monday #190 sketch for my layout, and Crop Stop wanted me to use Copics "in the shadows", while the CR84FN Challenge wanted me to use red, yellow and neutral. Tuesday Throwdown this week is to use a die cut in your work, and I have! Copic Oz is also having a challenge to 'celebrate women', so her goes for that too. So, here goes!

I used an image from Annabelle stamps, stamped onto Xpress paper with Memento black, and coloured it with Copic pens. I die cut a frame using Nellies rectangles in red card, and die cut a flower as well. The red in the flower and the red it the frame are just slightly different as I used scraps from my stash - didn't show up that much until I took the photos! The background paper is from Basic Grey's Hello Luscious paper pad. The ribbon is a Kaiser one and the rub-on is also one of theirs I think. The base card is a commercial blank. The brads are from stash, and the heart is a Bella jewel. It is assembled as you see it, with the frame layered over the image.

This is a clearer picture of the image and the colouring.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T17:08:00.000+10:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and grandmothers and steps and others that act like mothers.......hope you all have a great day!

Finally I got some time to craft after all the running around when we got home getting things sorted out, washing and ironing and other household chores, doctors appointments and ladies breakfasts, visitors and such! However, my MOJO has been on holiday and doesn't want to return, so I found myself staring at stuff without any ideas of what to do next!!! Finally decided to colour in a digi image I have had for a while and practice my Copic work. Before I did that I carefully re-read all my notes and sorted them with my samples into my notebook, so I thought I knew what to do........hmmmm, not so sure now I have completed the image, think I need a bit more practice!

So, thought I would enter a challenge next - chose another digi image from Digital Delight and decided to enter their Someone Special challenge.

However, this time the printer ink smudged and worked against me (I had just changed the black ink cartridge) and smudged despite the fact that I heat set it beforehand. I tried to feather the wings as well and look at light source, but I am afraid my image needs more work.

I thought someone who needs cheering up would be pretty special! I followed the sketch at CPS #216 but am too late I think to enter it in their challenge. My die cut is Labels Fourteen by Spellbinders, and the card is all SU scraps except for the base card which is a Bazzil card. The sentiment is from WMS and the flag is also. Three Annabelle sprinkles were used.

My next attempt was to try something Clean and Simple - Challenge #139.

I used the WMS stamp set Irish Blessings and SU Glorious Green ink on some green card scraps, and a blank card made with SU Glorious Green card. The ribbon is from Papermania Verde set. I stamped the clovers in a regular pattern but twisted the stamp each time I stamped it to get a different position for the clover. It looks OK.

My last one was to go all out and make a fussy card for the Colout Throwdown Challenge #40 using SU Blushing Bride, Early Expresson and Baja Breeze, with a touch of Kraft. I followed the MOJO Monday sketch Challenge #189 for this, and decided to let my head go and enter the Let's Ink It Up Challenge to Embellish It also.

I used SU card and stamps and ink, the flag is a WSM stamp and the background paper is from My Minds Eye Pretty Please Spring papers. The SU stamp set for the sentiment is Well Scripted. The circles were eithr punched out using SU punches or were from the Nellies Multiframe Circle set. I sponged the edges of the papers with SU Close to Cocoa ink and used Annabelle twine, Kaiser pearls and Websters Pages designer trim lace. The base card is folded Early Expresso, and the Kraft colour is in the twine.

Tuesday Throwdown #47 was to create a Mother's Day card - well it was made on Mother's Day and is for a mother! Aud Sentiments #27 also wanted a card for Mother's Day - so I will enter it in both these challenges as well!!

I have been busy!

2011-05-04T12:47:00.000+10:00

Been visiting family in Canberra and Melbourne, and while in Melbourne I was able to attend a Copic class and get myself Certified (!) as a Copic Teacher. So, guess my colouring will need to be pretty up there in future!!!

Will be back later with a few samples.

Party Preparations

2011-04-17T11:50:00.000+10:00

I am preparing for my first SU party as presenter outside my house today - there is such a lot to carry! However, hopefully it will all go OK. The hostess wants some scrapbooking stuff (hhmmm) and some easter containers ( I will do a simple box with handle), and perhaps some cards.

This is the page I came up with first:

Master Jack, starring role! This one is in A4 Landscape. I like clean and simple, but this seemed to be too clean!

Second attempt came together better - it is the 12 x 12 page.

Then I made two cards with the same colour scheme and papers, and ideas:

See you soon!

Round, not square

2011-04-11T21:43:00.001+10:00

I decided to have a go at a round card. I have had my SU roundy, cutting thingy for a while now - Circle Scissor it called, and have used it a few times, but not really played with it much. I cut out the card in SU Kraft, and then two more circles, each one smaller than the last, in Orange Bazzil and DP. I used the Spellbinders Nestabilities Scalloped Oval for the background card and some SU punches for the sentiment, my DP's are from SU and then flower is cut from one of these. The jewel centre is from Prima. There are Annabelle sprinkles around the edge, and the bird is from the SU set, Notably Ornate, stamped in Purely Pomegranate. That bird looks less pink in real light, but I had to take it a night on my desk and it's not a good photo.

I am entering this in two challenges: Colour Throwdown #136 (orange, soft sky and kraft) and There She Goes #101 - a card without angles (but I missed this one). I based this card design on last weeks Mojo Monday sketch (sort of...). Have to go and watch Q and A - riveting watching on a Monday night!