Valentines Day Offering

I have been blog-hopping today and have seen so many lovely Valentines Day cards.  Now, here in Australia we do not celebrate this day as much as it is in USA and now UK, but we are aware of it.  I have been able to purchase some truly beautiful stamps from Waltzing Mouse that I have been dying to use, and so I have dived in with this one:

The card is made from SU craft, and the front is layered on SU Riding Hood Red card, SU Chocolate Brown card while the top layer is a photocopy from a book, aged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Vintage Photo. I drew faux stitches around this with a brown pen.   The ink used on the sentiment is SU Chocolate Chip. The heart is a Kaiser Craft chipboard one, coloured with SU Riding Hood ink. I ended up stapling the ribbon onto the heart so that I could tie a proper bow with the ribbon.  I used SU Very Vanilla card to stamp on and edged it with Chocolate Chip and layered it on some red card as well. It didn't look finished so I added some bling.  The sentiment comes from the Waltzing Mouse set Sweethearts.

Inside the card I put a white paper insert with a red heart stamped from SU I (heart) Hearts.

It was such a lovely day yesterday, I went for a walk around our area.  We live on the side of a hill on the edge of the river Derwent. I walked the trail around the hill (about 2.5 ks) and took some photos to show you our lovely spot.

Are you envious yet?  Cheers! Thanks for dropping by.

Forgot to Boast....

Also, very exciting news - our 14 year old granddaughter Hettie went to the National Scout Jamboree in Sydney earlier in January along with over 13 000 other young people.  She decided to enter their Idol competiton and suprised herself by getting through the auditions to be accepted into the final by beating over 230 other young hopefuls.  She was singing 'Colours of the Wind".  And then guess what....SHE WON THE COMPETITON!  Came home 2 weeks ago and was as sick as a proverbial dog (tummy bug and exhaustion) but still had time to talk to her press!

So, how is that for a boast!  See her article on the ABC website this week:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/01/28/2803996.htm?site=hobart

Yeah, Yeah I know.....

Late again.  However, I have been busy and not that much time for playing. The family from Canberra have been visiting us for a week and a houseful of 4 year old boy and a 6 year old  sister + parents is different from just me and HUB.....plobably (as Mr 4 would say)! So lovely to see them all though and such a great time had by all. Even enjoyed being jumped on at an early hour in the morning ("...don't look at me Ninny, I am not going to do anything"......oh yeah, sure Jack!)

We even did some crafting on several occasions and they stamped, coloured in and painted with a vengence. In fact they left behind some of the paintings (using images from clip art on the computer and watercolour pencils, water and paintbrushes), and I thought I would make them some cards to give to their friends from them and post them off to Canberra.  So, simple and quick but they look quite good really and Jack was inside the lines most of the time - his colour scheme was interesting and adventurous, while Lily's work also showed origionality! I have attached a few samples from the dozen I made - Jack's choice of images were 'doggies' and trucks' and Lily wanted flowers and unicorns.

I wrote on the cards and used a stamp from a cheap set I purchase several years ago as well as scrap papers and left over card

This is inside of the blue dog card.

Lily's two cards were commercial blanks, and scrap paper, SU stamps and the same plastic stamp used on Jacks, with Stazon black ink.

I have been making other cards for birthdays but usually running late and delivering them before taking a photo.  Also playing lots of card games on the computer and reading books.  HUB had a quick visit to hospital as well (all OK), so life has been interesting!  I do hope to get back into production and back to writing regularly in the blog as well. Here's hoping!!! Cheers,

Time, it sure does fly................

Whew! Is it that long ago since I posted!!! Guess I better get back to a routine and start posting in a more regualr manner. What have I been doing? Well, making over 120 Christmas cards for ourselves and getting them posted out, as well as over 30 for other people; celebrating granddaughter's birthdays; and family Christmas both here and in Melbourne; organising these same things and getting the Santa presents ready and wrapped; celebrating my MIL's 96th birthday as well on Christmas Eve; then my HUB's 75th on the 30th; entertaining visitors and house guests; gardening; nothing; volunteering (did you know I won a boy's 24" bike in a raffle over Christmas from the hospital where I volunteer? Out grandson will benefit from that eventually!); reading.........guess that is how the time goes!

So a collage of photo's from that time:

Sunset from the lounge room

Portulaquer's (??!) in the tub in the carport

Tassie really is a beautiful place - Marion Bay from the Wylanta Road - where I grew up!

The winning boat (over the line) in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race, tied up in Hobart - Alpha Romeo and the inside of the shed at the Taste of Tasmania Food Festival - there were lots of tables outside as well. Lovely grub and wines.....this was just after Boxing Day, before the New Year and is an annual event (both of them!).  Over the next two days all the ret of the various fleets of racing boats came in - the Launceston to Hobart and the Melbourne to Hobart, and the whole area was a sea of masts and boaties!

My 14 yr old Granddaughter's birthday card - thanks to Lynda's Mum (Crafty Squirrel) that I can make these......

Some of the Christms cards I made - if you want the name of the stamps and embellishments/papers, please contact me, but I am not going to write them in at this stage.

Ready to send out the cards - I shifted to my Dining table to do it as it was such a big job; took me all day!