I'm 9 off having 100 followers on Google Friend!

It would be great to be 100 by the end of March! Any of you Peeps who just stay in the background - come out and say Hello!

Remember me saying I sort-of CASed some cards from magazines recently to encourage the MOJO back  - or at least some ideas.  Here are some of them.  The first one uses a die cut from Memory Box onto some SU Very Vanilla and a background for the flower was from a scrap of green shiny card. The green background piece is from a series of pieces I have stashed away from when I was playing with my Tim Holtz inks and some SU Whisper White one day - it fitted the frame so it got used!

A sympathy card - frame is a die from MFT and the sentiment is an SU rubber one bent slightly to fit the frame. The card on the front is embossed with a freebie embossing folder in SU Very Vanilla, and I added a bit of bling. The frame is cut using a Spellbinder's Oval after I embossed the card. the whole is added to a folded SU - VV card. 

This next one uses washi tap again - it is supposed to be more symmetrical than this but I cannot do random or symmetrical, I have found. Stresses me out if I try too hard as well. So it's a sort of symmetrical one!

A sheet of SU Whisper White and lots of various tape in the colours that combine well

Leave gaps between the tape - it looks better (ask me how I know!)

A stamped sentiment and three bits of bling all mounted on a tall folded white card. I like it because it is clean and simple and could be masculine or feminine.......and it uses up the washi tape.

I will enter these in the following Challenges:

Lawnscaping Challenge: Clean and Simple -sympathy card

My Craft Creations: Anything Goes - Best Wishes card

Final Week for Challenge #33 - Geometric Shapes

Hello Everyone - and a special Hi to my newest followers!

Just popped in to let you know that there is only one week left for the March challenge over at Unstampabelles, which is

GEOMETRIC SHAPES

TWIST: HAVE AT LEAST THREE DIFFERENT SHAPES

You can find the challenge HERE!

REMEMBER!

Our lovely sponsor this month is the delightful Andrea from 

and Andrea is offering our winner a

Discount coupon worth $15.00 Aus

I am really pleased with myself as I got to use some of the rather large collection of washi tape that is accumulating in the bottom of my cupboard, and I also got to use a piece of chipboard from my stash that has been there for several years now (no idea who the maker is, sorry!). The tap was put on a sheet of SU Whisper White card and then embossed with the SU Honeycomb folder - lots of shapes here, both in the tape and in the hexagons! 

Once the tape was in place and it was embossed, I attached it to the front of a commercial white card blank, and attached the chipboard star t the front - and it was done! How easy was that! Got the idea from a magazine - don't know if I have mentioned it before but I tend to purchase magazines, and then tear them up and any ideas, techniques or things I might like to copy errr, CASE are carefully clipped and stuck into a poster book. When the old MOJO disappears, I can flick through this for inspiration - I find I begin by copying  CASing and then start to fly by myself and the MOJO is back! Also it challenges me to create in different styles and learn different techniques. I have been clipping and CAsing a bit lately and will post again soon with some examples - some good,some not so good!

I will enter this in the following challenges: 

Scribble and Scrap: Anything Goes

The Sweetest Thing: Sketch challenge (tipped in on side)

Just for Fun (3rd entry): Anything Goes

Challenges and Candies: Embossing!

Challenge#66 for Squirrel and Fox....

.......which is to be inspired by a book! We were given images from our sponsor, Paper Shelter to help us create and I really liked the one I used, which reminded me of Mary Poppins - especially where she is dancing with the Sweep!

Now, I am not sure if I have confused the book with the film here but I do know that Mary Poppins was written by a woman P L Travers, who was born in Queensland, Australia but emigrated to the UK and lived out her adult life there as a writer and an actress.  I think the Nanny character Mary Poppins arrives floating on an umbrella, so think I am pretty OK!

The Paper Shelter images are so sweet and easy to colour up.

I made my card following the instructions from a magazine, as it has a peep hole and I wanted to make one of those cards - however, the instructions were out and I ended up having to make my own pattern from the bits I had cut up and joined together. It was either that or throw them out and I was not having that!

Image coloured with Copics

The card has an inset piece and a piece at the back that slides across when the card is shut, so that first there is one message when the card is shut, and when you open it, there is another message in the port hole. If you want to make it better email me for the correct measurements!

 I think also there is a better way of making it so the holes all line up perfectly - but have yet to quite figure that one out!!

You can see here that the inset is smaller than the card - there is a fold at the back and another piece of card added to create the back of the card.

I used SU card, papers and inks, and sentiment stamps but coloured the image with Copics and fussy cut it out to attach it. 

I will enter this in the following challenges:
Digi Galore: Anything Goes
Just for Fun: Anything goes
Sunshine Mail: Anything Goes

Dragonflies are BLOG HOPPIN' today!

WE at Crafting with Dragonflies

are having a BLOG HOP as well as a Challenge this fortnight!

WARNING: Lots of reading to follow

This year our theme is - BABIES!

Now, who cannot make a baby card??

REMINDER: To be eligible for the prizes in the blog hop 

you must have an entry in the challenge!

Our wonderful Hilde also has a freebie to give to you to use for the challenge if you want to use it - you will find it on the blog at Crafting with Dragonflies.

Our wonderful Sponsors for this Blog Hop are all listed below but......... the twist is....... they are each associated with each individual member of the Design Team's blogs. YOU will need to go to their blog and follow the instructions to be in a chance to win. 

There is a also prize for the Challenge winner 

Reminder: you do have to be a member of this blog to be eligible for the Challenge and also the Blog Hop prizes, and to win each individual DT blog prize, you need to also enter the Challenge.

NOW, OUR WONDERFUL SPONSORS

 

 

AND

Meljens prize: four digis for the winner   

This is what I have on my blog to give away!

What do I need to do, you ask?

The way you can hop is by thinking of numbers! Go to each Design Team's blog, read the clues and THINK OF NUMBERS while you do this! Remember - our theme is BABIES, so what do Babies have related to NUMBERS?

There may be a small amount of poetry in there........but I am sure you will be able to work that all out! You collect a word or maybe a whole phrase from each blog along the hop and you need to make sure that

1. You leave a comment on that blog to be eligible for the blog prize
2. You DON'T mention the word/phrase in your comment!

Once you have completed your hop send an email off with the assembled clues from the POEM  Ten Little (Whoops, nearly...) about BABIES: remember, this is all related to NUMBERS! 

Leave a comment on this blog to be eligible to win the Meljen's prize, as well as entering your own Baby themed project into the Challenge 

Order of the HOP

Tania

Hilde

Wynn

Sammy

CG

Judith

Ina

Susan (You are here)

Crafting with Dragonflies 

Happy Hopping Peeps and we look forward to seeing your lovely creations

I was lucky enough to get an image from Meljen's to use in making my card, and as well Flourish with a Bling sent me some of their product to use also - so there are two lots of Sponsors stuff in my card.

This babies bottle is the image I used - I used Copics to colour it

My card features a sentiment from the Sweet Innocence range at MFT, and the rest of the card uses background papers from a paper stack called Sweet Wishes supplied by the Australian magazine - Papercraft Essentials. The bling has been added as I wanted to make the point that babies just grow from seeds, like all other things on earth. The banner is from Joanne Sheen and there is a bit of bling.  The hearts that were die cut from the banner were reused also.  The mount is SU Green Gumball card.

This is a LOTV sentiment which I used inside the card. 

I am a great Aunt and yes, I am a Great Aunt as well! I am also a Grandmother of four very beautiful kids - and I think I am a pretty good Nin (their name for me) at times too! Our eldest Granddaughter is Charlotte and while she is now over 21, the photo below was taken when she was about 9 months old. She is such a serious little thing, isn't she! From the look of the rosy cheeks and the bib she was probably teething as well! 

I assure you she did smile - just that you had to be very quick to get that photo! This is one of the few photo's I could scan in that had her in enough clothes too! Quite a few of her smiling ...... in the bath! While those photo's could prove she had all the right number of bits (a baby by numbers lol) this one of her clothed only really proves she had one cute button nose! She still has only one cute button nose but it and she are a bit bigger now! Her hair looks quite red in this photo but she was firstly bald, then blond and then a lovely brunette as she was growing up - now she is back to being a bit more blond but I think it comes from a bottle - and not a baby one either!

See? The chin shape hasn't changed though!

I will enter the card in the following challenges:

Crafty Sentiments Designs: It's all about spring! = My new growth should fit the bill!

Fan-Tastic Tuesday: Anything goes as long as its square!

Through the Craftroom Door: Anything Goes

Southern Girls: use pennants

Bizzy Becs Store Blog: Babies!

Midway for Unstampabelles Challenge#33

We are mid-way through the Challenge #33 for Unstampabelles, which has as its theme

 Geometric Shapes

and we have a TWIST to use at least three shapes in your paper project. 

For this Challenge, we do NOT use any stamps which sometimes really stretches the imagination and skill. However, at other times it comes together quite easily. For my first project for Unstampabelles this month (found here) I created some background papers by swiping my card (SU Whisper White) through some TH Distress inks and then overstamping them with the lid of the stamp pad for a square and the lid from a bottle for a circle. After creating my masterpiece ahem ....sorry, card....  I was left with some extra pieces and used them to create this card.

Whisper White SU card folded to create a card blank. Two squares by cutting out around the squares stamped using the ink pad lid. Layered one over the other; used up some Flourish with a Bling bits I had to create the swirls; and then doodled around them with black fine-line pen. Added lots of Annabelle Stamps Sprinkles around the edges and then a sticker for the sentiment.

is the Sponsor for this Challenge

There you have it - squares, circles and a rectangle and an arc!

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Challenges 4 Everyone: Anything Goes

The Paper Players: CAS Spring!

Just for Fun: anything Goes

Tag- You're IT!

I played with some TH Distress inks and big tags - this is the result!

I was attempting to use some Textured paste I has purchased before Christmas and some other stuff I got just after to see what they were like. Decor Art Dimensional Effects and Imagination Crafts Sparkle Medium - Gold Shine. The idea was to use some of the different masks I have got recently as well, but they are a bit big still for me to get my head around, so I chose to die-cut into a thickish card and use the result to create my texture on the tags. I found the die cuts worked fine (they came from MFT) and I used a small palette knife to smooth through some of the paste - it looks like toothpaste but less wet - through the cuts and then also added the Sparkle medium too - Yum effect! I just threw out the resultant die-cut mess after I had finished and washed off the silicon sheet! Hardly got dirty hands at this stage!!

You have to leave them for at least four hours to dry - mine were left overnight - and then I started to smooch on the Distress Inks - the card the tags were made of just took these beautifully. I did get inky fingers here as I couldn't be bothered putting on some rubber gloves! A stamp and a bit of German Scrap, a tag and some ribbon and a metal charm.  The rim on the circle and the charm were silver so I took to them with my old Krylon gold pen. You can see both die-cuts represented here.  I added a piece of scrap card behind the tag to allow a message to be written on it and to cover up the ink that soaked through. Did this on all three. A bit of TH Block Soot was also smudged around the edges. 

One of the tags had been swiped through some Gesso - just the top part - before I decided that wasn't a good idea, and the card from the die-cut stuck to this wet patch but it produced a great result so it was a good mistake! It has a different look to other two. I will use Gesso more now I know what the effect is but the need to dry it a bit more is important!

Here there are thee tags and a topper added.  I stamped Fabulous from LOTV onto a piece of Prima packaging, using TH Barn Door Distress ink, and smeared around some of this and some of the Black Soot again.  I smeared two smaller white tags with the distress inks and then stamped them with a swirl stamp and Black Soot ink. They were added with a sparkly split pin. The topper was off-set and the tag had a bit of gold seam binding added. 

The last one was just paste onto the tag, dried and then sponged with TH distress inks and stamped with a WMS fleur-de-lis stamp in Black Soot. I added a bookplate to this with a piece of card smooched with inks and stamped with a small stamp from an old SU set One of a Kind. 

I had a bit of bling that sort-of matched the fleur-de-lis so added it! It's from the stash!

WMS frame stamp and some feathers, and a big gold split pin! I rubbed some more of the Sparkle Medium between the lines of the dimensional paste to make it stand out more as well and again smooched the black ink a bit. Not to sure about the ribbon on this - may change it to a red ribbon! I had fun and they are not too bad. 

Voila! Three birthday tags!

I will enter these in the following challenges:

Altered Eclectics: Anything Goes

Rhedds Creative Spirit: Altered Art

A Vintage Journey: Challenge 1 - I feel this is a bit cheeky as mine is so basic but I have put it out there anyway!

Happy St Pats Day!

For those of you who celebrate this day - Happy St Pats!

I made this card for a challenge going on at the Waltzing Mouse, but my card was not very vintage and they wanted a vintage St Pats - so I will just put it here for you to admire and maybe enter some other challenges!

I have used a freebie image from Claire and some other of her stamps to create the frame and the sentiment. I put the image into Picassa and played with it to get it the colours it is - Irish and Australian mixed!

The card is all from Stampin' Up and the bling is just from the stash - 3 green pearls. 

I will enter this in the following:
Craft for the Craic: something green
Get Inky Challenge: St Pats day
Aud Sentiment: anything goes - its ages since I did one of their challenges!

Challenge #65 for the Squirrel and the Fox

Autumn is here and the challenge at TSAF is to make either a Spring or Autumn card - as I live in the Southern part of the world, Autumn it is! The weather for the last few days has been brilliant - warm, blue skies and sunny days! I do love Autumn here!

We were given some images to choose from by our wonderful sponsor this challenge

who are offering 4 free digi's to the winner!

(PS, they are having a new release starting on the 7th)

I chose an image called Autumn Collage and used Copics to initially colour it and then added TH Distress inks - Antique Linen and Tea Dye and then added some Smooch for a bit of sparkle. 

You can see some of the glimmer here on the leaves - I put it on and then sort-of polished it off so only just a bit remains. I then fussy cut around the image and then cut it into three and mounted it onto black card.

I added some other mounts in yellow and blue card from a mat stack of brights by DCWV. This is then put on a base of white card from Blue Edge Crafts.  The sentiment comes from SU - Loving Thoughts. 

Another look at a different angle out of the full sun. 

I will enter this in the following:
Passion for ProMarkers: Butterfly kisses
Through the Craftroom Door: anything Goes
The Crafty Blogger: Nature
Love to Create: Anything Goes

Easter is Coming Apparently

According to the shops, its been coming since Boxing Day!

I have made several Easter cards - two I showcased here whilst experimenting with colouring techniques. However one I made using masking and double stamping and Waltzing Mouse Stamps.

Isn't this soooo cute!

It's from Li'il Buddies and Eggsta Special for the sentiment and the extra eggs! They are stamped on XPress Blending card with Momento Tuxedo Black ink.

I coloured them up with Copics.

One egg got out of alignment so I had to draw in a rock to lean it on!

Those chickens always just make me laugh - Claire is so clever!

I thought look on the faces of the chickens suited that sentiment - say what??!

I used papers from a Jillybean Soup - Homemade Soup as the background.

I will enter them in the following:
Crafty Girls Challenge: Anything Goes
Loves Rubber Stamps: Anything Goes