Best Wishes

Another card this week for the May challenge at Unstampabelles.

The theme is Layers and Borders: 

TWIST use a border punch/die (or two)

I have used an In Colour at Stampin' Up Lime/Lemon

.....such a vibrant green....

My border die is a Die'sire (Crafter's Companion)  - Gorgia

I used a Joy Stencil strip under the flower.

Some SU bits of bling and a die-cut sentiment 

The white card is SU Think Whisper White

Only five days to go for this challenge so best get your brain thinking and your hands working!

Cheers!

Oh sorry - forgot the picture.....

Crescent Bay on the Tasman Peninsula… one of the most beautiful beaches in Tassie, if not the world, and more often than not you will find it all to yourself: thanks to Osborne Heli Tours.

www.instagram.com/osbornehelitours

I will enter this in the following challenge:

Crafting When We Can: bright and colourful

Paper Creator's Craft: bright and bold

Create and Inspire: add a flower

Bomdiggity........it's time for.....

Crafting with Dragonflies!

Hilde has asked us this time to use an animal in our card. 

I have several of the Tim Holtz Crazy Animal sets so I decided that I would use one of those.

Which one?

That decision took way too long....

Then in my mind's eye I had planned out a background, with some masking to happen and some subtle colouring and a funny saying to top it all off.
(Suzy's Stamps)

Why do these things never look like what I could see in my head?

The background is  a street scene from SU's Mediterranean Moments

and it is lightly coloured with pencils

Never mind, here it is:

He is decoupaged as well (just one layer)

These is subtle sparkle on his nose, tongue and ears but you cannot see it because I had to shoot this photo inside - it's too dark and cold out there by now....

(I will try for a better one in daylight!!)

So bomdiggityshizznit - that's all folks!

Your turn to showcase the animals for this fortnight at 

Crafting with Dragonflies!

Psssttt - took another today in the rain and daylight

Better idea of the colours 

Here you can see the sparkle - subtle but there

I am entering this in the Southern Girls Challenge: Show sparkle

Also in 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: have a critter

Pile it on:  animals

Realised I didn't have a Tassie photo for you either today so added this one

This is Sammi Seal who lives in Constitution Dock, Hobart

Photo by the amazing Greg Faull

Hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all who are celebrating this month!

Taken by moi at Agfest last week

'Mum's for Mums........

We are a blended family - and I am a step: Step Grandma and Step Mother. I am very blessed in that my step daughter and son treat me as a friend and I am included in events such as Mother's Day. In Australia this last weekend we celebrated Mother's Day. I went with the family to watch the two eldest Granddaughters play soccer!

Funnily enough for my piece at Unstampabelle's this week, I had dragged out some (very) old photo's of the eldest Grandaughter and scrapped a page with them. The colours were so bright I went with a 70's theme! I had the two girls to myself for a while and we had gone to the Botanical Garden's for the Tulip Festival in about 1997 or 1998. It was a cold day but fine.

A mishmash of this and that.....plus three old photo's

Some borders and frames used and lots of layering....almost too lumpy-bumpy

Orange paint sponged onto the edges for a border

I used a lot of yellow, orange and green, mostly with items from a kit from D'Lish Scraps. 

I missed the deadline for their challenge as well - never mind.....

Wasn't she such an engaging little scamp!

Hard to imagine she is grown up now.

I wasn't going to use a flower until the very end and it just fitted in well so I went with it!

If you are going to be OTT, be OTT I say!

Here is the prize for the challenge at Unstampabelles

Week Two for Unstampabelle's and the May challenge

#68 Layering and Borders

TWIST use a border punch/die (or two)

Today has been a quiet day - the weather outside is cold and overcast, without rain as yet. We are enjoying a visit from the son and also recovering from a lovely day out on Friday at Agfest.  We went to Launceston the day before - yes, took us a long time and the roadworks are infuriating but I can only imagine how much better that road will be as a result, so guess it is worth it. We stayed at a beautiful hotel for one night (The Clarion) and enjoyed a dinner for two in their restaurant. I then enjoyed a fabulous spa bath and another glass of white wine along with my book before going to bed. 

Up early, we arrived in the early morning and had breakfast at the venue. The whole thing is laid out as a huge village - four streets deep and twelve streets wide. This photo might assist you in seeing what it was like - a small part of the site.....

We spend lots of money but didn't actually find the begonia's I was looking for (got them there last visit) so might have to go to a nursery for the new ones. I didn't use my camera until we were leaving - forgot I had it really - and so I missed so many great shots, but here are a few that give a bit of a flavor of the day. 

Guess I should move on to encouraging you all to enter the lastest challenge at 

UNSTAMPABELLES

There is always a random number prize each month

Couture Creations Dies

(New )

I made a card for the week:

I used one of my paper images I have in my stash. 

Plus some dies from Spellbinders

Radiant Rectangles Nestabilities

These created the borders as well as providing layers

There are six layers in total plus the flowers.

Very Vanilla card, sparkly card, gold card, VV card again and the photo

I added three small roses and puts some glitz on them as well

Taken inside on the table with the lamp shine on the black wood

Taken outside with the natural light

Layering can create some very pretty effects

Now it's your turn to layer and add a border effect. 

Mother's Day or Flowers?

Some might do both - that is, make a Mother's Day card with flowers!

This is the newest challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies.

Make a Mother's Day card OR a card Full of Flowers.

To make my card I chose to use a new stamp set I have from SU called Avant-Garden 

that I got for free during Sale-A-Bration.

Got to love a free set of stamps!

The sentiment comes from there too. 

The flowers are fussy cut after stamping.

I stamped off some of the flowers and some are full ink.

I stamped in the stems and some leaves before layering the flowers in place. 

A bit of layering also with the band across the lower half of the card containing the sentiment.

It could be Mother's Day or any day, really.

With no Mother or MIL left to give a card to now, I tend not to make them unless asked to by someone else. 

I hope everyone has a happy Mother's Day in Australia (and anywhere else where it is celebrated on the second Sunday in May).

You can enter Crafting with Dragonflies challenge 

HERE

Some eye candy to allow you some thinking time

Taken at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Tasmania (not by me)

This is from the Japanese Gardens,  in May, of the Zig Zag Bridge area.

Anything Goes in May for Eclectic Ellapu

Yes, we know everyone love the Anything Goes Challenges and Eclectic Ellapu have one on right now and for the whole month of May. Isn't that grand!

I played with an idea I saw on Pinterest (Tina Daubaum)

Here I photographed it in the sun

I started by smooching some texture paste over a shiny white piece of card.

While it was damp I puffed some Color Burst paints onto this.

I added a few sprays of water to get the effect I wanted. 

This became my background piece

You can see below that I then die cut several different square frames using my SU Squares.

I also die cut some Dynamic Gerbera's and some Cottage Cuts leafy foliage 

from SU thick Very Vanilla

I sponged some TH Distress inks onto the flowers and leaves and layered up the gerbera's and then shaped them and the leaves

I like the way the leaves look so realistic here

The three layers plus top were layered with thin dimentionals

I love spiky gerberas

I added an SU sentiment and layered the whole onto a square vanilla commercial card blank.

This one was taken in the shade

I like the effect I achieved. 

Want to see another photo from beautiful Tasmania?

A brilliant photo of the late afternoon light streaming through a Macrocarpa "Tunnel" near Ridgley, in north-west Tassie, thanks to Wilson Images.

www.instagram.com/cammwilson

Challenge #68: Layers from Unstampabelles for May

Unstampabelles

Challenge #68: Layers

The TWIST is to have a border

by using a die or a punch

There is a prize

2 new Culture Creations dies

First - a picture of the Fagus

A beautiful capture of the fagus covering Tarn Shelf, in the Mt Field National Park, thanks toJoshua Vince Photography.
www.instagram.com/joshuavince_photography 

Deciduous beech (Nothofagus gunnii), or fagus as it is best-known, a humble tree, usually growing to 2 metres or less. You find it in places most would describe as inhospitable. And one of its other names - tanglefoot - is ruefully confirmed by bushwalkers caught up in its twisted, ground-hugging branches. Yet this small Tasmanian tree can claim something few other Australian plants can. It is Australia's only cold climate winter-deciduous tree, and you will find it nowhere else in the world except Tasmania. 

And its autumn display is superb. Fagus turns a spectacular range of autumn colours, from rust red through to brilliant gold, during late April and May.

Inspired by the green in the Fagus, I made a card for the first week

I used a die that embosses as well as cuts - it took me ages to sort it out and I ruined four sheets of good card before I got the impression onto the card as well as the cut. I found the answer here

on Scrapbooking Made Simple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2lQmwcA9ps&t=1205s

Then I got this clear emboss

The bottom section was die cut twice and layered to lift it up. 

The first die cut was from the top layer of the card

I then fitted the top bits back into the die cut negative after I had layered it

Underneath the whole is a sheet of green sparkly card from SU - 

you can see it sparkling in the sunlight here

You can see it lifted up more on this shot - taken in the shade; more the actual color

Here is the card photographed in the shade too

I wanted just a hit of sparkle around the edges as well but didn't quite get there - I was concentrating on the right side and didn't realise the left was a bit too wide. Oh well. 

You can enter at Unstampabelles by reading the first post for May and scrolling down to the Linky