Mellow Yellow

Annabelle stamps says - do it in yellow, so I did.  A double shot if you followed February's sketch (which I did) and I used an Annabelle stamp (All Things Grow), which I will put into the Gallery and get another shot at the prize!

I was playing with the Cuttlebug and making lots of stock pieces from the various card scraps, so used two of those from my Spellbinders Tags, a piece of yellow card embossed with hearts folder and the flower is a Martha Stewart punch (six times) and then layered with a button.  The background stamp behind the flower is the grass from "All Things Grow" and that is where the butterfly comes from, stamped on the sentiment tag and onto vellum and then fussy cut, using SU Suede ink.  The green vines come from a Marianne Creatables flower die.  

Got to go and watch the Lake Eyre show - sounds fascinating! Then on to the Miss Marple mystery - love Sunday night viewing on the ABC!

Clouds

Towards the end of last week we had some strange weather - probably as a result of Cyclone Yasi - down here in little old Tassie! Part of it was that it rained hard for part of each day for a few days.  One of those days DH and I were sitting down to lunch and I noticed this strange cloud formation in the sky - it looked as if there was a mini hurricane in the clouds! So I took a photo of it!  UFO's do you think?

It was moving pretty quickly .

And was driven by some pretty high winds by the look of it - it moved out of view fairly quickly.

Anyway, to cards:  I made this for a friend who has just been on a surfing holiday to Papua New Guinea - we missed his actual birthday, but will celebrate it with him anyway!  I followed the Annabelle Stamp Challenge #34 layout for February and the colours for this week!  I used scraps and a stamped image and sentiment from I Brake for Stamps - Humours Seniors.  Oh, and Annabelle's sprinkles. 

Christmas Baubles

Annabelle's Stamps has a challenge going that is "Say it with......Baubles".  They have some lovely stamps that allow you to put a Christmas scene in a bauble, but I don't have that stamp set so I used my SU Delightful decorations set and the bauble punch to create some cards, and have entered them in this challenge.  Here they are:

This one uses the punch and a WMS stamp for the sentiment.

Stamps: WMS Compliments of the Season

Paper and Card: commercial blank card; SU Pear Pizzazz; scrap Christmas paper

Ink:  SU Poppy Parade

Other:  dimentionals, the baubles have been put through the embossing folder in the bug; the ribbon bows; gold pen; Martha Stewart edge punch Doily with Hearts; SU bauble punch

Here are all ten. The green background paper was a freebie from a magazine - so pretty.  The red background card uses baubles punched out of an old Christmas card and recycled. 

This one is using the punch and recycling some old gold ribbon, combined with an old SU stamp set Merry Merry.

Stamps: SU Merry Merry

Paper and Card: commercial blank card; Papermania set - a Silent Night

Ink:  Versamark

Other:  dimentionals, gold ribbon (recycled); White EP; gold pen; SU Bauble punch

This one is again using the punch, and the WMS sentiment and a swirl from an SU set. I have just realised that none of these are stamped, but if you look at the red baubles in the set, they are all stamped and embossed.

Stamps: WMS Compliments of the Season; SU Season of Joy

Paper and Card: commercial blank card; SU Whisper White and Melon Mambo

Ink:  SU Melon Mambo

Other:  dimentionals, the baubles have been put through the Snowflake embossing folder in the bug; pink ribbon

Clean and Simple Challenge

Am I too late - hope not!

Clean and Simple FTL#112 sketch challenge
There She Goes TSG #77 Colour challenge - green, black and orange
Annabelle stamps - "Say it in - black and white" challenge

I used a background paper from DCWV All Dressed Up, some ribbon, the stamp set from TSG called Art is the Window and a Prima flower.  All mounted on SU orange card. I stamped the sentiment with SU Craft white ink and didn't get a really clean print with it - it looked OK before I embossed it and the bird with clear embossing powder. I will go back to Versamark I think for this type of thing. 

This is a Flourish stamp set called City of David and the sentiment is from a WMS set. I stamped it on black card with Craft white SU ink - very juicy - and then embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I then added some ribbon, pearls and mounted it on a shiny white bazzil and then on a black and white background paper before putting it onto a white commercial blank. The ribbon is sparkly and the embossing also sparkles but the photograph does not show that properly. Poor camera work - sorry.

Very bright colour combo!

Ed:  Can you believe it - it's a DRAW!!!  Back next week!!!!!

I am listening to the AFL Grand Final on the radio, and currently the Saints are WINNING!!! YEAH......but for how long?

Anyway, to keep the excitement level down I have been card making as well. I decided to use the weekly colour challenge at Colour Throwdown, which looked quite pretty on line, but when I got the colours together (or similar in the case of River Rock) boy, are they bright!  Anyway, having chosen my colours, I then looked at the Annabelle Stamps Bling Sketch ABSCO#30 and used that to create a card.  Here it is:

I don't have a Bigshot or die to cut out a scalloped circle, so used my SU Medallion Stamp, and trimmed a sort-of scalloped circle from that; my Cuttlebug was used for the smaller circle, and the image comes from SU Touch of Nature set, as does the sentiment.  My Martha Stewart edge punch was used for the top, and the bling is really pale blue but looks slightly green in the light. Melon Mambo, Pacific Blue and some Co' ordination card that that is nearly the same as River Rock. Below is inside the card, using the rest of the sentiment.

This card is a straight case from Bleu Bella  - it looked so nice I had a go: my white embossed pattern is from WMS - Victorian Fripperie, and the flowers in the circle are from SU Simple Somethings (my very first SU stamp set). The sentiment is from SU Warm Words.

Yesterday, the tiler was here doing the floor for the new kitchen. So, I was confined to the craft room again. In the Australian Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft magazine for this month, devoted to Christmas cards, there was one article showing the use of embossed metal shim. I have the dove embossing folder, and recognised it being used in the article, so cased the ideas and created three cards for Christmas!

Come on the Saints.......we cannot stand a year with Collingwood as winners!!!!

Butterflies and Flowers

There are many challenges in life: I have decided to enter a card in several -

Colour Throwdown #109
Verve Stamps Something Old/Something New
Annabelle Stamps "Say it with ....Sprinkles"

In the midst of the kitchen I have "tidied" up the desk and done my tax, and cleaned up the craft spaces a bit and realized that I had a sheet of acetate stamped five times with a flower stamp from Innovative Stamp Creations (free stamp on Craft Stamper magazine), using white SU Craft ink - and despite the fact this had happened at least five weeks ago, they were still quite wet. I had at one stage tried to use the heat gun to dry them off and that meant the sheet was buckled but the flowers were still wet and easily smeared.  So, I had a brain wave and got my collection of tinsel out, and sprinkled the images with tinsel, and brushed off the excess.  They seemed to be OK so I decided to use them straight away before I forgot about them again, and made this card! So, even thought I know I am not using the sprinkles that Annabelle Stamps sells, I am using sprinkles of tinsel - lots of it - so am entering it in this Challenge!

However, it wasn't until I went to photograph it, I realised that the WMS frame stamp from Vintage Labels 4 I used is upside down! The sentiment is from Verve stamps using Memento Black ink, and the frame is stamped in SU Pink Passion ink, and then is cut out with Nestabilities, using the Cuttlebug. The background is SU Cream embossed with Floral Fantasy.   The frame and the card are outlined with a hot pink card from the stash.  Various brads were used for the flower centres and the ribbon is Celebrate sheer pink. The whole is on a pale lilac Bazzil card.

The second card is being entered into both the Colour Throwdown #109, and Verve Stamps Something Old/Something New challenges.

                                           

The colours are all there for the Throwdown challenge and I have used two different sets of Verve stamps for the Verve challenge - my newest one is the frame from Framed Wishes, stamped in SU Tempting Turquoise and clear embossed, with the sentiment also done this way but coming from the Beautiful Kindness set, as do the butterflies.  They are coloured with Copic pens and then with Dimensional Magic. The textured background is my first attempt at the crimping background described in  SplitCoastStampers newsletter this week. My crimper is old and not very good, so I had to distress the result to improve the image! The SU Melon Mambo background is then attached to a cream blank card, and the Pear Pizzazz (or similar) is a scrap piece, while the Daffodil Delight (or similar) yellow is the crimped card - from the stash! I added a bit of ribbon as well - the butterflies do sit up off the face of the card, adhered with DM.

Away in Melbourne

Well, we have been  in Melbourne for a week, visiting family and took the opportunity to go to the European Masters (19th-20th C)  Exhibition at the National Art Gallery in the city, while there - fabulous! We were so lucky to see these paintings which usually hang in the Stadel Museum in Frankfurt.  There are renovations going on in Germany and so we get to see them here in the antipodes!

Now, I have been home for several days and have made a few cards.  Here is one I am entering in the Annabelle Stamps Sketch Challenge, and the Aud Sentiments challenge - anything goes.

Annabelle Stamps ABSC029
Aud Sentiments Challenge #9

HOW?

Stamped image and sentiment, used circle punch to punch out sentiment; then inked edges of tree image with green and brown ink, and mounted on some orange scrap. Stamped the continuous sentiment onto the green card strip with brown ink, and used this as a ribbon beneath the image. Layered circle sentiment onto the circle die cut with a dimensional. Added the die cut scalloped edge to the LHS of image.  Mounted stamped strip, image and die cut circle onto the DP. This DP has an embossed feel and is quite luscious.  Added pearls

.

Made with:

Card: SU cream for the blank and Whisper White for the sentiment and image, green strip scrap, orange scrap

Paper: DP from the Kaiser pad Lush collection

Stamps: Annabelle TreeMENdous set - both image and sentiments

Inks: SU Old Olive and Tangerine Tango, and Memento Rich Cocoa

Other: dimentionals, pearls (brown and green), die cuts from Lush Collection 

Here are some other images from our trip.  The first is a picture taken in Melbourne just outside the National Gallery, looking at some of the newer glass towers that have grown in South Bank lately. The second is taken up near Sylvan Dam and shows the two stone pillars that my husband (as a boy) and his father built at Calarama, at the beginning of their driveway to the holiday house, back in the late 1930's. They sold the home after WWII, and it was subsequently burnt down in a bush fire, but it has been rebuilt several times apparently.  But, the stone pillars are still there and my DH was quite excited to find them! We went for a drive up to the Dandenong's with a friend on Monday, and had lunch at Sassafras, and then headed of towards Calarama before returning home.

Young at Heart........

Ain't we all! It is a friend's birthday next week and he is just that - "young at heart" and so the sentiment from the set of the same name at Little Paper Shop really suited a card for him.  I used the birthday boy's upcoming celebrations and the sketch challenge at Annabelle Stamps (ABSC#27) - plus bling - with the colour theme from a challenge at Colour Throwdown #104 - tangerine tango, daffodil delight, and old olive - to come up with his card. Unfortunately, I was too late for the Colour Throwdown challenge to enter but I liked the colour combo so used it, although I didn't have exactly the same colours.

Sorry about the photo but it was getting late and it was cold outside and I thought it would be OK, but obviously I was probably shaking with cold after being in the nice, warm craft room all afternoon - cleaning up, not crafting! The image is from a Paperartsy stamp set called At Home - Plate 5.  It is stamped with Memonto ink - Rich Cocoa, as is the sentiment.  Plus there is bling! The card is SU Old Olive and So Saffron, with some Pumpkin Pie used to mount the image. The edge punch is from Fiskars. The DP is from SU also. There is an insert with a rub-on sentiments.

Back to the craft table!

Christmas Cards - oh no, not again!

I promised myself that I would not start too soon on the Christmas Cards but then I decided that I would and so dug out the Christmas box and fossicked through all the bits and came up with this for the Annabelle Stamps Sketch Challenge #026.

No sentiment - just papers, a stamp that I then covered up with bling, some inked edges with SU Old Olive, and two lables 4 from Spellbinders. All the card is SU - Kiwi Kiss, and Chocolate Chip, while the DP is from Basic Grey Blitzen Collection.  I'm just starting off slowly.

I also decided to enter Just Scraps Challenge #15 Love is in the Air.  It is a wedding card.

                                              

Two circles cut from card that had been oversprayed with Tsukinek Stains and Moon Shadow Mists.  The wings and legs and faces and beaks and heart and sentinement are all freehand - the wings and beaks were cut out and attached, and the others drawn in. The circles are on dimentionals to lift them off the card - a commercial white blank card.

                                                        

You should be able to see some shimmer effect here - it is really shimmery and shiney on the bird bodies, but this photo doesn't do it justice. BestI could do however, it gets dark pretty early here at the moment!

Chocolate and Orange....mmmmm

Annabell Stamps have a new colour challenge - Chocolate and Orange together in a card.  I have just received a package ordered from A Cherry on Top and it contained some lucious card from Co'ordinations that I used in this challenge - excuses, I know, but I just had to use some! It's a man's birthday card.  There is an inset with a birthday message sticker on it added as well. Also added it to the current Challenge at Little Paper Shop for their LSP Monday where you had to add a distressed bit to your work - mine is torn, inked and sanded!

The paper is the left over from the box making last week - a freebie in a magazine.  The scrumptious card under it is Co'ordinations and the ribbon was purchased as is from a bin from the craft fair on Friday. The brads with the sentiment and the cake and the pressie were from the parcel today (ACOT) - yes, I know, but just had to...... and are from Karen Foster Designs ......swiped the DP with brown ink and sanded the orangy-pink dots to show up, layered and attached all to a baby 'nappie yellow' card blank I was given early this year. Added three star brads in orange on top LHS.

Had the grandy girls over for tea, and their parents, and just finished washing up, in PJ's and just a quick post before settling down in front of TV for a while  - it is a delight to be with teenagers at times, isn't it - especially when you don't have to live with it on a daily basis.  So much fun......