Go Purple for Crafting with Dragonflies

The latest challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies is to use the color Purple in a card.

I saw this idea used in Die-Cutting Essentials magazine (pg 31) by Tara Capewell 

and so I had a go at it

I think my oval was a bit too small - should have used the next size up

I think I would also use a die cut with a featured edge next time too

- perhaps a stitched line?

Anyway, I liked the idea and it worked - I used my new Penny black stamp Fresh and Momento Black ink but I am not that happy with my ink pad. 

I think I need a new black ink to go to when I want a clear black line every time - the Momento is OK most of the time but I note that Tara used a Ranger Archival ink and it gives a strong outline.

I used a sentiment from SU Pursuit of Happiness set and my Copic pens to colour

I had a packet of 3 of these from Shiploads $2 shop and thought it was just the place to use it. 

Instead of using card behind as a mount, I ran my Copic pen around the outside of the white card blank and pretended I had mounted the image. 

Colouring in make me happy so the sentiment makes sense to me!

Anyway, you can go purple in your own way and you have a fortnight to enter it at 

Crafting with Dragonflies. 

Want to see a pretty photo?

Now, that's how nature does purple.......

Photo by TassieGrammer

Nature has it's own ways of making things seem small ⛈ This is the Bonnet Island Lighthouse in Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Tasmania.

For the Girl(s)!

Well, we are up and running well - there were lots of entries for our first challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies and all beautiful. Le's see how this new one goes then......

For the Girls

Our eldest Granddaughter turned 24 yesterday

How's that for making you feel ancient!!!

She is a gorgeous girl

This was taken a coupla years ago........

The inside of her card tells her she is gorgeous.....

I used a new stamp set from Stampin' Up Occasions that I really love at the moment 

and went very CAS

Love this image - so free spirited......

Some Momento ink for the stamps and some SU Bermuda Bay ink wash...

A bit of colour around the edges and three lovely dots

No-traditional colours but she is not traditional..... 

although she looks gorgeous in pink....

So, what will your "for the girls" card look like?

Enter it here at Crafting with Dragonflies 

You have two weeks.

Want some more eye-candy?

Wild cherries at Pelverata, near Pelverata Falls

photo: courtesy of Greg Faull

Crafting with Dragonflies are first cab off the rank!

Over at Crafting with Dragonflies, Hilde has asked us to make a Valentines Day card ready for the beginning of February. I had just purchased a new magazine with a new freebie - including an embossing folder and some cute stamps. So off I went!

Before showing the results, I want to show you another gorgeous photo of my lovely state:

A tranquil summer scene from Europe, perhaps? Not quite! This is the Callington Mill and its spectacular gardens in the Tasmanian Midlands town of Oatlands. Built in 1837 by John Vincent, a free settler from Cornwall and one of Oatlands' publicans, it's one of many remarkable sandstone buildings in the town. Oatlands is one of Tasmania's oldest settlements and with more than 150 sandstone buildings it has the largest collection of any town in Australia.com. Its intact Georgian townscape, mostly convict-built in the early 1800s, offers a complete representation of the architecture, urban design and the cultural heritage of early European settlement in Australia.

Image: instagram.com/_jacquibevenphotography_

#discovertasmania #seeaustralia

A wonderful place to visit. 

On to my card

I had made a heart and wet embossed it with some UTEE and sparkly glitter, then covered it with a clear embossing powder and while still hot, stamped into it with another small heart stamp. 

Love the sparkle. 

i wanted to use this, so I added it to my bits and pieces. The panda's are stamped and coloured, and then fussy-cut. The embossed heart was then replaced back into the Big Shot and a heart cut from it's centre to show the white card beneath.

The sentiment is stamped and added as shown

I got a bit carried away colouring my panda's in different colours as they are supposed to be a boy and a girl - should have made them the same. 

I could have turned this into a shaker card, but wanted my sparkly heart to shine, so left it 

Please put your Valentine's Day card into the first challenge for 2017 over at 

Crafting with Dragonflies. 

Now, just a quick explanation on the fact that I have not been on the web blogging for quite a while - as mentioned in the last post for 2016, husband went into hospital over Christmas with a very bad case of cellulitis in his lower left leg, and once he was allowed out of hospital we have been constantly trecking between medial appointments to have this dressed, go to other appointments and such, as I had to be the chauffeur. I lost my ability to think let alone create! Then I had to also complete my Uni Projects - last one has been done although I still have an essay to write by the end of next week. I am now not so sleep deprived or stressed, husband is recovering and my creating space has been given a good clean!

Whatever the Weather! A new challenge at CWD

Yes, that is right -the new challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies is "Whatever the Weather!"

With climate change front and centre, and with all the different weather conditions we have experienced over the last year, this challenge asks us to create something related to a weather condition.


I started with some lovely rubber stamps of raindrops and circles that reminded me of puddles. It has been raining a lot here lately, despite being Spring.  I then used my lovely Tim Holtz Crazy Cat stamps, and coloured them with my SU pens by rubbing them onto glass and then picking up the ink with my water pens, and painting them.

I used the Tim Holtz Accessories sheet to add hats to my cats!

Don't you just love the look on their faces.

I added a die cut and a stamped sentiment.

My bottom stamp was slightly off kilter but at that stage I was not going back!!!

Hope you like it - I got the idea from a group I belong to on FB!

All card is from SU

Off to Crafting with Dragonflies for a look at the rest of the DT work - it is impressive!

then start to create your own version of the theme

Whatever the Weather!

OMG - I made a Christmas Card!

I am a past mistress master of procrastination. This means I have put off making my Christmas cards for this year in favour of looking at Pinterest or other similar important sites.......but then I suddenly realised that I had to make something for Hilde over at Crafting with Dragonflies: what was the theme? It was Helen's turn to choose, and her theme was

Spots and Stripes

so I made a Christmas Card!

I used a new die and stamp set from Stampin' Up and some of last years SU papers to  make it. 

The set is called Merriest Wishes and is simple gorgeous.

I used glimmer card to make the  ornament but it is hard to photograph on a dull day

Simple and easy to post. 

One down and how many to go?

Probably about 119.....

Cheers!

I will leave you with some more eye candy

A picture perfect Spring day at Lewisham and Dodges Ferry by greg Faull

#68: Lets Go Floral for Crafting with Dragonflies

Crafting with Dragonflies have a new challenge starting this week, and it is all about flowers! We all stamp them, and roll them, and fussy cut them,and even stencil them - so let us see your work.

Here is a real flower to begin with!

A Camelia from my garden last week when the sun was shining!

Another flower - this one taken up on top of Mt Wellington this afternoon

An alpine flower of some kind - the wildflowers are out all over the mountain, and there is even a bit of snow from yesterday still hanging around right on the top - the combination was too good to miss

My flowers on my card this week are hand stamped and fussy cut - but not natives.

I think they are Dahlias?

I inked the stamps and them rolled the edges in a darker ink for a two tone effect.

My stamp set is  a freebie set that came with a magazine last month - Floral Blooms

The inks are all Stampin' Up

The background stamp is also an SU stamp and the card is all from SU too!

A bit of bling and a mount to help the illusion.

Two toned leaves......

After I finished this one I used the stencil that came with the free stamp set and some white texture paste. I smooched some ink onto my glass plate and mixed it into the paste (SU inks) - 3 different colours, two for the flower and one for the stem and leaves. I carefully pushed the pasted into the stencil, and scraped off the residue, starting with the lighter colour in the middle and adding the darker colour at the edges of the bloom. Repeat technique with stem and leaves - peel off stencil carefully and sprinkle with fine glitter; let dry.

I had enough paste and ink for two attempts

Now to make them up into cards when they are dry!

OK - off the Crafting with Dragonflies to see what the rest of the team have come up with!

Faries for Crafting with Dragonflies!

Hello Peeps! How is your day going? Mine is doing OK but my mojo has taken a bit of a hike and I thought if you have seen it, will you send it home please as I miss it!

Talking of sending someone home, this little fella wandered a bit far from home too ....

A Southern Rockhopper Penguin… a long way at home – captured on the Tasman Peninsula yesterday by Out there photography by Warren Donnelly who says: 

“They normally range from New Zealand to Antarctica, and the southern tip of South America.  thankfully this little guy was rescued by Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service officers yesterday afternoon at Eaglehawk Neck, next to the Blowhole on the Tasman Peninsula. Myself and some Mainland visitors alerted the officers to the penguin's plight, with great thanks to the visitors for taking the time to help getting this little fella rescued -  many thanks, and most of the credit going to those two families.”

I have a vivid memory of arriving a primary school one day (this is a very long time ago) and seeing a little fairy penguin sitting under the water tank, trying to keep out of the sun. He was sooo tired and sooo scared. A kind local farmer collected him and took him back to the shore - he had wandered some 5 miles up the road - but we don't know what happened to him then. No Parks and Wildlife people around then to assist.

Over at Crafting with Dragonflies GrandMargret has challenged us on the team to use a fairy in our work or at least to fantasize. Now, my fantasies would probably not suit Hilde, so I thought I had better stick to the fairy idea - anyway, I don't have any stamps with husbands captured in a bottle or cage! Sometimes they really tip you over, don't they!!!!

Not that I want you to think I would ever commit a crime like that! 

Too easy to get caught round here. 

So I dug out my LOTV stamp sets and found one that looked as if it had not seen ink for quite a while, and stamped it up, coloured it in with Copics and added some Glitter glue .....

....then fussy cut it out. 

Then what to do with it. 

Are you like me - lots of offcuts from past projects where you have been playing and the leftovers are too good to throw away? My roving eye landed on the pile and I decided to use some of them up! So my fairy is on a bit of  overshot spray card, and the sentiment is on a similar piece  - the Sentiment is from Stamp-It. 

The backing sheet is Colour Burst on a sparkly paper (SU), and the whole is on a white card blank.

It is very shiny and sparkly and loud in the sunshine outside

I wanted my girly to be a bit alternative - hence the stockings......most of the little girls in my life have worn either stripy socks, no socks or gumboots with their fairy dresses, if they had one. Often it was just the wings over whatever they were wearing (if they were wearing anything of course - that phase of their lives often coincides with shedding clothes as well).

Don't forget - Crafting with Dragonflies challenges last two weeks.

A Waterfall Card for Crafting with Dragonflies Challenge #64

We have a new challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies, and it is 

# 64: More than one fold

I actually cheated a bit - I had a card with a tri fold,and then a Z card to make and then I saw a new fold  - 'gold fold?' - and I thought I would try that......but then I made a waterfall card instead! It has four folds in the pulley for the waterfall, and I got my instructions and inspiration from Vanessa Webb. 

Her card is amazing - mine is a pale imitation but I had a go.

I used two SU stamp sets - Love You Lots and Mum's Love

I used Mint Macaroon to stamp the foliage

I coloured the images with Copics

All the card used is SU but some is old cardstock. 

I love frogs and particularly this one! He has such a goofy look on his face.

The sentiments are stamped in black Momento ink

I noticed the red speck on the bottom of the white only after I had photographed them and had a heart attack!  However, it turned out to be a bit of red fluff! Thank goodness - no need to redo the piece. 

Here are the folds

Couldn't help myself - had to add a ladybird here

So - a card with many folds........hope its fits OK Hilde!

You have a fortnight to put up your card in the challenge for 

Crafting with Dragonflies!