Last week for Unstampabelles Challenge in January

Hello Peeps!

Happy Australia Day!

Swallowtail butterfly and Callistemon tree

Have a Safe and Happy Day

Now summer here seems to have stuck a toe in - we have had lovely sunshine and its been early 20's and best of all NO WIND, but it is not really a hot, hot summer here in Tasmania. Western Australia is experiencing the hottest weather recorded and it seems steamy elsewhere also, but we are about 26/7, cloudy and nice.......except for Thursday evening (about 8.30 pm) when we had rain, followed by this......

From driveway

From kitchen window

Well, on to the current Challenge #43 - Unstampabelles

This week's Thank You card (with a twist of using something from outside the window to inspire you) for you this week features a rainbow!

Prize is a Stampin' Up Gift Voucher of  up to $25 Au 

(which will include the cost of postage)

Donated by ME

 I was going to use this photo of the Portulaca's in the tub on the carport - seen outside the side window in the hall - and had planned out the flowers, when the rainbow appeared. It made a much better photo, don't you agree?

So, I went to the watercolour paper, and the TH Distress Inks and my silicon sheet

I laid the diecut top sheet (hugs and kisses by MFT) under the sheet to get an evenly spaced spread of ink on the top of the sheet, an smeared ink across in rows

I then sprayed it with water and laid the watercolour paper sheet over that and used my brayer to get a good even coating - it picked up some texture too from the diecut underneath

Then it was just the matter of putting it all together. I used the waste piece of painted card to die cut the words out and layered them onto blue card to make them show up more.

A black card blank to represent the night sky. I added some SU bling to the edges - just seven - to represent the seven colours of the rainbow.

There you have it - my current take on the challenge.

What's yours? 

You can go HERE and enter your card - it doesn't close until the 2nd February.

Another card for Unstampabelles Challenge

Well, we have just had a record (since records were first taken) downpour for Summer for a 24 hr period in Hobart, and the biggest since 1917 anyway! It rained! On the mountain it was over the 150 mm but we got 71mm around here - the temp was still about 20 though so it was muggy as well. 

Mosquito weather! Bugger - they like my blood! 

It stopped raining sometime last night, after drizzling all day yesterday after the downpour the night before, and the bay is a dirty brown colour from the runoff from all the dried up dirt etc. I can see some blue skies but only a little peeking through the clouds! It's supposed to be summer!! Our poor cherry growers have lost a lot of their crop and the stone fruit growers (yummy apricots and peaches) are also despondent but the apple growers say they can hear the apples growing! My tomatoes are not doing that well - only 4 so far! Enough grizzles! At least the flowers are enjoying the rain!

Begonias - the pink one is out but the yellow one is only just heading a flower.  The pink one has through out a leaf mould - not sure what to do about that!

 I am showcasing another card I made for the Challenge #43 at Unstampabelles for January.

The theme for January is

This is supposed to be Thanks! It is a die from SU and is raised up using dimentionals.

The twist is to showcase something out your window!

The prize is I will be offering a gift voucher to the value of $25 Aust on Stampin' Up products - please note this will include the postage to where-ever the winner lives as well!

Standing at my working desk  I look at this view all the time - that is the lamp in the middle!

When flicking through a magazine I purchased before Christmas and hadn't really studied, called Die Cutting Essentials from the stable of the papercraftmagazines.com, I came across an article called "5 quick tricks with ....... a tree die" by Jo Kill. (page 66) It inspired me to create the following in an attempt to recreate my view!

The layers of paper scraps are meant to represent the foreground, the water and then the hills in the background, in an arty type of way.......

I was going to stitch this all over the card but firstly it hid too much and secondly my hand held sewer purchased from the supermarket has a mind of its own and my hands cannot control its progress very well! So I cut off the left side and used it as a net curtain screen!

Why is my tree on the right not the left? It fell there! And picking it up and replacing it was not an option!! - so my view is sort of mirror imaged.

We get lots of birds in our garden - well, we did until the cats moved in next door - hopefully the birds will return soon in the numbers they were before - lots of little green finches!

All layered up onto some card to represent the curtains!

So, my picture outside my window number 3!

You too can look out and them make a card to represent what is outside the window

Enter it at Unstampabelles and remember

NO STAMPS please

Challenge #43 Unstampabelles - second card

Well. we are knee deep in January already. In Australia so far we have had fire, flood and fear.

Near Alice Springs

photo by Clair Ryan

 In the wider world, people are trying to threaten freedom of speech and liberty by also using fear. I am glad to see that the world is a little smarter than that!

Je suis Charlie!

Here, on our humble blogs, we will forge on with the daily humdrum of life and laugh where we can. We are not always happy - happiness is not something we should experience all the time else we will not know it when we do.

We can always be content however.

And occasionally we experience joy.

Today I am showcasing a card I made for the Challenge #43 at Unstampabelles for January.

The theme for January is

This is a rub on as is the corner

The twist for this challenge is to look out your window and incorporate something from there in your card, so I thought I would use a photo I took on New Year's Eve 2014 from balcony of the last sunset for the year.

It was a stunner!

I used the photo to print off onto some glossy paper from my computer and go this very muted, lacking detail but general idea image

I put it in a commercial photo card, and added some rub-ons and three bits of black bling

So, my card for Unstampabelles.

I will be back with some other work soon......housework upstairs is nearly completed!

My craft room now also needs a thorough cleanout and sort!

Any volunteers?

I will enter this in the following challenge(s):

January 2015 at Unstampabelles

Happy New Year to all!

I hope you all had a great celebratory time and that the new year has settled in well.

We have had a momentus few weeks. A quiet Christmas followed by very hectic days with the family here and celebrating hubbies 80th birthday with what was to be a quiet little family event!  We had family and friends staying here as well, and today most have returned to their homes, and the house is beginning to look like it usually does. It is never tidy but it has been very messy for the last little while!

I am going into Grandmother mode here and will say that the Grandchildren (aided and abetted by their parents) absolutely delighted us and created a wonderful song with suitable lyrics and music playing and fun! There were two verses and I cried all through the first one!

To the Challenge at Unstampabelles!

Create a Thank You card/tag/scrapbook page

We all have a lot to be grateful for (especially after the Christmas festivities) and so creating a thank you card  or similar was an essential for me!

The TWIST for the first challenge of the new year is to indicate where you live by incorporating something from just outside your window, and blog about it.

The sponsor for this challenge is myself!

I will be offering a gift voucher to the value of $25 Aust on Stampin' Up products - please note this will include the postage to where-ever the winner lives as well!

Well, my windows contain many different images, but lately there have been lots of blue skies and blue water views, and the roses have been fantastic! So my card for this inspiration is one that contains a flower, and some lovely blue background and lacy front - the curtains!

My tomatoes are now twice as high but have been blown off the deck so are now in the garden below next to the pruned rose bush! I picked one small red tomato today!

Spellbinders dies - but these don't cut that well! Disappointing!

Die for leaves is from Cheery Lyn.

Die for word is from Marianne Creatables - background card is Whisper White and Pool Party!

A pretty picket edge.....

Lets see what you can come up with! You can go to

Unstampabelles

and see what else the DT have created!

I will enter the following challenges:

ShowCASe Your Style: CAS and a die cut - yep!
Crazy4Challenges: CAS
SuzyB's Bloomin'Challenge: CAS and Anything Goes