THREE CARD DAY

Just Scraps Pink Challenge 7 and several others:  (The challenge card is the second one)

Well, perhaps three cards over two days really, but you get the idea..  I spent some time going through all my magazines on cards and on making cards, extracting various images from them with scissors and pasting them into my project book (number 3) of ideas.....and so these are all 'cased' from my ideas book number 3.  The card with the books is an almost straight take, and the other two are adapted to suit me, especially the first one.  BUT, someone else had the origional idea first - I merely reused it!

Paper:  all Dressed Up ministack - DCWV; SU Real Red; heavy vellum scrap

Other: two matches (long); ribbon; sequin waste; double sided tape

Here is an upclose of the wording on the bottom of the vellum, created on the computer:

Just Scraps  Pink Challenge 7:

This one uses scrap pieces of paper from my very full scrap drawer, and oval page pebbles. Again, its cased but shapes and patterns differ and the number of tiles, and the banner heading......so it is different but the same, if you get my drift! It is not all pink, but that is the main colour and I love this new one from SU. So vibrant! you could use this card for any event I guess, but I have stamped a birthday sentiment inside on an off-white inset.  I like to use these because it means the recipient can then either use another inset and resuse or just reuse by removing the first inset. A bit of double sided tape sticks it in and this is usually easily enough to remove. So, two for the price of one!

Paper:  SU Raspberry Ripple; Whisper White; blue scrap card, yellow paper and a yellow commercial card.

Other: Making Memories oval page pebbles; Life's Journey frame; rub-on; fibre; cuttlebug embossing folder Swiss Dots

The third one - books - is practically a straight case. It just amused me.

Paper: SU Cream card; Garden Green; Rose Red; So Saffron; spotted paper

Other: black pen; double sided tape; computer

My SIL and her hubby arrived in Athens safely and are off touring - heard from them today. So jealous - have I mentioned that before? Cheerio!

SPOTTY CHILD!

Well, apparently I am a child because I have MEASLES would you believe! Have had them for over a fortnight so no wonder I have been feeling a little off colour - probably picked them up in the airport or on the mainland somewhere - that's what you get for going off-island! Viruses and germs!  However, am feeling a bit better and managed to make some cards over the last few days, even if the brain was a little slower then normal!

Made this one a few weeks ago and just competed it - it is from scraps and used a digi image called Citris Topiary, coloured with Copics and a frame made from Nestabilities Label 1, a rub-on and a button.  It was origionally for a colour challenge that I didn't get to enter using yellow, brown and green.

Friends Having Fun - Colour Challenge Two

I have decided to enter this competition - using the three colours turquoise, yellow and terra cotta. There is a bit of terra cotta in the colouring on the bird image! Just peer really closely!

This one was intended for my MIL for Mother's Day (not sent yet). It containes images stamped from two different sets - the butterfly is from a TJ Designs - Song Birds set and the bird is a freebie stamp created by Elusive Images, and again coloured using Copics. I also used Dimentional Magic on the bird and the buttlerfly to make them shine.  The card is all SU card - Craft, Teal, Black, and Whisper White - and the punched edge is a Martha Stewart punch Doily Lace. Some ribbon, lace, flowers, SU crystal bling, and two pins completed it.

This one was created using the polished stone method - I stamped the images three times with Versamark ink and embossed with White Opals embossing powder, then over stamped with Versamark with the second stamp. I used two images from the SU set Oh, So Lovely. I spounged the shiny white card over with SU Elegant Eggplant ink and polished off the residue with a tissue.  I then cut the images into three panels and mounted them on white card that had been swiped with the ink around the sides. This was then all mounted again on a piece of Elegant Eggplant card.  I added a Tim Holtz tag and some ribbon. I used another SU stamp set for the sentiment on this ( Happy Moments).  Inside I put some purple paper I had floating around in the stash and a piece of white stamped with one image from the set in the same ink, and repeated the idea on the front of an envelope.  It was supposed to be for a challenge that I am too late to enter into now, but here it all is!

You can see inside a little better but the colour is not correct as it was taken at night under a poor light.

Now I am off to make some more as the itching has stopped and the steriods have started to work better (no, I will NOT be able to complete in the London Olympics now, so the Pole Vaulters can all take a sigh of relief!) and I have started to feel MOJO juices rising! Au Revoir to my sister-in-law and her husband as they leave today for five weeks touring in  Europe - soooooo jealous - and hope the ash and the Greek protests are all in the past and the Euro is not too bad for you!

Sunshine Blog Award

Claire Harrison has given me a Sunshine Blog Award.  Check out her blog as well, and find out all about it!

Thanks Claire!  I get really excited and silly when I find out someone has been looking at my blog!  I have just arrived home from Agfest (tell all tomorrow, but I got some stunning metal bits there for card making) and rushed to check my email - and that is why I am now blogging instead of unpacking and getting a meal ready!  Better go and feed to man, as he drove me there and back and walked round the grounds for 6 hours with me today!  However, I will be back tomorrow to 'share the love 'with some other blogs to link to and to share the sunshine award.

9.30:  I'm BACK!

Here are my recipients of the Sunshine Award - blogs I regularly follow for inspiration and to fire up the mojo.  These women are inspirational and full of energy - just what I need to keep me going!

Crafty Squirrel

Kim's Stamping Spot

Stamping Moments

Janeybell

Stampinkins

Helllooo ladies! Hope you are all well and creating craftily!

We have been to Canberra!

Have not posted for a while because my hubbie and I have been in Canberra, visiting family.  We had lovely weather, and played with the grandies for 4 days,  coming back to Melbourne and staying with other family and seeing MIL (96) before returning home. We had a week away, including being in Canberra for Anzac Day (Australia's day to remember our soldiers who fought in wars and are currently serving in the armed forces, representing Australia overseas - my dear old Dad, who died in 1983, was a Japanese POW on the infamous Burma Railway for four years during WWII).  This meant we could go the the dawn memorial service at the National War Memorial - along with some 20 000 others! We got up at 4.00 am, and were parked at the Russel Building's carpark by 4.45. We got a free shuttlebus from there up the Avenue to the War Memorial Building forecourt - we stood about six back from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It was a very moving, simple service and we were able to see our programs with the use of a little electrical candle - both given to us as we entered for a gold coin donation to the RSL. There were many young people there - an interesting development in modern times, and they were so respectful and quiet, and well behaved. It was cold but we listened to the dawn chorus of birds, including a kookaburra and white cockies, before the service began at 5.30.  The birds fell quiet during the service - spooky! We were home by 7.0 am! All this thanks to son Matthew, who drove us there and back, and provided hot coffee and snacks at the end of the bus ride back to the car. I took some photos but without flash so they are a bit murky.

This is looking back along the Avenue towards Parliament House - people were still arriving.

This was to the side - you can see the tiered seating set up but we stood.

Looking towards the Memorial Building and Museum, with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of us.

I even sang!  This song is such a dirge but it is traditional and wouldn't be ANZAC without it! 

LEST WE FORGET

As well we spent time going to the Tidbinbilla (?) National Park, and visiting with the natives, and to the Deep Space Tracking Station linked with NASA located near there. A very interesting excursion made more enjoyable by the children's interpretation of everything. Some images from this trip:

The main tracking device.

We stopped to admire a mob of kangaroos, much to the kid's delight! It was a big mob - this is only part of it.

My  grandson took this picture (aged 4) of an Emu (a flightless bird which stands nearly as tall as an adult) with my digital camera - he also took several pictures of me and his grandfather and of his face - nothing too recognisable!

Cute, aren't they!  Jack and Lily (aged 6). "We don't want you to go Nin!" - taken just before we left for the airport on Anzac Day.

MOJO MONDAY CHALLENGE - MOJO134

I made a flower using the SU Scallop Punch and some SU DP a few weeks ago and when I saw the Mojo Monday Challenge, I thought it would suit. Here is the sketch:

Here is my attempt:

Recycling of Wine Bottle Labels

Have you ever noticed the lovely labels on wine bottles?  Some of them are real works of art.  Thursday night we had dinner with friends at the local yacht club and shared a bottle or two of wine. Those who drank red drank a Shiraz Grenache from the Barossa (not me unfortunately, I love red wine but it does not like me). One of the girls peeled the label of a bottle and handed it to me and I then tried to peel another one off but not quite as successfully.  However, I then had to start up the mojo and try and come up with a card created from the label.  Here it is - plus a tag to go with it.  I will enter the tag in Just Scraps challenge for this week.  I used my cuttlebug and a variety of embossing folders before I decided to use the metal baroque swirls and the red bubbles. I also use a clip art image, changed slightly, for the inside of the card.  Some ribbons and a quote from a site on www printed up by the computer and hey presto!

The card that goes with it!

Inside the card.

Copic cards again

Well, I have put together a few cards using my copic coloured images and changing the flower one, by removing the flower and adding a bow and butterfly. I have with trepidation entered a Challenge at Mad for Markers, knowing that everyone there is so much better than me.  It is the second card down that has the colors near the challenge. The top card I have entered into a Challenge at a website I discovered this afternoon called Friends Having Fun.  They have a current Sketch Challenge running - their first one. "

I do not have anyone in mind for this card yet, but am sure to find some princess who loves pink and glitter! I used SU card, and a cuttlebug folder to emboss the background, and to cut out the frames.  I used the cuttlebug also to cut dies for the sentiment. The glitter was added onto the wings and crown and heart to make them pop. At this stage there is no wording inside the card but I thought something about Birthday wishes would be suitable.

I am sending this to a relative who has not been well and the wording inside the card relates to operations and feeling below par. I thought it suited the sad face on the girl. The card is SU card and the ribbon is a crossgrain red.  The background paper is from Deja Views Alpha Blocks - Big Dots. I do not have all the correct colours, but do have R02 Flesh (for E00 ), RV02 Blush (for R20) and BG15.

I now notice that one side of the ribbon bow is inside out and will need to sort that out!  Not happy with it at all.  Perhaps I will give up on this one.  The butterfly was purchased from a craft stall and is made from acetate and glued together, with gold and glitter added later. It looks pretty and I bought a few of these for $1 each in different colours - too fiddly for me to make for the cost!

Using Copic pens

I have been hearing about Copic pens for some time now, and decided to invest in a few and see what everyone was buzzing about.  I used them on SU Whisper White paper and decided that they bled and were not that different than SU Markers, then someone on one of the sites I visit said that you should use a whiter, heavier, smoother paper and so I tried using them on the SU Glossy.  What a difference!  I have also been gathering together a few digi images and so I printed some of them out on the glossy paper and coloured them in using the Copics. Wow! So now, I guess I am hooked a bit on Copics - I looked up a few tutorials on how to use them also and that made a difference as well.  Here are a few tries to date. Don'tknow what I will do with them yet!

I used SU inks sponged over the images after I put a mask over the actual digi image. I photocopied the finished coloured image and cut out the mask.  Some I wiped the ink over and others I dabbed it - different looks were achieved.  In the one below I then tried to cut a circle out and stuffed it up - there is a straight edge on the left hand side of the image being covered up with the ribbon -  so the resulting card is a way of trying to save the image.  I put the flower in it but don't like that, so may change it  - perhaps some leaves? Any other suggestions? A bird perhaps? Or a butterfly?

 

Little Paper Shop Challenge LPSC63

I have decided to enter the Challenge over at LPS for a 3-D project.  As well I have added it to the Friends Having Fun Colour Challenge. I created a box for cards using a template obtained from my friend and SU Demonstrator, Lynda. I gave this to my 96 year old mother-in-law, along with some cards and she loved it.  It took me about an hour and that included stamping for the front and cutting out the circles, and frames on the Cuttlebug. I used Tombow glue and this seems to be strong enough and clean enough for the project. All materials are SU including the DP in Pacific Blue and the cardboard was just scrap pieces I have saved for just this type of thing. The 'for you' stamp (from SU One of a Kind) is insert into a stamp from the Waltzing Mouse set Faux Circles (so celtic). The flowers are from SU Pocket Silhouette.

The template for this can be found here.

Dream Time

Well, it has been a busy time lately but I have put together a quick card for the Little Paper Shop weekly challenge.  This time it is a colour challenge LSPC61.

I was playing around with a technique that shows reflections, but the card I was casing had used a flat surface stamp and I didn't have anything similar or suitable.  I did have a fairy stamp, so used that and then coloured it in to make it solid.  My reflection was not well thought out and I then tried to fix it several times - it has sat on my desk and gets more layers of colours and stamps and sponging everytime I spend an hour at my desk.  Thought I should stop so layered it up in yellow and brown and attached it to a craft card.  I used a sentiment stamp from My Stamps and brown ink. I added some bling in the corners.  It looks good at a distance but not too good close up.

I have also been busy watching my granddaughter in the Australian National Band Championships which are currently being held in Hobart.  She is playing cornet in the Glenorchy City Community Band and a Junior Band from the same group.  She was so nervous in the junior band as she was first trumpet and they were all following her lead. They came second in their division.  In the community band it is not as bad as she is one of quite a few trumpets. Anyway, this group had their marching test today, and so had to march through the city one after another and be scored on it. The junior bands don't march.  Many brass bands from inter-state had smart uniforms but Glenorchy is just a small band and has a limited amount of money for such things. They wore their tops and grey pants, but the grey ranged over a variety of shades!  Anyway, here are some piccies - getting ready for inspection, inspection and beginning to march. Hettie is the second row from the left - third player back. The little one!