Anything but a card for Gingerloft

Gingerloft has a new challenge and the theme for this fortnight is 

ANYTHING BUT A CARD.

I have decorated a gift bag for this............a commercially purchased bag (Paper Craft UBL).......with some papers from a free set that came with the magazine Creative Cardmaking - Queen Bee Cardmaking Kit. It arrived at just the right moment to assist me!

So, my bag - I used the Gingerloft digi image called Cowgirl, and coloured it with Copics and with my Prisma Pencils as well - having seen a great tutorial on how to give more depth of colour doing this. This was one of my first goes at the trick - I have done other's since - and I was quite pleased with it.  Nowm, afer further experimentation, I look at this and think - should have done this, and that, and added something here.....etc

Anyway, the image is very useful, and combined will with the bee papers:

The sentiment and the bee and flower also come from the bee papers, and the image is mounted on a piece of scrap card - SU Glorious Green

I have been a trifle distracted as hubby has had a trip to hospital on Thursday for day surgery, and then another trip to emergency on Saturday for what has turned out to be an infection as a result of the Thursday surgery. Five hours in emergency - OMG - thank goodness for my Kindle!  Hubby is much better now thank goodness, but today was a bit slow for us both and I ended up doing some coaching this afternoon for a Sociology assignment as well, so time was fairly scarce! Friday I had to take my car in to have the passenger side airbag replaced on a recall, and as I had to go to the city, and leave it there for three hours, I took the opportunity to do some personal shopping - and came home with lots of bags of goodies!

Life is always full of twists and turns - I guess as long as it is proceeding, that's all you can ask! Better than the alternative! 

Happy Birthday Lily!

today, our youngest granddaughter is 10 years old! Happy Birthday sweetheart! We cannot believe she has grown up so quickly! Thought I would share the card I made for her birthday - you have to remember, she is very, very blond and fair!

This is a Saturated Canary rubber image - I bought it because it reminded me so much of Lily! I used my Copics to good effect. The cat diecut (Memory Box) is because Lily is one keen fanatic about cats! This is her cat Zap!

The sentiment is from SU and the die cut tree and banner is from Spellbinders. The background papers are from Lets Fly Away paper Stack that came with Quick Cards in 2012. Bling is Kaiser. The red card is SU Poppy Parade and the image was stamped onto X-Press Blending card with Momento Tuxedo Black ink. 

Inside has a Stamp-It sentiment. 

I hope she likes it!

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps: anything goes

Baffies Creative Shop: Dog, cat, mouse - my animal is a cat!

Everybody Art Challenge:  Happy Birthday

Loves Rubber Stamps: Anything Goes

Make it Monday: Not sure of the challenge topic, seems to be anything goes

Mini Album for Crafting with Dragonflies

Hello Peeps: hope this lovely Spring weather is making you all happy and not too sneezy!

This fortnight, the team at Crafting with Dragonflies is asking you to really stretch your crafting jeans genes and make a mini album!

Challenge No: 10 (can you believe that!) - Make a Mini Album

Now, don't panic, it does not need to be a big, full blown album - it could be a paperbag album, an envelope album.....in fact, if you just Google mini albums tutorial you get lots of YouTube and other tutorials to look at for a start.

Our sponsors this fortnight are 

and

Eureka Stamps offered me two digi's for my album, and so as I was looking through their stack of images I found firstly a lion with lots of love going on around him, and then another sleek beast laying on his side and being a Leo, a light went off in my head and I thought "I can do something about ME ('cause that's what us lions do, think about ourselves a bit!)!!!"

I do have a few friends who share my birthday space, and so I grudgingly thought I could also spare them a few pages too in my album, and make it about LEO'S! We end up taking photo's at various birthdays but they never see the light of day and sit on the memory stick. I usually take photos, so there are not that many of me and what there is is not really that flattering, and is usually being taken by a grandchild or hubby - he is expert at cutting off heads in photos!

So, 

The front cover - images coloured with Copics

Both covers

I am a bit of a magpie, and when I see cheap mini albums at fairs and so on, I have a tendency to bring them home and add them to my stash. So, when Hilde said mini album, I went looking and found this one. I think I have had it for at least five years!! It is pretty much just two covers of chipboard, and some leaves inside of cream paper, and all have been hole punched three times to create a way of joining them. I had some album rings, so used three of them, and just tied ribbon bits to them to match the colours. 

I used a 6 x 6 paper stack from my stash  to cover the covers, and in-between making this and posting I have cleaned up my working area and re-organised my stash.  Now, I don't know where I got the papers from! I have looked through the stash as it is at the moment too and cannot locate it. so much for being more organised!

I glued the papers with a glue stick to the covers, and then sanded off any extra bits around the edges, and for the ring holes. I fussy cut the images and mounted them onto some SU Wild Wasabi card, die cut from various dies. I used the same card to create bushes and branches and grasses; I added a small yellow circle for the sun and a little chipboard bird.

Then I started to think of the inside pages - I didn't have a lot of suitable images, so went to the computer and did an image search for Leo's and collected a few images, printed them off on SU Whisper White and but them from the card. 

This is inside the front cover and the first page

This is inside the back cover and the last page - there are only two or three photographs in the album as yet.

Some of the pages through the book

Ditto

Ditto

So, this is my mini album. Where's yours? Make it about your cat, your kid, your house, your car your job, your area, your.....................whatever! Just make it! When you have completed it, enter it at CWD: you have 14 days.....................GO!!!

Unstampabelles says "Use Your Scraps or Old Stash"!

And don't we have a lot of that! Well, I certainly do........so much scraps and stash it is taking up all my working space!

                      Challenge #27 - Using Scraps or old Stash

 Scrap pages, cards, journal pages, origami etc. are all welcome.

All entries are subject to the Design Teams discretion.

Any form of paper creation will be accepted as long as NO STAMPS (Digital or Rubber) have been used.

Our sponsor this month is 

Craftmad is a wonderful crafting forum based in Australia but open to the world.  Other than daily chats of craft and life there are monthly swaps for card making, quilt blocks, sewing and recipes.  The wonderful Kaye also sets up a monthly card sketch challenge and a Christmas card sketch challenge. Craftmad also as a Gallery for all the members to share their creations and inspire others.  Free to join.

This is the prize on offer for this months challenge.

I had made a card a few months ago, and it was terrible. I didn't like it at all - it was supposed to be grungy and had pink bazzill splashed and splotched with inks and then stamped with flourishes and overlayed with die cuts and flowers. Basically, it was the same design as this one with out the base card and the stamped flourishes! I started by pulling this card apart and cleaning up the various embellies and bits.

This is the original base - horrible!

Firstly, I took a piece of scrap card - SU's Pink Pirouette - which I had originally folded to make a card blank. I cut off the back end and used that as my new base front. I found in the stash, stickers and rub-ons, some old flourishes which were a bit the worst for wear.

I also found some plastic flowers, frames and sentiments that were on the original card and which came from a magazine earlier this year or late last - not sure - and which I had glued to card. I decided just to clean up the originals and did so.

I added three small flowers from the flower drawers, and inked around the plastic ones with some black ink. I rubbed on five of the flourishes, and then arranged the bits around them.

I cut out and inked around the edge of the sentiment - another plastic piece - and smooched ink around the edges of the pink card. 

It just looked so much better - and I used up old stash, newer stash and scraps! The whole thing is on a commercial card blank.

I will enter this is the following challenges:

Cards and More: Anything Goes challenge

Clear It  Out Challenge blog: Thank You

Lollipop Ladies and crocodiles

Good morning - its a beautiful spring day here - in August!

I am soooooo late for this but have finally got the card finished and up (forgot the washi tape twist first time). On Wednesday I got a case of urgent Spring Fever and just had to clean up my craft area. I am sitting here is a small area of CLEAN, TIDY peacefulness.  Bliss! By Friday, when I woke with a steaming cold, I was not sure what I was actually doing but making cards was not one of them. Finally got the vacuum cleaning done by about 4.30 and everything put back and started to think about this latest Lollipop Ladies challenge. My card has to be up on Saturday morning and I made it by about 1 hour 40 minutes I think!

This is the inspiration photo

The spin challenge is washi tape - here is my take 

Now, I am not actually a big fan of crocodiles, although I must admit these are pretty cute. Even so, to me there is still a slight menacing look about them. After seeing them in the Northern Territory (they actually smell/stink of fish up close at Kakadu and they are so prehistoric to look at; also too many stories out of the NT about them eating tourists and locals at regular intervals for me! Love everything about the NT except them and the bats!

Anyway, I was suffering and running short of time, and I knew I did not have any stamps of crocs. Also my brain was fried, and I found thinking a trial (quiet, all family members out there). I knew that one of the latest magazines had an article on creating a wire croc and other animals - foolishly I tried to do this.  HA! After 30 minutes it hit the bin, and I was searching the www space for a suitable digi!

Found one almost straight away - Paper Shelter had this little duo COLOURED ALREADY! You beauty! Die cut out, didn't wait for the ink to dry before sponging some light blue ink around. Grabbed scraps of the desk and mounted the image; added some Stickles, and some AtYa Spika pen; used some NitWit Pinky Swear papers to mount behind the image; added  a strip of washi tape; and use the SU Sassy Salutations set to create the sentiment, stamped in SU Melon Mambo; and added some bling!

You can see the sparkle here. 

In the middle of construction I had to stop, and we went out to dinner with friends, and off to a show. We have had a local group put on Phantom of the Opera - Wow, it was good; fabulous voices and the whole was at our very lovely Theatre Royal, renowned for its wonderful acoustics.

Anyway, card is completed and up and I am going to enter it into the following challenges:

Sister Act: Anything goes
Aud Sentiment: use any sentiment
CRAFT Challenge: Congratulations

It's a Small World: Gingerloft Challenge

As some of you already know I live on the edge of a river in southern Tasmania, the island state off the southern coast of the island country Australia. There's a lot of water around us! There are some big creatures who swim in this water too (no, I am not talking about me!) and one of them is dolphins.

We get Bottle Nose Dolphins  - you can read about it here!  I know I have taken photo's before of dolphins in the bay - however, I cannot locate them at the moment -  so here is a photo of the bay itself and the view from the front deck looking Eastwood

Looking west - how's that for a rainbow!

You now have seen two of the moods created by the weather.

The river runs at right-angles to us on the west side. 

Why am I telling you all this? Because Gingerloft's newest challenge is called It's a Small World and is a challenge all about create a card or whatever to represent where you come from. 

This is my card:

The background colours are green and gold for Australia  - the green spotted paper was just in my stash, and I don't know who it belongs too, but the yellow card is SU's new colour Summer Starfruit, and the die cut is a Spellbinder's one. The yellow is meant to be the sun! The other two die cuts - Memory Box's swirl (meant to show splash) and the frame from SU's Apothacary Accents.  This frame has been sponged with Momento Summer Sky ink, with a bit of SU Pacific Point on the bottom for the water. I have also used some Stickles on this to give the waves a sparkle. 

The sentiment is from an SU stamp set called Happy Day. The dolphins themselves are Gingerlofts digital image and it is called Two Dolphins. I have printed this out twice and then fussy cut one set out. I covered it with glue and sprinkled it with the new black glitter from SU that is out for Halloween - it gives a beautiful black shimmer! I attached this over the top of the other dolpins with dimensional tabs. The whole is on a  white commercial card blank

So, there you have it - my little bit of the world!

I will enter this in the following challenges:
Challenges4Everyone:  Anything Goes
All That Stickles: The Great Outdoors - stickles on the sea!
Kraftyhands: Anything Goes
MIM: Too cute - what's cuter than dolphins!
Southern Girls: the Warm Fuzzies: dolphins always give me these!

Happy Father's Day!

We celebrate Father's Day on the first of September this year. I know, different date to the rest of you huh! Guess we really must be quite different then..........but we still drink beer, and this fact will be important in a moment!

At Crafting with Dragonflies, we are issuing a challenge this fortnight to create a Dad's Day card or a Male card. Many of us struggle with these and we usually need just as many of these as the other type, so making one will be good for the private stash!

I didn't actually make a card, but I could make a gift card to go my project and use the cute image from Sassy Studio's to do it! They are sponsoring this challenge along with QKR - great prizes to be won!

My project was a gift tag for a bottle, and the image is fitted on the tag to pop up a bit higher and make itself know!

Here is the image from Sassy Studio called Lager PinUp, coloured with the Copics. 

I made my gift tag for a particular type of beer bottle, called a stubby in Australia - for all those who don't know it! This stubby is a James Boag's Draught beer, made in Tasmania. One from the hubby's stash - he's not that happy that I have it but is willing to temporarily loan it to me!

Here is the label turned sideways - the tag fits over the neck of the bottle (cut a circle out with a die cutter) and folded down on the other side, with a space to write a message attached. The tag is made from a strip of black bazzil card cut from a 12 x 12 sheet. The image is popped up from the card, over the top of the sentiment . 

The sentiment is stamped in SU Raspberry Ripple (matches her hair)  and the stamp is from MFT. I fussy cut around it after it was stamped onto some SU Whisper White; the stamp has a distressed look naturally - its not poor stamping! Stamped it four times before I realised that!

I will enter this in the following challenges:
The Cheerful Stamp Pad: Anything Goes
Make it Monday: Anything Goes
Challenges4Everyone: Anything Goes

Painting Class projects

Been to painting class today and then to lunch - very civilised: love being retired!

I "painted" this with watercolours, pen and ink and w/c pencils last week. Thought I would share....

I like my little robin hen!

This one is an exercise and then I accidentally splatted green ink on it, so it is now just an exercise!

This is an exercise in abstract...........

Decoupage and Unstampabelles Challenge

It is the halfway point of the Unstampabelles challenge to create a dress WITHOUT using stamps. I have used the Papermania Art Deco pack to decoupage a dress - a red dress. This pack is full of images I could have used and every now and then I feel guilty I have purchased the set and not made more than two or three items from it. However, it will not go way and I am sure when I need a quick item or my MOJO needs a restart, I will turn to it and make another item (so we crafters try and explain away our various purchases.......)

I hope this will inspire you to have a go at creating a dress in some format - decoupage, folding, origami, stickers, patty cake papers.........they are all there so far! We would love to see it and I am sure you an do much better than me!!

I added a hearts sticker to the card front

I am not very good at decoupage, and so could not work this one out that well - every time I layered I seemed to get the man's face cut off, no matter how I tugged and twisted the layers. I decided eventually that it was meant to be layered as is, so if you notice that his face is not quite right (you will now after reading this) that is why!

You can see that there are at least three layers, and that I had a smaller one layer die cut of the same couple which I used inside the card. The sentiments come from the pack as well as does the background papers. 

The whole is attached to a folded piece of SU black card and front sentiment is layered onto the same before being attached. With the Eiffel Tower in the background and the moon shining between the branches of the tree it is very romantic so it had to be an Anniversary card. 

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Challenges 4 Everybody #27: Always Anything Goes 

Allsorts: Use your new stash! This is about 6 weeks old, I think that counts!