Playing again and guess what?

It's raining! Yea!

Just light rain but with a bit of luck we will get some of those fires that have been bothering us in Tassie to go out! They are talking relief but not yet under control. These areas are quite remote and full of National Park but it makes life even more difficult for the firefighters - we have them from NSW, Vic and Tas, and some in this afternoon who are from New Zealand. Thanks, boys and girls - we really appreciate the help.

At least there have been no deaths and little property in  housing/shacks lost. 

And the irony - they are issuing FLOOD warnings for the North East coast from the rain!

Anyway, I was playing as Hobart is four hours from  most of it by car, and the wind was blowing the smoke north rather than south......

I was playing with the ColorBurst powders again, and using stencils with them today

The left hand side one is stencilled in black Dylusion ink and then this was sprayed with a matt spray to ensure the ink did not run when I added the powders - more on what I did with that later, but I nearly killed myself because I was too lazy to go outside to spray.......

This is what happened to my fingers as I progressed.......

Added the powders and spritzed the watercolor paper with water and this is the effect I got - nice!

Looking at it now, it looks a bit like the fires from the North West have travelled to Paris!

I was trying for dramatic summer skies over the Eiffel Tower

This is one stencil and three 'sides' - first one is paper under stencil - too much water and flooded the stencil underneath so lost some definition but irl it looks good still. The bottom right is paper laid on top of the stencil while still wet and gentle pressed on, and I got the negative imprint and the third one on the top right is the stencil laid on paper after removing the first two from it, and it left this delicate pattern as well. 

I went on to make some more things but you will see these later!

Happy Australia Day, and India Republic Day!

A little playing today.......

Well, it was yesterday really, just finished off today. Hi to all the Peeps! I hope you are all settling into the new year well - and keeping warm/cool/safe where-ever you are at the moment!

A few days ago I received a package in the mail containing some Colorburst Powders, by Ken Oliver. Rather than look at the many YouTube videos and the websites/blogs where these are talked about and demonstrated, I just dove in there and had a go. I used a piece of Stampin' Up Natural White card for my experiments, and a strip of Whisper White card.

I first just sprayed/spritzed water onto the card and then puffed the paint powder onto it - it's a bit of a hit and miss this, and the paper has to be quite wet for the powder to react, so I ended up with some thickish bits of powder in places and no reaction, so had to spritz it again When I put te powder down and then spritzed it - lovely sprinkles occurred. 

This is the centre of the mess - love the vibrancy of the colours but obviously I needed to have less powder and perhaps mop up some water sooner?

Took it outside and put it in the sun to dry although later I dried some with the heat gun - again slightly different effect achieved. 

I cut a piece out of the A4 and created a card using a Freebie stamp set called Fairy Dust - not sure which magazine, sorry 

The fairy was stamped and fussy cut - boy was that tedious - and then I added gold and Stickles and I treated her wings to Glass Bead Glitter Gel and curled them up at the ends

I embossed the fairy dust with gold EP

It does look great IRL but a little dark

I will now go and read the blogs and watch the YouTubes!

I will enter this in the following:

Two Creative Chicks: anything goes

Crafty Time: make it Sparkle - oh  boy, it does sparkle

Open-minded Crafting fun: something new - using colourburst powders

Last Week for Unstampabelles Challenge in December!

Hello!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and are heading into a fabulous and celebratory New Year

I woke up Christmas morning with a scratchy sore throat and struggled through the day with friends and family here for lunch; I made it to about 4.30 when bed called!

Still, it was an enjoyable day - yesterday I spent mostly in bed and today I am feeling a bit better!

Made a card in fact so I must be better!

It is for the current challenge at Unstampabelles and for the New Year

I used sparkly champagne card from SU (last year) and some red sparkly card I got ??????somewhere last year too.....the red foil card I used to back the black card was definitely new card from the latest Occasions catalogue from Stampin' Up.

The die is Starburst from Joanne Sheen and the sentiment letters from Tattered Lace's latest give-away with their magazine. I kept the layout simple. 

You can see the sparkle here

I hope that you all make sound New Year resolutions and get to keep them - mine is to make no resolutions! That way I don't get to break them!

You can go over to Unstampabelles and see where to enter your contribution to this challenge

We are taking a break in January and returning bright eyed and busy tailed in February ready to get back into the swing of challenges again and look forward to seeing you then!

A post for Midway at Unstampabelles

Merry Christmas Peeps!

Well I am over Sparkle and Glitter - I thought I was anyway but I seem to have spilled just that little bit more gold glitter on my nails!

Won't come off easily either!

Oh well - lets be festive!

Over at Unstampabelles the Challenge #53 is to 

Sparkle - and make us smile!

I have been smiling all weekend because I have just been to my eldest Granddaughter Charlotte's Graduation after four years at University, completing her Degree in Education - Primary! She looked beautiful and we had a great day celebrating with her and other family members! Here she is with a very proud Grandfather!

So, I made this for her

I  hand cut the mortarboard 

There is lots of sparkle there - she is a star in our eyes!

Why not go over to 

Unstampabelles

and see what else is there and then add your contribution!

Winner's Post for Unstampabelles and Challenge#53

This month the challenge at Unstampabelles  is to:

Sparkle - and make us smile!

You can create something all sparkly for Christmas, not necessarily a card 

At this time of the year we can all end up with glitter all over us and the creative space with little effort 

so go for it!

The twist is to make us (the readers) smile!

This can be with your project or with your post about that project!

Prize:

A $20 Aust. Gift Voucher to an on-line shop of choice

(must be able to issue gift vouchers)

Firstly, I want to share this with you

Photo by Greg Faull

These painted gums are on the hill just across the water from our house.

They look just like a painting, don't they.

Beautiful.

I have just partly cleaned up my craft space - well, most of it: not the standing desk or the table or my work desk - they are still covered with important stuff! And I haven't put the Christmas stuff away just yet either, but the rest is clean!

In particular the sparkle is back in it's container - except the stuff I did spill on the standing desk! It goes everywhere with you, have you  noticed that? I find myself cleaning my teeth at the end of the day and glancing at the mirror to see glitter shining back at me from my cheeks, or hair or on my nose! I decided to put my white glitter into a takeaway container with a lid rather than leave it in the bottle - so of course when I did that I spilled it everywhere! My work space has a slightly gritty feeling now.

I have finally made over my quota of Christmas cards, and even made Christmas tags ready to wrap the presents........but I admit that my tags used old Christmas cards recycled and I also made several cards  (or should I say remade/repurposed/recycled) from those same old Christmas cards that were too lovely to throw away from last year and/or previous years. I have decided to showcase these for week two for the December challenge so you can see what a total Scrooge I am!

Now, you would think that someone with a huge (and I really mean HUGE) stash of Christmas goodies would not be tempted to reuse the cards we had been sent, but I just cannot help myself! I used the images and remade the card blank, and mounts and in each case added a die-cut word. These three cards are all smaller cards than the norm. 

This one is gold, and so I put it on a red mount, a gold glitter mount, a white mount and a then used a gold card.

Yes, it sparkles!

This one has holographic gold glittery paper behind the image and my die-cut is also from the same paper - it glitters and sparkles and looks good. 

This is the one where the glitter got spilled!

Gold card for the die-cut and gold background

I pressed the whole image into some Heat and old glue, and sprinkled the glitter all over it and reheated it - it was while spooning the glitter on that I knocked the spoon handle and flipped the glitter up in the air so it hung there for a moment looking pretty before covering every surface it could! I had to reheat the glue to get it to set before I could begin to clean up so I walked it to the heat gun and back as well! At that point I gave up with glitter and sparkle fora while.

Please go over to Unstampabelles and see the rest of the fabulous inspiration there 

Then show us your own version of SPARKLE!

Unstampabelles and the December Challenge: a good read for Christmas.......

Yep, time to announce the new challenge (No#53)  for December at Unstampabelles

......and it is all about SPARKLES!

If it is sparkle on the water or sparkle in the snow, or just sparkle!

You can create something all sparkly for Christmas, not necessarily a card 

We all end up with glitter all over us and the creative space anyway at this time of the year

so go for it!

The twist is to make us (the readers) smile!

This can be with your project or with your post about that project!

Prize:

A $20 Aust. Gift Voucher to an on-line shop of choice

(must be able to issue gift vouchers)

I decided to play with this new die I had and to use sparkly sparkle card and glitter as well

Yes, they are for my Christmas card stash

I die cut the die from various types of card - this one is gold and blue sparkle carefully laid onto jac paper - very, very carefully.........

........with glitter then added to the sticky surface........

Yes, there is glitter all over my workbench!

Similar but die cut from gold sparkly card

This is how they made up 

I then made several others - but I will not show you the one I made where I thought I had the fine motor skills to just add small amounts of glitter to one spot.....nuh, what a mess I created there.....

It is a lovely die )Memory Box) but a bit restricted in how it can  be used easily.

So - off you can now go to Unstampabelles and see what else the team created......

I am entering this at the following challenges:

A Gem of a Challenge: anything christmas

Crafters Cafe: die cuts

Crafty Hazelnutschristmaschallenge: decorations!

Late for Dragonflies - again!

So sorry Hilde!

Crafting with Dragonflies have a great Christmas challenge

I had it made but just hadn't put it up!

Tried my hand at another shaker card.

I am currently enamored with the die cuts and layer technique

This is a clean and simple card....sort of.....

Die cuts, sequins and SU card. 

There are some lovely things over at 

Crafting with Dragonflies

Go and have a look!

I will enter the following challenges:

Allsorts: cas christmas

CutitUp: diecuts and sequins, yes!

Simply Papercraft: anything goes

Dies to die for......

Hello Peeps - no naughty pictures for you this post - sorry! I am posting for Electic Ellapu's December challenge (which runs for two months) and for which I foolishly suggested the theme - which means I have to pick the winners! The theme is........but wait, no wait.....(warning: lots of photos here).................

I have a tale to tell........

...see this...

My trusty Big Shot died at the weekend - tragedy! 

Also - emergency!

I hadn't completed my Christmas cards and this year I was working with lots of dies to create!

So, off the Spotlight - nup, none in store!

OMG!!!!

Off to Berridale I go.....to the craft place there.....

Told my sad story - they laughed and said I was the second in that day with the same story!

However, they did have two left of the Sizzix Blue one's!

Whew - disaster averted!

Meanwhile hubby has pulled apart my old one -stripped it to it's bones!

Lots of bearings have been compromised - reminds me of my back!

He is off today to see if he can get them replaced at a bearing shop!!!!

Meanwhile I went back to die cutting

BECAUSE THE THEME FOR DECEMBER AT ECLECTIC ELLAPU IS

TO DIE FOR!

I made six of these cards using this one die and then a few others

I started with SU card stock Mossy Meadow and Ivory, with a cream square commercial card base: I cut an Ivory square for the front and embossed it with swiss dots

I die cut the whole and then partly die cut the doves to be able to layer the birds

I laid my card over jac paper to begin with and die cut it thinking it would be easier to stick it down as apposed to using glue......mmmmmm, not sure, both a pain

I added two strips of sparkly washi tape and a Petaloo flower!

I ran out of cream flowers so used a brown one - they both look good

Which one do you like best?

Then I did this one by die cutting two copies - a red and a gold and carefully extracting the gold bits and adding in the red - stole that idea from Pinterest

Simple but effective with the DP scene behind it from BoBunny

Then I went on to other dies and other cards........

......and embossing folders too.......

Die cut the NOEL

 

and the deer

To create this

The embossing folder; then Versamark and white embossing powder on the tree trunks, add the sky by wiping blue ink into the space between the trees, remembering to put the sun/moon in as well, add stamped trees and some ink to create a ground, and then outlining the birchiness of the trees with a pen before adding the die cut deer. Oh and a gold wooden star. 

Another one using the same embossing folder - but reverse side and inked the folder first

This one is in the grunge style without being grunge.......

Lots of gold paint just wiped everywhere

Yep, all over the wooden snowflake too

....and the die cut deer.....

Background stamped with the SU Grunge stamp set

Then onto real heavy duty die cutting......

....well, not really......

Acetate fronted card, with a die cut top and die cut scenery

It didn't stand on my stand so I had to hold it to take the photo

Die cut village inside is Memory Box and the sled is SU

I embossed the acetate and it looks like snowflakes falling

There you are - die cuts everywhere!

Go on over to Eclectic Ellapu and be inspired by the teamies

You have 2 months to get something added!