Saturday, November 9, 2013

Back to ATCs

The idea of ATCs has always appealed to me, a little piece of 'art' for no particular reason except for the sake of creating!  I still can't find the first one I made which I put away in a 'safe place' - one day it will turn up no doubt!

Anyway, going through phase 1 of mid-life crisis at the moment judging by the subject of my ATCs this morning LOL - I just love James Blunt's latest CD called Moonlanding and have chosen to depict the Bonfire Heart song in one of the cards.

The other one is pretty self-explanatory, "You're Beautiful" along with it's very own 'angel on a subway' - the birdie is there just because!   (And for some stupid reason the computer has chosen to flip my Beautiful upside down and I can't seem to correct this, grr..)





Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Shiny and recycled - just like we like it!

My little boy came home a couple of weeks ago and decided he wanted to make a card for his 'girlfriend' at school - please bear in mind he is only 6!

I had been playing around with some chocolate wrappers thinking they were far to sparkly and pretty to just throw in the rubbish bin and decided to use them in a couple of cards instead.  First I made a birthday card for my daughter with the triple heart punch from SU! (no photo here, will have to go and see where she put the card!) and used the stipey bits from each side of the wrapper and then Leo chose to use those bits for his card.  Of course he had a little help but he chose the flower punch (I had suggested a star....) and then he helped me put the double sided tape on the reverse and we stuck down the shiny papers.  He insisted in gluing on the yellow 'gem' at the bottom and then did some doodling with sparkly glue and called it a day.  Inside the message was very cute "To .... thank you for being my girlfriend, this is just a thankyou card.  From Leo"    The only problem was that when he took it to school to give it to her another couple of girls put in a request too for cards!  So we have made one other one, and are waiting to finish off a second one...  who knows, those little girls might go on to become great cardmakers one day LOL!


And here is one I made for my wee boy, a flyer arrived from the supermarket with the cupcakes on it and once again it seemed a shame to throw it out....  I think they are meant to be red velvet cakes which he loves too.   Nothing out of this world but at least it got me back to the crafting table, which is always good!


Saturday, August 24, 2013

Embellishing my recipe book - again :>

Hi there, it's been a while but I'm back!

I loved the new flower set from SU and when I saw it came with the corresponding punch with a discount I just had to have that one too of course...

I was warned that it was not straight forward to punch the images out as they are not symetrical, but I did discover that once you find which way they go into the punch,there is a reasonably easy way to fix this 'issue'.  What I did was play around with one stamp until I found the side that's meant to go into the punch first, then I stacked all the stamps up (only works for clear block ones)and moved them around will the die cut stamps all matched up and then put a mark all down the side of the stamps to indicate the 'top' of them if I'm intending to stamp and punch.  If you only want to stamp you don't have to bother with this but it is helpful if you have the punch.

So any way, by the time I'd finished stamping and trying out my theory I ended up with quite a few flowers, as you do!

Rather than making a card I decided to embellish my home-made recipe book, so now I have a garden in it, and on Saturday mornings when I make pancakes for Leo I see my lovely wee garden!  (I don't make oaty pancakes that often so I still need to refer to the recipe....)



Sunday, June 2, 2013

Super Sketchy Sunday - Day 153

Don't often play along with sketches but it's a friend's birthday in a couple of weeks and as she spent it in Paris last year I thought I'd remind her of that fact this year!

So here are my two cards for the Super Sketchy Sunday - Day 153 - over at 365 Cards today.

I had a couple of go's at the sketch, the first one in pink and chocolate - tres chic - but was not too happy with the result and then I sort of remade it in green and orange which are a favourite colour combo of hers - hope she likes it!

{and now that I've loaded both photos I'm sort of liking the pink and brown one better now!}

First attempt::

 Second attempt:


Sweet Baby - Day 152

Hi there, have been having a particularly good run in the crafting department, posting quite a lot lately!  Made this card for 365 Cards Challenge Day 152 which asked for baby cards.  I've had this strip of colourful giraffes on my desk for years (yes, I mean years!) and it just happened to be top of the pile when the challenge came through so off the pile and onto a card it went!  (Still have the other half of the strip left LOL!)




Saturday, June 1, 2013

Me and my paper scraps...

Now, that would have been a good name for my blog, "Me and My Paper Scraps!"   I find it very hard to throw away little pieces of coloured card and paper, 'cause I know I can always punch something 'useful' out of them which of course means I have a boxful of little plastic bags filled with a rainbow of shapes.  

I have butterflies, lots of them, (whatever did we do before the little butterfly die from SU! I wonder at times...) - then there are the bags of flowers, tiny flowers, medium flowers, modern flowers, big Tim Holtz flowers... and more butterflies, and of course you can always punch out circles before the scraps end in the wastepaper bin.  So I have a bag of 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch and 1 inch circles, and I do use them believe it or not.  They are grand for making centres in the aforementioned flowers, or for making into punch art, or for simply pasting on in a random manner and then running the resulting 'art' through the Cuttlebug to emboss it all firmly in place....as can be seen on this card 

Anyway, I was obviously inspired by the bag of flowers for this card, every now and then I used a teeny tiny pearl as centres, others just got a wee black dot.  I like it!

Enjoy!


Friday, May 31, 2013

Three small embellishments - Micro-managing!

Three tiny embellishments was the brief at 365Cards earlier this week - not sure if I understood the instructions correctly but here goes anyway!

One for the boys!

This card is sort of related to the Owl tag I made the other day, as in I left the emobssing folder out on the desk and it inspired me to continue creating!  This card was made first and it took me a while to stop fiddling with it, I was playing around with different coloured versions of the vehicle (the orange and brown one is still on my desk somewhere) but in the end decided that would have been just too bright for this particular card so went with the more subdued green and brown version of the old car.  As I tried to picture the colour wheel with blues and green, the opposite came up as orange hence the orange 'pops' on it in the form or a curly thingy and the stars, without them it just looked so drab...  Anyway, now to write in it and send it off to my dad 'just because'.  Mum says he loves looking at them and reading the messages so let's hope the postal service does their bit and gets it there soon, I think mum is still waiting for her Mothers' Day card - so frustrating!

Once again have used some recycled materials in the form of a beautiful old calendar, the full picture was of Mt Cook/Aoraki - so here's to you Sir Ed Hillary on your 60th anniversary of reaching the summit of Mt Everest (I understand you used to practice climbing Mt Cook LOL!)  So, a card appropriate on so many levels FOR THE BOYS!!

Entering in the latest Creative Corner Challenge which is "for the boys"



Shining Challenge - and I do so "Love Sunshine"

I've very recently started trying my hand at ATC (Artists' Trading Cards) and this is my second attempt.  The first one I made was Christmas inspired with a little bit of collage on it (cutting up old Christmas cards etc) but then I put it away in a safe place and now can't find it ...   grrrr.......!

A challenge over at 365 Cards called for "Shinning" so what can be more shiny than the sun!  As today is the first day of winter where I live (even though we have a gloriously sunny day out there) my thoughts turn to the warm sunny summer days and this is what I came up with.  A combination of old and current Stampin' Up! products, and a dash of glitter to convey the shiny sentiment!



Thanks Creative Corner!

My tag won me this!  Thanks Creative Corner Challenges :)    (I have no idea how to make it into a gadget for my sidebar, so it will have to feature here I'm afraid).
And not only did I win this badge I also won the 7 digis so that's so cool, hope to share them with you soon in the way of some new card creations.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Is it a tag? Is it a card?

Hi there, it is sooo cold here today, makes you wonder whether we are in for a little snow soon?  I know the kids would like that, and it is kind of pretty, but we're not really set up for snow in this part of the world!

Anyway, bought a really cheap embossing folder a few weeks ago and tried it out a couple of days ago when I made a card and I liked it!  It is quite a old 'model', seen it in the shops for years and it never appealed but as you know when things are so cheap you just can't say no!  And anyway, now I do like it!!  After a few folders of late which make really deep impressions on your card (so much so that it can rip) this one goes lightly lightly on the card and it is quite nice for a change.

Over at Creative Corner they are asking for tags this week so I made a "card-tag", so it's actually a card shaped like a tag so I can still write a message on the inside - clever eh!  A couple of night owls, sitting on a branch under a big moon....

Well, that's enough exclamation marks for today, on with the photo show!!!!


Monday, May 13, 2013

Things with Wings

Hi there, started making this card yesterday afternoon and was playing around with different butterflies that I had in my stash and even though I don't like crafting at night time I actually went ahead and found some nice subtle paper for the background from the Mariposa DCWV mini stack and it all evolved from there really!  I had a gold-embossed butterfly which I had fussy-cut and then I ran out of steam LOL!

But this morning driving to work the rest of the inspiration struck so couldn't wait to get home to finish it and here is the result - which I really like :>

I made this for the Things with Wings challenge over at Creative Corner.






Sunday, May 5, 2013

A tale of one owl and two flowers...

It's been quite a while since I made a card and last night around midnight I decided to start having a tidy up of my craft desk and of course I got side tracked..... and here is the result!

All of the componenets of this card where on the desk, the only 'new' element is the glitter centres I punched out for the flowers, and I quite like how it came out.

I'm entering in for the Creative Corner challenge which asked for Flowers or Mother's Day theme, and seeing as there are two flowers on this card I reckon it qualifies!

Ah, and I had three dear friends over for afternoon tea yesterday and we had yummy food and I put together a couple of teeny tiny flower posies for the occassion, in a couple of old salt and pepper shakers, I'm usually very reluctant to cut flowers but the occassion called for it in my opinion :>




Monday, April 15, 2013

A Rainbow of Circles!

I made this card a wee while ago when I was experimenting with inlaid embossing, it is a great way of using up teeny tiny bits of paper and it was really fun to make.  It's like a rainbow of bubbles, all floating away!

Would love to enter this card into the Creative Corner challenge called "I can see Rainbows" - which basically asked for any interpretation of rainbows, in this case it's not the shape but the colours (even though some are missing from the spectrum)


Monday, April 1, 2013

For my mum

Hi again, I've been away from the crafting table for some time, if only I could re-direct my Facebook energy into crafting I'd get sooo much done!

Anyway, I went to tidy my craft table as we are having guests next weekend for Leo's 6th birthday and of course I got inspired right there and then - isn't that always the case (anything to put off the tidying up for a while longer LOL).  [Actually I'm lying -  I did also make the invites for his party a couple of days ago, he wanted Angry Bird invites so I made some Bomb Birds with punch art and they turned out quite cute]

Anyway, back to my card.  I made it with mum in mind, for no particular occassion, it's not her birthday, and it's a bit too early for Mothers' Day, so I just wanted to tell her how much she has always amazed me with her patience and cheerfulness in the face of adversity and just wanted to send her a card to tell her how much I love her!  She and I had a chat a few months ago about how little we express our 'love' feelings for each other so now when we call we always sign off with "love you mum/Francie!"  Never to late to start loosing the stiff upper lip and getting a bit lovey dovey with your mum I reckon :>

I've done a bit to recycle as well, the white card is the reverse side from a certificate (usual thing, printed the wrong text on a certificate at work and it seemed such a shame to just bin it so it comes home with me and get's up-cycled), the orange flowery border came from one of the very first papercraft kits I purchased many years ago and the hearts had been stamped on another piece of card and were just sitting around so I cut them out and glittered them up a little - can't have too much bling in my opinion!


I'm entering this in the Creative Corner Challenge - I see them have almost 150 entries already, what a rip-roaring success that has become!  The theme for the challenge was "Anything goes" so here is goes.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Owl Bookmark

After a very busy few weeks at work it has finally settled down and I can finally start to unwind at the weekend whilst leaving work where it belongs:  at work!

We had a nice quiet day today which meant I had my first chance to have a real good look at some SU goodies I purchased a couple of weeks ago {I think I'm safe to say this as am sure my hubby does not check my blog!}

Anyway, even though I do have a lot of crafting stuff I was lacking inspiration so treated myself to a pack of card of the latest InColours {or InColors} PLUS the matching 5 ink pads PLUUUS a pack of DSP that matched those colours, namely Patio Party.

And just as an extra bonus I also bought the Owl punch which I have always found adorable and which is featured here today.

The other totally practical thing I bought (I thought I'd better make the most of it and purchase enough to get me a Sale-A-Bration freebie...) was those sectioned plastic 12x12 scrapbook pages, like you see on Project Life, and had lots of fun today seeing if they fitted into an existing album I had - yes they did fit but once I'd loaded them all and closed it all up again I realised of course that some of them were in upside down..... I'll pull the album apart another day and fix that error of placement!

Enough rambling:  my project today was designed after I saw the Challenge over at Creative Corner Challenges which asked for "Designer Paper" and even though I could have used my brand new stuff I opted from some I have still from a couple of years ago from Stampin' Up!    Had sooo much fun putting the wee owl together, though I kept loosing his 'pupils' as they are so tiny - but in the end he came together nicely - with all colours matching the DSP I used of course LOL!

Other challenges entered are:
Stamping the with Dragon - Anything goes
Divas by Design - Anything goes



It is not a card {I tried to find 'rules and regulations' on Creative Corner blog but there was nothing obvious that says it has to be a card} instead this time I have made a bookmark for my son who loves reading - and loves to mark the pages with a bookmark!  I'm hoping to get it laminated so it lasts a bit longer that it would as it currently stands.



Saturday, February 23, 2013

Patchwork + Brad

Going a bit silly here at the moment, at least I managed to get some crafting done this morning for a couple of challenges:  365 Cards asked for Patchwork and Creative Corner Challenges asked for Brads or Eyelets - I don't actually possess any eyelets (and wouldn't know what to do with them if I did have some!) but I do have a pack or 6 of brads.  I used a single one in the centre of the flower, and made up a patchwork background with 1-inch squares of pink and green papers.  In true patchwork fashion the edges are slightly wonky but as quilters will soon tell you, you are not meant to make your patchwork perfect as only God is perfect!  So that saying has saved my bacon today LOL!

The background card is Certainly Celery, a nice soft green from Stampin' Up! and I've always loved these little house stamps - thought it went quite well with the greeting.

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the day, I may go for another walk up the hill as we did last weeekend (then again I may just stay home and do housework, arghhhh)



Saturday, February 16, 2013

Christmas Card Challenge

Yep, I know it is a bit early - even for me - to be making Christmas cards but nothing like a blog challenge to get you all inspired :>

Over at Keryn's Card there is a weekly NZ challenge to make a Christmas card inspired by one that she creates and this week it is a quilted top note card.  Seeing as I've never actually made one of these 'quilted' cards I thought I'd just do a very similar one to the one Keryn made.  I managed to find three pieces of Christmas paper in my stash and as I don't have a square punch I cut them into 1-inch pieces.  I also felt I needed a bit more variety so made up my own 'pretty paper' with some vanilla cardstock and Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler ink.

In hindsight I shouldn't have run it through with the embossing folder as it opened up the 'seams' a little, but nothing a bit of ribbon won't cover!

I am also entering this card in a couple of other challenges:
365 Cards which asked for a colour combo of green, dark red and dark purple (which I have not used - sorry!)
Charisma Cardz Challenges - Anything goes.

Remember to click on a photo if you want a closeup view.



And after I finished the card the kids and I went out for a walk, enjoying the lovely weather we had today!



Thursday, February 7, 2013

Colour like Crazy! {well, not really :>}

I bought this baby stamp from the SU Clearance Rack a few weeks ago and stamped and coloured in the image but never got any further, so when I saw that 365 Card Challenges asked for 'Colour like Crazy' I thought it was the perfect chance to give it a home, ie finish the card!

Of course it hardly was coloured like crazy, just a couple of soft colours were used, but still, colouring in is colouring in!

And of course I forgot to put the memory card in the camera so now will have to wait until tomorrow to take another photo and load it up.....oh well :>

But on the bright side I've rediscovered how to link specific posts to challenges - I was forgetting to add a title to my posts!


Friday, January 25, 2013

Well, survived my first week back at work full-time in almost 6 years so rewarded myself with a little crafting time!

There are a couple of challenge blogs that I currently take part in {sporadically..} and one of them had a colour combo as their theme and the other one had the word "liquid" - and am sure they don't mean pour yourself a glass of wine before you get crafty!

So for Creative Corner Challenges it was "brown and pink" which was the easy part, for 365 Card Challenge I decided to use an ink and marble technique that I learnt a few weeks ago at Keryn's - I really liked the effect it produces, great for male cards I feel, but with the right colours it worked well for my sister-in-law's birthday card.

The flower was die-cut with a Tim Holtz Bigz folder {Tattered Florals from memory) and finished simply with a rhinestone as it's centre, and a little butterfly adds a little balance hovering over the greeting.  I really really wanted to add a dash of green but restrained myself just in time LOL!



Saturday, January 19, 2013

I ignored the sinkful of dirty dishes this morning and decided to get creating again, this time it is for a couple of challenges, 365 Cards and Creative Corner Challenges.  365 Cards asked for 3 buttons, 3 flowers and 3 ribbons for their day challenge, and Creative Corner asked for the theme to be "Sorry".   I used this sentiment from SU which says "I"m so sorry" but I'm never quite sure whether I'm saying sorry 'cause I've been bad or I'm saying sorry for another person's sorrow!

Anyway, I used up lots of things I had on my desk, the only new things are the sentiment and the leaves, everything else was from my 'leftover' box - very handy!


Monday, January 14, 2013

Well, this is embarrassing:  it's been so long since I've posted on my blog that I couldn't remember how to do it!! I kept landing on it as a visitor but finally went to blogger.com and am backed logged in, sad really :>

There is a new challenge blog that I wanted to submit a card for; the challenge at Creative Corner Challenges this week is "cute as a button" and I took this opportunity to ink up a brand new set I purchased during the SU Clearance Sale which is "Party This Way" - I actually bought it for the images of the balloon, candle, arrow and greeting and yet I find myself using the banner piece, but am quite happy with how it turned out.


It is middle of summer here at the moment but today is dreary and rainy so the colours in the card are rather muted I'm afraid, no sunlight to make it all sing along nicely.

Bye for now, hope to be back soon{ish}!