Sunday, December 9, 2012

A little inspiration

Here is some paper that I brought from Officeworks to wrap our presents with, I was taken by the colours, baubles and deer and thought I could come up with some matching tags with all the dies I had at home.

 

 This one uses Spellbinders ribbon banners and scalloped circle, Memory box dies, Snowflake wreath and Woodland Creatures
 Spellbinders bauble dies , EK success deer punch, Waltzing Mouse stamp (sentiment) Just Rite bauble stamp - Merry and Bright

Memory box leaping deer, MFT Banner, PTI Stamp.Spellbinders Bauble die

Woodland Creatures again, Sizzix die - Pine Trees, Memory Box Tree, Large background tag Stampin Up! die and Waltzing Mouse sentiment stamp.

Sorry about the poor picture quality, they were taken at night time.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Poppy Stamp Christmas Window

Here is my most recent Christmas offering, made over a week ago. I haven't had much of a chance to get in the craft room of late, I must try to remedy that and make the final push to finish off my cards so I can post them all in time.

Monday, November 19, 2012

A few Christmas cards I have made recently


I haven't had that much time for creating recently but I have made a few cards, scrapbooking always goes on the back burner at this time of the year because the time I have is devoted to getting my Christmas card stash into the high double figures. The first picture are some I made at a crafting day at my good friend Christine's some time back. The other photo is of the cards I have been making over the last month. I try to make them in sixes (of each design) but don't always achieve this as I get a little bored and want to try something new. Don't expect to see anymore using the border die on the card top left of the second photo. I unwisely decided to rearrange my filing system for these larger dies and attached it to the side of a small cd storage unit for easy access using magnets. When I returned to add another to the collection, my die complete with magnet had fallen off, now the only thing under it apart from a bench top was my stash of recently bought scrapbooking paper. I say recent but I mean in the last year all in separate files, there are countless files unfortunately!!! I had to go through each one individually searching for the errant die. Did I find it? Did I heck! I searched and re searched but all to no avail, no doubt it will turn up in a couple of years time when I least expect it, hopefully with my wire snips which have also run off to places unknown. This is a real pain as I use them for trimming off those annoying little snibs that get left on metal dies when you separate them.

Now for another annoying thing that is happening on my blog and other peoples recently! Odd words are highlighted without my permission and they reveal adverts when you touch the offending word. Does anyone know how to remove them from my blog? Or how do I prevent them in the future?

Monday, October 15, 2012

A page from a friend

Just a quick post today, my dear friend Christine gave me an unused page kit she had been given but didn't want and this is what I made. From Lauren and Joshua's ages I can tell this picture was taken over twenty years ago but it really doesn't seem that long, wow don't the years stream by after you reach thirty?

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Workshops


I am due to do a couple of workshops over the next few months and I thought I would show you the display board I have made to showcase what we will make.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Cover case

Here is my version of the cover shot on the SU Holiday catalogue. I used the Ornament Keepsakes bundle, Mixed Medley stamp set, snow flurry bigz die and the 11/4 Scallop circle punch. I took the snowflake dies apart and only used five points instead of six. It looks much better in reality than this photo shows.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

It's a wrap

 I created some of my own Christmas wrapping paper using the new SU stamp sets - Snowflake Soiree and Joyous Celebrations. I brought ordinary brown paper and stamped randomly. I was very pleased with the finished result.
I wrapped a parcel and decorated it with tissue paper and die cut shapes.
Lastly I made a tissue paper flower using the new framelits - Floral flames.Cutting four layers of each die and then holding them together with a brad in the centre. I pulled up and shaped each layer individually, time consuming but worth it. I love the effect the finished flower has.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Meet Lance

This little cutie came into the world last Saturday, here he is standing next to his Mum. As you can see he takes after his father in colouring rather than his mother. He has really long legs so Holly choose to name him after Lance Armstrong.
Just so Mum wouldn't feel too left out there is a small patch of amber on his front leg. He was a bit of a delightful surprise as we weren't sure his Mum was pregnant

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

True blue at last

Friends in high places - Lauren with the Mayor of Bendigo

At long last the remaining member of the family has her Australian citizenship. Lauren took the pledge yesterday in Bendigo. Kevin and I went up to celebrate with her along with Damien, Lauren's boyfriend. It had been a bit of a struggle to get to this point. She missed out by a day getting her citizenship the year before last when they changed the rules from having to live in the country for 2 year to 4 years. She had lived here for three years and sent her application off on July 1st only to find the rule changed on 30th June. Then this year when she was finally able to apply it took her many, many months to get a police check from South Africa where she has spend some time in 2007 and 2008. When we applied for ours from England it took just two weeks. However things all came together in the end and she was excited to become an Aussie and can't wait to get her new passport.

Following in her Mother's footsteps

Here is the card I made for Lauren's birthday, she is an ardent chocolate lover too. I took a wrapper from a recently consumed bar of Lindt and measured a piece of card to fit in order to make a DL style card. I made the choc squares using the negative pieces when cutting the Madison Window die by Memory Box. I used two stuck together for each choc segment to give it dimension. It got the thumbs up from his Lordship and younger daughter and if I do say so myself it looks quite convincing from a distance. I even added a little of the foil wrapper from my bar for extra authenticity.Mmm almost good enough to eat!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Here are a few cards I have made lately

 
SU Apothercary art.
 This one was cased from a card I saw on Pinterest here. I have changed it a bit but just loved the use of the patterned paper.
Bordering on romance.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Same picture different day

I have used the same photo as in the last layout only this time I have used the new papers from Kaisercraft. This layout is for my Mum's album. I die cut some leaf sprigs from the PTI Harvest Berries stamp set and the large flowers and flourish are MFT. The flower die is such a great set and the stamens really finish the flowers off beautifully. The centres of my flowers are Sparklets from Kaiser. the small flowers are cut from a  Carl punch.The layout is finished off with a Martha Stewart doily topped with a Bazzill sticker.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Our sweet thing

 This is a picture of Holly when she was about four years old. I tried not to overwhelm the photo as it is so pale. It was taken at a photographers studio on a white background but with Holly's hair colouring and skin tone plus her light coloured dress there isn't much contrast.
 Many years ago a friend lent me her UTEE melt pot and I made this pink heart as well as other shapes and colours. They have been sitting in the bottom of a drawer more or less ever since. The colouring for this layout was just right for the heart to make a timely appearance.
I used the PTI Fancy Flourish stamp set and stamped directly on the patterned paper and then die cut it. I cut out leave shapes by hand and added some veins. I punched the large daisy type flowers from patterned paper and used the negative shape as a template to edge the petals with black marker to make them stand out. Finally I added some pearls and flowers cut from the patterned paper.

Patterned paper: Bo Bunny

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Blast from the past

Who is that fresh faced young girl with her whole life ahead of her? Yep, that's right, it's me with my Mum and Dad. Don't you just love those gold curtains!!I was already married at this age and fairly skint as we were buying our first house, so no big party for me, just tea with Mum, Dad and Kevin.

Paper - Kaisercraft, Echo Park
Stamps - Papertrey Ink and Fiskars
Chipboard flower and key - Echo Park
Banner Flags cut from Spellbinders - available here

Monday, April 30, 2012

Belated birthday Leanne

 Here is a gift bag I have created for my friend Leanne, who has been very patient. Her birthday was16th March but the present I had ordered for her through a craft shop ended up being on back order for weeks, then it turned out she already had the item I had ordered. So it was back to the drawing board and eventually on 27th April I was able to give her the present.
 I had seen an envelope type bag on someone's blog ( sorry not to be able to give credit, I must remember to write these things down as I can never find them again) using the edgelet die by Stampin Up! An idea sprang to mind and I created this to hold the two dies I had brought as a present.
 The flower dies and Zig Zag die are from MFT. Butterfly - Marianne. Foliage- Marianne and Memory Box. Flourish - Papertrey Ink.
 This is the inside showing the pocket for the dies

This is the other side with the greeting on.
Finally here is the card I created using the small Madison window, window box and foliage (cut from Breezy Wreath die) from Memory box/Poppy stamps.The brick wall is embossed from a plate by Cherry Lynn

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Same photos, two layouts


I have used the same photos in both of these layouts, one is for my Mum's album and another is for mine. This is Mum with her brother who spend forty plus years living abroad. She missed him so much and was always pleased when he could make the journey home. He moved back to England about 8 years ago with his family, but sadly he passed away a few months ago. I have been scouring our old photo albums and scanning them and creating pages for Mum's album, this is just one of those pages.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A card for a friend

Here is a birthday card I made for my friend Fiona who works with me.
The green paper, sentiment stamp and tag are from Kaiser craft.
Quatrefoil die is Papertrey Ink which has been die cut from Pool Party paper with Pool party seam binding both from SU.
This are Lauren and Damian on Valentines Day, photo taken at a restaurant in Brighton.
Apologies for the wonky photo editing, some days I get it spot on and other day,well, I think you can see!!

Paper and Ribbon SU
Bird and Cameo - Websters pages
Flourish die - Papertrey Ink
Chipboard sentiments - This and That by Echo Park
Title cut on my Silhoutte

Sunday, April 15, 2012

The perfect getaway


Lauren and Damian had a short break up in Queensland, staying on Hamilton Island. I have captured some of their fun in these two layouts. The first one is views of and from their apartment. What a beautiful scene to wake up to in the morning. The second layout is their trip to Whitehaven beach (if you click on the layout to enlarge it you will see that the title is just above the horizon, it is in fine script in white so difficult to see when the image is reduced). I am working on two more, their trip to the Great Barrier reef, the pictures of them in their stinger suits is a sight to behold!The other is a trip to Dent Island to play golf.

Friday, April 13, 2012

An award

A big thank you to the lovely, talented Nikki Spencer for sending me this award.

A few guidelines to follow
1. Thank the blogger that gave it to you
2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award
3. Copy and paste the award to your blog
4. Present the award to five other bloggers with 200 or less followers
5. Let them know you have done so by leaving a comment on their blog

Now to pass the award on to some other talented bloggers

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Hurray for Harriet

 We have obviously very well trained our alpacas to give birth when we are around. Our third offspring arrived this Saturday just after lunch. We have called her Harriet, Holly wanted Buttercup ( more bovine, I feel) or Barnacles (come on!!), so Harriet it is.
 Here she is, still quite wobbly after a long sit down - approx 20 hours old
 Here she is with her very protective Mum, Joanne.
 Just to update you on the other two, here is Liam at two weeks, such a little cutie.
Here is Tina. The two of them are firm friends and spend most of their time together, bounding about and jumping on one another. No doubt Harriet will soon be joining in the fun and games.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Introducing Liam and Tina



We were very surprised yesterday by the early arrival of Tina, according to the records we received when we purchased her Mum Evita, she wasn't due to arrive until April. However, yesterday morning she put in an appearance, we had checked the alpacas out in the morning and everything was fine, then our neighbour came up around 10.30 and noticed the baby in the large paddock. We ushered her and her Mum in the small paddock nearest the house where we could keep an eye on them. We contacted the Vet for some advice and he said if Tina hadn't started to feed with in a couple of hours we would have to help her. Later on we had to assist Tina with her feeding, whilst doing this, I looked up and noticed yet another baby in the large paddock, and Liam had arrived, just. We then got him and his Mum Connie into the small paddock and kept watch all day. They are so cute. We have one more due in April ( if that date is right) and another in October. 


Here is Holly holding Tina


Here is Liam not long after he had been born

Thursday, February 23, 2012

RR day 10


Here is my final offering in the Red Rooster series, I have even amazed myself with my dedication to posting daily. This card is a case of one made by the very talented Amber here. I love her cards, she always seems to come up with innovative ways to use her stamps.


Now on to my early birthday pressie, you can see which ones I have played with already. I am very impressed with the Fancy Flourish dies. I have had the stamp set a very long time and it is a real boon not to have to hand cut them anymore. It is the same with the Turning a New Leaf dies, one of my constant "go to" sets. I was really taken with the Quatrefoil die when it was released and I certainly haven't been disappointed now I have it in my hot little stickies.The card above was made with the Rosie Posie and the Harvest Berries sets. The flowers were highlighted with Copic markers.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

RR day 9


This is my very favourite card of all those I made. I didn't notice until I posted the photo however, that I have a small red smudge on the card but never mind it proves it's hand made!

I also seem to be unable to count because I only have 9 cards rather than the ten I promised, so I am off now to whip up another. See you tomorrow for my final card.

Sentiment stamp: Kaiser
Other stamp: Stampin Up! - Fresh Vintage and background stamp Woodgrain
Doily Die: - Cheery Lynn
Flower centre: Prima