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!

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.

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.

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

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

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