OSA Sketch Challenge #4

I'm on a roll here, I've just completed another challenge, the OSA Sketch Challenge #4.....and almost right on the deadline too! You can see the sketch HERE

I used the Pierced Spotlight Technique from the latest Technique Junkies Newsletter. My stamp is from Pink Cat Studio and I coloured the spotlighted image with Prismacolor Pencils. I used colours to match the wide Stampin' Up ribbon and Cuttlebugged the background piece with two different embossing folders.

Thanks for visiting!

Puzzling challenge!

It's still stifling hot here, yesterday ended up being 45.1 deg.C (113.18F), today is supposed to be cooler, but I've still got the air conditioner going full blast! I've managed to pull myself out of my lethargy to do a challenge for the Inkurable Stampers blog .........and just in the nick of time because it's the last day to enter!

This months' challenge was to create a project using a puzzle piece in your design, and as always, use at least one stamp. I decided to use a giant puzzle piece, I found a template for the puzzle piece online and printed it out then traced around it onto a piece of chipboard. The size of the puzzle piece is approx. 4 inches wide x 3 and 1/4 inches high.

Once I had my chipboard piece cut out I adhered some designer paper from the Collections French Wallpaper 6 x 6 pack, then stamped it with the Stampin' Up French Script large block stamp - I used Versafine Vintage Sepia ink, but stamped off the 1st impression so it wasn't too dark. I then sponged around the edges of the puzzle with Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink. The vintage photo of the girl is some free clip art that I've had printed out for quite some time, so I'm not sure of the source of it, sorry! I sponged her with some Antique Linen ink too.

Other supplies used:
Stamps:The little silhouette bird and the vintage sepia heart are from a Collections stamp plate - Flourish Sheet #1, the prima flower is stamped with Penny Black -1953H Antique Pattern.
The prima flower was white, I stamped it with vintage sepia ink then sprayed with some Tattered Angels Vintage Pink Glimmer Mist.
The words are from a word sheet also by Collections.
Other stuff:- beaded ribbon, eyelets, key charm and jump ring, pink flower gem, ribbon rose.......and my effort for the environment was the ribbon the puzzle piece is hanging from - I recycled this from a label that came off an item of clothing I purchased!

I like vintage stuff, but I'm not sure if I can pull it off sometimes....I am pleased with this however, so I hope you like it too!

Exciting News!

It's been way too hot to create anything, the last couple of days here have been 44 deg.C (111.2 F) yesterday and 41 (105.8 F) the day before.......and today is going to be 43 (109.4 F)! I think I'm over this weather, the air conditioner has been going 24hrs a day.....thankfully we haven't had a power blackout like some parts of Melbourne have yet (fingers crossed). The heat has even been buckling the railway tracks leaving hot commuters stranded!

I think I mentioned that I'm now baby-sitting my grand daughter Annika 2 days a week since my daughter Jo has returned to work from her maternity leave....I ended up baby-sitting an extra day so Jo could go to the hairdressers too. Fortunately the hot weather hasn't bothered Annika too much, and she was still able to sleep OK. So, apart from feeling lethargic from the heat, I haven't had a lot of spare time to create anyway.

OK, I better tell you my exciting news then! My other daughter, Hayley, rang me excitedly last night to tell me that her boyfriend Trevor had just proposed to her! She said he had it all planned out, he took her out for dinner, then they went for a ride on the Southern Star Observation Wheel and when they were positioned at the top of the wheel he pulled out an engagement ring and proposed! How romantic!

I guess I'd better get busy and make them an engagement card! That's it for now!

Thinking of You.

This is just a quick card that I made for no particular reason, just using up paper scraps on my desk :)

I think the designer paper is from Making Memories, but can't be sure as I've cut off the info. I found the frame stamp in my stash and realised that it fits perfectly inside the Nestabilities Curved Rectangle die.......it could've almost been made for it, how cool is that! The stamp is from a set by Grant Card Stamp & Scrap - they make clear stamps which aren't the best quality (don't adhere well to the acrylic blocks), but they are nice images. There's also another frame stamp in the same set which is the same shape as the Nesties Label One set.......I'll make another card with that one soon to show you all. The bird on the flower stem is also a stamp by the same company, but belongs to a different set - I think the set is called Serenity.

I stippled some Impress Teal dye ink around the frame before I removed it from the die, so it still has the white embossed edge showing. Added a pink Prima flower and a Kaiser pink rhinestone, some black Kaiser rhinestones and popped the stamped frame on dimensional dots. The greeting is from a Stampin' Up set.

Happy Australia Day!

Today is Australia Day so it's a public holiday here! We don't have anything planned though, we'll probably just veg out in front of the TV switching from the tennis to the cricket. I've really been enjoying the tennis so far, our comeback girl Jelena Dokic, has done so well to have got to the quarter finals. It's been lovely to watch her, I hope she has another good match left in her. I really love to watch Roger Federer play too, he was really pushed yesterday coming back from 2 sets down to win his match...I'd love to see him make the final again!

No card today, just the latest photo of my cute little grand daughter Annika....she is 6 months old already! My daughter Jo has to go back to work today as her maternity leave has finished.......so Nana here gets to babysit twice a week, starting tomorrow (her Daddy is doing the baby-sitting today).

You may have noticed the little counter on the top left side of my blog that is counting down the days to my first blogoversary........and my visitor counter halfway down the page is quickly approaching 10,000 hits, and if that's not the only things to celebrate it's also my birthday next month, sooooooo...........stay tuned for some blog candy to be posted here real soon :)

Have a great day everyone!

Photo tag

My friend Sandie sent me a photo challenge, the rules were:-
Go to where you store your photos on your computer.
Go to the SIXTH folder and pick the SIXTH photo.
Post that photo on your blog along with a SHORT story about it.
Tag SIX people and leave a comment on their blog or email them letting them know you chose them.

This is a photo I took of a mother and baby giraffe at Melbourne Zoo way back in 2002. We went there with my brother and his family who were down here on a visit from Queensland at the time........was that really 7 years ago!!! How time flies!

Here's my 6 people to pass the challenge on to -
1. Beth
2. Vicky
3. Ann
4. Trina
5. Erin
6. Spike

I hope you ladies will join in the fun and complete this challenge when you have time! It's been a fun challenge to do, thanks Sandie!

OSA Card Layout - Challenge #3

A very similar card to my previous post - I used the same stamp and background technique, but used a different colour ink and adapted it to the sketch layout. The corner pieces are textured metal, I added some Frosted Lace Ranger Stickles to the stamped image to simulate more snow and added some dotted ribbon to the top and bottom of the card.

Thanks for visiting today!

Wintery blues.............and where have I been lately?

This is my card for the OSA card challenge #3. This weeks' theme is to use the colour blue. The stamp I've used is from a plate by Stonehouse Stamps, it's a large stamp and it's the 1st time it's seen ink as I didn't have an acrylic block large enough to fit it until recently. The background is done using the Technique Junkie Spritz and Flick technique, hopefully it looks like it's snowing! It's such a large stamp I've just added a dark blue card layer and some fibres before adhering to a light blue card.

....Can you guess where I am? That's me on the right with my daughter Hayley. This is such a direct contrast to my card above showing a cold wintery scene. Well, it's the middle of summer down here in Australia and boy is it hot!!

So, have you guessed where I am yet..........is that a tennis court in the background??

Yes, it is and we spent Monday and Tuesday at The Australian Open Grand Slam event. The player who is serving the ball is Marcus Bagdadis from Cyprus. He has quite a large following here in Melbourne by the Greek-Cypriot population - FYI the city of Melbourne has the largest Greek population outside of Athens!

I've been reading a number of blogs from the Northern Hemisphere who are suffering with blizzards, ice storms and generally being snowed in with bad weather......well it's just the opposite here. On Monday the temperature was 36 degrees centigrade (96.8 Fahrenheit), we thought that was pretty hot sitting out in the hot sun all day, but Tuesday's temp was 40.5 deg. centigrade (104.9 deg. Fahrenheit)! I did feel sorry for the poor players having to compete in those temperatures. We did eventually get a few clouds and a cooler breeze come through after 2pm though to make things a bit more comfy. It was so funny when the first cloud came over to give us all a bit of shade.......a collective "Aaaahh!" was heard by the whole crowd!

We both love our tennis and spend at least 2 days at the Australian Open each summer. I'm a bit pooped from the hot weather of the last 2 days though....must be getting old!

Hope you are having a great day where ever you are in the world!

Some awards!

Recently I have received two blog awards from two lovely bloggers!

This 1st one is from Sandie, it's called the Proximity Award. How cool is that, thanks so much Sandie. Please have a look at Sandie's blog, she makes the most gorgeous little paper string daisies and sells them in her Etsy shop if you'd like to buy some :)
These blogs believe and invest in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly written text into the body of their awards".

The 2nd award is from Spike, one of my fellow Card Crazy Chick bloggers. Please make sure you visit Spike's blog too, she makes some amazing cards and has recently been appointed to the Cuttlebug Challenge Design Team........congrats Spike! Thanks so much for giving me this award!

1. Link to the person who gave you the award
2. Nominate 7 more persons
3. Link the nominees and let them know about this award
4. Post the award on my blog

I'm always at a loss to know who to pass these awards on to, that haven't already received one, so I'd just like to give them to all the lovely ladies in my Card Crazy Chicks blogger group. You can see their blog list down the left side of my page, please have a look at their blogs as they do the most amazing work.

2 Sketches 4 You - Laura's Sketch #17

Might be a bit late with this challenge for Laura's sketch over at the 2 Sketches 4 You blog, but that's the story of my life lately!

I really need to use up some of my stash of papers! The main piece I used for this card is by Cosmo Cricket and is dated 2006! The smaller piece backing the flower is by Making Memories.

No stamping on this card, although I may add a greeting later. Thanks for looking!

Card Crazy Chicks Inspiration Challenge.

My bloggers group, Card Crazy Chicks, are having bi-monthly challenges, for this one, Ann gave us the challenge to use some photos of a girl's bedroom for inspiration to make our cards.

I liked the blue and white colours of the room and the beautiful white sheer curtains, which inspired me to use some white organza ribbon as well.

Supplies used:

Stamp - Inque Boutique.

Ink - Versacolor Sky Blue.

Nestabilities Curved Rectangles.

Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder.

Kaiser blue rhinestones.

Cardstock - SU Bashful Blue, Pedigree Paper textured white, Tablex white (stamped piece).

White organza ribbon, dimensional dots.

Thanks for visiting today!

OSA Design Challenge #2 and OSA Theme Challenge #2 cards.

I made a couple of quick cards using up some Oriental stamped/coloured images that I've had sitting in my stash for a while for these two challenges.
I painted the background for this card using Twinkling H2O's, then stamped the gorgeous Imperial Cargo 'Fuji Goddess' stamp on top of it. It's edged with gold Krylon pen then layered on some black cardstock, added some eyelets and a jump ring with a fan embellishment to the bottom right corner.

I took a second photo of this card so you get a better look at the lovely SEI Poppy background paper - it's a metallic silvery paper with white embossed poppies over the top. I layered the papers over a piece of black cardstock, wrapped some fibres around the end and adhered to a turquoise coloured card.

The second card below is for the OSA theme challenge, which was "cherry blossoms". My blossoms came printed on a kind of mulberry paper. The stamp is by Innovative Stamp Designs, layered this onto some red textured cardstock. The mulberry paper is attached to a black cardstock layer with gold brads, then adhered to a folded red textured card.

Three card challenges in one!

I needed to make a quick birthday card for my daughter's boyfriend whose birthday is today! I managed to knock over 3 challenges in one for the card!

I used this week's Cuttlebug Challenge of sand the embossing - I used Black Magic Core'dinations and sanded it back to reveal the turquoise core.

The 2nd challenge is using the CPS sketch #98

The 3rd challenge is the Papertake Weekly one, Seeing Spots - use spots, dots or circles on your card. I used the Cuttlebug Spots and Dots embossing folder, spotted Designer Paper, put some dots around the oval layer with a white Signo gel pen, used some round brads and pricked some dots around the aqua layer.....and used a red Kaiser gem for the bird's eye!

The Happy Birthday stamp is by Penny Black, the arrow stamp is by October Afternoon. The black glitter bird sticker is from The Sticker Cafe. Ink is Impress Teal dye ink, I inked up the stamp with Versamark, then the Impress Teal so I could clear emboss it. The ovals are cut with Nestabilities dies.

...hope it doesn't look too girly for him!

OSA Design Challenge #1

OSA (Oriental Stamp Art) is celebrating it's 10th year as a group! As part of the year long celebrations this is the 1st of a year long card layout design challenge!
Here's my effort.

I've used a favourite stamp, Lynn Perrella's Acey Deucy "Calligraphy Robe" by Stampington. I've stamped it with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink and coloured it with Tim Holtz distress inks. The card is dark brown Bazzil, all the other papers are from the SEI poppy paper pad.

Happy New Year............at last!!

I know......I am such a slacker! I haven't been away either so I can't use that as an excuse for not blogging since before Christmas, I just seem to have had lots to do and no time for crafting lately! So deepest apologies for being MIA!

I finally had some time today so I made this ATC using a vintage image from Ten Two Studios Christmas Countdown. This was supposed to be for Lauren's vintage challenge on my Card Crazy Chicks bloggers group........... sorry it is sooo late Lauren!

I used Distress inks on the background and stamped it with a fireworks stamp in gold and copper inks, the number embellishments are by K & Co, the flower gem is a Hero Arts one.