Seeing Stars!

Today is the last day to get your challenge in for this month's Inkurable Stampers challenge - "Stars." You could interpret this anyway you liked. Well, just call me Queen of the Last Minute, I've finally worked out what I was going to do for this challenge. I decided to make a Christmas card, at least I now have one Christmas card for my stash.

For my card, I started with some white cardstock and applied some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists - I used Midnight Blue and Bronze. I cut an extra piece of white cardstock to represent some snowy hills - I put this through my Cuttlebug and embossed with the Swiss Dots folder, then covered it in Frosted Lace Ranger Stickles and adhered it to the bottom of the Blue/Bronze panel. I stamped the Kaisercraft trees, using Versafine Onyx Black ink, onto a separate piece of white cardstock, cut around the trees then applied some Tattered Angels Vintage Pink Glimmer Mist to them. I also coloured the stars with a gold Krylon pen, I used a gold star brad on one tree as it didn't survive my cutting, oopsie! I popped the trees onto some dimensional tape and adhered them to my background.

I stamped the Stampa Rosa 'Christmas' and the Pink Paislee stars onto white cardstock using Brilliance Cosmic Copper ink. I cut around the images and gave the stars a spray with the Midnight Blue Glimmer Mist and put them and the greeting on dimensional tape too. I layered my background onto some textured gold cardstock and onto a Stampin' Up 'Not Quite Navy' folded card.


See below for a close up view. Thanks for looking, I do have another card and will upload it tomorrow.

....and now for something completely different!

I made this card for my friend Vicky's birthday yesterday. Stampotique Originals are a little bizarre, but I know Vicky loves them so I used the 'Moth Fab' image for her card.

Andrea's (Andrea's Stampin' Moments blog) Simply Saturday challenge this week was to use a background stamp on a one-layered card. I used a large Inkadinkado background stamp and stamped it directly onto my mauve card using purple Hero Arts dye ink, I highlighted the 'happy birthday' with a white Signo gel pen and also used the pen to draw a rectangle around the background. I coloured 'Moth Fab' with Copic and Prismacolor Markers then cut her out and layered her to the left side on dimensional foam. I just added some Kaisercraft Rhinestones as an embellishment for an easy card.

Hope you enjoyed looking at something a little different this time, please let me know what you think!

Annabelle Stamps New Release and Giveaways!

Annabelle Stamps is about to have a new release of stamps and there will be giveaways to be had!

The previews will begin on June 22nd, click on the blinkie in my sidebar to find out how you can win some free stamps and while you're there do check out the current challenges!

Brush Flower Card.

I seem to be using green and brown shades a lot lately, here's a card I've made for the latest Annabelle's Bling Sketch Challenge over at Annabelle Stamps Blog. For once, I've even finished my card early! If you'd like to enter this challenge you have until Friday June 18th, and there's also a prize up for grabs!

For my background piece I've used a technique from the latest Technique Junkie Newsletter called 'Glimmer Marbling'. I've stamped directly onto my background piece, all the stamps are by Penny Black, then layered the pieces onto black cardstock. I've added a strip of green grosgrain ribbon underneath and a row of Kaiser black rhinestones at the bottom of the card. The cardstock is from Pedigree Paper - if you happen to live in Melbourne, Pedigree Paper has a factory outlet shop that you can visit, just click on the link for the address.

On a personal note, my new chemotherapy regime seems to be much better for me. I have an infusion that lasts for around 45mins.......much better than the 4 hours for the previous regime, and it's so far so good with the new chemo tablets. I'm certainly not as tired and I've not had any nausea either......fingers crossed it stays that way!

Thanks for stopping by today, hope you are all having a lovely day!

Birds and branches!

Hi everyone, I have a card for you today and I'll also give you a bit of a personal update on myself at the end of this post.

My card uses Annabelle's Bling Sketch at Annabelle Stamps Blog and I can also use it for this week's 'Say it with Ribbon' challenge, also at Annabelle Stamps Blog.

My main image is from Hero Arts Birds 'n' Butterflies stamp set. I used Impress Olive Green dye ink onto Stampin' Up Kraft cardstock, I'm not really happy with using dye ink with clear stamps as the ink tends to bead and not give a good impression.......as has happened with this one! I should have stamped it in Versamark before the dye ink but forgot. I stamped the greeting (by Flourishes) using Dark Brown Colorbox chalk ink, but it turned out a bit light in colour too on the SU Old Olive cardstock. I also used Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip cardstock and ribbon, a Cuttlebug folder for the embossing and the bling is from Annabelle Stamps.

Now for my update! I had a CT scan 2 weeks ago, I was supposed to get the results last week, but for reasons I won't go into, the hospital was forced into lockdown and I was unable to keep that appointment or have my chemo which was scheduled that day! I had chemo the next day but had to wait another week to see my Oncologist. Anyway, it was good news of sorts, there is no sign of any tumours on the scan which we are all quite happy about. The not so good news is that I still have to continue with chemo as they think this will be better for me in the long run. It's not all bad though as I'm starting a new regime as of next Monday. I will have chemo every 3 weeks instead of every 2 weeks and it will be a much shorter infusion time as they have stopped one of the chemo drugs.....which is the one that causes the most nausea, so hopefully I will no longer be feeling nauseous after chemo. The best part is that I no longer have to go home wearing an infusion pump for the next 48hrs, I can have that drug in tablet form instead.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I won't get any adverse side effects from the new tablets as I have to take them twice a day for 2 weeks, then I get the 3rd week off them. I'm glad I don't have to have the chemo that causes nausea anymore as it has been making me feel pretty bad after the last few cycles, and I'm hoping I might have a bit more energy as I've been feeling pretty tired overall lately.

I think that about wraps it up! Thanks so much to everyone who is concerned about me, I really appreciate your caring. I hope you are all having a lovely day, it has taken most of the day for the sun to shine through here........but at last we have a lovely blue sky. I might even venture out for my daily walk now, it was way too cold earlier. Talk to you all soon.