An (almost) white Christmas!

Hi there, how was your Christmas? Hope you all had a wonderful day spent with your loved ones! We hosted our Christmas celebrations at our home this year, it was lovely seeing how excited Annika, our 3 year old grand-daughter, was opening all her presents. She even got to open her baby brother's presents too....I think it's more about the unwrapping than what's actually inside that excites her!

We had the strangest weather on Christmas Day! It started off as your typical Aussie summer's day, I think the temperature reached somewhere around 30C, then the weather turned very nasty! We had a bit of rain, followed by a hail storm......the hail was the size of golf balls! It sounded like someone was throwing big rocks on the roof. Both sons-in-law made a mad dash for the cars to put them undercover, one of them looked up at the wrong time and copped a few hail stones on his face...ouch! There's a photo below of the hail still sitting on our lawn and nature strip taken well after the hail storms finished......we ended up having at least 4 of them, along with some torrential rain! Luckily we are on top of a hill and the only damage was where some hail stones came through the laserlite sheets on our back veranda. Others fared much worse with flooding, car windscreens broken and broken roof tiles. I was really worried as my 82yr old Dad had only left 5 minutes before the storm hit, but thankfully he was OK and only had a few dents in his car from the hail.

Here's my last Christmas card for the year! I made this one for my grandson Ben's first Christmas! The little bear stamp is by Stamp-It, the greeting is from a Kaisercraft clear set. I coloured the bear with Copic Markers, put some Kindyglitz around the hat fur and cut him out and popped up with dimensional dots. The DP is also by Kaisercraft.

I'm linking this card up with the Forever Friends December Challenge - It's all Christmas!

I had a last minute crafting frenzy on Christmas Eve as I still had more gift-card holders to finish and I made my own Christmas Crackers (Bon Bons). Thankfully my daughter Hayley helped me finish off the Crackers......and wrapped my gifts for me as well, or I would never have finished everything! I didn't get around to taking photos of those last projects though!

I can't believe New Year's Eve is tomorrow! Hope you all have a Happy New Year, I'll be back next year!

Nearly there!

I've almost finished making my Christmas cards, only one more to go! These cards are for my two daughters and the fun rudolph card is for my 3 year old grand-daughter. She was singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer a few nights ago............so cute!  Luckily I don't need to mail these ones!

I'm linking these cards up to Annabelle Stamps for the 'Say It With......Christmas Cards' challenge.

I still have a few cards that I haven't shown here yet, I'll put them up when I have time.

Gingerbread house and a gift card holder.

Hi there! Christmas is getting closer and closer and I still have heaps to do! Here are 2 more Christmas projects that I recently completed.

The first one is a gingerbread house that I gave as a hostess gift at the Aussie Fiskateers Christmas party that I was lucky enough to be invited to last week. Fiskars Aussie lead ambassador, Lyn D, sure knows how to throw a party, we all had a fun day!

This is not my original idea, I saw something similar on a blog, I think it was a Norwegian lady, I'm afraid I didn't save the blog address though. It's made using a milk carton, the roof is only adhered on one side so you can flip it open and put some goodies inside. Papers are from Kaisercraft's 'December 25' range.

I used a Fiskars border punch for the roof edges. The Christmas tree is drawn free-hand and cut out with scissors. The roof requires a bit of weighting on the open side, so I used a jumbo sized square brad - it looks a little like it's a skylight.

The second project is a gift card holder. I made a few of these last year, but forgot to take a photo of the inside, so I've remembered to do it this time! I used a jumbo sized brad  as the closure and just wrapped the bakers twine around it to secure. Papers and die-cuts are all from the Kaisercraft 'Be Merry' range.

I'm linking these projects up to Papertake Weekly's challenge - Last Christmas projects/cards for the year.

Holly Jolly!

The December challenge at Inkurable Stampers is "Holly" - use some holly somewhere on your project.

I had heaps of holly to choose from for this challenge, but I ended up using a holly stamp by Kaisercraft, some punched holly leaves and if you look closely you'll see some holly at the top of the metal brad just above the bells.

For my background I misted some tissue paper with some home-made glimmer spray (made using re-inkers and Pearl-Ex powder). I stamped the image after the tissue had dried, then scrunched it up to make it all wrinkly and adhered it to a piece of spotty Kaisercraft DP using Mod Podge, then painted the leaves with Twinkling H20's and the berries with a marker.

My main image isn't a Christmas stamp at all, but I thought it would be fun to use the Laurel and Hardy photo stamp (by The Stampsmith), I added some extra distressing with TH Distress inks to make it look really aged and  adhered it to the background piece using dimensional dots on only 2 adjacent corners, so it was slightly curled up on the non-adhered corners. It was a no-brainer to also use the 'Holly Jolly' greeting (Penny Black) in keeping with the holly theme! I distressed it with TH inks as well.

Other bits added :red ribbon, red machine stitching. The red berries on the punched leaves had some extra Mod Podge over them.

I could never seem to get decent photos of cards using photo stamps with my old camera, they usually turned out too grainy, but I'm quite pleased with the photo taken using my DSLR camera!

I have a few more cards and projects to show you that I've finished over the last week or so, hopefully I'll add them here soon! Still have so much to do before Christmas!

Clean & Simple #169

Clean and simple is the way to go when you're in a rush to get your Christmas cards out on time! I used this week's sketch from the Clean & Simple blog to make not one, but two cards using the same stamp!

Stamps by Kaisercraft and Hero Arts (Joy). Patterned papers from Kaisercraft and Little Yellow Bicycle. Cheery Lynn doily die and Kaisercraft star brads also used.

That's all for now folks!

Christmas Trees.

Hi again, I'm back onto my Christmas cards today.....time's running out!

I used a trees stamp from Annabelle Stamps Hooo Loves Christmas set and a greeting by Stampin' Up, both stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia ink. The trees are stamped onto a scrap of Basic Grey patterned paper.

I'm entering this card for two challenges -
Annabelle Stamps ABSC044 bling sketch challenge using the sketch below and,
CC351 Colour Challenge on Splitcoast Stampers - Kraft, White and Pizazz (green)

Other stuff used:
Annabelle Stamps - Lime Sprinkles (bling)
Cuttlebug - Swiss Dots Embossing folder
Nestabilities - Circle dies.
Stampin' Up - Kraft cardstock and word window punch
Bazzil - green cardstock
Kaisercraft - 'Be Merry' 6 x 6 paper pad.
EK Success - corner punch
Other - white organza ribbon, brown velvet braid.

It's officially the first day of summer here today, but you certainly wouldn't think so! It's been quite cold all day, I might even have to use my electric blanket again tonight! It was only a few days ago we were sweltering, I wish the weather wasn't quite so changeable! Hope you're having a great day in your part of the world, thanks for your visit!

ps. I think I'm going to colour those baubles on the trees red, it really needs a splash of something bright don't you think?

Advent Calendar.

Hi there, I've been madly trying to get this advent calendar finished before December 1st and I've finally made it.....just!!

I started this ages ago, I've had the box part painted and glued together, then painted the inside of all those boxes and stuck them together. It seemed to take forever to finish those little boxes though! Each one has patterned paper adhered all the way around then the front piece is attached, the little half-circle finger hold has to be cut around (I found curved nail scissors were best for this), then sponged with Tim Holtz Walnut Stain Distress ink.....oh, then the numbers had to be stuck on......whew!

If you are wondering, this is a kit Advent Calendar by Kaisercraft. It comes in a flat pack and you add your own paint, patterned paper and other decorations. The wooden pieces, reindeer, sleigh, presents in the sleigh and free-standing tree, are also by Kaisercraft, I painted them with acrylic paints and spritzed with some glitter sprays. The presents in the sleigh are covered in patterned paper and backed with red foil.

Included in the kit are raw chipboard numbers, which are a bit large, I only used them on the 6, 12 and 21 drawers, the other numbers are a mixture of glitter stick-ons, Thickers foam, MM rub-ons (a bit tricky to apply once the box is made up!) and tiny stick-ons.

I needed something else in the bottom left corner as it looked too bare, so I made some little 'gifts' out of patterned paper and tied with ribbon.

Patterned papers are all from the Kaisercraft 'Tis The Season and December 25th ranges.

OK, let the countdown begin!!

Pickled Frog!

Here's a fun card I made for my DH's birthday this Thursday! The image is from Sparkle'N'Sprinkle, coloured with Copic Markers. The greeting is by Hero Arts.

I'm entering this card for this week's AnnaBelle Stamps challenge - Say it with .....Buttons and Bows. Well, OK I only used one button and one bow, but who's counting!

I had some cream coloured twine which didn't match the black and white ribbon (from AnnaBelle Stamps), so I coloured it with a green Copic Marker and it matched the button perfectly!

I don't think my DH will be enjoying his birthday quite like the frog did though!

Going Dotty!

Hi there, my card today is for Scrapbook Boutique's November Challenge - using the photo as inspiration and adding dots & spots.

The pine bough stamp is from Hero Arts, I've stamped it several times using Tim Holtz Crushed Olive and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks, the greeting is by Denami stamps - I've had this one in my stash forever, but I love the font!

The scalloped edge is a die-cut from the Kaisercraft Christmas Carnival collection, and the ornament is a puffy sticker from the same product range. I used a silver gel pen and ruler to draw my thread and bow.

Just used a CAS design similar to the card I made last week, hope you like it!

A very blingy Christmas!

I seem to be getting into the swing of Christmas card making at the moment, here's another one today! This one is a bit "out there" with a very different colour scheme and lots of bling! I used this weeks' challenge from Annabelle Stamps - Say it in.....Lime, Black and White.

I couldn't find a piece of lime cardstock that looked right so made my own with a piece of canvas paper and some lime acrylic paint, I even found some ribbon that was a perfect match in my stash. The canvas paper is textured so I was a bit worried that my stamp wouldn't imprint properly, but it turned out OK. I even heat embossed it with some glitter embossing powder.....although you may not be able to see it very well unless you click on the photo to enlarge it. I found some forgotten about black glitter cardstock, I thought it gave a nice elegant look to the card. The card looks much better IRL, I couldn't really capture it properly with my camera.

I also glitter embossed the greeting. Stamps are both by Kaisercraft.

CAS143 sketch challenge

Hi there, here's a card I've made to fit CAS143 sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers. I've made a vintagy Christmas card, the large holly stamp and the greeting is by Kaisercraft, the smaller holly stamp is by Inkadinkado. The images are stamped with Memento ink and water-coloured with Tim Holtz Distress Inks. Old olive cardstock by Stampin' Up. My lone embellishment is a single red Kaisercraft rhinestone to dot the "i" in Christmas.

I think I should have stamped the large holly just a little to the left, otherwise I'm happy with this card. Hope you like it!

Glitter Tree.

Just another quick card today........it's all I seem to have time for lately!

Kaisercraft tree stamped with Versafine Vintage Sepia, then sponged with Tim Holtz Shabby Shutters and Crushed Olive Distress Inks, then cut out and glittered to within an inch of it's life!

DP by AED (Alison Ellis Designs), sentiment from Pink Paislee.

This is another entry for Annabelle Stamps say it with .....sentiments challenge.

Thanks for your visit today!

More about Feed Readers

Just thought I'd post a couple of screen shots as an addition to my post yesterday regarding feed readers, in case I was confusing you with what I was talking about.

The picture above shows the FeedDemon reader, I find the soft colours are much easier on my eyes than the stark white of the new version of Google Reader (see screenshot below). The blog list is also easier to read on FeedDemon and I can see the scroll bars to go down my list. You cant see the scroll bars on Google Reader until you run the mouse over them, which is a nightmare to use on my HP Touchpad as my finger is used instead of a mouse.

What do you think, I'd love to hear your opinions?

RSS Feed Readers?

I'm guessing that most people who read blogs have them organised in some kind of a RSS feed reader, the most common one being Google Reader.

If you use Google Reader, what do you think of their new interface? Supposedly the makeover is to make it more user-friendly! I don't know who they tested the new interface on but they couldn't have got it more wrong - and from what I've read on the Google discussion groups, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of users who agree with me! All that white space is just too hard on the eyes, and as for those narrow disappearing scroll bars.....pfft!

I decided it was time to search for a new RSS reader and have discovered one called FeedDemon. I downloaded the free version, but there is another paid version which is ad-free and has other features. I don't really need the other features and the ads aren't annoying, so I'll stick with the free version for now. After using it for a few days I quite like it. It was easy to import all my feeds from Google Reader and I like the way you can set it to show various views of your feeds - I have mine set to show unread items, but you can set it to several other views as well. It's fast to use and I can also make comments on blogs without having to open a separate window. I can also switch between FeedDemon and Google Reader and both readers update the feeds that I've already read. I guess the downside is that it's only available for Windows computers and it uses Internet Explorer as it's browser. I'm using FeedDemon on my desktop computer, but I can't download it to use on my HP Touchpad because of the different operating system it uses.

If anyone uses a different RSS reader and likes it, I'd love to hear about it too!

Another vintage Christmas card!

Hi again, here's another Christmas card, I've made it to fit the following challenges:
Annabelle Stamps - Say It With.....Sentiments.
Basic Grey - Anything Goes. (Wassail and Blitzen patterned papers used)
CPS Sketch #242
The Pink Elephant - Distressing.(Distressed PP and Distress ink sponged on the images.)



CPS#242



 

The Basic Grey papers are from the Wassail and Blitzen ranges, some oldies I still have in my stash.

Stamps, ink and the flower embellishment are by Kaisercraft. Images are sponged with Tim Holtz Old Paper Distress Ink.

Thanks for stopping by today, hope you're having a great day.....it's VERY hot here today!