Oriental beauty.

Well, the heatwave goes on here....the top temp hit 44C yesterday, and overnight was an equal record minimum temp of 30.6C....and that happened at 8.46am! I had the air conditioner running when I went to bed, but wouldn't you know it, we had a power blackout just after midnight! Fortunately the outage only lasted for a couple of hours, but it was still a shocker for sleeping much! Today was supposed to be cooler, but they've now upgraded that forecast to 40C.....ack!

The good thing is that it's been too hot to do much of anything, so I had another play with my Copic Markers and created this card for the OSA Card Layout Challenge #53. I took a little artistic licence with the sketch as I wanted to show a bit more of the lovely washi paper.

The beautiful Oriental stamp is by Stamp-It, an Aussie company, the gold triangle pieces are from a Cuttlebug die set. Also used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch, the butterflies have holographic stickers applied to the wings, and a gold kanji peel-off. The kanji is the symbol for beautiful.

I still need more practice with the Copic Markers, don't look too closely as I bled outside the lines....need to get that blender pen soon I think! Thanks for stopping by today!

EEK.......love without hearts!

My lovely blogging friend, Vicki (Stamped Smiles) from the USA, started up her own challenge blog late last year called Saturday Spotlight! Finally, I've had a chance to join in and play! This week's challenge is to make a LOVE creation withOUT hearts!

I had some new toys to play with this week.......I found some Copic Sketch Markers on Ebay for a great price, so bought 15 of them! NOW, I know why everyone raves about these markers.....the colour just glides on, they are so nice to use! The bad thing is that now I need lots more colours....and I need to get a blender pen to get the shading right! Don't be too critical of my efforts with my 1st colouring job, I'm not too keen on the mouse's colour, a blender pen would've made it look a little better!

The stamp is by House Mouse, of course! The DP is by Heidi Grace and I used a metal word from a $2 discount store.

It's even hotter here today than it was a few days ago! The current temp is around 42 degrees centigrade (that's well over 100F!). I've really surprised myself this week though, I'm feeling pretty good so far! It's good to be able to get a few creations made over the last few days!

Thanks everyone for continuing to stop by, and it's makes me feel so good reading all your encouraging comments! {{Hugs}} to you all!

You Rock!

We are in the middle of another heatwave Downunder, and it is sooo hot! I've had the airconditioner running since early this morning, but I've raised myself from my lethargy and made a card this afternoon.

I've based this card on two challenges, this week's CPS 148 sketch and the Basic Grey blog challenge, which was a photo inspiration.

My Basic Grey paper used is an old one that I've had in my stash for a while from the Motifica range. All the stamps are from a Grace Taylor clear unmounted set (by Grant Archival), I used Stampin' Up Close to Cocoa cardstock and ink.

I think this card would be great for a teenager or a male.....might give this to my son-in-law for his birthday next month, he loves his guitars! Let me know what you think!

Thanks so much for dropping by, and have a great day in your part of the world!

Male Birthday Card.

I needed a birthday card for my future son-in-law, and decided to use this week's Sketch #31 from the Papertake Weekly blog.

The seashell stamp is by Ferngully Stamps, an Aussie company, the greeting is by Flourishes. The background for the seashell stamp is called 'Al Foil' from a Technique Junkies Newsletter. The Cuttlebugged piece is a mosaic embossing folder done on Core'dinations Black Magic cardstock, the pale orange background is the same Core'dinations cardstock but reversed. I don't know who the DP. is by, I think it's handmade paper and it has no identification on it. I added some black triangular brads, a seahorse charm and some thread.

Thanks for looking, it's back to chemo for me tomorrow, so I might be a bit scarce for a few days.

OSA Year of the Tiger theme challenge

I still have another week before chemo starts again and my arms are not too bad to stamp with, although I'm having a little trouble applying pressure to stamp, and I can type okay now, so had some play time with the OSA Year of the Tiger theme challenge - it's the last challenge for the year. I love tigers so had to do this one! My twin daughters were born in the Year of the Tiger, one of them gets married next year in the Year of the Tiger, and my Aussie Rules football team are the Tigers and they are the only cats that I like LOL!

I had some backgrounds already done so I only had to stamp the tiger onto them and just used a really simple design for these two cards. My stamps are both from the Year of the Tiger plate by Art Neko stamps.

The background for the top card is a polished stone on glossy cardstock, the bottom card is a watercolour distress ink background.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick post to wish you all a 'Merry Christmas'! Hope everyone has a wonderful day spent with your loved ones.

Here's my last Christmas card for the year, I made this one a bit more special as it's for my grand daughter, Annika. This will be her 2nd Christmas so it will be a fun time for her, she's just learnt to say 'Santa' so I thought a Santa image was appropriate for her card. The image is an old stamp by Hero Arts, the papers are from Kaisercraft. I stamped a 2nd image, coloured it with Prismacolor pencils, cut it out and popped it onto dimensional dots.

Stamped Christmas cards.

Yes, I did actually manage a few stamped Christmas cards after all! The first one is an image that I had stamped and coloured a while ago, but I decided to add some stickles and a star to it and make it a bit more Christmassy! The tree is a Stampin' Up stamp and I think the greeting is by Stampa Rosa.



The ornaments on the card below are die-cuts, the pine bough is a Hero Arts stamp and the greeting is by Stampin' Up.

I used the same Hero Arts pine bough on this last card, but only stamped it once (I think I should've used a bit darker ink than this!), the greeting is by Stampin' Up and the ornament is by Firecracker stamps by Pamela.

I don't think these cards are my best work, but time was running out and they are the best I could do at the moment. Thanks for stopping by today, these are all that I have to show for now, but hopefully when I can use my arm again I will make a few more Christmas cards to share with you.

Non stamping Christmas cards.

Here are some more easy-peasy cards. The first 2 cards use Cuttlebug embossing folders and some Christina Re shimmery green paper. Used red Kaiser rhinestones for the holly card, the embellishment at the top of the tree card is by Yazzii, they look a lot like the Prima ones but much cheaper in price! I added some crystalline Stickles to the embossed tree.

The patterned paper on this card is by Alison Ellis Designs (AED), I cut the tree from a sheet of the PP and layered it on some cardstock for more stability. The snowflake is made from a Carl punch, I added some glitter to it.

Thanks for stopping by again!

Quickie Christmas cards

Here are a few of the Christmas cards that I've made recently. As I said in my previous post they are just quick cards, the main focal images are from a sheet of glitter stickers that I got at an end of year sale after last Christmas....not sure if the glitter shows up on the photos very well, just click for a larger image for a better look. Other than that I've just used Nestability dies, border punches, rub-on words and patterned papers. The only stamping is on the 1st card, some stars in the background of the yellow card.

I've made this a scheduled post and hopefully some others will follow over the next few days....if I've done this right! Thanks for looking.

Still here!

The last month has just flown by for me! I'll give you a bit of an update at the end of this post, but first here are some more lovely DAK's from some OSA and blogging friends from around the world.

First up is this lovely Asian card from Margo S, I love the rainbow background colours!

This one is from Cindy C, it's just sooo cute!

This beauty is from Lynn E., using one of my fave images and the background is gorgeous!

This faboulous creation is from Shirley R, I just love those beautiful violets!

Last, but not least is this beautiful dragonfly card from Beth U, the lattice border at the top is just perfect!

Thank you all my friends for your lovely cards and heartfelt messages, I do appreciate it very much right now.

Now for my update! I've had 2 Chemo treatments (cycles) so far, the side effects haven't been too bad but it's makes me very tired for 4 or 5 days afterwards. As I only have chemo every fortnight, I feel pretty good for the 2nd week.

I've had a bit of a set back however, the incision where they inserted my porta cath still hadn't healed over and I got an infection in it....I did tell the oncology nurses when I went for the 2nd treatment that I thought it was infected, but they looked at it and said it was just the way it was healing. A few days later it was red and swollen and painful so I went to my GP and he agreed with me that it looked infected and put me on antibiotics...and took a swab! Anyways, to cut a long story short the oncology doctor decided the porta cath had to come out, which they did later that day and tomorrow I have to have another one inserted in my left arm.......not happy about that as that's my dominant arm and I'll barely be able to dress myself let alone anything else for a few days. There is some good news though, my oncologist wants it to heal properly this time so I won't be having any more chemo until after the New Year! At least I can spend some quality time with my family over Christmas, thank goodness!

I have been plodding along making a few Christmas cards here and there, nothing special just quick and easy ones. I'll try and post them later on today, while I can still type!

If you managed to read all that, thanks again for continuing to leave such supportive comments on my blog, it means such a lot to have such wonderful friends in blogland! :)

Edit to add: You would not believe what happened this morning when I went to the hospital to get the new porta cath inserted! I had to go to the Day Oncology Unit first, then Radiology send someone across to take you to them for the procedure. So they take my obs, get me to change into a gown, check the wound from the other arm to see if it's healing OK.........then they tell me that the procedure has been cancelled because the idiots in Radiology didn't have a Porta Cath for me!!! It was re-booked for Thursday while I was there.......then I get a phone call from Radiology when I get home to say they've changed it again to Friday!! Pfft, I wish they'd get their act together....I was planning to go and visit my Dad on Friday, can't do that now and my arm will still be really sore if I go on the weekend. Can you guess that I'm really over having to wait around hospitals lately?