I'm back!!

Hi there, just popping in to let you know I'm back from my holidays.........in case you thought I'd disappeared from the face of the earth! I've actually been back for almost a week now but I've been busy catching up with too many things to have time for blogging or creativity!

New Zealand was a wonderful experience, it's such a beautiful place and the people are so friendly. We had an awesome time there, although the weather was getting a little cold, especially in the Sth Island.

We were home for a week, then it was off to Queensland to stay with my brother (that's him in the photo with me) and his family for a week. The weather was just perfect, 26C most days, I really hated  to come home to Winter in Melbourne - it's a chilly 11C here today with hail and rain, and it's going to be much the same for the whole week (sigh)!

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a scheduled post.......I did get time to do one!

Wishing all the Mum's out there in blogland a very Happy Mother's Day!! Hope you get pampered today!

Stamp: Hero Arts
Text: Computer generated Kim Hughes font.

Bouquet for you!!

Sorry I've been MIA, yet again!! I've been busily organising our trip away, we're leaving tomorrow for New Zealand!! We start our trip off by flying to Auckland, which I thought would be safer than Christchurch.....and I just read that Auckland was hit by a killer tornado this afternoon!!! I hope that's not a bad omen for things to come. I'm not sure how bad the damage is, it may only be to a small area.

Anyway, we'll be gone for 2 weeks, come home for a week, then we're off to visit my brother in Queensland for a week.........so looks like I'll be MIA again! I did have high hopes of being able to do a few scheduled posts during my absence, but just haven't had the time to do any new creations! The card below is one I prepared earlier......just hadn't got around to posting it here.

I bought myself a new camera for the trip, a Canon SLR. I'm no photography expert, but the difference in the photo above using my old Canon Powershot and the one below taken with my new camera is just amazing! You might need to enlarge the photos to see properly, but the image is so much clearer and crisper with the SLR camera, as is the text and the background image.....and I took the photo in bad light too!

The main image and sentiment is by Crafty Secrets.....just love their vintage stamps! I sponged some Tim Holtz Distress inks on some white cardstock, then stamped the image with Versafine Black Onyx ink. The background stamp is Stampin' Up Floral Background - I used SU Purely Pomegranate ink and cardstock. Just added some Kaisercraft rhinestones and a strip of pink vintagey lace to finish the card.

That's all folks......see you in 2 weeks time!

Happy Easter!

Wishing all my blog readers a Happy Easter!



Card recipe:
Stamps: AnnaBelle Stamps, Stampin' Up
Papers: Kaisercraft
Border punch: Fiskars
Butterfly punch: Martha Stewart
Embossing folder: Cuttlebug
Dies: Nestabilities

More baby cards!

So sorry I've been MIA again! Thanks to all those who left comments on my last post on our loss of Daisy, it's been a difficult week. We are heading off to Torquay tomorrow to spend Easter at my daughter and son-in-law's home, so I'll be missing for a few days.

I made some more baby cards last week, just hadn't got around to posting them here. I made a boy version using the same sketch and Forever Friends bear stamp as the girl card from last week. The elephant stamp on the other two cards is from a Stampin' Up set.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you all have a Happy Easter. Stay safe on the roads if you are travelling to visit family like I am........and don't eat too many Easter eggs and Hot Cross buns!

Goodbye Daisy - a sad farewell.

This is a post that I haven't been wanting to write. Last Friday we made the difficult decision that it was time to let our best friend, Daisy go. She was 14 years old and had been battling cancer and arthritis for some time. Her condition had deteriorated over the last few months and she had developed ulcers that wouldn't heal despite repeated antibiotics. We took her to the vet's and were with her until the end, many tears were shed then and in the following days since.

The photo below is one of the last ones we have of Daisy, she had a lot of grey fur by then. My favourite photo of her is the next one, taken way back in 2002. Her eyes are so expressive!

Daisy had such a sweet nature and loved being with her people. When I first started having chemo and coming home from the hospital feeling pretty drained and nauseous, she would come and just sit by my chair just letting me know she was there for me. I look out my kitchen window each morning at her empty kennel still expecting to see her there........I really miss her!

Rest in peace Daisy, my sweet girl!

Baby Girl Card.

I was going through my stash of cards a few days ago and noticed that I don't have many baby cards at the moment! Since I have a new grand-baby on the way I thought I'd better rectify that and make a few more! Here's a baby girl card......and no, I don't know what sex the baby is yet!



I used a Forever Friends bear stamp as my main image and coloured it with Copic Markers, then layered it onto a paper doily. The pink cardstock is Bazzil and the DP is by Heidi Grace. I used a Nestabilities Label ? (I forget what number it is and I'm too lazy to go look!) The sentiment is by Stampin' Up and I punched it out with the word window punch. I also added some pink satin ribbon and used my Bowmaker to tie the bow.

My card qualifies for the Forever Friends monthly challenge - A card for a girl. I also used this week's sketch from Card Patterns.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Flutterby!

Hi there! I have a simple CAS card to show you today, I used the sketch FLT134 from the Clean & Simple Stamping blog.

This is a perfect way to use up any tiny leftover bits of cardstock! I used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch and some scraps of Heidi Grace PP (orange checks) and Kaisercraft PP (green dots) - both papers are double sided. I used 3 butterfly punchies for each of my butterflies, so 9 nine punched from each of the papers - although the one on the bottom isn't seen, so you could punch it from any paper or cardstock scraps. The other 2 butterflies are folded in half, glue one half to the left side of the 1st butterfly, and the last one is glued to the right side of it. I used a glue pen as the butterflies are so tiny and the wet glue allows time to line up those wings properly. I hope that all makes sense to you, I should have taken some photos of the process but didn't think of that until later! Let me know if you'd like to see some pics. Making the butterflies this way allows a bit more stability, they aren't going to come off the card easily, and add more dimension. Before I adhered my finished butterflies to the white cardstock, I stamped the butterfly body from the Stampin' Up 'Butterfly Prints' set in Versafine Black Onyx ink, the sentiment is from the Stampin' Up 'Best Wishes and More' stamp set. Cardstock is Stampin' Up Perfect Plum and Sage Shadow.

It's a lovely sunny day here in Melbourne today, more like Spring than Autumn! I hope you're having a great day too!

AnnaBelle Stamps - Twofer!

I think I must be psychic! I made this card I'm showing you today on Wednesday for AnnaBelle Stamps monthly bling sketch challenge ABSC036, I just hadn't got around to posting it here to my blog yet. Lo and behold when AnnaBelle Stamps blog posted their weekly challenge yesterday, the theme is 'Say It In......Orange, Purple and Neutral'. These were the exact colours that I had used for the sketch challenge, so that made it a 'twofer' card! This certainly isn't a colour combination that I would normally use either, I think it works though!

For my images, I used white cardstock sponged with Tim Holtz Old Paper Distress Ink. I stamped two flower images from Hero Arts Poetic Petals stamp set, the 3rd piece is stamped with a Kaisercraft sentiment and the small Darkroom Door silhouette flowers are inked with TH Rusty Hinge Distress Ink and stamped over it. The larger flowers are coloured with Prismacolor pencils and odourless mineral spirit. The background patterned paper (Basic Grey Blush) is sponged around the edges with TH Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain Distress Inks and stamped with a larger Darkroom Door silhouette flower with TH Rusty Hinge Distress Ink.

I like the vintage look of my card, please let me know what you think! Hope you are having a great weekend in your part of the world!

Inkurable Stampers - Paint challenge

Hello there, sorry for being a bit scarce lately but I've been a bit busy doing other things. I've had a chance to do a bit of crafting today, so here's my entry for Inkurable Stampers March challenge - use PAINT on your project. Just call me 'Queen of the Last Minute' as it's the last day to enter! For my background piece I used some textured watercolour paper, wet it liberally and painted it with some Twinkling H2O's - the colours are Summer Breeze and Guatamalan Green. I stamped a Ferngully seashell stamp along the bottom of this piece using Versamark ink and heat embossed it with white EP. For the seahorse piece, I started with some white cardstock and dry-brushed it with some Lumiere paint in a cross-hatch pattern - the colours are Blue, Emerald and Turquoise. I then applied a coating of Versamark ink and heat embossed 3 layers of clear Opals embossing enamel. While the Opals were still warm I inked up the Stamp-It seahorse stamp with black Brilliance ink and pressed it into the warm Opals. I put this in the freezer for a few minutes so I could give it a Cracked Glass finish.

I layered the watercoloured piece onto some turquoise and green cardstock layers, tied some twine around them and finished it with a nautical charm. I edged the seahorse piece with a black Sharpie pen and layered it with some dimensional foam dots. I adhered the whole piece to a folded white card and added the Kaisercraft sentiment with black ink and the Hero Arts 'bubbles' using Versamagic Sea Breeze ink.

I hope you like my card for today, let me know what you think!