Today was the first get-together in 2015 for our COD (Crafty Owls Day, but it could stand for Crafty Old Dames I reckon) 😆
As you might have guessed from the title we tried some watery techniques today. I love it. Hope everyone else enjoyed themselves too.
Here is 1 of the cards we played around with today – caution – sunglasses may be required. 😀
We didn’t use any pretty papers but made the background ourselves. First we used distress inks to wash the background. Next we added some orange Glimmer Mist, then the fun part, added circles of white ink to replicate the “Bokeh” effect. Lastly we heat embossed a sentiment and added a few orange sequins.
Here is the definition of Bokeh –
“Bokeh”
“In photography, bokeh (Originally /ˈboʊkɛ/, /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay — also sometimes pronounced as /ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə, Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”.
Fun, fun, fun and very sparkly, sparkly, sparkly!
Bye for now,
Mums are wonderful and deserve some time taken over gifts you make for them. I hope you enjoy my Topiary and Easel Card for Cuddly Buddly.
Why not click one of the links and have a look at the Cuddly Buddly site. This is where you can find my project.
Bye for now,
Yes it is time to show you how I’ve recycled my Christmas cards again this year.
I’ve made tags again for next Christmas. I did this a couple of years ago but this time I’ve used this great punch from Fiskars. It is a small tag but large enough to add a “to and from” on the back. This punch not only punches the tag but can also add a punched hole and eyelet. Pretty clever hey!
Here are some more of the tags I punched from the cards we received. I have put eyelets on some but ran out of eyelets and will have to buy some more.
I was going to make some little boxes too but I was so happy about the tags I forgot to leave some cards. Perhaps I will use some old birthday cards to try out the little boxes.
Okay that is all I have to show you today so ….
bye for now,
I have been meaning to show you the gifts my dh brought me from Nepal. He came home about a week ago and I kept forgetting to show you some of the hand-made paper and cards he thoughtfully brought for me.
This is only a small portion of the hand-made goodies. Below is one of the shops he looked in for paper products.
I’ll show you just a couple of photos from this amazing place. The first is dh’s group starting their trekking to the destination.
A very welcome rest.
Some of the spectacular scenery along the way.
This beautiful sunset is taken over the roof of the school which was their destination. They were helping with some building works.
Back in Kathmandu. A popular form of transportation even in the main streets.
I have seen all of his photos and I must admit I’m a little envious, but then I stop and think of the trekking required and I realise I’m not envious at all 😆 just very proud of him.
Bye for now,
Today over at Cuddly Buddly Crafts we are giving you some ideas for Valentine’s Day, or any other romantic occasion for that matter.
This is my contribution. It holds 2 yummy chocolate hearts (which fitted perfectly, not planned but happy with the result) 😀
If you would like the instructions hop over the the Cuddly Buddly Blog and the how to and supplies needed are all there for you. HERE is the link to my project.
Bye for now,
I just have to show you my latest purchase ‘cos I think it is gorgeous. You all know the “gorjuss” stamps right? I really like them but only have 1, but now I will be carrying a reminder in my bag all the time.
It is a fold up carry bag.
It really doesn’t take much to make me happy and now my groceries will look pretty 😉
Bye for now,
Before I get started on new projects for 2015 I am finishing up some projects which I didn’t have time to finish before the cards needed to be sent out. On this card I had the trees die-cut and glittered and on a pale apricot card base – ugh – just didn’t work. So I removed the trees and started again reusing the trees.
For the new card I cut 2 strips of 3 shades of blue card and attached them to a white piece of card. The next step was to die-cut the word “peace” from the blue card strips and a scrap of white paper. I removed “peace” from the blue card and replaced it with the white. Next I die-cut some snow drifts and attached them. “On Earth” was stamped on the bottom right corner. The last step was using a star stencil and texture paste to add the stars.
I feel happy, I already have 1 Christmas card ready for next year. 😀
Bye for now,
The WordPress.com stats helper prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it
There were 337 pictures uploaded. That’s about 6 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was February 27th with 120 views. The most popular post that day was Early Easter “Hen” card.
Visitors came from 115 countries in all!
Most visitors came from Australia. The United States & U.K. were not far behind. Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Italy and Brazil also visited often.
Thank you so much to all who visit and comment. I appreciate you all taking the time. Hopefully 2015 I will get back into the swing of blogging more often with things which will keep you visiting.
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas day. I’m now cleaning up my craft room after the frantic pre-Christmas card making. While cleaning I found an uncompleted easel card – can’t even remember which month I started this. This distracted me from cleaning because I wanted to finish it :). Anything to side-track me from cleaning. 😆
The finished project –
An easel card with post-it-note pad.
I’ve gone a bit over-board, for me, but I was having fun.
It will be put next to the phone to scribble down messages.
Bye for now,
Only one day left – woo hoo. Are you ready? I think I’m just about all prepared so now I can have a play here. In Australia it is summer now but most of us still celebrate with a hot Roast lunch and hot Christmas pudding. Crazy I know, the kitchen can be an incredibly steamy place with high temperatures, but I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. Those who don’t have the traditional lunch go all out with beautiful Aussie sea food. I love a summer Christmas and here is someone else I think would enjoy it 🙂 –
Oh that is the best, I love it, such a wonderful song full of happiness. Poor Olaf, if only he knew. This is a better idea for an Aussie “snowman”.
Hope everyone enjoys their Christmas Holidays, may they be full of family and friends.
See you soon,
Hi crafters, long time no see! It’s not that I haven’t been making cards but they have been things that I couldn’t post. Today I can finally let you know about the project over at Cuddly Buddly. The theme this month was “Let’s Party”. I made a bottle tag to add to the bottle of wine you would take to the party. Here it is –
For information on supplies and how to make the tag go to the Cuddly Buddly Blog (here).
Bye for now,
Our youngest grandchild had her 3rd birthday this week. She chose a piggy birthday cake, aka Miss Piggy.
Here is her cake –
She absolutely loved it.
Now this is the card I made for her –
a bit of fun.
Kissy Kissy to our cute little gd.
Bye for now,
We have many, many, many “wascally wabbits” on our property, so it’s quite a common occurrence to see them hopping around just outside our windows. There are hares too but they usually keep their distance but not this dopey young leveret. It just loped down our driveway and didn’t seem too concerned that someone was watching him from the kitchen window.
I really didn’t know much about hares and how different they are to rabbits so I went investigating on the web. This site seemed to have an easy explanation of the differences if you are interested.
When I typed “wascally wabbit” I was reminded of my childhood when these characters were very popular on TV. Who else felt sorry for poor old Elmer, he had no idea did he?
Bye for now,
Even though here in Aussie we celebrate Christmas in the heat we still have meals etc which are more appropriate for cold climates. Our Christmas cards have snowy scenes, snowmen and all sorts of inappropriate images for our climate. With that in mind, when Cuddly Buddly’s theme for November was “For the Tree” the first thing I thought of was a snowman. Here is my tree decoration –
If you would like to know more with instructions, and to see what the other team members made click HERE to be redirected to the Cuddly Buddly site.
This made me think of Olaf in the popular children’s film Frozen. Olaf thinks he would love summer, well he just has to come to Australia at Christmas to find out what happens to snowmen in the summer. CLICK HERE for the song, if you don’t know it off by heart already 🙂
Bye for now,
I’m feeling very guilty about my lack of posts over the last few months. Since my dm passed away I’ve been having trouble with motivation. So today I thought I would show you some art by the youngest of my grandsons who has no lack of imagination. Last week his kinder organized an art exhibition (such a cute idea). You could buy the art which was displayed and there was a raffle with prizes. Of course I was really only interested in gs’s paintings but I looked at all of the budding artist’s work. Here are my gs’s paintings –
The sun of course!
A car – no of course not a truck
The one I chose after careful consideration was an abstract “Nature”. I think I might be able to display this quite well. 🙂 I’ll show you the final product in a future post.
Well done to the Kinder for their originality in their choice of fundraising. Congrats to my young up-and-coming artist. 
Bye for now,
Cards & Co
Cards & Co 