We have had a break in the freezing weather with a string of mild Autumn days, so we are all enjoying probably the last spell of autumn for this year. We have picked mushrooms and loved eating them, but this is something different and beautiful but perhaps not for eating. While driving to town my husband spotted these on the side of the road and took photos for me to put on the blog.
Can anyone tell me the name of these toadstools? I can’t imagine that they are edible but can someone tell me if they are as poisonous (although beautiful) as they look?
Apparently this was about 25 cm (10 inches) diameter.
I love this photo, thanks dh. Reminds me of magic and fairies. Having said that I would like to show you the fairies at the bottom of my garden 😆
One of our dgs’s have given us all sorts of toadstools, fairies and lights to make a “fairy garden” so cute.
Sorry about the weeds in the photo (I’m NOT a keen gardener, but I love it to look pretty – so poor dh does the work when he gets time).
Hope you enjoyed these photos from some lovely autumnal weather we are having here.
Bye for now,
It was my dd’s birthday yesterday and I didn’t make her a card but I did make this for her –
The Piano Trinket Box and “Singer” stamp are from Lalaland. The piano is surprisingly easy to assemble even without instructions. I painted it black but it was a bit was a bit dull and I wanted it a little shinier so (now don’t laugh) I used black shoe polish and buffed it up a bit, still not shiny enough but I wasn’t going to buff it again – I even hate polishing shoes 👿
I paper pieced the singers dress with a glittery bronze coloured paper and coloured the rest of her with Copics.
On lid of the piano I used a stencil and bronze paint to create flourishes. I also used the bronze paint on the flourish (which comes with the piano) on the front. To be honest I smudged one section of the top flourish 😡 so I had to think of something to cover it. I found some sheet music for Happy Birthday on the web and reduced it to fit the top. I’m quite okay with how it turned out.
I stood the singer up on a small dais with 2 small buttons to represent her shoes. I had some lovely animal print material with sticky back so I used that for a floor rug. The last step was to add a simple sentiment.
Thanks for dropping in today.
Bye for now,
What a beautiful day it was yesterday for Mother’s Day. The weather really smiled on us. As well as being Mum’s day it was also the Heritage Weekend here in Ballarat.
We took a ride with our youngest gs and family on a steam train, such fun. Here is a photo I took from the bridge at the station of the new and the old.
Next we went to the Art Gallery to see the knitted tartan berets my dsil Jenny had for sale at the “Auld Lang Syne” exhibition.
Such a beautiful entrance to the Art Gallery and my dgs thought the stairs were great.
Then we spent some time on the double-decker bus looking at some of the beautiful buildings in our great city. (Sorry the photos had to be taken through glass because the windows wouldn’t open).
There were concert bands playing from balconies and musicians on the streets – wonderful.
Vintage and classic cars parked around the city too.
I also went to heritage markets, and displays. The only thing I missed which I would have liked to see was the vintage apron display. Time ran out.
It was a lovely day and it was easy to see in your mind the figures from the past promenading around the streets on such a day.
Bye for now,
A very happy reason to make a card, a young couple are engaged. I don’t believe they would be the “sweet and soppy” type of card people (of course I could be completely wrong) but I wanted to make something pretty. I hope I’ve achieved the happy medium with this card. It sort of matches the present (not the wrapping) in style.
I would like to show you the wrapping of the gift. The store I bought this at wraps so beautifully and there would have been more to this – big bow type of embellishment, but for the fact that I have to post the gift.
I also bought another gift at the same store and this is how it was wrapped. Don’t they just do a spectacular job? First it was wrapped with blue paper then wrapped again with clear and white swirl plastic, a strip of white gloss and finally aqua ribbon. I can imagine a big white bow on the first gift with aqua tie if only I didn’t have to post it.
Well I’m off to the post office now.
Bye for now,
Good morning. Yesterday we had our first family get-together for 2014. The theme was monsters. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of everything but here is some of the food we had (most of the ideas were found on Pinterest).
We also had monster sandwiches and pizza.
When the adults were sitting around the table after lunch we all agreed that we have more fun with the themes than the kids do. The 3 littlies were only interested in hitting each other with the balloons 🙂
I promise I’ll be back soon with some cards.
Bye for now,
Driving home this morning I was listening to the ABC on the car radio. One of the items was about “5000 poppies” a project which 2 women from Melbourne have commenced. Here is the link to their blog if you are interested to help or just would like to know more.
In a nut shell 2 women began a small project to make 5,000 poppies for ANZAC day 2015 (next year). The response has been so amazing that their aim now is to have 25,000 poppies by then. It has struck a chord with people from all over the world and they are receiving 100’s of handmade poppies from near and far. This photo is from their blog showing the poppy goal.
I’m feeling quite sentimental this year so this project is inspiring me to get the needles out. Don’t know what I will make yet, can’t crochet so that is out, but I can knit and using other materials sounds interesting. The only restrictions are size and water proof. All the information including drop off points is available on the site.
Take a look at what it is all about and you might feel inspired too (click here).
Anyone interested or have patterns? Hope so. Let me know.
Bye for now,
The 25th April is ANZAC day here in Australia. “Anzac Day goes beyond the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli in 1915. It is the day on which we remember Australians who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. The spirit of Anzac, with its human qualities of courage, mateship, and sacrifice, continues to have meaning and relevance for our sense of national identity”. Of course the way we love to celebrate is to have a public holiday – who doesn’t like a day off work. So this Friday we have another long weekend (I’m just getting over the Easter long weekend).
Here is a little card I made for this special day –
My grandfather landed in Gallipoli during the 1st world war and my dad served in the Airforce in the 2nd world war, so this is for them.
Thank you to all those who have served for us.
Lest we forget.
Our family went to the footy on Saturday because 2 of the teams that we barrack for were playing. Didn’t matter that they are the 2 furthest from the top of the ladder ie. bottom 😦
Here are some photos from our day out at the MCG.
A DEMONS supporter 🙂 (Melbourne)
A BLUES supporter 🙂 (Carlton)
A BLUES supporter (but I’d rather do anything else but watch the game)
The crowd was 30,00 which I guess isn’t a bad size but the MCG holds 90,000+ so it only seemed to be a small crowd.
Neither team had won a match this season (and we were into the 4th round). Here is the final score.
We had a great time, the sun was shining and at least half the family was happy with the result. No the result didn’t really matter to us it was good to be together for a fun day.
Bye for now,
Today over at Cuddly Buddly their next challenge is open. The theme this month is Diamonds and/or Pearls.
Here is an introduction to my contribution.
A cute circle easel card. Not the usual way I make an easel card but I had to leave enough room for the large pearl. NB – I’m in love with the Pearl Markers ♥♥♥.
Here is the box I made to hold the card.
The Cuddly Buddly blog has all the instructions and more photos. Why not pop over and take a look at what the design team have for you this month.
Bye for now,
I’ve had a lovely afternoon playing with paper dolls. Even at my age I still love playing with them. I used to have several sets when I was in primary school but my favourite was a family of 8 children with wonderful clothes. They must have been made in USA because a couple of the names where Chuck and Babs, definitely not Australian names. I wish I knew the name of the set and could locate them now for old times’ sake.
The paper doll I have been playing with today is from Prima’s range of doll stamps, and she is one of a few I have. They are big stamps and I wanted to do something different rather than a tag so here is my gift bag –
I used a couple of techniques on the bag which I hadn’t tried before. I hand stitched along the top of the panel and I’m quite pleased that it didn’t take long and looks good. Stencils are very popular now but I just hadn’t got around to trying them until today. I just started simply with a wire stencil and paste. I’m very happy with the result and you will probably see this technique again and again on my projects 🙂
Here is a closer photo of the doll. I stamped her onto some text paper. I then coloured her with Copics and paper pieced her dress and head band. Her dress was embossed which is difficult to see but it has a pretty effect.
This is the bag I started with (I had bought 1/2 dozen months ago and hadn’t used them, so it is good to see that they can be dressed up quite easily).
Bye for now,
Today I’m showing you another (and last) wedding card I’ve made.
To make this card I have used –
- Prima Flowers “Amore Frost” heart
- Digi stamp from Tiffany Doodles “Lacey Heart” and sentiment “Happy I do day”
- Embossing folder from Couture Creations “Hedged Maze”
I took the photo before the glue on the ribbon tales had dried so you can still see it through the ribbon but now it is dried I’m pleased that you can’t notice it. I wanted to glue the tales in place because the ribbon is the crinkly type and they were flopping around and not looking pretty at all.
Well that’s it for wedding cards for the moment but I will be back soon with something else I’ve been working on.
Bye for now,
As promised, here is my second wedding card. I’ve actually made 3 but I haven’t heard so I’m thinking they will be going into my stash and that’s ok, always handy to have on hand.
I saw this card on Pinterest and loved the design so “cased it”. Just changed a couple of things but mostly left the design alone.
It’s very difficult to get the shimmer of the matt silver card to show but I tried a different angle.
And finally I placed the photo lying down and shot from above.
The dies are from Memory Box “La Rue Heart” and “Bella Bouquet”. They are so delicate and beautiful.
Bye for now,
I’ve been asked to make a wedding card but its been a while since I’ve made one (in fact a little while since I’ve made any card) and I’m not feeling confident. Today I’ll show you the first card I’ve made using the MFT Champagne glass dies. I’ve made it in pink but you could make it any colour.
It was difficult to get the colours right in the photos. It must be the silver sparkly card which causes the problems.
I have another card to show you tomorrow, so bye for now,
Today Cuddly Buddly have opened their new monthly Craft Challenge (and there are prizes) 😆 Each month the “Teamies” will be crafting (with tutorials) to a different theme. The crafting theme this month is FEATHERS.
Here is a bit of a sneak peek at my “Feathers” project –
Why not pop over to Cuddly Buddly and have a look at the tutorial for my project and see what gorgeous projects the other Team Members have created – here
Bye for now,
It’s a hard life but someone has to do it…. te he he 😆 Last week my dh and I flew to the Gold Coast, Queensland to babysit for our son’s 2 children. They are both at school now so after they were dropped at school at 8:30 am we were free to do whatever we liked until pick up time at 3 pm. The first day we meandered from Broadbeach down along the coast to Coolongatta. We stopped at most beaches along the way but this was my favourite –
Looking north towards Surfers Paradise. How wonderful, superb beaches with hardly a soul on them.
Looking south with Coolangatta in the far distance.
The beach was only used by a few surfers, paddle boarders and walkers. You might spot a few black spots in the water, they are surfers waiting for a good wave.
I was very impressed by this section of the coast because of the beach and also because the traffic was minimal. I told my son that I loved Nobby’s beach. He said I had very expensive taste and that it was one of the dearest spots on the Gold Coast for property. Then my second choice was Kira, once again expensive taste. 😦
The day before we flew home we went to a restaurant at Broadbeach and this was our meal –
A small crayfish, Morton Bay bugs, scallops, prawns, mussels, oysters, baby octopus, calamari, fish, chips, salad and fruit. Wow our jaws dropped! It was supposed to be for 4 but I think 6 would be more like it.
Now back to normal life and card making.
Bye for now,
Cards & Co
Cards & Co 