I wish all my readers a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Will see you again next week, not sure when as yet as I don’t have any plans – isn’t that nice to just take one day at a time.
I have some photos of our garden to show you today and I thought I would show you the New Zealand Christmas Tree – Pōhutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) first.
and now a couple of protea
and some lavender
The photos are very glary but I quite like the effect. I think it really shows how hot it has been the last couple of days (in the 30°’s C – what’s that about 90°’s F).
Hope your Christmas break is happy, peaceful and most of all revitalising for 2012.
Santa and the elves would be checking who has been “naughty or nice” right about now I’m guessing.
Here is proof –
I’m going to open the list ……
Ah ha, so you have been ………..
Aren’t these photos of one of my dgs just so cute. Everyone saw Awwww.
Not long to wait now, how many sleeps?
Bye for now,
It’s ATC time again – well a bit earlier this time because of the Christmas holidays. The theme for December is “TIME“. What to do – clocks? Perhaps we might all choose to do that, so what else? Onto the internet to get some inspiration – nothing that caught my attention until “Like sands through the hourglass so are the days of our lives”. This is what I came up with –
A Shaker card.
The dp is from Graphic 45 ” Times Nouveau”.
I raided the sand from the grandchildren’s sandpit. Of course we had just had heavy rain so tried drying it in the microwave – not good, very smelly, so then just had to wait for it to dry naturally. To finish it off I just added a little bit of sparkle to the sand.
Now I’m just hoping that it all stays together because sand was getting everywhere even onto the glue. Fingers crossed.
Bye for now,
This card is my first attempt at “Iris Folding” so don’t look too closely :lol:. This year a couple of friends and I would get together once a month to have a “crafty” day when we would show each other different techniques and ideas. This is one that we had been looking forward to but as Christmas drew closer, didn’t get a chance to try. So thank you friend, here is my attempt:
Over the years I have been given some beautiful Japanese papers and have collected some myself. So this was the perfect chance to look through them and choose a couple to use. I would love some other ideas to use them because I have some lovely papers. Any ideas??????
Bye for now,
I came, I saw, I shopped – How true is that for many of us at this time of the year. Have you noticed in stores that when shoppers hand over their precious little plastic cards and they are asked “is that credit or savings” the answer is most often “credit”. OOhhh there are going to be some headaches in the new year for some.
After the rush to get ready for the markets, it is nice now to be able to use some of the things I had started but didn’t have a chance to finish. I had the basic for some notebooks almost ready to go and last night I stamped and coloured and finished this – even had time to make a mini card to go with it. It will go to a good home in January.
Bye for now,
I’m back – not with Christmas projects but with some fun all the same.
I bought 2 large clothes pegs (which were on sale) months ago and they have been sitting there until I finished all my Christmas projects. So today it was time to jazz them up a bit.
Rubber stamps are wonderful but there are times when digital stamps come in very handy. Their sizes can be changed to suit the project and these two great images by Kenny K (Movie Star and Diva) where just what I wanted. What do you think, do they have attitude? I don’t think these girls would appreciate being put on the refrigerator to hold notes, but nevertheless that’s were they’re going.
I painted the pegs then added magnets to the back. (The magnets were old advertising calendars which I stripped the front from and then glued). Some pretty dp was added then the images which I had coloured with Copics. Finally I added a variety of flowers from my stash and “ta-dah” 2 pretty fridge magnets which I can use to hold notes etc.
Here they are –
Bye for now,
There are definitely a lot of acronyms out there and “CASEd” is one that I see often. I have found the meanings of a few which you might find interesting.
- ABC = Anything But a Card,
- ATC = Artist Trading Cards,
- BFF = Best Friends Forever,
- BIL = Brother-in-law (etc. with the in-laws = m=motherinlaw, etc.),
- CAS = Clean & Simple – card style – minimalistic,
- CASE = Copy and Share Everything,
- DD = Darling Daughter,
- DH = Darling Husband,
- DP = Designer Paper,
- DS = Darling Son,
- DSP = Double-Sided Paper,
- EP = Embossing Powder,
- LOL = Laugh Out Loud,
- RAK = Random Acts of Kindness,
- ROFL = Rolling on the Floor Laughing,
- TFL = Thanks For Looking,
- TFS = Thanks For Sharing
There are many, many more I know. Perhaps you would like to share some more with the rest of us?!
So after all of that here is my CASEd card –
and here is the original card from the Penny Black Catalogue (click on the image to go to the website) –
There are a few things which I changed from the original card and I think it has a different feel to it. I love the original but I’m also pleased with my interpretation.
That is my last Christmas card for this year – woo hoo. Tonight I will address the envelopes and post them off tomorrow. It’s a weight off my shoulders each year when I finally put the cards in the slot of the post box.
Bye for now,
Hark the herald angels sing ….. I think this would be the Christmas carol that an angel would sing, don’t you? The stamp I have used for this card was almost my first ever. I’m trying to remember where I bought it and the only thing that springs to mind is a scrapbooking shop in Geelong (it’s not there any more). Was it “something” Cottage? I thought it was so clever at the time because it also had a smaller stamp with it which had the angel’s hands holding either a hymn book or candle. I dusted it off and inked it up for this card –
I also used a stamp and die from Whimsy Stamps for the sentiment. The clouds are die cut from felt with a die from MFT. The lacy edge is a punch from Martha Stewart.
Oops 😳 just realised that I hadn’t shaded her hair in this photo. Don’t worry I will do that before I post if off.
I haven’t finished my last shaped card but should complete it tonight. We’ll see.
Bye for now,
Well these little “stocking” cards wouldn’t hold much but I still think they are cute. Instead of hanging it from the chimney I hope the card will be set on the mantel in the home of the person I am sending the card to.
I found a free template for the stocking on this site http://www.birdscards.com/. Thanks to Bird.
The paper is from the Kaisercraft “Dear Santa Collection” (a couple of years old now – yes I’m still trying to use up some of my great stash of papers).
The tag is die cut with Spellbinder dies and the sentiment is from a Hero Arts clear set.
Hope you enjoyed today’s shaped card. Hint … have another shaped card tomorrow (or the next day) to show you. I think that will just about be the end of the Christmas cards for this year. Must get them posted so my friends don’t have to wait until the new year to receive them :roll:.
Bye for now,
No cards today but a lovely colourful photo of my dh and one of my dgs at the local Agricultural Show a couple of weeks ago. dd invited us to come along with them, can’t say I was excited at the thought of it, but it turned out to be a very happy day.
I love the look on his face on the first photo – giving the clown a sneaky side-long glance. When I look at the photos I think that the clowns look a bit scary 😮 but all kids seem to love them don’t they? It was hard to eat healthily (a word?) but we didn’t go crazy. We saw a ukulele band, elvis impersonator, motor bike dare devils, farm animals and the usual rides and side shows. We also had a quick look at the CWA hall with the cakes and needle work – the numbers this time were well down from when we used to go as children.
I am working on my own Christmas cards at the moment so will have some to show you soon.
Oh by the way – had no trouble downloading the photos today – I’ve no idea what the problem was but it appears to be fixed without any help from me.
Bye for now,
Kids love little suprises. I thought these treats could be hung on their bedroom doors on Christmas Eve, birthdays, or any other special days. The photos of the christmas door hangers don’t do them justice really. I am so please withthe results.
The original tutorial came from Paul at Crafty Blogocks. Thanks Paul for your generosity in sharing this tutorial.
Guess what? I know you will be shocked! NO STAMPING or COPICS used on this project. The papers and stickers are from Jillibean Soup “Christmas Eve Chowder. I think they worked perfectly for these little hangers.
Mars Bars and Twix fit perfectly into the covers. I suppose there will be others that fit in also.
I have had to use another laptop computer to add the photos to this post but at least it worked. Hope I can work out what is wrong with my computer soon.
Bye for now,
Lorraine
I know – I haven’t posted for days, sorry – having so much trouble with trying to add photos to this blog – grrrrrrr :x. I don’t know what is wrong but will see if it sorts itself out over the next couple of days.
Here is some VG news anyway (without photos – grrrrr again).
My dd and dsil have just added a new granddaughter to our family. Her sweet little name is Ivy. Welcome Ivy XOX . (Hopefully I will be able to add some photos soon – double grrrrrrr).
Be back soon, or not – who knows whether this will be resolved soon, hope so.
Lorraine
You might have guessed that I am still working on little projects for the markets and that is why I am not posting regularly, that and life in general.
Well to keep you interested here is a quick post of some little gifts I thought would be perfect for the end of year for children to give to their teachers or even one another.
Here are my “chocolate pencils” –
I had a lot of fun making these and I hope they will be popular. Don’t forget (for those in the Ballarat region) that Pleasant Street Primary School are holding their Christmas Market this Friday, 2nd November, 5 – 9 pm. Cnr Pleasant Street and Wendouree Parade, Ballarat. I am having a stall there so I hope to see you – would love you to introduce yourself to me.
That’s all for now,
Weeks ago I spotted this beautiful card [click here] on the Hero Arts site. I have taken 3 or 4 days stressing over my card. I have made 3 christmas trees with the buttons and bling but then couldn’t put them in layouts that I liked. I finally made this card, but I’m still not sure –
Somewhere 😳 I have some more pretty bling, dew drops with snowflakes in them, when, if I find them they will be discretely added to a corner. I remember thinking that they could easily get lost because they were in a very small package – grrrr.
Well that is all for now,
When starting to organize my thoughts about this post I decided that it would be a good idea to find out a bit more about the Christmas Carol “O Christmas Tree”, which came to mind when I made my ATC’s for this month – “Christmas” (for both groups).
The following is from Wikipedia –
“O Tannenbaum”, or, in its English version, “O Christmas Tree”, is a Christmas carol of German origin.The best known version was written in 1824 by the Leipzig organist, teacher and composer Ernst Anschütz. The melody is an old folk tune (Lauriger Horatius). The first known “Tannenbaum” song lyrics date back to 1550. A similar 1615 song by Melchior Franck (1573–1639). ”
Enough about that – here are my 2 sets of ATC’s for November – Same design just slightly different colours –
I had no clue what I was going to do for the ATC “Christmas” theme until 2 days ago. I stumbled across a lovely card through the Hero Arts site and decided that it was possible to CASE it into a smaller version. The Christmas Tree is a Hero Arts Digi Stamp so that is how I was able to make the tiny version. Gotta love those digis.
In “real life” they are just so sweet (or I think so anyway 😉 ).
Bye for now,
Cards & Co
Cards & Co 