Hi all. Here is a card for a friend who must wonder if I am a friend at all because I didn’t wish her a Happy Birthday on Facebook. I’m not much of a Facebook-er but I will have to improve. My friend’s birthday is only a couple of days before mine and I was embarrassed when she was quite elaborate with her Facebook wishes.
Yes it is a shaker card. I used one of the “Crazy Cats” from Stampers Anonymous. I think they are great fun. It is a new stamp set for me and I can’t wait to use them again.
The window die is from Poppy Stamps and the beautiful sequin mix is from “Lucy’s Cards“. She has some really beautiful mixes.
Bye for now,
Another year older …. not sure about wiser. 🙂
Instead of the usual birthday cake I made a blueberry yogurt cheese cake …. yummy. Last weekend I made a lemon (non dairy) cake….. delish. So you see I got to celebrate twice. Lucky old me.
Here are some gorgeous flowers I received –
Tulips at this time of the year. How do they do that?
Beautiful bouquet with proteas, roses, gerberas, etc.
Who remembers this game. When I was a child – a few years ago now 🙂 my family on my mum’s side would all gather at our home on Christmas Eve and one of the things we did each year was play Chinese Checkers. It was a tradition and everyone loved it. My grandfather was quite serious about it and you had to have adult help until you could play properly. Now perhaps we will be able to carry on that tradition for our family.
Thank you to my family and friends for the good wishes.
Bye for now,
Good morning everyone. As promised yesterday I have something other than a tag to show you. Today’s card is Gold Embossed and then Water Coloured and I am very pleased with the outcome. Hope you enjoy it too.
I used the stamp from IndigoBlu “Blazing Poppies”. I changed my poppies into anemones (or at least something along that line) by colouring them mauve.
I stamped onto watercolour paper with VersaMark ink and heat embossed the image with gold embossing powder. This gave it a beautiful shine which you can see more clearly in the photo below.
The next step was to brush water all over the embossed image. Then I used Distress pens and spotted colour around the centre of the flowers washing it out to the edges of the flower with a water pen. The foliage was done in exactly the same way but adding more water to create a softer effect.
I let it dry completely and then stamped a sentiment and matted it onto purple and gold card stock and finally adhered it to the front of a white card. Not much work for such a pretty effect I think.
Bye for now,
This will be the last Tag post for the time being. You probably would like to see something different by now. Do you want to guess what the themes were for January and February or will I just tell you?
Well January’s theme was “Beach/Ocean”. I remembered I had several mermaid stamps from a while ago from the stamp company “CC Designs”. The mermaid I decided on was “Shimmer Redkelp”. I chose her because of the size of the stamp. It fitted nicely on the tag.
Remembering that I had them and finding them were 2 different things. That begs the question – how do you store your rubber and clear stamps? I’m struggling to find the best method. Currently I put them under the stamp company name but then you have to remember what you have and who designed them. I have a LOT of stamps so that is a real problem.
February’s theme was “orange”. Pretty wide open that one. I struggled…… Finally I decided to use a bird stamp which the colour orange could be added to. As I said I struggled.
I have more tags made up but I will show you some other cards first so you have some variety.
Bye for now,
I hope you aren’t tired of seeing my tags because here I go again with November and December. Guessing the themes for today is very easy. Actually you don’t have to guess just read.
November is “Happy New Year – with silver/gold”.
December was “ANZAC- with metal”
You will notice that I have been using up quite a few scraps of ribbon and twine and that is a good thing (still have boxes to go).
That is 2015 tags finished but I still have January and February from this year to show you.
See you tomorrow,
Continuing the Themed Tag Swap from yesterday here are my next 2 months of tags.
Once again, can you guess the themes?
Below is the tag for September. The theme was “At the Races – Black & White with 1 other colour” – I chose Gold. The horse looks like a bit of a hack so I wouldn’t plan on winning any time soon. 😀 Thought of “fashions on the field” and some of the outstanding hats for the top of the tag.
The theme for October was “Christmas in Australia”. You can’t really read the sentiment but it says “Warm Christmas Wishes” which I thought was appropriate for our weather. I tried to make the flowers look like gum flowers (kind of).
These were such fun again. I just love this tag swap idea. Fun, fun, fun. I’ll show you more tomorrow.
Bye for now,
Since July last year a crafty group of friends and I have been involved in a “Themed Tag Swap”. I thought I might show you over the next week, what I have been making each month. Today I’ll show you July and August’s tags.
Can you guess the themes?
Here is a closeup of July’s tag.
Christmas (non traditional colours)
Below is the August tag.
Spring (with a cloud/sun)
I have enjoyed the challenge very much. It stretches you a little and that has to be good for the brain. 🙂 It is also a good way to use up some of my stash.
Bye for now,
Well today I’m back with a card to enter into a competition at Scrapbook Boutique. The stunning “Mood Board” was very tempting.
This is my take –
Pretty much covered the red and gold theme I think, then I’ve added some beautiful orchids embossed on vellum and fussy cut.
I coloured the background water colour paper with Ranger Distress Inks and Re-inkers and then added some sheen by spritzing lightly with gold spray. Doesn’t show up well in the photo sorry.
I used – black card stock, gold card stock, water colour paper, vellum, Altenew stamp set “Oriental Orchid”, Ranger distress inks, Ranger Re-inkers, Gold embossing powder, VersaMark Ink, Glue dots, double sided tape, glue, black ink.
Well that’s it for today. Hope you pop over the Scrapbook Boutique to see the gorgeous “Mood Board” and the other entries and ideas.
Bye for now,
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” The well known opening to “Star Wars” was my inspiration (plus a beautiful card created on the Altenew Blog) for my Grandson’s Birthday Card.
His present, which he should have by now, is a set of Lego-like Star Wars figures. So I thought this card would fit the bill.
I used: Altenew Stamps, Distress inks, Black and Purple Card stock, Water colour card, White Gel Pen, 2 x Kaisercraft Pearls, Circle Dies, Image of Millennium Falcon from the web
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I spritzed the water colour card with water, then sponged 3 colours of Distress Ink onto it and gave it another light spray. When it was dry I splashed some water on it and dried it with a heat gun. Using a White Gel pen I added some random dots (stars). I stamped the sentiment in black and stamped out 4 “moons” in 4 different colours. I die cut the moons with 3 different size circle dies and added to the card. 2 dark pearls are supposed to represent orbiting moons (don’t know if that really worked). I attached 2 of the moons with foam tape to give some dimension. The “Millennium Falcon” was an image found on the web. I printed it on gloss paper, fussy cut it and added it to the card with foam tape. The last job was to mat the card with purple card and attach it to the black card base.
I enjoyed making this little fantasy scene and recommend you try one for yourself.
Bye for now,
Yesterday we were lucky enough to attend The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Melbourne.
A few facts: It is only the 4th time it has been held outside of Edinburgh. There are 1,200 performers. The director for the Melbourne performances has directed the past 3 Tattoos in Edinburgh. A tattoo is a military performance of music or display of armed forces in general. The term comes from the early 17th century Dutch phrase doe den tap toe (“turn off the tap”), a signal sounded by drummers or trumpeters to instruct innkeepers near military garrisons to stop serving beer and for soldiers to return to their barracks.
We didn’t know any of these facts before we went along and didn’t need to – we just sat and enjoyed the spectacle. It was wonderful. We took a dear friend with us and she even shed a tear or two.
As a side entertainment I watched a very cheeky seagull steal the limelight. Australian ovals often have seagull intruders. Do you remember Steven the Seagull at the cricket? Well I’m not sure if this was Steven but if it wasn’t he had been inspired by him.
Can you spot him in each of these photos (just)? I’m sure he thought he was directing the performers, or was he just enjoying the music? He didn’t fly away until the finale when all the performers were on the arena and there wasn’t much wriggle room left for him.
I have dozens and dozens of photos but I won’t bore you with them all.
Bye for now,
Today’s card set were great fun to make and I could have just kept trying different colour combos but I had to stop somewhere. 🙂
The background is created using 2 shades of Gelatos, the lighter shade as a circle in the middle and the darker shade around the outside. The next step is to give a quick spritz with water and blend with your finger (my preference) or applicator.
After the background has completely dried I stamped and then stenciled. My final step was to add some glimmer with gold spray. Here’s a closeup to highlight the beautiful shimmer.
This wonderfully talented lady was my inspiration. Thank you for sharing your inspirational work Eileen. I would love to attend one of your workshops but the distance makes it impossible. 😦
I have quite a few Lavinia stamps and Sweet Poppy dies so this was the perfect way to use quite a few.
That’s all for today,
Today I have another wedding card to show you. A Thank You card on Pinterest caught my eye and I had to see if I could make a similar Wedding card.
I think it is simple and beige and white always look classy don’t you think. Always good to have some extra cards in the stash especially different occasions.
I used: white card stock, beige card stock, wide white lace, beige satin ribbon, diamante ribbon, “Verve”wedding sentiment.
Very happy with the result and I have a couple of other sample cards I’ll be able to show you soon so the blog is slowly coming out of cobwebs. 😀
Bye for now,
A New Year! A year when I hope to post more often and be more involved with my blog again. Let’s hope this resolution will last longer than just this post 😆
This card is to go with a gift for a gorgeous newly married couple. I tried to coordinate the gold and light blue colours with the wrapping.
I used the beautiful (and very versatile) stamp “Roses all Over”. I was introduced to this stamp by a dear crafty friend and I thank her so much because I can see using it very often.
Supplies: Pale blue Bazzill card stock, Gold card stock, White card stock, Vellum, Distress Ink “Tumbled Glass”, MFT stamp “Roses all Over, Verve stamp from the set “Love Story, Gold Embossing Powder, Gold Thread, Memory Box “Peace Doves” die, Metallic Melts, Couture creations Gemstones.
Bye for now,
We have given our Christmas presents early this year because we were able to get everyone together last weekend. Thank you to all our family for such a great weekend. It was lovely! We were given a popcorn maker and blu ray movies – so I am anticipating some movie nights at home. yipee.
The popcorn maker and hot weather (over and above 32ºC for the past few days and more on the way) made me think of this cartoon –
Inside is the best place to be at the moment for everyone (including corn). The only other place which is good in this weather is the water, but I’m thinking that might not be the best for corn either. 🙂
Bye for now,
Cards & Co
Cards & Co 