Scrapchat's April Photoswap Layout

Well, my guests are both sleeping, it's a beautiful day, the two dogs are quiet, DH is at work, and I got my layout done for Vanessa!! Isn't Liam a cute little boy? I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I used Gypsyangel's April sketch challenge at Scrapchat for this layout. That's Cosmo Cricket background paper, Stampin' Up!'s Bold Brights and Rich Regals cardstock, and I used some red buttons from my stash along with the four leaf clovers on the corners of the quote. I tied the buttons on with black Stampin' Up! cord. I used a mat pack to do the piercing and Creative Memories pens to create the stitching details. I also used Creative Memories letters to spell Liam. And I searched the Internet for the Irish proverb and the meaning of his name.

Look what Ness did!

Over at Scrapchat we had a photo swap this month. I sent the lovely Ness a picture of me when I was a young 'un and she made this gorgeous page out of it. It arrived in the mail today! I want to share it with you.

I am working on a beautiful photo of Ness' little boy and will upload it for you as soon as it is ready too :-)

I have had a pause in my crafting as I have elderly visitors - they need lots of TLC and are here for over a week, so I will get back to crafting when their visit is over. Take care, everyone!

Creative Cooking

Are you creative in other ways than with cards and scrapbooking or photography? Sometimes it feels good to do something a little different. I had a BBQ to go to today in honour of Anzac Day and so I tried out some yummy sounding cupcakes, recipe courtesy of my cyberfriend Gypsyangel. They are chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips, and I varied the way I finished them by including raspberry jam in the middle and frosting them with chocolate butter cream. Gypsy's way sounded divine but I had no chocolate to make mousse for the filling, or two tones of chocolate to melt and drizzle on top as she suggested.

Oh and there is paper in this project after all - the paper cases!

Stipple rose

I love this rose stamp and thought it would be appropriate for my good friend who lost her mother this week. I also used words from the God's blessings set. It's set on Ballet blue, Whisper white and Barely banana cardstock, and the inks were Ballet blue and Not quite navy. I used a blender pen with the Stampin' pastels and a silver gel pen to highlight. The silver rivetts were set after I slit punched the corners and folded them back.

Do you like coffee?

I just found a new forum where you can find out everything you want to know about good coffee. If you like good coffee, take a look at the forum here and tell me what you think!

Oh, and Suzanne, this is where I think you could find some spare coffee grounds. LoL!

Now for something completely kitsch

Blogs need to have variety, don't you think? With that idea in mind, I was surfing some craft sites today and there is a lot of talk about recycling things we would normally throw away. One item really caught my fancy. I am not sure I would actually try this, but did you know you can make kids bracelets out of your old toothbrushes?? Click here for an idea from Kaboose.com about how to do it, or just type 'toothbrush bracelets' in your search engine.

Oh and please show me a picture if you do decide to try this out!

Xygocacti in bloom

It's the time of year when the Xygocacti bloom. They fascinate me. These pictures were begging me to share them, so after resisting for awhile, I gave in and here they are for you. It's a day for flowers in our house anyway, and when I saw Wordsworth's Daffodil poem on Chriss' blog, that clinched it for me about these pictures. Hope you like them.

UPDATE: Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments about the loss of my friend. I truly appreciated it.

Farewell to Anne

My friend Anne passed away last night. We had known each other for more than 30 years, so I am sad today. I thought I would share a beautiful bunch of roses with you as Anne loved roses. These were given to me by another lovely friend of mine who is now in her 90s.

It was a priviledge to know Anne. She was a special woman who I will miss from my life.

Take care and be thankful for your friendships. I am thankful for yours.

Bingo!

I made a card for the Sisterhood of Scrap challenge talked about on Pearl's blog. Find out how to download your own Bingo Cards at Pearl's blog. Now I have not played Bingo more than a handful of times in my life, but a Bingo card sure makes an interesting greeting card addition! I added a hidden message for the recipient on the orange tag behind the card. That's a recycled ring pull from a softdrink can on the tag with some ribbon and some recycled buttons from my stash on the Bingo card. I blinged up the 'Bingo' word with some Crystal Effects. All the lettering and doodling has been done by hand with various felt and gel pens. I used my Crop-a-dile to set the eyelets and a pair of deckle edged scissors to cut the top.

Cardstock is all from the Bold Bright range by Stampin' Up!

Sisterhood of Scrap Crop!

Pearl has issued a challenge to make a layout using a Bingo Card or numbers on your page. It's all part of the Sisterhood of Scrap week-long crop, which is coming to a close today. I should have posted about this earlier - sorry, Pearl! I let time get away from me.

Instead of a layout, I am making a card with a Bingo Card on it. Will post it later when it is finished :-)

Sale!

I received an email from Lyn this afternoon with a nice discount offer at her online store. I've bought from Lyn before and she gave me great service. If you would like to take advantage of the savings, here are the details:

"Hi Ladies,
Today I am having a 25% off sale on any order over $30.00 (before postage)
Simply put the code SALE in the coupon box at the checkout to get your discount
Thank Lyn
PS( pass onto your friends that may be interested!).


A Passion For Craft
Online scrapbookingand craft store.
www.apassionforcraft.com.au "

Fishing Day

No paper craft today! It doesn't mix too well with fish guts and ocean spray. We took our boat out on Mourilyan Harbour even though the winds were a little strong. I like the ocean when the wind is blowing between 5 - 10 knots but today it was blowing 15 - 20 knots. I thought it was a little scary in our little boat. I lasted a couple of hours before seasickness kicked in, and in that time we had a lot of fun. There were Reef Sharks out there today and boy do they fight! We must have snagged about 8 of them (all about 2.5' long for the US readers, or over half a metre metric ) and we let them all go as we cannot use that much fish. We did keep two nice Tailor and brought them home for some friends. We love the fishing part, but often aren't so keen on the cooking and eating, so we try to only bring home what we know people will want. That's what we did this trip. Then I got a call from a friend this afternoon who would have taken all 8 of the sharks unfortunately, but they are all out there growing bigger instead.

Thank you, Chriss!!

DH and I just stepped out to rescue a family friend whose car battery had died, and we happened to check the mail. It was a lovely surprise to find the blog candy I won from Chriss waiting for me there!! Thank you so much, Chriss! The chocolate bar was an unexpected pleasure (how did you know I was a chocoholic??) and now I have three lovely Artist Trading Cards made by Nicky Hall! They are my first ever ATCs. Hmmm. I think I am beginning to see why people find ATCs so addictive...both to make AND to receive!

Oh, and don't forget about making some cards for the Daniel George Fund!

How to make Paper Leaves and Stems

To finish off your paper roses, choose some green paper that coordinates with the colour of your flowers. Cut some thin wavy lines for stems (I used the Creative Memories wavy cutter for this).

To make the leaves:

1. Punch out some heart shapes - each heart will make two leaves. I used the Creative Memories Heart Punch for this, but you could use any heart shape you like.

2. Cut the hearts in half.

3. Trim the two pieces to leaf shapes.

4. I used a gold pen to draw in the leaf veins.

5. Arrange your stems, flowers and leaves to suit your page.

Please feel free to give me constructive criticism about whether or not these instructions were easy to follow! Thanks!

How to make Paper Roses

The little paper roses I made for a page layout a couple of days ago are easy to make. I was taught how to do this by a Creative Memories consultant, Vanessa. For those of you wanting to make your own, here are the instructions.


Start with some thin designer paper that you have cut or punched into smallish squares (if you want smallish flowers). I used the Creative Memories square punch, the largest square. If you use thick cardstock, it is a lot harder to fold your flowers flat.

For each flower:

1. Fold a square point to point, then unfold and do the same with the other points, so you wind up with a square that has a 'cross' in it. Make your folds really crisp and as accurate as possible - use a bone folder to crease if you have one.

2. Unfold your square and fold the points all in to the centre.

3. Unfold your square. Pinch it together to make the shape shown and crease well.

4. Fold two points up towards the point (not down, unless you want a more elongated shaped flower) to make the petals - widen them out so you have a 'middle' to the flower.

5. Fold the other two points up to meet in the middle of the back of the flower. You don't want them to show so they should be as close together as possible. Place some adhesive on the back and stick the back folds to the flower to make it flatter.

6. Cut some thin, green strips of paper and fold over the bottom of the flower to form the base. Stick them down at the back and trim the ends so they don't show when the flower is turned over.



I then used a gold pen to embellish the flowers a bit more. You could use the same colour pen instead, to cover any white bits still showing.

Crafts on the Net - Daniel George Fund

Do you have a bunch of cards that you've made but don't have a destination? Feel like making some cards but don't have a reason to do so? Why not make some cards for charity? Chriss told me about a worthy cause. At Crafts on the Net you can find out how to make cards for a young man named Daniel George. He doesn't know anyone is making cards for him, as the money raised will be used to help send him and his parents on a break. I am going to make a few, possibly using designs from Sheetload of Cards. Thanks to Suzanne, I discovered you can subscribe to their newsletter and learn how to make a stack of cards quickly with some great sketches and cutting guides.

Back later!

April Circle Journal

This month I had to make a double paged layout in a Circle Journal from Scrapchat entitled 'Pieces of Me'. The instructions included answering a series of questions about yourself. I even had a dream about how to complete these pages. My dream was better than the reality it became, but hey, I got the idea that way!!

Paper Flowers

While I was rescuing some photos from an ancient album, I came across pictures of me on my 9th birthday. It was a special birthday because I had this most fantastic cake - it was decorated with delicate pink plastic ballerinas and roses and the sides were smothered in pink coconut. (I think I wanted to be a ballerina at the time!) I thought it was the prettiest thing in the world. So I scrapped a page about it. I learned how to make little paper roses at the same time.

More Blog Candy!

Nardi at Card By Nard is hosting a Blog Candy giveaway. Generous girl! You'll enjoy seeing her creations too so please go on over and say 'hi'. Oh - you do have to post about one of your faourite RAKs to enter the draw :-)

ATCs and Me Blog Candy

Chriss at ArtistTradingCards and Me is giving away some great blog candy - just take a look at it! I have already entered. Why don't you enter too? I copied and pasted the 'rules' for entry for you below, but go on over to Chriss' blog to check out her great collection of ATCs as well. You'll need to go there to enter! Here are Chriss' rules for entry:

"WOW... we have some charm-ing Blog Candy give away which is up for grabs and if you would like to be in with a chance to own this fantastic prize all you have to do is take a good look at the Treasure Island ATC created by Karen which is further down the page. You will see 2 charms that she has used as embellishments, click onto http://www.scrapz.co.uk/ and find the price of the... Skull and Crossbones ... when you have found it leave me a comment on my blog saying you wish to be entered into the blog candy draw, then email me the correct price at chrissylamata@live.co.ukthe lucky winner will be picked at random on Sunday the 13th April. GOOD LUCK to you all. Thanx to Karen for her very generous gift :))Luv Chriss x"

More cards for Mother's Day

Hi there. Apologies for my absence the last couple of days. I was caught up with family matters. All is well!

Today I managed to make four more cards for the Mother's Day stall and packaged them up to send off. Now all I have to do is make my own Mother's Day cards. At least I have had plenty of practice lately!

I based these cards on some of Nicola's My Paper World sketch challenges - notably sketch challenges Nos 4 and 7. Stamps used are from Stampin' Up!'s 'Merci' and 'Friendship Blooms'. The decorative papers are from Urban Lily and Stella Ruby. Ribbon, brads and inks/pastels are from Stampin' Up! and the flowers were bought from an online store called A Passion for Craft. I added a few extra accents with some Creative Memories metallic pens.

Another Mother's Day card

I decided to finish another Mother's Day card for my small friend's stall. This is similar to the last one, but even with similar papers, the card still manages ot look different because of the image and placement of the sentiment etc. I like this one a little better for some reason, in real life. Everything is practically the same from yesterday's card except the stamped image - it's from Nice n Easy Notes made by Stampin' Up! (a retired set now, unfortunately). I used Nicola's sketch #7 again, too.

Art Award

A wonderfully talented and special lady........Lee........has awarded me a VERY amazing award!!!

It is given to bloggers who share their art and creativity making their contribution to the blogging world. Wow.

Here are the rules:

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Lee.......who's own blog is a absolutely wonderful and who faithfully visits my blog and encourages me almost daily...... made my day today! So first........Lee you are OF COURSE tagged back with this! Your blog inspires me (and others too) so much! And your friendship means heaps to me.

I'm going to tag the 5 I'm supposed to...........but you know I love all the blogs I visit!!

1. Nicola from My Paper World

2. Pearl from Maisymary's Findings

3. Suzanne at Stampin' and Kwiltin'

4. Chriss at Artist Trading Cards and Me

5. Andrea at Andrea's World

Enjoy your award, ladies, and I hope everyone who comments on my blog knows how much I appreciate them :-)

Mother's Day Cards

A young friend is attending a school where they are having a card stall for Mother's Day. She asked me to make some cards for the stall. Here's the first one. I used Nicola's Sketch #7 again and have some more in similar colours to make up. The cardstock is Stampin' Up! Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White, and Cord'ination's Harbour, and Urban Lily's Inner Me Collection - Dream. The butterfly is from the Stampin' Up! set 'Merci', and the flowers were given to me. I pinned 'em down with some Bold Bright brads from Stampin' Up! Some paper piercing, colouring with Watercolor Wonders, gold and white gel pens, and hand lettering finished it off.