Paper Topiary Trees

We had a great day at our Memoranza workshop yesterday. There were 17 scrappers who attended and about 24 people who came in to have a look. All in all the four of us who ran the event were pretty content with the result!

I explained to everyone who would listen about how to make a papercraft project I've featured in this post. It's a paper topiary tree. The design came from the USA Creative Memories vaults. I made one or two small changes - added larger and more butterflies for example. Almost all you need for this project are paper punches and scraps of coordinating paper. Find an old plastic flower pot, cover it in paper of your choice. Add rocks to the bottom. Cover a styrofoam ball with paper shapes punched into circles and flowers and pin them in with pearl headed pins. Cut a circle of cardboard to fill in the space above the rocks in the pot and cover it with matching paper. Poke a paper covered length of wooden dowel into the styrofoam ball and thread it through your cardboard circle, then push the lot into the rocks. Twist some florist wire around a pencil and remove the wire from the pencil so you keep the shaped coils in the wire. Add butterfly shapes (I made most of these with heart punches) to one end of the coiled wire and push the other end of the wire into the edges of the pot or into the tree itself as desired. Add a paper flower or two to the front of the pot (the flower was also made with punches - this time I used star shapes) and Voila!

Let me know if you decide to make one of these :-)

Platypus Card

I needed a birthday card for a man who loves platypuses, and what do you know? I found a pattern for making a basic platypus this week! I made the shapes with the Creative Memories custom cutting system. The colouring has been done with Creative Memories pens but almost all the cardstock is Stampin' Up! (Earth Elements) and so is the stamped sentiment (Simple Sketches).

We still don't know when we are moving. It's a bit frustrating as I don't know what to pack and when to get myself ready for the big shift. We will be moving 1695kms (1053.22 miles) away from here so it is pretty important to tie up all loose ends before we go. Maybe tomorrow we will hear about settlement date....

We're moving

Newsflash - we got confirmation of the sale of our house today. It isn't all officially tied up in the contracts etc but we are a step closer to chaotic times.

I will hear in the next few days about when we will need to be out of our current home, and then we can plan for when we will move into our future home. There's a lovely tenant in our future home at the moment, and we need ot give her 2 month's notice, so we could be HOMELESS for a few weeks, us and the two cats and the dog (all geriatrics) and our gear, depending on what we can work out with the buyers.

More later!

Now for something really important (not!) I completed a quiz that tells me what kind of scrapbook paper collection I am - I'm Karen Foster paper, apparently. See what kind of scrap book paper YOU are! Go to this page to take the quiz.

Your Result

You are KAREN FOSTER paper!
The present joys of life you doubly taste by looking back with pleasure on the past.
You love to scrapbook to cherish the memories. Your albums no doubt have a clean natural look to them and for the most part might like to keep in theme with neutral colors and avoid brights.

Have you ever wanted your own web business?

I have been trying something new - creating a web site! If you are passionate about a subject you can make money by building a website about it. The company I am working with has a 'special' on for the next 24 hours if you want to find out more. Let me know if you have any questions about it :-)

I have been finding it easy to follow the step-by-step instructions for building a websitte, even though all I knew about it before was building this Blog. It's a challenge but a lot of fun!

I will let you know when my website is ready for public viewing and maybe you can give me some feedback.

Ballet Days

When my DD was little, she loved to dance. I decided to do some pages of her ballet days. The ballet lessons didn't last too long but I think they had a big impact on her as she still loves movement and dance and music.

I made the embellishments for these pages with punches and metallic pen work but they still look like they need something. What do you suggest? I thought maybe some metallic pen work on the second page to emphasise the swirls...

Suzanne, thanks for your concern. All is well. I have been away from my Blog a lot these last few weeks as I have had live-in visitors. They have gone on their way now (they are travelling in a motor home around Australia) so I might get to do some more craft. I have plans to make a platypus card for a male friend's birthday on Sunday so I will work on that and post it when it is done!

Two Way Open Cards

This evening I spent awhile making two cards for tomorrow. One is for my Mom (I gave her the other one I made last post for her birthday) and since my Sis will be with us tomorrow for lunch too I made one for her. I have been thinking about the lovely card Lee made and after she kindly emailed me the tutorial from Splitcoast Stampers about how to make these, I was all set! The card has two layers that open out - the diagonal fold at the front and a gate fold in the middle where I wrote a message. To make the cards I used similar colours - Certainly Celery, Blush Blossom, Apricot Appeal and Rose Red cardstock, with some stamps from Around the Block and Merci, and some gingham ribbon (all Stampin' Up! products), some different designer papers from my stash and some iridescent inks and gel pens. And of course I used the mat pack for paper piercing. Oh and I crumpled up the paper in the middle layer of the squares card and smudged iridescent ink over the crinkles. And the punches were from Creative Memories. These cards were fun to make and I am sure you could do many, many different things with them. I could imagine putting photos in them as well, for example. There's enough 'real estate' for you to do that :-)

Happy Mother's Day for tomorrow.

Iris Folds!

This afternoon I got a chance to make my mother and mother-in-law each a Mother's Day Card. I searched for something I hadn't done before on Splitcoast Stampers and found an Iris Fold tutorial. It seemed like a nice one and it was really very easy to do! I used Japanese rice paper and Kaisercraft 'Fun in the Sun P207 Frizbee' double sided paper for the folds. The rest of the cardstock is from Stampin' Up! and so are the stamps, the gold embossing powder, inks and ribbons. There's an Icee Jewel in the middle of each flower to add some bling because of Lee's influence - Lol!

I was a bit influenced with the design by Karen at KwernerDesignBlog.

I sure hope our mothers like their cards!

Oh - and for all of you who would like a cupcake from a few posts ago? C'mon over and I'll make you some fresh ones!

Hasties Swamp

I know I haven't offered you any papercraft projects in a while. That's because I have been looking after my visitors who left for the next side trip of their epic road journey today. They return to us on Thursday so perhaps I will get a chance to complete a card or layout or two between now and then. I certainly need to! My mother's birthday is this week, and it's Mother's Day on Sunday.

In the meantime, may I treat you to two lovely photos of wildlife? The Plumed Whistling duck was caught finding its dinner in the cool of the evening at Hasties Swamp. I had no idea I had caught it catching its dinner till I enlarged the photo. See if you can tell what it has caught.

The butterfly (name unknown to me) was expertly captured and gently held by one of my guests, then released after I took its photo to flutter away unharmed. Its translucent wings were so delicate and beautiful.

I hope you enjoy these.

National Scrapbooking Day

Did you know today was National Scrapbooking Day in Australia? Scrapchat has a challenge to honour the day :

Complete a LAYOUT - any size - journaling why you love scrapbooking and/or what it means to you and/or why it is important in your life! You don't have to use any photographs if you don't want. No other requirements...just journal your heart out!

I intend to do something for this. I have till Monday at midnight to complete it ans still have visitors, so maybe it will be a challenge just to find the time! I have been thinking about what scrap booking means to me. Here are soem thoughts:

1. It's a chance for me to be creative
2. It's a chance for me to tell my stories
3. It brings old memories to life again for me and for others in my life
4. It is much nicer to bring our older photos with a new twist for people who share my histiry to see
5. My work sometimes encourages others to renew their memories and photos in a constructive way

What does scrapbooking mean to you?

Look who I was able to photograph in my front yard yesterday

This White Cheeked Honeyeater was sending out distress signals yesterday, so much so that she attracted not only every person in my house, but my old ginger tabby cat, about half a dozen other pairs of birds and of course her own mate. The poor thing had lost a little chick that seemed to have fallen from its tree and broken itself beyond repair. This little bird was defending her chick in the bravest fashion, bluffing every living thing within 5 metres (approx 5 yards, imperial) of her chick by dive bombing within a few inches of them and running across the ground while dragging her wing to lure the sun drenched soporific old cat away (her attempts didn't work on the cat. Neither did the cat seem aware of the dead chick). One of us lifted the dead baby bird from the lawn and placed it on a high bush within range of the mama bird so she could feel safer defending it from there until she realised it was all futile. I was touched by her tenacity. She stayed there most of the rest of the day. Today she came back again, but she wasn't so defensive.

She sure is a beautiful bird.

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.

Card Swap Kit for Kim's INKredibles Forum

Today I heard that some of the people taking part in the INKredible's card swap received their cards, and I promised to publish the card I sent when that started happening. So here it is. All Stampin' Up! materials were used in this card. That's Whisper White, More Mustard, Certainly Celery and Brocade Blue cardstock,

the Time Well Spent stamp set coloured with Stampin' Pastels, there's gold embossing powder and a gold brad on the flower in the top right hand corner and black embossing powder used on the green background paper, the paper piercing tool was used on the Brocade Blue and faux stitching added with the Stampin' Up! white pen, and black fine tipped felt pen on the Whisper White, and I also hand drew the flourishes with black fine-tipped felt pen.

Thanks again to Nicola at My Paper World for the card sketch in the first place!

Scrapchat's last Cybercrop for March

At Scrapchat we had some challenges that caused blasts from the past this weekend. I did two of the three challenges in time - that is, before midnight tonight!

Here's the first one:

"You will need a photo of yourself from 50% or less of your age ago. So if you are 30, it has to be a pic of you at the age of fifteen or younger; if you are 50 it has to be a photo of you at the age of 25 or younger. The title MUST be ‘A piece of me in history’ Use broken blocks for your journaling, which has to be in YOUR OWN HANDWRITING. You HAVE to only use things in your stash…NO CHEATING!!!! No ducking to the scrap shop".

I used all Creative Memories materials for this page. I made the gum blossom flowers out of photo safe paper and used photo safe pens on them to make them look more 'real' and found the 1981 World History facts online.

I used to work at that desk - gahhh! No Computer!! It was the year the first PC was produced, in fact, so we all used electric of manual typewriters - Ka CHING! I certainly didn't have one of those on my desk though. Somehow, life was simpler and I did know how to write with my own hands back then!!

The second challenge was a 'bonus' challenge and you might like to try this one too one day. I loved the effect. Here are the instructions we were given:

"My challenge is to create a layout with a bit of a retro feel to it. You will need to use a 60's photo of yourself or of a family member. Here is the thing - your layout has to be created only using Black and White Cardstock and Pattern Paper and the only way you can add colour to your layout is by adding it with your embellishments. All embellishments must be bright with a retro funky feel to them".

Now I may not have stuck to the 'retro' feel fro the embellishments, but I think wattle was pretty much a common emblem to use back then, so I used that idea. Again, I used all Creative Memories materials. I was so hapy to have gone to this old album (I worked out it is over 40 years old) as I had not checked on these photos in years and the acid from the pages and especially from the old photo corners was eating into the pictures. I took all of the pictures out of that album and scanned the ones I liked best, then put the originals in a Creative Memories safe photo storage box for later.

Links fixed

I just tested the links I put in yesterday's post and they needed tweaking. They should be fixed now. Sorry 'bout that :-)

Bush Babies

Lee asked me if my possum was a Bush Baby and I thought I'd let you know what they are in Australia (as opposed to Africa where they have a real live animal called a Bush Baby that looks surprisingly possum-like!)

To me, Bush Babies in Australia are fictional creatures. They are forever tied to the wonderful creations from May Gibbs who created the Gumnut Babies (I got this picture in my blog from May Gibbs' website [linked above] today) the Big Bad Banksia Men, and so on.

The possum that boards in my bottlebrush tree is actually a Brushtail Possum and there are heaps of cute images of them here.

Lee, I'm glad you asked! I would never have searched for these cute pictures otherwise!

Backyard wildlife

....................................................................I caught my backyard boarder out today. S/he had just arrived in his/her favourite tree for 'the daily nap' and of course my little dog let me know about it. I grabbed my camera and circled the tree, with possum eyeing me warily and dog leaping about in excitement. It wasn't enough to stop possum settling down to sleep right before my eyes, but that shot wasn't too interesting so I didn't include it here :-)

My Paper World Sketch Challenge #7

Nicola has a new sketch challenge for this fortnight. I was going to also submit it for Fiona's Alphabet challenge but that site has unfortunately been taken down (please note this, Lee). I needed a birthday card for a girlfriend also, so this card really has a number of uses!

I used Stampin' Up! cardstock - Old Olive and Whisper White. I used black Stazon ink, Always Artichoke and Versamark and embossed the flowers with gold. The flowers are coloured with Stampin' Pastels. That's a prima flower and a gold brad from my stash. The flowered paper is from the Be Yourself Collection by Urban Lily. I hand wrote the sentiment and doodled around the flowered background.

Love Challenge

Chris is having a competition about the theme of 'Love'. I thought this page in my mini album said a lot about that topic. It's a pic of my MIL at her 80th birthday party. She is so full of life and zest, even though she is in a wheel chair here after breaking a hip (playing bowls!!!! We had the party at the bowl's club and a cake with a fallen bowler on top!!!) so I am using this page as my entry. Today was the last day to enter for Chris' blog candy.

Mini Album instructions

Thanks for your sweet comments about my album, Lee and Chriss! I wanted to try and post the instructions up here for you since Lee was interested in making one, but can't seem to save them to my computer.

If you go here, you can see the instructions in the last box on the page. You'll also get to see all the other amazing albums people made for this competition! We still don't know who won but I think it will be Lizzy.

I hope to see an album made by you one of these days!

Oh and Chriss, I was thinking of doing something for Chris' competition on 'Love'. Thanks for reminding me!

Have a wonderful day :-)