A sad event

What can you do when a friend's mother dies? It is often hard to find a useful thing to do, one that satisfies the desire to do something significant for your friend. Sometimes the little things mean so much. You can listen, and hug, and cry with the person. You can pray with them and for them. You can be there for them even when they can't talk straight because of the fatigue and strain of being with their loved one. You can bring them food and comfort in the form of little things done for them.

And you can make a card for them, with love.

Rest in peace, Joy.

A Birthday Card

It's always fun playing with a new stamp set :) I recently got 'Big Bold Birthday' from Stampin' Up! and I like the 'Make a Wish' sentiment. Here I stamped those words in Kraft ink. I punched the hearts out, tore a strip of Designer Paper to mount on Metallic Silver cardstock, added some Polka Dot Grosgrain Rich Razzleberry ribbon and a couple of clear crystals to a backing of Chocolate Chip cardstock, doodled around the edges with a white Signo pen and it was done!

Daisy Mae

Daisy Mae takes the stage as the Hearty Lady of the day. She's a farm girl, or maybe a Woman of the West, though I think real Women of the West would probably not dress in pink so much. It's a little impractical and they would probably choose denim.

I made some more Hearty Ladies and have uploaded them to my Etsy shop. They seem to be getting a little attention anyway! And they are a lot of fun to make. (I added blush to her face after I posted this).

PS: Somebody please stop me if I am delusional and these are not worth putting on Etsy!!

More Hearty Ladies

Guess what I've been doing? Populating my craft desk with Hearty Ladies! Lol! I made several today and simply have to share. This young lady was trying to tell me how shy she was, not showing both eyes and all, so I named her Coy Glance. What do you think? Is she shy, or just foolin'?

Remember you can see how I make these at PaperCraftCentral or, if you would like one, you can see them all at my Etsy Shop and pick and choose there.

I will add more, I am sure, so keep an eye out! (Like Miss Coy! Lol!)

Shady Hearty Lady

These little punch art ladies have my attention again tonight :) I made this new Hearty Lady with her sunglasses and pout and also made a tutorial for you if you would like to know how I made her.

Have you made some punch art characters? If you have I would love you to show them to me at PaperCraftCentral.com!

Hearty Lady

This demure young lady was made entirely from punched cardstock and Stampin' Write markers, plus a couple of little pearly accents :) I may show you more of these with different personalities in days to come. They are such fun to make!

Stampin' Up! Convention in Sydney!

I spent an enjoyable and excitement filled couple of days with a whole lot of Stampin' Up! demonstrators in Sydney at Convention recently. Here are some of us on one of the two false alarm fire drills we had at our Motel!! It was kind of cold on the streets at 3am! It made for a sleepy day following but the wonderful Stampin' Up! events managed to keep us awake :)

I met some lovely people on this trip, got lots of tips and techniques and also got to play with some stamp sets coming out in September (Shhh! They are secret till then! Lol!) I'll be making some projects with the new sets for you to see right away after September 1st, never fear!

In the meantime, I've given you a small peek at the little birdies I made as part of my team swap and a picture of us girls swapping. We sure had fun!

I'll be back soon :)

An update

Just a little update to let you know I am still around though I have not been on my blog much. It is with sadness that I tell you we lost my brother-in-law to leukemia a little over a week ago and we have been traveling to see the family and attend his funeral since then. He was one of my husband's brothers and it is very hard to lose him. He fought against the disease for six months before succumbing. We had traveled down to see him three times in the six months (he lived 12 hour's drive from us) and we are so glad we did that. I hope it encouraged hm and his family too to see us sometimes.

I wish you all well and will be back visiting your blogs again soon.

Peeling Paint!

I found out about a new way to make backgrounds over at the Artist Trading Club and was inspired to try it out. Here are the ATCs I made as a result. I really liked the technique which you can learn about at PaperCraftCentral.com

Chriss, four of these will be making their way over to you to be part of the May swap! I hope you like them :)

Where the Blog Are You?

Chriss from the Artist Trading Club, who lives in England, told me about "Where the Blog Are You?", and this is what they say. They are "a blog which connects Aussie bloggers to one another. By joining in you can meet new bloggers & be added to the blog indexes and have your blog featured! It's loads of fun!! Every 2 weeks we will feature a new blogger and get to know him/her. Hopefully we'll make new friends and add new blogs to our blogroll!"

So I joined!

Maybe you will want to join too.

Thank you for leading me to this site, Chriss. It looks like fun!

Michelle Jamieson's Class

Chelle ran a class for us the other night on WizIQ and it was a lot of fun :) I really enjoyed thinking about my layout in a different way to my usual style. I even used paint on this layout but I made sure my picture was matted so it was not touching the paint. I still don't trust paint on photos long term!!

I used Stampin' Up! Old Olive 12" x 12" cardstock, and Barely Banana, then I used up some Stampin' Up! designer paper scraps I had on my desk. I also used some Stampin' Up! Twill tape, some Very Vanilla cardstock, my white gel pen, my black journaling pen. some crystals and of course, all sorts of left over letters. I also got to use some beautiful hand made alpha negatives I've had in my stash for awhile, courtesy of Sandy and Kylie. Thank you, my friends.

Thank you for the inspiration too, Chelle!

Do You Need Ribbons to Match your Projects?

Have you ever wanted a piece of ribbon that exactly matched your project? If you haven't found out the secret to ribbon colouring, despair no more! Lol! Here's the secret for you :)

Making your own backgrounds

I played with making my own backgrounds for this series of ATCs. I used alcohol inks, watercolour crayons and words written by hand. I didn't want to over whelm the backgrounds so kept the subjects small. Many of them are stamped images though the little boy is from some advertising material I found and the duck is from some designer paper I was using for making a gift card :)

I'm entering these in Hel's competition fro blog candy. She is after 100 comments so go on over and add to her joy today!

Tissue Paper Craft

Do you have a sweet tooth? Do you dislike throwing out perfectly good durable plastic boxes like this Ferrero Roche box? On PaperCraftCentral I show you how to alter boxes like this with tissue paper and a few other items.

C'mon over!

Garden Fairies with chalks

At Chris' blog The Artist Trading Club the March challenge was to make some Garden Fairy ATCs to swap. This is my interpretation of the challenge. I dressed them all in Stampin' Up! pastel chalk dresses and gave them 3d Dragonfly wings from the Stampin' Up! Organic Grace stamp set. Torn and inked edges gave them a little ethereal quality, I thought.

You can see more of my ATCs at PaperCraftCentral.

Dotto!

I just found out how to make a background with Dotto. I plan to make one in the next day or so and will put it up here for you to see. In the meantime, find out how to make one yourself!

Looking after your paper craft tools

Have your scissors got adhesive on them and you're not sure how to remove it? Are your punches dull? How about your papaer guillotine?

Lots of people ask about these things so I put together a few tips and ideas for taking care of your paper crafting tools.

If you have any more ideas for how to maintain your tools in top condition, I'd love to hear about them and will incorporate them to share with other visitors to PaperCraftCentral.com ;)

Sticky Strip

Do you like to know about various adhesives and how they work in paper crafting? If you would like to know more about the virtues of Sticky Strip, it just so happens I wrote a bit about that last night so thought I would share it with you :) You may find this product can provide solutions for you that ordinary double-sided tape may not.

Happy Paper Crafting!

New Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue

I just have to tell you - there is a new Autumn/Winter mini catalogue available from Stampin' Up! Australia! Check out the new Big Shot machine and the new dies and folders, the new clear stamps (they are cheaper than wood mounted ones and so much easier to store) AND the new punches. They are so cute and you can now store them in a smaller space too as they can be stored locked down. I love the new stamp sets too.

I'd be happy to help you order something from the catalogue if you live in Australia. Feel free to contact me about that of I can enable you there. Lol!

Banksia Easter

I trust your Easter was a happy and holy one. For me Easter is a time of reflection, gratitude and remembrance of what Christ did for us all. Today is His resurrection day and the living banksia in this little card is a symbol for the eternal life He gives to believers. Here is information about how to get to heaven if you would like to know more.

To make my card I used Stampin' Up!

- cardstock - Bashful Blue and Kraft
- Chocolate Chip ink
- Bloom Away stamp set
- Linen thread

If you would like more detailed instructions for making this card you can find them on PaperCraftCentral.com.

Happy Easter!

Birthday Surprise

See? I really have been crafting! I made a birthday card to surprise someone with.

This card was made using Stampin' Up!'s Happy Moments stamp set and I set it in the 1 3/4" punched circles. I used Stampin' Write Bold Bright markers to enhance the image and then used the little jewelry tag punch and a word window punch for the sentiments. The sentiments are from an older Stampin' Up! stamp set...I can't remember the name of it right now. I must be getting old!!

I doodled around the edges with a black Stampin' Write marker and enhanced the tag with gold ink and linen thread.

The border was cut from some scrapbooking paper I had on hand.

The cardstock used is Lovely Lilac, So Saffron and Whisper White.

I hope you like it!

A Thinking of You Card

I've been crafting today. I made a couple of ATCs, some cards and a layout! Maybe I can share some with you over the next few days. It was my craftiest day in a long time :)

Tonight I decided to show you a card I made for a friend who is going through some hard times. I love that Organic Grace set from Stampin' Up! The little dragonfly is so pretty and I love to stamp one then cut one out and pop it up as I did here.

I used Mellow Moss, Rose Red, and Whisper White cardstock and inks.

Papercraft Bears!

I was playing with my Stampin' Up! punches (as you do) and somehow a little teddy started to take shape. I decided to go with it and wound up with a boy and a girl version that I turned into cards. They were quick and easy to make.

If you would like to see how I made these and maybe make some yourself, I created a tutorial on PaperCraftCentral. Let me know if you do make some! I'd love to come and see how they turn out.

Decorated Pringles Tin

Do you like those potato chips that come in a can? Ever feel guilty about throwing the perfectly good container away after? Why not decorate it and use it as a container for your own desk or as a container for gifts?

I decorated this one and show how I did it at PaperCraftCentral. I hope you will have a look!

New Video on my Home Page

I've been meaning to make a video to welcome people to PaperCraftCentral for ages. Today was the day I actually did it!

If you have time to watch a 54 second video, please do let me know what you think. I know it's a little rough but I a hoping to get better at this video thing!

Spiral Rose Layout

OK here is the layout that goes with the rose close ups I gave you sneak peeks of. I love how the roses turned out and how the layout did too. Thanks gain, Chelle!

Spiral Roses

Look what I learned to make tonight! Chelle thank you for the special class :) I attended a class run by Chelle to learn how to make spiral roses, and she also threw in a layout design for us to use so we could attach our roses right then and there. It was a great class and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I took a photo of the layout but it really doesn't look good enough to post as it is night here and you all know how night photos of craft items turn out, even when you have 'daylight' lamps. This one just wouldn't come out so I will have to take a picture in the morning.

Meanwhile, I hope you like the sneak peek of my roses :)

Zettiology Take 2 -Spot the Difference

After looking at all those amazing Zetti ATCs at Chriss' blog, I just had to change up my own a little. Can you see the difference? As if it isn't obvious! Now my perplexed boys have Zetti legs, of course! I feel much better about sending them off to the swap with their legs properly in style.

PS You are not seeing things - there are five ATCs in the bottom picture and six in the next as I forget to put all of them together for the 'before' shot.

Zettiology

Have you heard of Zettiology? Chris over at the Artist Trading Club challenged readers to make some ATCs this month using a Zettie theme. (She is having a wonderful third birthday party over there today, by the way! Happy Birthday to the Artist Trading Club!) I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and try making some Zettie ATCs. Do you recognise the SU! stamp that makes up the bottom half of the perplexed boy?

He he!

EDITED: After seeing all the brilliant ATCs on Chriss' site, I think my little fellow needs a bit more Zettiology about him. I'll be back later with some small additions to his situation.

Valentine's Day Album

Last year I started an album for my sweetie to commemorate our first date - on Valentine's Day. It's about time I added another page :+) so I am thinking about it. I don't think I showed you these pages last year - I think I just shared the one I put up for PaperCraftCentral so this year I added all three there as well. I hope you enjoy these.

Quilled Wedding Card

Awhile back I made a wedding card fro someone who is like a daughter to me :) I decided to use quilling to do this and was delighted with the 3-d effect it gave to the card.

If you would like to know more about quilling or have a quilled card to show me, please do visit PaperCraftCentral. I also have more pictures of the wedding card and envelope on that page :)

Reflections Cards

I was thinking the other day that I had not made a Reflections Card for a long time. I got to thinking about how I could make a funny reflection, and suddenly the crocodile from "Wild About You" (on page 60 of the 2009-2010 Ideas Book and Catalogue) sprang to mind! Crocodiles like water, right? And a muddy waterhole sounded even better to me, and that was all it took to get me crafting! Lol!

If you have never made a reflections card, they are fun to do. I made you a tutorial on PaperCraftCentral if you would like to make one. I hope you will post one up for me to see if you DO make one ;)

And remember, the 2010 PaperCraftCentral Weekly Challenge starts on Sunday night, Australian Eastern Standard Time!

Colour Capers

I've been trying my hand at sketches again and also thought I'd also try using some colours I don't usually play with. I used Stampin' Up!'s More Mustard ink to brayer the top of my card, then more More Mustard to stamp part of my image, along with Bravo Burgundy and Not Quite Navy for the rest of the image and the sentiment. The designer paper comes from the Patterns Pack II Designer Series Paper.

I stamped the main image three times, ne in each colour, then used various sized circle punches to separate it into rings. I popped up the centre with a Stampin' Dimensional.

I'd love to inspire you to try some new colours and make a card based on my sketch? If you do that, please do let me know! I'd love to see what you do...

A New Little Matchbox

Whew it is so hot and humid here. I was glad to hear rain on the roof at lunchtime and it has cooled the weather down a little. The heat is a perfect excuse to stay inside and craft away in the air con! Lol! So I did!

I altered this little matchbox for a swap I am in. It has little crafty goodies in it. I think I overdid the goodies a little. It was hard to close!

I covered the insert with Stampin' Up! designer paper and added angel brads to the front so I could thread ribbon through the 'drawer' as a pull, then I made a sleeve for the outer box and wrapped wide fabric ribbon around it. It's a stitched ribbon also from Stampin' Up! Then I made a bow with more ribbon and some of my own manual stitching, then added another type of ribbon on top. The matchbox is finished off with some rhinestones and some gold ink.

I hope my swap partner likes it when she gets it in the mail this week!