Sunshine

Have gone back to work after five days off with the flu and asthma, and today the sun decided to shine. I really wanted to be out basking in it, and I was chained to my desk! :-( I did manage to go outside for a couple of minutes to make a mobile phone call, which was better than nothing :-)

I won't have as much time to stamp and create again till the June holidays, but the ideas are coming a little faster lately so maybe I can squeeze a couple in.

It's late so I am off to dreamland for awhile.

Welcome Baby!

A forum friend has just become a grandmother for the first time! I just had to make a card, of course :-)

I used die cut imagesfrom Andrea (thank you, Andrea!) sheer ribbon with suede words, pink brads & ribbon with little loopy bits, silver eyelets, scallop scissors and I drew the hearts and silver & pink bits. (I used pink and silver gel pens of course!)

How's the weather where you are?

So much of Australia is in drought, yet where I am we are having unusual days of rain. I've put two pictures here to show you the difference between two days ago and today (today it was rainier).
Oh - before anyone gets mad at me because we're getting rain, they do ship lots of water to drier parts of the country from up here!

Pages for my Mother

I had some time to go through stacks of old photos and found some I really wanted to put together as special pages for my Mother. She is one amazing lady and her children and grandchildren all think she is wonderful. Here's how they turned out.

Reminiscing...

Over at DCM, the dare this week is all about reminiscing: "I would like you to make a card using some thing that you would normally find in an office environment. Such as... staples, paperclips, paper fasteners, file folders, library cards, hole punches, lined paper etc you get the drift."

I started with some mauve paper, then stamped it with the 'fax' and 'paid' stamps. I signed them with black pen, then 'distressed' the paper with Jumbo Java brown ink in the shape of that pad. I cut around the edges with 'Postal' deckle edged scissors and inked around the edges. I took an SU! metal edged tag and wrote 'Just a Note' on it, then clipped it to the paper with the pink fastener. I used a sponge dauber in pink ink for the bg of the base card and mounted the Note on top with a bit of room to spare to accommodate the clip.

'A Sketch In Time'

This week's Little Extra challenge from DCM gives you a sketch to play with. Remember you can bend it, twist it, shrink it or stretch it - you can even turn it upside down if you like. You don't even have to use flowers if you don't want to (shock, horror!)
Just have fun, and don't forget to let us know you've made a card and where we can see it.

I had lots of cards to make and this seemed to be an excellent layout to choose to work from, so here are my cards for this week. The star card is one I made AFTER I had a look at everyone's wonderful creations - makes the other two look a bit 'pedestrian' - lol!

Iris fold fan cards

I found out how to make iris fold fan cards today. They are easy to make and are so effective! See what you think:

80th Birthday cards

I had my first (?) order for cards - my DS and DM both asked me to make 80th birthday cards for DS's FIL! (Does family count when we're talking orders??) Well, I played around with some graphics and a photo of the honoured Octogenarian, and came up with two different cards. The card with the plaque on it is A4 size so all the guests at the party can sign it. Inside the blue one it says 'Have a whale of a time' and I put a little picture of a smiling whale there too.

Shane's WIsh

If you've read the story of Shane's wish (see the story on the right) you'll know he is trying to break the record for the most birthday cards ever received by anyone. His 8th birthday is on May 30th. He's a sick little boy and the cards are making him feel more hopeful, so here is one I will send to him this week:

Wings!

The DCM challenge for this week is........WINGS!

You can pick any subject, any colour but the card has to incorporate WINGS of some sort-so you can do - butterflies, angels, fairies, insects,birds........anything basically if it has wings!

I decided to try this challenge while making my dear Mother's birthday card - and yes, the 76 trombones have a special personal interest for us!

Thanks for the challenge this week, ladies. It's a lot of fun to join in. Anyone reading this who has not tried a DCM challenge, why not have a go?

This week's little extra...

Over at DCM, this is the mid-week challenge:

"What we'd like you to do this time is to confine your colour choices to the three primary colours; Red, Yellow & Blue. You can use just one, two or all three and we'll let you have a bit of white or black just to make it nice and easy".

I decided to do a woven card with only the colours 'allowed' and no black or white - I was able to use some of your pretty flowers, Pearl, and the inks I recently purchased form Susie! Now I just hope Laraine doesn't see it before her birthday this Sunday - shhh!

ARRRGGGHH! I've been TAGGED!!

I've been tagged by a lovely lady named Andrea ('Frog') (Andrea's Card Creations)!! This is my first tag so here goes. You have to write seven facts/habits about yourself then tag another seven people.

1. I have played the flute since I was 13 years old and am still playing each week at my church. I LOOOVE to play Godly music and worship Him.
2. I LOOVE my husband and my children - really and truly!
3. I have realised that you have to pass on your skills to others, lest they be lost. None of us lives forever, so I am teaching some sweet young things how to play the flute and fife.
4. I have realised that my priorities have changed since I got older. People and relationships matter more than anything else I 'do' in my life.
5. I started stamping and scrapping last year and LOOOVE stamping and scrapping! (Surprise, surprise!)
6. I need to lose weight but will settle for not gaining any.
7. I LOOOOVE chocolate!

OK - now it's my turn to tag. I choose.... Iralamija, Wendy, Dolly, Kel, Leo, Rhi, and Suzanne!

Have fun, everyone!

Home Sweet Home

So, on to this week's Little Extra (from DCM) and another in our series of Boy Scout cards - you know - as in the scouting slogan "Be Prepared"! This time it's cards with a New Home theme.

Easy, eh? And, how nice are we? Helping you to get organised and always have the right card ready when you need it instead of scrabbling around to make one in a hurry!

Well, it just so happened that I had a need for such a card this week. I made the following with a 'cupboard door' fold on the front. Behind the door there is an old family recipe for Russion Tea Cakes - something to bake in the new home!

I used an orange card stamped with teal ink only for the frames, punched light orange card for the bg 'house' shape & doorknobs, and doodled the rest with copper gel pen. The scan didn't really do it justice - it is nicer in real life.

'Warming' card

I made a card for a friend who is going to Canada for 5 weeks and thinks she will be cold! I'm going to tell 'her to whip this card out and look at it whenever she feels chilly. He he!

I gold embossed the sun image on separate cardstock, then dug out my alphabet stamps and shadowed them (double-stamped using 2 colours of brown ink) in the bg, did the same with the sun stamp, Xyroned some ribbon , added the eyelets sponged the edges of the card with Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson ink and a lighter colour of plain red ink, then speckled the bg some more with a copper gel pen. I also sponged the edges of the eyelet card with a light brown ink.

Round the World card

For this card I decided to use some of Pearl's pretty flowers from Singapore, a background recently received from Amy who lives in Cairns, who cuttlebugged a design for me, some SU! ribbon and tag from Carla in Canada, so this is really a RAK from around the world! Thank you so much, everybody for making it possible for me to make a birthday card for a workmate tomorrow! My work friend doesn't read my blog to my knowledge, so I should be safe in posting this!

Generous Pearl!

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Just had to share my lovely prize received from Pearl in Singapore this week! She sent me a beautiful Easter card and lots of flowers and goodies to play with - thank you, Pearl! I used one of the flowers on the scrapped card below too - I couldn't wait to use SOMEthing! Thank you so much, Pearl - you are a real sweetie and you made my week! :-D

Birthday Scrap Card

Tonight I made a card for a friend using some scrap booking techniques - a photo, a mat, some eyelets and a flower and ribbon, and a sticker sentiment. Once I found the photo I wanted, it was a really quick card to do.

S'more

Today I completed another three cards for birthdays. They are for people of various ages and interests. It's nice ot be able to give them out to people and see the looks on their faces when they open them up! Well, it's nicer sometimes than others! Lol!

See what you think.

Last one for tonight (Yawn!)

I finished one more card - this one is for my friend who is about to undergo some cancer treatments. I am glad she has a strong faith in the Lord. Pearl, I found a card on your Blog that inspired me - thank you for the idea of the three ribbons and buttons (I used brads as you can see) and an image on top of them. The colours are nicer in real life, I think.

Got a few cards done tonight

This weekend marks the birthdays of four friends - have been able to complete two cards but the others are still in the wings. I also need to do a fare-thee-well card for a friend with cancer who is off to the other end of the country for some treatments. That all happened suddenly...you just never know what turns your life will take, do you?

The first card is for a friend's daughter who is turning 15 and is rather sweet, and the second is for her son who is turning 17 (he likes to dress formally with a tie and a fob watch!!) They weren't twins or I could have made them matching cards for the DCM challenge this week!