Happy Birthday Parrothead

So nice when you have matching papers sitting on your desk ready to grab.

I made this card for my SIL whose birthday is tomorrow.   However, she lives in Sydney (the other end of Oz to us) so it will be late.  My SIL is a parrothead, hence the parrot.  

Parrot Head or Parrothead is a commonly used nickname for fans of Jimmy Buffett. "Parakeets" is the term used for younger fans of Jimmy, or children of Parrotheads.

I made this card in half an hour...including colouring.  Today, after dropping my daughter at school I have a couple of hours in our house all to myself.  So I wanted to make this card and mail it when dropping her off so I don't have to miss a minute of 'time all to me' at home.

The card started with Kiwi Textured Linen cardstock already cut for a square card size.  The patterned papers are from Bazzill (Jay Bird Street and Grandma's Feather Bed).  I coloured the parrot (a kids colouring page) with my Copic pens.  Finished the card with some bling and a black sticker Birthday sentiment.

Before I head off for the weekend just a reminder that there is one week left to enter Unstampabelles challenge #10.   The challenge is an easy one.....all you have to do share a papercraft creation using the colours of your country's flag.  The prize this month is stickers to the value of $50.00 from the Sticker Store.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Tea Box

Hi all, today I am sharing the Teabox that I made using Kaye's wonderful tutorial.  I started with 'Blissful Bazzill Dotted Swiss' cardstock then Green Bazzill cardstock.  Lastly, this beautiful patterned paper which I have held on to for just right project.  I have taken a photo of each side of the teabox so you can see the lovely birds.  Sorry, I don't know the name of the paper.  I finished off the teabox with the wonderful green flower that I received from KellyG as part of our Craftmad Matchbox swap.  The tag is computer generated.   Instead of adding special teabags to these boxes you could have 'Coffee Time' and add the Coffee bag or 'Chocolate Time' with mint slices.  Endless. 

Enjoy your day, thanks for visiting.

I would like to add this to:

Make it Monday #86 - Always Anything Goes

Inspire Me Fridays #55 - Always Anything Goes

Craftmad April Card Kit Swap

Lest we forget

Yes, it is ANZAC Day here today in Australia a day of remembrance.

My daughter and her friend were planning of getting up for the dawn service 3.30am.  Then they will be back later to march in the 9am parade with the Guide unit.  Me, I will be heading down to clap on all those participating in the parade.

Now on to crafting.  Earlier this week I showed you the kit and card that I swapped with Kaye over at Craftmad for our April card swap.  Well now I have the pleasure of sharing with you the card kit that Kaye sent to me.  Isn't the colour just beautiful and so many fun items.  Yes, I did enjoy putting this card together.

This is what I came up with.  I so love the feather butterfly that Kaye included I have not seen one of these before and the pleasure of adding so much bling.  I ration my bling out as it is so pretty and I like to hold on to it.  Although, I have tried  to use bling much more generously on my cards in the past year.  The bottom edge of this card is one of my new Spellbinder Edgeabilities E8-014.  I had ordered and received it the day before creating the card so just had to play.  I have to look more into these Edgeabilities as I was under the impression it would cut an edge as well as the lovely design.  I have hand cut the wavy line.

You can visit the Craftmad gallery here to see what card Kaye created with all these wonderful goodies.  Kaye's card is lovely.

Disappearing Nine Blocks

This block was sent to Mandy who loves Blue

Another Craftmad swap.  This time I am sharing with you the the Disappearing Nine Blocks that I created for our Craftmad Family Quilt.

When we started making these blocks we agreed to swap 9.5" blocks.  As the majority of us new to block making we did not realise how many calculations we would need to do to have the finished block measure up to this size.  If you visit here you can see us all slowly working out the measurements.

End result: - we cut 9 x 3 3/4" squares to create a 91/2" block.

Hope this makes life easier for someone out there. :-)

This headed to Annette as you can see she enjoys pink.  I also added a little bit of embroidery to make it a little personal.  Plan to add this to future blocks of other people I swap with.

More sunshine here so I think it will be an outside day. Wishing you a good one.

April Craftmad Card Swap

This is the kit I sent.

Hi everyone....another week, a little cooler here and beautiful sunshine day. :-)

Just past the half way mark in April and I actually feel like I am on top of all that I do in life for the first time this year.

What a fun swap we are having this month at Craftmad.

Thanks to Karleen's wonderful suggestion we are making up two card kits.  One we keep and create our own card and the other kit we send off to our partner for them to create a card.

The person originating the kit holds off posting a photo of their card until their partner is ready and that way we are not swayed by each others creation.

All the patterned paper and cardstock are from Stampin Up.  I have layered them all up and roughed up the edges with the blade of my scissors.  The image I am not sure where that is from so if you know please tell me so I can acknowledge the artist.  Thanks to the amazing memory and searching skills of my friend Helen I can tell you that this wonderful image is available here a Paper Cupcakes.  I have coloured it with my Copic pens which I really enjoyed as I have not done much colouring this year.  The sticker sentiment is from the Sticker Store.

I was not really happy with the blue strip down the centre...had thought to emboss it but thought it would then be too much.  On the weekend I pulled the card out again and stamped random circles (Stampin Up Priceless) on the blue strip and am now much happier with the card.

Circle stamps added.

Just click here to view Kaye's version of this kit.

In my opinion much better than mine.  I really like the embossing and the way she added the diamond of patterned paper.

I would like to share this card with

Make it Monday #86 - Always Anything Goes

Inspire Me Fridays #55 - Always Anything Goes

Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) by Whimsy Love

Morning everyone, I don't have a project to share with you today as I didn't make it to the craft room yesterday.  However, I have been enjoying some free time this morning to catch up on some amazing blogs and your wonderful creations.  On the last blog I visited this morning I discovered what I could share with you today.

I love visiting Nikki over at Whimsy Love as she comes up with wonderful creations with her daughters and just posts little tid bits of what she gets up to in life.  Just recently Nikki celebrated her 37th birthday and the way she celebrated was to go on a road trip with a close friend and do 37 Random Acts of Kindness (RAK).  I have just finished reading all about these RAK's and thought I have to share as a lot of them where such simple ideas that we could all do at least once a week and bring a smile to some strangers face.

I hope you have time to read this fun post.  You will find it here.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and I will catch up with you on Monday. 

Weather is looking wonderful so I am thinking gardening, walking and crafting will be in order.

:-)

Burnished Glitter with Copic Coloured Image

No card today but I tried out Kathy's tutorial that she shared about using Copics on glitter.

Please be sure to look at Kathy's as it so much prettier. :-)

What I did.  I grabbed out some Jac Paper and cut it just larger than the Deckled Edged Spellbinder oval that I wanted to use.  Found some scrap cardstock about the same size and attached the Jac Paper to this then cut out the oval.  I then peeled off the second side of the Jac paper and added my glitter.  I used this blue as it is the lightest colour glitter I have.  Although I have a gold....I will have to try that.  The whole time I was working from memory as I had quickly read through the tutorial in the morning and of course when I was ready to try this the computer was tied up with the kids.  I remembered that Kathy had said to shake off the excess glitter and then burnish it with your finger.  Well I was not sure on the meaning of burnish so just thought it meant to really press the glitter into the Jac Paper.  Which I did, then proceeded to stamp it with my Memento Ink.  Finding an appropriate stamp was another challenge.  I only have this set of Stampin Up rubber stamps that I can actually colour.....I use a lot of digital stamps for colouring in.  Anyways, I stamped the image and the ink just disappeared into the glitter, stamped a solid butterfly image and again it disappeared.  Thought oh well, just see what the Copic look like on it and draw my own butterfly (note feelers appearing above top flowers) ink seem to disappear also.  So then I started rubbing it and I noticed that I was removing a little more glitter and getting a smoother surfaced.......burnished.  

bur·nish  (bûrnsh) tr.v. bur·nished, bur·nish·ing, bur·nish·es 1. To make smooth or glossy by or as if by rubbing; polish. 2. To rub with a tool that serves especially to smooth or polish. n. A smooth glossy finish or appearance; luster. So then I restamped the image an tadah! I could see it much better.  Used my darkest Copic Pens and it coloured up well.  I did do a couple of layers of colouring.

Another view....hard to photograph glitter.

Best photo I think.

Now I will be keeping an eye out for some white glitter and finding a rubber stamp that I can colour in. I think it is a great technique with the right equipment.

Two Stampin Up cards

Found time yesterday to finally put together a card from our fundraiser Cardmaking night.  Ruth (Stamping for Fun) came up with these lovely designs.  I added the ribbon and the bling.  I so love this paper from Stampin Up ...not sure of the name but I think it is so pretty.  I did pick up a second pack for my daughter but since she hasn't touched hers yet I just had to put the card together for her.  So two similar cards. Everything is Stampin Up except for the ribbon which from Mei Flower and the bling from my stash.

Exciting news for me I was lucky enough to win a stamp called 'Poppy' from Purple Onion Designs over at The Daily Marker.  This little rabbit is so cute, I can't wait to play.   Kathy the owner of 'The Daily Marker' also has done up a wonderful tutorial about stamping onto glitter and then colouring with your Copic pens. Looks like such a fun technique.   The tutorial is here.  The original photo of this technique here.

Red, White and Blue Stitched Card

Time for a little more inspiration for our Unstampabelles Challenge.

This month we are asking for a paper craft creation (No Stamps) using the colours of your country's flag.

No you do not have to include a flag......just use the colours.

After checking our Kerry's blog lately I was inspired to do a little stitching.  So dug through my patterns to find an appropriate one.  I decided on the basket.  I had to add the green leaves and stem but worked them in an finer thread so they would not be as noticeable as my red, white and blue for the Aussie flag.

Yes, a little of another colour is permitted in this challenge as long as the majority of the creation is made up of the colours of your country's flag.

The card is just the scalloped edged circle shape, the blue is background card for the photo.  I cut the corrugated white card stock with my largest scalloped edged Spellbinder die.  Then cut a plain circle of the dark red linen textured cardstock.  In real life this linen texture cardstock is great with the stitching as it takes on a fabric look.  Finished the card with a gold 'Thank You' sticker from the Sticker Store our sponsor this month.  Fantastic prize too.  At this stage if you enter you have very good odds of winning.  :-)

I would like to add this card to:

Make Monday Challenge #85 - Always Anything Goes 

Inspire Me Friday - #54 Always Anything Goes

Have a terrific day.

(Just a bit of trivia......this is my 1000th post, Wow that is a lot of writing, photos and creations)

Newspaper clipping :-)

Here is my little bit of fame.  I hope you can read it.  Thanks for all the lovely comments.

Hello

Morning everyone, I am so excited as my blog has been mentioned in the Queensland Sunday Mail.  How great is that.  Page 62 if you are looking for it. :-)

I whipped this card up to say 'Hello' and thanks for visiting if you have read the couple of paragraphs.

Also a 'Hello' to all my regular visitors.  

About this card.  All the card stock is Linen Textured from Blue Edge Crafts.  Not sure where the image is from (if you do please let me know).  I have coloured this guy with my Copic Pens.  Added some ribbon and paper punched stars.  The sentiment is computer generated.

I have a two other blogs if you would like to check them out.

Unstampabelles - a paper craft challenge blog. We set a challenge the first Monday of each month.  Our biggest challenge on this blog is that 'No Stamps' (rubber or digital) are permitted.  So we are wanting to see other forms of paper crafting.  There is always a prize up for grabs too.

Gordonvale Town - I like to add information of what is happening around town to this blog.

Today... Friday 13th April Kids Cardmaking Fundraiser

Perfect for wet weather

Relay for Life

CardmakingFundraiser

For team 5F - Fit, Fun, Friends, Feeling Fantastic

with 

Stampin Up - Ruth Massey

When:   Friday 13th April (Today)

Time:     3pm to 4.30pm

Where: gordonvale community hall

Cannon street (Next to the library)

               Gordonvale

$10.00 entry

Covers materials to create two cards and afternoon tea.

tea and coffee available (gold coin donation) for parents

All money raised goes to the Cancer Council.

Email me (Merry) for booking details.

If Unable to make it but would like to  donate 

This is a link to our Team 5F

20 places were available

We currently have 12 bookings so get in quick

April Doodle Calendar Page

Hi today I have my April Doodle calendar to share.  Yep, better late than never.  I just visited 'The Kathryn Wheel' run by Kate who started this wonderful idea where you can link your calendars each month and be inspired by her wonderful calendar pages. Kate is running late too.  Must have been a March thing.  I was so far behind that if you look at a couple lot of days in my March completed page below you will just see the names of the days. :-)  I could not for the life of me remember what happened or even the weather on those days.

April looks a little messier than what I had envisaged due to bleeding but I had fun creating this page.  I went through my paper scraps container and found 30 pieces around 4cm.  I attached them to the page with a little dab of paper glue...just to hold them in place.  I brushed the page with water, this is where the bleeding occurred as some parts were too wet.  Next I grabbed the red and yellow paints and a toothbrush and started flicking the paint all over the page and the shapes.  Let it dry in the sun then removed the paper shapes to reveal the areas for each day of the month.  I numbered them off.  Went through my small stamp collect and found some border like stamps and stamped these around the edges of some of the day areas.  I stamped the wonderful flowers along the bottom of my page. Hoping to stay more on track with months page.  

Oh, I had one of those 'duh' moments in March too.  Visiting a Chris's blog 'Sketching Stamper' and reading her post about the amazing sketches she was showing.  Chris listed her process.....starting with pencil drawings first and then colour and then adding black ink. 'Duh' For some reason I had been trying to use my black pen first up and then colour.  So half way through March I changed and started using a pencil, coloured and then you can alter as well, then black ink.  Much better.  Now to find tips on doodling.  :-)

This is my completed March page.  

Be sure to visit Kate's blog and check out some of the links to so many talented peoples calendar pages.

Once again....Sharon who inspired me to even give this a try has the most wonderful page this month.

Ugly Swap

Morning everyone, middle of the week already.  Only a few more days left of school holidays now.  I do enjoy them though as life is so much more easier paced....no need to be up at a certain time, no need to be at sports or so on.  Enough rambling.  Last month our sewing swap at Craftmad was to find a piece of 'ugly' fabric in our collection and use that to create anything for our partner.  Now, my piece of fabric with the Hawaiian print is not the ugliest fabric going around....it's just the brightest.  My daughter picked this out when she was about 8yo and I made her a skirt for her.  She is now 16yo and not interested in this print and definitely not interested in Mum sewing anything for her. :-)

So I made this wonderful pen roll up.  I have seen these around and always wanted to try one.  I found a wonderful tutorial here at Skip to My Lou.  I especially liked the bias binding trim.

I made mine so that it would fit pens and sent it off to Kelly my partner.

Flashback Friday 22.0 First die used.

Well that was a long walk down memory lane for me.  Some cards I cringed at and others made me smile and remember the occasion I had made them for.  I saw when I first received my cuttlebug (Christmas present from Mum and Dad) with all the wonderful embossing in Dec 2009 but it wasn't until June 2009 (original post here) until I bought my first Spellbinder dies.  Best buy ever my plain circle and scalloped edge dies as they are in constant use still today.  This was my first card using them and I certainly put them use.  The dress is even made from scalloped edged circles I had cut.

This card gets a second posting because of the Flashback Friday challenge 22.0.  You have to show your first card you posted on your blog using a die.  This has to be a new post and not a link to the original post.

Thanks for visiting and leaving such lovely comments.

Happy Birthday - Male

Hi everyone, how is your Easter going?  Mine has been very relaxing and a nice family time together.  Today I have my second male card I sent off to my swap partner for our March Swap over at Craftmad.  We had to swap two male cards.  Funny I was happy with this card when I made it and sent it off and now I look at this photo I really don't like how high the car images are sitting on the card.

I used Stampin Up  More Mustard cardstock.  The images are from a Stamp It sheet of images called YesterYear.  The cream coloured background is textured paper for DCWV.   I cut little triangles to look like photo corners for the images and finished the card with ribbon and gold sentiment sticker.

Wishing you all a fantastic Monday.

Thank You Card

Hi everyone, I couldn't help myself I have made a card and just had to post it. 

This card would be perfect for our latest challenge over at Unstampabelles.

All you have to do is use the colour of your countries flag.

As you can see I am from Australia and have used red, white and blue with a hint of yellow but that is fine.  As long as the majority of the colours are from your flag.

I doodled around the edge of the card.  The flower is from the La Pashe Build a Blossom range.  Such beautiful and life like flowers.  This is a Lotus blossom.

Must keep going.  Have a wonderful weekend.

If you need any more inspiration on how to go about building a papercraft creation with your country's flag colours just check out the Unstampabelles blog as the Design Team have been busy.  It is easier than you first think.

Happy Birthday - Boy

Today I am sharing one of the cards I made for the Craftmad March Card Swap.  We had to swap two male cards.  I started this card with Red Linen Textured Cardstock.  Then a layer of this wonderful star patterned paper from my stash.  Then I sat and went through my collection to find a paper to use as the background for the red squares.  Took me a good ten minutes at least didn't really find anything.  Suddenly look at my desk and saw the star patterned paper flipped over ....yes, it was double sided.  Silly me, of course the other side works so well.  I attached these wonderful car stickers to each of the red squares and then the small black Happy Birthday sticker sentiment to each corner.  (Stickers from Sticker Store)

Easter Long Weekend starts tomorrow.  The lookout for this stage is four days of beautiful weather.   Gardening, crafting, family time.  I won't be posting anything over that time but I hope to catch up on some blog commenting and seeing everyones wonderful work.

So wishing you all a very Happy Easter.

Thank You Caramels

These chocolate box gift cards come in so handy.  One of the members of the school P&C committee suddenly had to leave and we just wanted to say a little thank you for their time and effort.  So I put together this chocolate box gift card (tutorial here at Craftmad).  I have made so many of these now that I actually made this under an hour which I was very happy about.  I started with Pink Linen Textured cardstock, layered up more beautiful Bazzill patterned papers (Grandma's Feather Bed).  The felt flowers are from Stampin Up and the little square brads from Blue Edge Crafts.  I attached the gold sticker sentiment (Sticker Store) on to more of the Pink Linen Textured card stock and rounded two opposite corners and then attached to the card with foam tape to raise it up a little.  Yes, I sampled the caramels to make sure they all tasted fine. :-)

The weather here is just beautiful at this very moment.  Amazing how quickly it can change, considering only a week and half ago we were flooded everywhere.  We have crisp cool starts to the morning. 19C inside here at the moment.  School holidays started for two weeks this Monday and with my daughters organising I have been out and about.  Monday it was Behana Creek with three mates and they met up with another three at the creek.  Here they are all are sitting on the edge of the roadway. Yes the water is up high at the moment with all the rain we had.  The top right of this road way there is a huge drain taking the water from one side to the other.  The water was very chilly but once in fine.  Not that I got in. lol 

I was happy to sit with the dog and watch the coming and going of other swimmers as well as my daughter and friends.  I mean this is the view I had....this is looking back upstream at Behana Creek.

March 2012

July 2009

Tuesday we put on our walking shoes and walked along the Behana Gorge track which is only 10 mins south of Gordonvale.  The walk is 3.2km and took us an hour in and an hour.  The water was even colder here and much higher and faster than we have ever seen it.

There are huge rocks everywhere.  My daughter managed to find small slide amongst them all.

We even had a little entertainment while we were resting before we headed back.  Four people in kayaks came through and were heading downstream.  Right behind my daughter is a big drop area where the water is gushing and swirling through.  We watched three of them as they went through.  I was impressed at how safely they were doing everything.  As the one guy remaining stood on the rocks above where they were going through with a rope...just in case.  As we watched them go further downstream they would get out and check each rapid/drop area before going through.  The one guy that didn't go through with the others sat in his kayak on top of the rocks about 4 metres from the water and rocked the boat until he slid into the water.  Impressive.

It's a day at home for us today.  Sadly, I have to catch up on housework otherwise I won't enjoy other ventures like this.  Have a good day everyone.

3 Dudes Jelly Roll Blocks

We swapped 3 Dudes Jelly Roll blocks last month over at Craftmad.  This was fun to do although it did take us a little while to get those measurements right. To create this block you sew up four smaller squares and then it is all a matter of the placement when sewing these together to create our 9.5" square as to what the pattern will look like.  Amazing how different it can be.   I must say this pink one is my favourite.  I had bought some fabrics especially for this one.  The remaining blocks are using up what I have at home....as you can see not much as the combo are really stretching the imagination.

This block went off to Cathy who likes Autumn tones.  I need more Autumn tones, just have to go shopping. :-)

This headed to Mandy who loves her Blues.

This went off to the bubbly Annmaree who likes bright things.  I really do like how this one came out too. Maybe I just like the pink thing. 

We are just about to find out who our partners are for the April swap over at Craftmad.  You are more than welcome to come and join in.  We are swapping a Disappearing Nine Patch block.

If you would like to see what everyone else swapped just check out the Gallery at Craftmad here.

Have a fun day everyone.

Unstampabelles Challenge #10 - Colours of your Country's Flag

Morning everyone, what a wonderful day.  Cool, crisp and clear here this morning.  Bonus, the new Unstampabelles challenge #10 starts this morning and runs until 4th May.  Our challenge is:

Challenge #10 - Use the colours of your Country's Flag 

you will receive a bonus entry if your creation is not a square or rectangle.

I decided to try out a wobble card.  I started with a square 13.5cm x 13.5cm card and traced around the edge of a pack of cd's to get the bottom curve.  I then marked 2cm in from the sides on the folded edge of the card and cut from there down to where the curve began on the card.  

I had sat at my desk with the intentions of using the Australian Sporting flag with the boxing kangaroo but these wonderful red and white Bazzill patterned papers (Worth Remembering) from Blue Edge Crafts were just calling me.  I have also used the Linen Textured cardstock from Blue Edge crafts.  Amazingly found just the right flowers in my collection and added the bling centres to them from Pizzazz Aplenty. Finished the card off with a wonderful white sentiment sticker from the Sticker Store who happen to be our sponsor for this challenge.  Terrific prize of $50.00 worth of stickers.  So drag out all your papercrafts and start creating.  Just remember no stamps (rubber or digital) for these challenges.

Just a tip because I had one of those DUH! moments on the weekend.  I love my Clever Cut from Crafters Companion as it has all these wonderful lines to use, metric and imperial.  The one clever little gadget where the blade is held can be rotated to cut, emboss a line, cut a wavy line....as I did in my card above, does dash lines...like on bills you tear off part.  The one thing I don't like about this cutter is the guard across the cutting area is so large.  The smallest piece of paper I can cut is 5cm.  Until now that is.  I suddenly thought why don't I just attach a longer piece of paper to the bottom of my small piece that I want to cut........ like above.  This is me cutting the wavy edge onto the red and white paper.

As you can see, in the past I would not have done this as the red and white striped paper is entirely under the guard I can't hold it in place.  Even if I was to hold it from the other side and just put the small edge under that I wanted to be cut I always found it would move.  So now attaching a longer piece to the bottom opens up a whole new world.

Wishing you all a terrific first week of April.  It's the start of two weeks school holidays here for us.  Our 16yo daughter has already printed out a calendar of her planned events and asked me to pencil in what I have to do. :-)  How nice of her.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Make it Monday #83 - Always Anything Goes

Inspire Me Fridays #52 - Always Anything Goes

Come and Get It Challenges - Spring

Stampin Sisters in Christ Challenges - #133 Cards with Motion.

That Craft Place Challenge #8 - It's All About Spring