Birthday Cards

Handmade Birthday cards I received last week from my inspiring family and friends. :-)  This beautiful card was made by my Mum.  Her first try at a twisted easel card.  I so love the colours and that flourish.....hand cut, now how inspiring is that.  Mum has arthritis in her fingers and continually amazes me how neatly and finely she can cut.

This is from my friend Helene who has used paper tole roses to frame the sentiment.  This lady too has arthritis in her fingers and has hand cut the roses.

This lovely card is from my friend Helen, she has used a Flourish stamp called Berry Sweet coloured with Copic pens.  Don't you like the embossed wood grain background and those frames are all hand cut, no dies.

Now Joy is an amazing photographer.  This card she made using one of her many beautiful photos of Morocco.

Not Anita's work but she has an eye for beautiful pieces of handmade art.  Can you believe this card is quilled.  It is that fine that on the night I received it I could only feel what it was like as I didn't have my glasses.  Next day in the morning light I could see all the love pieces that went into making this lovely hibiscus flower.

Well have a lovely day everyone. :-)

Alpha Challenge

I have done it.  I have finally finished a page in my dictionary while the challenge is still current. :-)  This fun challenge is over at The Craft Barn run by Izzy. Once a fortnight she tells you what letter of the alphabet to use and you alter a page in a dictionary using a word on that page.  The current challenge is 'P' and I chose puppet.  I have been painting all my pages white with acrylic paint.  The other night my friend (Helen) and I were at a card making night admiring another friends (Ruth)scrap page and we were wondering how she stamped the background.  Helen suggested that  Ruth had used the embossing folder as a stamp.  Clever......so I tried it out for this page.  I grabbed by Cuttlebug folder Diamonds in the Rough and inked it up and stamped....ta dah.... fun background.  The puppet is a paper doll I created from my scrap box.

This page we had to find a word for 'M' but not just anywhere....Izzy narrowed it down for us. It had to be between 'Ma and Me'.  I came up with Measles.....poor Tilda.  I coloured Tilda with my Copic pens and I think got a little carried away with her measles on her face.  She needed something to sit on so I drew a thermometer for her to sit on.

Here we had to find a 'H' word.  I love holly so that made my page easy.  The single leaf holly stamp is one of my first ever stamps.  I stamped that and went over each leaf with Kindy Glitz Lime.  The berries I put a dab of white glue and sprinkled with red glitter.  I coloured with my Copics this fun Penny Black image 'A Thorny Affair Hedgehog'.

Here I got to use a sheet of embellishments I have had in my collection for a very long time.  The letter was 'E' and I chose envelope.  I painted the page white as normal but I then found an envelope I had just received in the mail and cut it up to be the background paper for the pages.  Then added these envelope stickers.

So I would like to enter this into:

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge Letter P

Make it Monday - #133 - Always Anything Goes

Challenges 4 Everybody - #16 Always Anything Goes

A Round Tuit #146 (as I definitely fill like I finally got around to this lot.)

Bamboo is gone!!!

I know that no one will be as excited as me and possibly my family but I just wanted to share 'The End' to our bamboo saga. :-)  Yes, today after two hours of pulling, coaxing, digging I got rid of the last of our bamboo.  

You can find out more about our bamboo story includes photos here (Aug 2009 unbeknownst to us this was the start of the bamboo dying....apparently it flowers about 20 years then dies so that the new plants can grow) (Aug 2011) and here (another Aug 2011) and here (Oct 2011) and here(Nov 2011) and here  (Jan 2012) and here (Aug 2012).

Told you it was a saga. :-)

Now we can start planning which plants are staying and what we can add to this garden.

Happy Sunday to you all.

A Bit Of Fungus

As I walked out to get the mail one day last week I spied a Ulysses Butterfly flitting around one of my orange Ixorias.  So I went inside and got the camera to try and get a photo.  Of course, by the time I got back out the butterfly had taken off.  I then spied these fungi in the garden and thought they would make great photos.

***Edit...been googling apparently this is Crepe Ginger.

This is a flower on, I think, a ginger plant that has come up since we have removed the bamboo.

Well that is another week done and dusted.  I wish you all a good weekend whatever your plans.  For me I am planning on some gardening as the morning are a touch cooler these days.  Then see what the days bring. :-)

Hatpin Card

This is the second card I sent off to my partner for our Hatpin Card Swap over at Craftmad for February (Gallery Here).  The other card is here.

The image is where this card originated from it is from Cardmadfairy called Julia.  I coloured it with my Copics one Friday night when I met with a group of other Copic Colourers.  It was the first time I had used these particular colours on hair and tried really hard to leave the white show through.  All the card and paper have been in my stash for a while so sorry no names.  The doily behind the image was white originally and the card did not seem right.  I saw someone else's card online and that they had coloured the doily......now why didn't I think to do that. duh!  Grabbed one of my copic pens that I had coloured some of the paper flowers with and coloured the doily.  I like this much better.  The hatpin I made with a dressmaking pin and a couple of beads from my collection.

Well have a wonderful day and thanks for visiting and all your lovely comments on my previous post.  :-)

More Quilling - Unstampabelles Challenge #21

Hi everyone, I finally got this project finished....only a day late. :-)  It is time for our Halfway Inspiration post over at Unstampabelles for this months challenge - Quilling.  I was googling for something different to do and spied some vases.  Then I saw this (below) amazing rainbow vase by Mary Jean and I used that as my inspiration.  After following many links through Pinterest I discovered that Mary Jean has a Etsy store here with other beautiful pieces for sale.

I have a few photos of mine to share as I wanted to show off all the colours.  This shot shows all sides from the top.  To create my vase which stands about 6cm high.  I used the leftover strips that came with my Quilled Love Bird kit and I cut strips using my paper cutter.  This time I was able to use my quilling  tool.

This made wrapping the circles much easier and quicker.  When I had finished gluing all the shapes into place I remembered last time when I was quilling that there are gauges that you can put your circles in so that they all form the same size or the size you require. 

Like this:-

I remember making up my own gauge using washers from the shed and gluing them to a piece of cardboard.

For the base of my vase I cut 7 circles using my Spellbinder die from a cereal box.  I then glued each circle together to give a nice thickness to be able to glue the first layer of the vase too.

I would like to share this vase with:

Unstampabelles #21 - Quilling

Anything But a Card #15 - Spring or Alice in Wonderland.

Make it Monday #132 - Always Anything Goes

Challenges 4 Everybody #16 - Always Anything Goes

Wine Tote - Craftmad Sewing Swap

Our sewing swap item for February was a wine tote. I combined a couple of tutorial that I found on the internet.  One I like the way they added the handle, another I liked how they did the lining and another I liked their idea of quilting the wine tote.  You can find photos of the other Wine Totes made by the other Craftmad members here.

Thought I would share what has been keeping me away from cardmaking.  It is another craft.....bookbinding. :-)  These are three orders we have completed in the last week.

You can see more here at Australian Menus.

Camera Pop Up Surprise Card

This is the card that I made for our son's 19th Birthday.  This is also the card that got a 'Wow' from husband who has a new found love of photography.  Our son also loves filming and is doing a Uni course which involves this very subject but in his spare time he loves to take photos.  

I have been wanting to make one of these surprise pop up cards for a while now and found a tutorial online.  Sorry I didn't save the link.  The wonderful camera image I found at Tiffany Doodles.  There was a gallery attached to these images and I used one of these creations to guide me as I coloured.

I added glitter rub on letters to create the surprise message to be found under the image when you pull the top tag.

(Sorry photos were taken at night time)

Dug out my most masculine Happy Birthday stamps to stamp a message on the tags.  My daughter did not think it went with the card but as I said to her....cogs were better than flowers.

Considering I only coloured three sections of this camera I was surprised that it took this many pens to do that.

Thank you all for coming to visit yesterday I really enjoyed reading all your comments.  Something I have missed as it is very rare I get a reaction from my husband - a once a year event.  It is nice to come in here to share my creations with other crafters and get more than a grunt.  :-)

Unstampabelles Challenge #21 - Quilling

Yes, you can do it. :-)

Hi everyone, it has been a few weeks but finally I have time to share a creation with you.  I think this week I will be relying on the saying 'Better late than never'.  This card is for the newest Unstampabelles Challenge #21 which is all about quilling.  This challenge has taken almost everyone out of their little squares to try something new.  And if it is not new to them it is something they enjoyed revisiting as they have not done it in years.  I have not done much quilling but did do a couple of cards a couple of years ago.  Thought I would have some on my blog but must have been before I discovered blogland.  However, this is a quilled card my Mum made for me a couple of years ago.

On to my card above.  The weekend before last we were in Brisbane visiting our son for his 19th birthday.  A wonderful time was had although it was a little funny as it poured rain all weekend.  Funny that we had to fly all the way to Brisbane to experience our normal wet season which has eluded us this year.  I had not even made a start on my DT card for Unstampabelles at this stage.  My friend had suggested I visit this amazing store while we were in Brisbane - Photo Continental  It truly was terrific.....so much crafting stock under the one roof was just amazing.  Hubby and son were happy too as on the other side it is all about cameras, printing and framing.  Of course, I only had time for a very quick look and spied this quilling kit from Quilled Creations called Love Birds.  So bought it and that night by hand as I had no special quilling tool, needle, or toothpick began rolling the lengths of papers into the shapes required.  I also didn't have any glue so had to put all the little shapes back in the bag for the journey home.  We hit the ground running and had a busy week so I didn't get to put this card together until this weekend.  I really liked how JanR (DT member Unstampabelles) had embossed the background of her card then adding the quilling.  So I did that with my card then added the quilled pieces and punched flowers.

I hope that you will take the time to visit Unstampabelles and see all the other wonderful creations by the Design Team and remember this is the first time that they have tried this technique.  So you can too.

We have a fantastic prize on offer from one of our own team members - JessicaT.

The prize is a Surprise Pack of Kaszazz items excluding stamps so that it is in keeping with the Unstampabelles challenge to the value of $25.00.

I would like to share this card over at:

Unstampabelles #21 - Quilling

Make it Monday #131 - Always Anything Goes

Inspire Me Friday - #99 Always Anything Goes

Challenges for Everyone #15 - Always Anything Goes

Have a wonderful day and I will return soon.   Thanks so much for visiting. :-)

Our Relay for Life fundraiser:

Voucher for 3 days, 2 nights visiting Great Barrier Reef dive sites. Value $575 Transfers, snorkelling equipment/wetsuits supplied, full meals - with ProDive, Cairns. Was a prize. Donating all proceeds to our Relay for Life team - Crew Cure. To be used by the end of April. Offers?  Click here for more details.

For Sale Pro Dive Voucher - funds go towards Relay for Life Team

Hi everyone, yes I am still around....just so very very busy.   I will be back with some craft shortly but thought I would share this link.  One of the ladies on our Relay for Life team is selling off a

Voucher for 3 days, 2 nights visiting Great Barrier Reef dive sites. Value $575 Transfers, snorkelling equipment/wetsuits supplied, full meals - with ProDive, Cairns. Was a prize. Donating all proceeds to our Relay for Life team - Crew Cure. To be used by the end of April. Offers?  Click here for more details.

This is for sale on Gum Tree and has stated all proceeds raised will added into our fundraising for the team which will then go towards finding a cure for cancer.