Mother's Day

Hi all, not really sure what happened to last week but I know I didn't find time to post.  There was a public holiday for ANZAC Day on the Thursday which seemed to throw the week out of whack.  Caught up with friends on the Tuesday then Friday, Saturday, Sunday hubby and I took off to Port Douglas.  Weather was great, a little windy at times.  We stayed at Thala Beach Lodge a very beautiful spot.  We didn't have an ocean view but could hear the ocean which I think has a very calming effect on me.  The first day I did lots of sleeping.  We did lots of walking, eating, eating, walking, more eating. lol  Our drive home we decided to go up the Rex Range which I don't think I have done at any stage and I grew up in the area.... a beautiful drive.  Had lunch at the Highlander Tavern at Julatten another beautiful spot...wonderful views and very nice food.  Then we continued our drive across the Atherton Tablelands to home.  Amazed at the temperature differences as we travelled across, we went from 26C in parts to 22.5C in other parts.

Monday was catch up day and today the plan was to garden but we have woken to rain so guess I will have to stay inside and craft.  :-(  :-)

I am sharing the last card we made at my friends Relay for Life fundraiser card making night with the lovely Ruth Massey(Stampin Up Demonstrator).  I really love the colours and the layout of this card.  Also happy to have one Mother's Day card ready to go.  The stamp set used is Stampin Up Everything Eleanor.

Hope everyone is well and wishing you a terrific Tuesday.

Gordonvale ANZAC Day Commemorations - 2013

Thanks to Gordonvale Community Hub for this information:

The Gordonvale Sub Branch of the R.S.L. of A. invites the citizens of the Gordonvale District and organisations to participate in the commemorative services on Thursday 25th April.

The dawn parade will commence at 0410 hrs. at the cenotaph in Norman Park, there will be refreshments afterwards in the R.S.L hall which will include a breakfast for Diggers at 0615 hrs.

The public commemoration service will commence at 0900 hrs. at the forming up point opposite the Gordonvale Primary School on George Street and march to the cenotaph at 0930 hrs. in Norman Park with the service commencing at 1000 hrs. Refreshments will be available at the R.S.L. hall after the service. The bar will be open with soft drinks available for the children and lunch for the family.

War vehicles, World War One models along with the current Bushmaster which is being used in Afghanistan will be on show.

There will be members of the local Aboriginal clan taking part in the service playing the didgeridoo and Welcome to Country.

Friendship Star Block - Craftmad Swap

A quick post today as I have a few things on.  

This is the Friendship Star block that I made for our March Block swap over at Craftmad.  I love the end result but I found that the thinner yellow fabric seemed to pull out of shape a little as I sewed it.  The end result didn't sit as flat I would have liked.   Fun to try something new though.

You can see the other members Friendship Star blocks here in the Gallery at Craftmad.

We are always looking for new partners in this swap. 

Have a good one. 

Halfway Inspiration for Unstampabelles Anything but a Card Challenge

Time for a little more inspiration for our Anything but a Card challenge which is happening this month at Unstampabelles.

I am really having fun with the Folded Book Art at the moment and found some wonderful tutorials over at 'A Whimsy Willow'

I grabbed two more paperbacks - Catherine Cookson.  Folded the pages as required, I do find this very relaxing and something to do in front of TV.  When I finished I covered the inside cover pages with some patterned paper to help highlight the folded pages.

My next venture is to try and find a tutorial that will show me how to fold words into the book pages like these by Isaac G. Salazar

So come on over and share your Anything but a Card papercraft creation with us at Unstampabelles and see what other members of the Design Team have been doing.

I would like to share this at:

Make it Monday - #136 Always Anything Goes

Challenges 4 Everybody - #18 Always Anything Goes

Bacon Time - #97 Anything Goes

Making the World Cuter

Little Box and Cardlets

Morning everyone, Monday is here, well in my part of the world. :-)

First day of term 2 for the kids.

Today I am sharing another project that we made at my friends Relay for Life fundraiser night with Stampin Up Demonstrator Ruth Massey.  We all got to play with the Boutique Boxes Designer Printed Kit and made up these little cardlets and the box with the feather.  Everything went together so easily and I love the colour combo.  My favourite is the card with the doily shape on the front with the added bling to the centre.  How simple and effective is that.

I hope you are off to a good start for the week. :-)

Craft Barn - Alpha Challenge - 'R'

Hi everyone, I have finished my Dictionary page on time for the current Alpha challenge over at the Craft Barn.  The letter 'r' is our challenge this time round.  I did think rose to start with but then remembered I have this run Robots2Build stamp set.

So I painted my pages again with white acrylic paint then stamped two of the robots straight onto the pages.  Also randomly stamped the cogs.  I then stamped up my not too happy looking robot onto some  X Press It Blending Card and coloured the image with my copic pens C1, C2, C3, C5, C7 and a touch of B0000, B00 and R24, Y35 and YG000.  I then added touches of silver metallic ink to parts of the robot and some Glossy Accents to his eyes and body.  Thought I was finished but the page looked to white so I dug out to of my Stampin Up inkspots to create the checkerboard background.

Thats me for this week....wishing you all a terrific weekend whatever the plans.  No plans here, will take it as it comes. :-)

Seashell Card

Morning everyone, it's a wet drizzly day here today.  This actually works in my Relay for Life teams favour as we have a Kids Card Making Day (creations by Ruth Massey) today with 24 kids booked in.  The kids are all on the last week of school holidays and with it raining outside they won't have plans on going anywhere else.  I bet the Mums are all glad they have booked in.  I must remember to take a photo of what they make to share with you.

Today I am sharing one of the cards that I made at a friends Relay for Life fundraiser last month.  The lovely Ruth Massey (Stampin Up demonstrator) put this card together for us all to do.  It uses the 'By the Seashore' Stampin Up set.  They come up so nice and the images are all made up of tiny words.  My favourite is the sand dollar which I have collected many going to the beach when growing up.

Have to tell you about a discovery I made Monday afternoon.  We have lived in our present house for 15 years now and on Monday afternoon I discovered we had an avocado tree.  lol  I love avocados.  Over the last couple of years I have found a couple of small what looked like avocados on the ground but not really thought anything of it as cockatoos are always raiding the fruit trees around the area and I just thought they had dropped it as they flew by.  Well Monday I found a full size avocado on the ground and this time decided to look up and there was another one hanging on the tree.  So again I googled and discovered we have a 'Reed' avocado, that they do take a lot of years before they first get fruit and that it should flower September and then we probably won't get fruit until the following December....which I am taking as the following year.  Amazing how long the fruit takes to grow.  Oh, and the other thing I have learnt is that avocados don't ripen until they are picked.  They can hang maturely grown on the tree for months.

Card Trick Block - Craftmad February Quilt Block Swap

Morning everyone, another new week.  Week 15 and day 98 just for a bit of trivia. :-)

This year over at Craftmad for our Quilt Block swap we are swapping blocks using Dusky Blue, Dusky Yellow, and Dusky Green.  Each month we are keeping the same colours and trying a new 12" block pattern.  We would love more people to be involved so if you enjoy making blocks and would like to swap please visit Craftmad and join on up.  It's Free and the members are lovely.  Our April swap is a Rail Fence Block which we have already started on but if you would like to join in I am more than happy to swap with you.  Cathy of 'My Sewing Room' is involved in these swaps too.....click here to see her blocks.

Back to this block, our first block for the year which is a Card Trick block.  I love the end result but it did confuse me when putting it all together.    I found I had to lay out all the cut pieces to see which way I liked the fabric combo and also so that I knew how to sew it all together.  I ended up drawing the diagram below for one of my partners Mandy and she said it helped her....so thought I would share.

 I have drawn the colours the way I have sewn them. I have the put the size of the square that the triangle comes from in the triangle in the diagram. Triangles for the corners come from 4 7/8 squares and the centre section is made up of triangles from the 5 1/4 squares.

I cut:

 1 x 5 1/4" square of each colour

2 x 4 7/7" square of each colour

Wishing you an enjoyable week.

Owl - Brenda's Card (Floral Fantasies)

I follow a lovely lady named Brenda and her blog Floral Fantasies .  Brenda is celebrating her 4th year blogaversary plus the fact she is coming close to 4000 followers.  Imagine having that many followers.....yes, Brenda is a busy lady and always has at least one card a day to share and they are always beautiful.

Now Brenda is offering a prize in honour of this celebration and part of the entry criteria is to create something based on Brenda's blog, either her header, her cards, her techniques, her dogs.  I have always admired her brayered scenes that she creates and was determined that this year I would have a try.  What better time than now.

So I have used white gloss card and grabbed my brayer that I think has only ever been used once before years ago.  I wanted to create an evening sky for this beautiful 3D Die Cut Owl from Blue Edge Crafts so I had to use my Stampin Up inkspots.  Not the best thing for brayering but I got there in the end.  I used Bashful Blue, Lavender Lace and Perfect Plum I used a circle to mask for the moon.  Then added some vine stamped images to help create the scene.  Finished with the tiny gold star stickers.  Then layered the scene up on black and lavender linen textured card stock.

Closes 8th April

Unstampabelles Challenge #22 - Anything but a Card

With the newest challenge at Unstampabelles - Anything but a Card (paper craft) this month I finally got to create something that has been on my 'To Do' list for a while.  I have used a paperback book to make this apple shape using the wonderful tutorial from Cheeky Magpie.   I didn't have any re-inkers to colour the edges of the pages like Cheeky Magpie suggests so I used my Stampin Up inkspots and acrylic paints.  To create the template for the apple shape I used a piece of 3mm/4mm thick chipboard.  Using a piece of copy paper I lined up the edges and then drew a complete apple with half appearing on the chipboard.  Then cut the apple shape out from the chipboard and used that on the book.  I must admit that as the cuts went deeper a slight angle was happening with each cut of the pages.  Although you don't seem to see the slight size difference in the pages when they a spanned out to form the apple.

Sticker Store is sponsoring us again with another fantastic sticker prize pack.

So be sure to pop on over to Unstamapbelles (challenge #22) and see what the rest of the fabulous Design Team came up with and add your entry to the list.  

I am really happy with this Apple I have to share it with:

My Time to Craft - #215 Use an old Book, Newspaper or Magazine

Make it Monday - #134 Always Anything Goes

Round Tuit - #147 

Challenges 4 Everybody - #17 Anything Goes