Rose Birthday Card

Hi everyone, I stopped admiring my tidy crafting space yesterday and decided to make a card.  Everything was so easy to find and at this stage everything went back away at the end of playing.  This is for my Finnish friend who's birthday is next week.  I started with some SU Craft Crumb sprayed with my Smooch Gold Spritz.  Dug out my Spellbinders Labels Eighteen die. Only know what it is as my friend Helen and I were comparing dies yesterday.  The wonderful gingham paper is a paper bag from Japan. I have saved a few of the paper bags from our trip over there as I loved the patterns on them.  The roses are from SU Both Way Blossoms set which I have coloured with my copics.  Finished with some bling and wonderful black Happy Birthday stickers from Sticker Store.  You can't really see in the photo but I have also used the Gold Spritz on the the flower topper.  

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left such lovely comments about my tidy crafting area. Have to say though that one crafting area is plenty for me so sorry to disappoint but not making any lists. :-)  Although, if you would like to throw in airfare and accommodation I might just have a rethink.

Have a great Wednesday everyone.

My Craftroom Now

This is the before photo that I posted on Saturday of my craft area.

I have been busy all weekend and this is what my area looks like now.  I just want to sit and look at the area now as it is so clean and tidy.  I emptied every little draw and container and put it back in order.  A few things were tossed and already gone as the rubbish man has just been.  Other things to be passed on to my little nieces and nephews for something to do this school holidays.  My daughter kept coming in and saying there is something different....it's easier to open the cupboard.  I think that is because there is no junk on the floor getting in the way.

This is really not a great before shot as I already had removed all the gear in the second shelf ... my messiest shelf holding bags of ribbons.

I emptied everything out and headed off to our new KMart 15mins down the road and bought seven new storage containers.  So wonderful.  Ribbons all together, rubber stamps together, ink pads together, dies and embossing folders together.  All that is left to do is label them all....not for me but my daughter so she won't go through everything to find what she is after.

So I am really happy with this area again and hope to get crafting soon. Although it is school holidays now for two weeks so will be in and out with our daughter and our son is back in town for the second week. :-)

Must say there may be one negative about cleaning out your craft cupboard on the weekend when your hubby is home.  He made this comment 'I didn't know you had that much stuff'.  Guess I had better wait a little before I order more. :-)

Have a great day.

Season Trivia

Curiosity once again got the better of me.  Love google.  My SIL who lives in Florida, USA commented on facebook yesterday that she is keen for Autumn to start on the 23rd September.  I thought this was odd as here in Australia our seasons start at the 1st of a month.  Yes, I googled and this is an explanation I came up with.  Thought I would share.

In countries such as the UK, Denmark, Ireland and Australia the seasons are simply decided according to the Roman calendar, with the seasons decided by the hottest / coldest quarters of the year and beginning on the first of the month.
So Autumn - March 1st
Winter - June 1st
Spring - September 1st
Summer December 1st
and reverse for the opposite hemisphere.

For countries such as the United States, the seasons are determined Astrologically - and begin at the solstice and equinoxes. So spring begins when the days hit equal length then get longer, autumn when they hit equal length then get shorter etc.
Thus spring - March 19 - 22 - the spring equinox
Summer - 19 - 23 June - the summer solstice
Autumn - 21 - 24 Sept - the autumn equinox
Winter 20 - 23 Dec - the winter solstice
and vice versa for the opposite hemispheres. 

Fun Photos

Click on the photos for a larger view.

Hubby has been busy with his camera again.  This is a Australasian Fig Bird playing hide and seek high in our tree tops.

One of our succulents in flower.

Our dog (schnoodle) surveying the land.

Our daughters pet - Peanuts the Siamese Fighting Fish.

Our son has been busy with his camera too.  Brisbane is in the middle of a festival 8 - 29th September.  Part of the entertainment is the lights on the river which include a laser show.  You can see more details here.  

This is a mirror ball at Southbank and apparently the colours slowly change.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

My Craft Area :-0

I keep disappearing from blog land...well the posting bit.  I still lurk and keep up with most of your blogs.  This afternoon I took the plunge to try and organise my craft area.  Things have been getting piled and piled.  The right hand section of this desk actually has the gear from one shelf of my cupboard on it.  The remainder of my crafting area has looked like this for a few weeks now. Hence, my low motivation to craft.  So time to get organised.

Most of this is one shelf worth of gear from the cupboard.  The start of my reorganising.

The starting point of my tidying and cleaning.  The top shelf is my fabrics and quilt blocks.  I did tidy this one month ago but that is far as got in the room.

I would love to hear what works well for you about storing clear stamps, embossing folders and dies.  Thanks for any help, as you can see I need it.

Have a great weekend.

Metal Sheet Embossing

Over at Unstampabelles it is time for the Design Teams half way inspiration post.

When I was first looking for embossing inspiration through Goolge I saw a photo where someone was using chipboard lettering and embossing by hand.  I thought I would give that idea a go with my Cuttlebug.

So to create the birthday embossed section of this card I arranged chipboard letters on my Cuttlebug 'B' plate then covered with the layer of green craft foil (metal sheeting), then my tan embossing mat, next the 'C' plate.  Ran it through the Cuttlebug and then sanded the embossed letters with an emery board. 

To put the card together I started with a pre-scored white A6 card.  Added a layer of KaiserCraft - Lone Ranger design paper.  Added the embossed metal sheeting and wrapped this with some mending yarn I found in my collection.  I added letter beads to spell out the word 'happy' to the tear bear embellishment.  Let you in on a secret.  I made this little bear and a couple of others that are now available at Blue Edge Crafts as cut out sheets, check them out here.  That was all to my card but I knew it needed more.  Then I remembered reading in JanR's post that 'hexagons' are in.  So I dug out my Spellbinder Hexagon dies and tried to make some bolt heads for the card.

I would like to enter into:

Fun with Shapes Challenge #117 - Beastly Good (include an animal)

Paper Crafting Journey - Must have a sentiment

Little Red Wagon #150 - Hexagons

Collection of Papertoles

Hi there, I made these paper tole cards for the last markets I did about a month ago.  Sorry about the photos as I had already put them into their plastic bags.  As the the paper tole images were so lovely I kept the remainder of the card simple by adding textured backgrounds and stitching around the edges.  Finished with the wonderful big sentiment sticker for Sticker Store. 

The background above is embossed card I received in a swap over at Craftmad.  We swapped ten A5 embossed pieces of card.  Think we should do that again real soon.

This background paper I have had in my collection for a while just waiting for that right moment.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo but I have used a vellum here with a fern print.

This was a fun card to put together.  Not often I use a doily and I think it is just perfect on this card.   The stripes down the side are Washi Tape.

Well thats me for another week.  Wishing you all a fantastic weekend and hope everything goes according to plan.  I have a little bit of exercise planned....walking and meeting up for coffee with some friends.  Gardening will happen I am sure and hubby mentioned something about a motor show on the weekend.  :-)

Churn Dash Block Swap (Craftmad)

Hi everyone, I have been busy spring cleaning our sons room.....so much dust but it is all gone now and time to move on to the next room.  The bonus is I have found space in his room to put some non crafting items that I store in my craft area which means more room for my craft. 

Today I am sharing with you the Churn Dash Blocks I have been making for our monthly swap over at Craftmad (Check out the gallery here August Swap and September Swap).  We started in July and each month we are doing a colour of the rainbow in bright fabric with a black background.  August was Red.  So out I went shopping and fell in love with the above fabric thinking at the time that it was majority red and a little white but when made up and put to the other blocks it just not fit at all.  So back to the shops I went.

I found this lovely red fabric which is more fitting to our quilt blocks we have already swapped.

We are swapping one for each member of the swap and I have been making one to keep for myself.

September is Orange.  I made this at the same time as the red Churn Dash Block as I was a little behind after having to buy the second fabric.  So cut out all the the pieces but forgot to multiple the orange pieces by four. Duh!  I didn't have enough of the orange fabric, so off to the shops I went again.

Of course, the fabric I had originally was nowhere to be found.  Had to buy another orange fabric, so two of my blocks are a little my patchy.

All four together.

These are the Churn Dash Blocks I have received from our past swaps.  First one was green.....Annette went for blue.  :-)  Then Red.

Next month we are doing Yellow.

Happy Birthday Learner Driver

A fun quick card for my friends son who turned 16 a couple of weeks ago.  Was a bit slow handing the card over and couldn't share earlier as I know my friend Helen likes to visit my blog.   Hi Helen! 

So 16 in Australia means learner driver licence time.  In Queensland, they sit a multi-choice test and must get at least 27 out of 30 right to receive their learners licence.  Then they have to do 100 hours of driving which is recorded in a log book and they are accompanied by a licenced driver .  In most cases this is when Mum's hair really turns to grey as ultimately they end up being the licenced driver with the 16 yo.

Well the card I started with Stampin Up (SU) Apricot Appeal for the base card, then a layer of SU Wild Wasbi.  Topped this with a printed out map of our area.  Cut free hand the little car shape and added two black circles for the wheels and created the little 'L' plate that he will be driving with for the next 12 months.  Finished with a black Happy Birthday sticker.

Another Banner

This is the second card I made for the August swap at Craftmad.  I started with some purple card stock to match the scrap piece of paper for the background.  Then a layer of quartz shimmer card stock which I have dotted and dashed around the edge with my fine tip ben.  Added two bling flowers and a black sticker sentiment.  To create the banner I dug out most of my Washi Tape collection and attached them to twine then added a flower button at each end.

The end of the week again.  More gardening planned for myself this weekend.  Wishing you all a good one.

Pennants, banners, flags

Pennants, banners, flags was the theme of the August Craftmad Swap.  Check out the Craftmad Gallery for everyone else's take on this challenge.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to reduce my scraps a little.  However, this time I thought I would also stick to a Design Paper range of scraps....so dug out all my Bazzill paper from the Avalon range.  Cut out all the little triangles and then with my fine tip black pen drew and outline just on the inside of every triangle.  Next I grabbed my ruler and drew four black lines across the front of my card and then added  my flags.  I then hand wrote Happy Birthday and added some small dots to the card.  Thought that would be the card but was not happy with it.  So dug out my black Happy Birthday stickers and added them to small strips of the same white peal card stock as the card front. Rounded the corners on the strips.  Then I used my favourite stickers...these wonderful birds from Sticker Store.  I think they just finish the card nicely.

Embedded Embossing

I knew I would just have to try this technique again.  Thought it would be a wonderful way to use up some our pre-punched shapes.  When the kids were much younger we would visit my Mum's and she would drag out most of her paper punches.....a lot in her collection.  We'd give the kids some paper and they would have a ball cutting out the shapes.  The shapes now sit in three containers like the one shown at the top of this photo waiting for the special day they are needed.

So I dragged out some SU Very Vanilla for the base card.  Cut free hand the vase from Bazzill Two Scoops.  Then sat and arranged the flowers until I like them.  The fiddliest part was then gluing all these pieces together and to the cardstock which needs to be done to get a good effect.  

Ta dah! after I have put the entire topper through my SU Lattice embossing folder.  I added some orange gems to the centre of a few flowers and added the gold sticker sentiment from Sticker Store.  The rest of the card is SU Marina Mist, SU Barely Banana and patterned paper from the Stampin Up Subtles pack.

This card would be perfect for our challenge over at Unstampabelles which is all about embossing this month.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Craft Your Passion - #126 Flowers

Challenges 4 Everybody - #2 Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door - #34 Always Anything Goes

Blue Moon - Full Moon

Hi everyone, I was just over visiting JudyS's blog 'Stitch Along with Me'.  Judy does amazing knitting and shares such lovely photos of her surrounding area.  Today she had a photo of the recent Blue Moon/Full Moon which reminded me that my hubby was out taking photos of it too.  Thought I would share one.

Hubby was saying it wasn't very blue and as you can see not a bit of blue to be found.  So of course I googled to find out why.  Came across this site - Earth Sky.  Here is a little of what they said, visit the site for two more explanations.

August 2012 is a month with two full moons. And, by popular acclaim, that means it’s a Blue Moon month – but Blue in name only. That’s because a Blue Moon is sometimes defined as the second full moon in a calendar month. The first full moon was August 1. The second full moon is today – August 31, 2012. The second full moon of August 2012 is the Blue Moon.

Unstampabelles Challenge #15 - Embossing

Hi everyone, hope you had a wonderful weekend.  It's now the beginning of Spring here in Australia and the start of our newest challenge at Unstampabelles.  This month we want to see embossing on your paper creations. 

 I was googling in search of something different to do with my embossing folders and discovered a technique I had not seen before.  Embedded Embossing.  This is where you layer stickers, punched/diecut shapes etc onto your cardstock then run them all through your embossing folder which matts them all together.

For my card I started with black cardstock.  Then a layer of patterned paper from a magazine giveaway.  Next I used a thick piece of white paper and added these wonderful black animal stickers from Sticker Store our sponsor this month at Unstampabelles.  I have had these stickers in my collection for a little while waiting for just the right project.  I got a bit tricky and placed the giraffe next to the zebra.  I cut away the centre bit of the giraffe to make him look like he is now standing behind the zebra.  I added a gold sentiment sticker also from the Sticker Store.  Added a splash of colour with punched leaves in all shades of green.  Make sure you adhere everything before embossing...just makes everything sit flatter. I then put it all into my Stampin Up Lattice embossing folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug.  Finished the card off with a piece of ribbon.  I really love how the stickers and punched leaves all now appear to be one layer.  A technique I will try again real soon.

This shows the sticker sheet and the scene half created.

An up close view to show how well everything matts together.

Another view.

So we would love to see your paper craft creations over at Unstampabelles Challenge #15 using embossing.  Open until Friday, 28th September.

I would like to share this with the following challenges:

Make it Monday - #105 Always Anything Goes

Stampavie and more - #175 Animals

Inspire Me Friday - #74 Always Anything Goes

Saturday Challenge - #201 Animal Antics

Where I have been

Just thought I would share a little something that has been keeping me busy and away from blogland.  Myself and another lady have been helping out a friend with this local monthly newspaper since June.  It is delivered free of charge to 2000 residents and relies solely on advertisers.  We have been trying to get a few more advertisers and find the whole process interesting.  We now have it available online thanks to Issuu and have our own Facebook page so able to reach a lot more of the community.  Enjoy!

Open publication - Free publishing - More australia