MerryMade Crafts etc ...

I have found a new love this year and that is succulents. I have been slowly transforming my unused vegetable garden into a succulent garden which sounded easier than what it is going to be.  I have discovered that although succulents don't need as much water and don't mind the sun.  They don't really like the blazing afternoon sun which my garden gets.  I'm also concerned I will lose the lot during our wet season as they just don't cope with a lot of water.  I have now put one of each type I own into three pots so I have a plant in reserve at all times. I was having so much fun growing new plants from leaves of my other plants I thought they would be a great christmas gifts to people at work and other close friends.  So I asked my son to create some small pots for me on his new 3D printer and the photo shows what he came up with.  I was only expecting one design but he was having so much fun creating new designs the collection grew. Have a won...

For our November card swap over at Craftmad  we had to swap two cards creating our own background.  I had fun with paints and salt and a little rice for this background. Added some flower stamps, more doodling and some rub on words and smudges of gold ink. I spied this design for a background on Pinterest unfortunately, I did not save the original post so can't link….if it is yours please let me know.  A design I thought would be pretty quick to do but I was wrong. I doodled the black lines in the background- easy part and then coloured with my Copic pens. Colouring the sections took way longer than I imagined but fun and relaxing, each column has three different row stripes and to colour those stripes each had three different Copic pens.  Coloured the robot with my Copic pens too.

I was just checking out different things on my blog as I have day off due to our son and his girlfriend coming for an overnight visit.  Lovely surprise.   I just spied that I have now been blogging for 10 years…….unbelievable!  I started 18th November 2008 after visiting other peoples blogs and being inspired to CASE their cards, I thought it would be fun to share my results.    Something I didn't do was blog to get the most amount of followers.  My friend from school kindly commented on my very first post below and I made it 2 comments because I replied.  The majority of posts for 2008 have no comments. :-)  I was looking through to see at what date someone that comments now first visited my blog. CrafteeCC aka CathyC commented way back in February 2009 and is still commenting today…..thanks for sticking with my Cathy. :-)  2009 was the peak of my blogging with 358 posts.  2018 has been a bit of a comeback year for me with...

I made this for my friend Tracey who turns 50 today, party last night.  As well as friend Tracey is my and a couple other ladies exercise group instructor - so sometime we are thinking she is not our friend. :-)  During the exercises and then again two days later when we can hardly walk. I had fun making this card, I used a 12" x 12" piece of card stock and had to extend it with the darker green card stock to fit all 50 candles on, hence the three strips of gold washi tape.  I then rolled 50 scrap piece of paper 7cm x 3cm on a chop stick placing double sided tape on the closing edge of the rolled paper.  For the flames I punched 25 gold hearts and cut them in half - the is the best tip I have found on Pinterest this year. Thanks for visiting, hope your weekend is good.  I'm off for coffee with another group of friends this morning.

Our October swap at Craftmad was all about Black and White.  I found this wonderful paper in my stash and layered it on black and white card stock.  Then on the front strip I attached these black sticker mandala which I thought teamed up with the paper well.  Added a bit of bling and finished with a sticker sentiment. I really do enjoy doodling or zentangle as they tend to call it these days.  I started this by working in pencil first, drawing and outline of the star from one of my dies.  Then I drew lines to make sections around the star and filled that with a different doodle design in each.  Finally went over the pencil with my fine tip pen (a finer one is on my Christmas wish list).  So relaxing and makes you forget about the world as you fill the sections.  I layered my design on some black glitter card stock to give it a bit of a shine.

This card came about as I was sent the cream die cut background piece with the birdcage already attached.  I thought the side of die cut had to much open space so I added to rows of rub-on borders, attached some felt flowers to the bird cage as I could find no birds that suited the cage.  Then attached that to card stock and paper layers.  Finished with a sticker sentiment. Here we go into another week I wonder what it will bring?  Hope all is going well in your part of the world. 

The card base I received from a friend who had started the card but never finished.  So all I had was the card covered with this pretty flower paper.  I have added all the embellishments from my stash and I think gave it a little retro or hippy style.   I have enjoyed completing the couple of cards my friend sent me as it has had me delving into my stash to find something that matches…..probably things that I would not normally think to use. Maybe you could do a swap with friends of your cards half done and see what they come up with.

Another couple of cards made from my Graphic 45 Paper Pad - Off to the Races for the my challenge.  I spied this paper folded design on Pinterest which led me to this blog and had to give it a go.  It is so simple and I will have to do it again as I don't think this paper was quite right to do the design justice.  However, I am happy to have another christmas card in my small stash. I added versa mark clear holly stamped leaves around the border of the card as it looked to bare. As well as trying only use papers from this paper pad for the challenge, I added one of my own and that is to use up my pre-stamped images I have gathered over time from friends or extras I have had and not used.  So I enjoyed finally putting these cute images to use that I have had for years.  The card stock they are stamped on was white so I grabbed my Copic pens and coloured them to match the papers.  A little lace and ribbon, a bit of layering and finished with a co...

This swap over at Craftmad was all about using dies.  Out came my bike die that I haven't used too often - ran it through pink and grey for the wheels and pedals.  Added some punched flowers to the basket with a touch of glitter.  Finished with my Happy Birthday die. I attached different sized die cut circles to this card stock and a couple of die cut leaves then ran it all through an embossing folder.  Next I layered up some paper flowers and finished with the pretty purple sequins and Best Wishes sticker.   Sunday for me and I'm off to have breakfast in town with my husband possibly along the Esplanade somewhere.  Do a bit of people watching - always fun.  Then picking up Mum to take her to the local Christmas Craft Fair. Good times. Wishing you a nice day too.

The the third card I have made for my Blue Edge Crafts Graphic 45 paper pad challenge.  I have teamed the papers with fishing stickers which I attached to blender paper so I could colour with my Copic pens.  I then cut out the smaller images and attached to the brown tabs that I found in my collection - from a stampin up that is years old.  Finished with the Happy Birthday sticker. Life is good here, waiting for a bit of rain to make things green again otherwise great.  Hoping your part of the world is good too.