My Birthday Cards

Last Saturday (21st), I celebrated my 50th.  Had the most wonderful time as all was organised by my terrific husband.  All I had to do was enjoy and help just a tad.  :-)  Our son and daughter flew home for 24 hours.  My sister and her husband also flew up from down Brisbane way for a few days and helped out fantastically.  Our sons girlfriend even made the trip from Townsville but I am thinking that had more to do with our son. ;-).  I celebrated the night surrounded by wonderful friends and family.  Lots of laugh, yes and way too much drink but it was all good fun.  I just wanted to share all the beautiful handmade cards I was lucky enough to receive.

Stitched card from my Mum. :-)

This talented lady a friend from school days - grade 5 (10yo) even, made my birthday cake also.

4 layers of caramel mud cake - Yum!

Another of my talented friends.  This card was the second card and only for a joke, as I had give her a flower pop up card for her 50th last year....my first attempt and this is her first attempt.  Faces are the ladies I used to play tennis with.

More photos to show all sides.

This is the real card from Gloria and it is just spectacular.  Gloria was a little sneaky too, messenging our daughter in Brisbane who then text Dad (my husband) sitting beside me for younger photos of myself.  These also were sent back via that same route although Gloria only lives 5 mins away.

Other pages - me in primary school and on my wedding day.

The loves of our lives - son and daughter and recent photo of me....I do look a bit worried in this photo.

The last page of the card signed by all the tennis ladies.

This is from the talented Ruth who does amazing things with Stampin Up products.

Kaye is super talented and wonderful lady who I have met through the online Craftmad site.

Another talented lady who dabbles in many crafts and at the moment it is Chalk Art.  Karen, I met through Craftmad and we discovered we live minutes away from each other so now regularly catch up for coffee.

Another friend that I have known since grade five.  We don't get to see each other much these days but technology keeps us in close contact since her move to NZ.

From my Aunty Barb. :-)

Another wonderful lady Jan, who I have met through Craftmad.

Yet another school friend from grade 5 era.  Rachel, takes amazing photos mostly of bugs and flowers.   This is one that she has given to me, how special.

My brother gave me this but I imagine that it was my sister-in-law, 2 nieces and nephew that had the fun of putting all together.  This got a lot of laughs on the night.  Yes, there are fifty lollipops.

This beautiful card arrived from Cathy another lady from Craftmad who I have not had the privilege yet to meet in person but we will. 

All my cards lined up.

Will catch up again soon.  Thanks for visiting.  Scruff the dog needs to go for a walk outside so must dash.

Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt Block - Craftmad March Quilt Block Swap

Hi everyone, this is the Disappearing Nine Patch quilt block I made for Mandy, my partner over at Craftmad for our March swap.  Mandy asked for tropical which I thought the vines, birds represented.  Also Mandy loves blue and these blues just remind of the waters out on the reef.  You can see the other blocks made for the swap here in our Craftmad gallery.

Happy Birthday Mum

Happy Birthday to my wonderful Mum..........

Mum loves, green and butterflies so this was the card for her.  I made this with a great friend Ruth, who is a Stampin Up demonstrator.  I had a few friends around and we had a play of some of the new items (this was back in January).   Even though stamping is not something I do regularly I always love how well Stampin Up stamps go so well together and easily to make a beautiful card.

Starflower Quilt Block - February Craftmad Quilt Block Swap

This is the quilt block I made for my Craftmad partner for the February swap (view other swap blocks here in gallery).  Cathy asked for rainbow colours with a white background but I like the purple/violet which is part of the rainbow.  I have used the Starflower tutorial that I found over at Ellison Lane Quilts.  As I said to Cathy, this block makes me smile.  I am really happy with the neatness of the triangles.....so much better than when I started two years ago.

Craftmad February Swap Card

This is the second card I made for our February swap over at Craftmad (gallery here).  We were sent ten embellishments during January and February we had to put them to use.  The embellishments I received on this card were the pink paper punched flowers, the pink jewel flowers, the sequins, ribbon and little puffed fabric hearts.  I added the handout leaves and the die cut Happy Birthday.  Again I enjoyed the challenge of putting these embellishments together. 

Happy 21st Birthday - Brendan

Hi everyone, thanks for all your lovely comments on my previous posts.  Our daughter is now settled in Brisbane and had orientation week at university last week, lectures start this week.  So fingers crossed it is everything she has thought it would be.  So life is now settling into a new routine for my husband and I.....we have gone complete circle and it's back to the two of us which at this stage we are enjoying. :-)

It is our son, Brendan's 21st birthday today.....a wonderful, caring man he has become.

I have taken a liking to the step card style as of late and thought this would be perfect for Brendan's card.  I recently bought (or was hostess gift) the SU Big Day stamp set so decided to put the wording into use.  I then found a cupcake stamp and added 21 candles, coloured with my copics.  The paper I stamped the images onto was white and too stark next to the Stampin Up design papers I later decided to use.  So used one of my earth tone copics to change the background colour of my paper on the cake image.  I have added some black glitter card stock (Blue Edge Crafts) as 21 deserves some bling.  I used my Impression Obession letter die for the Twenty One along the bottom of the card.

To finish it all off, I created a matching envelope with my envelope punch board.

Wishing you all a wonderful day.

February Swap Card - Craftmad

Our swap over at Craftmad this month was a fun one.  We each received 10 or more embellishments from our January swap partner and now we had to put them to use.  One card to return to the originator of the embellishments and the other to another partner.  This step card has been sent back to Mrs A who kindly sent me such lovely embellishments to work with.  On her blog Mrs A is currently working her way through different fold cards so this inspired me to try a step card again.  I so love the butterfly she sent and the lovely sequins.  Mrs A sent everything other than the card stock and papers.  You can see more swap creations here in the Craftmad gallery.

Have a great day.

Happy Birthday Dad

Wishing my Dad a fantastic birthday and hope his day is filled with wonderful surprises.

I found a wonderful tutorial for this card on Kim's blog.  It was so much fun inking up all the edges and seeing the toolbox emerge.  I googled 'tool clipart' printed and coloured them with my copics.  I am really happy with the end result.

This is a scheduled post because I am down in Brisbane enjoying the last minutes with our daughter before I jet set back home and she starts on a new journey in her life at Uni. 

Thanks for passing by.

Friends 50th Birthday

Happy Birthday Fran....so good of you to get the ball rolling on all the 50th birthday's this year.  :-)

Back in January I had a morning tea with friends and one was Stampin Up Demonstrator Ruth who let us play with some of the new stamps.  This was a spare card front left after our morning of fun (much to Ruth's horror I am sure) I have added a 50th sticker and some lovely gold metallic butterflies to add some dimension.  I then layered the card front up on to a plain white card pre scored card.

Hope your Thursday's go well.

Special Address Book and Index Book

We had a couple of close family friends over last night for a farewell pizza night for our daughter.  I just had to share this beautiful gift from our bookbinder friends.  It is an address book and index book (for passwords possibly) made just for our daughter who loves purple.   The photos are our dog Scruff on the front.  I think these books will be used well. 

Just Because

Another of my cards to our son.  As the title says "Just Because" or it's a "hello".  More stash I have held onto for way too long.  The papers I have not been in love with or found a project to use on before so this card put them to good use.  I pin pricked the edge of the layered card front on which I have added a collection of bubble stickers I have had forever.  To me they are more suited to scrap booking which I never do.  I constantly look at them but the sentiments never fit a card I have worked on.  I have covered some of the really soppy sentiments with little paper punched dinosaurs I have also had for a very long time.  Actually, the dinosaurs were collected one day when the kids were still at primary school (they are now 19 and 20).  We visited my Mum's one school holidays and she dug out all her paper punches and let the kids punch all the shapes to their hearts content.  So its nice to put their fun in to use at long last.

Thanks for your comments and visiting, I really appreciate it. :-)

Hello card

This is the sketch challenge over at Craftmad for February.

At the beginning of 2014 I decided I would do up some fun cards and send to our son on a regular basis thinking it is always nice to receive snail mail that isn't a bill.  Well, I think I made three. :-)  So am attempting again this year.  Thought it would be a good way to put the sketches to use from over at Craftmad and also use items in my stash that I have had forever but are just too good to toss or pass on.   So this is my version of the sketch above.  I started with some orange gloss card stock.....orange is really not my thing thats why it has sat for so long.  Then some black glitter card stock from Blue Edge Crafts.  A scrap of the orange gloss card stock which I have used some left over rub-on letters.  Another scrap of card stock on which I have written in gold pen different ways to say hello.  A pre cut  black circle and the cork lettering stickers for the word Hi!.  Across the top of the card I placed a little washi tape border.

It's a wet old day here today, so hoping to catch up on some blogging and some crafting. 

Have a fun weekend everyone.

Craftmad Quilt Block - Lovers Knot

Once again, I am taking part in the Craftmad Quilt Block Swap.  This year, each month we have a new partner and we are swapping a block in the partners chosen colours and the sewer chooses the block pattern.  I have asked for purples and whites and hope to put together a quilt for my daughter at the end of the year.

My partner for January asked for Burgundy, Pink and Cream.  These are the fabrics I had in my stash that I think fit the criteria.  I have gone with a Lovers Knot design and followed the tutorial over at Quilters Cache website.  Interestingly,  when my partner received this block she referred to it as a Double Wrench pattern when I googled I saw more images of it as a Double Wrench.  Now that I look at the photo here I am very happy with how neat this block has turned out.  

Come on over to Craftmad as we are always looking for more members to join in our Quilt Block Swaps.

Edit: we are swapping 12" blocks.

Craftmad January Swap - Sticker Card

This is the second sticker card I created for our January Swap challenge over at Craftmad. I had decided to use some of my butterfly stickers as I knew the recipient loves butterflies.   I was then wondering where I would go with this card but thanks this post by Loz about her embroidery cards that gave me a starting point.   I then went through my stash and found this laser cut card front from Blue Edge Crafts.  I stitched the corner flower with colours that matched the butterfly stickers.  Finished with a birthday sticker that my daughter gave me for Christmas.

You can find other cards created for this challenge in the Craftmad Gallery here.

Bye for now.

January Craftmad Swap - Sticker Card

This month at Craftmad our challenge was to swap two cards using stickers.  This is the first card I made.  I have had these hat stickers (from Sticker Store) in my stash, I knew a day would come that I could use them.  I adhered them to some white card stock and coloured them with my Copic pens.  The bottom hat I added a couple of dots to team up with the background paper.  I then attached the hats with 3D foam tape.  Sentiment is computer generated.

You can see what other members of Craftmad came up with here in the Craftmad Gallery.

Thanks for dropping on by.