MerryMade Crafts etc ...

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 ...

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 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.

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.

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. 

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 S tampin Up design papers I later decided to use.  So used one of my ear...

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 s wap creations here in the Craftmad gallery. Have a great day.