Friday 29 March 2013

Birthdays, birthdays everywhere...!

Hiya,

Today's update will not only show a couple of photo's from my Nephew's first birthday party last Saturday, but last Sunday my friends and I celebrated three more birthday's!!

So my Nephew Alexander's first birthday was held at a lovely park in Bethany in the Barossa Valley.  It was a fantastic day and the kids had fun running and playing on the big oval.  So the Friday night before my Ma and I made some Macarons for the party, I wanted to make them Kid friendly so I made Sherbie lolly flavoured white chocolate ganache for the middle.  These were our best batches yet, and turned out beautifully, and they tasted fantastic!!



The cake was also amazing, my Sister's very clever friend made the Chocolate shards for around the edge, and it was covered in Easter M&M's.  The gorgeous cake topper was made by the Cupcake Stylist.  The perfect finishing touch!!




On Sunday we celebrated 3 Birthday's.  First up we have Todd's card whose birthday was on Tuesday 26th.  I have known Todd since high school, and back then he often sported a mohawk in very bright colours, pink, green, blue - it has probably been every single colour at one time or another!!  So for Todd I thought my Lil Monster from Annabelle stamps would be perfect.  For his card I used my new Vintage Basic papers from Whimsy stamps, these papers are just beautiful!!



On Wednesday little Kaiden turned 5.  He is growing up into such a handsome, intelligent and loving young man.  For Kaiden I decided to use the Kaisercraft mini stamp Turtle.  For the background I used my Tumbled Glass distress stain with 2 stamps from the Kaisercraft Offshore Collection embossed with Pewter embossing powder.  The Happy Birthday postage mark stamp is from Kaszazz.



The final card I have to show was for Jess.  Jessie's birthday isn't until April 14th, but we combined her Fiancee Todd's and their son Kaiden's birthdays all together.  For Jessie I used the beautiful Nevaeh from Saturated Canary.  I have combined her with Kaisercraft paper Estelle from the English Rose collection.




The cute little birthday sentiment is from Wild Rose Studio. The bling flourishes are from Kaisercraft in Champagne colour, and the flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.


The inside shows the two beautiful sides of the paper.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter Weekend.

Thanks for looking.



Sunday 17 March 2013

My littlest man is turning one...

Well this week brings an event that is a very happy occasion.  I have three little men in my life that I absolutely love to bits.  These three men are my nephews, the oldest James is 8, William is 4 and my littlest man Alexander will be turning 1 this week.  Whilst this will be a happy occasion, it also reminds me that time is flying by so quickly and my men are growing up way, WAY too fast!!

So this Wednesday is Alex's birthday, and we are having a party to celebrate next Saturday, let's hope there is not too much rain as it will be in the park!!  I am posting this now with the theory that my sister will be way too busy getting everything done this week to check in and have a look, so Lizzie if you are reading this close the window and come back after Saturday ;o)

I am very organised for the boys birthdays this year, with all the stamps I want to use for their cards already ordered and bought months in advance, very unlike me I know!!  Usually I scramble around at the last minute to get something organised as that is generally when I do my best work...perhaps I am finally growing up too... nah that'll never happen ;o)

Ok, so lets get onto the card.  Using Edwin with Airplane from the Prince and Princesses Collection.



My colours were very much in keeping with St Patrick's day today, although not something I had thought of when I first started colouring.  The orange and green is very similar to the Irish flag colours.

The other products I used were 

  • Lovely Fence doohickey from Magnolia.
  • The strip of paper behind Edwin is from the Kaisercraft Little Toots collection 
  • I'm not sure where the gingham is from it has been in my collection that long!  
  • The sentiment is from Wild Rose Studio 
  • The number 1 stamp was from my Docrafts Forever Friends Hand Script Numbers set.
  • And to finish, seeing as I can't put flowers on boys cards there is plenty of stickles, there has to be something 'pretty' on there so I used my True Blue, Waterfall, Eucalyptus and some Silver...only a little bit of bling ;o)  




Alexander, I got the pleasure to see and hold you when you were only hours old.  You have such a unique little personality, and I look forward to watching you grow and learn and become your own little person.  Aunty Mimi loves you, and will always be your biggest fan xoxoxo

I'd like to enter this into
7 Kids College Fund Challenge Blog - Glitter
Tilda's Town - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking.

xx



Thursday 7 March 2013

Have a Lil Monster birthday!

Good evening,

Today is my friend Brian's birthday, and I am popping in with a quick post to show you the card I made for him.

I used my new Annabelle Stamps set Lil Monsters Balloon.  I bought this stamp after coming across it in a youtube video,  what a cute stamp this is, and such superb quality!!


So here is my Lil Monster, coloured with Derwent Inktense Pencils.  I didn't wait for my first layer to dry properly when colouring his skin, and there is a dark spot near his right eye that still really annoys me in this image, but it is still all a part of the learning experience. As i had just got my UTEE in the mail I wanted to play, so this little guy got two layers, looking back I should have gone that extra layer, but perhaps the 'rustic' look is better for this Lil Monster ;)


The sentiment is also a part of the stamp set, cute huh!


Happy birthday Brian, although I know you won't comment, I do know you will read this ;)  Even though you had to work today, i hope you have had a good day and you have a super year to come!

Thanks for looking




Sunday 3 March 2013

My new favourites

Good afternoon, 

It is a beautiful Sunday here in Oz, and I am relaxing on the couch and doing some of the washing.  I should probably be outside in the sunshine, but I have already got some sunburn from Friday at work, so don't want to push my luck.

So after 5 weeks off of work over Christmas to say starting back has been nuts is nothing short of an understatement!! We have now hit March and time is just flying.  So by the time I get home at night all i have been doing is dinner and lying on the couch, after spending 8+ hours behind the computer at work each day my eyes are just too tired too paint.  

Whilst I was off, there were many days spent looking at all sorts of different ideas and techniques on the internet.  Something I have wanted to try my hand at is colouring with pencils, and this was something I could do lying on the couch rather than sit at my craft table which I was unable to do at that stage.  So I stamped my Summer Flower Tilda from the Summer Memories collection and had a go.




When I was at my art supplies store late last year buying some more watercolour paper the cashier and I were talking, and she asked me what I watercolour.  When I said about Distress Inks, she asked me if I had seen the new(ish) Derwent Inktense pencils.....ummm no!!  These are amazing, such beautiful, bold, intense colours.  I did my research, then back to the shop and home with a 24 set.  I decided to try them on my Summer Flower Tilda and see if I couldn't blend out the colour a bit, and increase the intensity even more.  She was just stamped on plain white card, so not the best painting medium, but I think it worked really well....


Another little something I started with the Derwent Inktense, as you can see she is not yet complete - but she will be in time for Christmas!! This is my first real practice piece starting with the Inktense from scratch - they are a unique medium and I am having fun learning to colour with them.  I love that you can do all your colours at once and then activate with the water and it blends right in!!


So the other problem of being stuck home sick and a computer to entertain me was that with the internet you have the ability to shop anytime you like, without having to get showered or dressed, so even if you feel crappy you can still shop to your hearts content ;o)

I ended up at the Little Darlings Rubber Stamps store, I fell in love with Saturated Canary stamps a few months back, but wasn't a huge fan of the initial release in rubber, and being a distress ink painter makes it difficult to work with digi's.  It can be done, but rubber stamps are just soooo much more user friendly ;o)

So off went another order and I began haunting the mailbox ;o)  First up was the stamp Nevaeh, I just love the hair and eyes, and I was sooo excited to colour her up



Her clothing is a bit of a mixture of colours, but as I just wanted to paint and had no card in mind yet I decided to add in a few more colours to keep my options open for when I did get around to putting her on a card.  I painted everything but the hair, I was so scared I was going to muck it up, but I was so so happy with the end product.  I also tried out new colours for my skin.  Antique linen first, then a blend of Tattered Rose and Vintage Photo, these two are pre-blended before painting.  As you will see a little further down the post, it is hard to get the right colour, and can come off a little dark if you are not careful.

Next up Little Ladybug, love, love, LOVE this stamp.  Ladybugs are so cute, I have always liked my Ladybug Tilda, and now more to play with :o)



Another thing that got delivered recently was some UTEE, Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel.  I love the 'glass' finish this can give when multiple layers are applied, so this little lady got the UTEE treatment :o)




Look at that shine!!  Love it!  So this next little lady called Thank You ended up a little too brown for my liking... Once again some different colours used as I am not sure what kind of card she will be on, but really I was just having fun painting.




The hardest thing I find to paint is flowers, especially bunches of them where they all seem to blend together, and even more so when my eyes get tired.  I wear glasses because when my eyes get tired they have trouble focusing, and they slip really easily into double vision, however there comes a point when even the glasses can't help me.  Something I do to try and assist with this is plan my colours before I start, this way I don't have to concentrate so hard to pick out the different parts of the stamp when I come back.  I use the base colour in a light wash to plan out the different areas and what they should be.  Currently I am working on a project for a friends mum, and I am using the Penny Black Spring Beauty stamp.  Using two different greens, Shabby Shutters and Bundled Sage I have picked out the two different leaves/stems and then the tulips have been started with Spun Sugar and the other flowers with Milled Lavender.  From here I will go back in and complete the shading. 



I hope you have enjoyed looking at some of my colouring today, and I will be back later in the week to show you the card I made yesterday using a cute stamp set from Annabelle stamps.

Thanks for looking xx



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