From the Heart

Hello :)

Wow it has been a warm one here in Adelaide today, and the weekend is set to get even worse, 40 degrees both days! (for those working in Fahrenheit that is 104!!)  A perfect weekend to hibernate and craft :)

I am here today to show you a fabulous image from SlinkyXTart - From the Heart.  

I teamed it up with this absolutely perfectly backing paper found in the Kaisercraft Mix & Match 12x12 paper pad, and the sentiment from Paper Smooches Stamps.

Thanks for stopping by, and if you would like to join the SlinkyXTart Facebook group, friend request me on Facebook and send me a private message so I can add you in :)

Thanks for stopping by and seeing this fortnights project.

xx

A Make it Crafty Christmas Special

Leading up to Christmas this year I seemed to have plenty of time to make up all my cards ready to go, then it felt like I blinked, Christmas was upon us and I had very few ready to go.  Thankfully there are some understanding people in my group of friends who aren't holding it against me.

So Christmas morning I was up early, not because I have children and there was presents to open from Santa, I had cards to finish!!  I had two to get ready for the day, Ma and I had already decided that we wouldn't stress ourselves, and would give each other our cards after Christmas.  I finally delivered it today!!

So for my two cards for Christmas day I coloured up Floppy from the Make it Crafty (MiC) Store.  I wanted to steer away from traditional colours and so we have two very pastel coloured cards.

First up for my Kris Kringle recipient

This next photo shows the gorgeous sparkle from the Diamond Stickles on those Snowflakes

Finally a close up of the adorable Floppy.  The fur trim on his hat and sleeves is done with Glossy Accents and white flock.

Copic colours - 
Blues - B0000, B000, B00 and B01
White - W0, W1, W2
Shoes and Hair - E40, E42, E43 and E44
Bell - E50, E51, E53

Next up was a card for my Sister and her family.  She has a family of boys, so not really the right colours for the boys in her life, but I know she appreciated it :)

The background paper I made myself with Kaszazz snowflake stamps, pewter embossing powder and Milled Lavender Distress Stain. All the elements have then been edged with Distress Stain Brushed Pewter, it has a gorgeous shine to it as you can see in the next photo.  Unfortunately my sentiment curled with the crackle medium, and definitely didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, but there was no time for me to be able to fix it.

Copic colours - 
Blues - BV000, BV00, BV02 and 0
White - W0, W1, W2
Shoes and Hair - E40, E42, E43 and E44
Bell - E50, E51, E53

So as I mentioned above, I delivered Ma's Card to her today. Using another MiC image - Fairy Bauble.  As you can probably tell I love the MiC images, just so much fun to colour, and they almost always provide me with a new challenge in learning to use Copics.

I tried to make it matching the december sketch challenge on the MiC Facebook group, but found out I had printed my image too big.  So still keeping the basic elements I moved the image left, the banner right and came up with the following

Papers are from Maja and Kaisercraft matted with Chocolate and White Shimmer card stocks respectively.  The sentiment is also Kaisercraft.

Copic Colours - 

Bauble - E40, E42, E43, E44, E47 and E49

Hair - E40, E42, E43, E44 and a touch of E47 inside the curls

Wings - E70, E71, E74 and E77

Wings - E70, E71, E74, E77 and E79

Holly - G20, G21, G94 and G99

Berries - R35, R37, R59, R89

Eyes - BG01, B01, B00, B000 and B0000

I would like to enter my final card, Fairy with Bauble into the MiC Facebook Design Team call for January to April 2014.  **fingers crossed**

Thanks for having a look today,  I hope you and you families had a lovely Christmas and I wish you a safe, happy and healthy New Year for 2014.

xx

Backyard General

Evening all,

I hope you have had a lovely weekend.  The weather here in Adelaide has just been awesome, beautiful warm sunny days which is a nice change :)

Last week my oldest nephew turned 9 making Aunty Milly feel very old ;)  I had bought the gorgeous little Backyard General Saturated Canary Stamp from Little Darlings many months ago now ready to James' card with.

I wanted to paint him with army camouflage, but just didn't have any paper to match so I decided to make my own using my distress stains.  I was really happy with how it turned out.

The 'net'  I made using some hessian and pulling out strands until I was happy with the effect.  I put some eyelets in and attached it to the card using some chocolate brown string I had in my stash.

For my camouflage paper I started with a white piece of card, and added a layer of Antique Linen distress stain over the whole piece.  Once the first layer was dried I added a random patter with Shabby Shutter, Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain Distress Stains. I then went back in with a sponge and the same colour browns to 'dirty' it up a bit, for the green I used Forest Moss instead of the Shabby Shutters as it was a darker, browner green.  The stamp around the edge is from Kaisercraft called Distress.

A close up shot of this cute little guy :)

Thanks for stopping by :)

xx

It's started....

As you can see from my blog, my colouring to this point has been done with distress inks.  When originally looking into colouring in images for my cards, i started with the distress inks as I already had them on hand.  I have stuck with them for awhile now, resisting going anywhere near Copic markers as my poor bank account couldn't have handled it (believe me it is crying really loudly at the moment lol!!).

Then my Ma bought some Copic markers, and I started to have a play to see what they were like to work with.  I loved that they are a completely different medium, and completely new technique for me to learn, and obviously they give a completely different effect to the distress inks. So i bit the bullet and bought some.... and now a few weeks later my bank card is crying ;o)  I have been watching tons of colouring videos, Alyce from Kit and Clowder, thank you!!  You are my colouring guru, through your videos I have learnt so much!!

A friend Nicole was having a birthday last weekend, and the theme was Alice in Wonderland, so I went on to the Saturated Canary page to buy some images, I bought Alice and the Queen of Hearts, and I also came across Jules.  Jules ended up being the image I decided to use because of the cat, we affectionately refer to Nicole as our crazy cat lady so it was very fitting :)

Please don't look too closely at the colouring as this is the first card I have made with a Copic image, i really enjoyed it!  Backgrounds papers are from Kaisercraft, and that gorgeous vintage lace has made a reappearance.

The hair gives me the most problems, HEAPS more practice to do on that part!!  Love that shabby blue frantage too :)

Thanks for looking

xx

a Vintage Baby Shower

For my final update today I have a vintage style Baby Shower card to share.  This project was a commission piece, and I was given a copy of the invitation and the thank you card as inspiration to work with.  I think it worked out really well as I had a VERY happy customer!!

Using Baby Tilda from the Prince and Princesses collection, and Kaisercraft papers from their Magnolia Grove collection.  Little Tilda was painted using Distress Inks.

The following is a picture of the gorgeous lace I found at my local Spotlight store, so pretty!!!

Thanks for looking

xx

A special note

Once again it has been a while between posts, but that certainly doesn't mean there hasn't been cards made ;o)  

So firstly I am going to start with a really lovely card that I thoroughly enjoyed making for a very special young lady, who just happens to also be named Amelia :)

So it would probably be about 6 weeks ago one of the lads at work came in on the Monday morning and told me how he and his daughter Miss Amelia had been talking about papercraft over the weekend when she had said she was bored.  So I gave him the link to my blog for her to have a look.  A few days later he came in with a letter that she had made a written for me, it as just beautiful.  It absolutely made my day.  Miss Amelia had said that she really like the lady bug Saturated Canary stamp I had and so I decided to make her a special card to send a letter back in :)

This also has to be one of my favourite stamps.  She is painted with distress inks, and some gorgeous crackle paint in her wings to give them texture.

Purple is apparently Miss Amelia's favourite colour according to her dad, and as it is also mine I had PLENTY of things to use to make this card.

I was so happy with the results.  I put it together with a little bag of scrapping goodies and took it into work for her.  I got a lovely present in return that I hope to fill soon with all my inspiration and practice pieces ready to be used on cards :)

Thanks for looking

xx

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.

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

A catch up...

Evening Bloggers

Tonight's post is a bit of a catch up of cards I have been meaning to share for awhile now.  

This week I have not been well, and today found out I need to go into hospital for a minor operation tomorrow :o(  It's a little scary, but I am definitely looking forward to feeling better, and a hell of a lot more comfortable!!

Well enough about me, first up two cards for Miss Sammy's birthday.  The purple one I made for her husband to give her, and the Pearl and Largo (from Magnolia Summer Memories Collection) one is from me :o)

Next is a card I made for my friend Kalyan's 30th featuring Cool Edwin from Magnolia's Sweet Rainbow Collection.

Next is a gorgeous (if I do say so myself) Baby Shower card for Miss Jess.. who is due to pop anytime soon!  I have used a Kaisercraft Mini Stamp Owl as Jess is using Owls to decorate her nursery.

Next up a card for my friend Damian's Birthday using Fergus from the Wild Rose Studio

A card i made for my gorgeous nephew William's 4th birthday using the Kaisercraft Rockpool stamps, and some of their mini stamps (fish and seahorse) released to tie in with this collection

Finally tonight is a card I made for my friend Mandy to give to her parents for their Anniversary.  Using the Magnolia Loving Couple masked with the Wedding Rose Arch from the Wedding Collection.

I just love the colours of the Prima Flowers in this one - the Laraine Collection in River Rock.

That's all now.. I promise ;o)

Thanks for looking

xx