Christmas Tag a la Oz.

Christmas Tag a la Oz.

This weeks challenge at Hero Arts is Holiday Tags. At quite a number of the blogs I like to visit, talented ladies make amazing tags... Jacqueline and Suzanne but to name a couple. I have been amazed by what they do, so thought I'd give tags a go. I went to the office supply store near where I work thinking I might be able to pick up some tags.... but sadly unless I wanted to buy a box of 1,000 for $60 I was out of luck... ( just trying to imagine how many years they would last was mind boggling!!) So stopped into the stamp store on the way home... yes I could get 8 tags for $1.50 - now that made more sense.....
For this tag I decided to try out Linda aka Oz's 4 stamp background technique. Visit her blog here to see the video she did... it's like being in the room with her doing it....I used my new pine bough stamp from HA's together with the sentiment from a Sparkle clear set from last Christmas. As I was trying for a bit of a vintage look ( don't think I quite got it) I dyed some white lace dark brown by putting Rich Cocoa Memento ink over it. I added a fawn flower with a dark green snowflake and a brown pearl to finish it. I am reasonably happy with the result.

Last week I bought the Spellbinders Tags die so over the weekend made a tag or two to put on my presents this year.  I ended up getting an order to do 10 of the little white and blue tags.  I used a snowflake stamp from the HA set Joyful Greetings I got last year.  For the red tags ( made 1/2 a dozen of these) I simply used the HA's digi kit - Snowman stamp resized and printed out.  I cut them out and placed on the tag.
Tonight I made another tag - This one is called my Kiwi Christmas as I used the Pohutukawa as my inspiration for it.  The Potutukawa tree is known as the New Zealand Christmas tree and has the most amazing red flowers that come out around this time of the year. The pine bough stamp reminded me of the flower. 

Well this has been a bit of a long post...thanks for taking the time to read it.

A "beary" nice surprise

Before I show you my "beary" nice surprise, I have to tell you the background story.    In 2006 ( from April to Dec) I worked in Wellington ( 660kms - 1 hour by plane plus 3/4hr from the airport to my house) I used to commute - up early on Monday morning to head down to Wellington and then home again on Friday evening.... anyway while there I made friends with the lovely Janet.  She was also on secondment to Wellington from Tauranga.  We worked side by side and got on really well.  Now at that time I was making a lot of Teddies - easy to do when I was on my own in my apartment.  In Wellington there is an amazing department store called Kirkcaldie and Stains.  It is a very old, upmarket department store and each year they raise funds for charity by selling bears.  In Dec 2006 I bought one - a delightful concierge bear.  The next year I contacted Janet and asked her if I sent down the money would she buy one for me and send it up.  Of course she did with delight and bear no 2 arrived - a little baby Kirk bear, followed the next year by a Sun Bear.  This year I hadn't got around to sending her some money and asking her to get me one... but got to work today (after having 3 days off last week) to find a parcel on my desk...... YES!!!! Janet had gone and got the latest bear - Mary Christmas Bear and sent it up for me.... what a wonderful friend.... And isn't she just the cutest little bear.  She is so soft and cuddly.

And here she is with her 3 other friends...
I managed to catch up with Janet today and had a great chat with her.  She is still working in Wellington - not sure for how much longer though... so maybe next year I will have to find some other way of getting a Kirk's bear.

Thanks for stopping by....

Paige's birthday card

Paige's birthday card

One of my husband's nieces is having a birthday soon. Paige is going to be 14 - so I thought I'd do her a quick card. This image was one of the ones that the lovely Paula sent me recently. It is rather cute. I coloured it with my aqua crayons ( just love them). Once I had cut out the image, I distressed the edges with Spiced Marmalade ink and stuck them to the PP that I put on the white card stock. A very quick and simple card.

The rest of my day has been looking everywhere for my Fiskar scissors... They have just disappeared. I tidied the room up - but no show... I ended up going out to buy some new scissors ( got Titanium ones) on my way to the gym. No doubt the missing ones will now turn up!!!! I really like the Fiskar ones - they are more of a snip rather than a scissor... great for the small cutting out.  I'll have to get used to using real scissors again.

This weekend our son and his girlfriend are having a few of their friends around to celebrate their 21st birthdays.... A few are coming for a barbeque dinner first and then the rest are coming afterwards. I have decided that our garage will be the best place for them to have the party - so my nice clean and tidy house stays that way!!!!  I just hope the weather holds up and isn't too cool. 

Thanks for stopping by and to all my American friends - hope Thanksgiving was good and you enjoyed the family time together.

Unto us a child is born.....

I got a new set of Christmas stamp from Inkadinkadoo this week.
O Holy Night.  For this card, I stamped the sentiment onto white card stock and cut it out with my Labels 1 nestibilites. While it was still in the nestie, I sponged the edge with Faded Jeans distress ink. I coloured the star with yellow pencil and used the aqua pen to spread the colour outwards. I then stamped the Mary and Jesus image onto card stock and coloured it in with blues and a touch of yellow. I cut it out and pop dotted it onto the corner of the label. I added some ribbon and used my Fiskers Threading water punch to edge the blue layer. I entered this into the CAARDvarks Color it Challenge. 

I also managed another quick card this week.  I had got a new set of Tim Holtz Alcohol inks... Salmon, Aqua and Sandal.  I used them to make the background for this card.  The sentiment  stamp is by Stamp It was stamped with Archival Ink in Sepia on white card. This was then overlaid with embossed vellum - with holly leaves on it.  I then finished with three bronze gems. 

Today I spend the morning in surgery.  I have been having a few issues with "woman's stuff" as my DH would say and had to have a D&C( Dilations and Curettage) and a hysteroscopy to see if there is anything wrong.  Initial results are all fine...Hopefully the D&C will fix the issues I'm having.  I am feeling a bit dopey still from the anaesthetic  and bit uncomfortable feeling so it's off to bed for an early night.  I've taken tomorrow off so if I feel better - will do a bit more crafting.

Thanks for stopping by.  I appreciate all the wonderful comments people leave.
Take care  ( one month till Christmas - 4 weeks till my Mum and Dad arrive to spend Christmas with us!!!!)

Caardvarks - Color it challenge

I saw today that the latest Caardvarks challenge is "Color it". This was just perfect as last night I had coloured in a number of Bentley Bear images I had stamped from a free set I got with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine , I stamped the image in Versafine Onyx black and clear embossed then coloured using watercolour pencils blended with a clear marker. I added some glitter marker by American Crafts under the image for snow and on the pom-pom on the hat.
Some of you might recognise the sketch I used - Card Positions Systems #110 ( such a versatile sketch). Sentiment and flourish from Inkadinkadoo. The flourish was stamped with Distress Ink - Peeled Paint and the sentiment was stamped with the Versafine and clear embossed. I'm not sure what the PP is as it was in a pack that I got when I went to stamp group. I am really pleased how this one turned out.
I took the photo at about 7.00pm so you can see summer is coming... the days are definitely getting longer even if the temperature isn't getting warmer.... still only 18 degrees C - should be much warmer by now....
Thanks for stopping by. 

Teddies and Trees

Issue 70 of Cardmarking and Papercraft  has arrived in NZ.  It is the October issue ( out in England late Sept).  It had a neat set of free Bently Bear stamps.  So tonight I stamped some of them to colour and made this card.  I stamped the image in Versafine Black and clear embossed it to give it some oomph.  I used watercolour pencils and blended them with a clear marker - worked really well.  ( I couldn't find the aquapen in the mess on my desk, if the truth be told)
I then cut the coloured image out with a circle nestie, cut the pp in a scallop and added another larger white scallop.  I then used a bit of the pp on the card and popped the circle on top.  Simple but quite effective.   Think it needs something more.... but it will do.

I also finished off this card tonight.  I had started it over the weekend.  I cut the PP ( In my minds eye), added a bit of distress ink round the edge and layered it onto the dark brown card.  I hadn't quite decided what to do with it otherwise, as the pp is lovely on it's own.  So decided to cut some of the trees out of the spare pp and decoupage them.  I added some kindyglitz  and a brad for the star at the top.  I then found the scalloped piece in my scrap pile.  This had come from the cutout on a pillow box I had made to put choc's in.  I am making a few of them for my work colleagues for Christmas... and have ended up with a pile of cut scallops.  This lead me to think of the latest Hero Arts Challenge - timmings.  So I added the sentiment in white embossing and added to the card.     I really like the colours together.  As my photo is taken at night, it doesn't really show the best.

Thanks for stopping by.   The weekend has started here, so hope you all have a great weekend ... 5 weeks today and it will be Christmas Day!!!!!

Lucy colour challenge #1

This week I has some sad news.... a very dear friend has just found out she has more cancer... last year she had a breast removed due to cancer, but now has some tumours in her brain.... I really wanted to make her a card to say I care.
I loved the colours that Lucy had chosen for her very first colour challenge ( kraft, aqua and pale pink- very Lucy colours!!)- but didn't have any aqua card.... then I remember I had seen her earlier post that showed some pale blue digi papers from Jen Allyson available at 2peas. I had downloaded it so found it on my computer and printed it off to use as background. I inked the edge in Faded Jeans distress ink and used my fingernail to distress further. The flower is the new cling I won from Hero Arts. I stamped in on the blue card and then onto pink and the blue again to get the layers. I added Kindyglitz to the centre and some Liquid Pearls in white opal to the tips of the flower and as dots along the bottom. The sentiment is from Stamp It.
For those of you who can, please say a few prayers for Sue... I certainly am...
Thanks for stopping by