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

ATC's swap...

ATC's swap...
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)

Today I got two parcels in the post.... first a lovely lot of papers and stickers plus a Christmas card from Monika ( all the way from Indonesia) and then this afternoon, there was an envelope from Shari with all these lovely ATC's that were part of the Hero Arts ATC swap from last month. Some absolutely amazing pieces of artwork... One even had the tiniest little bows on the dolls pigtails ( from the lovely Fika- how cool was that)
I have pinned the sheet up on my notice board so I can look at it while I work. thank you everyone for your beautiful ATC's. I just love them all. Three of the ATC's used the digi image - Friendship Definition. I went and downloaded it tonight. Such a great background.
Thanks again to everyone who took part.
And thanks for stopping by.

Inky fingers.

Yesterday was Stamp'n'create's monthly stamp group.  I thought I had missed this month's group as last week they had a full day workshop with a demonstrator but due to no one booking some classes that were scheduled for yesterday... an email arrived on Tues to say Stamp Group was on again!!!!  So the core 7 of us turned up for a wonderful day of chatting, stamping and card making.  Sarah (from the store) had a new toy to show us.... A Slice machine..... awesome but a bit outside my price range.  It is a portable die cutting machine and very impressive.  Judi ( owner of the store) showed us a number of the wonderful cards Yo had demonstrated the previous week using Peelcraft stickers....all very clever and creative.
I managed to get 4 cards done.... ranging from finishing off one I had already started to doing a simple one that took no time to do.

The lovely vellum I used for two of the cards was in the lot of goodies that arrived with my card from Deirdre in Ireland.  There was a pack of 10 vellum sheets that are Christmas orientated.  This snowflake on is just lovely.  I used  part of the page as the background for my Joseph's coat technique tree and the other part on it's own as  a quick and simple card with some Peelcraft.  I have to say I wasn't happy with the tree card.... I couldn't get the black dark enough over the multi colours, but all in all, not too bad.   I had heaps of ideas floating around in my head, but not all of them turned out as I had hoped....

I had a great day and enjoyed the company of the other ladies and definitely came home with inky fingers...

Thanks for stopping by. 

Mo' Cupcakes made by Mo' Sistas.....

Caught your eye, I hope.... what's this all about I hear you ask?
Well here in New Zealand November is the month of "Movember" where Men's Health is forefront in peoples minds.  A number of groups have Mo' competitions, raise money for the best mo', etc.  My daughter has got into the act and has made a pile of Mo' cupcakes to sell at the Mo' Sistas bake sale to help raise funds

Just look at these goodies... This is only a small sample of her creations.  They made me laugh..... It is great to see young ones getting involved in these types of fundraisers.  Male health issues often don't get the recognition they deserve and Movember is a fun way to improve this.

Thanks for stopping by .... and all give your men folks a big hug and tell them you love them!!!!

Glittery birthday

Glittery birthday
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)

I had to make a card for a friend at work and my mojo had gone on holiday.... but last night looking at Jennifer McGuire's blog I was inspired by one of her cards and came up with this one. I stamped the Wavy Leaf DB on the pale blue in Faded Jeans distress ink and then used the CB to dry emboss. I had got a new distress ink on Tues - Tattered Rose - so used it to colour the edging ( FIskers Apron lace), the ribbon and the big flower, the smaller flower was coloured with the Faded Jeans, I added Kindyglitz to both ( same sort of stuff as Stickles) The sentiment is from the HA Petite Greetings set. Finished with some black gems and a pearl. Thanks to Jennifer for her inspiration

Card for Judy

My partner for Deborah's card chain challenge was the wonderful Judy.  I have to admit when you look at her photostream ( look here)  I was a bit daunted.  This is one talented lady.  Anyway I just decided I had to go for it.... and this is what came about.  I didn't follow Deborah's sketch fully ( I chose to have 3 strips instead of 4) I had this lovely patterned paper - not sure of the make or where I got it - but I just loved the delicate colours.  As any of you who are regular readers of this blog know, I LIKE butterflies.  So the card had to have some of those on it as well.   One of the themes of this months challenge was to be thanksgiving or gratitude.  Here in New Zealand we do not celebrate Thanksgiving so I think this sentiment works well for gratitude.  We should all try to find Joy everyday in everything we do...
Judy I hope you enjoyed it.

And now.... my winning roll continues.....tonight I read Jennifer McGuire's wonderful blog and to my surprise, she had a random giveaway and I got picked,.... how cool is that!!!!  More goodies arriving my my mail box....

Thanks for stopping by... I do appreciate it.

What an awesome weekend....

I had a fabulous time on our weekend away - down at my BIL and his wife's beach house at Cooks Beach. Unfortunately I forgot my camera.... how blond was that!!!! The weather smiled on us.... sunny and warm. We ( Hubby and his two brothers and one sister and their spouses)met up on Friday evening and started the weekend with a lovely meal produced by Denise. Next morning Peter (DH) and brothers Graham and John and BIL Grant went out on the boat to fish and dive for scallops. No Fish :-( but Graham got the quota of scallops. Meanwhile my SIL's ( Denise, Mary and Philippa) and I went for a BIG walk..... we were away for nearly 3 1/2 hrs. Mind you there was the rest while crossing the harbour in the ferry ( 5 mins) and the coffee stop we had in Whitianga!!!! but it was a 3 km walk back from Ferry Landing to Cooks. Later in the day we headed back to Whitianga with the boys for a few drinks before having another awesome meal. Today started with a walk up to the top of Shakespere Point ( for some),a big brunch and then off to coffee at Hot Water Beach before heading home. Trip down took just on 3 hrs with Friday night traffic but much better coming home - only 2 1/2 hrs.
Got home to find this lovely card in the mail from the amazing Deirdre in Ireland. So beautiful and cheery. It come with some lovely goodies as well so I was very spoilt. This card is part of the Card Chain Challenge that the incredible Deborah Nolan organised ( along with a number of other amazing things she is involved in!!!!) So a huge thanks to Deirdre for the wonderful creation and to Deborah for organising it.

As part of the CCC I made a card for the lovely Judy.  I did a wee sneak peek a few weeks ago so will show you the full card later in the week.
Wishing you all a great week and thanks for stopping by,.

Goodies this week

My mail box this week has been full.... I got a lovely big envelope from the lovely Paula. She and I have been trading stamped images and she sent me a LOT of Penny Black images with this beautiful card.  Isn't it just adorable. I loved the layout she used on the card, and she had included the image as well.  Now my friend, Sue, is a lover of anything Daisies!!!!  So I decided to have a go at colouring in the image and use the layout to make a card for her.  Sue has just passed 1 year since she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, so this card was to say - Keep Healthy.
I used my aqua crayons to colour in the image.  To achieve the look of the H2O's Paula used, I used watered down Perfect Pearls.  Then I used some yellow paper that I put through my CB to emboss with even more daisies....added a paper ribbon and strip of scalloped edged card, a couple of flowers and ribbon.    Sue just loved it when I gave it to her.

Next day in my mail box was the give away I won on Hero Art's blog.
It is the lovely Cling stamp- 3 Flowers.  Wasn't I just the luckiest.  I haven't made anything with it yet... still pondering on it, but no doubt will come up with something soon.

I won't get any cards made this weekend as we are having a family get-together at my BIL and SIL's place at the beach.  Graham as organised it so we can have a good reason for getting together, instead of the all sad ones we had in June/July.  We head off mid afternoon tomorrow.  Should be fun, even if the forecast is for not such good weather.  I'll take a book with me and get some reading done, if it rains.

Well thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend everyone.

For Paula- so happy for you

For Paula
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)

The lovely Paula blogged recently that she had some exciting news to tell.... she is expecting her second child... so I made this card to sent to her and her hubby to say how happy I am for them. The sentiment from HA All Occasions was perfect. I lifted the design for the card from the back of one of the sets I have. I used Kaleidocolour Autumn Leaves ink to stamp the fern, and the flowers from Printed Flowers set.

Paula has emailed me to say she has received the card so I can now show it on my blog. This lovely lady also sent me some wonderful Penny black images that arrived today with a spectacular card she made as well. I will blog this tomorrow to give it the credit it deserves.
Thanks for stopping by.

Ornamental Christmas

Ornamental Christmas
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)

This card was inspired by Laura's card on Wednesday at the Hero Arts blog. She used a stamp for her ornament, where I used the idea and cut out a circle from some silver embossed card I had made last week for a challenge over at 2peas. I used Laura's idea for a topper on the ornament and I made a double bow with my bow-easy and printed ribbon.  My sentiment from HA Sparkle Clear set - Holiday messages was embossed with a powder called Silver Tinsel. I finished with rounded corners and faux stitching ( a la Kristina Werner)
I added some Kindyglitz to the edge of the ornament and the topper.  Due to taking the photo at night I didn't get a true representation of the lovely red card.  It is a much deeper red in true life.  I am experimenting with my light board still.  I just can't seem to get the lighting quite right yet.

Last week I send some stamped images off  to Paula in Australia.... go and visit her blog to see what she did with one of them.... Her colouring-in is just awesome. 

Didn't get too much crafting done over the weekend.... way too nice weather to be inside all day.
Hope everyone's week is great.  Thanks for popping in.