Tuesday 28 July 2009

A BIG THANKS to all my Hero Arts friends

This is just a quick post to thank all my Hero Arts friends who left lovely comments on my card and best wishes and thoughts on my family's recent losses. It really made me feel loved. Just another reason for loving the community that has evolved from the Hero Arts blog/website/Flickr group.
I have just been catching up on everyone's wonderful cards and stories here. Will take me a while but there are some lovely stories out there.
Beverley on her site has a wonderful give-away - just shows the generosity of these lovely ladies. I can't get over how many different and lovely cards have been made.
so once again - a bit thanks to you all

Friday 24 July 2009

I {Heart} Hero Arts Blog Hop

I thought that before I head off early tomorrow morning (Saturday) to go to Levin for my SIL's funeral, I'd get my card made for the I {Heart} Hero Arts Blog Hop.
I came home early from work so I could do the housework then make a card. So it had to be a simple card. I saw the colour combo in a magazine and thought it would look nice.
Base card is black. Next I used my Fiskars edge punch to trim a sky blue card. This was trimmed to just smaller than the card base to leave a matt. Next I trimmed the red card stock. On this I stamped in Versamark with C4795 Delicate Leaves and in Versa fine black the sentiment from CL272 All Occasions set. On a scrap piece of red I stamped my favourite butterfly stamp F5158 Heart winged butterfly in versamark and embossed it in white. I used the technique from this weeks "thinking inking" with Jennifer McGuire and spead Kindyglitz over the wings. I popped dotted this onto the sky blue square which was matted onto black. For the ribbon I didn't have any blue, so used a sheer and white piece with a strip of the blue card stock glued underneath.
Now as part of the blog hop Ashley wants us to answer a couple of questions:
a. Tell us your Hero Arts story. How did you get started using Hero Arts products? b. Hero Arts is full of great people. Tell us why you are thankful for Hero Arts!
- so how did I start. I've been stamping since April 2008 when I went to a club day at one of my local stamp shops after hearing about it. They had some lovely Hero Arts stamps as did the other stamping store, where I went for a beginners session.... and then I became hooked. I found HA stamps to be such great quality and design that I now have many many of them. About August I found the HA site and the blog and for a few months lurked around before finally taking the plunge in January and joining the Flickr group.
and b) I am thankful for HA as their site and blog are so inspirational. I have meet some amazing ladies on line and been involved in some swaps which are really great. During the last month with all the grief and sadness in my husbands family, these ladies have been there with kind thoughts and best wishes. All stemming from our love of HA stamps and their blog. SO THANK YOU HERO ARTS from the bottom of my heart. And to all my lovely friends - THANK YOU TOO.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Another sad day for the family.

This afternoon we got the sad news that Diane, my husband's sister, passed away as a result of her cancer. The last 3 weeks she deteriorated really quickly. Her tumour had come back and the cancer was very aggressive. Three months from being diagnosed... Life seems so unfair some times. She was only 56 - far too young to die.
RIP Diane. You are in a better place. Love you.

Monday 20 July 2009

Thank you to the Lovely Paula....

Some of you may have seen this sneak peek of a card done by the lovely Paula on her Flickr photostream..... Well I was the lucky recipient. It arrived in the post today. The full card is just awesome . You should see the antenna on the butterfly. There is tiny bead on the end. The colours are awesome . That yellow in the pink flowers makes it look so vibrant. Plus Paula made some lovely comments inside as well. Thank you Paula.... you made my day.

Also in today's post was my little gift from Sally at Hero Arts - one of the winners in her blog week the other week - on her granddaughters birthday day. The prize was the Clear Sparkle set Froggy. Very cute and one I didn't have. I'm sure I'll get some good use out of it.

I have about 5 stamps/sets to catalouge as I seem to have gain more and more over the past week. This week I am waiting for the new cuttlebug embossing folders to arrive. I believe the container of goodies has arrived in the country and they should be in the shops by Wednesday ( just in time for payday! ;-)) I have ordered this one and I really want this one as well.
Well it's time to finish for the night. Take care and thanks for dropping by

Sunday 19 July 2009

Three Ferns


Three Ferns
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)
I got some time this afternoon to make a card using one of the shrinky plastic embellishments I made using alcohol ink on Friday. I made a red and yellow with pearl fixative background and used it to stamp the fern on. I wasn't fast enough to get the ink off before it dried, so left it as the brown ink on the background. I layer both the stamped piece and the tagged piece onto kraft and then onto the pink card stock. I used a gold calligraphy ink pen to edge all the pieces. The tag was popped to give some dimension to the card. I liked the way the tag is a more intensive colour than the background.

This afternoon Emma and Brad called round. I hadn't seen them for a couple of weeks so it was great to catch up. They both have been busy at work and continuing to work on their house. Emma came to "borrow" again from my stash. She was making a guest book for the wedding. She had covered an A4 sized note book cover in white and silver patterned paper and wanted something more for the front. I found a lovely black rub-on that said "Forever and Ever" - it was perfect. She had also been to Spotlight and got the bits to make Wine Glass Tags. She is going to put the guest names onto pale shell squares with a little metal oval embellishment engraved with Love, some white and black beads and use them as place settings for the tables.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week

Pay it Forward Winners

My daughter was over this afternoon and drew out the winners for my Pay it Forward
they are:
Arlene
Diana
Dustypenny Aka Joy

I will be in contact to get your address to send the set to you.
Many thanks to all who added a comment to my blog and to my photostream on Flickr.

Saturday 18 July 2009

More alcohol inks and a trip to SENZ

Last night I thought I'd try using alcohol inks on Shrink plastic to see what would happen. I wanted to try the techniques that Jennifer McGuire did on glass and acetate and see if they would work on the plastic. Well they did and How!! The background colours were intensified by the shrinking process. I made a tag onto which I used the fern stamp in Archival ink and wiped off to get a resist look. In the middle scallop I did the same with the butterfly stamp. In this one the copper fixative really came through. The smaller circle colours look quite "old". I was very pleased with the results of this experiment.
Today I went out to Manukau City ( about 35kms from my place) to go the the SENZ papercraft expo. I hadn't booked for any of the classes (with all the uncertainty of health of SIL didn't want to commit) so just went out for the shopping....
Lots of the stalls had Make'n'takes going on or demos of different products. First demo's I watched were at the SANZI imports stall. They import Cuttlebugs, Circuts, Spellbinders and other such stuff. I watched examples of using Perfect Pearls then some alcohol ink and later in the day came back for a demo on using Adirondack Inks and double embossing with the Cuttlebug. Over at Rubbadubbadoo's stall they were doing this card. A simple and quick card that took about 5 mins to make. The butterflies were stamped in Stazon onto acetate and then coloured with permanent pens on the reverse. The centre of the card was masked and then the stamping done both top and bottom with some stippling of the ink to get the line. The sentiment was then stamped in the masked area and the butterflies added. Hey presto -all done.
I did a bit of shopping - I had a $25 voucher for Hastings Rubber stamps so used that to get the Grid Patterns stamp - only cost $5.90 with the discount. Also saw the teddy stamp there so got that. I got some blender pads as well as the inks from Crafty Tart's stall. Think I'll be visiting that site again. Good prices.
Caan't wait to play with the goodies.... but will have to be tomorrow as the rugby is about to start. All Blacks verus Australia.... first Bledisloe Cup and Tri Nations game. GO THE ALL BLACKS!!!
Thanks for stopping by.

Friday 17 July 2009

I LOVE alcohol.....

Inks that is..... A big thank-you to Jennifer McGuire and 2peasinabucket for doing the "Thinking Inking" classes. I have started to use my distress inks more and now have purchased a few alcohol inks and I LOVE them.

This card uses a couple of the techniques from Jennifer McGuire's classes. The background scallop is from this weeks Part 1 - using alcohol inks and the embossing of the Silhouette Corner stamp is from an earlier week. I used a mixture of blues and green with some pearl fixative to make this one.
I used my new Buff Pearl Green embossing powder on a dark brown circle. The butterfly is from Spellbinders and is also alcohol inked. I used the blending solution to make the background a tad lighter. The card is cut just a little smaller than a normal sized card - not quite square but near enough.
I've also got 3 other backgrounds done - red and butterscotch with a touch of copper, blue's with a touch of green and green and butterscotch with lots of pearl fixative making it really shiny. Just need to get them made up into a card.
Thanks for looking. I'm off to try inking up shrinky dink to make some embellishments. If they turn out I'll post ....

Thursday 16 July 2009

Outline flower


Outline flower
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)
Second card made today... I'm on a roll..... This one I used design block Outline flowers, stamped in versamark and embossed in white powder, I layered the darker craft card on the bottom and put a ribbon across the middle. I stamped the outline flower again this time onto pale purple card and cut out. I over stamped with old French writing, put on a button the added to card, Other two flowers and buttons added. It was inspired by this technique on Hero Arts website so have entered into the challenge for this week. I haven't put any sentiment on, but when I decided what I will emboss it in white.
TFL and have a great day

Thinking of you hearts

I was so impressed with the Thinking Inking videos by Jennifer McGuire over at 2peasinabucket, that I went out and bought 4 colours of alcohol ink and a pearl fixative so I could practise what I had seen. I have always like what I have seen of Alcohol inks but they are really hard to get in NZ - it is expensive for places to import them because they are highly inflammatory. Anyway popped into Stamp'n'create and got them yesterday. My son made me three little blocks so I could use for the felts - they were just perfect.
I had some wonderful backgrounds and used two to make this card. I used blue strips with Old French writing stamped in Sepia Archival ink and one blue and green mixed to punch out the hearts. I used some chalk ink in green and blue to edge the white card and layered on a baby blue card base. The sentiment is from HA sparkle clear set.
I really love the look of the alcohol inks and will definitely get some other colours as soon as I can afford it.

New Zealand made world news today - a 7.8 earthquake in the lower South Island. Luckily no where near me, but a big thanks for all the concern shown by my HA friends.
Thanks for stopping by

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Cupcakes



I just had to share this photo my daughter took of the cupcakes she made in the weekend. Cute as.....Cookie Monster and Elmo. Her partner Brad loves being chief taster..... Emma is a prolific cupcake maker. Every time she has anyone round she makes cupcakes. The ones on the right were what she made for her engagement party...a total of 100 all up. Coconut, lime and cola with Bailey's icing... yummy

Hero Arts reavel new website ..15th July


WOW - you must visit Hero Arts this week.... it's their big reveal of the new updated website....they have been teasing us with sneak peeks and blinkies with clues and hints to what is coming. I can't wait. Love this site - it is so full of exciting things... the blog, card galleries with heaps of ideas, the on-line catalogue, techniques but to name a few. Well worth a visit I tell you. And this week there are double the prizes - just make something - a card, layout, whatever inspired by something you have seen on the website and upload to Hero Arts group on Flickr and be in to win.
Hero Arts you rock!!!!!!

Sunday 12 July 2009

Pay it Forward


Recently I was lucky to have won a "pay it forward" on Chris's blog and now I get to play along in the pay it forward.

I will make something special for three people who comment on this post, and those commenters can do their own “Pay it forward” on their blog.
I will make and send off the goodies sometime in the next 2 months.
If you are interested in playing leave a comment on this post, I’ll draw 3 names from the comments and you can then play “Pay it forward” on your blog.
Edit to add: If you want to play along and don’t have a blog, that’s fine too, I know that you, my lovely crafty friends will pay it forward in some way even if not via a blog.

I’ve already created the following 2 gift card sets (will be making the third similar set shortly) to send to the names I draw out. So let anyone interested in playing the game, to come and leave me a comment. I will draw the winners in a week -

Edited: final set completed - see Here.

Stamp club day - Saturday 11th




Had a great day at Stamp club day at Stamp'n'create yesterday. We started at 10am and finished at just after 4pm. There were a total of 7 of us there this month and we were greeted with a bag of goodies - paper, flowers and a strip of pompoms ( Sarah is into pompoms at the moment) We all worked on our own projects but got lots of ideas from each other. Lunch time is a shared lunch with goodies from asparagus rolls and sandwiches to coconut choc slice, oatmeal slice and pineapple lumps. We always eat well. After lunch we had a demo. This month was on using shrink plastic. Very interesting and informative.
I worked on these projects during the day. I made the gift pack of a set of 4 cards.... will do a seperate post about these shortly.... there are 4 cards in the gift pack. See my Flickr photostream to view them all.
The next project was to finish off the card I have working on using the techniques that Jennifer McGuire has been teaching in her Thinking Inking videos at 2Peasinabucket.com I used my new Scattered Leaf border stamp in versamark and embossed in white powder. I then used the resist technique and rubbed on Shabby Shutters and Faded Jeans distress ink. I then used the raindrops background in Spiced Marmalade. I mounted it on a greenish cardstock added the ribbon and then mounted onto the blue card base. I coloured the flower with the Shabby shutters and raindrops stamp, added a punched flower ( also coloured in Shabby Shutters) and an orange gem in the centre. Not sure what sentiment I will put on this, but it will need to be small.
Finally I made a pizza box for the monthly competition at my other stamp shop- Stamp Zone. This months competition is " Outside the box" - basically anything crafty as long as it uses a product purchased at their store. I got the stamp and the embossing powders from them.
I also started another distress card. I sponged a new ink colour I got - Old paper - onto the card, and then used a Tim Holtz mask and then sponged on Shabby Shutters. I again used the raindrops in Spice Marmalade. All I need to do now is decide how I'm going to use the background.
Thanks for looking - see my next post about Pay it Forward.

Saturday 11 July 2009

A bit of a mishap!!!

Well - thinks got a bit hairy last night. My SIL (Helen) and her hubby (Neil) came round to visit us last night before heading back to England today. They had been staying overnight at BIL's place about 20 minutes drive away. Got the call round 5pm to say she was leaving Devonport.... sometime later the phone rings..... "should I be heading to Northcote" "no way. - go left at next set of lights....etc" few minutes later another call.... " I'm on Milford Road heading back to Takapuna - did I make a wrong turn?" " yes go back to round about and head left up Beach Road - go on till you go through Mairangi Bay, up the hill to the top and left into Sunrise, right into Clematis"..... 3 minutes later " anywhere near Aberdeen Road" ..." no still a ways to go" ... then about 12 minutes later ( was only 3kms away) ... yet another call " Am at the Anglican church -anywhere near you yet?"
By now hubby and I are in fits of laughter. He answered the call.... told her to stay put and he'd come and show them the way. They had gone over the hill, down the other side and half way up the next hill. So off he goes - now very dark so leads them home. Now, we have some new lawn up the top of the drive and hubby has put a little barrier up to stop the mailman riding over it ( and the next door neighbour cutting the corner and driving over the new lawn) So what does SIL do - drive right through the barrier, scruffs up the lawn and gets mud all down the drive...... what a start to the night......
But wait.... it gets better ( or should I say worse....) SIL comes into the craft room with me to have a wee heart to heart. Glass of red wine with her..... need I say more..... Off the desk it went, all through my 12 x 12 folder full of card stock ( lost quite a bit of that!!) and all over the grey carpet.....all I can say is thank goodness I had a pound of salt in the cupboard. I sprinkled it heavily all over the stain and left it to dry overnight and all day... and yes it is all gone. Poor SIL was beside herself by this stage... All I could do was laugh. She was so worried her brother would kill her....... and all he did was shrug his shoulders and tell her all was okay.

Anyway after all that drama we went out to dinner and had a lovely meal. My son drove the car down to the restuarant for her and then when it was time to go back to BIL's, he drove them and his girlfriend followed in his truck. I think she was well and truly ready to head back to her own place.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday 9 July 2009

Another Male Birthday card



I have been asked to make a birthday card for a guy at work. I struggle with male cards - so thought I'd use my new Make a wish stamp from the goodies that Tiffany sent me. I got the idea from the HA website. I stamped onto blue twice and once on white and layer them. I used the CB to emboss the dark blue cardstock and then stamped the candles from an older Archivers set AR125. I used watercolour pencils to colour them in and then cut them out separately and added to the card. I hope he likes it. One of the teams at work has asked me to make all the cards for their team members.

Tomorrow I'm off to the optometrist to have my eyes checked. I'm sure I'll need to have my prescription increased so will have to go with my 2 years ago glasses while I get new lens in my current frames. I like the frames I have now so don't want to get new ones. Then in the evening hubby's sister who is out from England is coming round and we'll be off to my favourite restaurant for dinner.

I'm really looking forward to Saturday as it is club day at Stamp'n'create. I missed the last one so it will be good to catch up with everyone.

Well thanks for stopping by and visiting me.

Sunday 5 July 2009

Card for Michael

Our friend Michael's birthday is on the 23rd July. He is having a party on the Friday night, so I decided that I need to make him a card. This is one I made at Stamp Camp in May. I didn't make very good notes on how to do it, but it seemed to come out okay. The shiny background is made by using ModgePodge on black card and let it dry. Then sprinkle the top side of the Cuttlebug folder with Peralex Interference Green, Violet and Blue. Emboss the card and when completely dry - sand it back. Stamp the Penny Black 2925F Gift Boxes in versamark on black card and emboss with Buff Pearl Blue, Green and Violet. Cut out and pop dotted to the card front. I layered the background onto gold paper and then black card stock. Inside I put a white insert with " The best gift to give yourself on your birthday is the joy of living another year to the fullest" and popped another one of the gift boxes on the page.

Hubby is just going through all the stuff we bought back from his Mum's place. Lots of old photos and bits and pieces and nic nac's. Will need to reorganise my china cabinet to put some of the pieces in.

Saturday 4 July 2009

Photo card


Photo card
Originally uploaded by turleyfamily(Dawn)
This week the challenge at Hero Arts is to use a photo on your project. I have used this photo in the past and had a copy printed out on plain paper. I wanted a simple card where the photo was the main focus so I cut it down and matted onto kraft after distressing the edge with walnut stain ink. I stamped the sentiment from HA CL129 and mounted to the cream cardstock. Finished with a dotty bow. Simple but I think it looks effective.

Friday 3 July 2009

Goodies from Tiffany

When I got home on Wednesday night there was a lovely parcel from Tiffany (aka Papergirl). I had won some blog candy she had on her blogpage and it had arrived - super quick. What a lovely lot of goodies. There were also some lovely pearl gems that I forgot to add to the pile when I took the photo. I already have the butterfly stamp but have a friend who doesn't so will be "gifting" it on. So a big thank you to Tiffany for all of this stuff. Isn't her card delightful. I just love the delicate colours she has done on it.
Her work is all so amazing. She does wonderful things with paper. So go have a look at her blog.

I have joined Twitter - still learning what it does. Hero Arts have lots of love "tweets" with different things to see and do. And I am following the lovely Paula as well.

Tonight I also saw that I had won some cards that Chris had made. Her blog is here. She is another Australian crafter ( so just over the ditch from me) and is very talented. Here are the set of cards I've won- the ones with the little trees. This is part of a Pay it Forward so I will be making some goodies to pass on and in the next few weeks will post them on this blog.

Well it's almost bed time for me ( or at least to head to bed with the latest mags I got today) 9.45pm NZ time so thanks for visiting. Have a great weekend all.... hopefully some time for me to do some crafting.

Wednesday 1 July 2009

A sad week

I have had a very sad week... at 3.50am on Thursday 25th my husband's mother passed away. She had been deteriorating but it seemed far to quickly that she died. We got the call just after 4.00am but Hubby waited till around 6.00am to ring his brothers and sisters. It was a very sad day. We both went to work for about 2 hours to tidy things up and then headed off to Levin. It is 7 hours to get there. We stopped in Hamilton and picked up John, Peter's older brother and finally got to Levin around 6.00 in the evening. His other brother had flown down - already had his flights booked as he was going to visit his mum... and his sister from Papamoa was there as well. As one of his sister's was coming from London, we arranged the funeral for Monday afternoon. Our children and their partners came down on Sunday - all the family was there apart from two grandchildren who couldn't make it. Peter's is from a large family so there were lots of us.
June's service was lovely. Peter gave a moving eulogy and both the local mayor and his deputy spoke of the civic and service community work that she had done. Afterwards the family and a few friends had a lovely wake... were we all remembered the wonderful lady she had been.
As most of the children live away from the home town, we spend a few days clearing out the house. What an amazing amount of old photos, papers etc that we found. There was a lot of history stored there. A lot of it we have bought back with us and I will spend sometime putting it into order.
So it is with sadness that I finally say " Goodbye June... you will be missed"