August Card Chain Challenge reveal.

 I'm a bit late doing my reveal post as I've been suffering badly from a bout of gastro.  Been really sick since Thursday night.... the whole hog.. vomiting and diarrhoea - and having stomach cramps since... still not well, but it's time to share the card I send to Gail in Norway. 

This month our options were

Theme Options: Legs/Fruit and flowers/Friendship

Product/Technique: Acetate /Aperture. 

For my card I chose to use an aperture

a

I used some textured card for my panel and used the Leaf frame die to cut out my window.  I made a gold frame for around it.  Added a die cut sentiment with a white embossed sub sentiment. 

It's Father's Day here in NZ today, so I had a great chat with my Dad.  I had sent his card on Monday, but it hasn't arrived yet.  

April CCC reveal.

It's time for a reveal of April's CCC cards... You can see them here.

My card made it's way to Helen G in the USA.  I chose to use the colour scheme

 

I used an Altenew stamp set called "Leaf Canopy"  I used a variety of watercolour paints (Altenew's 36pan watercolour set) to colour the leaves and add some paint splatters.  I was really happy with the results.  

I'm still waiting for my partner's card to arrive.  Covid-19 really is affecting of mail.  I sent a parcel to Perth on 20th March - and it still hasn't arrived.  My friend did an order from USA company that left there 7 April but still hasn't got here yet.   Very frustrating.  

CCC is a cool way to get and send a card to someone else.   I've already signed up for the May challenge.  Why don't you too  - here.

CCC October Reveal

My October CCC card has made it's way to Tina in Slovenia.    If you haven't heard about the Card Chain Challenge (CCC) do hop over to the blog and find out all about it.  If you love sending and receiving a card from anywhere in the world... this is the challenge to join.

I chose the Theme of Leaves...

I used Catherine Pooler's Leaf Motifs set  for my card.  I used some Zig Markers and Spectrum Noir Aqua markers.  I add some splattering of the markers to the background and stamped the sentiment to finish. 

Do take a peek at the challenge and sign up - still a couple of days for the November challenge.

Tropical Birthday

I have spend a great afternoon in my craft room after seeing my daughter, son-in-law and grandson off on their flight home.    They had to be at the airport by around 8.30.  As it's abou an 45 minute drive, it was a bit of an early morning.   Just heard that they are home.

One of my makes today is for an upcoming birthday for my friend, Suna.  She is away overseas at the moment, but I'll send it anyway so it will be there for her return.  I was inspired by the StampNation Spring Break challenges.... one of the mood boards had lots of great tropical photos.

My daughter had brought me over a stamp set she picked up at her local Aldi store.  It had lots of tropical images... leaves, the flamingo, ice creams, pineapple etc.  I used the leaves to make a background on a piece of torn card stock.  I then stamped the hibicus and leaf and the flamingo from the set as well as a couple of leaves from an Altenew set and fussy cut them.  I added the leaves and then used some pop dots on the flamingo head and glued he body down to the leaves.    I used a sweet birthday sentiment that was in a freebie set that was sitting on my desk.  I added some Spectrum Noir shimmer pen to the flamingo and a few of the leaves.

My kids got together and got me a printed copy of the two little ones and blew the photo up to a big size.  Looks incredible.  Plus a smaller print of me and the two of them.

It was such a special time to have them all here.  And very sad to say goodbye this morning.  I'll miss Mr Archie after sending the last week on a break from work with them.  We visited a few playgrounds and spend a few hours at the Auckland Museum.  I hadn't been there for many years.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

October CCC

I enjoy taking part in the monthly CCC swap and for October I send my card to England to Jane.  I used the colours and the sketch from the challenge blog

 

 

 Here's what I came up with. 

Jane has let me know she has received the card.... quicker to England than when I sent a card to my Dad in Australia.   

Thank for visiting me today 

Twofer Card Challenge #9 - Leaves

I woke this morning with a massive headache.... all I wanted to do was sleep... so I did till nearly 11.00am.  A couple of Paracetamol and something to eat and felt a bit better.  So did some blog hopping and saw a few girls doing Darnell's Twofer Card Challenge.   I've seen this challenge before but never got myself organised enough.  Challenge #9 is Leaves.  I have a Catherine Pooler Leaf stamp set "Leaf Motifs" that has never been used -still sealed in my stamp drawer.  So this was a good time to get it out.  The idea behind the challenge is to use one stamp or die based on the theme, in two different sort of cards.   So here are my two cards 

 One a sort of Autumn/Fall thanksgiving type of card and the other one a Christmas one.

 For this first one, I took the leave from the set and stamped it onto some lightweight water colour paper and using my Altenew paints added some greens and orange-brown colours.  My background was a cheerful mistake.  I used my cloth to dab off some of the excess water/paint and accidentally pressed it onto the card.  The texture caused a "rag roll" type of background which I really loved, so did some more.  Finished with a large greeting from another Catherine Pooler set "Autumn Blessings: another NBUS set!   (got them when it was coming into Summer last year)   Anyhoo... edged the card panel with some gold paint pen and added it to a very dark wine coloured card base.

 For my second card I used the leaf together with a smaller one from the set, to make a Poinsettia which was embossed with Rose Gold powder from Altenew and painted with the Altenew paints.  A very loose watercoluring style was used and added some dark red/pink splatters and some gold splatters with a gold Wink of Stella pen. The sentiment from a CP Christmas set was embossed in the same Rose Gold onto some heavy weight vellum and a few sequins added.  

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you all have a great week.

Autumn Leaves for Hero Arts Scramble #160

Betty hosted the the Hero Arts Flickr group scramble over the weekend.  Her challenge was to use Metallic with an Autumn theme.

I used a set of leaves that Hero Arts released in 2011.

I stamped the leaves in various Metallic Delicata inks and then smooshed the inks onto an acrylic block and painted the leaves.   I used a Green Spectrum Aqua pen as a watercolour wash for the background.  The base and sentiment are actually dark grey (looks black in my photo)

Thanks to Betty for such a fun challenge.

Leaves....

In the Northern Hemisphere it's coming into Fall (Autumn) while here in NZ it's coming into spring.  So leaves are falling up there and break out down here. 

Today the Flickr Hero Arts Group is having a scramble with the theme LEAVES with an option of kraft.... I took 2hr 15 mins to make two cards.. so just over an hour for each. 

 

For my first card I used an older cling stamp called Leaf Cluster.  I stamped it in a dark green ink and then several times in an olive ink.  Added the sentiment and it was ready to mount onto the green card base.  

And for my second card I used a set called 3 Leaves

I started by using a Nova brush to add three colours of Distress inks to make an ombre background.  I took the smallest leaf and misted it with water and used it to stamp and lift the colour from the background.  I then took the middle sized leave and stamped it twice and coloured with Copics and Spectrum Noir markers and fussy cut.  Used a Die and stamp set to make the sentiment.

I'm entering my second on into the challenge at Creative with Stamps - theme Leaves. 

Glad I took time to have a play this afternoon.  I had fun.

Thanks for stopping by. 

Autumn cards...

It might be Spring where I live, but it's going to Fall/Autumn in the North Hemisphere and lots of the current challenges out there are all about moving from Summer to Fall. 

So I have two Fall/Autumn cards to share today.

First up is the card I sent to LaVon as part of the September CCC - Deborah is unwell and Gail is assisting her.  I used the sketch that Deborah had designed. 

The leaves are from an older Hero Arts set which I embossed and then coloured with watercolours, before fussy cutting.  The sentiment is from a freebie set.  Finished with some sequins.

My second card uses the same embossing folder

 This time I had done some watercolouring on the background before embossing.  The leaves were die cut from old book pages with Tattered Leaves die from Tim Holtz/Sizzix.  I used a variety of distress inks to sponge on them.  Sentiment is from a Winnie & Walter set.  

Although it's Spring here and Daylight Saving starts this weekend, it has been a bit wintery with some heavy rain and wind lately.  Hoping for some nicer weather coming.

Thanks for stopping by.  I really appreciated all of my visitors.

More Autumn Leaves

I know that Spring is here in NZ, but I LOVE the Autumn colours and so when I saw that Arlene was hosting a 90 min scramble over on the Hero Arts Flickr Group and it was a 24hr time frame.... which means that within the 24hr period you can make your card but must stick to the 90mins to make your card, photograph it and upload it to the group. 

So at 11.15am Sunday morning I started.

I started by stamping one of the leaves from the Hero Arts set called 3 Leaves.  I used Old Paper distress ink and stamped it onto some Strathmore Water colour paper.  I then used the wet on wet technique to colour with some Kohi-nor watercolour paints.  Once they dried I fussy cut them out.  I took card base and used some watered down ink to add splatters and stamped the Hero Arts sentiment.  I added two stripes of some shimmery card and then added the leaves with some dimensional tape down the middle.   All that took me 30 mins and then another 10 to photograph, edit and upload.

I'm adding this to a these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp ~ Watercolour
City Crafter Challenge blog ~ leaves
Crafty Catz challenge ~ Autumn
Wags'n' Whiskers ~ Fall Colours

A new challenge at Die Cut Divas.... Autumn and Animals

Hannah has set a new challenge over at Die Cut Divas for October and it's a goodie.... Animals/Autumn.... or a combination of two.  Hannah's lovely sample combines the two.

For my card I chose to do an Autumn card.

I used a sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.  The card started life as a single layer, but the base was a bit flimsy, so it got trimmed and added to another card base.  I sponged a white linen card with Aged Mahogany distress ink and stamped the Hero Arts sentiment in the middle.  The leaves are cut from an old book with a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die. I used 4 distress inks ~ Dried Marigold, Tea Dye, Iced Spruce and Aged Mahogany to distress the leaves. I entered it into the September challenge over at Penny Black and More

It is Spring here in New Zealand so the idea of doing Autumn cards is a bit backward for me.  But I did have fun making this one.   

Please come and join us this month with your Autumn or Animal projects ~ just remember you need to use your die cutting machine, either to emboss or to die cut.                              

I'm just off to put away some fresh Snapper that hubby has just finished filleting.  Our son went out on a fishing trip today and dropped in a couple of fish on his way home.  Tomorrow night.. fresh fish for dinner!

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great week.