I'm Home......

Hi there all.  I'm home again after an awesome week with my daughter and her fiancé over in Perth.  I thoroughly enjoyed my week there.  The first 5 days the weather was perfect... sunny and reasonably warm, then 2 days of rain and cold weather.  We did lots... tourist stuff, shopping and eating. Here are a few pics of my week away.

I also had the pleasure of going out to Fremantle and meeting up with one of my Facebook friends ~ Gayatri.

Not the greatest of pics of the two of us.   I'm not great at taking selfies!  I had a lovely time with Gayatri, sharing a fabulous meal she made and got to see some of her beautiful cards and her cute crafting space.  We talked about all sorts of things like we knew each other for ages.  She also gave me a few goodies to bring home... thanks so much.

Back to work tomorrow... then the weekend.  I did manage to get some new stamps while I was away, so looking forward to getting some time to play.  I also bought a few new clothes and shoes... a new winter wardrobe!

Flowers everywhere.

Hi there... it's a new challenge at over at Creative Cottage Challenge Digi Creations.  And our theme is "Flowers"  This is your chance to use your digis and make a card.  Our sponsor this time is Aurora Wings.

We got to trial some of the beautiful digi stamps and today I'm sharing two cards I made.

First up is the image that Mitzi used for her logo

I am especially thrilled with the results of my colouring on this one.  I used Copics.  The layers are cut with a Lil Inker's die.  I am going to get this framed.

My second card is a little cutie, using Bluebell Sprite. 

 
My flowers are the Bluebells on the image.  I used Spellbinders dies for the oval and the fancy label.  This sweetie got posted off to a little cutie who recently turned 4.  Happy Birthday Miss Lilly. 

Sweet Tea Birthday

One little card before my holiday.  It's a just for fun card I made a few weekends ago when I'd gone to the beach.  I only had limited supplies ~ and no markers so I did my colouring with watercolour paints.

I stamped the sweet little girl (Penny Black stamp) with her cup of tea and coloured with the watercolour paints.  I did leave her skin till I got home and used Copics to colour.  I fussy cut and add her to the background I'd made with two pieces of PP.  Added the sentiment from Winnie & Walter to finish this simple card. 

Well, the packing is done, the money exchanged and I'm all ready to go.  The shuttle is picking me at 10 to 11 in the morning.  My flight leaves at 2.30pm.  Can you tell I'm excited?   So you may not see a lot of me over the next week and a bit.  Only got one post scheduled but will try and pop in if I can. 

Another tag for Virginia's View

I did a big tidy up of the craft room yesterday and came across the a discarded die cut.  The die didn't cut cleanly and a portion tore as it came out.  I decided to turn it into a tag for the challenge at Virginia's View.  A very CAS tag.

I used some chipboard from a tissue box to cut some leaves which I used to cover the torn bits.  The roses were made with some blue vellum and I finished with a Spellbinders word die cut from some black scraps. 

Getting a bit excited about my trip to Perth.  The bag is nearly packed, the shuttle is booked and the money is exchanged.   Just two more sleeps and I'm on my way. 

Pretty florals

I have a few flower cards and a tag to share today.  I love doing flower cards and recently my new WPlus9 "Coming Up Roses" stamp arrived.  A great opportunity to make some floral cards and a tag for Virginia's View challenge #4.  

I started by pulling out a piece of watercolouring I'd done a while back but wasn't happy with the amount of splatters I'd done.  I used my Tim Holtz Tag die to cut the tag. 

I then took the stamp set and some orange distress inks and stamped the roses.  I used some green distress inks to stamp the stems.  Next I added my recycled item... the wax paper from a little doily die I'd cut.  It really looks pretty in real life...  I then used the doily, which had been cut from Kraft card, as a stencil to sponge some more colour onto the tag.  Finished with some chiffon ribbon and a button and crochet cotton bow.  The sentiment from Hero Arts was stamped with Delicata Golden Glitz and clear embossed.

My next card was made to sent to a friend, whose Mum passed away last week.

My centre panel is some Bristol paper.  I used the WPlus9 set again and some distress inks.  I used my paintbrush and water to do a bit of water colouring.   The sentiment is from a Simon Says Stamp set.  The PP behind is from a pack by Prima called "Fairy Belle"  Inside I have added a Hero Arts sentiment "so sorry for your loss"  The gems and pearls finished off the card.

And just one more flower card.




This is for a challenge at The Paper Shelter - Flower Power. I used a digi stamp from The Paper Shelter and also the matching background.  I wanted to try out making some vellum roses after seeing this video.  I have a pack of coloured vellum that I got ages ago and there was a pretty pink amongst the pages.  The little ones were a bit fiddly but got there in the end.  I used glossy accents rather than hot glue for the little ones.

Thanks for persevering through my long post today.  Only 5 more sleeps till I head off to Perth to visit my daughter.  Getting a little excited now.  This will the longest trip I've done on my own.  I'm going on the direct flight - 6 hours 45 minutes.  I'll have a few posts schedules as I have a couple of DT challenges starting while I'm away.

Congratulations on your engagement

Some exciting news in our family over the weekend... Our son got engaged.  This is the second engagement for us this year as earlier in the year our daughter also got engaged.  Some of you may be aware she got married 4 years ago, but alas, it did not last...however she has now meet a very nice young man and they are planning to get married at the end of this year.

So one happy Mama to have my children so happy and settled.

I made a couple of engagement cards as part of my samples for Chalk'n'stock blog this month.

First up for my daughter and her fiancé (who I will be seeing in 8 days!)

I used a Bugaboo image coloured with Copics and sponged with pale blue chalk around the image.  The digi stamp reminded me of my daughter with her sunnies on.  She is living in Perth Australia where it is very warm in the summer. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.  Inside the sentiment is from Bugaboo...and is the same as what is on the front of the card for my son and his fiancée....

Again Bugaboo digi stamp coloured with Copics and sponged with the chalks.  Just love the sentiment :-)

I've also shared another card over on the Chalk'n'stock blog  If you want to have a look, please hop over the blog for a look.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I appreciate all my visitors.

Autumn colours and Use a Die Cut

Both the Creative Craft Cottage challenge blogs have a new challenges starting 1 June.  The Original Creative Craft Cottage has a colour/photo inspiration challenge theme of Autumn.

 

Here in the Southern Hemisphere were have just finished Autumn with 1 June being the start of Winter.  

Here is my sample card 

 

My main focal image is a stamp I borrowed a few weeks ago when I had friends over to "play".  I used Wild Honey distress ink to stamp it and then matted with some grey and then onto brown card.  Sentiment from Winnie & Walter.  

We would love to have you join our challenge.  Anyone, anywhere in the world is welcome to play along.

And over at  CCC Digi Creations challenge #2 is underway.  We had overwhelming response to our first challenge.   So we are looking forward to seeing you back again...  So what's the challenge?

Use a Digi with a Die Cut somewhere on your creation.  We have a lovely sponsor this challenge

 

We got to work with some cute as digi stamps this time..   I made two cards to share on the blog

First card uses "Love Kitty"  a real sweetie.  Printed and cut with a Spellbinders label die.  I added some ink while the die was still in place to give the glow around the Kitty.   My background die is from Penny Black, cut from some cream card and backed with black card.  I also used a Simon Says Stamp die for my banner, with it's matching sentiment.


And for my second card I used "Fancy Fish"
 

 

My die cut with this one was the stitched rectangle from Lil' Inkers.  I went with Funky colours for my fish and finished with a tiny sentiment.  Added lots of Wink of Stella and some blue sequins. My background was dry embossed with a circle folder.  

Thanks for preserving with this long post.  I'll be back tomorrow with my cards for Chalk'n'stock.   

His, Hers, Ours.....

New challenge up at Die Cut Divas and one of my favourite stamp companies is our sponsor ~ Hero Arts

 

Hannah has set an interesting challenge.... lots of options....

.

His: Make a masculine or fathers day card and/or use this color scheme

Hers: Make a feminine card, and/or use this color scheme

Ours: There always seems to be lots of weddings in June so lets see your wedding and anniversary cards too

For my sample card I went with a masculine card

This uses a Hero Arts stamp I've had for a while, but haven't used much.  I did an embossed background.  See the black gems... well they had to be added as I got some ink onto my background.  I added the netting and twine as texture.  

So we would love to have you join us at Die Cut Divas this month...

Entering into the challenge at Simon Says Stamp.