Sunday 28 February 2010

A little something to cheer up a friend.

Last week my blogger friend Paula sounded a little down in the dumps... nothing major!!! You know how it is sometimes.  Well I had seen a funny card on Deirdre's blog that I thought would be perfect to cheer her up.  So this card that I sent her is the result. 
 
 A big thanks to Deirdre whose card I cased....  Paula tells me it cheered her up no end.   And no I DID NOT send her Chocolate as it really is a NO NO for her at the moment.   Paula has a lovely little girl....so not to let her feel left out I send a card to her - inside it is all about being a Big Sister!!! 
 
I added a few other bits and pieces for the two of them to play with as well.  Do go visit Paula's blog.  She is such a lovely lady and so very talented.  You should see what she has just made for her DD.. any three year olds would love to have this apron.

On another note... today New Zealand is on Tsunami alert...after the 8.8 earthquake in Chile..  so what does my DH do now......  take a walk to the beach to see what is happening~!!!!!  So far there has been minimal signs of it here... but trust him!!!   I'm staying put....   He's back and tells me all is well... so I chance it.  It is such a lovely afternoon I will join him at the beach with my book and togs and maybe have a swim.  Yesterday the water was so warm. 
Have a great day
PS - water lovely, no Tsunami waves!!!

Friday 26 February 2010

February's card chain challenge

I have already shared the wonderful card and goodies I received as part of Deborah's CCC for February.  Now that Deborah ( my recipient) has got my card, I can share it with you.  If you have taken part in these challenges you know that you have 1) a sketch to follow or 2) a colour scheme or 3) a theme.  I decided to to the theme this month which was St Patrick's Day.
 
I don't have any shamrock stamps so used a small heart from HA's Share Laughter set to make them.  Same went for the Leprechaun... this one I found on a free clip art site.  I downloaded and resized and printed it out on white card.  I added the sentiment from HA's sparkle clear set Happy Greetings.  Used my Label 8 to cut out the white card.  For the matting, I traced around the outside of the label and cut by hand.  Add the ribbon and pearls ( coloured with a Copic).  As it also fitted the Hero Arts Challenge I entered into that as well.
Talking of shamrocks and leprechaun's this weeks challenge over at Tag Tuesday is to use a shamrock.  I have never entered this challenge before but here's what I came up with.  It used the same image and the background is the same shamrocks I used on the card.  I bit hard to see them but they are there.

I have a few other things I did this week - will post over the weekend.   Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by for a visit.  I really appreciate all the delightful comments.

Monday 22 February 2010

R.A.K's and a few cards

My mail man has been busy again... this time two lovely ladies whose R.A.K's arrived.
Firstly the super talented Lucy who lives in England had picked me to receive a little something..... a wonderful pink elephant card and some really cute flowers, buttons and a cute little giraffe stamp.  Thank you so much Lucy
And today I received a wonderful card from the equally talented Kathy ( The Daily Marker).  She had made this back in January and I commented on how nice it was and guess what!!! she has sent it to me...How cool was that!.. You can read all about how it was made here.    Thanks Kathy.  It is just awesome and also the lovely little cupcake stamp is really appreciated.

I decided that I wanted to say thank you to the owner of the bach we recently stayed at.  She is the sister of our friend Michael.  So this is what I came up with
 
The lovely flowers are from the ones Lucy sent me and the dark blue edging is from Monika.  

Did a couple of other cards over the weekend, but I'm posting them off to their recipients and will write about them once they get there!!!!  A little R.A.K for someone. 
Plus yesterday afternoon DH and I headed off to the Villa Maria Vineyard ( about 50 mins south of our place) to go to a concert..... TOM JONES!!!!!!  It was a amazing venue.  We had GA tickets and got to choose a spot on the grass to set up our picnic - blanket, chair, picnic basket - listen to some lovely music from The Lady Killers and Hallo Sailor while eating our dinner, followed at 8pm by Tom Jones.... For someone nearly 70, his voice is still vibrant. He sang some of his oldies - Dahlia, What's New Pussycat, Green Green Grass of Home, plus some newer songs as well.....  Total awesome!!!

Not much time for any crafting tonight as it's Crime night on TV.  CSI followed by NCIS LA.  
Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the week.

Friday 19 February 2010

Vanessa's blog candy - go check out one awesome blog!!!!

 
Look what the wonderful Vanessa over at Wings of a Butterfly blog  has as blog candy.  You just have to publicly follow her ( definitely no issue from me as her blog is awesome!!!), post on your blog and leave her a comment..   So go be amazed with all her wonderful creations and be in to win...

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Cards and gifts, more stamps and a new great neice!!!

Got home to find my mail man had been busy was I was away.... a lovely parcel from Suzanne Czosek.  I was the lucky recipient for this months Card chain challenge organised by the wonder Deborah..  Here is the wonderful card I got from Sue as well as some very special goodies from her stash.  Talk about getting lucky!!!!

 
I can wait to get stuck into using some of these goodies.
Next parcel was my order from Stampin; Up!  They had a special on and if you spend over so much you got a free set of stamps.... so I got 2 sets of sentiments and got the third set free.... plus some dimensionals ( just love the size of these ones) and some Dazzling Diamond  glitter.  So know I must have a sentiment for every occasion....

And to top it all off on Sunday 7th my niece in Australia had a little girl.... Chelsea Jade.  She has twin brothers who are three - so now Vicky and Nick have a lovely little family of three!!!  Here is the card I made for them.  Used some Dazzling Diamond glitter on the wings of the fairy princess.  I used Swiss Dots CB folder and Label 8 nestibilites to make the base card.  All lovely and pink for a little girl.  

thanks for stopping by .  Hope everyone is having a great start to the week.                                                                           



Monday 15 February 2010

What a week....

It was the best!!!!  Kawau was so restful and relaxing.  I can't believe how much I enjoyed doing very little.... just a walk or two, some kakaying, heaps of swimming and reading and generally doing nothing much.   Our trip over last month was great... no waves so I coped ( inclined to get a bit sea sick).  The bach we were staying at is lovely - set back in the hill side... so a lot of steps up to it and down the other side to the beach.   Good exercise!!!!  Being set in the bush, there were heaps of birds... including a cheeky Weka who decided to investigate the house one afternoon and a wood Pigeon who flew in the back door through the lounge and out the ranch slider..luckily it was open..  All in all an interesting week.
The views from the deck were just awesome.  The sunsets were just amazing.  It is one of the few places on the east coast of NZ were you can see the sun set.  One night the sailing ship Spirit of New Zealand was anchored in the Harbour... It is a tall ship - my camera isn't good enough to get a decent photo of it, but it did look impressive.

The weather for the week was mainly good... a bit windy one day and some very light showers on a couple of the later days in the week.  

Came home Sunday and back to work today :-(  but will definitely be seeing if we can use the bach again next year!!!

Thanks for stopping by.... and hope you enjoyed a dabble into my holiday. 

Friday 5 February 2010

A bevy of cards this week.

My daughter phones me on Tuesday afternoon.... chats away ....then "oh by the way Mum, want to commission you to make me some cards..... one for.....and ...and ...    so three requests later....."  Still I love making cards and it is great to be able to have a reason to make them( and they won't end up with the numerous others in my crafting room waiting for homes!!!)
>
So got my thinking cap on and away I went.... One of the cards was for her partner's Dad - he's getting the brown and green card.  Based on the bookmark I made last weekend.  One is for her girlfriend.... the pink one.  I got a new Inkadinkado set - one of which was this cute cupcake boxed message.  As Emma is know for her cupcake creations, I thought it was appropriate.  Made it nice and girly as well.  Lots of pink and gems.  Finally her and her partner are off to a wedding later in the month and she wanted a wedding card.  So I made two - just to give her choice.  You should have seen me at lunch time on Thursday scoping out the Hallmark cards at the local bookstore... drawing little diagrams on a scrap of paper... was tempted to get the cell phone out and take a picture or two... but restrained myself.  Anyway got some inspiration and these two cards resulted.  ( I did have to make a trip to the LSS for the Hero Arts cake as had nothing suitable in my supplies - still it will come in handy) ( The gold card used a lovely heart stamp I had on a freebie set from a stamping magazine.  I did some embossing and masking to get the two hearts overlapping.  Cut them out and layered onto the cream card. A bit of gold PP for a matt and embossed the Congratulations from the HA set.  Understated but I think quite elegant.   - this card removed for publishing) The cake card is a direct copy of the one shown on the Hero Arts site here .  I just added a pile of little pearls and the gold peelcraft at the top and bottom.  Thank-you Hero Arts.
Edited April 2010 - card removed for publishing....

So that was my Wed and Thurs evening.  A good haul I think.  Now it's to get ready to head off on Monday to the Island.... so maybe not much crafting over the weekend.( see what I can squeeze in) with getting the housework and the packing done.  Hope everyone has a happy weekend and see you all in a week or so time.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Anne's Butterfly/Spring challenge.

The lovely Anne is hosting a challenge. Her theme is butterflies/spring. As butterflies are a fav of mine, I was in like Flynn.... ( don't know where that saying comes from...). I just couldn't wait.
I started by making a 4 step background ( as seen here on Linda (aka Oz) blog site) I used Antique background in versamark, distressed with Dusty concord and Antique Linen, over stamped in Versafine Sepia the Old French lettering and then 2nd generation stamped Silhouette Burst in Dusty Concord. I then used the Flourish cling to stamp on lilac card stock for the centre. I coloured in with a purple pencil, some of the flourishes and highlighted them in white sukura pen. Heartwinged butterfly was stamped onto a piece of pansy patterned card, embossed and then white dots added ( a la Kathy) Finished with some black scrolls from a Cuttlebug die, and a purple button ( previously white and coloured with Copics.
Sounds a lot of work but it all came together really quickly.
Part of Anne's challenge is to send the card to someone...so this is off to Invercargill ( right at the bottom of NZ) to a work friend who has been hearing all about my card making.... Hope she likes it.
 As well tonight I made another batch of Strawberry jam... total of 7 jars of varying sizes now..  We'll be having Strawberry jam on our toast for the rest of the year!!!!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great week.  Lots of new challenges to take part in.... and only 5 days till the next holiday - a week on Kawau one of the islands in the Hauarki Gulf.  ( No crafting though :-< )

PS Looked up the saying "in like Flynn"  - very interesting -  here is what I found.