Christmas is getting closer

How are Christmas preparations going for you all?

At our house they are going rather slowly! I keep thinking that I have plenty of time, but know in the back of my mind that time is fast coming to a close!

I have two Christmas cards made...LOL, told you things are a little slow!

 These cards were made for a challenge over at Birds of a Feather, if you have any spare time on your hands, and wish to make a card, or two do pop on over and show us what you can do. Carol and I would love to see your creations!

 This challenge has a little twist, to pop over and check it out simply click HERE

This is card number two, and the wee hedgehog is my all time favorite Christmas stamp, Ive had it for years and have used it each Christmas for as long as I can recall!

The inside of my card looks like this...

Double sided paper is great for creating card 'insides'

Here is the sketch I created for this challenge. The lovely snow man image can be downloaded for free, pop over to Birds of A Feather for details.

And... as promised, here is a photo of our newest family member...little Smudge...

How can you not help but fall in love with this wee girl?!

Heavy rain here

The rain has arrived...in force! Camden is planing on the school bus NOT running in the morning due to floods, and Cody has his fingers crossed that the road between here and town will shut so he wont have to go to work. Me... well I'm thinking today's walk to school (my place of work) called for the umbrella...tomorrow I may well need gumboots as well!
Tonight Andrew and I have been to Kurow to attend a Lions Club meeting and dinner. We were the guest speakers, well Andrew was really, I was moral support. We have the same again tomorrow night, this time at the Lions club in Oamaru. I'm not a fan of public specking so will breath a sigh of relief when its over with! On saying that though, we had a very pleasant evening and enjoyed lovely company.

Here is the card that made up my Scrapbook Outlet portfolio...

I have cut and layered flowers, and leaves cut from Bo- Bunny patterned paper.

I've added pearls, ribbon, thread and a sparkle!

Happiness Always

Here is the card I made last week for the Glamour girls swap. The theme was Arches, and our cards were supposed to have an autumn feel, but I didn't read the instructions correctly and my card is more summer than autumn. Sorry Robyn P!

I have used an arched gate, from Twiddly Bitz
...added tiny rose buds

... and a little padlock.

Do join up to Glamour girl Swaps, there is no pressure, just lots of talented ladies and plenty of inspiring ideas.

Cutting it fine with cards.

Hmm... I'm a tad behind with my blogging of late and I forgot to mention that Camden turned 15 on the 17th of February. Here is the card I whipped up for him about mid-night the night before his big day...told you crafting has been slow!!


I made his card to match his present, which is a tool box (surprise!!) that still has not arrived!! Poor Camden. Our closest town is Oamaru, and tiring to get a special present turned into a major, as of course the shops did not stock the pressie and it did not show up in time for the birthday. In fact we are still waiting, a week after the event! Lucky our Camden is patient.

Now its 11.20 pm and I have to make a birthday card for my Aunts birthday tomorrow.

Why can I not seem to get myself organised these days????

A little bit of crafting

At last I have been back at my desk. Today I made a baby card that I should have made a month ago. I used one of my all time favorite stamps, Penny Black's - Nap Time. Its a very cute stamp.

This is a Thank you card I made a couple of weeks back...

Those tiny roses are my favorite embellishment at the moment


I am hoping I might get onto a spot of scrapbooking over the weekend, but Im not holding my breath!

Wishing you all a bright and sunny weekend filled with many happy moments

Upsy Daisy

Checkout the yummy papers I have used to create this Good Luck card. They are from Upsydaisydesigns, the paper range is called Tweet and I have used 'Mommy Bird 'and 'Serenity' papers. These are double sided papers and they can be found at BetterScrapbooking.

The flower stamp, picket fence die cut and paper flowers also come from Betterscrapbooking

Thank You Cards

Thankyou cards...from a swap I took part in at Craftytarts...

Great arn't they!!

Thanks ladies, I love them all!! I would love to know who made what.

Below are the cards I made for the swap...

Winter warmer Competiton #2

Week one of our Winter Warmer Competition at Scrapbook Studio is over already. We received some gorgeous entries and had such a hard time choosing our favorite two LOs. You can view the entries HERE

The winner of our random draw this week was Lynda, take a wee look at the pack of goodies that will turn up in her post box very soon...

Challenge two was Carols pick and she has everyone making Christmas cards!! Such a cool idea, and it never is too early in the year to get onto this project. I have whipped up two cards using some scrapping scraps.

My first card has embossed, inked bazzil and lace as a contrast

My second Christmas card is a little more traditional, in colour anyway...

I have used scraps of paper, fabric, lace, fibre and I have raided my button jar!
I have sewn my stamped image into the middle of a folded red serviette and simply torn around the edges before attaching it to the card base and gently pulling out all of the serviette layers.


It is not too late to make a Christmas card and join in the competition, already today we have had two new ladies join in. Check out the details HERE

Sketch #7

Check out this wonderful prize up for grabs this week at Card Patterns! This wonderful card kit will come all the way from a Canadian based Store called SCRAP MY MEMORIES who very kindly have donated this great prize!



To be in for a chance to win this, and also for a chance to be the next Guest Designer at Card Patterns all you need to do is to create a card based on this weeks sketch, below. Pop over to Card Patterns to check out the details on how to link your take on the sketch HERE

I made this little number. Had a change of colour scheme and went bright! The rest of the design team are so clever and every week I do find it so hard to try and come up with a card that will look okay in amongst the awesome array of professional looking cards they always make. Check out the Design teams cards HERE and you will see just what I mean!

I decided to print an image onto transparency for this sketch. The beginning of my greeting is also stamped onto transparency and attached on top of the chipboard heart so that it meets up with the 'You' that lays underneath the heart.

Thanks for looking, Now show us all what you can do with Michelle's wonderful sketch! Be sure to take a look at the wonderful cards that other paper crafter's from all around the world are creating with this awesome sketch. You will find the links to their cards right under the design team takes over HERE , there are six cards made already and its only just day one!!

Im Back!

Hi everyone in blogger land, Life has gotten in the way of my blogging these past few days! I have been very busy creating sea themed ATC cards, took me a couple of days to get back into'ATC head space' but once I got into the swing of it I was up half the night- well two nights, creating cards. And the next morning tossing out the ones I didn't like and doing more!! This morning I managed to post my full set of ATC's away. Looking forward to receiving a whole set back now!

My next project is my card for Card Patterns. and next challenge is to get into the right 'head space' for that!! I do struggle these days going from one art form to another, but it has to be good, after all how does that saying go.... "Variety is the spice of life"

Just before I get onto Card Patterns I want to show you a photo of the newest addition to our family.

... and no ,its not the boy, that's Camden our youngest. Check out the puppy, Cody's new pig hunting dog she is ever so cute and I really am not sure how tough she is going to turn out to be, because she is one very pampered puppy! Cody brought her home on Sunday she is just 6 weeks old.

Now - getting back to Card Patterns. This weeks sketch is ....

the prize up for grabs is from PaperPopsicles and is very very groovy check it out...

Last week we had a huge number of entries again, over 70! All cards were amazing, so much so that really I am a bit embarrassed to show you my take on this weeks sketch, I really feel very lacking on talent when I look at the wonderful cards you all create for the Card Patterns challenges.

I wish to send a huge 'congratulations' to Heidi Van Larr and to Wendy ,our winners from last weeks challenge and a huge 'Well done' to everyone who took part, it was so very hard for all of us to choose a winner!

Thank you so so much to all of you who took the time to leave lovely comments on my blog, and the blogs of the other Design team members, I truly appreciate your lovely words.

Check out the design team members takes on the sketch here... they are all so much better at making cards than I am!!

Right ...here is my take...

Now just to recap... The winner of this weeks sketch gets to be the Guest Designer for next weeks sketch and one lucky crafter is picked at random to be the winner of that wonderful prize by Paper Popsicles.
Looking forward to seeing your takes on this sketch. Good luck to everyone who takes part!!

Card pattern #4

Week #3 at Card Patterns was a huge one, with 74 beautiful cards submitted!

Choosing a winner was no easy task, each and every card was brilliant! However, a winner had to be chosen and this week we choose...Vicky! Take a look at her card HERE.

Below, is the sketch for this weeks challenge. Up for grabs are two digital stamps from Sweet n Sassy. The design team members were each treated to a digital stamp from Sweet n Sassy to use on our takes of this weeks sketch.

Now us Kiwis are just not partaking in the fun at Card patterns as yet, but I know you can all do this!! Have a go!



Here is a peek at Sweet n Sassy's digital stamps. Now as I mentioned above, the winner gets two of these - any two of the digi stamps below.

Here is my take on the challenge, now my mouse looks like he is stuck in a trap doesn't he!! I am sure all of you can make a better job of this sketch than I have!

I turned my digi stamp around in Photoshop, and printed it out three times so I could build up the layers and have my mouse popping off the page.

The balloons are also layered and I have added some thread between the balloons and mouse's hand.

I cut the flower and butterfly's separately from the mouse image and placed them just where I wanted them on my card.

Thank you Michelle for the wonderful sketch and to Sweet n sassy for putting up the prise, and thank you also for my mouse, I had fun with this digi stamp and will use it again I'm sure!