Scrap Whispers Challenge - Flower Power

This week's challenge #54 over at Scrap Whispers is Flower Power - the more flowers you use, the better. Now that was a fun one, but not as easy as I expected.

I'm the kind of person who you can take for a day out with a bunch of friends, and my photos will be of the views, flowers, trees, insects and other wild-life. I might get a few of my friends if I remember! That doesn't always make for good scrapping subject matter at the end of the day.

This is a typical example. We'd given my Mum a camera for her birthday. Her eye-sight is getting to the "there's nothing the matter with my eyes, it's just that my arms aren't long enough" stage, and she has arthritis in her fingers and can't always tell whether she's pressed the button or not. So mobile 'phones and remote controls are a bit of a nightmare. But this camera was a new touch-screen one, and she got on famously with it.

We took it with us when we went for a quick blow up at Polesden Lacey (and it WAS a blow - the wind was very parky indeed) and had a quick training session. Her delight at getting lovely shots so easily was infectious. When we got home, she went round the garden and took some more pictures, and after tea we plugged the SD card into their TV and had a slide-show in super-sized full colour. She kept saying "that's a good one - did I take that?" Hehee!

The flowers are mostly Flora Doodles by Petaloo with some Prima and EK Success as well as flower buttons from Spotlight. The lettering is Thickers, Rebecca Sower and American Crafts. The journalling stamp is from Kaiser-craft, cut with a QuicKutz flower die on my Cuttlebug.

I'm sure you'll find this easy peasy. Go on, have a flower-fest!

White on white

Now here's a good challenge: white-on-white from Charisma Cardz. For me the challenge wasn't so much making a beautiful white card, as photographing the wretched thing. Have you ever tried taking a monochrome photo? I don't think I had either until earlier today. My goodness!

Anyway, this is a card for a friend who is expecting a baby. I don't know whether it's a boy or a girl yet, so Colour Create's lovely idea of using soft pink, soft blue, white and silver was just right for this. Charisma Cardz's white-on-white also allowed colour on the image and sentiment - perfect. Add it to the new baby challenge at Simon Says and this sketch from Truly Scrumptious, (with stitching) and I'm chuckling with satisfaction.

And my card? Please forgive the photo. I ended up using DH's fancy new camera with the latest lens and a whole pile of white balance settings to play with. It's better than my trusty camera, and I still think it looks rubbish.

It's plain white card from the office stationer's. I had a field day with my Cuttlebug embossing folders: swiss dots, paisley and the pram-on-a-stamp that came with the machine. I inked the edges with silver Encore ink, coloured in the pram with my Copics and a silver pen. The balloon brads started life as gold and blue, and I heat embossed them silver, and tied them (that was fiddly) using Stampin' Up! silver elastic cord to the pram handle with a brad. The "stitching" was done using my paper piercer and a silver gel pen. The butterflies came from my stash.

Glowing

This card is for my friend in America who has recently been diagnosed with Stage 1 cancer. She is about to go through a dose of radiation treatment which involves her being in isolation for a few days, and then unable to have any physical contact with her little girl for a couple of weeks. She is being so positive about it, and cracking jokes about glowing in the dark, but it must be tremendously hard.

I drew the glow-worm myself, not being able to find any clip-art or stamp glow-worms out there. His tail is painted with fabric paint which glows in the dark ;-) and the verse is computer printed. The papers are all from Basic Grey's Lemonade collection, the ribbon was a gift from Georgina (thanks again!) and the butterfly was punched using my market-stall punch from Hong Kong, and eyeletted using my new Crop-a-dile. Everything is inked with Dew Drop Cosmic Copper ink, and the copper matting is from a box lid that I saved.

I'm entering this into these challenges: Basic Grey's animals (a glow-worm is an animal, right?) The Pink Elephant's polka dots, a bow and pink, Quixotic's butterflies, A Spoonful of Sugar's freestyle, and this Lili of the Valley sketch:

And after all that build-up, I suppose I ought to show you the card!

Flowers for the blind

This card is for my Mum to give to my great aunt, who will be 103 this year. I can't even imagine being 103! She has as much spirit now as she ever has, but her eye-sight is failing, so this card is bright with contrast and full of texture.

The challenge at Cute Card Thursday this week is, conveniently, flowers, and Sketch Saturday has provided this sketch, which I turned clockwise:

This is what I've done with it:

It's all card-stock. The blues are from Heidi Grace and the flower is DCWV. The brad and the ribbon are from Daiso, our Japanese $2 shop, and I punched the corners and the centre flower with EK Success punches. The border punch is from Martha Stewart.

Fruity fairies

I love this card! I think I've missed the Charisma Cardz fruity colours challenge by about 5 minutes, but it should still catch the Cute Card Thursday fairy challenge and the Friday Sketchers sketch:

This is for my bestest pal ;-) in England who has just completed on her new house after many years of soul-searching and house-searching. It's a message to the house and garden fairies to look after their new "tenant". Silly, I know, but if you can't be silly with your BFF, who can you be silly with? I can't wait to see the house now!

The papers, sentiment and stickers are all from Basic Grey's Lemonade collection except the orange mat which is from the DCWV citrus stack. The image is another from edupics coloured with Copics, and everything is inked with Green Tea by Artnic.

Gold mat with sentiment

Fab's week #3 challenge is to use a gold mat and a sentiment. No problem. I think I cleaned the LSS clearance section out of gold paper in their Christmas sales - and I'm SO glad I did. It has come in very useful, not only for cards.

Quixotic Challenges merely want us to ink up an old stamp. Well this sentiment stamp was amongst the first acrylic stamps I ever bought. 6 months later when I finally cracked the pack open, I discovered that they had congealed themselves to the backing plastic. Grr. I had to cut the plastic around the stamp and have been using them by sticking the backing to the acrylic block using repositionable adhesive. It's a pain, but it works. Mostly. So "old" is about right for these.

Our Creative Corner has a lovely simple sketch for us to use this week:

And as usual I've mucked about with it, but my version is recognisable.

The papers are from Heidi Grace and EK Success. The image is yet another from edupics coloured as usual with my Copics, which I also used to tint the felt snowflake from Paperchase. The brad is from American Crafts, and if I had kept the packaging from the melted stamps I'd be able to tell you where that came from too, but it went in the bin and the stamps almost followed. Luckily I'm a frugal soul and rescued them as best I could.

Scrap Whispers Challenge - The Write Stuff

Challenge #53 this week at Scrap Whispers is to focus on your journalling - tell a story. So many people struggle with journalling, and I must admit I cheated a little, in my opinion, by taking the "focus on your journalling" part rather than "tell a story".

I used DH's and my favourite-recipe-in-the-world, for molasses chocolate chip cookies. YUM! We had a good Saturday afternoon working together on this, with DH behind the camera as well as chopping nuts and running around after me - "can you grab the chocolate chips out of the fridge?" and "oops, pass me a cloth - quick!" not to mention being chief tester of the end product. And I may have double-checked the cookie quality a couple of times as well while I was working on the LO... well you have to be certain, don't you?

I used Basic Grey papers, scalloped circles cut with QuicKutz flower dies using my Cuttlebug, pink and white stickers from Heidi Swapp and pearls from Prima. There are also some stickers from a magazine freebie, and the title was cut using my Silhouette from scraps of Bazzill card-stock. The recipe comes from Eat Right 4 Your Type. It was a perfect excuse to make a LO and spend quality time with DH - hehee!

Now, over to you. Can you make your journalling the focus of a LO?

Computer chaos

There have been a few problems with various widgets on my sidebar this week. This is just a quick note saying what's going on. And also to allow some of my card photos to drop off the bottom of the blog, and hopefully provide one extra possible way of making the blog load quicker.

My Weather has disappeared again. It spent a week or two being unable to load its data half the time, then it stopped working entirely, and now it isn't even showing in the list of widgets. What is it about the weather in Singapore that scares the widgets off? That's the second one that has popped up then dribbled away in disgrace. Anyway, I've removed it, but that didn't help my blog to load quicker. I'll have to keep my eyes open for another one.

My Followers have also disappeared. This is a problem known to Blogger, and they're working on it in this problem report. No progress as yet, except they're suggesting Firefox users (like me) use Google Chrome instead, and I don't want to. I like Firefox. I don't want extra stuff to have to think about.

And finally I discovered that my Visitor Counter and my account to the service has also vanished into thin air. I e-mailed the supplier and they replied very promptly saying that they're having major problems with one of their servers. Let's hope that gets sorted soon, and I really hope I haven't lost all my data. If I have, I'll be using more than one replacement 'cos I LIKE seeing how many people can be bothered to read my crazy stuff.

DH and I have got a new computer. This is to replace the poor old Dell desktop which has been staggering along with its pants around its ankles for some years now. DH spends whole weekends getting it going again, then something else crashes and he's back to worse than when he started, bless him. He had just got it "stable" for a whole month, then my brother came to visit for Christmas, accepted some updates and downloaded something, and the computer went "ain't having that" and lay down with its little legs waving feebly in the air. After we'd come down off the ceiling, we decided that enough was enough and the old desktop was too much of a time and stress liability to keep going.

We bought a new one last weekend with Windows 7, and so far DH has been amazed and gratified by how easily and quickly it has been to get it going. He's used to having to fight for every small step forward. I'm hoping that will continue until all the data is copied over to the new drive, and we can let the Dell rest in peace forever. We will be creating a Guest account on it to prevent such hassles happening again.

DH has just come back in announcing that the computer is shut down and he can watch TV. He's smiling so I'm guessing things are still going well. I'm signing off now to watch some Most Haunted hehee!

ETA: I just removed the Visitors Counter widget completely (keeping the code elsewhere so I can add it back in when the problem is fixed) and ta-da - my blog now loads beeyooooootifly quickly. That was the problem. YAY.

Mixing and matching

Today I've been working on multiple challenges, and creating cards which span various different ones. I've already got myself into a muddle with which ones were for which challenge, so I'd better get this right!

Whiff of Joy's  challenge for this week is to use a Whiff of Joy stamp, and to choose a "recipe". I decided on 3 patterned papers, 2 pieces of bling and 1 flower. They also have a Design Team call on, so I'm crossing my fingers that this is good enough. Our Creative Corner challenges us to put blue and green together. And Friday Sketchers produced this sketch, which I turned clockwise.

 I put the three together to make this card.

This is Whiff of Joy's Willow with Hot Chocolate coloured with Copics. The papers are scraps from Bella Boulevard, My Mind's Eye and KI. The flowers are Prima inked with Copics, 7 Gypsies brad, gems from Me and My Big Ideas.

I loved the first card so much that I made the next one using the same colours. Then I got all carried away clearing out my green and blue scraps, and ended up in punch heaven surrounded by about a zillion different shades of green leaves. And THEN, I had enough to use on yet another card, so I made two almost the same. I hope I'm allowed to enter them both into the challenges.

Deep breath... Simon Says Stamp Challenge wants us to get out our punches. So does Creative Card Crew. No problem there. Sketch Saturday's gorgeous sketch is this:

 And combined with OCC's colour scheme, here are my creations.

The paper scraps include the same bits, and both images are from Squiggle stamps coloured with Copics. The biggest flower punch is EK Success and the 2 smaller ones and the leaf are from Daiso. The brads are American Crafts, the sentiment stamp from my stash and scalloped flower from QuicKutz cut with my Cuttlebug.

Phew! Well I absolutely love these, but I can't help wondering whether I've forgotten something.....?

And another sketch!

Michelle if you're reading this, don't let Jenna see it yet!

It's for The Pink Elephant challenge of using this sketch which I completely fell in love with (fell in love - Valentine? Geddit? LOL I crack myself up sometimes). I'm also entering it into ABC Challenge and the Spoon Full of Sugar which both have layering as their challenge this week. There's plenty of that here.

I'm afraid I wasn't very imaginative - this sketch has it all. I even stole the colours. Oops.

The stamp is "hugs and hearts" by Rubber Stampede, coloured with Copics and Diamond Stickles. I used my Nestabilities ovals cut with my Cuttlebug, and a Martha Stewart punch for the scallops. The paper is scraps from BG Bittersweet, American Crafts, and some pink bits embossed with my swiss dots Cuttlebug folder. The sentiment is computer printed, and Bob's your uncle.

Pink and grey

This card is for Cute Card Thursday whose challenge is pink and grey. I had to scratch around for grey from my stash because I really didn't know whether I had anything. I eventually found the grey paper in a 7 Gypsies 6"x6" pad on the back of a patterned sheet, and the grey ribbon in my squirrel hoard of saved-from-chocolate-boxes-bag-handles-and-the-strangest-places. I'd forgotten all about the flowers too. Note to self: buy more grey things! I also used this sketch from Stampin' for the Weekend.

My card is for my Mum's cousin's other teenage daughter, so the older one gets blue and the younger one gets pink.

The image is another from Edupics, again coloured with my Copics and Star Dust Stickles. The flowers are Prima and the brads are American Crafts. I used a stamp to edge the circle, my corner rounder and everything else is scraps and from my stash.

Shabby chic

I tried to cover several challenges at once with this pretty card, which is for my Mum to give to her cousin's teenage daughter. It should be good for Colour Create's challenge of using kraft, blue and white, with the option of texture, which there is plenty of! It was my first attempt at shabby chic for the Simon Says challenge, also Whiff of Joy's sketch which I flipped to fit my image.

And here it is!

I used 7 Gypsies papers, and the image is Willow from Whiff of Joy coloured with Copics - I really got into mixing colours for this! No distressing tool for me - I used an old emery board which worked perfectly (although my thumb-nail is definitely distressed too) and Versafine sepia ink. The stamp is one of the Floral Flourishes from Upsy Daisy Designs which I haven't used before, so that counts as my something new, and therefore I can enter it into the Charisma Cardz challenge as well! The lace is a scrap from my stash that I've had for years. Hopefully my Mum will think it fit to send to her young cousin.

Merry and bright!

That's the theme of this week's card for Fab's Big Christmas Cards Challenge, using vintage colours and stripes. My own challenge to myself is to use scraps only, so this one is completely bits that wouldn't fit any other space. I really like it!

The ribbon is from Stampin' Up! The background patterned paper and the tag are from Graphic 45 and the stamp is Studio G. The red glitter glue is also Studio G because I couldn't get any red in Stickles. It was very gooey and hard to put on - I much prefer Stickles. Cute huh?

Scrap Whispers Challenge - Watermelon

The new Scrap Whispers game started last week with one of Georgina's cool LOs being e-mailed to the team leaders. We "scrap-lifted" it, and e-mailed it on to the first team member for lifting again. Theirs will come back to the team leader to be sent to the next person and so on. Each person has a week to produce their creation. Nobody sees any LO except the previous one in the chain. It will be fascinating to see how the original LO differs from the final ones!

While the main game is going on, there are weekly challenges to do, with prizes to win.

This week's challenge #52 is to be inspired by the watermelon! Make a card or layout, use the colours or whatever the watermelon inspires you to create. Why don't you play along?

I used scraps and my Silhouette to make this. The edges are inked, and my new Christmas Crop-a-dile was put to use for the first time, setting those eyelets late at night without having to worry about waking the neighbours with my hammering! (My face broke out into a spontaneous grin at the thought!) The stamp is Lizzie from Whiff of Joy again, and she's coloured with Copics. The sentiment was stamped with StazOn ink onto a Maya Road shape, with another Crop-a-dile hole punched for the ribbon tie. Cool as a watermelon, hehee!

Pink, green and black

Another one for the depleted card box.

This fortnight, the Truly Scrumptious card challenge is a particularly toothsome one. We are asked to use this sketch by Mina:

And (optional) we can take inspiration from this photo with the colours of pink, black and green:

"Optional"? Well of course I want to! Isn't it pretty? My no-buy card:

Ingredients:
- Basic Grey green paper
- Kaiser craft pink, white and black paper, both sides (and I'll let you into a secret - those squares aren't really squares, they're scraps big enough to look like squares ;-) )
- black card-stock from inside page protectors
- Dew Drop chalk ink in black and pearlescent olive, and Cat's Eye ink in lipstick pink
- image from http://www.edupics.com/ coloured with Copics
- snowflakes from Paperchase and Hobbycraft
- brads from American Crafts
- pink circle sticker from Heidi Swapp
- and not forgetting Star Dust Stickles

Riding high

The Pink Elephant wants a birthday card? No problem.
Charisma Cardz suggests pink, chocolate, toffee and cream? Got that.
Friday Sketchers posts a sketch? Can do.
Stampin' for the Weekend  and Cute Card Thursday both want something new? New cycling hobby - right!

Now did I miss anything?
Personal challenge of using scraps only - check
In time for friend's birthday - check

Recipe: Bazzill card-stock scraps, card blank from Paperchase, Floral Flourish stamp from Upsy Daisy Designs, Artnic ink in Rose Pink, ribbon from Spotlight, image from http://www.edupics.com/ coloured with Copics, old emery board to sand edges, hole punch to make fancy corners..... and LOOK! No Stickles on this one!

It's a bit bright!

I'm on a card roll! :-) I spotted a challenge at Colour Create which made my mouth water - lemon and lime. After all the Christmassy reds and greens, my eyes needed a change of scenery. In the immortal words of my cousin when he was describing a dark green fleece "it's a bit bright!" I'm entering this into the Lili of the Valley Challenge of making a Thank You card too.

Ingredients:
- all papers from scraps
- Cuttlebug & swiss dots folder
- image Tatiana Ketto from Stamping Bella (with thanks - you know who you are!)
- coloured with Copics
- brads from stash
- flowers from Georgina
- Tsuneiko green tea ink, Versafine black ink
- roller stamp out of clearance bin at LSS - no label

Whiff of Joy thank you card

After Christmas is over, my card box runs out of thank you cards very quickly. This time of year is an excellent time to stock up, especially with all those delicious sketches and ideas out there.

This week's challenge over at Whiff of Joy is to create a card using aqua and red together, and of course, a Whiff of Joy stamp. I have exactly 3 of these, and they've been getting a bit of a bashing recently, but with my no-buy challenge I'm not buying any more until we get to Australia, so they'll have to be used imaginatively. Hmmm.... can you hear my brain ticking over here? I wonder whether they allow mix-and-match stamps in their challenges? Well we might have to find out - I hope I don't get disqualified!

Well I haven't gone that far for this card. Here's Lizzie again:

Ingredients:

- Lizzie stamp from Whiff of Joy

- coloured with Copics and Distress Stickles in "brick"

- DCWV red paper

- all other papers by My Mind's Eye

- Dew Drop black chalk ink

- sentiment sticker from Rebecca Sower

- 7 Gypsies white brads

- flower and leaf punches from Daiso
- red tie from Paperchase
- blue rik-rak from Georgina

Scrap Whispers Challenge - purple and turquoise

This week's challenge on Scrap Whispers is to create a card or LO using purple and turquoise. It made me grin enormously when I read that, because I had just been out to Singapore's Orchard Road taking photos with my brother of the fabulous Christmas lights.

Orchard Road is a long road, and shopping from one end to the other. At the city end, the colour scheme is blue and gold (sponsored by VISA ;-) ), then walking up it changes to orange and yellow with presents, then red and white with Santas. At our end, we have blue and white snowmen: snowflakes strung across the road with blue baubles surrounded by LEDs which are almost a greenish colour. In the trees are hung giant hoops with blue-and-white lit baubles and those hanging white LED chaser light strips that look like melting icicles - I love them! It looks so incongruous!

The new ION shopping centre has a giant tree outside, which is all decorated with silver and purple. You can go inside the tree to a fantasy-land of more dripping icicles, pearly purple glass balls with glitter inside, silver snowflakes all hanging from the vast cone. They don't do things by halves here.

So here is my inspiration for the challenge. Come along and play - I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Recipe:
- glitter card-stock from my stash for the snowman (hand cut)
- black Bazzill card-stock
- DCWV purple card-stock
- turquoise paper from Hambley
- my $2 star punch
- snowflakes from Hobby Craft
- large snowflake quarters from Basic Grey
- lettering 08Underground font cut on the Silhouette
- Stickles star burst
- gems from EK Success
- ribbon from Georgina!

Basic Grey Challenge Week #11

I've been waiting for Basic Grey to post their new card challenge for weeks and weeks (well that's what it felt like!) through their Christmas break. They didn't disappoint, with this photo of a very pretty room as inspiration. As usual, the only other rule is that a Basic Grey item must be used on the card.

So - subject matter? My cousin and his new wife both have birthdays coming up. I've never been to their house, but I know they keep a pair of chinchillas. I have had a soft spot for chinchillas ever since I was a teenager, when one of my best school friends asked me to look after his chinchilla, Tom, while he was on holiday. Tom was delightful, with a happy temperament and the softest fur, but not cuddly at all because he was so very, very swift and bouncy! Playtimes with Tom seemed to be spent mostly trying to catch him again, after letting him out for exercise in the lounge.

Georgina posted last week about a web-site from which you can download free images for colouring. Having started my no-buy challenge, which means no more stamps for the present, I spent the evening downloading pages of images with major potential for Copic therapy. And amongst the animals section (around half-past midnight by then, long after DH had put his head round the door to ask if I was going to be long, and I'd mumbled "mmmm" at him) I found IT. The perfect picture.

Now the colours! I had the perfect virgin sheet of paper, but my rule is only to use scraps for cards, so I had to make a LO first. Can't show you that one yet 'cos it's for the Scrap Whispers DT, so you'll have to trust me when I tell you that the LO came first! And as my cousins don't follow this blog, here it is. Yummy!

Recipe:
Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper
DCWV card stock (blue)
Bazzil card stock (brown)
$2 store blue ribbon, brown ribbon from stash
Dew Drop Platinum ink
Hero Arts sentiment stamp with black Versafine ink
EK Success gems
Copics of course

Adding to my drawers

Did I post about altering my Kotex panty-liner box to use in my scrap room? No, I don't believe I did. Back last summer, Basic Grey had brought out their Lime Rickey range, and the scrap-booking world was making lots of very excited noises about it. I looked it up, and after drooling a lot while I waited for it to arrive in Singapore, I treated myself to a few sheets of those bright and beautiful colours.

The trouble was that it was far too nice to use! Everyone who works with these delicious papers has experienced the same angst, I know. How can I cut into something that pretty? What if I make a mistake? What if I can't get any more? And there's no way I'm using this for a gift - I want to keep it! So I kept it and carried on sighing over it every time I looked through my paper collection.

That is, until I emptied my box of panty-liners which was such a useful box and too nice to throw away, but you don't want something labelled Kotex in constant and obvious use, do you? Yup, two birds with one stone:

At Christmas DH took me to the new ION Centre and we found a bookshop with a craft section upstairs, and a wonderful range of the latest SEI papers. As DH was having a bit of a panic about "what to get you for Christmas", I generously chose some of these sugary delights for him to give to me. I'm nice like that. ;-)

And as another Kotex box had recently become redundant, it got the same treatment. Good thing too, because when I went back for some more, the shelves were bare.

You can't tell from these photos, but the pink stripes are metallic, and there is pink glitter on the butterflies. The plastic shapes are by Maya Road, and I coloured them with Copics. The blue cord on both boxes was saved from paper bag handles.

I have them piled one on top of the other in my craft room at the moment, holding all kinds of oddments that I use every day. Beautiful AND useful. Can't beat that.

Friday Funny

Grandchildren

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she'd done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Gramma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!" I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye...

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62. My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was THAT?"

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo and I said, "No, how are we alike?'' "You're both old," he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I can't read."

7. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these, yourself!"

8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure." "Look in your underwear, Grandpa," he advised, "mine says I'm 4 to 6."

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool "That's interesting," she said, "how do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'."

11 Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. "Sure," said the young boy confidently. 'It means carrying a child."

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties. "They use him to keep crowds back," said one child. "No," said another. "He's just for good luck." A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. "Oh," he said, "she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport."

14. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over you hear gas leaks, and they blame their dog.

New Year resolutions

In recent years I have decided not to make any New Year's resolutions, because I always seem to make unachievable ones, break them and think "bother it, sha'n't do it then". This year I'm going to set doable targets, and keep tabs on them right at the bottom of this blog to keep me motivated and encouraged. That's a good resolution to start with, isn't it? :-)

So, here are this year's resolutions:
- to be silly more, and have more fun
- to TRY not to let the inevitable stresses of moving to another country make me a pain in anyone's behind
And my crafting ones:
- a spending freeze. No buying of crafting supplies until I've completed 25 LOs. (I could probably do more, but I said "achievable", didn't I? ;-) )
- to make all my Christmas cards for 2010, without buying any fresh Christmas supplies. I've already bought a pile of clearance Christmas papers in the sales, so I'm set up!
My spending freeze excludes white card, envelopes and adhesive.

What do you reckon? Think I'll be able to stick to it?

As I found it so useful (but a bit late!) last year, I'm again using Fab's Big Christmas Cards Challenge blog site to keep me motivated. I already have about 20 cards spare from 2009, so if I complete all of Fab's challenges, I will be well on target for this year. I do LOVE being in credit, even if it's only in the planning! I did wonder whether thinking about Christmas all year round might take away from the magic of it when it actually comes, but I'll try it this year and see how I feel.

So yesterday I took down our Christmas decorations, undressed the tree, and while I was still in the mood (sort of!) I made my first Christmas card of 2010. The instructions were to make a tall card with frosty colours.

This is a no-buy card, right? So it was scraps all the way from a couple of magazines that I bought in the UK last year, plus:
- new Cuttlebug Christmas tree embossing folder and an old emery board to sand it
- EK Success square punch for the presents
- some Stampin' Up! silver cord (thanks Jessica!)
- a purple snowflake from my stash
- American Crafts white glitter mini brads
- the essential Stickles (star dust)
- Encore silver ink
- silver pen

My first DT work

Because we have the option of creating our Design Team LOs and cards in advance, and because we have no dates yet for our move to Australia, I've been working away at it, worrying that I might not be able to get it done after the move. Consequently my mind is full of the next one, and the next one, and so I completely forgot that the first one had been published on Scrap Whispers on Sunday!

I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with, because I found the title quite a challenge.

Here it is, Stars and Spikes. That was our only guidance. I chose our 2008 Christmas.

The papers are Scenic Route and Bo Bunny polka dots, and I printed my Christmas tree photo out onto plain white office paper. I double matted the photos onto the polka dot paper and some tartan paper scraps. The stars came from a Cosmo Cricket pack, and I cut out and striped the star frame myself. The lettering is Thickers, and I used my Cuttlebug to cut the arrow, with final touches from Hero Arts Metallic Decor red dots, some Dew Drop Galaxy Gold ink for the edges, and of course Stickles gold and lime green.

Happy New Year!

We spent yesterday evening in such a satisfying and contented way: sushi at Yotei, our favourite restaurant, then a glass of red while watching the Muppets' Christmas Carol. We put the TV on for the final few minutes of the countdown's live coverage from the floating stage in Singapore Harbour, and took another glass into the spare room, opened the window and saw the New Year in as we admired the fireworks on Marina Bay. Our 19th-floor condo has a pretty good view across the 2 miles of cityscape to where it was all happening.

The brightest full moon we had seen in a long time beamed its light down on a world of parties, excitement, resolutions, and a lot of people like us, in quiet prayer that we could do our part to help make 2010 better than 2009.

Yesterday was also our anniversary: of meeting 16 years ago (was it really?), of getting engaged 15 years ago, and of our intended wedding 10 years ago. That had to be brought forward due to my father's diagnosis of cancer, leading to his death one year later on our first anniversary. That day is now his, so we celebrate on New Year's Eve.

The card I made for DH was a challenge to myself - to use the Basic Grey Challenge colours of pink, cream and blue, and still produce something which was not too girlie. His opinion is that I managed it, which is the most important thing.

The papers are Basic Grey sun-kissed and sun-dress, and a bit of cream paper from a Paperchase pack of card blanks. The rik-rak was in my emergency embellishment kit thoughtfully and generously given to me by Georgina when I visited England with limited supplies. The pink sparkly brads (yes I know, but somehow they work on a man's card!) are American Crafts "baby girl". The inks are Antic and Versamark, and of course my beloved Copics and a touch of Stickles. The stamp is Rubber Stampede "Hugs and Hearts".

I've been doing a lot of Design Team creating for Scrap Whispers so obviously you will see that when everyone else does. The new game starts on January 10th so if you want to join in the fun, please e-mail Georgina at gh26@sky.com.