Bugs and butterflies

Today's card challenges were fun! I did my usual thing of making a couple of cards and liking them so much that I made a few more. That's good, because my supply got depleted while my stash was in transit. It feels good to have a few spares again.

I am still completely in love with Basic Grey's Wisteria collection, although my 6"x6" pack and rub-ons are getting low - now that's the sign of a good collection. Basic Grey Challenges want us to use blue, gold and white this week, Simon Says Challenge are asking for "things with wings", A Spoon Full of Sugar suggest 3D, and I've used Cute Card Thursday's sketch:

to create these:

I steered clear of flowers on purpose, because I wanted something suitable for blokes. I think these will do. The edges are inked with Colorbox peacock gold which looks blue, but when you turn it to the light it's gold - really pretty and it goes perfectly with Wisteria. The oval is cut with the Cuttlebug and the star brads came from Spotlight.

Scrap Whispers challenge - Can't smile without you

OK, OK I know I've got that song stuck in your heads for the rest of the day now. I'm not apologising, because I've been singing it for months, every time I look at this LO! Your mission, should you also choose to have the song going round your head forever ;-) is to create a LO based on the song title. You don't have to use the title as your title, but the sentiment must be there somewhere.

I actually had a lot of fun making this one, and it didn't take long. I was stuck for lettering, and being on my no-buy challenge still (is it ever going to end {sigh}?) I cut these letters out myself. Quite pleased with that, though I say it myself! But there was no way I was going to cut out the whole thing, so my Kaiser Craft journalling stamps were once again "pressed" (geddit?) into service, and the smile was drawn instead. The rest of it was torn from various scraps including Bo Bunny and more Kaiser Craft, with a Basic Grey background and Cuttlebug arrows coloured with Copics.

By the way, the subject of this LO is Spank the car monkey. He was a birthday present to DH from my BFF A last year, and his enormous smile kept DH from major road rage during the crazy Singapore rush hours. You just can't be furious when you've got that grin in front of you.

OK, that was my effort at this challenge. Now see what you can do? I'll be stalking the Scrap Whispers Gallery for your entries...

Scrap Whispers Challenge - Glitterball

Scrap Whispers is back!

The sign-ups are under way for the new game, so anyone who wants to join in, please e-mail Georgina at GH26@SKY.COM

In case this game is new to you, here's how it works. Remember Chinese Whispers, where each person whispered a phrase to the next person, and it changed as it went round the circle? Well Scrap Whispers is the same idea, but scrap-lifting lay-outs instead. You'll be on a team, and each team leader will be given the same LO to lift. She will e-mail the photo of it to the next team member, who will have a week to create her own version of it, and e-mail a photo back to the team leader. That photo will get passed to the next team member, and so on. All the LOs are kept a secret until the end. When everyone has completed their LOs, there will be a "Big Reveal" when we get to see everyone's creations, and Georgina will choose the winning team who will each receive a prize.

The game can run for a couple of months, so while you're waiting for your turn, there are weekly Friday challenges to complete, and more prizes to be won.

Challenge 60 is to whet your appetites for the new game. It's just for fun - there are no prizes this time. All you have to do is to create a LO based on the idea of a glitter ball, using bling and glitter. Fun! I used Glitter Ball as the title, but you don't have to.

The card-stock is by DCWV and the paper by Hambly. The snowflakes came from Hobbycraft in the UK, and the star punch from Daiso, the $2 Japanese store in Singapore. The title is cut using a Cuttlebug die, and glittered up with my beloved Stickles, in Star Burst. This one is a partner to the Christmas "purple and turquoise" challenge that we had back in January.

Come and play along!

Whisper!

(A little bird has told me that Scrap Whispers has something glittery and exciting to look forward to! Hop over and check it out very soon...)

Wisteria cards

I had two cards to make this week, but I didn't manage to fit the second one to any challenges, except my own challenge to myself to use up scraps.

The first is for The Pink Elephant (nature - I'm hoping butterflies and all the flowers on the gorgeous Wisteria papers count?) Our Creative Corner (buttons) and Basic Grey (this sketch):

I've pre-cut and scored all my cards while the rest are in the container, so I had to modify the shape to fit a rectangle.

It's all Basic Grey Wisteria, the image is coloured with my Copics and Diamond Stickles, and the butterflies and buttons were in a pack given to me by my Mum. The edges are all inked in Dew Drop black chalk ink, and the sentiment is computer printed.

Then I made another one using some of the scraps (you may see the rest of the scraps in the future!) and a different image from the net.

This one is to thank D and A for the party on Saturday, which was great fun. Again I apologise for the photos. There is a silver stamps saying "Thank you" in various languages rolled across the card to the end of the pencil, but it hardly shows up. I can't wait to get into our new place where the light is better. We're moving in on Thursday!

Happy burnday

Last weekend we went through our 27-page lease document for the new house. As we read, we got more and more incredulous and slightly dismayed at how exacting it was. I don't know about you, but if I'm told matter-of-factly that I have to keep a place clean, I think "no problem, I'll be the most house-proud tenant ever." But if I'm told I can't make any changes at all without permission; can't put up any pictures, or even use blu-tack or self-adhesive, can't put furniture against any walls and have to steam-clean carpets every 6 months and de-cobweb and clean every light fitting and window track for each quarterly inspection, I start feeling bolshy, and wondering what nasty little things I can do that aren't actually mentioned in the contract!

Yesterday we got "the call" to tell us that the keys for our house were available for collection! Yay! We presumed that as the contract was so nit-picking, the property would be all clean and in perfect condition for us. Well, if you agree to keep a property perfect, it kind of goes without saying that it must have been perfect before you moved in, right?

Wrong. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking photos of every nick, scratch, mark, dirt, cobweb, cockroach (eek!!!), water stain and missing light-bulb - there were 8 light-bulbs missing! Seriously, who takes light-bulbs with them when they vacate a house? We only left when the light faded and the camera battery ran out. So we'll be back there this afternoon to finish the job.

This morning however, I had to make a card. We have been invited to a birthday party tomorrow, by friends who have been in Perth for 6 months and have fully mastered the essential Aussie barbecue concept. Now that we have our house, D has offered to take us around the local barbecue shops before anyone else arrives, and show us the best deals on the best models. This will be DH's department - have you noticed that anything to do with open fire is automatically the man's area of expertise? Bonfires, barbecues, camp fires... But that's good, because it will give me a break from the cooking.

D's card gave me the opportunity to enter a few more challenges:
Charisma Cardz: animal magic - well Garfield the cat is an animal, right?
Lili of the Valley: blue and silver
Quixotic: case it, meaning a "card-lift". I chose this delightfully grumpy one by Simonne Clay of SemSee's Sparkly Scribblings:

and made it into this:

Inside it says Happy Burnday. I hope D doesn't take it personally. ;-)

The blue card-stock is American Crafts, and the blue and silver PP is SEI from their Christmas range but hey, it works. The rik-rak was given to me by my Mum, and the silver ribbon is from my stash. The image is from the net and coloured with my Copics of course.

Same image, different card

This card is for the Basic Grey Tutti Frutti challenge and for the Truly Scrumptious sketch challenge with the optional theme of "Fly Away". Here is the sketch, which I flipped and fitted onto a landscape card (all I brought with me!)

And my version:

I've used my Basic Grey Lemonade collection pack, with butterflies and American Craft brads from my stash. The image is from the net and is coloured with my faithful Copics. All edges are inked in silver.

Oh and I realised this can also be entered into the Cute Card Thursday challenge of "So egg-citing!"