Scrap Whispers Challenge #66 - New

I'm starting with the picture for a change. Does it look familiar? I hope so, because it's the partner of my All Change LO from a few weeks ago, but I took this photo in the daytime sunshine and the other in the electric light, so it's a completely different colour in the photo. They do match in real life, I promise.

The map paper is Kaisercraft, and it's perfect for this. I'm the sort of person who has to know where I am on the map. For years I have carried a tiny pocket atlas in my diary, and it's done me proud at many a pub-quiz. I was introduced to a girl from Zambia the other day, and I got my little map out for her to show me where her home was - to everyone's great amusement. When DH worked on oil rigs and floating platforms, I found it quite unnerving not to be able to look at a map and know where he was on it. "Somewhere in that bit of blue there" was not enough for me. I want to put a scale on it, but the maths was just too complicated so I gave that up. Maybe I will when I'm feeling braver.

Angels

When your niece and nephew are just 1 and 4, and you only see them once or twice a year, they are the cutest, most adorable kids in the world. So when their mummy and daddy send you a Christmas present of a professional photo of them together looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, your eyes fill with proud, happy tears and you drop everything to find a frame to display it. Don't you? And you can't wait to see them again.

And when you do, they go a little mad because you've brought them presents, and they show off, and they scream with excitement then there are tears, and then they cheer up again. And they climb all over you, with their fond parents smiling indulgently at you lying on the floor with your hair being pulled out in chunks and your chest being pummelled flat by enthusiastic little heels. They fight for your attention, shrieking at you from a distance of 2 inches in case you can't hear them over the other one's yelling.

Then it's their bedtime, and you get 10 minutes to get your breath back while mummy takes them upstairs to help them put on their new pyjamas which you have to admire, and you're honoured to be chosen to give them their milk and try to calm them down before bed. A few more tears because they DON'T WANT to go to bed, then... peace. You have a cup of tea and an hour's adult conversation with their parents, then it's time to leave. And the memory of their exuberance and loving ways keeps you warm until you get home and have only the butter-wouldn't-melt photo to contrast with the reality.

Next Christmas another photo arrives, and last year's slightly faded little angels get put away safely, and replaced by a brighter, older, lankier version with different hair-styles and more devilment in their smiles.

See? Did they tuck their wings into their vests?

I made this for a craft competition at our new LSS. They were selling little kits for A$5: a sheet of card-stock, two half-sheets of matching patterned paper, two die-cut corner borders, two lengths of chiffon ribbon, three flowers and a chipboard butterfly. You had a month to create your page using a minimum of 80% of the supplies, then you submitted your original masterpiece to the shop to be voted on by the customers for a month. The LO with the most votes wins a A$20 voucher for the shop. Now isn't THAT a good idea?

And I spent HOURS over this. I wanted it to be the best LO they'd ever seen! I used the border die-cuts as masks to spray Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in "snow angel" (a kind of glimmery pink) onto the card-stock to make a pattern, and I sprayed the flowers too. I cut the design out of one of the sheets of paper, and cut the butterflies out of the other. I got the shape by scanning the Twiddleybitz butterfly and converting it into a shape to cut smaller with the Silhouette. I painted the chipboard butterfly with Smooch Ink. I made the tag, inked it with Distress Ink "broken china" and tied the ribbons to it in two bows. The title was cut using the oriental Cuttlebug dies. Added some gems, brads and Stickles from my stash, raised the sparkly bits up on foam, and job done. Finally. Phew. It's pretty though, isn't it?

Lili-blog candy

Ooh I love this! Lili of the valley is offering a chance to win this really cute set of stamps, and I'm going for it!

Head over to here for a look. If you post a link to their site, you could win too.

We had a storm in the night. Not a thunder-and-lightning storm, but a "I think that hail is going to come through the window" storm. I didn't look at the clock to see what time it was, but it's now 9:30am and the hail drifts are still sitting in the corners of the garden and on the flat roof above our porch. I was going to do some washing today, but somehow looking at that dark purpley-grey sky puts me right off the idea. Maybe tomorrow. Seems as if winter is truly on its way.

Smooch ink, Glimmer Mist and spiders

I was on a bit of a roll yesterday. I finished my final card very late - too late to photograph it and show it here, and besides, you probably had enough of my cards for one day. But today's a new day (here!) and here's a new card.

Remember I said my squirts of Smooch ink on the bird were a little generous? Well it was lucky I was using a piece of plastic packaging on top of my newspaper on the floor, because I ended up with quite a puddle of glimmery brown and sparkly green. And I'm not one to waste stuff like that! I grabbed up all the scraps I could see: the circles I'd cut from the cards, some bits of white card, a scrap of patterned paper that was waiting to go on the next card - and wiped them all into my puddle to see what happened. And I got some very interesting effects!

When I went to post my second card yesterday, I realised that even though it was brown and yellow (on purpose) it didn't qualify for the Whiff of Joy challenge because it didn't have a Whiff of Joy stamp on it... and even though I'd punched the leaves especially for the Basic Grey challenge, I'd forgotten to use any BG paper on it... aagh where was my brain yesterday??? Hence the late-night card, using a piece of Basic Grey Scarlett's Letter paper and a pre-coloured Willow from Whiff of Joy, which had been shifted around my desk waiting to be used for literally months. And with a Martha Stewart border punch, some ribbon from G, sentiment from Quixotic Paperie and my experimental inked paper with an ancient stamp, this is what I got:

I used this sketch from Sketch Saturday and I THINK I got all the criteria covered!

One more thing. If you're arachnophobic, don't scroll down any further!














Last weekend DH was working hard in the garden, and he noticed a not-so-little friend watching him from the bottom corner of the garage door:

She's about an inch and a half in size. Being me, I got the camera out and took some photos - up really close. Then last night we did some surfing, and made our toes curl by reading about how venomous Australian spiders are and how they jump on you... Well thank GOODNESS this one didn't! After an hour of scaring the living daylights out of ourselves, we still don't know what she is. Either a quite venomous but docile Black House Spider (but they usually live at the tops of doors or windows and this wasn't) or an assertively venomous Wolf Spider but they're ground-dwelling, or a death-on-legs Funnel Web, but they're also ground dwelling and they're fierce. So if anyone can help identify her, please feel free!

While we were surfing, we found this photo of a Huntsman Spider which I absolutely love: in a horror film, face-covering, pulling-feet-up-onto-the-sofa kind of way.

more Twiddleybitz

Two cards in one day? Well, our friend S's birthday is frighteningly close considering how far this card has to fly across the world, so it had to be done "now if not yesterday" to coin a phrase of my Mum's.

On Friday I went to the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre to the annual Craft and Quilt Fair. I wished so much that someone could have built a teleporter for my Mum to have been there with me. She doesn't want to travel so far any more, but she would have been right there in colour heaven with me. And to share a pleasure with someone who appreciates it as you do, only intensifies the thrill. In addition to the rainbow glories of the quilts and beads, there were also enough scrap-booking stands for my credit card to be quite thankful I'd only left myself less than 3 hours to browse.

One local Australian brand that I'd never seen before is Twiddleybitz, who specialise in laser-cut chipboard embellishments. DH picked up a few bits for me on my birthday spending spree, and I... er... thought he probably wouldn't mind if I picked up some more at the fair. I used one of their birds on my brother's card the other day, and it worked so well in a cut-out card that I used another one in today's tent card. I think they're so good for those dear, difficult men in our lives. Don't you agree?

This whimsical little chap was sprayed with my Pinecone Glimmer mist, and then when I decided that wasn't glimmery enough, a quick and surprisingly generous squirt of another (ahem) new acquisition, Smooch Spritz ink in "limolicious". That did the trick! The papers are Jillybean Soup, inked with Versamark pinecone, and the charm (another craft fair find) is attached with some green rafia given to me by A, through a flower eyelet set with my Cropodile. The leaves are punched with a Daiso punch and the card is attached at the top by a couple more eyelets.

I'm entering this into these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp: a tent card with charms (this is such fun - go and check it out!)
Truly Scrumptious with this sketch:

House Mouse!

This stamp has to be one of the cutest I've ever seen! It's a House Mouse image of Amanda lifting Monica up to blow out a candle, and DH and I chose it in my birthday spending spree.

As usual I've left things to the last minute with my challenges - I may have missed the House Mouse deadline, but I've done my best. I was in bed with a migraine most of Saturday, and out yesterday buying gifts to take back to the UK next week. I had a wine-tasting and DH had a coffee-tasting which I never heard of before. We both did the chocolate-tasting - I love the Swan Valley!

We also spent time in Bunnings, the DIY store here, getting materials to make up a board to go behind my craft desk to protect the cream walls of our rented house. I now have a cork/white board. How cool is this? Thanks DH!

So on to the card. Isn't that adorable? Hehee.

The background is swiss dots embossed with my Cuttlebug. The papers are all scraps, including the hearts, and the sentiment is computer printed. The image is coloured with Copics. I'm entering it into these challenges:

Colour Create with this photo as inspiration:

House Mouse with a House Mouse stamp and distressing
Charisma Cardz with 3D - the card is embossed and the image and the sentiment are up on foam.
Stampin' for the Weekend with a card to make someone smile (who can look at that image and not smile?) and finally
Cute Card Thursday with this sketch:

And now that I've entered the House Mouse Challenge, I can also enter Lorraine's blog candy - click on that big red heart in my side bar for more info.

Scrap Whispers challenge #65 - Movie

I must be the only person I know who is not really a film fan. Somehow the thought of committing to 2 noisy hours outside my comfort zone makes me think of all the things I ought to be doing instead.

So I'm afraid I cheated a little on this challenge, because I've never seen The Birds! I only know it's a Hitchcock horror film and it's scary. I know one burly, tattooed toughie who can't stand starlings or the Javan mynah birds because of "the way they look at him". Now that had me hooting privately (I didn't dare to laugh in his face) because these little chaps are an endless source of amusement to me. I love how you can see their little brains whirring and know what they're thinking. But this chap has had that pleasure taken away forever because of some stupid horror movie - I find that a crying shame.

My only regret in this LO is that I didn't manage to fit in the house crow. I haven't got any photos of them (although one landed on the fence just as I was sticking the final lettering down!) but their voices just make me laugh out loud. They caw three times - in an Australian accent: the first two sound like lambs bleating, and the third sounds like a whining child after being told "no you can't have that" - aaaaaaaaw! But that will have to wait for a future LO. Maybe a digital one with a sound wave in it!

So here's my LO, made with My Minds Eye "Bloom and Grow" papers, lettering from Pink Paislee and my Tim Holtz collection bird stamp with Artnic ink. The journalling is all done on the computer and printed.

So now head on over to Scrap Whispers and join us for this week's challenge. You could be in with a chance to win this amazing prize from Bo Bunny!

Wall-E

My family will guess which little 4-year-old pickle this card is for! I hope he's still into Wall-E - he seems to have a different craze every time we speak to him. But judging by the Wall-E/Dr Cockroach combination that hits the webcam when we Skype, I guess Wall-E is still flavour of the month.

Just one challenge today, The Pink Elephant, who have given us this sketch to use:

I've even recreated the stripes, more by good luck than good judgement. I wanted blue scraps and that was what I had from SEI, DCWV and Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses. The image was found on the net, coloured extensively and lengthily with my Copics. The copper brads are from my stash.

Inside it says Happ-E Birthday. Boom boom.

Sending you smiles

Here is Whiff of Joy's Melinda with her muffin basket, sending sweet treats to a friend in the US. I'm entering her into this week's Simon Says Challenge of using a Whiff of Joy stamp and this sketch:

She also fits Charisma Cardz's "sweet treats" challenge, A Spoonful of Sugar's "cute and girly", and Quixotic Paperie's DIY flowers, since I made the flowers using my Cuttlebug and QuicKutz flowers and circles dies. The copper card is from a box of smellies I was given which I've been saving. The copper ribbon and handmade paper from Spotlight in Singapore, and the copper brads and photo holder are from my stash. Everything is inked with Dew Drop Cosmic Copper ink, the sentiment arrived yesterday from Quixotic Paperie store - along with 2 other stamps that I just can't wait to use!

Here she is:

Quick birdie card

It's my brother's birthday coming up, and DH chose this pack of whacky and very sweet laser-cut chipboard birds from Twiddleybits (how wonderful is that name!) when we went out last weekend. I couldn't think of anything better than combining one of them with this these challenges from Our Creative Corner and Stampin' for the Weekend (I hope the sentiment counts as a stamped image) who both wanted male cards, Cute Card Thursday who suggested Someone Special, Colour Create who gave us the colours khaki, aqua, cream and brown, and this sketch from the Creative Card Crew:

I used 7 Gypsies and Basic Grey Wisteria papers, and was amazed at how well they went together, considering they are completely different colours and subjects. The circles were cut with my Cuttlebug using the QuicKutz nested circles, and everything was inked with Versamark pinecone to match the laser-scorched effect on the bird. The stamped sentiment is from my stash.

Scrap Whispers Blog Hop!

Welcome to our brand new monthly tutorial blog hop! On the 15th of each month, we're going to post a tutorial on the Scrap Whispers blog site. You have a week to follow the tutorial and create something you may never have tried before, and it might not even be scrap-booking, so get your adventurous hats on! One lucky person will win a prize. If you didn't come here from the link on Scrap Whispers, go there first and check it out.

So here's what you have to do:
- follow the tutorial, and link to your creation on the Scrap Whispers blog site
- hop through all the DT blogs and leave a comment on each
- come back next week and see who has won!

It's that simple!

This month Georgina has given us a fun waterfall card to make, and I have to say, I absolutely loved doing this! I think my family and friends are all going to get waterfall cards this year. I used Basic Grey Kioshi papers, Daiso heart brads, stickers from a magazine and my brand new birthday House Mouse stamp "Monica", coloured with Copics. Isn't she adorable? Hehee.

Your next blog to visit is the lovely Kelly's. Enjoy the fun, and good luck!

Scrap Whispers #64 - Scrap your scrap

I LOVE this one! Last year at Scrap Whispers we had a challenge to snap and scrap our scrap rooms without tidying them up - now that was pretty scary. This year we're allowed to make our spaces respectable first, which was a relief! I found it very interesting to look back at last July's LO As Is and compare how I had everything in a different room in a different country.

And 10 months later...

As you can see, my stash has grown somewhat, despite my no-buy challenge. Ah well, a girl's gotta have a hobby, hasn't she? It keeps me off the streets as DH so delicately puts it.

I used a sketch this week, from the Inspired Blueprints site which I just discovered. I didn't have papers which matched or even complimented my photos of the scrap room in the strange, shaded light of an autumn afternoon, so I made my own by punching 60 little squares out of various scraps with my EK Success punch and gluing them down. The title was cut using my Silhouette using the same font as myspace ;-) the giant flower is Petaloo and the brads are from the Paper Studio.

Christmas in May

Well OK, maybe not Christmas in May exactly, but I have a lot of catching up to do with Fab's Big Christmas Cards challenge, as the last Christmas cards I did were in January before my stash was packed away. I've had a few minutes to spare for fun, sparkly, glittery things, so here is an entry from last week's challenge. Fab's been a poorly bunny so I hope it cheers him up a little.

We had to create a scene, and use bling. My Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses papers and chipboard pack were pressed into late-night service, as was my nearly empty Diamond Stickles bottle. I've been looking out for a replacement but haven't found any yet. I'm sure I will though - I've still got 2 big scrap-booking shops to investigate. The edges are inked with Artnic Old Rose, and the glittery Christmas tree is from last December's Let's Make Cards magazine.

Get well soon Fab!

Henry Mouse

Thank you to Heather for this little charmer! Isn't he adorable? I think he qualifies for 4 challenges: A Spoon Full of Sugar's recipe of 3 designer papers and 3 buttons, Simon Says Stamp with "birthday or celebration", this photo as inspiration from Basic Grey Challenges,

and this sketch from Whiff of Joy, which I flipped so that Henry was heading into the middle instead of walking off the edge of the card.

My card is made from Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses and Coredinations papers, the image is Henry Mouse from Whiff of Joy, coloured with Copics, the flourishes are from Upsy Daisy, the border punch is Martha Stewart, and the buttons and sentiment are from my stash.

If I learned one thing from this, it's that chalk ink is not the best for stamping with! How strange that I never tried that before. Ah well, a red pigment ink pad is now on the shopping list.

ETA: Thanks to Heather again! I've been pointed to another challenge site, Stampavie, which I hadn't known about before. Their challenge this week is "pink" so I'm entering my card, and I'll add the site to my list. XXXX

Poor little girl

My friend Wen's little daughter is poorly sick with a double lung infection. She's feeling very under the weather, so I made her the prettiest card to try to cheer her up. I haven't sent anything by national post yet, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to get across Australia.

This is for just one challenges, and I didn't even do that properly. What am I like? It's this sketch from Truly Scrumptious, and if I'd read the instructions more carefully, I would have designed it so that the little tag actually slid out with the message inside. Thankfully that part is optional.

I could have used different colours and entered another, but I desperately wanted to use the new gorgeous Basic Grey Kioshi papers I got over the weekend on my post-no-buy spending spree. DH took me out and spent most of Saturday patiently carrying baskets round three different shops for me, while I picked things up and went "mmm" and "oooh" and "aaaaaaw". If I sounded the least bit enthusiastic, he'd hold the basket out. I told him he was the best DH in the world and not many men would put up with that. He said I hadn't bought anything for months, and it was an insurance policy against having to do it again very soon! I've certainly got enough pretty things to last me a long time.

The image is "hugs and hearts", stamped with Versamark, coloured with Copics, inked with Artnic Old Rose, and decorated with ribbon from Daiso, Prima flowers and brads and an eyelet from my stash. Isn't it the prettiest card? I think it's my current #1 favourite.

Scrap Whispers #62 - Change

And a very appropriate challenge over at Scrap Whispers considering our house/country move and everything, so it wasn't difficult to think of a subject!

The items I changed were red Bazzill card-stock embossed with a cute little house from the Cuttlebug range, and the Heidi Grace brown card-stock stamped with bubble-wrap. We have rather a lot of that at the moment. :-)

The rest of the LO is scraps inked with Versamark Pinecone, the lettering stamps are EK Success, the brackets and journalling spot are Kaisercraft, and the brad is American Crafts. The photos are of our apartment on our very last morning in Singapore, before the boxes were loaded up for shipping to Australia.

It's simple, but I really like this one. If you like it too, in another couple of weeks, look out for its partner on Scrap Whispers. ;-)

Get well with Whiff of Joy

One of my favourites Whiff of Joy have brought out this dinky new stamp set with the theme of "get well" - they're so cute!

And Katharina is giving away a set on her blog to a lucky random draw winner. All you have to do is to put her logo on your side-bar linking to the store, post about her offer on your blog, and leave a link to your post on her blog. And be very lucky!

I did it!

I finished my no-buy challenge!  My aim from the beginning of this year was to use up some of my stash by finishing 25 LOs and 20 cards before buying anything else except adhesive, albums and white card. Cards were not a problem as I've done over 40. But I just finished my final LO, and this weekend I'm going to burn up DH's credit card!

I know 25 is not a big number of LOs by many people's standards, but bearing in mind that this is in 4 months and I didn't have access to most of my stash for a good 6 weeks of that, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Here's the prize-winning, credit-card busting, banner waving LO. Hehee. It's not much is it?

It was a partner to Becky's Scrap for a Cure challenge to use only card-stock on a LO. I had to make it match the other one. Here they both are together. Now it looks a little more like something.

OK, brag news-flash over. Return to your usual scheduled programming. ;-)

Indian summer for May flowers

We're having a glorious Indian summer here in Perth. Well if truth be told, I have no idea what kind of weather we're supposed to be having at this time of year, but if March's hail storm is anything to go by, it ought to be colder by May. But no, the sun is beating down and I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt out shopping, not to keep warm, but so I don't get sun-burned.

It therefore seemed appropriate to use Basic Grey's delicious Indian Summer paper collection for my card, even though one of the challenges is Creative Card Crew's "April showers bring May flowers" and another is Lili of the Valley's "Here comes summer". There's no quibbling over Charisma Cardz's "girlie card with flowers", or Cute Card Thursday's "make your own" challenge with my little flower though, nor this sketch from Friday Sketchers:

So here's what I'm taking for the vicar's wife when we go round to dinner with them.

I just have to decide now whether to bring a bottle of wine (or are they teetotal?) or some home-made food (don't know what they like yet) or opt for the old favourite of flowers.

And the small print: Paper: Basic Grey Indian Summer, DCWV, Cuttlebug: QuicKutz nested circles and scallops dies, unknown sentiment stamp from clearance bin at LSS, leaf punch from Daiso, image by Sarah Kay coloured with... YES! Copic markers! Let's hope at least one of these sites finds time to leave a friendly comment on this card, because none of them did on the last one, even though I took off the word verification as requested AND had to delete a pile of spam as a result... Errors and omissions excepted, your challenge may be affected if you do not keep up your credits...

A new year brings a new look

And a happy, cheerful mood. I took the plunge and changed my template, as if you hadn't noticed! (What? You hadn't? Well it used to be pink, brown and stripy with ribbons... ;-)) And I fashioned the banner myself (preen) and see how the edges fade away? Cool eh?

What do you think? Like it?

Comments

I've got the post-birthday blues! This post started off as a bit of a moan. I wrote it all out, everything I was feeling, and got it all off my chest. Then I went off and did some other things. I came back, read it through again and realised what it was really about and... deleted it.

Bottom line is.... I love comments! I love crafting, and blogging about my crafts, and I love entering competitions. But it's not about the prizes, it's about the comments. When people say nice things about my work, it makes me feel good. I want other people to feel good, so I leave lots of comments on other people's blogs.

So I want to say THANK YOU to those of you who leave me comments. :-)

Who wants to be the May Queen?

... I kind of already am, 'cos it was my birthday on May 1st, NSBD - yes, that's right. And I won't talk about being mentally scarred by being seated on a chair decorated with blue and white crepe paper streamers at the foot of the may-pole, and having all my 6-year-old classmates wind me up in ribbon as they messed up their country dancing...

This is a different, and much less traumatic honour. You can be in with a chance of being crowned May Queen at our May Fayre by creating a LO with 7 different-coloured ribbons on it.

Get talking!

This is a really special game, because we have Julie Kirk here to give us her challenge, and a beautiful LO of her own, made just for us. Your mission is to scrap a conversation. Now that's an interesting one, isn't it?

You've seen this before I think, but I hadn't scrapped it. I think it was worth preserving for all time.

Cake Stall

Mmm, cakes....

Well this isn't exactly a cake, more a recipe for something yummy. The ingredients were added one by one overnight while I was asleep (this is an international event, remember!) so I can now give you them all!

- 2 pieces of patterned paper
- 3 stars
- 2 flourishes
- bunting or a banner
- decorative edging (punched or pre-cut)
- flowers
- bling
- a stamp

Can you cook up a delicious LO using all these ingredients - and more if you like really rich fruit cakes!

Like Fudge?

Then visit the Fudge stall!

This is an easy challenge - to make a card using mint and chocolate (which just happens to be Georgina's favourite flavour as well as mine!) and upload it to the Scrap Whispers Gallery.

Now it's your turn!

Come to the Fayre!

National Scrap Booking Day is here, and the fun has already started over at Scrap Whispers as we celebrate the first day of summer with our May Fayre!

Have a craving for candy floss? Or do you fancy a shy at a coconut? Or maybe a dance around the may-pole? Come over and see what white elephants and bric-a-brac you can find, not forgetting the prizes of course. I can tell you that special guest Julie Kirk will be setting one of the challenges - not to be missed!

We begin in the Fortune Teller's tent with a challenge to scrap "the future" using Kelly's fabulous sketch. I predict that mine will look something like this:

Come over and show us what you see when you look into your crystal ball...

We have all the fun of the fair - see you there!

Come along and join in the fun!