26 October 2011

Lion birthday card


This is a fun little birthday card that I made for my girlfriend's daughter's 6th birthday.  They live in Australia but her Mum was born and raised in South Africa so they have a very strong connection to their home land.  The birthday girl's favourite colour is yellow and her favourite animal is a lion so of course I resorted to my trusty 'Create a critter' cartridge once again!  I knew when I bought this cartridge that I would use it a lot!  I don't own many cartridges but I sure use the ones I have a whole lot!

I love making easel cards.  They look so good but they are so easy to make!  The best bit is that they fold flat and fit in a standard-size envelope.  This card folds flat and is 4x6 inches, the perfect size for an envelope.  I resisted the temptation to use another pun.  I was going to write 'Have a roaring good time at your birthday' but decided to stick to my Kaiser stamps again.

Thanks for looking!

25 October 2011

Happy Birthday to 'Ewe'



The challenge this week at Birthday Sundaes was to create a birthday card using only the colours purple, green, black and white.  I love purple and green together so this was heaps of fun!  I used the latest sketch from Card Positioning Systems for the layout of my card.  Here is the sketch:




The purple and green papers were from Kaisercraft 'la di da' collection and the black and white stripey paper was from Crate Paper 'Portrait' collection.  The sheep and party hat are from Create a critter.  I couldn't help but use another pun (sorry, but I do love cute puns!)  Happy Birthday to 'ewe' is just perfect for this card I think!  This was lots of fun to make and now I am really building up my stash of birthday cards since I have been playing along with Birthday Sundaes!
Thanks for looking!

24 October 2011

Ribbon Reel Challenge #13






I made this card today after finding the most beautiful blog - the ribbon reel challenge blog.  I only came across this blog by chance after clicking a link from another blog and I am so glad that I did!  There were so many stunning cards with beautiful ribbons and lace and flowers, just gorgeous.

The challenge used a photo for inspiration and we had to create a card or project using the colours from the picture as inspiration and we also had to include flowers.  I chose to use the pastel yellows, blues and pinks on my card.  Another card for my stash!

Papers were all from My Minds Eye Lost and Found - a couple of their collections.  Ribbons, lace and buttons were from my stash.  Sentiment is from Kaiser.

Thanks for looking!

23 October 2011

Birthday Sundaes Tall Birthday Card Challenge


I made this card for the latest Birthday Sundaes challenge - Create a Tall birthday card (9in x 4 in) with a birthday sentiment on the front.  I think I only have a couple of hours left to enter it so I had better hurry up!

This card is for my dear Nana who turns 83 years old next week.  I love her dearly but unfortunately she had a stroke about 4 years ago and now doesn't know who I am.  It's pretty hard since she absolutely adored all of us grandchildren and in her eyes we were all perfect!  We used to spend hours and hours with her talking and playing cards.  I still love to make her a card each year and send it to her nursing home for her even though I am pretty sure she doesn't even know that it's her birthday or that she has received a card.

I made this card with the My Minds Eye Lost and Found 2 - Sunshine collection papers.  I love these colours.  I have had these papers for quite a few weeks and just kept looking at them, they were so beautiful that I didn't want to use them!  Ridiculous I know!
I made 4 fan-fold flowers and attached buttons and DMC thread to them.  The rest is pretty self explanatory.  Edges were inked with Kaiser ink and the sentiment is from Kaiser also.

Thanks for looking!

22 October 2011

A little reindeer fun

I know it's early to be doing Christmas crafts but I couldn't resist making this with my 4 year old son after seeing it on Pinterest here and here.  My boys got their first glimpse of Christmas trees and decorations in the shops this year at the END OF SEPTEMBER!   Since then there have been an endless amount of questions about Santa, presents, wish lists, Christmas trees and of course...how many more sleeps until he gets here!

There are lots of things about this card that drive me nuts, such as:  the thumbprints didn't work too well with the paint and aren't perfect thumbprint shapes; all our reindeer are off-centre; the ribbon is crooked; the sentiment is crooked...but I still kind of love this card!  I think the fact that my son helped with every part of the process and thinks it's the most amazing craft thing he has ever done has something to do with it!  My boys loved dipping their fingers in the paint and making a print and then choosing which reindeer was going to be Rudolph.  Perhaps next time I might try an ink pad instead of paint.

Thanks for looking!

19 October 2011

1st birthday card

Just a little first birthday card to add to my stash.  Love this cute little critter from the Birthday Bash cartridge. 


The card is 4x4 inches which is smaller than I usually make but I really like the smaller size.
Thanks for looking!

16 October 2011

A very floral digi page

Here is a double page that I have made for my Project Life album.  I was over a month behind with my digi pages until yesterday when I finally caught up - yay!  I'm actually one day in front now...just have to make sure I take no photos today!
Here is my very floral double page:
 I was going to add quotes and embellishments about Spring and colour but I thought the photos were so bright and colourful on their own that I would leave it as is.  Don't you just love Spring - all those colours and the beautiful sunshine...I love it!

I've been doing Project Life since June 2009.  I read about it on Becky Higgins' blog and loved the concept.  Back then I wasn't sure how I would go with making sure to take enough photos and keep up with the journalling so I just bought myself a  D-ring binder and the page inserts and I was off!  I love that I have a record of my boys as they are growing up and that I have recorded the funny things they say and do and all their little milestones.  We often sit down and flip through the albums and they laugh as they remember all the fun times and things they have done.  My pages tend to be full of 'people photos' so the last few months I have been trying to make an effort to photograph more of the everyday things in our lives (such as the way my son helps with the washing and uses six pegs to hold one sock on the line!)  I also try to include photos of their art and craft projects and any drawings they do that show new developments.

This year is the first year that I have gone completely digital and I am loving it.  It is so much quicker and easier for me to complete.  I'm not big on the embellishing, I just like my pages to be finished quickly and tell our story.  Each week I can sit down at the computer on a Sunday, pick out my favourite photos from the week and make a double page in about 30 minutes.  It makes me feel so organised!  I used to do paper scrapbooking and I loved it but I would get so frustrated at how behind I was in scrapping all my photos and each page would take me FOREVER to complete!  Now I just buy digital templates and all the hard work has been done for me!  I just add some digi papers and a handful of digi embellishments and I am done.

The digital template for this double layout is by Jasmin Olya Designs - Classic Photobook volume 13.
More digi pages to come soon!

11 October 2011

'Fall colours' challenge at Birthday Sundaes

The challenge at Birthday Sundaes this week is to create a birthday card using 'Fall colours' and birthday wording somewhere on your card.  I nearly didn't make a card this week as I was certain that I had no papers that would fit this category.  Here in Australia we are in the middle of Spring so I am kind of in a flowery, bright colours kind of mood!  Anyway, I dug out my bags of scrap papers and wouldn't you know it, I found some perfect colours!  So here is my card:





The colours are much more subdued than those that I would normally use but then I guess that is the whole point of a challenge, to use colours / papers / design ideas that you wouldn't normally use.  I used the latest CPS sketch for the layout of my card and rotated it. 
All elements on my card were cut from the 'Birthday Bash' cricut cartridge.
Thanks for looking!

8 October 2011

If friends were flowers...

I love the saying, "If friends were flowers, I'd pick you".  It was the perfect sentiment for the card I made this morning.  This card is for my very good friend who loves the colour purple and also collects little pig ornaments (now you know why there's a pig on the front!)
I have wanted to try a fan-fold flower for a very long time and have looked at them for sale in the shops but refused to buy them as I thought that surely I could make them myself!  After heading straight to google for instructions and then getting pretty frustrated when my flowers wouldn't turn out anything like the ones in the pictures, I came across this tutorial....and I had success! I tell you, they're not as easy to make as you would think!  My biggest mistake was using double sided tape to hold it together instead of a very strong glue.  The tape isn't quite strong enough to keep the flower together, it kept springing back out.  Lesson learned.
So here you go, my first card with fan-fold flowers...most likely the first of many cards to be adorned with them now that I know how to make them!

In case you're wondering why the pig's nose looks a little wet, it has dimensional magic on it which hasn't dried yet!
The pig is from Create a Critter.
Papers and letter stickers are from kaisercraft
Ribbons, lace and buttons are all from my stash
Thanks for looking!

6 October 2011

Happy 'Bird-Day' to you card

The challenge this week at Birthday Sundaes is to make a birthday card with ribbon on it.  Easy!  They have a great prize up for grabs this week, a set of stamps from 'My Craft Spot' which I would LOVE to win!  I was also very excited to see that they had my 'train-tastic' card as one of their favourites from last week.  Thanks everyone at Birthday Sundaes!  I am really having fun participating in their challenges.  Birthday cards are my favourite to make so I enjoy checking out their website for the new challenges.
 
This card kept changing and changing from how I first imagined it.  At first it was going to be just pinks and greens....then it was on a 6x6 inch card...then that looked strange because the elements were too small...then the pinks and greens made way for these fun colours...anyway after lots of cropping and colour changing I came up with this!  And despite it looking nothing like I first intended, I am happy with the result (and happy that I FINALLY finished it!)

I used this Mojo Monday sketch for the layout of my card:
I loved this sketch and I will probably use it again for other cards.  Mojo Monday have some great stamps up for grabs this week too.  For every 50 entries for the sketch they are giving away one set of stamps.  Hope I'm one of the lucky ones!

I'm also going to enter this card in the Kraft Journal  'Lavish Layers' challenge (thanks for letting me know about it Beth!)  Have just found this site and there are some really gorgeous cards on there.

The papers I used are from My Minds Eye 'Life of the Party' collection.  The bird, circle and scalloped circle are all from the 'Birthday Bash' cricut cartridge - one of my favourite cartridges.  The letter stickers are from Kaisercraft.

Thanks for looking!