Coffee with Friends…

…..that’s what I’ll be having today! A couple of my workmates, from my days as a Personal Carer in Brisbane, are coming out for a visit. Now that I live a bit further out in the sticks, I though it best to meet up with them at a nearby town and get them to follow me to my house. Mobile reception here is a bit tricky at times and is not to be relied on, especially for the city girls, LOL. It just so happens that this little town where we’ll meet, has a great coffee-gift shop (it’s also the post office – small town businesses are great little multi-taskers!!). We’ll be reliving ‘The Latte Set’ days, LOL.

This morning I started with  Makeesha’s latest Sketch Challlenge….

….and this is the card I made for it.

Once again, using more uninked rubber, I stamped the image and sentiment from a Unity Kit of the Month. When I first saw these images I wasn’t exactly gobsmacked about all the wonderful cards I could make with this. Yeah…sure they were lovely, but what would I do with them? Sure enough, the ocassion came when these where the right fit. Coffee with friends, the perfect blend.

We are all such busy people with our individual families, work, hobbies and personal challenges. I really appreciate the time my friends have made for me today!!

Make a card for a friend today, just because they made some time to spend with you. Theresa

A CASe of Some Colourful Cards.

This weeks SCS Clean and Simple (CAS) Challenge was to use this card for inspiration. My personal challenge is to use more uninked rubber and use up my scraps, and I managed to achieve this too. I liked, and was inspired by this challenge so much that I made three cards last night.

The first is Sunset Trees.

I haven’t used this tree stamp, by Unity, in ages. I just had to have it when I first saw it, but I need to use it more often. I had that strip of Basic Grey paper in my off cuts pile beside the paper cutter, so that got used on the card. The orange ribbon is one of those purchases that I made a few years ago, because I was hooked by it loveliness. Time to use it up! The sentiment is from SU!’s Pocket Silhouettes, which was the perfect size for this project.

Blue Dragonflies was the next card to be produced.

I used an uninked stamp from one of the Unity KOTM. This one I coloured in with my colour pencils. This was a quick and easy image to colour, and I love to use my pencils so it was fun too.

The last was this cute Love Owls card.

Owls and sentiment were used for the first time. This is a great little image to paper piece. I’ve just about exhausted my Basic Grey Lemonade 6×6 pad, and made this with the last remaining scraps.

I’m lovin’ all these cards!!! See ya soon with some more creations, Theresa.

Makeesha’s Inpiration Challenge #17

If You read the last post you’d be aware that I was participating in Splitcoast Stampers Virtual Stamp Night. Unfortunately, the site was having a lot of issues with opening pages , uploading, and posting on the forums. I had finished making one card  and was trying to get into the forum threads to find the next challenge, but I wasn’t having any luck. While I waited to try again. I thought I’d see what Makeesha’s lastest challenge was.

 

Inspiration challenges are my most favourite kind of challenge and I really like this picture that Keesh has chosen this week. I liked the monochrome look, with a lot of open space and that’s what I went for with my card.

 

 I had the card design in my head almost straight away, and since I was in a time-challenged mode this morning, the card took me about fifteen minutes to make. I’ve been making a lot of cards with Kraft this weekend, and it really lends itself well to a minimalist look. This is also a great male card.

After I finished making the card, I went back to SCS and was able to find the next challenge and get it made before time was up. I was smokin’!

Remember the frogs I told you about earlier? Tonight they are all in full chorus. All 1537 of them around my house. It certainly sounds like there are that many. It rained!!! I can send myself off to sleep counting croaks, LOL.

Catch ya later on my next post. Theresa

Mini Virtual Stamping Night

Today Splitcoast Stampers hosted a Virtual Stamping Night. Conveniently for  me, their Saturday stamping night is my Sunday morning. And what a lovely way to spend a rainy Sunday morning, making cards for challenges.

The challenges are set every hour, and are to be completed before the hour is up. The first time I participated in a VSN, I was racing around madly, trying to beat the clock. This time however I decided to just take it as it comes – no pressure. Surprisingly enough, I completed most cards in about half an hour each. I think that’s amazing!! So without further ado, I bring for your viewing pleasure all six cards that I made for the challenges.

Challenge 1 – Colours of a flag, Red White and Blue

I used four unlinked rubber images on this one, which is my own personal challenge over the next couple of months

Challenge 2 – Snow, use white, clear or sparkly embossing powder or white Flower Soft.

I used  three kinds of EP for this creation. It gives the snowflakes a nice varied look.

Challenge 3 – Use red or white yarn

 

This is just very ordinary and it was indeed a challenge. But in the spirit of good sportsmanship I have included it here with the others.

Challenge 4 – Chalkboard Technique

 

Since I quite liked working with Cameo Coral on another challenge a couple of days ago, I thought I’d use it for this card. I’d just finished chalking the image when I realized I had run out of CC card stock. I wouldn’t mind having a go at making another one when I get some ordered.

Challenge 5 – Make a card using a wavy element , and use pink.

 

I got to use some underused stamps for this card, so that was a bonus. I like this card but can’t quite figure out what to do about a sentiment. Looking at it now, I’d have liked to have textured the pink cardstock with dots.

Challenge 6 – Spotlight Technique

 

I used two uninked stamps for this card.

I love all the cards I made today (bar one, but we won’t mention that one…okay!).  It’s a good exercise to limit yourself with time when creating. I find I do things I’d have not considered doing when I’m just doing my own thing. I fell re-energised.

Thatnks for dropping by for a look.  Hope you all have a lovely creative week. Theresa

Happy Birthday Mum

This is my second posting for the day. I saw this sketch at 2Sketches4You and thought I’d give it a whirl.

As I was getting my main elements ready and stacking them up on the card base, the punched lace border wriggled into a slanting position, and I liked what was happening so I stuck it down just like that. I then thought that the trimmings would look interesting used as part of the design. So I went with that too.

Stamps - Various; Paper - Blush Blossom, Pretty in Pink, BG Porcelain; Ink - Pretty in Pink. Kiwi Kiss, Regal Rose, Accessories - MS Punch, Nestabilities, Lace

I used scraps from my Basic Grey Porcelain 6×6pad. It’s nearly all used up now which makes it good value for money. I’m determined to use up  many of the scraps I keep, because it just seems such a waste hoarding all this paper. This is a soft, pretty and feminine DSP, and I wanted to add some soft stamping to reflect this. I grabbed flowers from several different SU! sets, as well as a clear flourish.

    

My sentiment was stamped with JustRite stamps. I had just adhered the sentiment on when I decided I would use this card for my mother’s birthday on Friday. So I quickly stamped off a more appropriate word and stuck it straight over the original. Too easy!!Add in a couple of extra cutout flowers for a bit of dimensional interest, stick on a bit of lace trim that I’ve had for-almost-ever, dab on a bit of sponging  to soften the edges and my card is complete!! I think my mum will like it.    

Thanks for dropping by for a look. Theresa

Procrastinating with some Unity Love

The plan this morning was to get up and head off into Toowoomba and do some shopping for some new work clothes. I told myself I’d just quickly check my emails and then get on the road. An hour later I’m still, and now I’m writing this post. You see, I thought I’d have a quick took at the Splitcoast gallery and saw some inspiring cards and I just had to make one too!

Stamps - Unity December KOTM; Card Stock - Almost Amethyst, Barely Banana, Basic Grey Sugar Rush; Ink - Almost Amethyst, Apricot Appeal, Pumpkin Pie; Accessories - Punches.

 I launched off with this weeks Card Sketch. I wanted to use my latest Basic Grey aquisition, Sugar Rush 6×6 pad (love that stuff!) and use some uninked rubber, so Unity December KOTM it was.

Well I must not dawdle too much longer. Thanks for dropping by. Theresa

Pink Butterflies and Green Things

Last night, I had good intentions to tidy up my craft table, but I got a little sidetracked, and came up with this instead.

Stamp Set - SU! Pocket Silohuettes; Card Stock - Pretty In pink. Pink Passion, Blush Blossom, Basic Gray; Ink - Pink Passion, Basic Gray; Accessories - Markers, MS punch, Nestabilities, Rhinestones.

I saw this weeks Colour Challenge over at SplitcoastStampers, and the opening post got me hooked. The colour combo was Pretty In Pink, Blush Blossom, Melon Mambo ( substitute colour Pink Passion) and a neutral of choise. I used Basic Gray as my neutral. By doing this I have made the gray the third colour and Blush Blossom the neutral tone. 

I used my SU! Pocket Silouhettes for the first time despite owning it for several months now. At this stage I think I must have several images that have not seen ink and thats just not good. I think this will be a year for more  tools as opposed to rubber. It seems like everyday there are great die and punch cutters being released on the market. I’m sure however, that when the new SU!catalogue gets released here that I’ll have an order full of rubber. Thats months away from now, so that gives me plenty of time to get some good use out of what I have on hand. And speaking of hand…..I did a little free hand doodle on one of the borders of the card. Did anyone notice? 

I want to introduce to you this little fellow. 

  

He, along with some of his mates, live out on my verandah. Right next to the toilet in a hanging potplant. Frogs have this affect on me that other people get when they see spiders and snakes. I have an irrational freakout about them. Since I live out here by myself, and I choose to sleep with the doors open, I quickly realised that I’m going to have to learn to get along with my amphibious friends. No one else is here to get the critter out of the house while I hide behind furniture squealing, LOL. Notice I also said he lives beside the toilet, which means I have to pass by very close to him whenever I feel the need to….er…..void. Now we all know that whenever we need to….void….we need to be in a somewhat relaxed state. Can you see what my problem is? 

  

Here’s another  fellow I have named, Fella. I’ve told him I’d only tolerate him and five of his mates out on the verandah at anyone time. The rest get the broom treatment. I kinda think his spots are cute, don’t you?  These couple of frogs are about 4inches long, which is a big frog in my book. Several of them got a chorus up last night, so I’m hoping that means it’ll rain soon.  

Hope you all have a nice day, and thanks for dropping by. Theresa.

Makeesha’s Colour Challenge #17

Today is Australia Day.  Advance Australia Fair!!

I had a lovely meal with my boyfriend last night, testing out my new Weber BBQ. I wanted a rack of lamb but I was out of luck this time around, so it was just the chops instead. But they tasted good! Sat around drinking some sparkly and generally having a relaxing evening. This morning I was up at 4am, heading over to boyfriends farm – the young lads were going to go pigging and we were going to cook them up breakfast for when they got back, about 6am. On the way over we saw some wild dingoes and a bit further on I saw the tail end of a 6-8 ft carpet snake as it slithered off the road. I tell ya, 4am in the morning is not to be missed out here in the back lanes, LOL.

So after watering some of the farm animals, feeding the dogs, collecting peacock feathers, a cold bath ( it’s a stinking hot day today), and having a nap ( yes, I had a nanna nap at 10am, sheesh!!)….. it was time to come home and spend the afternoon cardmaking and try my hand at Makeesha’s Colour Challenge.

This heat can drain my creativity, so to help me along I decided to incorporate this colour challenge with an older sketch challenge and it didn’t take me long to go back thru Keesha’s archives and find Sketch Challenge #16

Now to find the right stamps. SU! Rose is a Rose? Nah. Lovely as A Tree? Nah. What about the last Unity Kit of the Month That I recieved and haven’t even looked at yet? Now I’m onto something, yeah! And now thatI have my new nesties, circles are not a problem either.

Stamps – Unity kit of the Month, August and December; Card Stock – Cameo Coral, So Saffron, Choc Chip, Very Manilla; Ink – Cameo Coral, So Saffron, Choc Chip; Accessories – buttons, Nestabilities and DMC floss.

I own a lot of ink pads, but not Cameo Coral, so my next challenge for the card was to incorporate CC using only CS and markers. You may start to see that I was challenged in a lot of ways making this card. Not least of all was trying to come up with something ascethically pleasing in this heat and humidy. Well folks, this card may have been a labour of  creative challenges, but I love how this has turned out. It only took my three hours!!! Seriously, I kid you not. But I have to say nothing got done quickly today, LOL. Hey I live in Queensland, thats my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

I don’t usually add in extra embellishments to my card, but today I’ll be different. If I remember correctly, they are from the Bacis Grey Porcelain range. Nice match! I say… that Cameo Coral doesn’t look half bad. I might get myself an ink pad and more CS. I used the last of the six sheets I’ve ever owned of that colour and that took me two years to use the last sheet today. LOL

Some Retired Love

Of course the ‘Retired’ refers to my use of an old favourite stamp set, Oh So Lovely, which is now retired as of last year.

Stamp set - Oh So Lovely (SU!), JustRite Stamper; Cards Stock - Pink Pirouette, Red Riding Hood Very Vanilla, Old Olive; Ink - Red Riding Hood, Old Olive; Accessories - Nestabilities, MS punch, SU!punch, Embossing folder

This card uses a variety of branded products. I got to use my Spellbinders Nestability Circles and Scalloped Circle set for the first time with this card. I’ve had them for nearly two months but finally got to cut the packaging open for my card making session on Sunday. I know they are not new products on the market but they are new in this crafters craft room, and I’m just loving the look I can achieve with them.

I also got to open up my new JustRite stamp set. I used the 2″ stamper and Times New Roman font to make my sentiment. Love how I can customize with these stamps to create my own stamp, just the way I want. A couple of things I learnt today using JustRite stamps. Don’t twist your stamp into your ink pad! The little letters around the outside will pop out doing this. My fingers where covered in red ink for the rest of the day, LOL. Setting up the stamper requires a bit of fore thought and planning, so I intend to make a bunch of cards with this set up before I decide to put it all back into its rightful place. This stamper will really come into its own when I really want to create a very personalized card.

I used a Cuttlebug folder to emboss my red layer, and I punched out some hearts with a scrap of the embossing. Martha Stewarts punch was used on the decorative border.

During my blogging abscence, I have been making some cards. I made some lovely cards for christmas, and some for other special occassions as they have come up. But when I got to my new home I couldn’t find where I put my camera. Thankfully it turned up. I was just about to go out and buy a new one. Sure I could have blogged away about a card I had made, but lets face it, you need to see the pictures. Right!

Now that I live way out in the country I don’t have to be concerned with nieghbours peering  in my windows. So I sleep with the french doors opening out onto the verandah. In fact they are rarely shut, since the verandah can only be accessed via inside of the house. So I feel quite safe. We had some storms recently and I watched the lightning as I drifted off to sleep. One night I heard a lot of banging and crashing on the verandah and on inspection I found a possum trying to find a way to get off the verandah. He obviously had no trouble getting there but getting off was a challenge for him. He started to venture into my room so I had to shoo him out. That was the only night I closed the doors. I didn’t fancy being woken up in the middle of the night with him crawling over my bed. Yikes!! He eventually took a risk but ended up falling three and a half metres to the ground. He hasn’t been back.

I hope you all have a great creative day. Theresa

Time for some Valentine Love

 Hi Folks!! Surprise, surprise!!

It’s been two months since I’ve last posted a blog and boy have I been busy. In that time I went for nearly one month without accessing the internet. But I was so busy I hardly noticed it, or missed it. Here, in Australia, December and January are all about holidays – Christmas and school holidays. I love the summer school holidays. I always find that school has started way before I’m ready for the kids to start.

I’ve got a few cards to show over the next few days. I finally got a chance to really get into my card making today and I started with Valentine’s Day cards. This was the first one I made.

Stamps - Baroque Motifs (SU!); Card Stock - Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Whisper White; Ink - Versamark; Accessories - Spellbinders dies, embossing folders and SU! punch

I took an idea from this Spellbinders Blog post, and adapted it for my card. I bought a secondhand Cuttlebug a couple of months ago, because I really wanted to get some Spellbinders dies. Unfortunately I’ve seen way too many dies that I feel I just have to have, and I’ve probably indulged in purchasing more than my budget could reasonably allow. But thats all water under the bridge now, ‘coz I got them now, so I’ll have to use them. LOL

Most of this card was made with  the Cuttlebug. I used two Provo craft folders for the dry embossing and three sets of Spellbinders dies for the frame and butterfly. I’m not really sure how to incorporate a sentiment onto the front of this card, but now as I’m looking at it and typing, I’m starting to get an idea. So stay tuned to see if my idea is a winner or a fizzer. If it’s a winner, I’ll take another pic and post it here.

After I layered up the frame and added the first butterfly, I was a bit stumped as to what to do next. Since this was my first attempt at ‘just because I can’ card making ,after a couple of hectic months ,I was a bit concerned that I may have lost my muse. So I went rummaging thru my Pretty In Pink offcuts and found a scrap that had been heat embossed with something clear and shimmery. So I diecut another butterfly to layer on top of the first and punched out the hearts with the left over. As an after thought I added a few dots a Kindy Glitz for a bit more of a sparkle WOW!

I quite like the monochromatic look I achieved with this card, and I wanted to make the varied textures the main features.

As you may recall, I sold my house last November and moved into my new home last month. I just LOVE my new home. What I liked about my last home was the feeling I got that I was ’safe’. Here I feel at home and at peace. The irony is that I would never buy this house, just not a good investment financially speaking, but I love living here. This house is the original home on farm property, so it’s old and run down. The owners live in the modern home elsewhere on the property. I sit out on my verandah and thats where I eat, have my morning cuppa, evening wine, or just sit.  From my verandah I can see for miles and miles and miles, down thru the valley and out to the distant hills. Just love it.

Stay tuned as I post some of the other cards I made today over the next week. I’ll also add snippets of my life over these past few weeks