PAPER FLOURISH KIT CLUB TIME!

Well hello everyone and a huge hello to Spring! Of course with a new month comes a new and beautiful Kit from PAPER FLOURISH. This month's theme is Christmas....I know right! How can that be?!! But it must be faced and why not get your Christmas cards organised or create those overdue layouts from last Christmas before the new one is upon us. So to get you started I'm sharing with you what I've created with the wonderful Paper Flourish September Kit Club.

Lots of frosty blues and silvers in this Kit, which lends itself to more than just Christmas themed projects. You'll find the instructions to these projects and the designs of the other DT members in the Paper Flourish Kit Club September Magazine.

                              

The little wooden snowflakes are just too cute!

Once again, Tracey has gone above and beyond to stock this Kit with so much product. You'll have enough for lots of cards for family and friends as well as your Christmas layouts and more.

Thanks for looking!

Birthday card inspo...

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day. It was the most perfect weather in my neck of the woods; sunshine and mild temperatures (a nice break from the near 40 degree heat of last week). Today, Boxing Day it is raining! Yay! We couldn't ask for a better Christmas present. So rainy weather means a chance to get back to my Creation Station while I have a few days off. I want to share with you a couple of cards that I was asked to create just before Christmas.

The wonderful team at 2 Crafty Chipboard sent me the lovely little chippy "Happy Birthday" circles as part of this prize pack a few months ago. I know, right!!!!  So very generous. Perfect for cards.

For this card I used the Bokeh technique on the background and my favourite Prima skeleton leaf die.
The flowers are from D-lish.

Secondly I want to share with you the most wonderful gift I received from my DS this Christmas. I'm not sure if you follow on FB an Artist by the name of Amanda Brooks, but if not here is a link to her blog: http://www.artbybrooks.com.au/  I've been following her for a while now and admiring her amazing artwork. So this is what was under my Christmas tree this year:

My wonderful Son commissioned an Oil on Canvas painting by Amanda Brooks of my precious princess "China". She did an amazing job capturing those soulful eyes and China's gentle personality, all just from a photograph!

I can't wait to get this piece up on the wall :)  Thanks for dropping by and enjoy the rest of your Christmas break. Travel safe if you are on the road xx

Christmas wishes....

Hello all and welcome back. I just wanted to share a few recent projects with you. The first is one of many Christmas cards that I made this year, but this is the first of this type that I've attempted.

I found this technique on the internet and I apologise but I can't find the original website to give credit to. But this is a great way to use up ribbon off cuts. I chose my range of ribbons and threads, tied knots in the middle and glued them onto the background and then I cut them at an angle to a sort of Christmas tree shape. I then added buttons, star and tag.

The next project I wanted to share is some Pocket Page Letters that I sent out to my craft friends. These are so much fun to put together:

I love the challenge of not only matching colours and themes, but also matching them to the recipients personality or creative style. This first one is for Bec who is English and who I'm sure must miss her homeland at this time of year. She really gets into the Christmas Spirit so I thought this would be appropriate. I'm planning on seeing more of the lovely Bec in 2016.

I popped little chocolates in behind a card for an extra treat and a little hand-written note is included either on a tag of behind a card.
This second one is for Lizzy whom I've know for a while via the Scrapbooking online community, however I finally got a chance to meet her in real life this year and she is the most amazingly talented, positive person one could ever meet, so I included a photo of the two of us taken at the Retreat where we met....love ya Lizzy! When I think of Lizzy I immediately think of bright, vibrant and happy colours.

This next pocket page is for my dear friend Mary. I've know Mary for quite a while now through the scrapbook community and happily she only lives 2 hours away. She has been brave enough to have me as a guest at her lovely home on occasions and to be my road trip companion this year. Mary creates the most beautiful vintage projects so of course I wanted to give her some vintage-style goodies.

The final pocket page letter is for the lovely Cheryl. Another creative friend whom I met online and have had the privilege of meeting on several occasions (once at the Bribane Scrapbooking Expo a few years ago), but sadly I don't see her often enough (distance is so annoying!). Cheryl is another talented lady and creates beautiful and inspiring pages. I created a pocket page that is a bit eclectic as I know that she has grandchildren whom she likes to create pages about.

So that has been my mission over the last few weeks. I hope you have enjoyed looking at these little projects. I want to take this opportunity to thank you again for following my Blog. I wish you all the happiest of Christmases and a safe and healthy New Year. May you be surrounded by loving family and crazy friends! xx

A fond farewell...

Hello everyone & welcome back to my humble blog. Now that December has arrived I can let you know (with a heavy heart) that I am stepping down from the Design Teams of ARTastic & Scrap Africa. It was a very hard decision as I have so loved being involved with these two wonderfully organised challenge blogs. A few months ago I returned to the world of study which is taking up more of my time than I anticipated. An opportunity arose for me to pursue something that I've been interested in for a long time so with that and working outside the home I struggled to give ARTastic & Scrap Africa the attention that they deserve & I am not one for doing things by halves. So to be fair to both Jane & Denise I have given up my Team position. I want to take this opportunity to pubicly thank both Jane Howden (ARTastic) and Denise van Deventer (Scrap Africa) for having me on their teams & for running such fun & inspirational challenges. I do hope that the New Year will bring me a few more hours in each day so that I can participate in their challenges. I hope that all of you will continue to support ARTastic & Scrap Africa & continue to submit your wonderful creations.

So without further ado, here are my final Design Team submissions.  The December challenge over at ARTastic is a Christmas theme with the criteria being GOLD. Here is the lovely artwork by Alice Ju:

Alice has really captured the technique of creating shine on the baubles and ribbons in this piece. Here is my Christmas tag on which I used gold texture paste & Inka Gold for highlights. I die cut the stars & the word "hope" & used aqua, gold & white mists & paint.

You really need to pop on over to the ARTastic blog & check out the beautiful DT inspo! I hope you will find the time to join in on this very easy challenge.

Next up is my final DT submission for SCRAP AFRICA This isn't necessarily a Christmas themed challenge, but another beautiful sketch by Denise. I've gone with a Christmas theme because it is my last submission. Don't let the hexagons put you off though! they are very easy to achieve or you don't have to use them at all, just go with however this sketch inspires you. Easy peasy!

I've gone for a Card using the lovely Kaisercraft paper collection "Silver bells". Lots of die cutting as well.

Check out the inspo over on the Scrap Africa blog! You'll see some amazing creations from the Design Team.

I will still be updating my blog as often as possible, hopefully with some paper creations, & I'm still working on our London album, so please call in from time to time & I would love to hear from you. In the meantime, happy creating! xx

CSI Case File #103

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas! Now that it's over and a new year is looming I wanted to get my entry in for the current CSI: Colour, Stories, Inspiration challenge. I don't normally leave it to the last minute but I was waiting on a couple of little embellies that I wanted to use on this page which hadn't turned up before I went away for Chrissy. I've used a lovely sketch from Page Drafts (thanks Em!). If you are trying to find some inspo for your Christmas layouts, pop over to Page Drafts website or have a look at their Facebook page and you'll find quite a few sketches and some wonderful samples. Here is the sketch I chose:

And here is my take on the Case File:

The lovely red check star is from Nicole at Craft Queen (thanks Nicole!). She also sells the same design in a little reindeer.

The title and birdhouse is from WOW (Words or Whatever) and the lovely button is from A Piece of Cake Designs.

Thanks for dropping by. Have a very happy and creative 2014! :)

Kraft It Up December Challenge

Super Sunday everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your lead up to Christmas. Now that my Card Making Frenzy is over and I have wrapped the pressies, I can now concentrate on this month's challenges.

It's been a while since I've had the time to enter a challenge over at Kraft It Up but when I saw this month's criteria where I could include my fave colour of Aqua, I had to have a go. The current challenge is:
AQUA/KRAFT/WHITE/SILVER or PINK/KRAFT/WHITE/GOLD.

I'd forgotten how well Aqua goes with Kraft. I was inspired by one of my favourite Christmas songs for this layout and I have lots of lovely winter photos of my DD to scrap (thanks once again to Steve Hill for the beautiful photo). For the background I've used a Kaisercraft Diamonds stamp with paint, white tissue paper which I've sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, Aqua cardstock, Silver ribbon, corrugated cardboard dabbed with white paint, leaf flourish die, doilies and silver stars.The little Xmas tree is from Craft Queen as is the little Prima key & lock all of which I painted with Pewter Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze. The white metal photo corners are from Scrap Matrix and flair button is from A Piece of Cake Designs. I dug out my white gel pen and used my own hand writing (always risky).

I also doodled around the stars to make them stand out more.

So thanks for calling in. I hope you get a chance to leave a comment. Have a great week! :)

ORANGE PAPERIE & CO. DECEMBER CHALLENGE

I'm trying to get my head around the fact that it's December and the very last Challenge for OP&Co 2013.
The very talented Kim Ewins has set a lovely one for this month - WHITE, GOLD & SILVER. It doesn't have to be Christmas related either, so it's super easy. Here is my Design Team contribution:

I love this little ScrapFX chippie heart. I embossed it with silver embossing powder. The silver button I bought at a discount store ages ago & threaded it with gold cord & I've tucked in some muslin as well. The stars I've had for years & I punched some dots from the same glitter paper with a hole punch to mix in with the stars.

In two opposite corners of the page I dotted some glue randomly & added some glitter. I also used texture paste with a couple of CW stencils to give some texture behind the photo.

It would be great to see your creation over at the Orange Paperie & Co this month. You have until the beginning of January, so I'm sure you'll have a precious photo or two of your family and friends over the holiday period. Thanks for dropping by :)

Peace on Earth 2012

Thought I'd better get some Christmas photos scrapped because 364 days go very fast & next thing you know it'll be here again. I didn't get many people shots this year, so I've scrapped our decorations. I've had this Christmas kit in my stash since the last Scrap Girls "Christmas in July" Retreat. Very pretty papers I must say which are from s.e.i. holiday hoopla collection & all the other bits & bobs were included in the kit except for the corrugated stars & red ribbon & the small alphas are from my own stash but the large ones were in the kit & are Basic Grey.

I've gone for clean lines on this page & it was quite a challenge not to distress everything. Don't you just love the little chippy gift box?
Thanks for dropping by once again xx