Beautiful Passau

Well here is my second post for today. As I mentioned, I wanted to complete another travel page & after a few delays I finally got stuck into it. This is one of two pages I'm doing of this lovely German town. On this day we had a choice of either going on a 4hr bus trip to Salzburg or a walking tour of Passau, where our ship had docked. We are so glad that we chose to stay on the ship because Passau turned out to be the most beautiful & interesting town. By this stage I had had enough of hopping on & off buses anyway. As a result, we not only had the opportunity to explore a little of Passau (a town sitting in the middle of 3 rivers) but there were only about 20 people left on the ship (everyone else had opted for Salzburg), which meant that we were very spoiled by the crew. They gave us a 5 course lunch in the exclusive Portobello's restaurant as we sailed over the border into magnificent Austria. We lounged around on the top deck while sipping Latte's & taking in the breath-taking Austrian scenery. A few of our new friends wanted to make up for the fact that I didn't get to see where The Sound of Music was made & graciously entertained us with songs from the movie......it was a real hoot for us & for the crew who looked on in wonder at these crazy Aussies!  I hope Robyn & Kerin don't mind me sharing these pics with you.  Anyway, later in the day we arrived in Linz to collect the other passengers from their day trip.


But back to Passau (I know, I tend to get side-tracked). St. Stephen's Cathedral is the most beautiful church we had the pleasure to visit on our trip. It hardly has any stained-glass windows, so when we walked in it was lit up by all the natural light. Most of the building is white marble, intricately carved & with amazing frescoes on the ceiling (suffice to say that our necks were a tad sore afterwards which was alleviated somewhat with a couple of good German whites over lunch). It also claims to have the largest cathedral pipe organ in the world & I must say it was very impressive. The black & white stone floor is shiny & worn from centuries of church-goers & the carvings on the pillars, walls & ceilings must have taken many man hours to complete. It was a nice change from all the Gothic Cathedrals we had previously visited & we could have spent a lot more time exploring here, but our ship was about to sail....

Just some of the detail inside St. Stephens.

The river Inn, one of the 3 rivers running through this town.

 Being serenaded by the girls with "doe ray me".

Hope you like my little story, thanks for dropping by :)

Cardology week

This week I didn't achieve anything in a scrapbooking way, however we did have a few events this week where I wanted to send cards. Firstly, unfortunately my B-I-L is in hospital so I made this Get Well card for him. 

Secondly, I had two nieces this week celebrating birthdays. These are the cards I made for them:

I'm just loving the new Stampin' Up! Apothecary Art Stamp set that matches the framelits dies. They make card decorating so much easier but give that "wow" factor. I have an order to fill for some more cards over the next few weeks, but for today I'll be trying to get back into our travel album. I'm only half way through and its now a year since we went overseas - depressing :( So I'm stepping away from the procrastination station this weekend.


Also, I'm very excited that it is now only two weeks until the Scrapbooking & Papercraft Expo in Brisbane. I'll be having four days away meeting up with some of my cyber friends for the first time, shopping for the latest & greatest papercraft items & taking four classes over the weekend - can't wait! So I'm sure I'll have lots to share from this little adventure :)
Thanks for dropping by!

Stuck?!

Well hello there, hope you all had a great weekend. Pretty much an overcast & dreary day here which doesn't do anything for my motivation. So while I procrastinate about the housework, thought I would upload my entry for the challenge over at http://stucksketches.blogspot.com.au/
I wanted to put on a traditional High Tea for my Mum on Mother's Day this year. I have some lovely china teacups & saucers that have been handed down to me, but I hardly ever get to use them. I think tea tastes so much nicer from little china cups and a teapot. So I spent Saturday & Sunday morning baking. And one cannot have High Tea without pink champagne as well :)  So here is the sketch & my take on it:

I even managed to collect enough flowers from my garden for the table centre piece & dug out the crystal champagne flutes - lots of fun. Some of the embellies on this page are from the lovely Carol Mead at Tattered Inspirations. I cut the alphas with my Cricut & then stamped & inked them. And of course, what is a page without some Glimmer Mist :)
I'll also have some exciting news to share in the next few weeks, so stayed tuned....

A winner!

Happy hump day everyone! I've just had some exciting news. My entry for the April Group 1 challenge over at http://showusyourstuff.blogspot.com.au/ was a winner for the "Try this" challenge of quilling. Here is a reminder.  Note the little quilled flower at bottom left :)

The other page I wanted to share today is my entry for the Scrapbooking Memories Magazine Competition for the Brisbane Scrapbook & Papercraft Expo, which is on in June (only a few more weeks & I'll be jetting off to Brissie for some creative learning & fun). The criteria was Black + White + one other colour + 5x7 photo. My entry wasn't successful in making the final Top 20, hence the reason why I'm sharing it here. I've used a technique that I've wanted to try for a while now - layering the background with cardstock that has been punched individually with a border punch. It kinda looks like a lace background. And I've used my fave colour at the mo - Aqua.

And a couple of closies:

It's a bit hard to tell here but the butterflies have sparkles sprayed onto them. Thanks for dropping by & enjoy the rest of your week :)

Friday Frenzy

Yes, I have been in a creative frenzy today. Mainly because I'm finishing off some last minute gifts & decorations for Mother's Day & I was determined to finish this layout today so that I could get on with my other Challenges for May (one of which I've already missed the deadline for).
This page is for the Monthly Sketch Challenge over at The Boxx. The sketch is designed by the lovely Sara Noendeng:

My take on this sketch is based around another of my travel pics. Whilst visiting Bavaria in Germany, the crew of our ship put on a Bavarian themed lunch and of course it was based around the wonderful German beer. This is DH demonstrating how to drink a German beer from a Stein :) and for some reason he just kept on demonstrating until he had perfected the technique! Now I'm not usually a beer drinker, but after a morning of exploring up & down cobbled stairways through one of the many beautiful medieval villages along the river that we were lucky enough to visit, I must say my tongue was ready for anything cool & wet. There must be something special about European beer, because after this I felt the need to try a beer several more times along the river & on into the spectacular beer halls of Prague. Funnily enough I haven't touched beer again since returning home.....go figure. So anyhoo, here is my take on the sketch.

Thanks for looking :) Until next time......

Mother's Day Cards

A few days ago I was asked by someone to make some Mother's Day cards for them. Suddenly I realised that Mum's Day is only a week away & I hadn't made any cards to sell. Panic set in :(  So after filling my orders, I got stuck into them today - even though I would have loved to have been out in the sunshine.

And here is a sneak peak at one of the projects I'll be teaching at my technique class next week:

Thanks for visiting :)

Stuck?! May 1st Challenge

Happy Friday again! It seems like I've just finished last month's challenges & here I am starting May's. The month's are passing in a blur now & I feel like I can't keep up. But anyway I have made a start on this month's challenges with the sketch challenge over at http://stucksketches.blogspot.com.au/  Here is the sketch:

And here is my take:

And a couple of closies of the Purple Pumpkin owl button & my hand made hessian flowers.

Thanks for dropping by :)