Saturday, June 26, 2010

cards made with prizes won!

I have been lucky enough to win some challenges and blog candy here and there in blog land.

Here is my showcase of things I have made with my winnings.

Spellbinder tags won from SheetLoad

This is a thank you card made with a Flourishes Damask background stamp that was part of some Blog Candy won from Linda's Blog


This is Hero Arts stamp Garden Roses K5056 and is so beautiful to use.
White cardstock was embossed using Cuttlebug & Swiss Dots folder. Oval spellbinder die used to cut & emboss the oval. The embossing was not very obvious, so I highlighted the edge with a fine gold sticker. Hero Arts Garden Roses was heat embossed with fine gold and then coloured in with watercolour pencils and highlighted with chalk. Gold organza ribbon was placed across middle of background and stamped image attached using mounting tape. Corners were highlighted with 'left over' bits from a sticker sheet. Whole thing was layered on pink cardstock. Matching envelope is stamped with black STAZON and chalked. HeroArts Blog here


here is another card using the same stamp - this time stamped with STAZON and coloured with chalks

I recently won Set 2 of Flourishes A Year in Flowers here and have been having 'fun' colouring them in - I can see lots of uses for these images and am very tempted to buy the rest of the year ;-) 

This is August - Morning Glory


this is July - Tigerlily - I really like this one.
I am currently working on the June - Rose images - stay tuned ;-)

A cow of a card ;-)

I had some fun with my CraftROBO during the week and decided to submit a card for the challenge 37 shaped card over on CraftyCatz.

I found some cute free clip art  HERE and had a fun few hours experimenting with the print & cut features of the CraftROBO
The inside is some lovely big rubon words

Friday, June 25, 2010

The funeral is today ....

The funeral for my Great Nephew is today.
the weather is wet and gloomy and cold ;-(

I will pick up my Dad and take him, while my sister will pick up her husband's mother.
I don't like going to funerals at all, and with the added distraction of driving in the rain I am not looking forward to this one ;-(

I am puting some final touches to the sympathy card for my sister and will post a pic shortly.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Scenery matches my mood ;-(

The view from the front porch matches my mood today ;-(


However, I did notice lots of raindrops on the plants, so I thought I would have play with some macro shots - my favourite type of photography ;-)
I love how the reflections of the raindrops are upside down
(upside down, Miss Pat - anyone remember what TV show that comment comes from?)




This photo is my favourite!

Friday, June 18, 2010

A sad moment for this Great Aunt

Shaun, one of the premature twins of my nephew passed away yesterday.   He died peacefuly in his mother's arms. He needed emergency surgery, and seemed to improve for a while, but deteriorated rapidly over the last 48 hours.

It breaks my heart to see my nephew and his wife go through this. 

I don't know about you, but when I am upset, I clean.  So I have cleaned the kitchen, the pantry and was about to start on the oven when I got the urge to cook.  So I proceeded to make up a batch of butter chicken and divided it up into single serves just for me ;-)  Of course, the kitchen was messy again so I cleaned again!

I came into the craft room to make a few sympathy cards - this was very hard to do.

After several attempts, I came up with this one - for Robert & Jade



I am still working on one for my sister.

I wasn't really in the right frame of mind to make cards, so I turned to my computer for something to do. 

I had been asked by a friend to make a card for her husband with a farm theme and decided to use an image from http://www.craftsuprint.com/
I printed on some gloss cardstock, but the ink would not dry and kept bleeding.  I then printed it out on some photo paper and that turned out lovely, but was not thick enough to make a card.  It took about 30 mins to hand cut the barn and all the animals out of the photo paper, then about another 15 mins layering. 
The front looks OK

then stuck it on some cardstock using JAC paper and hand cut the thick cardstock

YUK!   my cardstock edges were terrible and while I was putting it all together,
some of the ink rubbed off the photo paper! - one ruined card ;-(


Then I had a bright idea ;-)  how about using my CraftROBO - it can print and cut!  This 'print and cut' feature was the deciding factor in my CraftROBO vs Cricut debate.
Those of you who have used the auto trace software with the CraftROBO know that it is not as easy as it sounds.  Long story short, several thousand clicks & drags and 8 hours later, I have produced a card that I am reasonably happy with ;-)

I ended up having to make two GSD files for the print and cut to work - one for the animals and one for the barn.  If you look closely, there is still some work to do and I will fine tune my GSD file in the future so that I can use it again.

This exercise was a real challenge and I was glad of the diversion for a few hours ;-)
It really helps when you have some nice graphics to start with and this file from http://www.craftsuprint.com/ was a real pleasure to work with. 
I just hope I have not infringed any copyright laws by making a GSD file so that I could save a whole lot of hurt using scissor to cut out all the layers ;-)
I will be sending this picture to the CraftsUprint website so that they can see what I have made with one of their files.


RIP Shaun Robert Gibbens - you were on this world for such a very short time, you will not be forgotten.

Friday, June 4, 2010

For my Father

It is my father's birthday on Saturday, and we are taking him out to lunch on Sunday.



A very simple card - PSX image stamped with Black Stazon and coloured in with copics. 
Image background sponged before being removed from deckle edge die.