A thank you...and cards for July.

First of all, I must say a huge thank you to everyone who has emailed, texted, and sent messages on the passing of our precious little dog, Clancy. Your kind words have really touched my heart.


In trying to get back to some sort of normal around here, I have a few cards to share that I made a while ago.

This one was for my niece who celebrated her 13th birthday in June. I simply used washi tape to create a background, added a stamped heart on top, and decorated with enamel dots...love those things!

This one is for my baby girl who turned 9 on the weekend (where did THAT time go?) Of course I left it until the very last minute, so kept it simple :) Some stitching, a few elements stickers from the Sweet Girl collection by Echo Park, some bling...and it was done!

I have pretty much fallen in love with the Sweet Pea collection by Kaisercraft, and couldn't resist adding this polkadot deer journal card to a card. I added a pearl necklace (LOL) and some wood veneer alphas, as well as a little stitching. This card reminds me of one of my favourite shops, Typo...it has that retro kitsch vibe about it ;)

You can only have a peek of this one...it hasn't been given to it's intended recipient yet ;)

And just so you know I'm on track...

...this is my stack of Christmas cards that I've created for our 12 Months Of Christmas project for July! I know...WAY too organised!

Thanks for bearing with the small print on this blog post. Unfortunately, my blog has decided to play up again and I can't add text in between photos....just a little frustrating!

TTFN xxx

Outnumbered ;)

I had an unexpected chunk of free time this morning...such a rare occurrence around here! The weather was wild and crazy, (which resulted in netballl being cancelled), the kids all had a sleep in (except the eldest who had work) and I had nothing planned...and a stack of pretty new paper to play with.

You may not know this, but I like to buy paper ;) I buy more paper than I could ever hope to use, but ohhhhh dear, how I love pretty paper!  And today, I actually decided to use some of it to scrapbook a page. I know, right?

The collection that took my fancy is Sweet Pea by Kaisercraft...not a company I usually go for, but there's something about these papers that I really like.

 I backed the owl paper with a sheet of polkadot from my stash and stitched it in place with my sewing machine. The wood veneer shapes and numbers are by Studio Calico...and could be the start of a new addiction ;)

I punched the banner pieces  from a sheet of paper from the collection called Foxy, stitched them in place and secured them with enamel dots. The alphas were cut using my Cuttlebug (numbered) and some very old letter stickers (out).

Loving Sweet Pea...might just have to make another layout soon!

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2013 - Week 29

Hello Week 29...a week of white, gold and Tiffany blue which is one of my very favourite colour combinations :)

The colours for this week were inspired by the Summer Stories collection by Teresa Collins. I used some full 3x4 journal cards straight from the paper sheet, and others I created myself with elements that I hand cut. The title card is the back of one of my old PL kit cards which I embossed with my Cuttlebug machine :) I decorated it with two hexagons from the Summer Stories sticker sheet, and the gold hexagon which i hand cut and embossed to match. The title is cut from plain Bazzill cardstock, and the date created with gold alpha stickers by Dear Lizzie for American Crafts...yum!

 I loved the chevron embossing so much that I gave all of my 4x6 backing cards the same treatment.



I punched a few smaller elements, like tiny hearts and paper dolls, from gold card to tie it all together.

And that was Week 29. Thanks so much for popping in, and for your lovely comments recently...I so love to read them ;)

TTFN xxx

Vintage High Tea

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Vintage High Tea in honour of my dear friend Janelle's 40th birthday...and what a beautiful afternoon we had!

The food was divine...all manner of scrumptious treats presented on gorgeous fine china. Scones with jam and cream, florentines, slices, and an assortment of hot pastries...so glad I didn't eat lunch beforehand!

 The company was so lovely too. Janelle had invited many special friends to share the afternoon, and it was such a treat to hear how she had met each and every one of us. She had us in fits of giggles as she entertained us with all manner of details, as only Janelle can ;)

Then there were the gifts...

 ...beuatiful pieces from all over the world, selected with love for this very special friend. I couldn't help but take lots of photos ..she will probably unfriend me for the one above, but I think it captures her perfectly ;)

The card I made for her was always going to be inspired by her love of sewing...

 ...it is, after all, how I met her in the first place :) So I pulled out all my sewing themed collections and stamps, and ended up with this...

Happy happy 40th birthday Janelleybelly...and thank you for inviting me to share your special afternoon!

TTFN xxx

Project 2013 - Weeks 27 and 28

Hello Project Life Week 27...and hello Midnight Core Kit by Becky Higgins.

At first glance, I wasn't that excited by Midnight. The colours are a bit understated compared to what I'm used to working with lately, and I really only bought it on a whim. However, now that I've had a play, it could just be my favourite of all time :)

 I'm a sucker for a white background, and the neutral tones lend themselves really well to adding a splash of colour here and there...love that!

Speaking of colour, for Week 28 I delved back into my Honey Core Kit for a healthy dose of it :)
                                      

We had school holidays here in Western Australia last week, so there were lots of pyjama days and leisurely walks along the beach, crafty catchups and movie dates with the kids. Sigh....I love school holidays ;)

I put my washi tape collection to use on this spread (as if it needed more colour!) and used some plain pinkish red  backgrounds to some of the 4x6 photos to add even more pop! The photo collages were created on my iPhone using an app called Diptic...so easy to use, and perfect for adding extra photos!

So that gets me back on track with Project Life for now....WOOOHOOOO! I'm really loving the extra inspiration and variety that my two new core kits have given me, and have found my enthusiasm for photo taking and documenting once again...which is a bit of a relief ;)

So...how are you going with your Project Life these days? And have you checked out the new release goodies coming out from CHA? Wow...so much to get excited about, especially the Simple Stories collections...love love love them ;)

                                                                   Have a great Sunday!

TTFN xxx

Playing with pretty fabric.

Hello...and happy Saturday to you!

It would seem that my issues with blogger have finally rectified themselves (thank goodness!) and I can get back to normal blogging. My family and work have been keeping me quite busy lately, but I have managed to squeeze in some fabric fun too...I get a bit grumpy when I don't craft for a few days :)

Quite a few weeks ago now, I signed up for my first ever craft class on Craftsy...Pre-Cut Piecing Made Simple with Camille Roskelley. If you've been hanging out here for a while, you'll have noticed I have a bit of an obsession with Bonnie and Camille fabrics, and I have collected quite a few precuts over the last little while ;) My thoughts in signing up for the class were that I might learn a trick or two, but mainly to gain inspiration to use up some of those precuts.

Anyhoo, the class is aimed at beginners and while I did pick up a few tips here and there, I found the pattern for the first quilt a little too basic for my precious Marmalade fabric...it IS one of my very favourites.

So instead of making Piece of Cake 3, I made a quilt based on the postage stamp quilt block, with a few variations  thrown in as well. The pattern is available free over at the Moda Bake Shop. Of course, once I realised how much Marmalade I would have left over, I decided to double the size of the quilt to a single bed size, and now it's a bit too big for me to quilt myself...so it's off to the quilter for that one! I'll show you some pics when it returns ;)

I've  received the first instalment of the Fat Quarter Shop's Mystery Block of the Month for 2013, and can I just say... the fabrics are delicious!

I jumped right in and made up Block One called Strawberry Picking, by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts....who is also the designer of the fabric, Avalon.

Now I'm waiting very patiently for the next instalment to arrive in my letterbox :)

With a couple of finishes under my belt, I probably should be looking at finishing off a few other WIPs (works in progress) but the call of new and pretty fabrics is probably going to be too strong.

I know my weaknesses ;)

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2013 - Week 26

So, it would seem that my blogger issues are not as temporary as I had hoped :( I'm not quite sure what is going on, but hopefully I can work on it over the weekend.

Week 26 was completed using mostly my Honey core kit, with a few little extras thrown in. I wasn't as thrilled with Honey as I thought I would be...the colours are not as saturated as I would have liked, but I'm finding my groove with it now that I've started playing a bit more :)

Thankfully, Week 26 included a class assembly for Merryn, otherwise I would have REALLY struggled with filling that second page ;)

I have lots of crafty bits and pieces to show you over the next few days...YAY to finding my mojo again!

Have a lovely Saturday

TTFN xxx

Project Life Week 25...in pictures :)

Blogger is not playing nice with me lately, so it seems that "adding captions" to my photos is the only way to add text...frustrating much?

For my Week 25 layout, I used my brand new Project Life Honey Kit, which I thought I could resist, but obviously could not ;) I added an insert to include my photos of our friend, Caitlin's 21st on the Saturday night.

Confession...I also bought the new Midnight Edition as well. Restraint is not my strong point ;) Sorry this post is so incredibly disjointed, but I'm not able to edit anything once it's typed. Is anyone else having blogger issues? Hopefully I can come back later and fix this post! In the meantime, just enjoy the photos...and marvel that I have actually managed to post some sort of blog entry! TTFN xxx