Day 3 CPS - birthday wishes

Well I am back home in Australia and although sad to leave the whanau I am happy to be in the craft room - I tell you it is difficult to make cards with a very limited supplies!
So back into the swing of things I am starting to work my way through the sketches from Card Positioning Systems 5th Anniversary celebrations - here is the sketch from day 3 (yes I know I am way behind :))  The sketch is an early one - #54

and here is my card - it is for a 1 year old ...
 
and a close up of the animals ...
 
I really enjoyed making this card and I drew inspiration from the challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays 'on the red carpet' - be inspired by a movie and for me the I used the animals as inspiration from the movie Dr Dolittle.  I am also submitting it for the challenge at Birthday Sundaes - birthday card with a sentiment and Designed to Delight - share a card.
materials - Bazzill piglet cardstock, AC aqua and butterscotch cardstock; Jillibean Soup 'sweet & sour' papers; Verve 'to the moon' stamps, Grant Archival 'birthday sentiments' stamps; Stazon timber brown ink; Crafters Workshop - mini scallop swirls template; Marvy pens and blender; Kaisercraft large number chipboard; black journalling pen; hole punch; cord.
Thanks for looking.

CPS day 2 - A little something just for you

Okay this is my card for day 2 of Card Positioning Systems 5th Anniversary celebrations.  I really loved the way this card turned out and I have made it for one of my sisters as it is her birthday in March and I wanted to get it done before I leave.
The sketch is #166

and here is my card ...
 
and here is a close up of the ball and chain tag ...
 
The flower has been stamped on patterned paper and fussy cut and reassembled.
materials - AC bubblegum cardstock; DCWV 'Spring Fling' matstack and cardstock stack; Penny Black 'to you' stamp set; StazOn jet black ink; Crayola Colouring pencils; 16mm pistachio satin trim; ball and chain ring; Creative Memories circle cutters; hole punch
Thanks for looking.

CPS day 1 - celebrate

Card Positioning Systems is celebrating their 5th Anniversary over 15 days!  There is a sketch a day (from previous sketches) and heaps of prizes to win.  So I am a few days behind so I will have to catch up (they are already up to day 5!).
Here is the sketch & my card for day 1 - it is sketch #136
 
and here is my card
 
At first I sort of didn't like the card but after adding the liquid pearls it grew on me, in hindsight (which is a wonderful thing :) I should have inked the edges of the paper but I sort of forgot to and thought about it later once everything is stuck down ... don't you just hate that!
materials - white cardstock; DCWV 'Spring Fling' matstack and cardstock stack; Penny Black 'to you' stamp set; Stazon timber brown ink; Crayola Colouring pencils; Ranger liquid pearls; Kaisercraft rhinestones
Thanks for looking.

I.O.U

I finished of this card for my nephew this morning after the decision to celebrate his 20th birthday this Sunday a little earlier than his actual birthday (14th Feb - Valentines baby!).  The joke amongst the family is that he and his sister, as they got older and worked to get their own money, they never use to have enough money to buy their parents presents for their birthdays so they use to give them I.O.Us' :)  I remember joking with them one time that I might give them an I.O.U for their birthday to teach them a lesson ... or better still their parents may give them one :)  So I thought this card was very appropriate for my nephew ... off course I will put a little something in it later but I will let him sweat for a bit!

The letters I,O & U are cut away from the edge of a brown card and then mounted on the card to stand above the fold crease.
 
I am submitting this card for the 'recycle' challenge over at Cupcake Crafts this week - I have used buttons as my recycle element.  This is quite a good challenge for me as I am in NZ at the moment visiting the family and have very limited crafts supplies with me and I had to ask my mother if she had any spare buttons lying around to use as embellishments for this card!
materials - AC cardstock; Jillibean Soup 'christmas eve chowder' papers; Grant Archival 'birthday phrases' stamp; Versa Color magenta ink; Everlasting Keepsakes chipboard letters as templates; Twinery cappacino twine; Ranger liquid pearls; buttons
Thanks for looking.

Celebrate today

Hi All - I am still in New Zealand visiting the family (we leave early next week).  I have had very little time to make cards but I did manage to make this one following the sketch from AnnaBelle Stamps sketch #046.  I also turned it into an Easel card for Birthday Sundaes but it is an Easel card with a slight twist - instead of the card itself being an easel card, I managed to make just the flower image as the easel part :) I am also submitting it for Party Time Tuesdays anything goes challenge.

by creating a square in the middle of the card and cutting the sides and bottom and scoring the top and middle I attached the flower image to the lower area below the middle scored line, this allowed me to have the image flat in an envelope and then I can stand the image up like an easel card.
 
and this is the inside of the card
 
materials - AC straw card, white and black cardstock; Lily Bee 'this & that' papers, watercolour paper; Annabelle Stamps 'squared posies' stamps; Stazon jet black ink; Marvy pens; Dove Blender pen; Creative Memories circle cutters; Kaisercraft rhinestones; Ranger liquid pearls

Just thought I would share a few photos with you of my holiday here.  My family live in Auckland so we have spent all our time here.  I was born and lived here for 25 years of my life and now I come back and are beginning to do all the touristy things.  On Monday my eldest sister, my mother and I decided to do the Skytower walk - it is no big deal just a little bit of an adrenaline rush.  My mother had done it before with another sister who was a little 'hysterical' when she did this and while watching us walk along a thin platform 192m above ground she couldn't believe how casual all 3 off us appeared!
this is the Auckland skyline and the tower is the tall needle looking thing - the platform you walk on is the bit that is the widest part of the building ...
 
here we are for a group shot - we loved the orange overalls we had to wear :)
 
Now after the walk on the way back down to the ground the guide convinced my eldest sister to to the Skyjump!!! It was a little out my price range so I didn't jump but I am determined to do it the next time I come back to Auckland - so I have a year to save and a year to 'psyche' myself up for it :)  So here is my sister hanging mid air posing for the photo!
 
We all watch the movie of the jump all the time and we were so proud that she did the jump - she has guts!!!

look who's 12

Hi All - I am in New Zealand at the moment and haven't been able to find time to do much cardmaking but I did manage to make this card this morning after helping my nephew make a card for this mother.
The card below is for the challenge at Scrapbook Boutique - their challenge is purple, green and white, the challenge from AnnaBelle Stamps blog is anything goes, the birthday challenge at Party Time Tuesdays and for Moxie Fab - Cool Tool Week - cutting and trimming - for this I have cut the number '12' away from the card edge.
I enjoyed making this card and I didn't bring any number stencils with me so I had to freehand draw the numbers on the edge of the card and cut the area around them leaving it uncut a certain points so that it stays attach to the card.  I have done this before and it is great to used chipboard letters as a stencil and cut away the cardboard around the letters to create a title.
This is a card for my nephew who turns 12 next month - I had made his birthday card for this year last year but I gave that to one of my sisters to give it to him.

materials - AC wine card stock; Cosmo Cricket 'mitten weather' papers; AnnaBelle Stamps 'lil monster' stamp, Grant Archival small birthday stamp set, MFT mini day banner alphabet; Staz On jet black ink; Marvy pens blender 0, dark brown 18, pale orange 13, pine green 72; kaisercraft pearls.
As I said at the start of this post I am visiting my family in NZ and during the first half of January my family has alot of birthdays to celebrate and the last is today for my youngest sister and typical of a 12 year old boy my nephew (Caleb) mentioned last night that he wanted to make a birthday card for his mother!  Now this is a typical 12 year old boy - into wrestling and boy stuff  and hassles me non stop about my 'crafting' as he calls it, so for him to say that I am to get out my craft things first thing tomorrow morning nearly caused me to fall off my seat.
So first thing this morning I got everything out and believe it or not he actually sat down for 30 mins to make a birthday card for his mother - he designed it, stamped it and coloured it (I did fussy cut the butterfly as I didn't trust him cutting it nicely - I reckon he would have cut the wings off!).  I was so happy that he actually sat down for 30mins to make this as he has an attention span of about oooooooooooooh 5 mins before he gets bored and then he tends to rush it and make a mess :) does this sound familiar?  So this is Calebs' card ...
 
Everybody loved it and now he is walking around the house with a 'bighead' bragging that he is better than me and I could learn a thing or 2 about 'crafting' from him :)
Thanks for looking.

With Love - monochromatic

Hi All, thought I would try a monchromatic card today - usually I struggle with these types of cards and can never match anything.  So I decided to keep it clean and simple with inspiration coming from a paint colour chart strip - you know the ones that are in the paint shop that show the darkest to lightest of a certain colour :)  Well I have to say I am very happy with this card!

I would like to enter it for the challenge over at Through the Craftroom Door and Pixie Dust Studio Challenges which both had monochromatic this week.  I actually stumbled across these 2 blogs accidently while checking out someones card on another blog :)
materials - Core 'dinations tranquil, harborside, aquarium and atoll aqua cardstock, white cardstock; Darkroom Door Stamps 'garden greetings' stamps; Versa Color turquoise, sky blue, celadon inks; Provocraft dot embossing folder; lace.
Thanks for looking.