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.

Heartfelt thanks

The challenge over at AnnaBelle Stamps blog this week was to use black, white and silver which I thought was okay.  As soon as I saw the colour silver I knew I would have to dig out the good ole silver embossing powder and heat gun.
I made a frame using heat embossing tape and silver embossing powder, heat set it and then cut out the middle to frame the 3 silver flowers.  It is a very clean and simple card and I enjoyed making it.  I am also submittng it for Designed 2 Delight - flowers, Crafty Creations - heat embossing and CRAFT - a thankyou card.

materials - white card, silver paper and Bazzill black cardstock; AnnaBelle Stamps 'stemmed flowers' and 'ballerina rose' (title) stamps; Encore silver ink, StazOn jet black ink; Silver embossing powder; heat embossing tape; heat tool; Kaisercraft black pearls.
Thanks for looking.

I enjoy being with you

And here is my third card from today - this time following the challenge from Hero Arts - love, kisses and hugs ie. a valentines card.  I have used the sketch from Sketch Saturdays.

here is a close up of the heart and bees
 
I found the title in the Hero Arts 'be happy' set is way to big for this card sketch so I stamped it on shrinky dink and then shrunk it so it was small enough for the sketch.
 
materials - white cardstock, AC canary cardstock; Echo Park 'for the record' papers; Hero Arts 'be happy' stamps; Stazon blazing red; Provocraft heart and dot embossing folder; Sizzix heart #7 die; Aelenes shrinky dink plastic; twine; Kaisercraft pearls; Satin ribbon.
Thanks for looking.

sending sweet wishes

It has been a very productive cardmaking day today.  The first follows the challenges from CAS-ual Fridays - use chipboard  - I used  Words or Whatever butterflies and I loosely followed the sketch from Card Patterns - I flipped the sketch on its' side so the row of buttons (I used butterflies) is along the bottom of the card.

 
I loved working with chipboard and for this card I painted the butterflies and fussy cut patterned paper for the wings, applied rhinestones for the body and then covered the patterned paper with glossy accents.

here is a close up
 
materials - AC white, Core 'dinations montego bay cardstock; Lilly Bee 'this & that' papers; AnnaBelle Stamps 'party animals 1' stamps, Stampendous 'stitched borders' stamps; Versa Color turquoise ink; Words or Whatever butterfly lasercut chipboard; Provocraft circle dies; Kaisercraft rhinestones; Ranger Inkssentials glossy accents, Ranger white opal liquid pearls.
Thanks for looking.

Happy 'bowls'day ... again

I am loving the 'stylish bowler' digital stamp that I got from Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps and here is another card that I made - this time for my mother in law.  I kept it nice and simple and followed the sketch challenge from Inspirational Card Sketches where you could use any sketch we liked and I actually chose one of the older ICS sketches - #143.  Now I love bright solid colours so the challenge from Paper Sundaes - use saturated colours was perfect for me!  The Wee Memories challenge this week was 'mini' nothing over 4x4 so this card is 4x4 and it is a birthday card for the challenge at Birthday Sundaes.

materials - Bazzill just peachy and hopi, AC cricket cardstock; Jillibean Soup 'sweet and sour soup' papers; Stitchy Bear 'stylish bowler' digital stamp, AnnaBelle Stamps 'party animals 1' stamps, MFT 'mini banner day alphabet' stamps; Versa Colour lime ink; Crayola colouring pencils; Kaisercraft rhinestone.
Thanks for looking.