Lynne's birthday

Lynne is another lady from our ATC group who had a birthday recently. She loves House Mouse stamps, but seeing as I don't own any, I pulled out my Odd Bird Planet Homely Mouse stamp. Isn't he cute?


Here's the matching ATC, because we belong to an ATC group after all!

July Tartiness

I've just had a play with July's A la Tarte kit from Lime Tart. I think I squealed when I opened the box this month....beautiful papers, gorgeous ribbon, a coveted butterfly stamp and some new Collections products. Oh my goodness - how much can a girl take?

Here's a little sneak peek of one project:


You'll have to wait for the gallery opening to see all the wonderful projects the dt has come up with this month. Just a couple of weeks to go. In the meantime, you can see peeks of this month's kits here.

Kerry's birthday ATC

I belong to an ATC group, which is held on a Wednesday night. Because I work at the hospital on these nights, I'm physically unable to attend this year, but I'm there in spirit.

When there's a birthday, I naturally like to make a birthday card, and because it's an ATC group, I also make a birthday ATC. In my haste to get the card out I forgot to take photos of Kerry's card, but here is the matching ATC:


Kerry keeps all her ATCs in beautifully decorated folders. She has a special folder for personalised ATCs, so I guess I know where this ATC will be headed LOL.

Design Team announced

The newest design team at Odd Bird Planet has been announced:

Beth Norman
Dianne McInrue
Godelieve Tijskens
Karrie Baker
Laura O'Donnell
Marnie Bushmole
Ryann Salamon
Teresa Abajo
Tiffany Johnson
Tracy Durcan

I look forward to working with this amazing group of people - they inspire me every day.

OBP June sketch

Here's the June sketch at Odd Bird Planet:


You can read more about it here.

Here's my card:

I think I like these shades of purple and green together. I used Odd Bird Planet stamps (Flower Box and XOXO). Coloured with my Copics of course!

Don't forget the huuuge sale happening ATM. You'll need a little code to get your discount: bday3. Thanks for looking!

would you like a free kit?

Signing up for the Lime Tart newsletter has just been made ultra easy. Pop over to the home page to find out just how easy it is.

To reward you for your efforts, Philippa is putting the names of all subscribers (new and old) in a hat and pulling out a name. The prize is a July Half Tart kit. Woo hoo! Here are the sneak peeks of the Half Tart as well as the other kits for July:

The Half Tart:

The Full Tart:

The A la Tarte:


The A la Tarte kit arrived at my doorstep this morning - I just can't wait to play with all that goodness!

Expecting....

No!! NOT ME!! Are you insane?

A friend of mine is due in a few weeks, so I thought I'd get prepared (this is like nesting!). I made a boy card:




and a girl card:




because she tells me it'll be one or the other LOL.

I used stamps from the June Special Deal package from Odd Bird Planet, which is available now at an extra special price. Read all about it here.

June A la Tarte

Here are pics of the projects I made with my A la Tarte kit this month. I love working with Lime Tart kits - everything I need is included, and it's all perfectly matched. That saves me so much time when I'm making a card - I can take more than 20 minutes to decide which ribbon matches the paper I'm working with sometimes!

Here are a couple of cards:


I felt this colour scheme suited masculine projects - I'm often stuck when it comes to the boys in my life.

My boy Jake is a bit of a nature lover, so blue, green and brown were just perfect for some photos I took of him recently. I altered them with a photo editing program to sepia tones and I aged the images a little.

Jake loved this little book all about him. You can see some of what's inside in this month's gallery.

Cards for Dad

Seeing as it's Father's Day in many parts of the world real soon, I thought I'd whip up a couple of cards for the occasion. Stamps are by Odd Bird Planet:


The good news is that these images are on special.


Read all about the Odd Bird Planet sale here. Now go forth and buy stamps!

Happy Birthday Odd Bird Planet!

Birthdays are great aren't they? This will be Odd Bird Planet's 3rd birthday, and there are some treats in store for you:

Party Theme: 30% Store-Wide Sale! Everything in the store is on sale!

Where: http://shop.justjohanna.com/main.sc

When: June 15th through June 30th, 2009

Secret Password: bday3 <--This coupon code must be entered during the checkout process.

Details: Please note that the June Special Deal will become 30% off instead of 25% off when the sale begins.

But guess what? You'll receive the 30% off of the sale price for The Father's Day Sale items and clearance stamps!!!

I hope you come celebrate with us!

What are you waiting for?

June sketch

This is the sketch for June over at My Sketch World:


This is my take on it:


and here's a close up to show the dimension:


Everything on the card is Sassafras Lass, except the button and ric rac.

I thought this might be a good card to give a friend at work. She's leaving us to move to Queensland. Why she'd want to leave cloudy, rainy Melbourne for constant sunshine I don't know. No wait. I get it now.

A work in progress

The children recently had a day off school, so we headed over to my nephew Adam's house. He's what I call a 'real' artist - the things he paints and draws actually look like what they are supposed to look like LOL. He's now 23, but he's been doing adult art classes since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.

I bought us each a canvas, and as soon as we arrived at his place, I had my paint out and some colour on mine, but Adam was still sketching and planning his work when the sun went down. I hope I get to see his work finished - it was shaping up to be really interesting. He was doing the head of a man with the brain exposed. Sounds icky, but the brain was in a subtle ying-yang arrangement, not at all gory.

We even had some entertainment in the background. This is Henry humping Mindy....all day long:


I've been following Julie's Layer Love class (see my previous post about it), and thought I'd try out some of the techniques she taught. I think this was lesson one or two. Here it is, my work in progress:


It's not finished yet - needs some darkening around the borders, but it's getting there. I'm loving the depth and complexity (am I sounding like an art critic?). Here's a detail:


Thanks for looking!

I'm late! I'm late!

I'm off to dinner with my friend Greta. It's her birthday dinner, and this is the card I made for her:


The glue is almost dry LOL!

She loves pink and Paris, so I tried to make this card a bit frenchy. That's a Hambly screen print on top of some Melissa Frances paper. That ribbon is delicious isn't it? It's wire edged.

I'm wearing elastic pants - yep.....it's going to be a fill my tum kind of evening! I'd better get going....I've got 30 minutes to make a 40 minute trip. Yikes!

A sale!

In honour of Father's Day in the US, OBP will be running a Father's Day Sale, starting right now and running through June 22nd!

The following stamps will be on sale for 25% off! Click on this LINK and then simply type the code or stamp name into the "Quick Search" field at the top of the page!

Here's the list!

1402G Happy Father’s Day
1434I U-pipe
1420B S-pipe
1243Q Pipes
1427E Toolbelt
1411D Ladder
1423BB Bucket
1230M 3 Pipers Piping
1416C Bucket Plumber Bird
1415D Coffee Plumber Bird
1281E Piper Piping With Faucet
1283J Pipers Piping in Shower
1287E Pipers Piping on Bench
1282G Pipers Piping Under Sink
1424E Tattoo Plumber Bird
1417B Tool Belt Plumber Bird
1432N Barn
1433I Barn Stall
1435C Lunchbox and Thermos
1400E On Father’s Day
1474F Carlos the Bull Left
1473F Carlos the Bull Right
1560H Brawny Strong Bird
1500J Larry Strong Bird
1559H Mr Wilson Hat and Tie Bird
1513I Ringleader
1620J Work Van Left
1237J Work Van Right
1547I Woodrow Western Duckie Left
1546I Woodrow Western Duckie Right
977C Theodore Left
976C Theodore Right
1920C Karrie’s Casey Cowboy Owl
1958N Kelly’s Gnome Carpenter
1939G Kelly’s Gnome in PJ’s
1871Q Kelly’s Gnome on Branch with Birds
1957W Kelly’s Gnome Train
1943I Kelly’s Gnome with Workbench
1730E Kelly’s Gnome Man Left
1731E Kelly’s Gnome Man Right
89J Scooter
1300F You Rock (jj mix)
1299C You Rock (whimsy)
1280A Max Rocker Owl
1271K 3 Drummers Drumming
1270L 3 Drummers Marching
1268O 4 Drummers Drumming
1419E Brody No Drum Left
1418E Brody No Drum Right
1269D Drum
1316E Rock and Roll (gothic)

A shabby Shadow box

Remember a while ago when I won a challenge Twiddleybitz was holding on their DT blog? Click here to refresh your memory.

In the prize pack I received was a shadow box kit, and I had a play with it a couple of days ago. Here's the result:



The box is so easy to put together - so many possibilities for embellishment, there came a point I had to stop myself! It's really deep too - now I know why it's called a shadow box LOL.

A bit of paint, glitter, patterned paper and adhesive pearls and it was done. Elouise's little face lit up and she gave me a big thank you hug. I think she liked it!

A special deal for June

June's Special Deal at Odd Bird Planet is a bundle of 6 stamps with a 25% discount. These stamps are not available to purchase individually during the month of June!

Here's your LINK to go directly to the store and buy this wonderfully priced bundle of stamps!

The stamps in June's Special Deal are:
1601E Kelly's One Tooth Gnome Baby
1924D Kelly's Gnome Blocks
1927L Kelly's Gnome Storyteller
1905F Kelly's Gnome Baby Girl
1759B Boy O Boy (pb)
1758A Think Pink (pb)

A Sassy Birthday

This is a card I made for Philippa using a little of my (large) stash of Sassafras Lass goodies:


The HB stamp is from Savvy Stamps - one of my very first favourite stamp companies,


and the ribbon is from my stash.

A Rusty Afternoon

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending a class with Lance Anderson of Rusty Pickle. The class was held at Little Bits, where thankfully the amazing Lesley found a way to fit about 20 people in that little back room. That was no mean feat!

Here is Lance signing a few ATCs for us:


and here he is in action:

This is the little book we made (just needs some photos and some embellishment):


Here's Kerry hard at work:


And here is a rare shot of Lesley doing a class instead of giving one:


It was a great afternoon. I just loved the colour combo on the papers we used.

And no - if you were wondering like I was about where the name Rusty Pickle came from - it's nothing to do with Lance's anatomy. Yeah - I asked him LOL!

Sooty

I've been wanting to try the soot stamping technique for ages, so I got over the fear of burning down my studio (ie it got so messy it seemed easier to torch it than pack it up LOL), and made this card.



It's for Kylie, one of the girls in our ATC group who is a bit of a goth chick. I used a stamp from Stampotique for the main image, the HB is from Odd Bird Planet, and the scroll at the top is part of a Kaiser clear frame. That's some Stampin' Up ink - comes up great on the black cardstock.



Thanks for looking!

A Sass thank you

Remember a while ago, when I was so excited that Sassafras Lass had asked for one of my layouts for their stand at CHA? Click here and here if you need a refresher.

Well, check out what arrived at my door a couple of weeks ago:


I was speechless! Now that's a thank you!! There's paper and stickers and brads and stamps and a bunch of other embellishments.

It's taken me a couple of weeks to stop touching everything, and actually make something. I'll bring you photos of that very very soon.

Isn't Sass Lass the best?