Peace on earth

It's time for another sketch challenge from AnnaBelle Stamps:

All you need to do to enter is make a card using stamps (whatever brand you own) and bling - easy!  More details here.

Here's my card:

I used stamps from the Holly Branch set, and papers from Webster's Pages.  I paper pieced the holly leaves (loving this technique at the moment, aren't I?).  The Sprikles are Artichoke.

Want some gossip?  I hear there's a sale happening soon (just one more sleep!).  Keep an eye on the store, won't you?

Here there be fairies...

This is another collaborative book I'm involved in.  This time we used some chipboard frame pages we obtained through Jenny Crossley. 

I changed tack a few times with these pages - they went from plain chipboard, to having scrunched tissue paper glued to them.  Then I painted them cream.  Then I changed my mind and used some of the paint techniques I learned from Michael DeMeng.  The chicken wire was always going to be included, and then I found some photos of when we last visited the William Rickets Sanctuary in the Dandenongs. 'Fairies!' I thought, and dug out some collage sheets from Lisa's Altered Art.  A quick trip to my local florist supply place, and I had some ivy and not long after that the pages were done!

Want to see a picture of the completed page?

And here's a close up of the words:

I have received some of the other girls' pages, and some of them a quite chunky (especially Liz's page LOL).  I look forward to tackling the challenging task of binding this baby! Of course, I'll blog about it when I'm done.

And now, a twinchie

Twinchies are little squares 2 x 2 inches.  That's the theme this month at Inkurable Stampers - make a Christmas themed twinchie, then make something with it.

Firstly, here's my twinchie:

and here's a pendant I made with it:

I used my delicious 6x6 pad of paper from Cosmo Cricket, and a Memory Frame.  The frames are available at my friend Barb's shop The Stamping Queen.  The glittered tree is a Tweenybitz piece from Twiddleybitz. The stamp is Purple Onion.

This will probably hang from my Christmas tree when I am allowed to put it up.  Must wait until December 1st, house rules :(

Inchie pendant

Here's a little pendant I made:

I used a chipboard bird from a Tweenybitz set from Twiddleybitz, a Memory Frame, some Webster's Pages paper, a feather charm (a silver one rubbed into my Saddle Brown StazOn pad to make it more gold in colour), and some assorted beads from an old bracelet that broke (I wasn't too sad when it broke - I loved the beads and knew I could use them at some later stage LOL).

I'm not sure if I'll wear this on a necklace - it might end up on the spine of a handmade book one day.

Purple Onion fun

Philippa of Lime Tart sent the design team an alphabet from Purple Onion to play with.  Yay!  I love Purple Onion!!

The alphabet is called Lizziebelle, and it's for sale here. I love alphabets - they are perfect for personalising things.  When I get something with my name on it, it's extra special because it hasn't just been given to me, it has actually been made with me in mind. 

This is what I did with this fabulous alpha (I absolutely love this fun font!):

Placecards for a special dinner (that'll be the only night of this week we don't have take away LOL):

I stamped on some paper from Sassafras Lass, then stuck it to some brown felt and kraft paper.  They have a warm homey feel to them.

And this is a card for our great neice's christening:

I used some Webster's Pages paper, a Martha Stewart border punch, and a little gold cross hanging from a decorative pin I picked up at my local florist supply place (like a magpie, I always keep an eye out for shiny things).

Pop on over to the Zest blog to see some fabulous creations from the rest of the DT using this wonderful alpha. Thanks for stopping by!

Acrylic mirror frame

This is a cute little frame I picked up from Twiddleybitz the Mini Mirror Acrylic Frame.  I had this photo in mind, of me with my little princess:

I also added a silver glittered crown and a pink glittered butterfly, because with some pieces you just can't have enough bling!  These little bits of chipboard are called Tweeny bits and they come in a cute little set of six.

I wrote on the acrylic frame with my white Uniball Signo pen - is there anything this pen will not write on?

November tartery

Here are a couple of my projects for Lime Tart.  This is the A la Tarte kit, which had sold out but is back in stock (or will be when the stamp arrives at the end of the week).

Here's the cute little stamp included in the kit, Thinking of You:

And here is one of the images included on the journal cards sheet:

 

And here's the layout I did using the top half of the stamp, one of the Jenni Bowlin sticker borders and the delicious flowers:

 

You can see more of these pics as well as the beautiful work the rest of the design team came up with in this month's gallery.

Thanks for stopping by!

Paperific Nov 2009

It's all done and dusted for another year.  Hooray!  I can't say I'll miss the heat and stuffiness, and that's despite the Little Bits stand being right at the door with an occasional breeze hitting us.

Once again, it was unbelievably busy on Friday, busy again on Saturday, and a little quieter on Sunday. I got to see a huge number of friends, which is a little bittersweet because although it's so wonderful to see them, I can't spend a lot of time with them because of all the customers to serve.  I hope my friends understand (I'm sure they do - they really are wonderful!). The Little Bits team is so much fun to work with - non-stop laughter and fun.  Here's the stand during the Sunday peak:

These little beauties have me a little excited:

Yeah - Copic Ciao markers.  We had them on special 10 for $50, and they went like hot cakes.  This photo was probably taken on Friday before we opened LOL.

A big highlight for me was having Twiddleybitz there.  I recently joined the design team, so it was great to see how well Nicole and Andrew run a stand and display the wonderful pieces completed by the DT.  I'm really excited to be teaching a trade class for Twiddleybitz tomorrow night, and it will be nice to catch up with some of the traders at Paperific for a round up of the weekend.

Here's the DT sample wall at the stand:

The artwork was rotated throughout the show, so the display was different every time I went back to look at it. Apologies for the lighting in the photos - it was hard to get a good shot with my photography skills combined with the high wattage yellow lights at the venue.

Here's Nic at the make and take table.  You can just see a hint of the beautiful easel Beck decorated to Nic's right:

I've posted a few more photos at the Twiddleybitz ning site - pop on over and check them out.

Grow with love

Here's the card I made for Stampavie's Challenge #16:


I coloured the image with Prismacolor pencils, and I used papers and embellishments from my November A la Tarte kit from Lime Tart. Not surprisingly, this kit has sold out - it's beautiful - Cosmo Cricket papers and the most delicious flowers. Julie did a step by step using these flowers you really must check out - it's awesome.

Here's a close up of what I did with the same flowers and leaves:


It was like making a little corsage for the side of my card. The wires make it so easy to shape. When the hydrangea petals are folded up like that, they look a bit like sweet peas, don't they? The flowers and leaves are available for purchase in the Lime Tart store.

Ooh - and before I forget - the image I used for the card is Elodie in her garden and you guessed it - also available from Lime Tart. It was the first of many images I fell in love with from Stampavie.

Thanks for looking!

A Christmas Wreath

I'm on a quest to design this year's Christmas card. I've left it really late (again!), so it's going to have to be pretty quick and simple.

I had some beautiful new papers from Making Memories, and I grabbed my red Stickles and a couple of stamps from Odd Bird Planet and away I went:


I even made it in other colours too:


Stamps: Catherine's Berry Wreath and Michelle's Merry Christmas.

Thanks for looking!

Enjoying spots

Spots and dots are my all time favourite pattern. I'd use them on everything until my eyes hurt if I could LOL.

This is a card I made using the colours of Autumn. I love the playful alpha (Thickers), and to make it even more whimsical, I layered the letters on top of each other.


The Prima flowers are also layered like leaves on the ground in autumn. We're just entering into summer ( a long hot summer by the looks of it - oh my poor garden!), and already I'm longing for autumn......

And now for something completely off topic: can anyone explain Yo Gabba Gabba?

A mammoth task

This year marks 10 years since Lesley opened Little Bits. During this time, she has built a community around her little shop, a warm, lovely, encouraging environment. I have made many wonderful friendships through Little Bits, some of which I can already tell will be lifelong. I just don't want to let these girls go - ever!

She had a bit of a party to celebrate this achievement in early October, and I wanted to make her something significant to commemorate this event. Let's face it, not everyone can open a business and make it grow and flourish the way she has! Tile canvases seem to be all the rage at the moment - I contributed to one earlier this year (see this post on Jo's blog). So here is what I made for Lesley:


You can click on the image to make it grow if you want a closer look.

If I had make individual tiles, it would have needed over 320 of the little suckers, so you can see where I started running out of time and had to make double, triple and quadruple sized tiles. All up it took me around 40 hours, that included 2 overnight sessions.

It now hangs over the doorway to the classroom at Lesley's shop. I think she put it out of my reach because I spent the next few visits to her shop "fixing" things on it. I love that she holds my piece in such high regard - makes me feel warm inside. I'm sure she makes everyone feel like that - it may even be the secret to her success *wink*.

Jake's Communion...and some cupcakes

The past few months have been very eventful, most of which I won't blog about if it's not craft related. I'm sorting through things on many levels - emotionally and physically, so please excuse some of my blog posts - it's going to seem like I'm stepping back in time a bit LOL.

This is one event I wanted to share - my son's First Communion. It's a pretty big event in our faith, and our son made me so proud on the day. Here's the young man himself:


Here's a pic of the cupcakes I made for the little party we had afterwards:



Don't they look great? I was really happy with how they turned out, and talk about delighting the kiddies (both young and old!).

The week before the communion, I did a class with Jennifer Graham of Crabapple Bakery fame - here's what I made in class:

It was a most delicious experience!

Oh come let us adore...

....the new release at AnnaBelle Stamps. Count em - THREE new sets just in time for Christmas!

Here's a card I made using the new Holly Branch set:


I stamped the holly scroll in white ink on kraft cardstock, then coloured them in with Primsacolor pencils. The words were stamped and then die cut with some Nestabilities dies.

Here's a close up of some of the new release Sprinkles - this colour is called Cherry, and the little pot has 3 different sizes in it:


Now I know most of us love a giveaway, so if you pop over to Andrea's blog from the 1st of November, you'll have a chance to win some of this new stuff!