Thank you

I made this card to send to a forum friend who sent a selection of lovely tags as a Hug gift. It was certainly much appreciated after the trauma of earthquakes and aftershocks over the last few weeks.

To make the card, I first coloured the image with copic markers. The image is a digital one from Whimsie Doodles (Swing Leah).

I then cut the oval out of the card using a Nellie Snellen die and the Cuttlebug. The image fitted really well behind the cut out. I carefully cut the feet and legs away from the main image and tucked them outside the lower part of the oval shape.

These are the lovely tags that Hilda sent me. They are from Shairon, Julia, Joy  and someone who didn't sign the back. If it was you, please let me know!! Thank you, my friends on the Lots to Do Revisited forum.

Clean and Simple

This week, our Crafty Girls theme was Clean and Simple.

To make this card, I first cut a Nellie Snellen circle die from a piece of card then used the piece I had left to make a mask. I then inked the base card with Antique Linen and Scattered Straw Distress inks to provide a coloured base. The sunflower stamp was coloured with Tombow markers then stamped on the inked design. The sentiment is from my favourite Hero Arts set and was stamped in brown ink.

I added a narrow ribbon in a matching colour along the side of the card to finish it off.

Enjoy!

LTD Swaps

Hilda, from Lots to Do revisited, is hosting an ATC and Tag swap at the moment. 

The theme for the tag swap is Letters. For these tags, I embossed them in one of my new TH embossing folders (Collage) because it has lots of words on it. I then used distress inks to colour the tags.

Stamped letters on cards then punched out and layered on the tags.

The theme for the ATCs was Pen and Ink. I found some lovely card with writing on that I used for 2 of the ATCs. I found one of my old rubber stamps of a fountain pen that I used on two of the ATCs, I coloured the images then covered them with glossy accents. The bottom ATC used a stamp that included the pen with the images. Again, coloured these and used GA on the pen image.

The edges of the cards were coloured using distress inks.

Stamps

Carol from Hamilton set Jude (from Temuka) and I a challenge to use postage stamps in three different projects.For ages I thought about what I could do before I actually got round to doing it!

Lots to Do Challenge for this week is a Distressed Tag so I have combined the 2 challenges! I found some really old postage stamps on some letters when we were cleaning out the garage some time ago. They were all 1, 2 and 3 cent stamps! It is about 40 years since these stamps were used!!! Anyway, the stamps all had moths or butterflies on them so I used butterflies and wings on this tag along with the stamp to try to link it all together. I used distress inks to colour the tag and to stamp the images. I also distressed the edges of the tag with my TH distressing tool.

I found a little box with made with shiny card the other day, so used that to make the little box. I used alcohol inks to colour the box (which you can't really see in the photo) and collaged postage stamps on the top of  the lid. Used lace and ribbon to trim the edges of the lid. Finished it off by adding a butterfly, which I stamped with postage stamp images and added distress stickles to the wings. Used gold wire to create the feelers. 

The final part of the challenge was this ATC, to which I added a special issue stamp. The stamp was to commemorate NZ's involvement in the Shanghai Expo this year. I coloured the base card using Tattered Rose and Pumice Stone Distress inks, stamped the lettering with pumice stone, added the stamp and finished it off with the little coin.

An interesting challenge that made me think a  bit!! Thanks Carol.

Back to creating again!

After all the trauma of the last week, I had to get back to making things again, so went to the craft room today to make some cards and have a play with my Cricut again.

A friend asked me to make her a birthday card for her partner, who is a speed boat fanatic. I found this little boat and waves on the Going Places cartridge and thought it might be OK.

I also noticed that a couple of challenges this week called for layers and Happy Birthday, so decided that this card could fit all three "criteria".

Papertake Weekly Challenge #47 was a sketch, which I used for the design of the card. I had a square card that I used for the base then layered with a Cuttlebugged layer in blue, then a printed paper. The red piece was put through a crimper and the top layer was cut with the Cricut. The boat was cut from a square with rounded corners. I also cut the same from red and white card to provide the different colours and these were layered on the cutout. All the pieces were edged with distress ink  with the top layer being edged with white. The Happy Birthday stamp was from a Tanda stamp set (Art Deco) designed by my friend Sue!


The Cuttlebug Challenge this week was for a birthday card with at least 2 layers because it is their second birthday!

And the earth moved...

Last Saturday morning, 4th September at 4.35 am, we were very rudely awakened by the most violent shaking and loud noise as a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck near Christchurch.

The damage for some has been enormous - not just to property, but to people emotionally as the aftershocks continue - 6 days later. many people have lost homes as well as businesses. Virtually new homes have been lost to subsidence of the ground underneath, as new fault lines are discovered.

We were very fortunate that we did not sustain any real damage to any of the property apart from a couple of glass vases and a large planter in the garden.

In the spare bedroom, the large filing cabinet that sits in the corner of the room was tossed forward, possibly due to the weight of the drawers that opened with the force of the shaking. Books on top of the cabinet were tossed onto the floor, but the TV set stayed put!

The door to the outside has a cat flap in it and the cat was still able to exit because the lowest drawer left a gap that she could fit through.

In the lounge, a bookcase was thrown forward and came to rest against the sofa. A glass vase was thrown from the top of the bookcase and came to rest on the arm of the sofa. Other ornaments were also tossed onto the floor and only one thing sustained any damage - a small chip in the top of a pottery bottle. The bottom of the bookcase crashed against the wall and has left a small hole that is fixable!  My old guitar didn't get any more scratches! The vase of flowers that was on the coffee table didn't move. Photos and a large, very heavy crystal vase were thrown off the piano - again, little damage there - only the stand of one photo frame - which is mendable.

Outside, one of two relatively new plant pots fell over and smashed onto the concrete paving. It is totally wrecked and we will have to try to replace it with another the same to match the one on the other side of the BBQ.

So, we were extremely lucky to have so little damage in such a severe quake. We are very thankful for this and our thoughts are with those who are not so well off at this time.

And the winner is...

ME!

Check out this website! I won the Whimsy Doodles Challenge this week with my grunge paper brooches!

I was so excited as I haven't ever won a challenge before... Check out the pictures here.