A New Year and a new beginning

Well, 2010 is upon us and I have now finished working for a living - well for a while anyway! The Christmas break was just great - spent time at Waikawa Bay and read 4 books as well as making 50 wedding invitations and generally enjoying being with the family and sitting in the sun for a bit.

Before Christmas, a friend asked me to make some little boxes for her to hang on the tree with chocolates inside them. I used the Cricut Wedding cart to makes these little boxes. I made 12 in all, 3 of each colour - red, green, gold and cream. I added gold cord to tie them to the tree.

One of my challenges for this year is to get more use from my Cricut - I invested a lot of money in it and now need to make more use of it. I have found a website that sends free SVG designs regularly that can be used with the Cricut. You can also purchase others from them.

We also had some landscaping done before Christmas. An area outside the lounge was looking decidedly tatty and needed something doing to it. we found a landscaper who did a simple design for us and did the work. Really pleased with the results. The picture on the top right shows one view of the new area.

Long Break!

It has been some time since I have added anything to my blog, especially since I began with a hiss and a roar!

Things have been pretty busy in my life over the last month. We had a 60th birthday party for Roger last weekend and it was a great success. The "children" made a great presentation about Roger and his life and we were able to share the evening with some very special friends.

I have also been really busy with cards as I have another market day coming up this weekend.

I have uploaded pictures of some of the cards I have made on my Photobucket gallery for people to check in to see.

This week, the photo here is related to the Tanda Teaser which is a musical theme. I found a decoupage Christmas theme which has music in it as well as the flowers. I used the Cuttlebug to emboss the background.

Brown, Russet and Gold

Today, I had some time so made another card. This one is for the Tanda Teaser this week. The theme is russet and gold. I have used a brown base card and stamped the leaves on the background with Versamark ink then brushed with gold sparkle powder. I stamped the same leaves onto gold coloured paper with brown ink and cut them out, then glued them onto the card.

The contrasting card on the side was punched with a new border punch that embosses a faux stitching line as it cuts. I stamped the other edge with a faux stitching stamp that I also used as a border around the text.

I checked out the Stamp Something blog and found that I could use it for that challenge this week as well.

Time to blog again!

It has been a very busy week this week and have not had time to make anything until today. Had a look at the Allsorts Challenge this week and liked the idea of a Kraft coloured card so here is my effort for the challenge.

Used kraft coloured card to make the base card. Layered with orange coloured Bazzil basic and some punched, striped paper that toned quite well, then added the ribbon trim. Stamped the owl (from CS magazine) onto kraft card, coloured with Tombow markers and cut it out. I cut an oval shape in some scrap brown card and stamped with a Hero Arts saying stamp that I acquired recently.

I added some shading to the edges of the oval and the actual card with coffee coloured Archival Ink, using the rubbadubba I also recently bought!

Christmas Cards Already

Well, this week I decided I should start making Christmas Cards for overseas. I always try to find something specifically New Zealand'ish for my overseas cards so this year I am using some photos I took of some NZ Pohutukawa flowers. Pohutukawa trees flower around Christmas time and the tree is sometimes called the New Zealand Christmas Tree as it is covered in a mass of bright red flowers - a little like the decorations on a Christmas tree.

I printed the photo on to glossy paper, then layered on black, then white to provide a contrast. I placed a tartan ribbon across a strip of red card, making pleats beside the space where the photo was to go, then placed it across the card.
I used a Fiskars punch to scallop the bottom edge of the front and used a white inner for the card to provide the contrast at the edge. The greeting is a Hero Arts stamp which I embossed with gold.

I have yet to discover the best way of taking a photo when there is a shiny surface on the card! I will have to practice a bit more I think. Anyway, you can get the general idea of the card from the photo.

Enjoy!

Allsorts challenge

This week I decided to enter the Allsorts Challenge which has an Autumn theme.

I made this card for a card swap. I used the Cricut to cut the words, and punched out the leaves from different coloured papers. The background paper was cut then stitched using a wide zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine.

Enjoy

Beaded Cards

I have been back into making beaded cards again this week. It is always interesting to see what results from the different combinations of beads and colours. On this card, I used mid-blue bugle beads and shimmery clear beads with silver thread. I punched the white layer card with the Fiskars punch and layered a lighter blue card on top, with the blue ribbon to cover the join.

I have uploaded some of my other beaded cards to my Gallery at Tanda. Take a look there!