Glazed Tree Trunks

Good Monday morning Everyone . I have had a busy couple of weeks. First my two favourite Little People came to stay for the week so we had lots of fun doing all kinds of things (some of which you may have seen on older posts on this Blog) and then last week we had our overseas friends staying for a few days so that was full on too. We managed to cram lots of things into the time we had and certainly didn't waste a minute of it. So back to something like normal now and managed to do a bit of crafting myself. You may recognise the first card as I think I have posted a similar one before. I am teaching the Glazed Resist technique in March and so these three are a variation on the theme of the one which is in the shop as a sample. I did mine following an instructional DVD by Barbara Gray from Clarity Stamp. A wee bit of work involved but I think it is SOOOOO worth it. Good technique for the 'old grey matter' too as you need to think all the time about the order in which you do things. The little birds were quite cute too I thought. They are drawn - NOT stamped. As they say easy when you know how!! I'm off for a swim now and then I have a SKYPE session with my friend Ali to look forward to this afternoon. She's coming to visit at the end of Feb. Woo Hoo!!! Hope you have as good a day as I am going to have and thanks for looking today.

Another Never Ending Card

This time for one of my Great Nieces who will turn 17 in Frbruary. As I'm teaching this card in February I thought it would be good to have another practise at it. I mostly let the paper be the decoration in this one with just a few additions of shoes, handbags, computer generated words and some Peel Craft stickers. She is a mischievious, fun loving teenager and I thought the never ending aspect of the card would appeal. I hope so. Our overseas visitors arrive tomorrow and we have got the house looking neat and tidy. It's a good job we have visitors isn't it? It gets all those little extra jobs done that usually get left until another day. I'll be back at the weekend after we've been good hosts. Thanks for visiting today.

A Wise Old Owl . . . .

. . .sat upon an oak. That is from a poem I learned in Primary School MANY MANY years ago!!! This little owl was made by Tayla this last week. Not very good instructions meant a LOT of G'ma help but she was more than pleased with her end result. Trent and Tayla went home yesterday so sanity is restored somewhat. Our eldest daughter (their Mum) has just left this morning. Harold is playing golf and so the house is deathly quiet now. I hate it after their chatter and laughter and our daughter is very bubbly too so I feel a bit flat now. Never mind I have LOTS of jobs to do to get the house ready for our overseas friends coming on Monday to stay for the week. I hope your weekend is going well. It was a beautiful morning without a cloud in the sky BUT the clouds seem to have taken over now here in Upper Hutt. Thanks for looking today.

Look What Trent and Tayla Made . . . .

. . . . . arn't they cute? We had this instruction sheet, torn from some magazine at some time, and yesterday Tayla was looking at it and decided she would have a go at the sausage dog, with some scraps which wern't really big enough. So I got her some bigger pieces, showed her how to use a cutter properly, got her some punches, glue sticks etc and she re-created the sausage dog. Then along came Trent and wanted in on the act too, but not a sausage dog, so he copied one of the other dogs on the sheet. I assisted by drawing the templates for them to use and offering 'technical' advice when needed. Pretty impressive efforts don't you think? Tayla is planning a 'curly haired' dog too now. Oh I forgot to say that the dog's heads wobble as they are on a spring!! Very cool. Beautiful day here again so we are off to the park a bit later and then Adventures of Tin Tin at the movies this evening. Thanks for looking today. We hope you like our little dogs as much as we do!!

Inspirational Tags

Hi again Everyone - a few days since I had anything to post - sorry. Tonight's project is a Work-In-Progress and this is Part 1. Our Darling Granddaughter, Ashleigh who is 22, has embarked on a weight loss program and joined the gym in an effort to get herself in better shape for her big adventure of going to Australia to try the waters over there. Her Christmas gift from us was her ticket and some money to get started. She is hoping to go to Aussie in March. Anyway . . . . to help keep her focused and motivated I am sending a little inspirational saying to her Face Book page every day. She loves them and looks early each morning to see what 'today's' saying is. Then I had the idea of printing each sayng onto a decorated tag and then putting ALL the tags onto a ring so that, at the end, she will have a little reminder of her journey and can refer to it in the future when she feels she needs some encouragement and direction. She doesn't know about the Tag Book. That will be surprise for her at the end. I can fit 6 tags onto an A4 sheet of card so I am going to post them in sets of six for you to see. Obviously these photos are Part 1. I worked out where I needed to position the sayings to print centrally on each tag. Then having printed the sheet off I marked out and cut out the tags, trimmed the top corners and punched the hole. Then I used TH Distress Inks (yummy colours) to sponge both front and back of the tag, before using third generation ink to overstamp a subtle image, rather like a watermark effect. Lastly I tied a small satin ribbon through the hole before slipping them onto a ring. I am putting them in the order I have posted them to her FB page - Day1, day 2 etc. So I will post the next six when they are complete. I feel rather pleased with the idea and the result. I hope you enjoyed your visit today and thanks for stopping by.

Concertina Book Card

Hello Everyone and I hope you have had as good a day as I have had. I LOVE making these concertina book cards so I have enjoyed myself this past couple of days making this one. It is going to be a class (maybe in March) so I have been writing instructions as I worked so it took a wee while but I will be SOOOOO glad that I have done the instructions. I don't like writing the instructions for classes very much but it is a VERY important part of teaching so I grin and bear it!!! I usually make the project and THEN write the instructions afterwards which is sometimes a little tricky. Especially if the project has already gone off to the shop for display. Anyway this time I got it right. I am very happy with the colours I chose, the sayings I chose and the embellishments I chose too. All in all I am pretty chuffed with it. I think it will be a lovely calss to make a card for a Special person in your life. I just have to type up the instructions and Voila!! Bedtime again here so I'm off to brush my teeth. Thanks for looking tonight and see you next time. PS Welcome and hugs to my new follower Doreen.P.  I hope you enjoy and get some inspiration from your visits to my Blog Doreen.

Sir Tim's Tag Art

Hi Everyone. This is what I've been playing with today using some of my new goodies. This is a direct copy of Tim Holtz 2011 12 Tags of Christmas, Day 7. I just love it. I cut the tag myself with TH Movers and Shapers Tag and Labels die cut. I bought that in the UK but this is the first time I've used it. I needed to buy the extension B Plates for my Cuttlebug in order to get it to work properly so now I can use all those extra long cutting dies without any hassle. The holly leaves are made from TH glassine paper which is something totally new to me. I watched a demo video and then had SUCH fun colouring it with alcohol inks, scrunching it up and then cutting the leaves with TH Holly Branch die cut. The glassine paper only arrived the other day but I bought the holly branch before Christmas. The Peace on Earth stamp is from Christmas 2010 and I embossed it in black on kraft coloured card before cutting out in a random shape, aging it and mounting it on foam tape. I cut the branch from gold painted chipboard onto which I painted Picket Fence crackle paint and sprinkled ice crystals on whilst the paint was still wet. The lace is from my stash and I frayed the ends and tied it in a knot in the centre. The holly berries are TH pearls which I coloured with alcohol ink. I stuck everything down with Dimensional Magic which is REALLY good for hefty embellishments. I dyed some seam binding ribbon for the top of the tag and then attached two more baubles on a piece of narrow red and gold ribbon. Hey Presto finished. I love tag art and feel inspired to do a few more adventurous ones now. Hope you like. Take a look at some of TH others. They are AMAZING. Bed time for me now so 'night 'night. PS I forgot to say I coloured the cream tag swiping the limited edition Evergreen Bough Distress Ink pad over it randomly and then spritzing it with a green/gold glitter mist spray. 'Night.

Cards a'comin' up Two by Two

Happy New Year to you all and I hope 2012 will be a healthy year with lots of good happenings for you all. As you know I have quite a few birthdays in January to make cards for and the words 'The animals came in two by two. Hurrah. Hurrah' have been running through my head these last few days as I seem to have graduated to making two of each card - like my last post Kinda the Same But Different. It is certainly much quicker if you get a little production line going don't you find? Anyway one of twins is staying in NZ and the other is going overseas to the UK so they will be well separated and the recipients will never know that they do not have a 'One of a Kind'. I have some new goodies I am dying to play with and I am close to being able to do so now with most of my January cards done. If you are still on holiday I hope you are enjoying a restful time. I have been most gratified to see the large numbers visiting my blog in recent times and I thank those of you who do visit. It is most encouraging and keeps me thinking and creating to post more for you to look at.