The Sand Dunes

Good Monday Morning Everyone and I hope you all had a great weekend. I certainly did with our eldest daughter and our two youngest grandchildren staying from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. Our daughter was attending a homeopathic seminar and The Littlies and I spent a large part of Saturday at the swimming pool followed by the playground. Then yesterday Tayla (girl) and I made a dolly out of buttons whilst Trent played his computer games. They are such cool kids snd I love it when they come to stay. (Have I told you that before???????) Anyway after they went home and I restored the house I painted yet another little piece of art on Stampbord. (Have you sourced it yet? You can get it in NZ from Glamour Girl Stamps www.glamourgirlstamps.co.nz The price compares VERY well with what I paid overseas so get some and give it a go. You'll love it too.) This is one of my favourite stamps from ISC which I think stands for Innovative Stamp Creations (just do a search on ISC stamps and I'm sure you'll get there) It makes me feel very tranquil when I am working on this image and I imagine the sound of the waves lapping onto the beach , nice warm sunshine on my skin and relaxing peacefully reading my book in the shelter of the dunes. I'd better go before I drift off to sleep. I hope you like the artwork. Have a good day and indeed a good week all of you. Me? I'm off for my Monday morning swim and Nifty Fifty session. Talk to you all later. Thanks for looking.

African Plain

Good evening Everyone. This afternoon's artwork whetted my appetite for more Stampbord miniature artwork so I used the larger of my two acacia tree silhouette stamps and tried to create an African safari plain. I think I would have liked my sky to be a bit more orangey but I was too scared to do it in case I messed it all up. (How many times have I done that! Put in all the work and then stuffed up with the last touches!!) On the whole I am quite pleased with it and will keep it somewhere safe to create a card with when I need one sometime in the future. It would make a good male card don't you think? They're always a problem to come up with interesting and different ideas for aren't they? I have done all my March cards and don't have any April birthdays so it may be a while until I actually need it. My two favourite Little People are coming to stay for the weekend starting tomorrow evening. That will keep me on my toes so I'm done for today. I'm off to brush my teeth and jump into bed with my book. 'Night 'night.

A Hint of Autumn

 A couple of mornings this week have just had a hint of autumn about them I'm sorry to say. The days have still been beautiful though with high temperatures so maybe we still have a bit of summertime left yet. Anyway the cooler mornings led me to colour this little piece of artwork in autumn colours. I stamped one of my Stampscapes images onto Stampbord with archival ink and dried it off with my heatgun. I let it cool off before colouring it. I used my brush markers to scribble a patch of colour onto a tin lid. Then I used a fine, slightly damp paintbrush to pick up colour from the lid and paint the picture. If you haven't used Stampbord yet you are missing a treat. It is lovely to work on - soooo smooth. I bought mine overseas but you can get it here now so do a search on the 'Net for it. It comes in packets of pre-cut sizes. I have domino size pieces, one inch square pieces and the size I used here is ATC. This is a birthday card for a friend and the idea is that she can remove the artwork and frame it to enjoy long after her birthday is over. I hope you are all having a good day whatever you may be doing. If you're not feeling too well today then I hope you feel better soon. Thanks for stopping by.

I am going to enter this in the http://ooh-la-la-creationschallenges.blogspot.com/ challenge Anything Goes

Inky Fingers in the Moonlight

Second time today - wow!!! I have very inky fingers after playing with this little card. The idea is so very simple - the effect so dramatic. I watched Barbara Grey's 2 hour TV program on the laptop from midnight until 2am and this is one of the cards she demo'd. I love it so I got out my trusty brayer and Adirondack inks, some Post Its, plenty of scrap paper and just one of my beloved tree stamps. I used coated cardstock (glossy surface) it works better with the brayer and ink. Have a go it's fun. You may need to have several tries until you get the feel for it but it is well worth perservering. I'm off to try some more. 'Night 'night.

Notelet Holder

Good Morning Everyone and I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I know I certainly did. On Saturday I taught my first classes of the New Year and what lovely ladies I had. The afternoon was the Patchwork Classes (remember I told you I was going to make them do the hard way and then be mean and show them the easier way?) Well they all coped extremely well and although it did take a considerable amount of concentration everyone went home pleased with their afternoons work. They loved the easier version too but said they were glad to have mastered the acetate (more difficult) version. Both methods give stunning results but quite different looks. The difficult method becomes easier the more you do of course and they breezed through the second card having learnt all the pitfalls on the first one. Anyway onto the new week and today's post. I found this little project on the Internet (of course), loved it and had to have a go. A cute little notelet holder with a pocket to hold 6 notelets on one side and a pocket to hold 6 envelopes on the other. How cool is that for a wee gift for a friend? With all those gorgeous papers out there the colour combinations are endless. The instructions said to use cardstock for the holder but I was afraid it wouldn't hold firm once it had the weight of the cards and envelopes in the pockets so I used lightweight chipboard. I knew that would be strong enough AND I like the 'grey' colour which takes distress inking sooooooo well. It also gives you a blank canvas to decorate to your hearts content without having to worry about clashing with the base colour. I made the roses on the front out of copier paper following one of the many tutorials out there at the moment (so many flowers, so little time). I used the Nestabilities Labels 1 through my Cuttlebug for the front. The flowers on the notelets were made using EK Success Retro Flower punches in medium and small. Add a bit of bling and ribbon and Hey Presto!! Right I'm off for my swim and Nifty Fifty Aquaerobics now. Thanks for dropping by.

Good Morning

I'm bright and early today.  I finished and photographed this card last night but was too tired then to post it .  I found a weekly layout challenge somewhere On-Line and thought I might participate in a few of them as my mojo is a bit down at the moment.  So here is my effort at this particular challenge.  Choosing all the ingredients took me forever!!!  It's nothing clever but pretty if nothing else.  Hopefully I will feel a bit more inspired today.   I had an e-mail from a long lost schoolfriend today.  We re-established contact last year after some 40 odd years and it's been great.  Anyway this e-mail is to celebrate IVGLDSW Day.  Some of you may have been lucky to have been sent it from your friends.  It stands for International Very Good Looking Darn Smart Women's Day.  Now I'm sure you ALL fit into that category so have a Happy Day girls!!! (Sorry if there are any guys who look in.  I do appreciate your support too!!) Hope everyone has a great weekend doing whatever YOU want to do for at least some of the time.

Motto for all you IVGLDSW

 Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, totally worn out and screaming 'WOOO HOOOOO what a ride!'

Mid Week Post

Sorry for no postings (if you care) but I have still been getting things ready for this Saturday's classes.  I like to check and re-check to make sure all is well and I have everything needed ready to go into my crate to take to the shop.  Saturday afternoon's class is Patchwork Cards which I posted some little while ago on here.  I got the project from the English magazine Craft Stamper.  Lovely as the cards are, as I wrote the instructions I got to thinking that there must be an easier way to create patchwork cards.  So I gave it some thought and have come up with these cards which look just as lovely (I think) and are certainly much easier to create.  I will show these to my ladies (11 of them!!) on Saturday but not until AFTER they have worked hard (and possibly torn out their hair) on the other ones!  The Windmill card I have made with a coloured centre patch and then again with a black centre patch.  I think I probably like the coloured patch best but it a close run thing.  The beauty is that after cutting up the lighter patches you have enough triangles left to create another card.  Lots of combinations possible if you give it a little thought.  A good idea is to draw up a grid on some scrap paper and colour in triangles to create different patterns and then re-create them onto cards.  Have fun and thanks for stopping by.