Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year to all

Can't believe that it is over a month since I last posted. Have been extremely busy since then doing all my Christmas cards and gifts.

This is the card I made this Christmas and sent to all my family and friends (over 45 of them!!) The photo doesn't show the glitter on all the stars but you can get a good idea of what it looked like.

Jacque provided a lot of great Christmas ideas which I fully intended putting into practice, but time ran out, and I didn't manage to make all the things I had hoped but will keep these for next time. However these are some of the ones I did make. It was very satisfying being able to give to people something you have made yourself.

29-12-07: Neville and I had Christmas day at our house this year with family and friends - a casual , relaxing day with lots of fun and laughter. I really enjoyed it even though it is a lot of work and these days organising myself doesn't come quite so easily. My youngest grandson, Tyler, acted as Santa handing out all the presents and announcing who they were for in his gruff 'Santa voice'! I got some lovely thoughtful presents, some of which naturally, are for my cardmaking and scrapbooking. Thanks everyone. The photo above shows our grandsons - L-R: Michael, Matthew, Sam and in front is Tyler.

Before Christmas I did make this Coaster Squash Box using a tutorial by Beate Johns - see link below: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/squashbook.php

Very fiddly, but I was pleased at the way it turned out.

Not much else to write about other than I went for my follow up appointment at the Oncology outpatients and unfortunately my CA125 levels had increased again slightly so now have an appointment for a CT scan on the 8th January and am praying that my cancer has not returned as the doctors suspect. At present I refuse to contemplate this happening so I'm just taking things one day at a time.

Wanted to show you all the lovely card I received from Jacque (our multi-talented SU demonstrator). Thanks Jacque and please, please, please can you show us how you did this. Unfortunately I got a bit of glare on the top right hand corner in the photo due to my lousy photographic skills.

Now for the New Year and more New Year resolutions that often seem to get forgotten within a few weeks. I think my resolution will be to not make any more! That way I can't fail, can I?

My best wishes and hope that all my family, friends and acquaintances will enjoy an exciting, wishes-come-true, healthy and happy 2008.

More cards ... and those damned windows!!

Hah, you're thinking, what have windows got to do with cards and scrapbooking. Nothing really other than the fact that with all my creative pursuits I had let my windows get really, really dirty. So with the nice weather coming on, and the sun shining through the windows (in the gaps between the dirt), I decided to wash them down and clean them. Yes, I thought, that's great they look really clean. Then along came hubby who decided to hose down the glass roofing covering the two pergolas. The dirt splattered down onto the concrete which he then hosed and in doing so, splashed the dirt all over my clean windows!! The sun came out and ... you couldn't see out the windows again. So now they need doing all over again.

Have made such lovely Christmas cards at Jacques and with the pop cans we decorated, I'm starting to feel all Christmassy. I'm about three-quarters of the way through making all my Christmas cards to send out but can't put an example up on this blog as it would spoil the surprise. I have created the following two cards though -

This is done with my Snowflakes embossing folder, cut to shape then I used a glue pad and lightly rubbed it over the embossing and glittered (glitter doesn't show up too well in the photo).

Once the glue was dry I used a soft paintbrush and just lightly brushed in between the snowflakes to remove any excess glitter. I used blue mounted on Whisper White cardstock but you could do this with any colour combinations.

Before mounting the embossed panel, I tied on the circles with narrow organza ribbon over which I used silver cord. Looks much nicer than in the photo.

I cased this card off the internet, and was lucky enough thanks to Karen, to preview and use the lovely SU Carte Postale set.

You really need to see this card full size so if it doesn't show up well on the blog, then go to my Picasa web album (link on left of this screen), and you will be able to view it enlarged there. If you have photos you wish to share, Google's free Picasa program is ideal for keeping your photos organised, and also allows you free web space to upload them to a web album. I find it indispensable.

I really, really love this Carte Postale set. It is so versatile.

In my last blog I mentioned I was going to Melbourne Cup Day at Ellerslie Racecourse. The sad news is ... despite a couple of small wins, I ended up losing my betting money. Oh well, better luck next time.

This afternoon I popped into Karens to check out how her first home demonstration was going. Congratulations Karen, you were doing a wonderful job and everyone there seemed wrapped in the cards they had made.

Just cruising along ...

Either I lead a very boring life, or have a short memory because I haven't been able to think of anything really interesting to report!!

Have received a couple of lots of goodies through Karen (my friend who is a Stampin' Up demonstrator) and have had lots of fun playing with these though I don't seem to have made a lot lately.

One of the few things I have made is this card using my lovely SU In Full Bloom stamps. Paper stock used was Chocolate Chip overlaid with the Brocade Blue and Creamy Caramel which had been stamped up, water coloured and then cut out and laid over the blue.



I wanted to try out the Both Ways Blossoms set as well as experiment with the Spiral Punch I have just acquired. I stamped the flowers in the Basic Black on Whisper White, watercoloured then spritzed the background and mounted on the Creamy Caramel and overlaid onto the black punched square.

This was all mounted onto Not Quite Navy cardstock. I stamped some of the flowers on the lower part of the card in the Not Quite Navy ink and overstamped with the Thanks.

Not 100% satisfied with this card, but can't think why.


At Jacque's class last week we learnt how to decorate candles.

Love this technique and these are a couple I have made ready for Christmas presents (so hope the prospective recipients don't see them on here).

These are done by stamping your design onto pieces of tissue paper and then place the piece onto where you want it on the candle, wrap around a piece of baking paper to hold in place (leaving some at the back to hold onto) then just heat carefully with your heat gun until tissue has melted into the candle. Keep placing all your pictures on until you get your finished candle - so easy!

No other interesting news to relay so must now go and sort out my wardrobe to find something I can fit into as I am going with a couple of friends to the Melbourne Cup Day at Ellerslie Racecourse tomorrow and perhaps back a couple of winners along the way!! Here's hoping.

Ups, downs and roundabouts!!

Well this week has certainly been a mix of everything. Went to cardmaking Monday night instead of our usual Wednesday and made two fabulous cards for inserting gift vouchers. You'll see these on Jacque's blog. So impressed with the cute Crab & Co set that I bought one - very naughty as I had already placed a big order with Karen.

Hubby was going with some mates to Sydney early Thursday morning to race their radio-controlled yachts against the Sydney club. What a performance trying to organise transport for the boats as well as hubby, particularly as the boat used up all his baggage allowance so he had to either wear or fit his clothes into his cabin bag. Anyway yours truly crawled out of bed at 3:45 am and drove him and a sailing mate from Rotorua plus two boxed boats that barely fitted into his 4-wheel drive, out to the airport. For all your hubbies that may be interested, check out www.nautic12.org as these are the boats that my hubby not only sails, but makes and sells.

Came home and crawled back into bed as didn't sleep too well on the Wednesday night due to the fact that I had attended a checkup at Greenlane hospital's oncology outpatients clinic and the news wasn't exactly what I wanted or expected to hear. However no use jumping to conclusions and will have to wait and see what happens.

Thursday night Joan and David took pity on a poor boating widow, and invited me to dinner. Lovely meal and great company - thanks a lot. Karen also called around with my big bag of goodies!! Yippee, guess what I'll be doing while hubby's away - yes playing and making cards.

Here's two I have just made and must admit it is nice to be making flowery, feminine cards again. I seem to have had nothing but male cards to make lately.


This card I adapted from one we did in class. I used Cranberry Crisp and Basic Black cardstock. SU's Scribble This stamp set with the Scribble Jumbo wheel in the background.

The black card was embossed with the Cuttlebug Stylized Flowers folder. I also used glitter, and coloured with the Perfect Plum Stampin' Write marker (it actually came out darker than in the photo).


I'm really enjoying integrating the Cuttlebug embossing folders with the stamping techniques. Feel I've got the best of two worlds!


The next card I made, I really, really like.

I used the flower and leaves from the SU All Natural set and the little stamp from SU Tagger's Dozen set. The cardstock is Ruby Red and Chocolate Chip. I embossed the Chocolate Chip CS using the Cuttlebug Mesh embossing folder then tore off the lower right hand corner. I mounted the entire Ruby Red card onto a backing piece in the Chocolate Chip to give it a contrasting border.

Apart from the time spent cutting out the flowers and leaves (which you could do watching telly) it is a quick and easy card to make but looks stunning. I wanted to give the impression of flowers growing up over a mesh wire fence.

Take care, have fun and hope you can find some time to relax.

This has been a good week

I mentioned in my last blog that I was hoping my husband could get the shelves put up in half of the large wardrobe in my "craft room" (formerly known as the boys room as it is used by whichever grandson is visiting at any particular time). Sorry boys but you are getting much older now and don't stay as much but your bed is still there, you just have to share the room with all my stuff!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, YES we went to the hardware mega store on Wednesday, got the shelving etc. and came home and put it up. I now have everything tidily stored away and can actually find what I need. Thanks Nev. Now all I need to do is get him to put up some more shelves in the other spare bedroom so I can store all the stuff that I chucked out of the wardrobe in my craft room!!

Last night was our weekly cardmaking class at Jacque's house and we made these amazing Hidden Panel cards. To see photos check out Jacque's blog site - a link is on the left of this post. Still can't work out how we ended up with the secret panel - it just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Love my classes, we get to make such wonderful cards, meet great people and have a lot of fun.

Went out and about a bit today and managed to purchase a few bits and pieces for my cardmaking, but nothing major. Have a scrapbooking class in the morning at our local community house, so guess I should go and get everything ready to take and get to bed otherwise I won't be up in time. I'm definitely not a morning person!!

YES, I have enjoyed this week.

Thanks Joan for a great evening

Four cardmaking enthusiasts met tonight at my neighbour Joan's house. Joan had partly prepared two lovely Xmas cards for us to make combining her new Cricut machine xmas cutouts, stamping and embossing.

Here are the two cards I made:



I don't think mine turned out as nice as Joan's samples but we did have a fun evening, lots of laughs, and some of Joan's yummy sausage rolls for supper. Thanks again Joan.

Tomorrow I am hopeful that Neville (my hubby) will come with me to purchase some shelving and supports to put into the wardrobe in one of the spare bedrooms that I have commandeered as my hobby room. Finally I may have a place to put all my cardstock, stamps, stamp pads etc. etc. in some sort of order, so am keeping my fingers crossed that it will actually happen!

Guess I should get off to bed now .... zzzzzzzz

My first blog

Not sure why I have decided to have a blog but guess it is a good way of sharing not only my thoughts but my newly found passion (or addiction as my family call it!!) for stamping, cardmaking and scrapbooking. I must admit that since discovering stamping and cardmaking fairly recently, my scrapbooking has been rather neglected.

The cards shown here are a couple that I have made myself, though admit to getting inspiration from other, more talented persons and the cards they so willingly share with others. Hopefully I will get better as I learn more. These are not ones that I have made in class - those are absolutely gorgeous thanks to Jacque, our Stampin' Up demonstrator who comes up with some fantastic designs.



I have now purchased a little Cuttlebug machine and l-o-v-e -- i-t ... as you will see have put the embossing folders to good use already.

Today has been a beautiful spring day, I should have been out in the garden doing the post-winter tidying up and replanting but instead couldn't drag myself away from my cardmaking!!

Anyway, that's enough for today, will post again soon.