Christmas extra

I didn't think I would be posting again this side of Christmas but I just had to share with you the scrumptious, beautiful Christmas cake given to me (and baked) by my oldest and closest friend Anne.

Anne has been a tower of strength to me over the past months accompanying me to Melbourne for my PET scan, plying me with lovely home made soups and fruit loaves while recuperating from my operation, sitting with me in hospital while I have my chemotherapy, etc. etc. No matter what I do I'll never be able to repay her (and dear Pete, her husband) for all the caring and kindness.

What a wonderful world it would be if everyone was like Anne.

Once again my wishes to you all for a wonderful Christmas and may you all have an "Anne" in your lives.

Wishing you all a truly Merry, merry Christmas.

As this will probably be my last post until after Christmas, I want to take the opportunity of wishing everyone my very best wishes for the most wonderful Christmas ever and may all your wishes for 2009 come true.

I have slowly been posting out my Christmas cards but due to my health haven't been quite as "with it" as last year and if I have missed anyone out or your card doesn't arrive in time, please forgive me!

Anyway here are two of the cards that I have sent out this year, supplemented by a few that I already had in my stash.

The cards on the left were cased from Splitcoaststampers and have been embossed with gold and silver.

The card on the right has been adapted from a card we did at a workshop at Karens in October (thanks for the idea Karen).

I will be spending Christmas day with my eldest daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons. It is going to be a quiet celebration this year as my younger daughter and her family can't make it up from down-country for Christmas Day but hopefully, we will be seeing them Boxing Day at my sisters. That is, if I am not held up too long at the hospital as I have my next chemotherapy session on Boxing Day of all days! Hopefully it will all go okay and with luck we should make it down to my sisters before all the food is gone!

I am so looking forward to 2009 - with luck, all my chemotherapy, tests, and my ileostomy reversal operation will be over by the end of February and I can start to feel 'normal' again and put the past 14 months behind me.

All the best to everyone.

Xmas Roses

Look what I received yesterday from a very clever stamping friend. Aren't they gorgeous and the rosebuds contain a Hershey's chocolate!! Actually it is so beautiful that I won't want to destroy it to eat the chocolates - and that's saying something for me!

Janine has promised to show me how to make these so once I know I will pass it on to you all.

Thanks again Janine for such a lovely present.

SBS Wednesday Challenge #9

This was such a good challenge. You have to use up some of your scraps. I have used some Christmas scraps to make this card:

Believe it or not - for once I was happy with the way such a quickly assembled card turned out.

Perhaps that is the secret - don't try too hard!!

SBS Wednesday Challenge #8

Janet set us the challenge this week of making a card with an animal as the main focus.

Isn't he just the cutest little mouse!

Materials used:

Stamps: Stampin' Up Baroque Motifs and Warm Words, Penny Black "Smell Lovely"
Cardstock: Stampin' Up - Watercolor paper, Very Vanilla, Handsome Hunter, Spring Fling
Ink: Basic Brown
Other: Stampin' Up Watercolor crayons, Blender pen, Dark Green satin ribbon, Corner punch

Happy Anniversary Anne & Pete

Went out to dinner last Sunday night with our good friends Anne & Pete for their 51st wedding anniversary. Nev and I are only youngsters as we have only just celebrated our 45th!

Naturally I had to make them a card (rather a last minute effort I must confess).

This was a real easy card to make. I used the Scribble jumbo wheel and then colored in the flowers using watercolor crayons. Finished it off with the wide Chocolate Chip ribbon.

On the inside I used the jumbo wheel again up one side of the insert.

As I said - real easy and quick to make.

Before we went out to dinner I went to my friend Karen's (check out her blog: The INKredible Journey) who held an open home/mini catalogue/thank you gift session where I made this gorgeous box.

It is filled with chocolates (yummy) and I only held on to it a very short time as I gave it to Anne and Pete for their Christmas Day table. Karen gave a handout sheet so I can easily make another one (or two, or three ......) My biggest problem is that I can't stop myself from sampling the chocolates as I work - mmmm I can feel myself getting fatter and rounder by the minute just thinking about it!

Hope you are all having as much fun as I did.

SBS Wednesday Challenge #7

This week Janet's challenge was a card using summer colors - light blue, light pink, light green and light yellow.

This is my take:

I have used (all Stampin' Up products):

Cardstock: Cool Caribbean. So Saffron, Whisper White, Petals & Paisley DPS

Stamps: Bodacious Bouquet, Riveting

Inks: Cool Caribbean, Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery

Other: Ribbon

I have attempted to give this a summery floral feeling.

SBS Wednesday Challenge #6

The challenge this week was to do a card with a lot of "bling" on it.

Now I'm not a bling-type girl normally and this challenge really challenged me. It has reinforced my opinion that unlike Janet and a lot of others who can create bling-type cards that look really good - I CAN'T. This card ended up nothing like what I would have liked - it is just so NOT me!

Anyway, for what it's worth - here it is and I certainly gave it all the bling I could!!

Think I'm tired - must be suffering from post-op and chemo fatigue as I couldn't even get a decent photo of it. This is despite my having a much needed sleep for 2 hours this afternoon! Oh well, at least it's only tiredness I'm going through at the moment as the pain is minimal thank goodness.

Boy, what a grouch I am tonight

Experimenting with boxes, cardholders and double pocket bags

When time has allowed I've been trying out several tutorials I have found for the above. Here are some I have tried out.

Isn't this just so pretty? It's a Double Pocket Bag by Jenn Diercks

The tutorial is very easy to follow though I should have made Steps 6 to 8 a bit wider as I felt the base was not quite wide enough for it to stand up properly.

Uses 1 piece of 12x12 patterned cardstock or paper so quite economical to make.

This is my take on Cindy Lyles (Starlit Studios) card holder. It takes 6 cards and 6 envelopes.

This is easy to make and can be decorated in various ways.

These card organisers can be found at Dannies Designs. This link should also point you to her video tutorial.

I borrowed a friend's Scor-Pal to do the scoring and have now decided I must have one myself. It makes it so quick and easy. Was really happy with how these turned out though they are fiddlier to do than the other card holders but of course, hold a lot more and also make wonderful recipe holders.

Another must-have for making these is the Crop-a-dile.

Look what Janet sent me!!

I was lucky enough to win the SBS #25 Challenge No. 3 and have just received my prize from Janet in Canada.

Look at the lovely card and the goodies. I have never had a Bella stamp before and I'm not even sure whether these are available in New Zealand. I certainly have never seen them around so I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can create with it.

Thanks Janet - you do such a good job with these challenges and I do enjoy them.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Fancy that - I've been nominated for an award. Thanks so much Karen for nominating me, I feel very special.

AND HERE IT IS ......

The rules are:
1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.
So therefore I nominate:

1. Kristen
2. Leslie
3. Clara
4. Pia
5. Anne-Marie

Thanks again Karen for nominating me.

SBS#25 Challenge No. 5

This was quite a simple challenge this week. We had to make a card using two different kinds of patterned paper. I used paper from Stampin' Ups Spring Fling designer paper series. We also had to use glitter but don't think this shows up very well in my photo.

Hope I'm not too late this time with my entry!!

Well I now have a porta-cath!

Had my porta-cath inserted on Monday. The op went okay and I was back home by mid-afternoon. It has been a bit painful but hopefully it will all settle down in a week or two.

Just a short update and thanks for all your good wishes. Have my next chemo on Friday so hopefully they will be able to use the porta-cath without too many problems (unlike when they tried to access my veins for the op!!)

Stampin' Up's Christmas Extravaganza

Last Saturday I attended Stampin' Up's Xmas Extravaganza.

These are just some of the people in the hall as I couldn't fit all the tables in the one photo. The table I was sitting at is behind me.

The demonstrator in the red top bending over at the nearest table is my friend and fellow SBS#25 sister, Karen who did a fantastic job as did all the demonstrators led by the fabulous Jacquie Pedersen.

Had a fantastic time and we made 5 lovely projects - see more pictures below.

This is the outside and inside views of the pop-up Christmas card - love that Season of Joy stamp set - it's so versatile.

On the left is a bag in a box.

This is a pocket card using an envelope to make the pockets inside.

Mmmm - inside is a yummy chocolate bar. Just undo the bow and pull on the ribbon to remove. These would be great hanging on the Christmas tree.

And to complete the Christmas theme a stamped decorated candle again using the versatile Season of Joy.

SBS#25 Wednesday Challenge #4

Hope I'm going to be in time for this challenge although I think we have been given an extra day. The challenge was to make a birthday card with two embellishments - mine are the ribbon and the flower.

I have kept this fairly plain and simple. Materials used:

Cardstock: Kraft, Ruby Red, Old Olive

Stamps: Stampin' Up "A Little Bit of Happiness" and "It's Your Birthday"

Other: Ribbon, Stampin' Up punches

I'm getting a Porta-Cath!!

I finally made "the big decision" and I am having a little operation next Monday so that they can insert a porta-cath in my chest which will make it so much easier for me having intravenous lines put in and also if necessary, for blood testing.

So all, keep your fingers crossed that it will all go as smoothly as they have assured me it will.

Somehow all my decisions involve choosing between two equally unpleasant things which isn't easy. However, decision made now so no good looking back.

Gee at this rate I will be the bionic woman!

SBS#25 Wednesday Challenge #3

I would like to submit the card I made last Christmas which is in neither red nor green traditional colours.

I used my snowflake CB embossing folder on the Not Quite Navy cardstock then lightly rubbed my glue pad over it and covered with glitter.

Unfortunately this photo does not show up the glitter as it should.

I then mounted the word 'sparkle' and using my round punches attached the silver thread and ribbon around then mounted on the Whisper White cardstock.

Very easy to make and quite effective.

Chemo update

Went for my second chemo treatment yesterday and found it tough getting a line into my poor hand for the intravenous treatment. Have now been persuaded to put my name down for a portacath in my chest which will stay there until my treatment is finished. Still not too sure about getting this as it means having a small operation however guess anything should be an improvement on the difficulty they are having at present in finding suitable veins. My hand and arm are still quite painful today.

Also had two appointments at both Greenlane and Auckland hospitals the day before (Thursday) - the first for a CT scan (more needles and lines to go in to administer contrast dye) and the second appointment for my pre-treatment assessment. CT scan was good and showed no residual cancer so hope that will remain the case cos I'm not going through all this a third time round!

Just going to go into my craft room and do some playing so may have something nice to post to you later.

SBS#25 Challenge No. 2

This challenge was to use a technique that you haven't used before and make a card.

I have chosen the stained glass technique - see tutorial on Splitcoaststampers

I found this a lot easier than I thought to do and here is my entry:

The colours of the bird graphic are just so vivid using this method. I have used Bashful Blue and Very Vanilla cardstock which I embossed on the Cuttlebug using the Birds & Swirls embossing folder. I cut a square out of the VV cardstock and attached the vellum underneath so that the background was the BB.

Give this a go - it's so effective and easy.

Tagged again!

This time I have been tagged by Michelle from SBS#25.

The rules are:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Answer the five sets of five (these are easy)
3. Tag 5 people in the last section by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Things you love:

1. My family of course
2. My dog
3. Paper crafts, particular cardmaking and stamping
4. Sunny days
5. Musicals

Things you don't love:

1. Needles (blood tests & intravenous lines)
2. Supermarket shopping
3. Bad tempered people
4. Inconsiderate drivers
5. Overbearing politicians

Songs on your iPod/Playlist:

1. Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue
2. Album from Mama Mia
3. Neil Diamond: Home before Dark
4. Andrea Bocelli & Celine Dion - The Prayer
5. Georgia on my Mind - Ray Charles

Favourite foods/drinks:

1. My cups of tea
2. Fresh fish
3. Chicken fettucine
4. Lemon Meringue Pie
5. Home made soup

People you are tagging:

1. Viv
2. Cheri
3. Vanja
4. Clara
5. Susanna

Hopefully I will NOT be tagged again - so time consuming!

First challenge for SBS#25 finally completed

Well I have finally finished the first challenge set for the Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers Group #25 (phew, what a mouthful so will forever on refer to them as SBS#25). This challenge wasn't an easy one - 5 cards using the same colours and image but with a different layout and embellishments. Janet posted this challenge and what a challenge it was to come up with 5 different ideas. Very time consuming so - note to SBS#25 - please make future challenges no more than 2 cards, preferably 1.

So to move on ..... here is my offering:

The stamp I have used is from Stampin' Up's Stem Silhouettes set and I have stamped it using the Kaleidacolor Autumn Leaves Rainbow Dye Inkpad. Other colours used, both cardstock and inkpads are all from Stampin' Up - Really Rust, River Rock, Always Artichoke, and Chocolate Chip.

Have kept the concept of all cards fairly simple so as not to overshadow the simplicity of the leaf stem.