Another birthday card and some cupcakes

Today there was a celebration for one of the girls at work - her birthday is on Sunday and she's taking a long weekend to be with family for the big day.  So, instead of missing out on cake, or having to wait ('cos patience is not a virtue when it comes to cake and anyways, I'm bad at it!), I pre-empted her, asked for her cake preferences and came up with our afternoon tea for today (not to mention her card, which got signed by everyone this morning).  I admit I may have steamrollered her a *little*, but it was for the good of the branch - we all got cake!

First cake choice was Carrot, Walnut and Honey.  I found heaps of recipes for Carrot and Walnut cakes, so when I found one that had Maple Cream Cheese frosting, I simply substituted honey for the maple syrup in the frosting. Voila! One birthday cake choice done:

Second (but equal) choice was White Chocolate Mudcake.  Welllllllll....  I found a recipe for White Choc Mud Cupcakes with white chocolate ganache and just went to town.  I also found a packet of solid white chocolate Easter eggs while grabbing the rest of the ingredients for my bake-a-thon and used those as my decorations.

These turned out evilly good (goodly evil?!)  Whatever - after we recovered from the sugar coma, we all agreed that they were pretty damn nice.

And last but not least was her card, which I made in preparation a couple of weeks ago but couldn't post in case she saw it before she received it.

I am really happy with this card.  It doesn't do it near enough justice in the photo, because I stamped the dress (Stamps Happen "Vogue Silhouette" which I can't find online - has Stamps Happen closed down???) on the black patterned paper (Bo Bunny Press "Unforgettable Kiss" double sided 12x12) and cut it out, then layered it onto the SU Natural Ivory using silicon, so it had dimension.  Added some sparkles with Ranger Stickles in Platinum, some blinged up Prima flowers and a Penny Black sentiment ("Birthday Girl") and put in all on Bo Bunny Press' "Unforgettable" double sided paper and mount onto black and then DL sized SU Natural Ivory cardstock.  Ta Da!

That's all folks - I'll catch up with you all later.

Happy crafting!
Bron

A quick wedding card

Evening all,
Just wanted to share with you all a card I made this afternoon (thank goodness it was the one day of the week I leave work early to pick up the kids from school - I had all afternoon to put it together).

I was approached by one of the guys I work with about an hour before I left this afternoon.  Could I throw together a card for a wedding he is going to on the weekend (ergo, he'd need it by tomorrow, he was leaving at lunchtime as the wedding is out of town)?  Hmmmm - okay, says I - give me lots and lots of details (I think I startled him a bit as to what kind of details I wanted - hair colour of bride and groom etc so I could personalise the card).

However, he's one of those rare chaps who actually pays attention to details, so he was able to give me the colours on the wedding invitation (purple and peacock), the colours of the accessories the groom and groomsmen are wearing (ties/handkerchiefs/cummerbunds etc), although he admittedly pointed at a Post It note and said - "that kind of yellow" and I immediately wrote down "buttermilk" (I was reading an article that says, on average, women see a much broader colour range than men - probably the reason we have to give colours so many identifiers: "Yes dear, there IS a difference between teal, aqua and turquoise!").  Basically, he supplied me with enough info to happily accept the commission.

I went with my old favourite (used just recently, too - must be the season), Happy Couple by Stampendous and paper pieced the groom's jacket and the bride's dress again (black cardboard and thick ivory pearl paper respectively).  Did her veil in Twinkling H2O's "Heavenly White" and the rest of the colouring in Copics to match hair and skin colour.  All on Stampin Up's "Natural Ivory" cardstock.

The bling on her hem is in silver and royal purple gems, although the royal purple came out more a red violet shade than a blue violet shade in the photo - very irritating.  The bouquet is Kindy Glitz in Purple, with one of those teeny tiny silver crystal flowers by Heidi Swapp I've mentioned before.

I stacked the image onto a layer of metallic dark green paper called Metallic Emerald, after punching the corners with a Stampin Up corner punch which was offered in one of their minis for a couple of months (don't know if it's still available).  This then got layered onto a 6x6 card made of Stampin Up's Elegant Eggplant cardstock.  The bottom ribbon is purple shot with dark green and a second skinny ribbon is layered on top which is dark green shot with silver.  I stamped the Eggplant cardstock with Eggplant ink, using two Paper Pleasure Plus stamps which I can't find anywhere to show you - but they are beautiful feathers, aren't they?

And although you can't see it, I went very sparingly around the edges of the feathers with Stickles in Patina, so it's got the green, blue, silver thing going.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I can only hope that he feels the same.

Now it's time to wander off to bed - tomorrow is another fun filled day!

Happy crafting!
Bron

5 day weekends - gotta love them!

Hello to all my crafting friends and acquaintances (plus all the drop ins who have stumbled across my humble blog).  How is everyone today?

I have come back from a 3 day stay in Brisbane, where I caught the on-stage production of Wicked (the cast was slightly different from when I saw it in Sydney almost 6 months ago, which gave the Brisbane production a different feel, which let me kinda sorta experience it for the first time while still knowing all the words to all the songs - yayyyyy!), went to the Brisbane Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA).  A very exciting few days where we all (hubby and kids came with me) walked and talked and ate and watched and saw and listened and had a complete blast.  GOMA was awesome - I had to drag my DH kicking and moaning about visiting an art gallery, but it has so many interactive parts to it, he came out admitting that he had had a better time than he ever expected he would.  There was a room chock full of (over 3000) huge purple balloons which they allowed groups into, to "swim" around in.  It is a very bizarre sensory experience, to wander around in a room completely surrounded by balloons.  And there was an incredible wall of wishes.  There were thousands of holes drilled into the wall and in each hole was a ribbon with a wish printed on it.  On either side there was a small table with paper and pencils and you are meant to write down your own personal wish, roll it up tightly and exchange your paper wish for a ribbon which appealed to you.  The artist comes and gathers all the paper wishes and prints the ones she likes onto ribbon, so there is a chance that next time, it will be your wish being taken out into the world by someone who it appeals to.  My eldest daughter swapped her paper wish for a ribbon printed with "I wish I could have my own pet".  My youngest considered "I wish I was a princess" for her ribbon, but settled on another one (can't remember what it was - possibly the one about wanting superpowers).  We also managed to catch up with a friend we haven't seen in person for about 5 years, so all in all, it was a wonderful trip.

Before we left, I had to do a couple of farewell cards for a couple of people in my division who are wandering away to discover what else is out there.  I finished them off at 1am in the morning and took very quick photos of them, so there are no before and after shots, and they are a little blurry (which, considering I was a little blurry at that time of the morning, after a full day's work, is not all that surprising).

So, the first is for Kate:

The recipe is as follows:
Stamps: Bugaboo Stamps Skelekinz No Sunshine, Stampin Up Sanded background stamp
Copics:  YR000 (skin), Y26, YR14 & E39 (hair), BV04 (edging around image, umbrella & clothes), BG11 (water), W2 (bones on umbrella & clothes), C5 & 110 (shoes)
Everything else is grabbed from my stash, in a hurry :)

And then there is Michael's farewell card:

It uses:
Stamps: Paperbag Studios Wherever You Go, Stampin Up Sanded background
Inks: Versafine Vintage Sepia, Stampin Up Very Vanilla.
Paper: Basic Grey "Granola" 6x6 paper pad
Cardstock: Bazzill "Java"
Ribbon and brads from stash.

Until next time,
Happy crafting!
Bron

The completed tree grove card, as promised

Hi there all, just thought I'd show you all the card I made out of the tree image from the last post.

I edged the picture in Distress Inks "Brushed Corduroy" and "Walnut Stain", then added a little sponged Stazon Timber Brown around the very edges.  Ran the Bazzil cardstock through the Cuttlebug with the embossing folder "Victoria", used yarn from Finishing Accents "Trims Black Assorted" to wrap around the layer paper, which came from the Basic Grey 6x6 paper pad "Origins" and embellished with Prima flowers and leaves.

So there you have it - another brayered image made into a card, and a second post in one day.  The world must shortly be coming to an end.

Until then,
Happy crafting!
Bron

A friendly visit, some demos and a wedding

So many things to tell you!  I received a commission from one of the girls at work (who is also a celebrant) for the wedding she is performing in a couple of weeks.  She wanted a wedding folder to store the service and some other bits and bobs, which she would then present to the couple at the end of the ceremony.  The colours had to be apple green and hot pink (something to do with the flower girls, I think) and it had to be big enough to house a few A4 pages comfortably (21 x 30 cms approximately), which is our standard page size here in Australia.  Everything else was entirely up to me.

I used my favourite wedding stamp, Stampendous' V126 Happy Couple and paper pieced her dress and his jacket.  Her veil got a fine sheen of "Heavenly White", a Twinkling H2O watercolour by Luminarte.  The hot pink glitter on her dress and flowers is Magenta Stickles by Ranger, which I can't find on their website, but in my search I did find that Ranger has brought out all of their Distress Ink colours in Stickles glitter glue - Antique Linen, Stormy Sky, Aged Mahogany and all their siblings!  Yayyyyy!  I can see my future is glittery but poor!

Lastly, for the wedding pic, I put the tiniest little stick-on gem flower in silver crystal onto her bouquet.  The flower is by Heidi Swapp, and is not being advertised for sale anywhere that I could find :(

So, I had found a piece of poster board at my local newsagent in the perfect apple green.  Went around the corner of the next display and found a whole side of that display was scrapbooking stuff, including a roll of apple green ribbon with hot pink glitter dots - and the green was the exact colour of the poster board.  Couldn't believe my eyes - the only roll there in those colours.  As you can imagine, it got snatched up and I hot-footed it to the counter to pay for it!  I cut the poster board down to size and folded it.  Used Stampin Up's "Rose Red" for the A4 sized hot pink layer, more of the poster board for the next layer, a piece of random 12x12 from my stash (the credits say "M.O.D", but I didn't take any notice of the rest of them, so can't tell you exactly which company made it).  Cut the layers out with my Nestibilities in the "Curved Rectangle" set and stamped up the word "Love" using a Paper Pleasure Plus stamp (GC353 Love).

I also had a crafting friend over yesterday, down from Queensland.  Her name is Kasey and she has a lovely blog (which, since she is travelling, she isn't posting to at the moment, but give her a couple of days and she'll be back into it) - go check it out: Kasey's Craft Corner.  Anyway, she asked me to do a brayering demo for her and her friend Karen, so I did a couple of things.  And the next thing she asks is when to expect to see the finished cards on my blog.  So... just for you, Kasey... here they are!

I brayered onto gloss with Kaleidacolor's "Flannel" inkpad (one of my favourites), stamped Penny Black's "Rainbow Flower" in Stazon Black ink, overstamped with A Stamp In The Hand's "Background Text - Thin" in Stazon Metallic Gold (which you can barely see, but it's there).  The sentiment is PSX's "C-2509 - With Love".

Layered up on random cardstock from my stash in dusky pink, black and lavender, add a couple of stick on gems in black and there you have it.

The second image is still just an image rather than made into a full card yet (it will happen, I just ran out of Saturday).  I was demo-ing brayering with multiple inks from assorted inkpads, rather than a composite pad like the Kaleidocolors.  I used Stampin Up "Bashful Blue", "Old Olive" and a hint of Adirondack's "Butterscotch" between the two, spritzed liberally with water before brayering onto the gloss card.  Overstamped with Judikins "2633G Winter Trees", PSX "F-2563 Great Love" and Stamps By Judith Stubbies "AAA-04 Dots" and "AAA-154 Solid Daisy" in Stazon Timber Brown.

I've found the paper I'm going to layer it onto - now I'm off to finish the card.  Hopefully, I'll post the finished product this afternoon or evening (two posts in one day - time for a Bex and a lie down!)

Until then,
Happy Crafting!
Bron

When you're having fun...

Well - I can't believe that it's been almost three weeks since my last post!  Sorry to anyone who has been waiting with bated breath for an update - I've no excuses (and unfortunately, nothing much of interest to report as to why it's been so long).  I sifted through ideas for my canvas and about 10 days ago I came up with something which seemed to work in my head, smeared the canvas with texture paste, waited for that to dry and then mixed some paint and put that on.  Now I've stalled because I need to go and get some more paint from the art store.  And some more texture paste - the canvas is so big that I used a solid half jar of what I had left, and then another half jar of impasto gel, made by another company - and it's amazing how different each of the mediums are, considering I had been told that they are interchangeable.  They are not!  The texture paste is something between thick paint and soft clay and you can mould it into defined edges and lines (think heavy meringue that you can form into peaks).  The brand of impasto gel I used was akin to the hair gel I remember using in the late 80s (yes, I know that's dating me!), and although it gives depth, the effect is much smoother, with less definition than the texture paste.  Useful for the right project, but not what I had in mind, unfortunately.

I'm not going to give you pictures of the canvas yet, although I have taken them, to record the journey.  I figure I will finish it and then have a humongous post detailing the steps.

So, onto the next thing I have done.  Last week we had two birthdays at work, so, as the branch EA, I compiled a list of everyone's birthday and brought it home so I could create cards.  The next one is this coming Tuesday (2 March), so today I pulled out the card making supplies.  First, I chose a Hambo digistamp for the main image and coloured it with my Copics:

The recipe is as follows:
Copics
YR21 & YR24 for beaks, feet and hat pompoms
B24 and B26 for the blue bird and one of the hats
E34 and E37 for the brown bird and one of the hats
YG41 and YG45 for the green bird and one of the hats
R12 and R14 for the red-ish bird and one of the hats
E74 and W-7 for the ground

Stamps
Hambo "Silly Birds With Hats"
Provo Craft alphabet "Circa 18 pts"
Cardstock
Stampin Up! Green Galore and Gable Green
Paper
Junkitz 6x6 pad "Salsa"

And the result is:

I am fairly happy with it.  I have real difficulties with masculine cards, especially for someone I don't know very well.  I have no idea about favourite colours or what his interests are, so I had to settle for something fairly generic.  For all of that, it works, so I'll get everyone to sign it tomorrow and we can have a morning or afternoon tea for him.  Any excuse for cake!

Okay, so that's what I've been doing, more or less.  I'm going to go and read all the blogs I've been ignoring for the last three weeks.

Catch up with you later, but in the meantime,
Happy crafting!
Bron

Canvases and maternity cards

Hello again,
Once more time has run away with me and I have been sucked into real life instead of being able to wallow in the world of creation and art, where I would prefer to be.  Both my daughters started school yesterday, so we've had the preparation and getting their school packs delivered and finding out which class and teacher they will be having.  And especially there is the calming down of two under 10s who have been on holidays for almost two months - arrrgghh!  Still, we have managed to accomplish the impossible - so I can strike it off the list of six things to achieve before breakfast :)

One of my bosses went on maternity leave today.  Monday was the farewell "high tea", and I was asked to make the farewell card, which needed to be big enough for everyone in the branch to sign (I work for a government department and our branch is small, but it still needed to have room for almost 30 people to leave a message).  I ended up folding an A4 card in half and using a digi stamp from Bugaboo stamps for the front.  I love the way you can manipulate digi images so they can be as big or as small as you require.  Then it was out with the trusty Copics and here she is:

Then it was onto making the card itself:

I was very happy with how it turned out, and, more importantly, so was my boss :)

The recipe is as follows:
Copics: E11, E13, E15, E25, E47, E49, E55 and YG97 (green for the eyes)
Ink: Colourbox Chalks in Lavender
Stamps: Bugaboo "JJ Grow People" and Hero Arts "Lots of Wonderful (D4644)"
Cardstock: Stampin Up! More Mustard
Paper: Scrapbook Walls "Butter Dahlia (Item #20722)"
Flowers and brads from stash.

The only other thing I have been doing was to actually drag out one of the two canvases I had leaning against the wall and give it it's first coat of gesso.  I have a before and after pic for you to see.  In the before photo, I have blurred out all the words on it - it was a canvas advertising my old company and I was unsure of the infringement implications, so I'm playing it safe LOL.

 As you can see, the canvas is leaning against a three drawer filing cabinet, which will give you an idea of the size of it.  Don't ask me why I chose to start with a canvas which is over a metre high (120 x 85cms to be exact) - I must be a sucker for punishment!  And, of course, I have now stalled, because I have no idea what I want to paint.  Do I do trees, or flowers, something modern, symmetrical, geometric? Do I doodle or sketch something recognisable (I am not a good drawer, so I guess that answers that particular question!).  The possibilities are overwhelming and so it now stands in the same spot, altered only by one layer of gesso:

I will get around to painting another layer one of these days and see if I get inspired along the way.

Nothing much else to report, I'm afraid.  I will post again later - it's off to bed for me now!

Happy crafting,
Bron