Time flies...

Hi all,
I can't believe it's been almost exactly a month since the last post.  I clearly remember each weekend coming and going again at a rate of knots, and reminding myself that I should get into the study and post something (always at the most absurd times, too - like while I was in the middle of the supermarket or driving the kids somewhere - never when I could drop everything and jump onto the computer right that minute).

So, let's do a quick catch up, shall we?  In the last four weeks I have managed to make 12 cards (averaging three a week - which is awesome for me - so you can see that even though I haven't been online, I've still been busy!) consisting of two cards for Secret Sisters, two for farewells, one as a "just because" for a commission, one for my stash and 6 for birthday cards.  Busy, busy, busy!

I'm going to upload them slowly over the next week or so, just in case you go into shock at the fact that I'm actually posting ANYTHING, let alone a heap of cards *grin*.

First cab off the rank is my Secret Sister card for April.  The theme was Easter, using pastel colours and including wire.  I like to stick to themes as much as possible - they push me out of my comfort zones by making me use what I normally wouldn't.  With this one, it was the mix of Easter and pastel colouring - I don't do much of either, if left to my own devices (although I eagerly take part in the bounty of the Fuzzy Chocolate Deity!). 

This is the stamp, which I've coloured with Copics.  The flower is toled twice - first layer is the the flower on top of the leaves and egg, second layer is the centre of the flower.

Of course, being a card I made in April, I haven't kept track of what colours I used.
And here's the finished piece:

Sorry about the darkness - had some issues with my beastly camera.  The flowers are from my stash, the punched edge was made using the Martha Stewart punch set "Double Arches" and the Happy Easter stamp is from the Stampin Up! set "All Year Cheer 1".

The second card I've got for you tonight is one using the brayer on gloss card again, plus a new stamp (which is why I made it - had to try out the new arrivals!). 

The tree is by Unity Stamp Co called "Dream Tree", the sentiment was made using my ProvoCraft alphabet in Circa 18pts and I spritzed the inks with water before I brayered them onto the gloss white card, which is why it's got that funky texture happening.

I then layered the image onto a 6x6 piece of paper from the Prima pad called "Reflections Collection", popped on some flowers (the stunningly gorgeous one in the bottom left hand side is also by Prima, called "Cloissone Bronze"), punched out a handful of butterflies from newspaper which had been spritzed with walnut ink using a Martha Stewart punch called "Classic Butterfly" to pick up on the background paper and...voila!

A little busier than I would normally go for, but it really appealed to me when I made it, and it obviously appealed to someone else, because my mum sold it (and heaps more) when she took them in to her work the other week.

So there you have it - a slight catch up on what's been happening in the world of Bronwyn.  I will post another set of cards for you to peruse soon.  I am off for the weekend (Friday to Sunday) to attend a craft camp, so am hoping to come back from that with even MORE creations to share.

Until then,
Happy crafting!
Bron

One for the stash, and a quick catch up

Hi all,

Just a quick post today - I was showing my mum (who started off as a scrapbooker, but who has slowly been dragged away from the dark side and is now a stamper who strays every so often) the embossed resist technique onto a piece of newspaper, using a funky fern stamp from Stampin Up from the set "Kind & Caring Thoughts".  I clear embossed onto the newspaper until all the powder has melted, then covered the image over with Ranger's Distress Ink "Pine Needles" using a sponge and buffed off the excess ink so that the clear embossing with the print underneath showed through.  The thick stripe down the left hand side is actually part of the newspaper article and is in a bottle green, which inspired the colour of the ink I used:

Then I made it up into a card, layering the embossed image onto a strip of Bazzil cardstock (a seafoam colour which I stamped with the same stamp using the Pine Needles ink again), then layered onto a piece of 6x6 paper from the Basic Grey pad "Two Scoops" which in turn went over a script stamp by Hero Arts "Old Letter Writing S4878" in Stampin Up's "Whisper White" ink onto a bottle green/dark teal card (brand unknown):

For a quick demo image, it turned into a pretty good card, I think.

More news is that my team was too late by two days to register for the Oxfam Trailwalker challenge I wrote about in my last post.  So that's not happening this year.  Maybe next year. There are a couple of other walking challenges happening this year and as soon as the girls and I are back from our Easter breaks, we'll look into what we can do instead.

My studio concreting was finished and then DH and I did a moderately alright job of covering the concrete with linoleum (not helped by the fact that the lino is years old and when we re-did our kitchen I sourced the last of the stock from the company who made it, which meant that we had to piece the area in the studio together with offcuts I had in the garage, kind of like a crazy quilt).  Let's just say that it does the job and leave it at that, shall we?

The new cupboard/shelving unit went into the studio almost before the glue had had a chance to dry and I have pretty much already filled it all, which means that you can actually see my worktables again (not for long, given how I create, but it's nice to remember what they look like).

And that's pretty much it for today.  I have a three commission cards which I need to complete, but once I have, you'll get to see what I've been doing.  Plus there is a Secret Sister card for April which I can post early next month (can't do it yet, in case my SS sees it here and knows who the creator is before the "big reveal".

I hope everyone has had a good break, whether you celebrate Easter or not. 

Until next time,
Happy crafting!
Bron

Violin card and the last two weeks

Hi all,

Such a crazy two weeks it's been.  My eldest daughter turns 10 tomorrow (Monday) and so we had her birthday party today - ice skating (the first time she's done it - a huge OMG moment on my part, as I could see either her or any number of the guests collapsing in heaps to the sounds of broken bones and sprained whatevers!).  Fortunately for her guests and my nerves, the 2 hours passed without major mishap, with only the shivering one associates with ice skating and 14 under-dressed, prepubescent girls (what is it about girls and the need to dress in the most impractical wardrobe imaginable?)  I have no idea where they get their ideas from - I'm an army brat and DH is a country boy - we were raised that when you go somewhere, you wear clothes that are practical to the situation and which save you from being injured - sunburn, frostbite, skinned knees, wind chapping etc.  My girls both rocked up with about 5 layers of tops, jeans, scarves and gloves, so they were fine - but one of the little pretties showed up in shorts and a t-shirt (so did dad and big brother, who were dropping her off - and admittedly it was a shorts and t-shirt kind of day - but for 2 hours of ice skating!?!)

Still, we made it through, and no one went home in tears, vowing never to return, which is the main thing.

I have bought tickets to the Miley Cyrus concert in June.  Both daughters are getting their tickets as birthday presents from DH and I - eldest as a late present, and youngest as an early one (her birthday is in November, so it works out nicely).  DH has opted out of coming with us, so it's going to be a girls weekend with just the three of us - and our seats are absolutely awesome.  Section 2, row A - why couldn't that have been at the Bon Jovi concert in December, or the Pink concert before that?!  Anyway, regardless of who we are going to see, the seats are awesome and the girls are stoked, so it was well worth it.

Now onto the craft :)  I have a lovely stamp by Stamps Happen called "Overture" #90285 which is beautiful to look at and fun to colour.  The colour indexing on the stamp is fairly dark, to my mind, so I've lifted it a little with the colours I used.  I think it makes a fairly unisex card for a music lover :

I stamped it on watercolour paper with Versafine in Black and coloured it with Derwent watercolour pencils.

Then I made it into a card by mounting it onto a piece of cut down sheet music (real, not a printout), and layering it onto a piece of midnight blue cardstock.  The sentiment is StampWorld's "Happy Birthday" A559, on a scrap of the same watercolour paper:

Other news is that I've had some concreting done in my studio.  If you can imagine a horseshoe shape, that used to be the layout of our house.  Then, many years ago, I got the open part of the horseshoe walled and roofed in and that room became my studio.  However, when I had the workmen come in to lay the concrete slab, I had them leave me an almost 2m x 1.5 m area unconcreted.  The grandiose and not well thought out plan (no natural light whatsoever gets into that corner) was to have an inside atrium, allowing me to grow "things".  It had wonderful drainage, was planted up, over time, with hundreds of dollars worth of plants guaranteed to survive even the blackest of black thumbs (they didn't make allowances for me and my no natural light floorplan) and it became the bane of my creative space - a complete waste of an area which ended up housing nothing but dessicated (but previously gorgeous, dark and rich) soil, the odd pot and a garden gnome.  So I have had it concreted over in it's entirety (barring the grate for the drain, which is fabulous for when the creative urge gets messy and I have to hose stuff off - or maybe when I'm having a Dexter moment and need to do clean up) and next weekend will be the laying of the lino and the installing of the workstation for tools (die cutting machine, guillotine etc) and the bookshelf/cupboard for "stuff".  Yayyyy!

Lastly, and not crafting related, is that I am thinking fairly seriously about signing up for the Oxfam Trailwalk at the end of August this year.  The challenge is to walk 100km in 48 hours (that's 62.14 miles, for those of you still working in imperial).  And it's hiking on a trail, not walking on footpaths.  So I've got to start training, if I'm going to do it.  Of course, someone could just put me out of my misery and have a Dexter moment of their own before I have to take part (it would help me save face in front of the other girls on the team).  I keep talking myself into it, and then I do 2 hours on my treadmill and talk myself out of it again.  Still, 19 weeks before the actual weekend we do it, so I've got time to get into some kind of shape.  At the moment, the shape is kind of squishy and nowhere near ready for 13+ hours of walking per day for two days, but in 19 weeks, I can probably get it to the point where I don't start whimpering until...oh, I don't know.... two or three kilometres down the track!  One of the things we have to commit to is raising $1000 in donations, so I will be advertising this pretty hard, the closer I come to doing it.  Just thought I'd warn you.

Until next time,
Happy crafting!
Bron

A Secret Sister card and one for my stash

Hi all,
I haven't been particularly creative in the last week or so, but I've managed to get my tax done (the 09/10 financial year - and yes - I know it's April - I'm a lazy cow if given the opportunity), and "discovered" a band who has been around for a couple of years, but one of their songs was used on a recent episode of "House M.D." and I just had to have the album.  Black Lab is the band, and the album is "Passion Leaves a Trace".  I know you are probably all yawning and telling me that it's nice I've finally made it into the 21st century, but I'm pretty impressed with their work.  The song which grabbed me was "This Night", and it's playing as I type this entry.

What else have I been up to?  Oh - there is a Secret Sister group I have been part of for a number of years which has started up the 2011 swaps, so I did my first card for that.  We are given themes and a randomly selected name of the person who will be receiving our card that month, and you can choose to use the themes or go with something else - entirely up to you.

March's theme was houses, and this is what I came up with:

The image is by Stampington & Co "Stacked Birdhouses K5151" and I coloured it with Rexel Derwent Watercolour pencils.  I used Versafine in black to stamp onto Stampin Up! Natural Ivory.

Then I made the card:

The friendship circle stamp comes from the Stampin Up! set "Think Happy Thoughts", the bird background paper from the 6x6 paper pad "Earth Love" by Cosmo Cricket.  The rest of the stuff came from my stash.

Secondly, there is a fairy image I made using A Day for Daisies digi-stamp called "Little Nymph".  I did the colouring waaaay back before I had a blog, so have no idea what colours I used, although I do remember I used my Copics (they were still new - that's how long ago I'm talking), and Tammy from A Day For Daisies was looking for cards to put in her new store gallery.  I didn't make it into a card properly until now (I sent Tammy a picture of the image blu-tacced onto a piece of patterned paper - it was definitely amateur hour in my household that day - I was in a rush).  Anyway, the original image was still hanging around, so I finally got it out (inspired by a conversation with my friend Kasey regarding UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) and completed it. 

The leaves and bling are from my stash, the card is Stampin Up Old Olive, the happy thoughts circle stamp is from the Stampin Up! set "Think Happy Thoughts" and the layer paper in that wonderful multicoloured, psychedelic pattern is from the 6x6 paper pad ""Lime Rickey" by Basic Grey.

And that's pretty much it for me at the moment.  The husband and the kids are going visiting tonight, so I have the house just to myself - we'll see what happens.  Now, though, I think I'm off to do some housework and catch up on the boring stuff, so I know I'm free tonight to play.

Happy crafting!

Bron

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