Power Poppy June Challenge - Round and Round

When I saw this month's Power Poppy challenge on Kathy Jones' blog I knew I wanted to play along.  I have several sets of gorgeous Power Poppy stamps that I haven't had a chance to use yet - most of them I was inspired to buy after seeing various cards on Kathy's blog! So thanks for the enabling!

I used a large image from the "Go Wild" stamp set to stamp onto Copic friendly paper. Then I pulled out my Copics and began to play. I'm still a beginner at using Copic markers but what I'm discovering is that, for me, a limited colour palette words best. Once it was coloured, I die cut it using a circle die. Then I die cut a stitched circle from some Stampin Up cardstock to use as a mat. I die cut a stitched  rectangle (die from Mama Elephant) and used some glitter texture paste through a Tim Holtz dotted stencil for my background.


I assembled all the pieces of my card, added a sentiment from "Lavender" and then some buttons and sequins from 28 Lilac Lane.

For my next card, I stamped the glass jar and cupcake images from "Under Glass" onto Copic friendly cardstock and then coloured them with my Copics. As before, I die cut my coloured image into a circle and then used a stitched circle die as a mat. I found some scraps of Basic Grey (long time favourite company and still sad that they're no longer around) and cut them into strips for my background.

 I also cut a smaller stitched rectangle and used the same glitter paste through it. I adhered the rectangle to my background then added the circle. I stamped a sentiment from "Under Glass" and die cut it to a circle as well. I then finished my card with some buttons and sequins from 28 Lilac Lane.

Hugs, thanks, you are a great friend ...

It was my birthday last week and I was thoroughly spoiled by my friends with lunches, flowers, lots of laughter and some very thoughtful gifts.

So I wanted to make some nice cards to say thanks. The Scrapbook Boutique challenge mood board with the cherry blossoms was exactly what I was looking for to inspire me - especially since I had some adorable Mama Elephant stamps which perfectly matches the theme of the challenge.

I got out the stamp set and my Copic markers and began colouring. I had to google the lucky cat to make sure I was doing him in the right colours! I added a little bit of C0 around the outside of his body and then just accented his ears and collar with R29 and his medallion with Y19.

The nice thing with this stamp set is that the images are pretty easy to colour and you don't need to use a lot of shades to add depth. I used the matching dies to cut out the stamped and coloured images. Then I used a Mama Elephant die to cut out the stitched frame and 'hugs'. I assembled everything and added a few sequins from 28 Lilac Lane.

Here is my finished card. I can use it as a thank you or encouragement or general friendship card. I stamped and coloured a whole lot of images so now I can make a whole lot of cards!

Thanks for looking!

Happy birthday to my nieces

January is a busy birthday and anniversary month in our family! Two of my nieces have birthdays and both of my sisters have wedding anniversaries. And my own wedding anniversary is in January too!

My oldest niece turned 13 last week and I used a great Power Poppy stamp set called Well Played and a CardMap from Page Maps from January to make this card for her:

The patterned paper is from a Basic Grey (may they rest in peace) B Side 6x6 paper pad. My Copic colouring is very basic!

Another niece turned 10 just a few days after her sister and I made her a rainbow layer cake themed card. Again, my Copic colouring is very basic. I used the Party Time stamp set by Power Poppy and another CardMap from Page Maps. These patterned papers are also from Basic Grey B Side. 

The stitched circle dies I used on both cards are from Cottage Cutz.

I'm entering both these cards into the Power and Spark Challenge for January 2018!

Lawn Fawnatics Food challenge

My most recent obsession is Lawn Fawn stamps - I'm embarrassed to admit how many sets I've bought in the last 6 months. So when I looked at the Lawn Fawnatics challenge site and saw that this challenge is to make a project using food images, I had quite a few stamp sets to choose from!

First up is a card I made from "Best Pun Ever" (and I actually bought this set for these images). Very simple card - I die cut a mat from Watercolour Wishes paper and simply stamped my images and sentiments. I added some clear Distress Stickles on top of the hearts.

Next is a card I made from "Sweet Friends" - these little desserts are just so cute!! I cut 2 mats - one from Watercolor Wishes paper and one from Bristol smooth cardstock. Then I stamped the three images with Black Memento ink. I did some very simple Copic colouring and added details with Spica glitter pens and clear Distress Stickles.

Tim Holtz Summer of Creative Chemistry

OK, so it's been a few months since my last post (in which I said one of my goals for 2016 was to get back into blogging!), but I'm back today posting a card I made for two challenges. Firstly, Tim Holtz is debuting "Creative Chemistry 103" at Online Card Classes, and in the lead up to that new class starting, he is issuing challenges related to CC 101 and CC 102.

Tim's first challenge, based on Days 1 and 2 of Creative Chemistry 101, was to use at least four colours of Distress in a new project.

Here is my card:  I used Shaded Lilac, Blueprint Sketch, Tumbled Glass and Wilted Violet on the background, with Tim's blended distress/spritz & flick technique.

I mentioned that this card was for two challenges. The second challenge was hosted by the Passionate Paper Creations and Friends Facebook page and it was simply to use a Power Poppy image on a project. As it was my birthday last week and I still need to give thank you cards to a few friends, I chose the Lavender stamp set to make my cards.

To stamp the image, I used another of Tim's techniques - the brushless water colour - I used Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio and Wilted Violet inks on my stamp.

Thanks for looking

Scrapbook Boutique challenge

It's been a long time since I blogged - almost 5 years!! One of my goals for 2016 though is to get back into blogging, and what better way than with a challenge.

I have followed the Scrapbook Boutique blog for a long time and always like their monthly challenges, even when I don't get a chance to play along. They have now changed their challenges to a mood board inspiration, so this was like a signal to me to get into both blogging and creating!

I've also been doing a card class with May Flaum - Tried and True: Cards. So I was able to join the class and the challenge and use some really cute Mama Elephant monkey stamps to come up with this birthday card:

Challenges for Scrapbook Boutique

I've been following the Scrapbook Boutique blog for a few months now. In fact it's been ever since I bought the fantastic Fashion Doll die set from them to do an online class at Scrap Time.

Scrapbook Boutique has a great challenge every month but this is the first month I've actually finished the challenge on time! This month the challenge was to use a bow or ribbon on a page. I've made 2 LOs using a bow I fashioned with staples!

The designs for these LOs are based on a formula called "Freaky Fast Pages" (don't you just love the alliteration!) created by Frances Sylvia for The Scrap Room.

China Doll aka me 1/4 of a lifetime ago!

I have been reading a fantastic book called "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See. This has been the first book that our new online book club, hosted by Suzanne Dean at Color Me Creative has read together.

The book is about friendship and life lessons. It's set in China in the 1800s and has been a fascinating read. We were challenged to create a project inspired by the book in some way. And I knew straight away what I wanted to do.

Back when we were living in Hong Kong, I think around 2000, I went to Shenzhen (a Chinese industrial city just across the border from HK) with some of my students. Apparently it's quite a popular thing to do to go to Shenzhen and get some photos taken. We got our hair and makeup done and got to choose our outfits. The photographer was amazing - he only took one of each outfit/pose/hair do and all the photos turned out.

The sketch for this LO was created by Aphra Boyler from The Scrap Room!

So here I am as a China Doll

Want to win ... how about 1000 sheets of paper

Yep, you read right! Amy from "A Thousand sheets of Paper" has just that - 1000 sheets of paper to give away.

Want to see how you can win? Just click here

Meet Gryffindor

We have a new puppy. We are so in love with our new Golden Retriever. Conor decided on the name. His full name is Gryffindor Lyndock McCann. Gryffindor will be obvious to anyone who's read Harry Potter (it's the name of Harry's house at Hogwarts). Lyndock is the name of the ship that our convict ancestor travelled to Australia on back in the 1830s. And McCann is our surname.

Bombo-licious!!

We spent pretty much all of January in Kiama which was just beautiful. Mainly we went to Surf Beach which is 310 steps (yes, Anthony counted!) from our front door. But towards the end of our stay we discovered Bombo Beach, which was only a 5 minute drive away. The beach was just beautiful and it was patrolled and generally there was hardly anyone there. Here is Conor showing his excitement and getting ready for some body boarding action!

More Candy!!

Check out this yummy candy ....
and go to Karen's blog for a chance to win. Make sure you wish her a happy blogaversary!

Creations on holidays

Much to Anthony's dismay (because he's horrified that I can't live without my scrap stuff for 3 weeks) ... I bought my Crop in Style bag with me to Kiama. It's a good thing for Scrap Room kits so that I can easily scrap on the go.

All I needed to do was grab the November and December kits, a few photos, some basic things like trimmer and adhesive and I was all ready to go.

First I created this LO which celebrates DS coming home from hospital in 2008. He was in for 3 weeks on and off with stomach problems - which may or may not have been related to his CF. Anyway, it was great to have him home and we wanted to buy him something to celebrate ... a Thomas Table was perfect ... we'd taken some Thomas track and trains into hospital for him to play with but this table gave him a much better place to play.

Then I created this LO about the difficulty of taking a dog for a walk and convincing a then 5 year old boy that he had to come along. Conor thought it would be fine for me to leave him at home while I walked Belle!!

And finally a couple of cards which I'll post tomorrow!

Blog candy from Zoe

Look at the lovely big picture in my sidebar .. and hop on over to Zoe's blog for a chance to win!

Passing a note about some cool blog candy ....

If you go to Kylie's blog you will see some very cool blog candy ... just in time for Christmas!!!

I'm a boy, not a vegetarian!

For an 8 year old, Conor certainly has a way with words - and really, always has, ever since he started talking.

Last weekend I was making soup for dinner. Although I used a chicken stock base, it was vegetable soup. When Conor asked me what was for dinner and I said "soup" his words were "for crying out loud mum give me something more filling. I'm a boy not a vegetarian!"

I had to ring Anthony to tell him that his son had spoken words close to Anthony's heart - having grown up in the country a meal isn't a meal to him if it doesn't contain meat.

I guess growing boys need something more substantial in their tummies, especially sports mad ones like mine!

Happy Birthday Conor

My baby boy is 8! It was his birthday yesterday. It doesn't feel like I've been a mother for 8 years. Usually when you've done a job for 8 years you should feel like you know what you're doing! But sometimes I really don't! I love being a mum, but it is sometimes challenging. But looking at my gorgeous boy and how proud I am of him all I can say is that I can't wait for what the future brings.

He had his birthday party on Sunday at mPowerdome, which is a local indoor sports centre. There were 16 of his friends and 2 party hosts ... the party hosts wore the kids out playing European handball, indoor soccer and dodgeball. He wanted an ice cream cake which was eaten up very quickly.

Then yesterday for his actual birthday we had a family bbq - mum and dad came over too. He requested vanilla cupcakes.

Anthony came up with a great idea: he asked me to get some photos from all of Conor's birthdays and we put them on the digital photo frame. So we've been playing that all week. I think I'll do the same for Christmas too!

Happy birthday cutie pie! I love you!

Stamp Storage

Quite recently (since the beginning of my obsession with Copic markers) I've found that my unmounted stamp collection has increased. With the majority of my stamps, which are Stampin' Up sets, storage is pretty easy - they are all in the bottom cupboard of a bookshelf in my craft room.

But with these new unmounted ones, I was worried they would get lost on my desk. So I decided that a binder ring was the best solution. I have a series of hooks hanging up on the 2nd desk in my craft room and the binder ring lives on one of the hooks.

So, why am I sharing this now .... I talked about my obsession with Copic Markers. In large part it's because a friend of mine directed me to Lime Tart who have a fantastic Copic Marker Club. And of course they sell tons of cute stamps and other stuff too. And they have a fabulous blog as well.

They have a great blog candy right now, if people share their stamp storage systems on their own blogs, and then link back to the Lime Tart blog they will be entered into a drawing to win the cutest little stamp storage tote. And it's open to international members ... so get blogging!

Happy Halloween part 2, aka "trick a treat"

I'm still learning and fiddling around with Blogger ... can't seem to get the pictures to be the way I want them. Anyway, I decided to start a new post rather than wasting more time formatting the last one!

Trick or treating is still not really big though. I'm not sure why, but Conor LOVES the idea of Halloween. Last year he wanted a Halloween party for his birthday. And this year he really wanted to go trick or treating so I eventually decided "why not". He has this great pirate costume that my sister gave him for his birthday 3 years ago and it still fits him.

He had a whole act he was going to do .. knock on the door and say "trick a' treat" (that's the way he pronounces it). Then if they didn't reply he would say (in a pirate-y voice) "do I have to get out my sword?". Then he would say "just tricking" and walk away. Of course he was too shy to actually do it! We went to 3 neighbours houses and he struck gold (or rather chocolate) at the first one! Nothing from the other 2 though. Then we walked to to of his school friends houses who live nearby. At the first house it had been his friend's birthday party so he got a big handful of goodies. And at the second house they'd had a Halloween party the night before so he was lucky enough to get some candy corn that had come from America! Then we went to mum and dad's where he got 2 packs of chips! So he was more than happy

He had a really nice idea too .. he took along a treasure bag of gold coins and decided that anyone who gave him lollies would get a gold coin!

The interesting thing was that as we were driving back from mum and dad's we saw 2 groups of people out trick or treating. And we got a doorbell call that night!