Magical Christmas

 My card for Virginia's View challenge #5 - Die Cut, is a Christmas card featuring snowflakes. I die cut two sizes of snowflakes, used the smaller negative to add some texture paste flakes to my card top; I'd added some glitter to see if I could get them to sparkle (the photo  is terrible as it all looks much darker than it actually is and the snow flakes look cream). After they dried I created the snow bank and trees and then laid the wax die cuts on the page and sponged Distress Inks in blue and mauve, then I lightly spritzed it with Perfect Pearls, added some gems. I sponged the two die cut snowflakes with DI and spritzed them too and used a foam dot to give dimension. I stamped and embossed my sentiment and then layered the card with white and pale blue onto a white card base. I'm really happy with the result - it's soft and magical. I am also going to post my card to Christmas Cards All Year Round - for July the theme is non traditional colours.  Thanks for taking a peek Robyn

My Dear Friend

Have been quietly working away at my desk this afternoon watching a movie and this card has come  together just lovely. I'm using the layout at Retro Sketches #123.  I love these colours and fished around in my scraps drawer and happily found all these bits that blend together. I used a Post Card tag and die cut the flower then added some pearls for the center. I mounted all this on some very old handmade paper and finished off the card with a tag stamped with my sentiment.  Thanks for taking a peek Robyn 

Friday Smiles - Beware of Hungry Hair

Friday Smiles everyone.....My chuckle today is another of those newspaper sheets I found in the back of the in-laws wedding photo....Beware of HUNGRY HAIR (click the photo so you can read the small print), I like the bit at the bottom too -Watch your daily shower!!!

PS....I couldn't resist adding this one for Annie and you mad seamstress's

Now I'll share a few photos from the weekend...we thought we'd enjoy breakfast on our balcony is the morning sun....and of course the kookas were quick to join us. 

 They had to wait till Stephen has finished..

 no soon had he started to feed them and the drongos arrived...look how close, this one came between us.

And this one I caught just hovering there...looks real mean, bit scary in that post.

At the very end, one drongo even swooped in and took the meat from the kookas beak....

Pop over to Annies blog and join in with Friday Smiles

Cheers and hope you are enjoying your week.... me (sad face) I'm on my own with Arthur and Henry as hubby's off to celebrate with his dad - 90th birthday - whoops it's turned into a happy face, what a great age and he's keeping so well, happy birthday Mr O, sorry I can't be there... Never mind though - I can crafty my little self crazy Robyn

Love my Cat

 
A quick card from me late yesterday, too dark to photograph....I'm posting it to the CASology week 104 challenge - the theme is Pet. Also to ColourQ #250 where I've opted to add one spot colour, pinkish terracotta, to the base black and white. Don't you just love this stamp - stamps up so well and I've had it for years.  My card is pretty straight forward CAS and I've added some scored lines for fun. We've recently adopted two kitties, they are brothers and thankfully they get on really well...so this card is appropriate for me. Thanks for taking a peek Robyn

Happy 90th Birthday

"More Than One Score" Challenge #6 - Colors of Your Country/Patriotic

I had a very special card to make for my father-in-law who is to celebrate his 90th birthday this weekend. So I decided on a card in a box. I redesigned the standard card to make it 3x2x7 inches and put three inner pieces...so there was lots of scoring. Then the whole thing was decorated with layered punched stars and some bling I bought and cut up to suit. I distress ink colour a mug of beer (which he loves) and added various sentiments. I used  oval dies to cut the 90 and hand cut the nine to shape. I'm really happy with the card and am glad it is being hand delivered as it just fits in an A4 envelope. I'm posting my card to the Sco-pal #6 challenge and am glad I had the Scor-pal to assist with keeping the card all square. Thanks for taking a peek Robyn
Top 3 at Scor-pal

Merry Christmas Bauble

I do enjoy playing along with Merry Monday challenges  - this week #117, Deanne would like to see sequins on the card...
I see they are coming back into vogue so my long kept stash is coming in handy. I just stamped my large ornament on metallic green card and embossed it, and added to twos of sequins/beads, a string and little bow. Mounted all this on a white card that I used a die to cut and emboss in a curve and underlayed that with darker green metallic card, just added an embossed sentiment to finish the card. Thanks for taking a peek Robyn

What's On Your Workdesk, Wednesday?

Hi and how is it in your corner of the world today - all good here and I'm a bit later with my post for WOYWW#267 as hubby has just come home and I haven't even thought about dinner...oh well, I've been busy making his father a 90th birthday card, you can see the beginning of it on my desk pad and it's still not finished so I'll have to remember to show you next week. 

 Next to my desk on the left is my printer with the card tree on it. Then  on the left is my tray of ink cubes, a bunch of birthday stamps in front, I'm trying to decide which ones to use on the card. Next little pile is the sparkly decorations to go in the card, that's a rough up of it in the middle because I changed the dimensions.
My laptop over there near the window with a folder of stamps. Underneath is my glue and sticky bits drawer open because I've just cleaned it out this minute (when I took the pic this morning) as it had become a dumping spots for allsorts...why do you do that...got an important card to finish and I'm tidying things. Pic below just a close up.

Now I want to share with you my mini album I decided to make for my WOYWW ATCs. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, still have to finish the insides....thank you Hettie for the idea.

Please pop  over to Julias  blog to read all the guff about sharing your desk on WOYWW...it's addictive and I love it, now I'd better go and make dinner but I'll be back to do some desk hopping later. Cheers and hope you had a fab week and were able to do some crafting.

Thank you to all my visitors last week Robyn

Our Beautiful World blog hop winner

Today we announce the winners of the Our Beautiful World first year celebrations blog hop.
My prize goes to Skye of Australia who played along and shared these two photos with us.
Thank you Skye for taking the time to leave comments on the teams blogs...please email me and we'll arrange for your prize to be delivered.

Be happy, Be yourself

A quick card from me this afternoon, using my newish hexagon die. I've made a card using the palette at Colour Q #249...I love these bright happy colours and made them the feature of the card with a thoughtful sentiment. Thanks for taking a peek Robyn

Leave Room in Your Life

Today I'd like to thank the team at City Crafters for inviting me to a guest designer.

 The inspiration for Week 220 is to  use Chipboard

I must say I haven't made too many cards in the past with chipboard but do have some old pieces in my stash.  So I went searching and came up with more bits than I thought. I've made four totally different cards for the challenge. 

The first - a purple Friend  card was inspired by a pack of pre coloured and decorated alphabet letters. I scored the background and brayered distress inks over it then stamped a flourish corner and added a sentiment layered over a die cut flourish. 

Then I decided for the second card to colour some bare chipboard letters in distress ink colours to suit a background I created by sponging distress ink through a stencil which was then lightly spritzed with water. Stamped on the remaining sentiments, layered onto dark purple card and  added a few sequins to finish.

 Then I discovered these laser cut floral/foliage pieces and figured I would make a real mess trying to colour them so in the end  I have recycled a green packaging card, stamped on some white flowers and hand cut a white layering card piece to help them stand out and blend in the sentiment tag that was strategically placed over the brand name.  A length of ribbon under the chipboard flower, a few scattered pearls and all this was layered on some beige metallic card. 

Now in another pack I found a heap of tags and frames, so another style of card emerged.  I painted the frame with cream acrylic, stamped the sentiment on a background created with distress inks sponged direct onto waterolour card and sprayed with water. Layered this on two tones of blue onto a cream card and finished off the frame with a curly bow, flower and pearls.

PS...seems I was so inspired, I decided to decorate the front of a mini album I made last week to hold the ATCs from a recent swap at WOYWW (click here to learn more)

I have enjoyed making these cards and to see how my use of the chipboard grew as I played about, I'm sure to now use it more often. I found some more intricately laser cut pieces at a recent craft show.

Thanks for taking a peek Robyn