Because I Love You ........Sometimes I look at you and........

A card for a challenge that may have already closed but then I will just have to wait and see. It came together out of lots of bits and pieces. I am hoping I came make the Wednesday Simon Says Challenge because it is certainly made from lots of layers. So lets see what I have here.

I started with a Papertrey die cut Frame cut from gold mirror card. Then I have added some diecut

leaves in vellum both the solid and outline leaves setting them up so that some are above the frame and some under.

I have stamped and white embossed the little flowers from the Ellen Hutson Hydrangea flower stamp and then watercoloured with blues and mauves and added a bit of Wink of Stella for sparkle. I have die cut some leaves from some watercoloured papers as well to add some green.

These have been layered up along the side. To finish it off I added the 'because' diecut also in gold mirror card a new NBUS together with a sentiment from the stamp set that came with the die. I stamped with gold ink onto a piece of cardstock that matches in with the flowers. A wee little sparkle heart finishes it off. 

This next card is very very CAS compared to the last. I wonderful stamp that I bought ages ago and I cant believe I haven't used till now. So it's NBUS but perfect for today as today is mum and dad's wedding anniversary, 65 years. In real life dad is the short cuddly one and mum the tall willowy one.

But the love is still there.

The sentiment is new and only arrived in the mail today and it was perfect so I just had to use it. Stamped then coloured with copics. Added the die cut XOXO and the sentiment for those who cant read it:

Sometimes I look at you 

and wonder how

I got to be so

damn lucky

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge Layer It Up

because I love you

CASology Week #285

Sometimes I look at you

SIP Challenge #135 All You Need Is Love

because I love you

Crafting From the Heart Challenge #192 Anything Goes

because I love you

Less is More Challenge #363 OLC Cute

Sometimes I look at you.....

Not animal cute but certainly cute I think!!!

CAS on Friday #125 Colour Me Pretty - use markers or pencils

Sometimes I Look at you......

Coloured with Copics

Thank you

Hello Sweet Love

My goodness I'm back on that last minute lurk again. I saw the Muse challenge done by Kim Higgins this week and its so cute:

and I had so many thoughts and ideas during thawed but of course life got in the way and then I started the card then it was dinner time then it was time to take Elysha for a walk then I looked at the time and I had two hours to go and I thought I better do something. So all the many ideas had to come down to one idea as I hadn't coloured half of what I wanted to colour.

I loved the die cut circles and had just bought these brilliant Poppy-stamps circle dies with the stitches on the cut out circle and the area around the circle. They also come in a good variety of sizes as you can see these ones are quite small but not the smallest. I was inspired by the idea of circles, the light  partial colour blending and including little cakes and the sweet sentiment.

I have kept my circles whole as the circle die is smaller. I don't have any food stamps that are animated so I used cakes and a critter, well a cute little hippo. This set is another NBUS MFT

Happy Hippo Birthday set. I don't have the dies but the Scan 'N' Cut does a brilliant job of cutting even the smallest little cupcakes, party hats and stars.

I coloured everything with copics, the balloons I daubed over with the colourless blender to remove colour for a cool look. the backgrounds of the circles I did with Distress Inks.

I added lots of Wink of Stella to the cake and cupcakes and balloons but you can only really see it on the balloons so you will have to trust me when I say this card does truly sparkle. I then added the top panel carefully.

I fiddled around with a  'Smile' die, then a wooden 'smile'  then saw these little pink and white and gold sticker buttons and they really do look good though they don't look much here. 'Hello sweet love' I think thats so sweet. but it does look small so I may end up moving it, changing it, just not sure at the moment, too many circles maybe???

But anyway its time to add the card to the challenge before time runs out.

Muse Challenge #250

613 Avenue Challenge #205 Anything  Goes Twist Something New

Stamp set and Die set

new.

Addicted to stamps or More Challenge #276 Anything Goes

Perfect card for anything goes.

thank you so much for coming to have a look. I hope you come again soon.

Precious & Beautiful

The backgrounds and the first card here and the card in the previous post were originally inspired by the CAS Mixup Card Challenge which for January was all about using cling wrap with watercolours. I fell behind with schtuff and by the time I got around to doing the cards today it was too late I had missed my inspiration. 

I love how these backgrounds turned out. The blue/green I used yesterday and todays two cards I have used the pink/orange/yellow background.

The multi coloured background has still to be used. If you click on them to enlarge you can see the cling film effect better but it doesn't show up as much on Oxides as it does on water colours.

This first card I have used a brand new Hero Art heart die I just got. It's like lace, I love it.

I die cut from the pink/yellow/orange piece and again in white. I used the white heart and reset it

into the negative and then added the negatives from the watercolour die cuts.

The photo just doesn't show it in all its beauty. Its stunning, the colours looks fabulous

and I can see myself using this heart is so many ways. I got this heart as part of the Hero Art kit for January.

I then added the word 'precious' which is die cut from gold mirror card. It attached a bit wonky but I left it as it was as its a very fine cut and has a habit of bending out of shape.

Here you can see the beauty of the piece of cardstock that was coloured with liquid twinkling H2O's in orange, yellow and plum.

At this angle you can see the mica which hasn't mixed through properly as I didnt shake the bottle enough (has been sitting way too long) but still looks fabulous. This time I have used the die cut heart of the same colour and inset white pieces.

Finished off with a die cut sentiment 'beautiful' in gold mirror card. Doesn't need any more

in gems as its so bright.

Challenges

a2z Scrapbooking Blog Card Challenge

beautiful card - new Hero Art Die and 

watercolours

Work It Wednesday Something New to Me

New Hero Art Heart Die and Twinkling H2O's

watercolours card 'beautiful'

Moving Along with The times #63 CAS

Precious card

Addicted to Stamps and More #276 Anything Goes

Beautiful card

Thank you so much for visiting and I hope you come again soon

Update on life.

My life has settled down a lot at the moment ( I won't say it's settled for good as mum and dad and their circumstances and Elysha and her special needs mean that life is forever a merry-go-round and some weeks better than others.) Elysha got good funding through NDIS so now its contracts and making sure it all flows well. Aaron and Rachael have bought a house so they will be moving out so that just leaves John and Elysha (Jake) and myself.

Mum is too hard to talk about.

Dad is going well most of the time. He is healthy and has adjusted. Most days are great, some not so great. His dementia is moving along but slowly. His birthday is next month 92 years young and looking better than he has in many years. If mum was aware she would be so proud he has lost so much weight and with his new clothes he looks so dapper. 

To share a moment in that time that we can now laugh about, dad broke out/escaped from the Nursing Home a couple of weeks ago by following someone who was leaving out as though he was meant to be leaving.

He then wandered down to the edge of the busy road and sat on his walker where he was spotted by staff and my daughter. He refused to go back inside and told them to call the police as he wanted to report them for holding him against his will, false imprisonment etc. He wanted to move back to the country town of his birth. 

They tried getting me to talk to him and lots of different conversations and he got quite rude, basically told us all where to go. My brother went over and finally convinced him to go inside to the Cafe for an iced Coffee as it was 42 degrees centigrade. As he was going in he looked at my daughter and said 'well that will give all the old biddies something to talk about!!!'

Two days later he rang me to tell me his legs were very sunburnt and he didn't know why, when I told him, he of course had no recollection at all of the event. Every couple of days is a new adventure. 

I'm Done Adulting, Let's Be Mermaids

I have a  friend who loves to be a mermaid too and she and I enjoy nothing more than finding things to entertain ourselves that are not adult at all. We love to giggle at our own humour and sometimes we try to explain to others what we are laughing at but we realise they don't get our humour so we don't worry about them too much. We get it and thats all that matters. She loves my cards too

and puts in lots of orders...... on my cards and cards she sees others have made and she wants

one just the same. It keeps me busy. Its amazing what we will do for a granddaughter that 

 takes up so much room in our hearts. So another card for Sophie

I have used a watercoloured background using Distress Oxides and Cling Wrap. Its hard to see in this piece but in the photo further down you can see in the photo of three pieces done in this style it is more distinct. I die cut with the Postage Stamp stitched die.

Stamped and coloured with Copics the mermaid from the MFT stamp set. After colouring the girl I added some little glue spots with a glue pen then some fine glitter for a bit of sparkle. Also coloured the the turtle, rocks and shells with Copics. Cut them all out with my Scan 'N' Cut.

Glued all in place, added some sequins and the sentiment is from Stamping Bella, a sentiment set.

Here below you can see a few mermaids I have Copic coloured, experimenting with different colours for hair and fish tails, also some rocks, shells turtle and fish. They are all resting on an Alcohol ink and water background just for the photograph.

The photo below shows three backgrounds. The two outer backgrounds are Distress Oxide Ink.

The one on the left, Blue, Green and Yellow the other a mix of rainbow colours blended. Both backgrounds were then sprayed well with water then cling wrap (large pieces) added and pressed on and scrunch. I left overnight but did find that being multimedia paper the next morning the product was still damp and needed the cling wrap reapplied and then placed in the sun.

The middle piece is Vibrant Twinkling H2O product in liquid rather than little tubs, I added to multimedia paper then also sprayed with water. It has this fantastic vibrancy, and shimmer through it where it hadn't mixed properly (I have had for some time and it had settled and needed more shake than I gave it). Again I added large piece of cling wrap and loved the end result and it was hard to use the piece because I loved the look of it so mjuch I just liked looking.

These pieces are from experimenting with Alcohol inks in water and pulling paper, yupo and glossy cardstock and watercolour cardstock through. Got some nice effects but nothing I would jump up and down about. I don't know what I did wrong, maybe too much water to alcohol ink, just looked washed out or maybe I like vibrant too much, will see if I use. More about different results later.

Challenges

HLS January Watercolour 

I hope using Distress Oxide and spraying with 

water to reactivate is still watercolour.

HLS January Anything Goes With Dies

613 Avenue Create Challenge #205 Just Add Something New

MFT Mermaids stamp set never used before

and sentiment never used before.

Work It Wednesday -  New to Me December

Mermaid Stamp set and Sentiment from Stamping Bella both New To Me.

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

Happy Valentines Day Card, Twofer the Darnell's New Card Challenge & One More Just for Fun

Lots of photos in this post, hope you enjoy the cards. This first was inspired by the Challenge over at

My inspiration from the photo is the soft colours, the soft pink, the pattern on the white biscuits,

the little flowers and birds and the heart shaped biscuits.

For my card I used a piece of soft pink vellum that has a wonderful sparkle to it. You can see the sparkle in the photo below where I have darkened the image slightly so you can see it better. I stamped and white embossed the pattern on the vellum. I attached the vellum to the card by tape at the back of the card and with little bits of tape in places where I have added flowers and birds on top of the vellum.

I die cut some hearts from a NBUS heart die from Stamplorations, you could leave the hearts in but I decided to just use the outline and a couple of the hearts at the bottom of the card.

 The Flowers are from Lawn Fawn and the birds from a WPlus9 set.

My 'Happy Valentine Day' sentiment is from Mama Elephant.

These next cards were all inspired by Darnelle's new  

Blog Challenge that she has started with a few wonderful

friends, most of whom I know and admire greatly.

What a fabulous challenge this will be and the first month that

I am just scraping in on is feathers. I looked at my wee supply of feather

stamps and my die stamps and nothing was jumping out at me. The problem was so many

beautiful cards had already been done with feathers that I just wanted so badly now

and my choices just weren't doing it for me.

Then I decided birds. Of course I have lots of birds, a literal avery full of birds that

haven't been used yet so I had to make a decision. Which one first. Seeing as I like a bit of humour

I went with this witty set from Sugar Pea. So not only am I entering a new challenge but Darnell has me using my NBUS stamps and boy do they need using (my house is starting to tilt with the pile of NBUS getting so heavy the footings are under stress).

I ended up making three cards, two I stamped the same with different sentiments which I just love.

Here we have the little duck's bum in the air and the sentiment 'Heard you were feeling under the weather'

So simple, stamped and coloured with copics. A little bit of blue glitter washi tape each side and finished.

On this card I added a couple of extra ducks  which meant

I needed to move the greenery around abit to fit the scene in.

My sentiment this time

'There's always one in the bunch'

and down below

'You quack me up!'

This time I finished the card off with orange glitter washi tape.

The two cards together, same stamp set, different uses.

I had to make one more because I loved this sentiment as well.

'Waddle I do without you?'

This time just a little bit of blue glitter washi tape 

across the top of the card.  

There you go, one very fiddly card and three very simple easy cards. 

Challenges:

Twofer Card Challenge #1

My duck cards

Inspired by all the Little Things #78

Happy Valentines Day

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add a Sentiment

'There's always one in the Bunch'

'You quack me up'

A Bit More Time To Craft #60 Anything Goes

Happy Valentines Day Card

613 Avenue Create January Challenge Anything Goes Twist Something New

Heard you were feeling under

the weather

First time using this stamp set.

Just Add Ink :#392 Just Add Something New

There's always one in the bunch.....

A new stamp set

Thank you so much for coming to visit.

I hope you enjoyed your visit and come again soon.