The Flower Challenge is having its 1st Birthday

You can't have a birthday without balloons and Vivien has made us

some wonderful graphics to help us celebrate our First Year

in Blog Land.

This month the challenge couldn't be any easier. Use one of your favourite flower stamps.

I have so many flower stamps,and so many favourites that I decided to go back to one of my originals.

My Her Arts Background Stamp. Its not a big background stamp as you can see here on my card front this is the full size of the panel. I stamped in VersaMark ink and gold embossed this design on vellum. I then used my Zigs without water to colour the flowers.

I put a very small amount of the darkest pink  in one spot on the petal then used my palest pink to move the colour around until I was happy with the colour and design.

The photo really doesn't show the beauty of the flower on the vellum as well as it looks IRL. I then die cut some gold mirror card to look like a frame around the flowers, added some enamel dots and a die cut 'fabulous' from another piece of card stock that had been white embossed and watercoloured.

Very simple and very pretty.

Challenges:

HLS October Watercolour Challenge :Anything Goes Optional Twist Gold

Addicted to Stamps and More : Make Your Mark

Work It Wednesday Simon Says August/September

Now its time to go check out all the wonderful creations at the Flower Challenge and also see who else has joined us in celebrating our first year anniversary and the wonderful prizes on offer. I am blown away by the different businesses that have gotten behind us and decided to donate a gift or gift voucher for us to use as a prize during our Celebration Month. I can not express to you enough how much we appreciate your generosity.

Next I cant thank the wonderful Design Team enough for their support this year especially Vivien who has taken on the design and maintenance of the blog as well as the running of the team when I fell ill earlier this year. I didnt think I would actually make it to this special day with a post and I am so glad that I have been able to make a card just to be able to thank  Vivien, Ruth, Shona, Maria, Cara, TaeEun & Karen for being so very wonderful and supportive through the last six months.

Its just amazing to see how well this Challenge has done in the last 12 months and I thank not only the Design Team but all my Blog friends and all the wonderful people out there who decided to enter their amazing cards in our challenges. We love seeing every one of your cards.

Celebrate You & Me and a Couple More Cards

Okay there are three cards and some photos to show you what I have been up to this weekend. (Photo heavy) I don't want you thinking I do anything other than stamping, colouring and making cards. Mum and dads Nursing Home is in total lock down due to influenza. Lucky we decided to just barge in on Fathers day because no one has been allowed in since then even to take mum out for walks which means its been really hard on dad but lots of phone calls each day so he is surviving.

Todays cards, this one was inspired by the Muse Card done by Anita

I loved the blended colours and the colour choices but instead of

water stamping I used a silver embossed piece of card stock that I cut to shape.

I also loved the look of the black sentiment and wanted to do the glossy

accents look but as I am babysitting I forgot to bring the Glossy Accents

and had to settle on just black. I have managed to catch some of the silver

embossing  in the light with this photo.

Very easy and pretty card. Thanks so much for the inspiration Anita.

This card is made with a layer of beautiful pattern paper that has a gold embossed cloud

pattern on it. I added this to the card base then the Copic coloured digital image that I have 

framed with a gold cardstock die cut oval frame. She fit in perfectly.

Finished off with a vellum strip with a sentiment gold embossed

'Hello Gorgeous' and a few scattered blue enamel dots to

match the birds.

Girl image A Day for Daisies

I Love these ladies and I don't get around to using them enough so I have dug them all out to start using again amongst all the other stamps - hoo hum. Ok this was easy as I had already done this type of card before and had a little envelope with dresses in it so just needed to match up.

Was one dress short for the lady at the back as I didnt want to dress her in Jacket and dress the same,

her elegance just wouldn't allow that so dressed her in a soft apricot coloured dress that went perfectly with her Jacket. They all look 'Hot to Trot' as we would say here so I thought the sentiment 

perfect rather than the one that came with it.

Challenges:

Muse Card Challenge #232

Celebrate You & Me Card

Simon Says Wednesday Card Challenge Stamp It

Celebrate you & Me Card

Simon Says Monday Card Challenge Stamp It

Old Age Aint No Place For Sissies

Watercooler Wednesday #135 Anything Goes Feminine

Hello Gorgeous

Cards Und More Challenge #191 Anything Goes

Old Age Aint No Place for Sissies

Crafting With An Attitude Challenge :#31 Anything Goes

Old Age Aint For Sissies

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

Next this is what happens when you cant go visit your parents on lockdown and when exhaustion hit after a week of specialists and tests for Elysha. It was a good week, all is well and Elysha continues to loose weight, her heart is doing brilliant, new hearing aids working fabulous, pre diabetes medication causing no side effects  so life is good.

Yep what you see is stamping but not just been a good girl stamping: This is using all those NBUS stamps that have been siting for the last year that I just had to have and have had to time to use and the pile grew and grew. Well I stayed and stamped and stamped and then I finally worked out not only how to cut on the Scan n Cut but also how to add a border.

What a machine, I love it. Still have lots to learn but its brilliant. First lesson from this lot- images like Stamping Bella, that are so fine lined are not picked up by the Scan n Cut it only randomly picked out parts of lines - to be continued...... lesson No 2 learnt how to stop the scan n cut picking up lighter lines therefore stopping it cutting inside images as it sometimes randomly does..... thank heavens for sons.......

Two Cards Made By Me and A Pile Of Cards From Instagram Friends

 I have again stamped the Penny Black Flower again but this time I have gone pink. I stamped with Distress Ink in Spun Sugar and Crushed Olive, then coloured with Copics R81 83 85. Finished off with Prismacolor pencils for shadow and white for highlight.

washi tape pink with gold foil dots, die cut, 'celebrate and a few clear sparkle gems.

 Mo's Digital Pencil cute little baby Copic coloured, frame from Pretty Pink Posh.

Love the pattern paper. Pale pink paper for card. Die cut 'wonderful' and 'baby'

and stamped 'sweet' and 'girl'

Thank you so much for coming to look at my cards and I hope you come again soon.

Challenges:

Seize the Birthday without the Topping

Celebrate Pink Flower card

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge Stamp It

Celebrate Pink Flower Card

Watercooler Wednesday #135 Feminine Anything Goes

Celebrate Pink Flower Card

Day Dreamer Challenges #2 Always Anything Goes

Welcome Sweet Baby Girl

Cards and More #192 Anything Goes

Welcome sweet baby girl

Creates and Makes Challenge Blog #14 Anything Goes

Welcome sweet baby girl

The photos below are here so I can link them to Instagram. None of them are made by me but all were made for with me or Elysha.

Over the last year I have received some wonderful cards from friends all over the world, some who I have met through my blog and others I have met through my Instagram Account. I get cards, gifts and stamped images and I try to remember to thank people at the time and I always plan to share these wonderful cards with people. For Instagram I have to post with on Facebook or my blog before I can add to Instagram or take photos of them with my phone. I decided to add here in small images at the bottom. This week is Instagram friends cards for the last year. Some of them are also blog friends but tend to Instagram more than blog so I am covering it that way.

Hellen sent this to Elysha                                    Michelle sent me a huge pile of embossed panels            

                                                                You cant see them here, she is such a sweetie

                                                              Patricia  does digi images and gave me a card

Ruth made me a little zip bag

perfect for my paint panels and some

stamped images

Shona gave me a really neat stamp set, actually she gave me two, a flower one too but
I forgot to photo.

                                                                        Snow made me labels for back of my cards and

                                                             envelopes and pre cut lawn fawn images

Sue sent me some funny images

to colour in

TaeEun sent me this amazing card and some stamped

images from same company.

Therese sent me this fabulous card wit the mice that inspired me to try the same idea then she also sent me these wonderful ballerina girls to give my granddaughter and some pre stamped images so I could colour them.

I have the most amazing collection of cards from all over the world and treasure every one of them. I have kept every one of them as I enjoyed showing them to my mum while she could still understand and now I share my hobby with my granddaughter who opens the envelopes addressed to me and wants to know all about my friends in other countries.

Elysha also loves opening her mail and regularly gets cards  that she opens with shaking hands and excitement. She checks the mail daily and will run in waving the mail 'I got mail' 'I got mail' I love that it never wears out.

Next week I will catch you up on my Blog friends cards.

The Flower Challenge #12 Tic Tac Toe

I am so sorry for the lateness of this post. I thought I had written and and set to schedule this post. Even tucked the photos away in the done folder.

This month its 

and here are the brilliant choices.

Now for my card

My choices: White Card Die Cut Sentiment and Blue: blue card and Copic colouring.

Beautiful new flower stamp from Penny Black. Stamped with Distress ink

then copic coloured and slight pencil colouring, very soft minimal colouring. 

Leaves are from the BG range of  inks, so I kept it all blue 

except that yellow dot in the centre.

Die cut from Penny Black as well, isn't it the neatest. Die cut in

white then dark blue foam for contrast. Lost the little white dot,

I mean really it was nearly non existent, replaced with a blue

gem. A few more gems scattered and we are all set up.

Again my apologises for being asleep on the job, now its time to go to The Flower Challenge check out what the rest of the wonderful Design Team has done. (Or have you been there and been waiting for me it get myself organised???)

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

Challenges:

Shopping Our Stash #319 On Trend

Coloured fun foam under the die cut sentiment;

layered sentiment;

cutting around the coloured image;

copic and pencil colouring

Lots of trend there.

Simon Says Monday Challenge : Stamp It

Alphabet Challenge M is for Make your Mark

My second card, couldn't resist