Hoppy Birthday!

Hello,

My little girl is off to a 5th birthday party today.  I had an idea brewing for this card for a couple of weeks.  When I described it to my daughter, she said, "No, that doesn't sound very good". When I showed her the card she said, "Well, it isn't very good. He'll play with it, that's what little kids do with cards that aren't very good."  So I added a flower, and she said, "Yes, now it's perfect!" LOL  My little girl cracks me up.

I used Garden Green designer paper lily pads (made from ovals with a notch cut out), Not Quite Navy pond, Bashful Blue card matte as sky, pale Green grass, whisper white clouds (build a cupcake punch), I coloured the froggy with Inktense Apple Green and SU Garden Green spots. The flower is Cameo Coral and Real Red punched with a flower punch. The stamp set is Garden Friends by Jane's Doodles.

I LOVE it, what do you think?

Michelle
xxx

Winter in Brisbane

Hello,

No cards this time, I wanted to share some photos.

Looking over all the blogs out there, I was pondering the different look of the seasons around the world.  Here in Brisbane, we don't get much of a winter.  Brisbane winters are very mild, with only a few cold weeks. This means that we don't get that beautiful autumn blush that colder climates get leading into the cold, leafless winters.  We get a reduction in rain, and not so much HEAT.  Winter is our dry season, a relief for me after the muggy, humid summer.  So everything goes a bit brown/dull green and dusty with lack of water.

Anyway, for the last week or so, in our late winter with spring peeking in every now and then, I have noticed that the jacarandas have turned beautiful golden colours.  At the end of winter the jacaranda trees lose all their leaves in preparation for flowering in mid-Spring. They used to say (and probably still do), if you haven't started studying for end-of-year exams by the time the jacarandas bloom, it's too late. By the way, I proved that saying wrong plenty of times, LOL.

I love jacarandas in bloom, and I haven't ever really taken the time to appreciate jacarandas at this time of year.  Well, I'm appreciating them at the moment.  Here are a few photos. I haven't tweaked them in any editing programme other than to crop a couple of photos, so what you see is what my camera saw, without filters (in my amateur hands).

That's the Brisbane Winter sky peeking through behind my jacaranda tree.

Close up to show the beautiful red of the "twigs" (can't think of the correct name at present, they're not branches really).

I love these colours.

Can you see all those bits of yellow peeking through this scene? They're all jacarandas.  This is what I see from my front veranda. Ooh, I can't wait to see this scene in a month or two!  It's a bit smokey today, grass fires and burn offs are causing dull conditions.

For those of you who don't know, jacarandas in bloom look like this:

Their true beauty is when they are planted near other jacarandas, and Brisbane in mid-spring is a mass of jacaranda blue (which I would call purple).  Jacaranda season makes me smile.
A couple more photos from my winter garden. Autumn colours in winter:

And my Spoodle, Coco, in desperate shaggy need of a haircut:

I hope you enjoyed my show and tell.

Michelle
xxx

An Aussie Christmas

Hello!

It's a colour challenge this week at "Less Is More" and we have been asked to create a card using the colours from our nation's flag.  You may or may not know that I am Australian.  The Australian flag is:

Blue, Red, and White



The card I posted yesterday was my first effort at answering to this challenge, but as you can see, it became "More" rather than "Less" the more I worked on it, so I submitted it elsewhere, LOL.  I really wanted to do the navy blue card base, but every attempt I made didn't quite work for a "Less is More" card.

So, I reverted back to the first idea that came to me, and I am so, so happy that I did.  I'm not sure the photo does this card justice.  In real life it is a beautiful card (and you don't hear me say that very often about my own cards).

Here it is:

What I used (all SU):

Ink: Real Red, Night of Navy

Card: Whisper White

Stamps: Snow Swirled, Four the Holidays

I'm loving this card so much, I might make some more. What do you think?

Michelle

xxx

CAS Christmas

Hello!

Quick one tonight.  With this one I started with one idea and finished with an entirely different one. I quite like how it turned out.

I'm entering this into CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #14 where they are asking that we use adhesive dots or strips to add glitter to our project.

I used glue strips with two techniques.  For my glittery red strips, I heat embossed sparkly embossing powder. For my glittery white strips, I just dunked the strips into glitter (and got glitter EVERYWHERE, lucky I like to sparkle, LOL). It was slightly tricky lining the glue strip up on my card strips because I cut the card the exact size of the glue strip before I started. . . but I got there.  I used weaving for my background.  I got the idea from Cristina's card.  The weaving in my card is snuggled into a window cut in my navy coloured card.

I am also entering this card into Simon Says Stamp "Christmas In August" challenge.

Here is my card:

It is so hard to photograph white glittery bits on cards!  You can see the glitter clearer in my top section photo. And you can see the texture of the weaving a bit better here:

Colours used were Whisper White, Real Red, Night of Navy. Sentiment is SU Four the Holidays.  I hand cut the star (don't look too close).

What do you think?

Michelle
xxx

Put on your sunglasses for Mojo Monday 202

Hello!

Today's cards are so, so different to what I usually do, but I have a couple of young girl birthdays this week-end, and I thought I would try something fun. So put on your sunglasses, they're BRIGHT. 

When I saw the Mojo Monday sketch this week, I had so many ideas, not quite as bright as what I've ended up with, but lots of ideas anyway, LOL!  It is a great sketch.  This is my first ever entry into Mojo Monday. I look every week, but until now haven't made it to making my entry in time. 

Here is my entry:

Bright, isn't it?

Here is the sketch:

Several weeks ago I won a set of papers and other bits and bobs from the Moxie Fab World blog.  The set was pretty much everything from the Pink Paislee "Soiree" collection. The papers are bright and fun. Some of the bits are more angled towards scrapbooking, but that hasn't stopped me using them!

Here is the second card, almost the same as the first, but slightly different:

No stamping on these cards. That's a first for me!  The pink card base is SU Pretty In Pink. The colourful ribbon on the first card is SU. The ribbons on the second card and the bling on both are from my stash. Every other thing is Pink Paislee Soiree.

My daughter has given the stamp of approval, so they're definitely being given out this week-end.

What do you think?

Michelle
xxx

CAS-ual Fridays #13 and Tuesday Trigger

Hello!

Well today I bring you more of Jane's Doodles stamps, using the Garden Friends set today. So many cute images, it is hard to decide where to start!  By the way, Jane is giving away a free digi-stamp at the moment, a gorgeous ice-cream cone, so go and take a look. :-)

The challenges I'm responding to with this card are CAS-ual Fridays and Tuesday Trigger.

For CAS-ual Fridays we are challenged to use a 4 x 9 card, but to not fill up all that space and to keep it CAS:

At first I thought 4 x 9 would be impossible, that is one BIG card. But, then I started thinking about it, and I got all excited. 4 x 9 is a great format! Give it a go yourself and see if you like it too.

The Tuesday Trigger is this lovely photo (Squares to Cherish):

My grandma used to make these crochet rugs. One of her last ever ones made was made for me, and I still have it.  Just recently my aunt also made me a more modern knitted one, which I certainly do cherish. When someone takes all that time and thought to make something so beautiful, you feel the love, and the love keeps on coming every time you look at it and use it.

So when I look at this photo, the inspiration is the crochet squares and the colours. I was looking through Pinterest recently and I found a tip to use twine around a wooden block to stamp, so I thought I'd give this a go to get that "fabric" feel.

Here is my card:

I had troubles editing this photo, the white was either too bright (overexposed) or too dull. I hope you get the idea anyway. I paper-pieced the birds and stamped the two little "quilts" using my improvised stamps. Here are my stamps:

Here is a close up of the card:

Colours used: Pale Plum, Sage Shadow, Bashful Blue, Basic Black

So what do you think? I love these little birdies.

Michelle
xxx

Noahs' Ark - CAS#150 and JAI#78

Hello!

Well, news since I last blogged: I received an Honorable Mention (Cream in Our Coffee) over at the Playdate Cafe Challenge for this card. I was so excited. The entries were all beautiful. It amazes me sometimes, the depth of the talent out there, and I'm so grateful for all that inspiration that comes with looking at other people's work in these challenges.

This week I got some new stamps. . . and you know what that means. . . I had to get working straight away to test them out!  Back in June I came across a Blog Hop for Jane's Doodles which demonstrated Noah's Ark and Garden Friends stamp sets. Of course, I at once fell in love with both sets, and after a month of thinking about it, I couldn't hold out any longer. I have a new baby nephew arriving in the next six weeks or so, so I want to get the card prepared. . .  I might have a few prototypes along the way, LOL!  One of the great things about Jane's Doodles (apart from the fabulous stamps) is that they ship from Australia, so postage for me is reasonable, yippee! Oh, and the order arrived within two working days, and I love great service.

Today's inspiration for colour came from Just Add Ink #78:

Today's layout inspiration came from Clean & Simple FTL#150:

Unusually for me, I added some extra colours in.  I had to.  My animals needed them. LOL.  But the basic colours used stuck to the formula.  Also unusually for me, I got a bit creative with the layout.  I think it is still recognisable as FTL#150, though, don't you?

Here is my card:

Lots of paper-piecing here. Looking at my cards, you'd think I like cutting out, but I don't really.  Sometimes though, it is needed.  This stamp works beautifully with colouring, but I don't have any colouring pens, so paper-piecing it was.  I did use a blender pen to colour my monkey's nose, LOL!

What I used: Not Quite Navy sentiment, waves, and circles in the water. Sahara Sand card base, elephant and monkey's patches. Chocolate Chip monkey, giraffe spots, and all of the outlines. Certainly Celery Ark.  (I also added Pale Plum hippo, Apricot giraffe and lion face, and Pumpkin lion mane, and the Bashful Blue background because I needed sea and sky).



I actually did another card before this one, outside of any challenges, but when it was finished, I decided that I'd used too strong a blue for the sea compared to the rest of the colours, so my sea stands out and the rest of the muted papers disappear, including my animals!  I'll show you anyway, because it is still cute, and I will probably use the layout again, just with different colours. I do love my elephant's ears and my spotty giraffe on this one.  Oh, and the bird fits on this layout, I had to cut him off for the other one.

So what do you think? Isn't this image just the cutest?

Oh, I forgot to mention, I have noticed my follower count rising again. You ladies make me feel wonderful, adding me to your blog list, I feel very honoured, thank-you!

Michelle

xxx