Kazi's All Grown Up

The card I have today was made for a "girl" I have known all her life, in fact, I made her christening cake over thirty years ago, and I've known her dad for over 45 years! Kazi is indeed all grown up now and when she married her lovely husband Jon I couldn't wait to make them a card and wish them every happiness

My pics are a little dark again, I'm sorry... don't know why, I've undoubtedly fiddled with some settings on the camera, lol.  I've brightened them up with Photoshop but that has washed some of the detail out, never mind, sigh
I love this image, After the Vows, from Tiddly Inks.  
I coloured with Copics, adding some Prismacolor shading and Ice Stickles to the bride's dress... and a layer of Ice White Viva Pearls to the veil - hard to see in the pic I admit 
The patterned paper is from Kaisercraft, I cut the top with a Spellbinders Borderbilities die (A2 Scalloped Borders 1 I think - I've got three different sets and only labelled two of them)  The mat behind the patterned paper is actually a textured brown/black card, very nice IRL
Similar problem with the straight scalloped border on the bottom... I'm pretty sure it's a Lawn Fawn Stitched Borders die :-)
The baker's twine at the top actually came on a gift I received a couple of years ago, I squirrel away everything like that, lol.  I cut the little tags with the happy couple's names printed on and tied them on - I love personalising cards :-)
The "Congratulations" is a Kaisercraft stamp, stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black, it's nice and straight... courtesy of my lovely stamping platform, what a difference that thing has made - I used to avoid stamping now? woohoo!!
I finished the inside of the card along the same lines as the outside.  Lovely straight stamping... you guessed it, don't know the name of the stamp set, lol
That's it for my card, I'd like to enter into the following challenges:

As You Like It Favourite: Dies or Stencils, and Why... I prefer dies, because they're a quick and easy way to add a bit of pizazz - as opposed to the messy fun-ness of stencils :-)

Die Cut Divas Love

Daring Cardmakers Recycle It - the baker's twine came from a gift I received

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge Use Patterned Paper

Crafty  Creations, Crafting With Friends  Challenge #1, Creative Fingers, Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends, Polkadoodles, Gem of a Challenge, A Perfect Time to Craft, Creatalicious Challenges, Crafting With Attitude and Corrosive Challenge All have Anything Goes

It's my lovely grandtwins birthday on Thursday... they're 6, already!  I am busy making birthday cards for them and decorating their cakes, yup two cakes... no getting away with the shared cake any more, lol.  The party is not until Saturday so I have a few days yet, and they've both chosen pretty straightforward cakes... it's just having two, large, fresh cakes to be ready for the same day does involve a bit of logistic juggling so there's not much time to do much else. 

Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna

Farewell to 'Poldo...and a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bone Graft

I have a card today that I made for my dear friend on the occasion of her lovely Dad Leopoldo's passing.  He was a really lovely man and is sadly missed

I tend to keep sympathy cards on the simple side, especially those for men.  This time around I used heavy linen card, stamped the trees from Stampin' Up's "Lovely as a Tree" stamp set (I LOVE this set, it was expensive but it stamps so well and I think the images great) with Stazon Timber Brown ink.  I used sponge daubers to colour the background, the linen texture really grabs the ink, looks nice IRL
The (computer generated) sentiment was done using my laser printer, deco foil and a laminator.  I matted the image and the sentiment panel on textured brown/black metallic card and added gold brads to the corners to finish them off.
I used the largest of the stamps to stamp a scene inside the card, masking off one end to extend the scene out to the edge of the card.  There are a couple of "ghost" trees in the background too, though I was nervous, so they are very light, lol
Obviously more colouring with the sponge daubers and Versacolour inks to complete the scene.  The advantage of this technique is that you can write over the top of it... so even though the sky was creeping up the page a bit it really didn't matter - there was plenty of room to write my message
That's it for just about the simplest card you can get!  It did look more impressive in real life... honest :-)  I would like to enter in the following challenges:

As You Like It Favourite: Layers, One or Many and Why... I like patterned paper and like to layer up my cards, but I also love One Layer cards... I just find them "hard", so this is the sort of compromise, lol
Simon Says Challenge Make a Scene

Pile It On Your Favourite Colour - I love "autumn colours", always have :-)

Catch The Bug, Through the Craftroom Door, Digi Choosday, Crafty  Creations, Crafting with Friends Current Challenge, Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends, Polkadoodles, Gem of a Challenge, A Perfect Time to Craft, Creatalicious Challenges and Crafting With Attitude All have Anything Goes

.... and now to the "funny" thing that happened on the way to the bone graft
I was due to get the block bone graft done to my upper central RIGHT incisor on Wed last week.  
When I had the Cone Beam scan done that determined the extent of the bone loss, it picked up a small "bubble" at the top of my top LEFT eye tooth... nothing to worry about says the Maxofacilliary specialist, your dentist can resolve that with a root canal.... okay, not great but I'll get it done. When I had my hip replaced the surgeons were VERY keen to get any areas of inflammation removed if possible; I had my gallbladder out because I had gallstones (which were not pleasant), but I was dallying on getting it removed until it's potential to cause problems for the bone surgery were pointed out.  That it mind, I thought I'd get the root canal done on the Thursday BEFORE the bone graft so it was all done and dusted before going for the bone graft... about which I was (and now AM) very nervous about, after hearing some horror stories about facial swelling, pain etc

I had the root canal done, as soon as the anaesthetic wore off it didn't feel right.  I've had them before and this was WAY more painful.  The pain increased overnight, I got little sleep.  Went to the dentist on Friday got antibiotics, still in pain.  Went to the dentist Saturday morning as I was still in pain and my face had started swelling... she didn't see me but had left me Codalgin Forté - codeine based, didn't touch it.  Ibobrufen helped but not for long at a time, swelling continued.  I went to the after-hours GP clinic at the hospital on Saturday evening, he was a little concerned, thought the dentist had pierced the sinus cavity and infected that, said the next best thing to IV antibiotics is a needle in the bum, okay, he gave me Tramadol for the pain and a course of strong oral antibiotics - after the injection.  
Got no sleep again (third night in a row) with the pain
Sunday the swelling kept going up.  I was going to go back to the clinic but my sons both thought the time had come to go to Emergency.  I (reluctantly as I loathe waiting for hours anywhere!) went, they actually took me straight through even though they were very busy (Joondalup has the busiest Emergency Department in Australia, so when it's busy for them it's BUSY, lol)
They were not happy that the swelling and redness had started to go down my neck... I was worried about my eye closing and the proximity to my brain, they were not, lol.  It was facial cellulitis and there was "involvement of the lymph" no degree detailed just that term "involvement"... the worry apparently is sepsis, and not helped by my RA. 
They admitted me, I had three lots of two different IV antibiotics over a day and a half .... and had to ring my surgeon to cancel the bone graft.
I'm all good now, even the discolouration has gone... my dentist is jittery though :-))  She's never seen anything like this, I told her she's just too young to have!  She wanted me to go to an Endodontist to check it out, but I'm sick of shelling out for dental so just went back to her yesterday - she was amazed at how recovered I am... though I DID tell her that I have lots of practice at getting "unusual" things and heal pretty quick from most of them.
So, I thought I'd have time to "blog", but I haven't.  The couple of days I was completely out of the work loop (should have taken my laptop up, didn't think of it and hubby was pressed as it was) made three days extra work when I got home!  All caught up now :-)
Still, I hope to get back on here soon..I have so many cards to blog.  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna x