Tic Tac Toe-tally Challenge Time

Yep, it's that time of the fortnight again... time for a new challenge at Di's Digis Challenge blog; this time around we have a Tic Tac Toe or Bingo Board.  I made a Christmas card, I read somewhere that it's only 7 weeks until Christmas, 'bout time I got serious about the card making :-) I made an easel card, nothing unusual in that, but at least this one is round for a change

I used one of Di's newer digis.. this is Jolly Reindeer Cheers, you can get him here... isn't he the cutest??!!  
I thought the oval die cut on the circular card looked like a stripy Christmas ornament, the main reason I used it though was because I wanted to show the "fold" of the easel and have the image stand out more... this is how it looks set up
I  coloured with Copics and, instead of adding Stickles and Glossy Accents as I usually do, I heat  embossed the fur on his cap with a white glitter EP I mixed myself (oh so technical; clear EP and white glitter, lol) and Ranger Clear on his nose and the ornaments... it is a more subtle finish than the "liquids" I usually use, but it looks quite nice :-)
Ooh, now for that all-important Tic Tac Toe Board... I used the line "Die Cut/Digi Image/Hand Coloring" or was it "Fancy Fold/Hand Coloring/Sentiment", lol

The snowy sky background I made myself in Photoshop, feel free to grab it... I'll have it on my Freebies Page too if you want to come back later... I have it in two shades and is 15cm or 6" square so prints up to quite a good size 
I used Lifestyle Crafts Circle Dies to cut the card and DP (which is from Basic Grey) and a Spellbinders Oval Floral Die (not to be confused with Spellbinders Decorative Elements Floral Oval die for the image mat ... really?? couldn't come up with a different name Spellbinders, geez!)  The plain red oval is from that set too but the gold mat was cut free hand as was the image panel. Here's a pic from the back
Actually I have half the set of these Oval Florals... I was in my LSS and trying to decide whether to get the set, coz they're not cheap, and I only use the bigger dies in all my sets and hate the waste; another lady was pondering the same set of dies, I mentioned (coz I'll talk to anyone, anywhere, lol) that I only want the big ones, she laughed and said I only want the small ones, I suggested we buy one set between us, she smiled and we left it at that... then when I was paying she approached me asked me if I was serious and we did exactly that; both left happy and even the shop owner was pleased as neither of us would have bought a set so one sale is better than none! 
I used a nice cream pearl card for the mat, it embossed beautifully too.

I used another Spellbinders die on the inside, it's one of the Banners set that has sat unused in my craft room for well over a year, oops! The embossing on these dies is what makes them a stand out... I cut a mat for the sentiment as it just didn't look finished without one.
The (digi) sentiment is from Pink Petticoat's Traditional Christmas Greetings set, the gold beaded thread and gold flatbacks are from my stash.
Well, phew, that's it.  If you made it this far, WELL DONE... I did manage to fill a page with info on what is a VERY basic card, but hey ho :-)  Hope you get a chance to check out the rest of the team's inspiration... and a chance to enter the challenge too of course, great prize on offer as always, and there's extra opportunities if you use one of Di's cute images... a digi from her webstore or one of the Candibean stamps if rubber's your thing ;-)

I'm entering my card in the following challenges 

Crafty Creations Colourful

Fab'n'funky Challenges Die Cuts and/or Punches

Cute As A Button Winter
Pink Gem Christmas Critters

Sweet Stampin' Christmas Christmas Travel (Reindeers = Christmas travel, hope so!)
Graphit Colour Challenge Christmas Sparkle 

Great Impressions Bling on the Holidays

Pile It On Anything But Square or Rectangle
Wags n Whiskers Not a Square
CCEE Stampers Circles (apart from 

Crafty Hazlelnut's Christmas Extra Challenge Anything Goes

Craft Your Passion Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Crafting With Friends Anything Goes

Creative Fingers Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Little Miss Muffet Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly Anything Goes

I'll be back soon.  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna

Time for a New Challenge at Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge

Yup, it's the first of the month... time for a new challenge at Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge... you know the one where all you have to do is use Patterned Paper on your project - too easy!!  
I made a card for my friend Jenny who turned 50 - she loved it, I hope you do too. 

 It's a stair step card, well I think that's what the fold is called, which looks like a "normal" square card on the front - the "fancy" bit's inside; here's the great template and tutorial I followed and here's a pic of that all important inside before I go into detail

The papers are all from Kaisercraft's Hey Birdie collection, the green detail on the leaves is foiled, it really gives it a lift that's hard to see in the pic :-)

I've used an image by Teri Sherman I've had for a while called Beautiful Blossom... I bought it from Delicious Doodles, before the stoopid EU laws that shouldn't affect me, living in Australia shut down that and many more of my favourite digi stores - fortunately you can now get Delicious Doodles images in Teri's Etsy shop here.  
It's printed on Versa Linen card, giving a nice texture.  I rounded two of the corners on all of the panels I used, inside and out using a 1" corner rounder.
I coloured, as usual with Copics and Prismacolor pencils, added glitter to the butterflies, her nails and some Viva Liquid Pearls to her bracelet.
I used brown cardstock as the base for the card and pink cardstock for the matting, embossing the small squares on the steps with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots embossing folder and inking the edges with some brown ink.
The "Happy" and "Birthday are Spellbinders dies, cut in brown cardstock then covered (carefully!) with Glossy Accents, the "5" and "0" are wood painted with Acrylic paint then lashings of Gloss - I just cut the "th" from the middle of another "birthday" die cut :-)
The ribbon on the front is from my stash, the pink scroll underneath is Memory Box's Ivy Tendril die.  
I used a couple more of the Ivy Tendrils in brown to the inside of the card.  The pearl and rhinestone embellie on the front was from ebay, the gold flatbacks are from my stash.
That's it for the workings of this card... I thought it was a good card to use for a Patterned Paper Challenge with the amount of patterned paper on it! - but you don't have to use anything LIKE as much pp as I have, you just need to have SOME on your project to join in.
Pop over to the blog, check out the rest of the team's work and join in, great prize on offer and always such an easy theme!
I'd like to enter my "stair step or whatever the fold's called" card in the following challenges:

Crafty Creations Colourful 
As You Like It  Pastels or Brights and why (I like pastels, but end up "Bright", lol)

Cuttlebug Mania Trees

Moving Along With The Times Leaves and/or Trees (Both!)

Cute Card Thursday Sparkles

Polkadoodles Sparkle, bling or glitter

Sparkles Monthly Challenge Pearls or Lace (Pearls on embellie, and gold flatback "pearls")

Addicted to  Stamps Things with Wings (Butterfly)

Papertake Weekly Take Your Pick (product: Score Board)

Seize the Birthday Birthday

Aud Sentiments Birthday Sentiment

Craft Your Passion Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Simon Says Challenge Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes
Until next time (still got to get something out of my drafts folder!!) Happy Crafting, Donna

Pumpkin Pie, you are my, my Pumpkin Pie

There's a new challenge starting today at Di's Digis Challenge Blog... the theme is "Add a Pumpkin".  I didn't want a Halloween card (I've got a load in my stash and we just don't celebrate it here) so I've made a birthday card and simply added some pumpkins to the little picnic scene.  For some reason my pics are a bit "grainy"... I think a setting has been changed on my camera, I'll have to get my son to check it out for me... suffice to say it's "fresher" looking in real life!

I've made a big card... it measures 21cm x 15cm; it fits a standard large envelope so pretty straightforward from a postage point of view :-)

The image is Daisy Cupcake Time, though on the "original" image there are flowers where the pumpkins are... I scaled down some pumpkins from CC Designs and put them over the top of the flowers; one way to fit the Add a Pumpkin brief, lol.

I coloured with Copics, adding some extra shadows with Prismacolor pencils and loads of gloss to the pumpkins, puppy's nose and of course the cherry on top of the cupcake.

The patterned paper is from Die Cuts With a View... from the very first pad I ever bought: the Far East Mat Stack; The matting is gold foil - bottom panel is cut with a number of Spellbinders A2 Curved Borders dies, the Happy Birthday is a Memory Box Grand die.  I didn't have any ribbon matching the image or paper, so I coloured up some ivory ribbon with an E08 Copic I've got about a kilometre of this stuff left from my Son and DIL's (2009) wedding cake, to say I "over calculated" is an understatement of the century, lol. I made the bow using my new Bow maker; I looked up a couple of tutorials on YouTube, one made better bows... or perhaps it just made more sense to me.  I wasn't convinced the first couple of efforts, but I'm pretty glad I've got it now - at least the bows are consistent in size.

The inside of the card is finished in similar fashion, as usual.  I used Memory Box's Nottingham Border at the top of the card in place of the sentiment. In fact that's what I intended to do on the front; I didn't intend having the bottom panel on the front cut down so far, I've been drooling over Netty's cards for a while and was gong to shamelessly CASE one; having a large image panel with a fancy top edge... but the Nottingham border I was going to use on the top edge of the image panel just wouldn't cut, so the damn panel just kept getting shorter and shorter... in the end there was just too much patterned paper showing, it looked out of balance so I introduced the curved borders - at least I don't feel like it's a copy of Annette's now :-))

Anyhow, hope you get a chance to enter the challenge this fortnight; if you're into Halloween it shouldn't present any challenge at all.. but even if you're not, it's not that difficult to get a pumpkin into the mix - just add it to a picnic scene like I did, it's only "odd" if you think about it :-)  Great prize on offer as always, with extra opportunities if you use one of Di's oh-so-cute images.

Just by coincidence, it's my pet name for the grandkids... hence the title of this post; I sing to them "Pumpkin Pie, you are my, my Pumpkin Pie", they smile indulgently at me... they know they're not pies of any kind, but it makes Nanna happy to call them that, so they let me :-))

I'm entering the following challenges with this card:

Crazy 4 Challenges Autumn Colours

Crafty CardmakersAutumn Colours

Whimsy Inspirations Challenge Autumn Colours or Christmas (Autumn colours, obviously!)

Crafty Creations Don't be Blue (Don't use blue or a cheer me up card) (No blue here, even the sky is Warm Grey)

Aud Sentiments Birthday Sentiment

As You Like It  Pastels or Bright Colours and Why (Bright colours I suppose... I LOVE pastels, just can't seem to get them - I always add "just a bit more", pastel gone!)

The Crazy Challenge Orange and Green

Pile It On Fabric, Lace or Ribbon (Ribbon)

Addicted to  Stamps Bling Bling Glitter and Shine (All that gold foil, shines baby!)

Craft Your Passion Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes 

Well I still haven't managed to drag anything out of my draft folder... maybe this week.  I've done all the End of Financial Year stuff, and the Quarterly returns - even for my son's business, and he's usually the last-minute-pull-your-hair-out client from hell.... but he's gone on holiday for a couple of weeks and they're due while he's away so he HAD to get the numbers to me before he went; it'll be the first one of his returns sent on time for quite a while, not sure what the Tax Office will make of that, lol.  
Until next time, happy crafting, Donna

To Halloween or not to Halloween....?

We have a new challenge starting today at Di's Digis Challenge blog... the theme is "Too Cute to Spook" but you're not required to use a Halloween image.... you can use Halloween or Harvest themed images, or (like me) Halloween or Harvest related colours.  I chose not to use a Halloween image as I don't really have use for Halloween projects (we don't celebrate Halloween here, well there ARE celebrations, but none that we personally are really involved in) but I can always combine Green, Purple and Gold :-))  I've made a Post-It note holder with space for two mini pens. 

I think this image is really sweet, it's "Girl's Best Friend" and is on sale here.  I coloured with my usual mix of Copics and Prismacolor pencils... no shine/glitter/pearl or anything else on this one :-))  Oh, unless you count the gold mirror card I used as the outer mat for the image.

Cutting down an existing box and making a "flap" lid seemed like a good idea at the time, in truth it would have been quicker to make something up from scratch, ah well live and learn. 
I have just about come to the end of my Kaisercraft Lilac Avenue pad... all the combos of purple and green in it made paper choice easy for Halloween projects :-) 
The purple pattern on the main paper covering the box has a gloss finish, the lilac coloured 'flap' at the top is in fact one of the border elements included in the pad.
I've used the same pattern paper  in the inside of the box, it is a scaled down version and doesn't have the gloss, but it keeps it all nice and matching without being too "matchy" - if you know what I mean. Making the little troughs for the pens took the longest time, like I said I'd do it different next time.  The sticky notes came with the little silver butterfly on, I added some purple ink to the edge of the first couple of sheets just to tie it in.
I lined the inside of the lid with more paper from the same pad and taped some polka dot gros grain ribbon around the outside of the box to finish it off, a sliver of velcro keeps the lid shut.
That's it really ;-)  Pop over to the Di's Digis Challenge Blog and check out the rest of the team's inspiration - it's a lot more "in theme" than mine, for sure.  Hope you get a chance to enter the challenge too, great prize on offer as always and don't forget there's extra opportunities if you use one of Di's cute images :-)
I'd like to enter my note pad holder thingy in the following challenges:

Without Words Purple and Green but not Halloween

Hiding in my Craft Room Super Scraps Saturday

Whimsy Inspirations Challenge Anything Goes

Craft Your Passion Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes

I'll be back in a few days with something out of my drafts... I am DETERMINED to clear it all out before the end of the year, lol!  Until then, happy crafting, Donna

Life's a Circus

It's the first of the month so there's a new challenge starting at Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge, you know - the one where all you have to do is use some patterned paper on your creation!
Sometimes life is a circus... well mine is, lol.  This card however was not to celebrate that fact but to celebrate my son's 30th birthday; he had a circus/carnival theme party, I made this card with that circus theme and his cake along the same lines and colours, so I thought I'd share some pics of that too, first the card - easel of course, we all love 'emin this family!

The papers are from stash and Kaisercraft, the red stripe on the stripy paper is foil, it looks really nice IRL.
I printed the image (called Circus Tent, available from Make it Crafty, here) on linen card, coloured with Copics and Prismacolor pencils and added Ranger's Antique Gold Embossing details.  
The whole base is covered in red foil card.  The swirls are Memory Box and they and the fancy border trim (a die, Nellie Snellen I think) - which is actually a "stopper" made by sliding half a strip of card under the stripy paper and leaving half "free" for the front of the card to sit against when folded - are cut from the same red foil card. The tickets used for the sentiments are from Bizzy Becs (I think!), I cut the red mats around them freehand.
The rhinestones on the border and corners are from my stash.  I added the "Circus Chris" sentiment to the image before printing using a free font called Bingo Star for Circus and another for Chris.  That was basically it for the card..... the cake took a bit more work :-))

It was a "rainbow" cake, so first I baked six different coloured cakes, I stacked them (not dry like in this pic, but with yummy chocolate ganache between the layers) then put a layer of ganache over the whole thing before adding a thin layer of fondant before decorating as you can see.  
The big top roof was just cardboard covered in fondant :-) and the tent poles were straws with twine... but everything else was fondant, or in the case of the animals peeking out of the tent, royal icing.
The ringmaster took the most work, as usual I left my run a bit late and each element didn't really have time to set firm enough before I stuck it altogether... so he ended up a bit squashed looking :-)  
Chris takes his parties very seriously, this one was no exception; he hired space at a very nice park, hired oversized games such as Connect Four, Chess etc, he had face painters, balloon animal makers, gymnasts performing and a popcorn machine and chocolate fountain in the food tent - a real "kids" day that everyone seemed to really enjoy - I was surprised at how "into it" we all got; the tug of war and egg and spoon races were particularly competitive, and the average age was ... well, not kids! 

I shrunk down a copy of one of the invitations Chris had made for the ringmaster to hold in his hand.  The bottom cake was a rainbow cake too... I kept all the bits of different coloured cake mix I didn't use in the Big Top part of the cake and swirled them together (well three shades in each of two cakes) then gave them the gananche fondant treatment.  Even the board is covered in fondant - for a butter cake this thing weighed a LOT!!
Well that's about it for the cake too.  You don't have to do anything elaborate to enter Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper challenge... just use some Patterned Paper, any project...doesn't even have to be a card, why not give it a go?  Great prize on offer as always, and so easy!!
That's it for today, I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly Take Your Pick: (Technique,embossing)

Sweet Stampin' Use a Non-white base (Red Foil) 
Seize the Birthday Opt: Border punches or dies 
Polkadoodles Favourite card shape (any easel) 
Cute Card Thursday Masculine

Without Words For the Boys

Outlawz Friday Colouring Challenge Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes  
Craft Your Passion Anything Goes 
Simon Says Challenge Anything Goes 
Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna

Animals Acting Like Humans at Di's Digis

Whew, that's another fortnight that flew by..... Time for a new challenge at Di's Digi's Challenge Blog, the theme this time around is "Animals Acting as Humans".  I am having so many problems with Blogger.... it's a minor miracle if you're even able to see this, at last count it was my seventh attempt to publish!

I thought I'd take the opportunity to add to my Christmas card pile, and I just LOVE this cute image "Hark the Herald Micey Sing", available here.  I coloured with Copics and Prismacolor pencils, heat embossing some Ranger Bridal Tinsel EP onto the fur trim on the meece's hats.  Since I took this photo I also added some Glossy Accents to the holly berries as well, I didn't think it was worth taking another pic as you can rarely pick up the shine in pics anyway, lol.

The papers are from Kaisercraft's Christmas Carol pad... we stopped in Melbourne for a few days on our way to New Zealand holiday a few weeks ago and I found the Kaisercraft outlet store; all I can say is it's lucky for my wallet that there's a weight restriction on your baggage or we would have been cold in NZ after I made way for all the things I WOULD have bought if there wasn't a limit, lol... I did manage a paper pad - or three, lol.
The sketch I've based my card on is this little beauty from Tuesday Morning Sketches.
I've had the sparkly red ribbon in my stash for so long I can't even remember where it came from - it was really hard to get into a decent looking bow, even with my new Bow Easy... think I'll stick with finer ribbon in future.  The little jingle bell is actually from the Lindt chocolate bunny my youngest son bought for me for Easter this year... I have a whole pile of them in my stash still; he buys me a Lindt bunny every year, and I collect the ribbon and bells from everyone else that gets one too, such magpies us crafters, lol.

The fabulous sentiment is from Create With TLC; I can't remember if this was a freebie (quite possible as Paulette is very generous!) or if it came in one of the Christmas packs I've bought over the years... either way you can find it here.  I added the shadow to it in Microsoft Word, very easily done and it really does add some dimension.  

I finished the inside of the card very simply, which I tend to do with Christmas cards as a) they are less likely to be kept by the recipient and b)I'm usually under time pressure :-) The sentiment is a wood mounted stamp that was a gift from my sister years ago... before I even made my first card - as in she was having a clean out and I never say no to anything I think I'll get a use for one day; the reason I've spent more money on storage than anything else over the years - to keep my goodies organized and more importantly concealed, lol.
I hope you get a chance to enter the challenge this time around, there's so many images around of Animals Acting Like Humans - Di has a gazillion on offer herself, check them out here, so it's an easy challenge.  Great prize on offer as always, and don't forget if you DO use one of Di's cuties there's extra prize opportunities!
I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges: 

Great Impressions Trick or Tree-t or Image (my meeces are on a tree branch.. hope that's enough!) 
Christmas Stampin' All Year Long Lots of Layers or Textures (The background paper is foiled, the floral paper has glossy accents, the ribbon is very textured AND there's a lot of layers... think I've got this one covered, lol) 
Winter Wonderland Traditional Colours 
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Extra Challenge Anything Christmas

Hiding in my Craft Room Any Holiday

Papertake Weekly Anything Festive

Aud Sentiments Christmas

Fab'n'funky Challenges Cute Critters and/or Christmas

Crafty Cardmakers Add Some Sparkle (The bow/ribbon and the fur trim all sparkle IRL) 
4 Crafty Chicks Sparkle and Shine 
Outlawz Friday Colouring Challenge Anything Goes, Optional Christmas

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes

Cute As A Button Anything Goes

rt by Miran Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Craft Your Passion Anything Goes
  Well that's it for today, I'm still sorting out all my pics from our fabulous New Zealand adventure; which didn't start too well when we missed our flight to Queenstown on Day one and ended not too well either when we landed back in Aussie to a Custom and Immigration go slow campaign resulting in it taking over one and a half (stressful!)hours to get out of the airport, then 45minutes waiting for a taxi into Melbourne- at which point we wished we'd bitten the bullet and flown straight through to Perth even though they're really awful schedule times

The two weeks in New Zealand though were AWESOME; we saw plenty of snow, blue sky and truly majestic scenery This first pic is in Queenstown at dusk, (we've been twice before but in April, very little snow then, amazing how different it looks) The second pic is one (actually a few not-particularly-well stitched together) sent to our sons while away - it's okay considering the limited resources available at the time, lol) of the Northern end of Lake Wanaka about halfway through our journey - LOVE Wanaka! Town and Lake

We had a very rainy Milford Sound experience, which while "mystical"will probably be back on the list of "one fine day" as the photos of it on a clear day look astonishing, and we missed out on the helicopter/glacier landing flight as the weather was too poor for the two consecutive days we were "in range", so that's still on the Bucket List.  Ironically they were the three days of rain we had the whole trip.  Ah well, gave us a chance to catch our breath... we drove 2700 kilometres in 11 days; and managed to do a lot of the hour-plus walks to scenic spots that I couldn't do last time because of my hip... my new hip made the world of difference I have to say.

We did get to Kaikoura on the East Coast of the South Island this time (we went inland up to the Abel Tasman park last time so missed it) We saw plenty of these baby seals on our walk up the hill from the town beach - too cute!  They are wild creatures so we left them alone... but this little fella was quite nosy and I have a picture of him sniffing hubby's Cousin's foot!

I also have to give a shout out to anyone in Christchurch; we spent the last four days of our NZ time there with my hubby's family, they took us in to see the damage in the city and some of the hardest hit suburbs.  We were there six years ago, such a pretty city - and it broke my heart to see the level of devastation;  it was hard to get your bearings as all the landmarks are simply gone. 

It wasn't until I stumbled on the tram tracks when taking a photo of the devastated Cathedral that I realised I was on the angled road that was once the thriving heart of the city... as far as I could see in most directions was NOTHING, it looked like a giant parking lot.  Any of you that have stayed deserve our admiration, I hope for your sake's the "tearing down" has ended and the true rebuilding can begin in earnest.
I will add some "happier" pics of our trip next time, I'll be back in a few days, until then Happy Crafting Donna