Have you got time to take five?

We rarely do take time out, time out to just “be”.  If you are a carer you will probably find it harder to find some ‘me’ time and have to wait till you can get respite of some sort.  What if you were able to just ‘Take Five’ over a cuppa or escape while you are waiting at yet another medical appointment?

My cousin, who is a wonderful photographer (and is her husband’s full-time carer) has put this small book together – “Take Five”.  It’s a great little book, filled with beautifully photographed images that, by flicking through the pages, can just whisk you away for five minutes. Hence the title “Take Five”

Vanessa is currently selling these books as a way of raising funds for her Parkinsons Carer’s group and if you would like to purchase one, please send her an email at books4charity@y7mail.com.  She is more than happy for you to purchase them in bulk, at cost, if you would like to sell them to help raise funds for  your carer’s group.

Now back to your regular programming!

Michelle

Quick and easy enchantment.

I have no excuse other than I was on a roll the other day when I was playing with the Everyday Enchantment paper and Sale-a-bration (read: freebie)  Elementary Elegance stamp set.  I may as well show you the rest of  the cards that I made and have it over and done with.  These cards all fall into the “lemon-squeezy” section of “easy”.  This next card I did in every colour way that the patterned DSP offered. I liked this combination the best .  I think if I wanted to spend some more time on it, I would have used Versamark to stamp on a background pattern. But it seems to have survived okay without it.

And this one falls into the super-squeezy section of easy . . .

Once I discovered a trick for making scalloped squares without too much maths (“turning the corner“) it seems to feature in a lot of my cards these days.  :) I don’t know if you can see in the photo, I’ve popped up the birthday greeting on a punched-out curly label which fits neatly inside the scroll-y, elegant frame. Can lemon squeezy get any easier?  I don’t think so.

Okay, off you go and make some lemonade!

Till next time,

Michelle

More enchantment.

I’m still loving the Everyday Enchantment Sale-a-bration freebie papers and am using them with everything that I am doing at the moment.  I had a different design in my head when I was making this card, but I think I got distracted halfway through and forgot what I was doing.  It’s missing a little something . . .

I will just have to go and play some more until I get it right. What a pity

Do you remember me telling you about the other card I made with the Everyday Enchantment DSP here. I posted a picture of it on a group forum and the cheeky Madonna Dunn asked “Is that for me?”.  Well, as she had asked so nicely, I just had to send it to her. I mentioned that she sent me back a gorgeous card.  Well, she’s taken a lovely picture of it and has posted on her blog here.  As I mentioned before – I LOVE IT.  I think I need to send out more cards, if this is what I get in return. I love some card Karma.

Hope you’re having a great Tuesday.

Michelle

One for Mater.

Here’s a card that I have made for my mother-in-law’s upcoming birthday. Along with embossing and fussy-cutting, there’s lots of love in there.

I’ve also used the new coloured embossing powders from Stampin’ Up! (Melon Mambo and Wild Wasabi) for the floral embellishment on the front page , which compliments the “Beyond the Garden” DSP. The colours just ‘pop’, don’t they?

 I learnt a new trick with my Top Note Die while making this card and, just quietly, I’m feeling a little pleased with myself. The front flap of the card is part of the card, rather than a separately attached ‘feature’. So here’s a tip for all those old dogs trying to learn some new tricks. To make the front flap: when making my ‘sandwich’ for the Big Shot I have the bottom plate, then the Top note Die and then the card stock strip (148mm x 297mm), then place only half(ish) of the cutting plate on top as you don’t want all of the Top Note shape to cut out. Once your shape has been cut, you may need to trim your card  stock a fraction to make a standard size card, but not much.  This is what it looks like standing open.

I hope that makes sense – For me it is one of those visual things, so if you would like pictorial instructions let me know and I will do some  All the goodies that I used for this card are available in the new Summer Mini Catalogue and all purchases over $100 qualify for free Sale-a-bration goodies.  Contact me if you would like to know more.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday Mater!

Keep inky!

Michelle 

It keeps me enchanted, everyday.

Can I just say that I love freebies. Stampin’ Up! have loads of wonderful goodies available for a limited time every year. It’s that very special time of the year called “Sale-a-bration“. Which is great, except the limited time part. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. This year I have fallen in love with the Everyday Enchantment DSP, and I never want it to end.  I will just have to buy some more goodies to get some more freebies *grin*

Here’s a little creation( it has flown the coop to the lovely Mads in Queensland) that I have used the aforementioned DSP in the background on one of the hearts. The paper is so gorgeous that it needs little more done to it to make a lovely card. Can you see the texture on the middle heart? I punched a heart out of DSP, adhered it to some vanilla card stock then ran it through Black Betty (my Big Shot) in the “Lattice” embossing folder.

And in return she has sent me a visions of vintage-y purple gorgeous-ness.  I want to make cards like she does when I grow up.

More cards soon. But until then, keep inky,

Michelle

Clearly for You.

It was a typical Melbourne day in November when my cousin got married. It’s Spring, right? Well, The rain started mid-morning and didn’t stop at all  throughout the day and it fell for most of the night (over 33mm for the day with flood warnings issued).  The day will certainly be memorable for more than just the gorgeous bride, the handsome groom and the beautiful flower girls!

Here’s the card that I made for the happy couple . . .

My favourite stamp on there is the three little birds.  Peter, Michelle and Meg are already a gorgeous little family unit and I loved that I could represent Dad, Mum and daughter on the card that way. All the stamps on the cards are from my “go-to” stamp set of the moment – “Clearly for You”, with “Parlour Prints”  for the background and the new postage stamp punch. And Purple. We all know that you can’t have enough purple (Elegant Eggplant and Wisteria Wonder here) and there’s never a point where you can say that there is too much ribbon. The Sticky Strip™ is certainly getting a workout holding this lot on!  I also made a horseshoe  ’good luck charm’ for the bride (what are they called exactly? Does anyone know if they have a proper name? ) but, alas, I forgot to take a picture of it. Needless to say, lots of pearl beads, hearts and ivory ribbon.

Here is another project that I have used the “Clearly for You” stamp set on.  It’s (another) one of my new crafting obsessions - Shrink Plastic. It’s new to me, but I am sure it’s old hat to everyone else (I’m a little bit slow sometimes!)

Do you remember Shrinky Dinks® from way back when you were a much shorter person? And if you didn’t have the real thing, there was the alternative.  You could shrink chip packets in the oven and make such fun and colourful jewellery, key rings, bag tags, mobiles -anything  just to have an excuse to eat more salt and vinegar chips so that you could experiment some more! (Apparently it’s all the rage again – see here for a UK magazine article and “How To” make your own confectionery packet adornments)  Anyhoo, I digress.  I have bought some sheets of shrink plastic to play with and to make this bracelet all I needed to do was punch out some shapes then stamp-stampety-stamp away with Stazon Ink.  In this bracelet, the ink was a lovely green, but by the time it had been subjected to the wrath of my heat gun and it shrunk down by 40% it was looking much, much darker. I will be going much, much brighter next time.  And a tip for new players at home – anything that has been heated with a heat tool, so hot that it will shrink and shrivel and curl will be HOT. So if you think it’s smart to flatten out these little babies with your pinkies, it’s not. Okay? Learn from my slightly singed fingers – Use a wooden block!  This is a fun medium that can give a craft junkie some instant gratification.

More instant gratification soon,

Michelle

and now it’s February . . .

They say that the New Year is a time to make some resolutions, something to aspire to in the New Year.  Well the New Year arrived safe and sound with the usual fanfare,  and we are now into  the second twelfth of the year. When did that happen? Where did January go? Has someone sped up the hands of time?  I drafted a post last month titled “New Years Resolutions”.  One of the listed items was to blog more often, or at least more regularly. We’ll just pop that one in the “Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time” basket.  My aim is  to blog things that I have been making and creating . . . .  sooooooo,  as I have done nothing this year (so far) I will have to trawl the archives and see what I did last year and didn’t get around to sharing.

Quick and Simple with a little masking -

And stepped up with a bit of ribbon, a scroll, some text and sponging to make a birthday card -

That gorgeous green ribbon was part of a ribbon share that I was part of and it’s one of the  new Stampin’ Up seam binding ribbons (well it was new when I got it last September!) and I have fallen in love with it.  You can do anything with that ribbon. It squishes and smooshes and does exactly what you want it to do.  Especially when you’re bow-challenged like me.  This ribbon can make anyone look good!

Okay, what next . . .? Let me what I have here. How about something that is a little different from paper craft?

I’ve discovered jelly!  Well I didn’t discover jelly per se, I was given a book called “Wobble”  that contains “ 35 tantalising jelly recipes to get your taste-buds in a quiver” and now I doubt that  I’ll ever open a packet of Aeroplane Jelly again! Above is a picture of my first effort – Spiced Plum and Cinnamon.  Other recipes from the book that I’ve tried are: Mandarin and Vanilla, Cherry and Peach and feeling a little brave, I attempted my own concoction of spiced apple and rhubarb.   This has sparked a whole  new interest for me, so I have been scouring the internet for wonderful and unusual jelly moulds. I’m getting a lovely collection of old copper moulds that are gracing my kitchen walls and giving it a lovely warm glow, I think that I will just stick to the silicone ones.

Okay, one more card before I go.  Another quick card using the “Kindness Matters” stamp set -

This came together so quickly and the part that took the longest (relatively speaking) was die cutting the numbers and waiting for the Crystal Effects to dry!

I promise to be back before March with some more show and tell . . who knows, it may even be something that I’ve made this week!

Keep thinking ink,

Michelle

Is it Christmas yet? What do you mean it’s January already?

It seems like that all that preparation for the  Christmas in July extravaganza exhausted me and required an extended blog-break to recuperate! And now not only has it looked like Christmas, it’s been Christmas and now it’s starting to look like Easter (was that hot cross buns I spied in the shopping basket today? Who put them there? Not me, your honour!)

Well, I certainly don’t have any Easter offerings for you today but I do have some of the Christmas cards that never made it into a post or out into the mail (so do all these left-overs mean I have made a start on next years’ cards?).  This first little fella was part of a swap that I coordinated that involved some fellow stampers from a Facebook forum I belong to.  After making 15 of them, I realised that this is not a chap that I would want to mass-produce unless I was taking some long-service leave from my day job to get it done.

I’ve called him my $300 Santa because of all the different punches I used to make him up.  He required 9 different punches and the Circle Scissors (that was for his 3″ round belly!).  He looks like he’s been on a bit of a binge on biscuits, milk, beer and all the other nibbles that all the good little children leave out for him!  I originally saw this Santa on Valita’s blog and I hope I have done her original creation justice.  What this woman does with punches is truly amazing, and I can only hope that I could be half as talented with a punch as she is!

Well, I best be off to find some more things to show you. I am sure they’re around here somewhere.  I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise, and it won’t be 6 months before I come back.

Michelle

Excuse me while I change!

It’s a new year, so time to get back on the blog wagon! So I thought I would start with a new look.  Please forgive the tweaking and fiddling that will go on over the next little while.  What I may like today, I will probably hate tomorrow.  But, at the end of it all I will actually be posting again and, hopefully, on a much more regular basis.  That’s assuming I have something to show you  I promise I will.  New Year’s resolutions and all that.

Happy New Year,

Michelle

Bitten by the Christmas bug.

It all started with the Inklings Blog Hop and now I just have to keep sharing the Christmas love. This is a 12″ x 12″ scrapbook page with the Ornament Punch providing most of the decoration and page 25 of the Stampin’ Up Idea Book and Catalogue providing the inspiration..

The snowflake is has been embossed with 3 coats of white with a final layer of Dazzling Diamonds to give it that *sparkle*. The ornaments were punched from scraps of various Christmas (and non-christmas) themed papers and stamped images from the “Delightful Decorations” stamp set. Big thanks to Amelie for being such a gorgeous model!

Till next time,

Michelle