Birthday Cupcakes

I needed some birthday cards so thought I'd pull out the 'Create a Cupcake' set and coordinating punch. I went looking for inspiration in the SCS galleries and thought I'd take the basic idea of this card. I took the basic layout and put my spin on it. I played around with DSP and settled on these 2 designs.

Here are more pics showing the subtle differences ...

Recipe
Stamps : Create a Cupcake
Ink : So Saffron, Perfect Plum, Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzazz
Cardstock : Shimmery White, Perfect Plum, Subtles DSP
Accessories : 2 3/8" Circle Scallop Punch, Circles #2 Die & Big Shot, Circle Scissor Plus, 1/2 Crystals, Texture Plate, White Gel Pen

Christmas Berries

Making different colour-ways with the same stamp (from Easy Events). The image on a coloured cardstock uses the 'Black Magic' technique per the fabulous Karen Barber!

Thanksgiving and a New Baby

I hope your Thanksgiving Day was wonderful, ours was. We were invited out for a traditional American Thanksgiving Day Meal (thank you Wiersing Family). It was wonderful, we THOROUGHLY enjoyed the company and the food and I wish we could eat like that EVERY day! This is the card I made for LeAnne and Jeff, nothing too difficult or fancy, but they loved it.

I also made this card for my cousin Antonia who gave birth to the newest member of our family last week, Sebastian Frederick Alexander Close. This card is a total copy of the one in the Idea Book & Catalog, with my spin on it. It was fiddly to make, but I LOVE it!

November Club

It's my November Club this weekend. These are our projects. The small 'Triple Treat Flower' project is a pull-out 2012 Calendar to keep in your handbag. The 2 cards were inspired by fellow bloggers, the hot air balloons by Darlene and the Vintage Skates by Judy Marshall.

Today's colour challenge over on Splitcoast was to use Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral and Baja Breeze. These colours don't scream 'Christmas', but I think I pulled it off. My mum's staying and, as she so politely put it, "It's lovely, but I wouldn't choose it" ... hee hee. That's English for "I don't like this one" ...

Recipe
Stamps : Christmas Postcard
Ink : StazOn Black
Cardstock : Watercolour Paper, Naturals Ivory, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Baja Breeze
Accessories : Lucky Limeade Ruffled Ribbon, 1/2 Pearls, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Punch, Blender Pens & Reinkers

Mum & I spent a happy afternoon in the new basement stamping! We stumbled across this blog by 'Darlene' who just does AMAZING WORK!!! I absolutely 100% copied the hot air balloon card ... loved it! And then I followed a tutorial on how to make SU Markers look like Copics. Enjoyed EVERY second of it today. Mum did some great work too!

A Basement Facelift

Here's my messy basement before my Dad arrived to give me a makeover! What a MESS :)

Here we are constructing the IKEA kitchen cabinets. So easy to put together, and not horrendously expensive.

It took us 3 days to get everything finished ~ Dad can make anything!!! A few trips to Home Depot for 'emergency' supplies, like the 2" hole cutter drill bit which wouldn't fit into our drill! Had to buy a bigger drill just to make that one hole. Worth it though, now all my electrical wires come up through one point on the desk ... so neat and clever!

Here I am with Mummy making use of the new space. I'll show you what we made in my next post!

Happy Birthday, Terry

I wanted to tell you a story about my friend Terry. Picture this, you are in your mid-30's. You pack up your ENTIRE LIFE and wave goodbye at the airport to your Mum & Dad, board a plane with your dog in a crate, clutching the hand of your little 5 year old daughter and head to a new Country where your husband's waiting for you. Your 'home' is a strange apartment, furnished with a stranger's furniture. Your husband goes off to work that first day and you have no car, not one single friend nor a single family member to just give you a hug and tell you it's going to be OK. It took 6 weeks to find a home and move into what would soon become everything familiar.

Guess how lucky I got? I moved right next door to Terry. Oh my WORD. Poor woman must have thought I was a lunatic "where can I buy decent meat?", "where can I take Sarah to make new friends?", "how does this work?", "what do you use this for?" ... and she was a lifeline. In more ways than one. She made me feel like I had a friend, right from the first meeting. And I'm happy to say that 10 years later, she's still next door and she's still my lifeline. Our lives have changed a lot, I don't need her as much as I did in those first few months, but she's still my #1 American Gal and I love her to BITS!

Happy Birthday, Terry. We love you!

The card I made was really simple. I've made a pumpkin and a Christmas Tree card using this technique, so I thought I'd make Terry's card with a 3-D heart.

To make a 3-D shaped image, punch out 5 of your shapes and score down the centre. Fold Each shape and glue the sides together, then attach to the front of your card.

Recipe
Stamps : Floral Fillers, Perfectly Penned
Cardstock : Blushing Bride, Shimmery White
Ink : Blushing Bride
Accessories : Heart Punch, Pinking Hearts Border Punch, 1/2 Pearls, Blender Pen & Ink