...for a friend...

 

Love it when an idea in your head comes together........swapped a kaisercraft voucher for a lovely collection of papers and these ones were just asking to be made into a card for Donna.  Lots of lovely reds, just possibly a colour favourite of hers, and the chance to use up another gate-fold card because I struggle with them.  

 

...and a lovely lunch to top off the day!

Using Flowers

Once upon a time I would have been the last person in my group to use flowers on ANYTHING...now I'm the person with the greatest collection of every colour shape and size.  Not that it means I ever have exactly what I want of course.........

No matter......this is my response to our challenge at Opus Gluei to use flowers.  I think the paper is perhaps the first designer piece I bought and I almost didn't want to use it.  On the other hand, you cant keep everything forever.

Once bravely stepping outside the black and white that is my comfort-zone, I have compounded the whole thing by creating the base from a piece of pink (eeeek) card stock. 

There are shiny brads and glittery bits, and even ribbon - if you'e going to step out, you might as well make the step a decent sized one!! 

Better get back to what I do better for next time.

Happy Easter.....egg

This is not the place to get into a discussion about what Easter means to you, but we can at least agree that eggs are a sign of new beginnings.  Electra challenged us to use eggs in our project this time, and I could have taken a photograph of breakfast....bit like "checking in" really.........but this is not facebook.

Here are two ATCs with a tiny version of eggs I made with one of my classes in the past.  They're egg shaped cut-outs, wrapped in scraps of tissue paper.  When we made them in class, my students put bows around their middles and drew patterns on them too.  I like how the overlap creates new colours.  I found the rabbit in a treasure trove of retro pictures from some re-purposed books and I had to tint the edges because old paper doesn't cut as cleanly as new stuff.

......and I wont comment on the Lindt chocolate if you don't.  Why bother?  It wont last long.

Come over to Opus Gluei and see what everyone else created....and don't forget to join in.  Even if you just take a photograph of the paper that was around your last egg.

Letters of the alphabet........

.........always make me think of my favourite things (of the moment, they're always changing)....and so it is with the ATCs I made for this challenge at Opus Gluei.  I almost didn't get a chance to upload it owing to glitches in the system here, but the least said about that the better.

I began with C for cat, for no particular reason except that it was easy to do, and I had all the pieces to hand on the desk.  The C is from the drawer of "come-in-handy" things in my son's desk, and the cat stares with the same expression as one of mine.....

 Full of enthusiasm, I then went hunting through the folders of images I save for decoupage, and came upon the tiny fairy dancing on a cobweb strung between the grasses.  I'm not really a fairy person, but she has long dark hair, just like mine once was, so she made it onto the "keep" list.  Once I added the moon's face, Moonlight was the obvious choice.

A casual glance around my home will discover a
tendency towards collecting things with an asian influence, but the word "orient" always sounds so much more mysterious (I blame too much reading as a child)....so the choice for O was easy.  Katrina handed me a box of miniature masks just today, so the ATC very nearly made itself.  The coins are from a broken bracelet, the newsprint from a paper wrapped around a purchase from Chinatown (and probably advertises used cars!!), and the image of a plate is from the files.  Together it makes an oriental collection of no fixed address.
 
The choice for S was made when the image of a bright white path on Santorini fell out of an envelope along with a Blue Star ferry ticket, which is how you get from one island to another for the smallest amount of money.  Just the image immediately brought to mind the heat, and the bright sun, and the donkeys, and the food!  Being there with childhood friends was so memorable and such fun.

And lastly....lying there among the scraps of paper was the head of a Zombie.  Doesn't every desk have one?  Had to give him a home and indulge in a tiny bit of graveyard art as well.  Perhaps in a shirt and tie he's too well dressed to have popped up from a grave, but then what do I really know about zombies?

I think a whole alphabet would be fun, but I know I'd never complete it.....I remember how long it took to finish the month of lists and tags last year!!

If the alphabet might be your thing, or if you just want to make use of lots of letters in your work, come and join us at Opus Gluei and show off your work.

Significant birthdays.....

This is the year that most of my friends from school have a significant birthday.....hardly seems reasonable that so many years have passed since we were worrying about important things like homework, and remembering white socks for sport, and trading sandwiches at lunchtime, and thinking up new ways to get out of German classes.

Tomorrow one of my friends is celebrating with a High Tea at her place, catered for by her newest son-in-law who just happens to be a chef.  We're all invited to wear our Sunday best, which in my case will be my usual monochrome, but maybe I'll break out the pearls!!  Living dangerously seems to be called for.

This is the card I made for Jilba, gathering together a host of pinks and sparkles to make her a special card...............a long way away from my usual.

Chocolate!!

Chocolate......my ultimate comfort food - hot chocolate in a hug mug from Max Brenner, hazelnut Lindt balls, chocolate covered raspberries, Freddo frogs, chocolate coated turkish delight, my Grandmother's biscuits with a chocolate drop on the top, home made chocolate mousse............

...but the one with the least calories is the Opus Gluei Chocolate Challenge, so I made these ATCs in a flash (and it helped that I had an empty chocolate wrapper to use too).  Mmm... hazelnut chocolate....

...and to think when I found this "chocolate" brad I wondered how I'd ever find a use for it!

OG 175 Sweetheart....

Any day now it will be Valentines Day and that's an excuse to spoil someone special in your life, or maybe someone you would like to have in your life........or  just an excuse to go all out with hearts and flowers because you can. 

I made three ATCs for the latest Opus Gluei challenge, following the instructions to use a minimal palette of red, pink and white.  It might have been easier to use them all in one card, but I like ATCs, so any excuse to make a few at a time is a good excuse.........

I used a collection of papers from the cupboard............ pearls, ribbon, glittery bits, brads and even some chain and a bead. 

Happy Valentine's Day.

Ooops.... lost in transmission

Long ago, in a land far away, a dear friend celebrated a significant birthday. The presents were assembled, wrapped, annotated..... all it needed was the card to be finished. Then life stepped in and anything on paper that wasn't a school report or a budget spreadsheet went to the bottom of the pile. And the pile grew....and grew....and grew.
Okay, enough excuses. I lost the plot (Plot? What plot? What was the book again?), so finally here is the card, and the apology is heart-felt. She knows who she is, so the rest of my readers will just have to wonder...........

I saw this idea for a card like a pin-board somewhere when I was surfing. It has fine gold-edged ribbon criss-crossing a sheet of pretty blue and yellow nameless paper from Riot. There's a matching yellow mat to back it before being mounted on white CS. The various flowers are Kaiser and so are the brads. The birthday stamp was a present from friends across the sea and its embossed on yellow ink with iridescent powder.

I know your birthday was a happy one.......

Trees.......

I've never really thought about it before, but trees are a symbol of strength and security for me, and I often find myself doodling them when I'm not taking any notice of what my hand is drawing.........so this challenge is my sort of challenge.  My fellow Poobah Electra chose this theme for the 175th at Opus Gluei, and this is my response.

The image is one I stamped and embossed in glossy black, and all the other bits and pieces are from the various drawers and containers on the shelves.  I think I might go back to my neutral palette for a while because I like how this turned out.  I didn't photograph the inside, but as with all dark cards, I added a square of creamy paper so make it easier to write a message.............only crafty people seem to think having pens in every colour is normal!

Need a lift?

It might be a quiet time for you, or you might just have had ENOUGH...of the weather, of the questions, of just about everything.  If that's you, then I can only hope the card I've made is bright and cheery enough for you.

I think I might send it to my friend whose New Year has been anything but happy.  If it makes her smile just a little, it will have served its purpose.

This is the first Opus Gluei challenge of the New Year...why dont you join in too?