Welcome to the zoo...

....well, maybe just to the Butterfly House, which only makes sense if you live in Melbourne where we have a beautiful one.... 

 Here are a couple of ATCs for the latest Opus Gluei challenge which is to use animals, real or imagined, in our work.  It would have so easy to find a cat to use...........many many many here, but I found this paper and went with it instead.  I think the butterfly one is just a bit too extreme, but I like the bird on his branch.

 
And I had to sneak a cat in too, even if just as a prop for the photo.  

Details: paper is Kaisercraft "Secret Bird Society Collection", the branch is cut with a Taylored Expressions die called "Leafy Branch" and run through the cuttlebug, and all the other oddments are from the busy room boxes.

Happy Birthday Gaye

Making a card for my sister-in-law is a tricky business because there are colours she likes and ones she doesn't, and  it shouldn't be too girly, and it should have a small message if possible.........mind you, these are restrictions I put on myself, she's be mildly horrified to read this I'm sure.

So I combined all the parameters with some things I picked up at the new and beguiling Kaisercraft warehouse shop, and this is the result.

Very simple, very clean..........and just a small message.

Restrain yourself......to black & white & one other colour.....

When I started this card in my head, it was black with little bits of white and yellow...........and then the fingers took over from the head, and look what happened..........

...........it became yellow with a hint of black and white.  Ah well.

As always, I am seduced by the paper, and when it came to finding something black, this small piece of embossed card fell out of the pile on my desk.











So I tried again, just to see what my head and fingers would come up with, and this is the result.


Not strictly black and white...........but I like it.  This is another challenge from the team at Opus Gluei, so its well worth a look to see what other designers have created.

Something for your best friend - Opus Gluei #183

I find that making special cards are the hardest........if I just sit down and let inspiration take over, the results seem effortless, but as soon as I have a person in mind, nothing seems good enough.

I set myself the challenge of using a window card I had left over from a set I made a while ago......and I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I'm not sure I did.  The lovely parchment-like paper in the centre is a Kaisercraft one that I fell in love with - you'll see more of it in another post. 

The sentiment is Kaisercraft too, and its most appropriate for the friend I have in mind, because she doubts herself without any reason.  She's the first to see the good in any situation, the first to appear at your side, and the cheerful face I see across my desk every day.

To see what others have designed for their friends, go over to Opus Gluei and prepare to be delighted.

..and for my Mum.

So I think this could be considered being on a roll...........gate-fold cards nearly all used up!!  Just love this paper, and yes I know it could have had more layers and more bling and more EVERYTHING, but its fine just the way it is too.

...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.