Thank You Card

A self indulgence day today and how good it feels to be on annual leave and not have to get up to go to work but instead get to play :) and what better way to play than to make a card for a challenge.

This thank you card uses a digital stamp from StitchyBear - Scent of a Woman, such a beautiful stamp, so emotive.

I have been playing around with the best way to create cards with shaped cut-out tops.  Many I see have the decorative cut out area welded to the whole shape of the card but I find I have to be so precise in lining everything up on my plotter cutter or else I end up cutting directly onto the mat instead of around the edge of the card.  Well, OK, I could make cards with a width less than my A4 card but I don't want to do that.  This time I only created the cut file for the top filigree area, sorted it's placement on the virtual mat and lined up my card on the actual mat.  Fingers crossed this would work!!!!!  Way-hay, brilliant, it worked perfectly, cut beautifully and my mat was in tact too :)  It was easy from this point to cut the excess card from the base of the card to make a 14cm square folded card.  Think this is the way I will be making these types of cards in the future.

Enough waffling on, time to post this.

Challenges entered:-

OSAAT Challenge # 139 - With Thanks

Love to Create - Challenge #41 - Fancy Edges

Thank you OSSAT for my win and to all the DT members who wrote such lovely comments, made today a really special day <g> - excited.com :)

Round Easle Card

Round Lacy Easel Card

Card template cut on Black Cat and using digi stamp from Digi Darla called Watering Can Bouquet, rather a pretty little stamp I think :).  I joined the Digi Darla Sisterhood earlier this year and love getting my weekly stamps, always a surprise.  Although there are stamps I will probably never use there are many that I do so it was a great investment for the years membership.

I love the way the ribbon weaves through the card and think I am going to use this method a lot more on my card designing.

I used a shimmer mauve card for the base and a darker purple card for the cut out on top. I wove mauve ribbon through the slots created and attached the digital stamp topper to the top section of the card.  On the bottom section I selected the bottom butterfly from the digital stamp, enlarged it and cut it out.  To make it more secure, once coloured, I used Mod Podge on the front and back and stuck the bottom section of the cut out to the card with double sided tape.  

Think that just about sums up what I did.  Hope you like it <g>

This card has been entered in the following challenges

Digi Darla's Challenges - DDC#30 Circles and Scallops

October 1st

Many thanks to the Digi Darla Challenge design team for selecting my card, you have given me sucha a warm feeling inside <g>

Fairy Bingo

I just love Stitchbear digital stamps and have recently been checking out their weekly challenge blog, http://www.onestitchatatimechallenge.blogspot.com/ .  Having never entered a challenge before (never seem to have the time) this one caught my attention and as I have today off work I thought I would give it a go <g>.  I set myself the challenge of trying to use all nine sections, just for the fun of it.

This weeks challenge is called 'Bingo' and each entry had to contain a line / full house of the items given.

1. Ribbon
2. Embossing
3. Buttons
4. Sticker
5. Digi
6. Bling
7. Sentiment
8. Lace
9. Die-cut

For my entry:-

1. Ribbon - I added a ribbon bow
2. Embossing - I created a swirly background .svg which I then embossed onto 120gms white paper using my Black Cat
3. Button - this was fun, hardly any buttons in my house but I managed to find three white shirt buttons which I then coloured with Promarkers
4. Sticker - Two line stickers have been used to edge the white topper layer and also I created the Thinking of You sticker by designing it, saving as a .svg and then cutting it out of vinyl.  This was also coloured with Promarkers.
5. Digi - I was busy colouring in this digi, 'Ivy Fairy' from Delicious Doodles last night while cheking out the One Stitch At A Time Challenge so it had to be this digi I used.
6. Bling - to achieve this setion I heat fixed 6 turquoise gems around the fairy wings and also dotted the 'i's' on the Thinking of You text with Stickles
7. Sentiment - just something I thought up which seemed to work so well with the digi
8. Lace - white lace, coloured with Promarkers
9. Die-Cut - there are two in this card, the first is the Thinking of You text which I created and the second is the top wing of the fairy which once printed and cut was adhered to the card with foam tape, just to give a bit of depth.

There, I think that pretty much sums up the why and how of this card.  Now for the outcome :)

Having had a look at other folks entries I see many enter the same card for several different challenges.  Shall I give it a go <g>

I have also entered this card in the following challenges:-

1. Digi Galore - For a Friend
2. Two Sisters Challenge - Things With Wings
3. Love to Create - Anything Goes
4. Divas By Design - Challenge 54 fairies and fantasy
5. OSAAT - Challenge #132...Bingo

* * * * * 

Sept 30

Whoopee - got a big smile on my face and just had to capture the moment for prosperity <g>

A huge thank you to all the design team over  at One Stitch At A Time, I am chuffed to bits :)

Circular Heart Frame

Good morning paper piecing pals.  Another couple of hours playing around and came up with this Valentine border frame which I thought you might like.

Use the paper piecing sections as a cutout frame or as a layered frame.

As always, please do not use this file to add to paper piecing sets for sale or add to your blogs for download.  Other than that, enjoy :)

circular heart frame.svg

circular heart frame.pdf

circular heart frame.scut2

Flower Paper Piecing Pattern

Feel free to download for your own personal use only or for completed items you sell with the exception of paper piecing kits.  Please do not upload the files to blogs, e-stores etc for sale or for free download in any shape of form.  

Now that is said <g>, I hope you enjoy using the paper piecing pattern in you projects.  Happy crafting.

Flower jpg

Flower svg

Flower scut2

Please let me know if there are any problems with the downloading, I am pretty new to this way of file sharing so it may be a bit hit and miss <g>

November 22

We had run out of excuses for not getting ourselves into gear to sort the punctured spare tyre so today we packed up once again, removed all the bedding from Winston's penthouse suite, folded our chairs, packed the one ring cooker away (all we have now saying as Winstons's two ring gas cooker has no gas left), sorted the cameras etc.  All buckled up and ready to go, Alan gently inserts the ignition key and gives it a quick flick.  Winston was still asleep and no sign of life.  Another try, just a click and nothing.  Now we have noticed over the past few weeks, when Winston is quite happy with his resting place he is rather temperamental when it comes to moving him on.  Today was another of those days, this time his foot ware was in tack but his battery was dead.  Alan tried everything, even to removing the battery for the fridge and trying to use that to kickstart Winsotn into the land of the living but he was having none of it.

With no mobile signals where we are it was out with the satellite phone again to call Britz.  No problem, recovery vehicle on it's way to give Winston the kick he needs to wake up and start moving.  Not a long wait, only about half an hour, sitting in glorious sunshine, we heard the pickup arriving to sort the problem, then it was follow the recovery guy back to his garage so he could check the battery over properly.  All fine so our next stop was onto Munjinup to find a new inner tube, upload the blog, find a yummy coffee and then ponder on our next move.  Should we continue north-west towards Perth and hope we find somewhere nice to stop on the way, or head back to our very comfortable, scenic, leafy dwelling for another night or two saying as the sun is shining.  The latter choice won hands down and we turned Winston around to head back.

In need of a story for the blog and saying as we have driven past every winery so far, we decided to stop by one and buy a bottle of wine to go with our ham sandwich for dinner.  Which one to choose, now that is hard.  The easiest decision was to stop at the first one and taste their wines, well me to do the tasting while Alan looked on in anticipation saying as he was the driver <g>!!!  Remember what I said before, it does not take much wine to start sending me loopy <g>, this could be a very interesting journey home :).  The first winery we came to was called 'Lost Lake Wines', we were going to be quite choosy, the wine had to be red, fruity and non-acidic.  What a posh looking place, hope they sell bottles not casks <g>.

The first thing we noticed was their rather large vats with clear tubes coming out of them, and yes they were tinged with red.

This to us was a good indication they sold red wine.  Now for the tasting.  A very sweet young lass was serving us, could I have some fun here or should I behave. I decided to behave and admitted we were not wine drinkers just in case she was expecting me to do the three S's - smell, swill and spit.  I also mentioned most wines tasted the same to me and sent shivers down my spine while I shuddered with the acidity.  Her face fell, she did not think they had anything that my pallet would enjoy but best I taste them anyway.  Wine number 1 - shudder, wine number 2 - shudder, wine number 3 - shudder again.  Now they did have another wine, Honey Merlot, it was not on the list but had a flyer all of it's own.  Was this a good sign, was it so special it was streets above the rest in flavour or was it an experiment or was so bad it was not worthy of being included with the other wines.  Only one way to find out, this wine was naturally sweet like honey, still full bodied with juicy raspberry flavours, and it was yummy, instead of a shudder it was a tingle, that will do us just fine.  We ended up taking two bottles of wine and it was out with my almost empty purse.  The girls face was classic when she saw me tip all my small change onto the counter and bless her, there was not enough there but she was going to let us have the wine anyway.  No need for that, the notes were tucked but still easy to access <g>.

Back in our peaceful spot amongst the Kirri trees we enjoyed our wine with a ham salad sandwich, oh what a life.

One thing I have not shared with you this blog is an image of the inside of Winston's penthouse bedroom so here you are, our bed for the night almsot made, only the sleeping back to take up with us as we clamber into bed for the night.  What can one say, a tent on top of a vehicle with comes with 5 windows and electric lighting, not hardship at all :)

November 21

Deciding to stay another day here, listening to leaves rustling, little birds tweeting and the river passing by over some rapids on our front door step, there is not much to write about.  Our plan was to take a couple of walks in the forest and lots of photos.

Sun - where are you, we waited and waited.  Nothing but low cloud overhead, the sun made no effort to break through.

The only bit of blue sky we saw all day!!!

We waited so patiently with our cameras at the ready but nothing and we could not be bothered to pack up and move on.  Knowing the closer we get to Perth the harder it is going to be to find a quite spot to hide away in.  With plenty of supplies still at hand there really was no need for us to move.  We could hear small birds in the trees but seeing them was a different matter.

Just a pretty picture of the river.

By mid afternoon it was out with the wine, if for no other reason than to warm up <g>.  Now folks who know me often hear me say, "one glass of wine and I am almost anybodies, two and I am".  With 'hamsterfication setting in (that's when you cheeks go numb and feel like you are a hamster with hordes of peanuts in them) some of the ever present in sound only, little birds came to earth.  Oh what beauties, the males have iridescent blue feathers on their heads and orange on their backs, the females are the usual no need for show browns.  Now this is bad timing, wrong lens on my camera, hands unable to hold the camera, brain cell unable to work how how to take a picture, I missed every shot of the males but did manage to get one in focus of a female.  Thankfully Alan was a little more compus-mentus and managed to capture one little beauty for memories sake.

And finally, a sort of sunset to end the blog for today.