Hip Hip Hooray

it's my special day today and as I had lots of spare time I thought I would update my neglected blog.  Unfortunately, to do that I had to upload card photos to my computer and that proved to be a very long process.  I got a new computer back in May and it does not recognise my camera software so have been taking photos with the iphone and ipad and these do not upload as I would wish- ie in date order!! - so there are photos all over the place and to add to the confusion every time I connect the ipad to the computer it loads ALL the photos again.  Yikes, I am out of my depth here.

 

I have a friend who posts one photo of Melbourne a day and maybe that is an idea I will run with for a while.

 

This card was for a very special friend in England who celebrated her 80th birthday back in September.  A friend of hers made her a birthday cake decorated with "Toy Boys" dressed only in top hats - I do hope she sends me a photo of that.

 

 

Back soon,

Mary

 

Lots of birthdays

I am so far behind in updating the blog, but at least I seem to be better at remembering to take a photo of the cards as I finish them.  ( I need to do this otherwise I can't remember what I sent people the previous year).

Birthday wishes owl for Roy:

I wanted Papertrey "Tea for Two" for ages and finally got around to inking it up:

and a special 40th stair step card :

Tilda came out of wraps for three year old Eve:

and the punches helped with these two for twins who had a witch themed party:

Another stair step card for a 40 birthday:

which I was pleased with, so I repeated it for a special 70th birthday ..

.... and this time I made the envelope especially to fit the card and also the Gift Voucher that went with it:

I also made a concertina book for guests at the party to sign:

this is it opened up:

Well, I am sure that's more than enough for one day.  I must update more often.

Mary

Return of the Razzleberry

I promised I'd be back with a card to match the razzleberry acceptance card I made. 

Today was the "Open House Afternoon Tea" to celebrate this special 70th Birthday, so I can now show you the matching stair step card. 

The flower stamp is from the SU Fifth Avenue set and it makes lovely crisp images which are so easy to cut out.  The card stock is Whisper White and of course, Razzleberry with some Razzleberry ribbon as well.  The SU bird punch is so handy for making leaves.

I haven't actually made a bird card with it yet. 

I will have another Razzleberry card to show you next time then I promise I will move on to another colour.

Cheers
Mary

Forty fabulous flutterbys

Flutter by butterfly

Floating flower in the sky

Kiss me with your petal wings

Whisper secrets, tell of spring

As soon as I saw these butterflies I knew what I was going to do for a special 40th birthday card.  When I started cutting them out I was a bit doubtful as to whether I could fit 40 of them on one card, but I did. 

I used my favourite stair step card which always look great for special birthdays.  The card stock is SU  confetti white and I stamped it in gold with the Vintage wheel.

It was getting rather crowded so I used three wires and adhered seven (double sided) tiny butterflies onto each stem which took up 21 then 9 medium sized and 10 large and the one extra large one on a wire at the top.

You can probably just see one of the wires at the top of the card here.  I just adhered them at one end and then bent the wires so they would go where I wanted, but would still be floating free.

I then made a belly band for the envelope the gift voucher was in, and just tucked the right side of the card under the belly band by about 3 cm.  It looked great.

So altogether I cut out 64 butterflies ! 

Wouldn't want to do that every day but I think it was worth the effort.

I'll be back soon with another stair step card.

Mary

'I'm Late' for "Valentine's Day' so I'm left with 'paper roses'.

The time has come for me to get this blog on the move.  I started out with great intentions in January but have had too many things to distract me since then.  I decided it had to be done before the second month of the year disappeared, so just scraping in. 

I want to say a very big Thank You to Sue  http://www.madexcreations.com/ (my lovely Stampin' Up lady), who has helped me to work out some of the finer points of blogging including making a watermark for me today, and also to Karen http://kgiron.blogspot.com/ for her tutorial on watermarks. 

As to the title of this post, well I did have this Valentine offering done in plenty of time, but alas, no one to give it to.  I have cased this from one I saw here last year and finally got to make it.   Sharon always makes beautiful cards and her blog is really great with plenty of new interest all the time, and she has the most divine ribbons.

This second card was another one that I 'cased' - this time from one by the wonderfully talented  Kelly Lunceford at http://flutterbyatomicbutterfly.blogspot.com/ .   I admire her work so much and have to pop in regularly to see what she is up to.  Love those concertina circles -  use them all the time.

When I realised that I had missed the 20th Birthday of a niece in England, I knew exactly which card I was going to do.  I just love anything to do with Alice in Wonderland, and the words on the front of the card are some that I seem to use quite often (if only to myself!).   I have to say this card was very, very late, but hopefully it has arrived by now.

My third card is all my own work (thank heavens, I hear you say!).  I have done quite a few 'step/stair' cards for special birthdays and they are really enjoyable to do.  This one is for the 90th birthday of a friend's special Auntie, so I do hope she likes it as they are a bit different from the normal run of cards. 

This card is pretty much a total SU effort.  I used the stamp set Fifth Avenue and watercoloured the roses etc., using some Twinklings, which give a bit of sparkle.  I have to say that it looks better in real life - my photography is not crash hot - the colour of the back rose is actually the same as the middle one.

February was a busy month in our family for birthdays and here are just a few of the cards I made.

Another step/stair card with a fairy theme:

Followed by yet another step/stair for Princess Lily.  SU Pretty Princess used on this one.

Most young children love to see their name on cards so sometimes I get to play with my pens and ink.

 That's about all I have to show today but hopefully I'll be back soon with the next batch of cards.

Cheers,

Mary