House Mouse and Friend!

This is the cutest little image called A Carrot Between Friends. I have made the card to send overseas so it does not have a lot of embellishments on it. That makes it easier to post with no fear of something being broken on the way.

I have the biggest stash of patterned paper so am trying to use some up. This paper came from a 6 by 6 paper pad in all sorts of retro colours and designs. Copics have been used to colour the image and I have put on faux brads.

No more posting now until I come home from a week away - firstly to a stamp camp on the weekend and then a few days with Bethel. I look forward to the break away and when I come home, our new house will be all painted - something to look forward to seeing!

PSX Hibiscus

Here I have used a few different techniques - the Marvy Metallic background, using the labels to stamp on and the spotlight technique. The flower was coloured in with Prisma pencils and solvent. I keep trying to practise what I have been taught about pencil colouring from my special friend Bethel. She is just so good at it - well she is so good at everything she attempts!! I really enjoy colouring - no matter what medium I try!

Now I have to get my mind into gear about what to take for a stamping retreat this coming weekend. Knowing me, I will not get much card making done - too busy chatting and seeing what others are up to but the make and takes etc will be fun.

The latest

It has been one of those weeks! We were at a conference for most of four days so have had to catch up on usual chores since. I will show a card I finished in a little while but these pics are showing the latest progress on the house. It seems it will be finished by the end of next month - all going well of course! There always seems to be a little drama pop up here and there but nothing that holds things up for too long.

The floor and wall tiles are all laid and the painter comes in next week. The photo shows one side of the kitchen - for now there is bubble wrap covering all the benches to protect them. As we have the ceilings higher than normal, the wall cupboards are so much taller and I will need a step ladder to get to the top shelves! Never fear I will find something to fill them knowing my habits!!

House Mouse Monday Challenge

This card was made for the House Mouse Challenge #54 - Movies! I don't get to go to the movies very often and really do not follow them much but I based this card on Buddies. This Aussie movie, released in 1983 was quite an underrated and relatively unknown one but I remember it as it was based on a story set in Central Queensland on the Gemfields -very near to where I spent my childhood. It is a comedy movie and the script revolves around the Emerald community who are portrayed as driving too fast, riding their horses up to the bar for a drink, drinking all day when it rains and don't very much care whether they are rich or poor!! Emerald has changed a lot since 1983 haha!!

It was great to be able to use this image too as Emerald is renowned for its sunflower crops and actually has a sister city in Canada - another "sunflower city'.

I coloured the image in with Copic Markers, it is cut out with a Nestabilities die, I have used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the background, the flowers are from my stash and the centres are Sprinkles. The wording comes from a Stampin' Up! set called Trendy Trees.

A Santa card

Another Christmas card today. I went through my stamps and found one that I could practise on with my Copics again! I have no idea who made this stamp but I have had it for many years.

It was very hard for me not to layer this image but I took this idea from a card in the SU US mini and it looked good to me so what the heck! The card colours used are Always Artichoke and Riding Hood Red, I used Copic markers to match and the Ho Ho Ho is die cut using an SU alphabet die which was sent to me by a good friend!

On Santa, I have used Polar White Flower Soft - might be hard to see in the photo.

Just a little update!

I was waiting for the bricks to be all on before I posted another photo but the boys didn't get finished yesterday so this is the stage they left it at. One of them brought his boat with him and he took off to a big fishing competition at the dam where our irrigation water is drawn from. There are some huge barra in that dam!

The bricks we chose are double bricks which are twice the height of normal house bricks and although they look paler than they looked when we chose them, we are still happy with the look. There were eight guys in the brickies team and those boys sure deserve their R and R this weekend - they worked very hard and all had their set chores - one stood and cut bricks all day - he could hardly keep up to the layers!

Inside the house is all ready now for the kitchen, bathroom and laundry benches, drawers etc to be installed - the walls and ceilings are all plastered ready for painting and the builder is hanging doors and doing the final trims around windows and wardrobes. Next week the cabinet maker and tiler come hopefully so we hope for another productive week!

This week I have been finishing off cards and packaging them ready to sell. They are mostly embroidered cards with 3D designs on them and I have even made some of them as Christmas cards. I enjoy doing them as a change from stamping.

Christmas Tilda

I still have a few Magnolia images left and as I am on a roll with making Christmas cards, this one turned into one as well!!

As most of my stash is still in boxes, I mainly used things on here that I had easy access to. I coloured the girl with SU watercolour crayons and blender pen and punched out the little green branch and the red dots [ supposed to represent holly LOL] The oval and scalloped oval were cut using Nestabilities dies. The patterned DSP is from SU as are the two ribbons. The white branches were punched out with a Martha Stewart punch, the flowers are just from my stash and the pearl is from an Aussie company called Annabelle Stamps. I don't know the company which made the wording stamp.

I am very inexperienced with using the Magnolia Tilda images but it is really fun colouring them in. Kellie Winnell has just started up her very own online store which has Magnolia only products! Click here to go have a look and I say good for you Kellie for starting a new venture!