Calendar 2019

Hello again,

This will be my second attempt at posting this as blogger decided to be unfriendly the other day and it froze on me, so here goes again....

After making several friends calendars as small gifts one year for Christmas, it has become somewhat of a tradition, last year I made owl calendars in various colours ensuring they fit inside and A5 envelope, I came across a Split Coast Stampers calendar tutorial and saved it to use this year and having already purchased the tiny calendars followed the directions to make them free standing using C7 card blanks. Two are upright tent fold cards and the other two horizontal and as a bonus they will still fit in the regular envelopes for posting...

I have used the same daisy stamp from Stamp-It Australia heat embossing in silver and black, colouring and painting in the colours with Prismacolor watercolour pencils in purples, pinks, yellow and red. When I added the calendar tabs to the two landscape cards both tore the calendar off at December which was a pain quickly rectified by stapling the rest back on. 

Here are the calendars:- Apologies, I couldn't get them to fit in two by two so one pic of each with an extra showing the prop inside the card.

What I used:-

White C7 card blanks (vertical card 12.4x17.4cm) horizontal (12.6x17.8cm)

Pink, mauve, yellow and white card stock (scrap box)

Stamp It Australia Daisy Bunch stamp

Stamp tool

Martha Stewart scoring board 

CCD apron lace die

Memory Box Pippi Butterfly die

MFT Stitched inner and outer oval die

Crafters Choice Pastel basics papers

Wood effect paper

Sugar n spice Pastel papers (some are scraps)

White cardstock for making brace at bottom of calendar

Sequins and tiny black pearls
Black and Silver embossing powder + heat tool

Staples and stapler 

Couture Creations 2019 Calendar tabs

I would like to enter these calendars in:-

613 Avenue Create optional theme use something wood (red daisies)
Crafts Galore Encore challenge Anything goes October (red daisies)
Creative Craft Cottage Pretty in Pink or Halloween (pink daisies)
The Butterfly Challenge G is for Gold, green (yellow daisies) (paper a golden yellow and green on the foliage)
Creatalicious Challenges Anything goes optional use purple (purple daisies)

Thank you for looking in...
Have a wonderful week.... 
Megan

P.S. A Huge Thank you to all my lovely blogging friends and visitors who take the time to leave me a comment, I truly appreciate them all! 

Born to Stand out

Hello again,

I recently discovered Darkroom Door Stamps are a smallish Aussie company and purchased three sets of the same stamps… one for me and the other as a small thank you to Di for running the ever popular Snippets Playground, with an extra set for the toy box… spreading some love for one of our Home grown stamp companies in the process. Miss Di was unaware that I had posted anything and I received an excited email after the surprise package arrived, with a huge thank you from Di.

I think Di does an amazing job running Snippets Playground and giving away so many prizes to all of the class mates all over the world. A Huge thank you to Di for all the fun and giggles and encouragement to use up those little bits and pieces from my scrap box along the way, and a huge Thank you for having me as a Guest Designer again.

On to my card, my Sister-in-Law started off my collection of spray inks a few years ago and I have of course added to them and spent some time making a mess, I mean creating a few backgrounds with them in various colours to set aside for later use making various sizes based on how much white paper and card I had laying around, from small 3 inch squares to whole A4 sheets. I used two spray inks for the main background Crushed Grape and London Blue and I’m guessing Cherry Pie and Lemon Zest on the butterfly all from Dylusions.

I stamped the butterfly directly onto one of the smaller pieces of cardstock and the sentiment onto another two white snippets (do they breed when I’m not looking???) and heat embossed them both with Black glossy embossing powder. I fussy cut the butterfly and sentiment out, laying them on the card before deciding to get out one of my stencils and some white ink to add more interest in the background, carefully inking directly on the card with the ink pad. Moving the stencil around so the pattern would be a little random. Another CCD die arrived around that time that I thought looked perfect for more interest and I used yet another white snippet to cut one, which was then cut in two pieces and placed behind the butterfly. I finally stuck everything down adding foam dots behind the butterfly to give some more dimension finishing off the card with a few sequins from a local discount store.

Here is my card:-

What I used:-

White C7 card blank

Spray ink background paper x2 some scraps 

White card stock from scrap box

Darkroom door Stamps Eclectic Stamp Butterfly

Darkroom door Quote Stamp Stand out

Black glossy embossing powder

Clear embossing ink

My Favorite Things Stencil Petal circles

White Colorbox ink pad

CCD Rings (no longer available... at least with the store I got it from)

Sequins from stash

Dylusions spray inks used:- London Blue, Crushed Grape, Cherry Pie and Lemon Zest

Adheisves:- Foam tape, Double sided tapes/sheet and Diamond Glaze

I would like to enter this card in:-
Crafting by Designs September Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge- Optional twist Spritz
Crafts Galore Encore September Anything goes
Love to Craft Challenge Blog #14 Anything goes
Emerald City Crafts Challenge #3 Anything goes
Sisterhood of Crafters Anything goes
Butterfly Challenge Y is for you choose and W for Wedgewood Blue  (Y you choose, Heat Embossing)

Thank you for looking in...
Have a wonderful week...
Megan

P.S. A huge Thank you to all the lovely visitors who take the time to leave me a comment, I truly appreciate them all!

Upcycled cards

Hello again,

I have been playing on and off with some of my new dies I bought from China, also apparently found on various eBay sites, we had a lovely family friend we met when we began following our family tree who suddenly announced that she and her husband were moving interstate, within a week they had gone, she regularly bought cards from me for her family and was always amazed at how different I made them and how personalised I could make them. Given the incredibly short notice we had a thank you card ready, but little else, so I decided to make her a set of 10 cards to send down asap as a little gift. Which gave me the perfect excuse to try out some of my new dies and make use of some of the paper scraps holding a takeover bid of my desk, I found some co-ordinating paper and or cardstock and used some card blanks, I have also cut some small gift cards up I received as a teacher gift some years ago selecting patterns and the images as feature pieces.

Here are the first three of ten, I have plans of making a few masculine cards too.

On the second card I punched out three circles from the card and piled on some Diamond Glaze to create 'enamel' looking dots.

Butterfly Thanks

 Bicycle Birthday

Butterfly Birthday

What I used:

White card blank 14.7x10.5cm

Pink vintage-y paper from my scraps box

Pink polka dot paper from my scrapbook (pieces larger than a card front)

White paper from scrap box

Silver card scrap

CCD Butterfly Die set

CCD Stitched Square die

MFT thanks die

Vellum

Diamond glaze

Teacher gift card and envelope set

Double sided tape

Birthday Sentiment stamps Magazine freebies (Australian Simply Cards)

Memento Tuxedo Black inkpad

Clear Sequins from my stash

Black fine line

Clear Wink of Stella

Adhesives:- Double sided tape, foam tape, PVA glue

I would like to enter these cards in…

Snippets Playground weeks 281 & 282 Anything goes with snippets 

Aud Sentiments Challenge #180 Anything goes with a Sentiment

Butterfly Challenge #79 L is for Layers and/or Colour Cream

Crafting by Design May Anything goes

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned paper Challenge May anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore May Anything goes

Thank you for looking in…

Have a wonderful week…

Megan

Gifts

Hello again,

So my trip to western Sydney went well but was extremely hot, I arrived in plenty of time for my appointment to discover I was seeing a different Doctor, who made the announcement that my usual specialist had passed away almost 12 months ago... he was a lovely man and my parents first met him when my older brother was six. 

I have almost reached the magical five years of desensitisation and the new doctor said I do not have to have more needles for now! Yippee!!!!! but if my allergies flare up again I will have to start up again (hopefully not back to the beginning, it means going back to weekly injections at my local GP office)

On to more interesting things

Today I am sharing a few of the gifts made for Christmas for my Mum, niece and sister-in-law and an extra owl calendar for a friend from my school years as a moving in gift…, I’ve noticed on Pinterest so many different ways to use the little calendar tabs, I first saw the oh so cute Owl calendar over at Sarah’s blog Mallows Crafts and fell in love with it, so as we tend to get UK craft magazines up to three months after the issue is released I was happy to find the pattern inside and headed straight to the Papercraft Inspirations website to download a full size pattern… then I just had to wait until the 2017 calendar tabs were available. Expect to see a few more calendars popping up here soon, as a they come in packs of ten… 

Mum’s calendar is the blue owl and it sits on the fridge, she was quite impressed when she opened it on Christmas day. The green owl will be headed north to Queensland for my friend, every year at Christmas when I hear from her she has moved again and she’s on the move again in mid-January, so I’m holding on to the owl for a bit longer, I resized the template to make it a little smaller to fit in the post.

I also made two note pad and calendars for my niece and sister-in-law using supermarket mini note pads and managed to find some ‘Retro’ pens in miniature to accompany them. For some reason I managed to reverse the pattern

For my niece I went with bright papers and picked out some scrap card and paper that went well with those colours

For my Sister-in-Law I used her favourite colour and some scraps from making a wedding card along with the black and metallic purple paper from my scrap box

What I used:-

AC Wave, Cricket, Amethyst and Leaf Cardstock

Shimelle 6” paper pad

Tiny Brads from stash

Scraps of black, white and stone cardstock

Foam dots

Couture Creations Calendar tabs

Recycled Magnet and chipboard

Calendar and notepad

Mini note pads

Couture creations Calendar tabs

Memory Box Madeline Bird die

Memory box Parker Numerals

Elizabeth Crafts Butterfly overlay one die set

Butterfly die from China

Googly eyes

250 and 300gsm card for bases (white and silver)

Bling from stash last swirl on sheet!

Scraps of paper and card in various colours

I would like to enter the Owl calendars in:

Crafting by Designs January Anything goes

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #50 Anything goes

Love to Craft #6 Anything goes

Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper Challenge January

I would like to enter the Easel note pad and calendars in

613 Avenue Create Totally Technical-Use your favourite technique (Using up scraps)

Mrs. A’s Butterfly Challenge #70 J is for Jewels and/or Jade (Butterfly set)

Hiding in my Craftroom Super Scraps Saturday

Thank you for looking in...

Have a wonderful week...

Megan

P.S. A Huge Thank you to all the lovely visitors who take the time to leave me a message, I truly appreciate them all.

*I would love to send some of our excess heat to those who are experiencing the extreme cold just now, if only I had a fan big enough... or swap places (if only I had a passport)* the other day in NSW we had temperatures ranging from 8C to 44C in various parts of the state!