First Projects in my new craft studio

It has been a crazy couple of months what with Craft Out West, 21st birthday, 17th birthday, preparations for Christmas and so much more.  Also during this time I have decided to change my working situations and now I have a lovely new craft studio in the back room of my garage.  So now I have a wonderful creative space.  I am looking forward to doing a lot more on my online shop and here on my blog with tutorials and creative pieces.  Well my craft studio is almost finished - there are a few tweaks that I want to do (more one of the tables)  but it is enough completed that I treated myself to an afternoon of scrapbooking and card making.

During my cleaning up and move I found these cute photos of when one of my cats was little (before his eye accident) and just had to scrapbook them.  It was hard to believe these photos were taken 6 years ago.

I also made this card.  It seems sad to be making a sympathy card but it is going to be used straight away.  It was so sad that a friend of ours passed away just before Christmas.  I was unable to make it to the funeral and really wanted to send my love to the family.  I saw a couple of lovely card ideas and Pinterest and combined them to create this card.

On a happier note, my daughter loves baking and so for Christmas she made a really fun gingerbread village.  She has made a gingerbread house in the past and so wanted to do something a little different, so a village it was.

So until next time, happy crafting and continue to be crafty ...

Craft Out West - Card from Die-cut kit

I am so sorry it has been way too long since my last posting.  I so wanted to do better getting things up on my blog this year, but as you can see things really got away from me.

Well to make up for it I have a really fun card that I have created from a little giveaway set of die-cuts that I was giving away at Craft Out West last weekend.  The show was fantastic as usual and I truly loved meeting so many talented people.

I was giving away a set of die-cuts to those that purchased from me or mentioned my newsletters at my table during the show.  One of the die-cuts in this set looked like this:

I am sure some of you looked at this die-cut and thought, "What can I do with this?"  Well I am here to answer that question.  Here is a small card I created using this die-cut as the front of my card.

So to create this card, I took a 6"x 4" piece of cream cardstock and folded it to measure 4"x 3" with the fold at the top of the card.

Next I added a piece of ribbon to the die-cut piece.

Adhere some foam to the back of the die-cut piece then adhere the die-cut to the front of the card.

Using a 1" circle punch I punched out three circle from pattern paper and adhered them through the holes on the die-cut piece.

I hope you enjoy this little project.

I have another card project that I would like to share soon

Let's get crafty this weekend ...

Creativity on the Run - or in my case during the Wait!

Sometimes in the middle of a crazy busy week it is nice to take an hour to do something fun and something just for you.

I did that last week and again this week.  I was frantically getting my newsletter and ScrapPacks done.  It was the last minute crazies.  But as soon as all the ScrapPacks were packed and shipped I took some time to try out a couple of dies.

The first one I tries was the new Teresa Collins words die.  Oh wow, these cut so nicely and look stunning.  I just had to use them on a couple of cards that I made.

The next die I used was the Elizabeth Craft Designs Adirondack Chair Pop It up Die.  Oh I am so happy with how this came together.  They do recommend you cut the top pattern paper at the same time as the cardstock so you know everything will fit together when it comes to assembling the card.

I was impressed that these dies cut and emboss at the same time, very cool!

My daughter things I am really funny!  On a Wednesday night she and I drive out to Onehunga (half and hours drive from home) as she teaches a Zumba class there.  She doesn't quite have her restricted license yet so I need to go with her.  this use to be my time to write my G&T emails.  But now, my daughter is impressed as to how as soon as we pull into the Onehunga YMCA car-park I can turn the car into a mini craft room.  I now bring my Spectrum Noir pens, cut-cut cards, adhesive, pencil case and other bits, and I will set and craft until it gets to dark (being winter it gets dark early now).  Then I read or write blog entries, or newsletter articles.  Hey! I might as well make the most of my time - right!

Where are some of the strange places you craft or create?

Creative Weekend

I just love having workshops and being able to join in and do some of my own scrapbooking.
We had a great night on Saturday night with some scrapbooking friends and here are some layout that I created.

I started off with doing a really simply layout.  Today I finished it by adding the title.

I have been trying to do a layout with some photos for the past few weeks and just got kind of stuck.  On Saturday night, finally, I was able to put together a double page layout.  I am really happy with the way it turned out.

Then on Sunday my sixteen year old daughter wanted to get creative with crayons.  She had seen some really fun projects you can do with crayons on Pinterest (where we all find amazing projects).  We had picked up five boxes of 24 crayons on Friday night, so why not!
I helped her set up but left her to be creative and here is one of the projects.  It is not quite finished yet, she needs to add a girl holding an umbrella silhouette.  But I just had to share how well this turned out.  I love the melted effect.

I hope you have time during the coming week to try something new and be creative!

Set of Four Cute Cards

I came across this idea for these cards from Jennifer McGuire's email that I received a few weeks ago. I watched the video and thought, "Hey, I could do that"  and it was so easy.

I just used some of my favourite little stamps that I have had for ages from Imaginisce and added a little sentiment from an older Inkadinkado stamp.  I coloured each of my stamped images using my Spectrum Noir pens.

Jennifer McGuire used some nested dies with stitching for her cards, but I did not have these, so instead used my Silhouette Cameo and found some stitched nested designs on the Silhouette Design store.

I cut out my designs and then layered them with foam tape.  To add variety I added foam tape to different pieces to put the different frames on different levels.  I really like the result.

Here is Jennifer McGuire's video.  I hope it inspires you too...

My new obsession - Glass Etching

Oh who would have thought ....

As many of you know I love my Silhouette Cameo, but now I love it even more as I can now use it to cut designs that I can now etch onto glass.  For some reason when I thought of glass etching I thought there was a machine you popped your glassware into and it 'tattooed' the design onto the glass - OK you can stop laughing at me now.  Well, I saw recently that you could get a glass etching kit for the Silhouette machines and I just had to look into it a bit further.  After watching the video on You Tube and saw how easy it was (click here for video), and that you needed no extra tools and just had to order the kit.

So my kit arrived, I opened it, watched the video then left it for about a week and a half before actually giving it a go.  I did not want to mess it up.  Well over the weekend I did another project with the glass etching and now I am wondering round the house and off to the Warehouse looking at glassware that I can etch.  It did expect the etching to be a bit whiter, but I still love the end results.

So here is what I did.

After cutting my design on the vinyl, I used the tranfer paper to add the design to my glass jar.  I taped of the top and bottom edges using some washi tape then added a nice thick layer of the glass etching cream. (be sure to wear rubber gloves for this).  I left this lot of cream on for about 15 minutes.

After about 15 minutes I scrapped up the excess glass etching cream and put it back in the bottle so it can be used again on my next project.  Then I gave the jar a bit of a rinse, to rinse off the last remaining bits of the etching cream.  Then removed the vinyl stencil.

Here is the finished result. I am happy with this, now what to put in the jar ... and now ... another piece of glassware hunt.

This Glass Etching Kit for the Silhouette is available to order from my online shop - click here

Starburst Card Tutorial

I came across a fun card and just had to give it a go and here is my result.  I am really pleased with how this star-burst card came together.  It was so much fun that I just had to share with you how to create one for yourself.

You will need:

3 3/4"x 5" cardstock
3 7/8"x 5 1/8" cardstock mat
Cut 1: 4 1/2"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
Cut 1: 4"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
Cut 2: 3"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
Cut 2: 2"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
8 1/4"x 5 3/8" cardstock folded in half to create your card base
2" circle punch
Larger scallop circle punch
Tape adhesive
Foam tape
Sentiment sticker or stamp

To Make:

Take each pattern paper rectangle and cut on the diagonal from corner to corner to create 12 triangles.

Using the rule of thirds and your star-burst will be bursting from the top third grid square as shown below on the 3 3/4"x 5" cardstock.

Arrange your triangle pieces round that point on the grid until you like the pattern from the triangles. Be sure there is a little space between each triangle so the background cardstock is showing through. Don't worry that they are hanging off the edge.
Once you like the look adhere the pattern paper triangles, you may even like to flip over some of the triangles and use the pattern on the other side of the paper.

Trim away the excess of the triangles to the edge of your cardstock

Mat your star-burst to the 3 7/8"x 5 1/8" cardstock mat.
Then adhere your matted star-burst to your card front

Punch a 2" circle form coordinating cardstock and add your sentiment sticker or stamp to it.
Mat your circle to a slightly larger scallop circle punched from another piece of coordinating cardstock.

Adhere your matted circles using foam tape to hide where the

star-burst triangle points meet.

Xterra 2015

Last year we went to Rotorua for the Paymark Xterra series and had such a great time that we decided to do it all again this year.  With one difference - this time Melissa and I were going to do the 5.5km run as well as Brad doing the 26km mountain bike ride.

This year we stayed at the Distinction Hotel in Rotorua, we arrived early evening on the Friday.  A lovely hotel.  The registration and pack pick-ups were at our hotel as well so that made it real easy.  We went and picked up our race packs, checked into the hotel and proceeded to see what we got in our race packs.  Brad's company is one of the major sponsors of the event so we caught up with some of his workmates as well.

The girls had their own hotel room across the hall from us, so it was really nice for them and for us to have our own spaces.  None of us seemed to sleep well that night.  Not sure if it was the night before the race jitters or that the hotel rooms were too hot or what but never mind.

We were all up at 6am on race day (Saturday 11 April) and headed down to breakfast at 6:30am.  The breakfast buffet was lovely with so much to choose from.  It was great to see so many other Xterra competitors in the dining room as well.  We even saw Hamish Carter and his family at breakfast.

We left the hotel and headed off for the event at about 7:15am after checking out as Melissa and my event started at 8am at the Blue Lake.  We arrived with plenty of time, un-hitched Brad's bike for his event at 9am.

8am came round pretty quick.  Melissa and I were ready and waiting at the start line.  Melissa was going to try to stay with me for the first bit of the event.  But as soon as the whistle went there was a surge forward and we were separated.  She took off - and good for her.  She did so well.  I was planning to walk but signed up for the run so if I wanted to run I could.  With everyone round me running at the start I decided to just go for it and run I did.  I ran for just over a kilometer before having to do some walking.  I met up with Karina for Paymark and we chatted pretty much the rest of the way.

Once we got off the road and onto the trail it got pretty muddy as it had been raining in Rotorua for most of the week and the night before.  The weather was trying to clear up for the events, but the wind was freezing.  On the 5.5km I did warm up so it wasn't to bad.  Karina was doing the 11km so as we came to the finish line we separated and I took off until I hit the soft sand and had to walk until it firmed up again and then just went for it and ran to the finish.

I just missed the start of Brad's event, but both the girls were there to see him off. Melissa made it to the finish line about 5-6 minutes ahead of me - not too bad.

Brad found the course a lot harder this year just because of all the mud and muck on the course.  He did really really well though.  He managed to have about the same finishing time as last year on his old bike.  We reckon had the course been dry he would have thrashed his previous time.  It was funny seeing all the mountain bikers return absolutely covered in mud.  Quite an adventure out on the course.

We watched some of the individual and teams start out on the triathlon.  Man they were amazing, especially those doing the full triathlon on their own.  Looking forward to taking part again next year and hopefully beating my time - maybe even running more of it.   If the weather is good I will wear my vibram shoes next time.

That afternoon we visited the Redwood forest.  This is one of our favourite places to visit when we go to Rotorua.  We went for a bit of a walk to try and loosen up after our events.

After checking out a couple of other spots we headed back home.
Another great time in Rotorua.  Looking forward to our next trip.

See ya next year Xterra!

Duck Layout

At the beginning of this year we had a Mother duck of over 20 ducklings staying on our property.  We suspect she had more than one lot of ducklings as they were two different colours.  As you kind of expect with ducks the numbers started to dwindle and one day she was down to only 8 ducklings.  The next day we noticed she had what looked like a broken jaw, but we could not catch her.  She disappeared for a couple of days and then she was down to three babies and again we decided to try and catch her to take her to the local Bird Rescue, but again no luck.  It took us a total of three days, a borrowed cat carrier and two chicken nets.  Sadly but the time we did catch her she was down to just two ducklings.

Taking her and her two ducklings to the Bird Rescue was not to bad.  But once there she got out twice and made a run/fly for it.  I have no idea what happened with her care but I do hope she made it and the two ducklings made it to.

I did manage to get a couple of photos of Mother Duck and ducklings are they were caught and on the weekend created this layout.  I do like it when we have ducks and their ducklings, they are so much fun to watch and feed out the dining room window.

Valentine's Day is just round the corner

There is only a couple of days left before Valentine's Day.  If you have not created anything for your loved one, well now is a great time to create this fun little Valentine's Pouch.  It is simple and only requires a 6"x 6" piece of double sided pattern paper and some simple embellishments (I used a couple of flowers and a brad)

The paper I have used is the Authentique Crush range, Spark pattern paper.  With this I was able to make four pouches.

To start with fold your pattern paper in half diagonally with the pattern you want on the outside of your pouch on the outside like this. Be sure the fold is along the bottom.

Take one of the lower corners of your triangle and fold it over to the middle of the other triangle side.

Take the other lower corner of the triangle and fold it over to the middle of the opposite side.

Take the first top point and fold it down to create your pouch. This will also show the inside pattern of you paper.  Very stylish.

Now you can decorate and fill you pouch.  Here I have added a couple of flowers with a brad.  I also added a little bit of adhesive tape under the flap where I attached the flower to hold in down against the front of the pouch.

I filled my pouch with some Hershey's Kisses wrapped in a piece of clear cellophane and tied using some pink bakers twine.

I am sure this will be enjoyed by your loved one - or maybe even treat yourself.

You can also use this with other papers and embellishments to give for any occasion.

Poor Peanut

I feel like I have had a bit of an emotional 24 hrs.  My cat (OK technically it he is my daughter's cat) has lost weight dramatically since about New Years.  So I have been giving him extra meals to try and get his weight back up.  I de-fleaed him and wormed him as well - that was a mission and ended up at the vet to get him to do it.  Peanut was like a naughty child and clamped him mouth shut)
Anyway, over the last couple of days his breathing started to be effected and looked rather laboured.  I could not take it any more so booked him in at the vet yesterday.  Now I know when you go to the vet you don't get much change out of couple of hundred dollars when you have a very sick animal.  So that was stressing me out to start, but I was terrified that the vet would take one look at Peanut and say he would need to be put to sleep like with Calem a number of years ago.

Anyway the vet was wonderful.  She looked at Peanut and said there could be a couple of things that it could be, but to do an xray to check if there was fluid round the lungs.  She did and there was.  She said she could use a needle and drain the fluid (she was thinking it would be pus).  So we left Peanut with her for a couple of hours and she was able to remove some fluid and sure enough it was pus, but it was very liquid, not like the pus I would have thought - you know thick and icky.  She also gave him some long acting antibiotics so I don't have to try to give him pills (phew!).  He was breathing a little better but he had been shaved on both sides of his chest - poor boy.  Now we need to go back daily for some drainage of this fluid.

Shaved patch on one side, the other side is shaved too.

Peanut having breakfast this morning

I worried all night over Peanut and Kitty has been at his side a lot.  While Peanut was at the vet yesterday Kitty wondered round looking for him.  It is nice to see she does care as most of the time she ignores him LOL!  This morning Peanut ate all his breakfast and even had some milk - yipee!  He also looks like his breathing is a bit better today.  So we will see how we get on this afternoon.  Hopefully he will be on the mend ready for his birthday in a couple of weeks