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

You are Fabulous Card

It has been a while since I have been here on my blog.  It has been a busy summer of cycling, Regional Park visits, gardening, family and so much more.  I did not even have much time to do any crafting.  But it is a new year with new opportunities so let's see what this year will bring.

Something our family has decided to focus on this year is "Do something different!"  So it is going to be a fun year of trying new things, new ways of doing things and doing something different.

Well with that in mind I thought it would be fun to make a card using a masking technique that I had not tried before.  I used a post-it note and added it to the middle of a 6"x 6" card and then stamped round it using some of the fun Inkadinkado Gears stamps - I really love these gears stamps, as I like the steampunk look they can give.  Once I liked the look I removed the post-it note and added a sentiment, some pearl bling and white pen faux stitching.  I was very happy with the results.

What technique are you going to try this week?

Taking Time To Be Creative

With the silly season well and truly upon us, it can be very hard to find time to create.  This weekend was no exception.  Daughters needed to be here, there and everywhere all at once, which meant trucking them where they needed to go.  In between these times and giving my house a little clean (really it needs a big clean, but we won't look to closely will we ...) I gave myself permission to take time and create a couple of fun little cards.

Here is one I created using the really cool metal die set from Echo park.

I started with a very plain background cream cardstock and just went over it with the Distress Ink Broken China and the Distress ink tool.  I punched out the corners - I love this effect.

I cut all the clouds using a light blue Bazzill cardstock, then cut out the word 'sunny' and the sun from yellow Bazzill cardstock.

All these dies are from the Echo Park Sun and Clouds die set - available from our online shop

I also used some red washi tape for some fun contrast.  One of the plain clouds was adhered using foam tape seeing as it was in front of the others.  I really like adding dimension to my cards.

I also had a bit of fun with this little journaling card.  I saw an idea on Pinterest and thought I should give it a go.  I love this particular punch, it seems to be very versatile.

Basically I had two pieces of cardstock and then using this punch, I punched out a piece from the side of my lights cardstock

I matted my main two pieces of cardstock then added a scallop circle and two strips of cardstock.  I also stamped in the space that was punched out - this looks so cool.

I love getting more uses and ideas on how to get the most out of my punches.

Such a Busy Weekend - Love It!

It was the weekend of Craft Out West last weekend.  Yippeee!  Craft Out West is one of my favourite craft shows.  I think I like that it supports Hospice West Auckland.  I also really love meeting all the locals and getting to chat with lots of lovely people.

We had enough room with the wall behind us to have our sign up and some layouts and card ideas

Here is my table that I worked out.  Melissa and I made a great team!

Here is the stand for the Martha Stewart goodies and the EK Success Punches

This was the stand for the Spectrum Noir pens and lots of lovely stamps

And of course here I am getting ready for another great show!

Here are some photos of my stall at Craft Out West.  I was in a different spot this year.  Not sure if it was the different spot or that fact that the weather was so beautiful outside, but the crowds seemed quieter this year.

My daughter Melissa helped me for both days and she did a fantastic job of demonstrating the Martha Stewart Crafter's Clay and the border punches.  I on the other hand was demonstrating the Spectrum Noir pens, and the Teresa Collins modeling paste and templates.

The big surprise again this year was the popularity of the Dress It Up Buttons from Jessie James.  On Saturday in particular these just went crazy.  Mind you so many of the buttons are just too cute to pass up.

The craft show was from 10am - 4pm both days.  So after the show each day there was not much time to do much else but get ready for the following day and have dinner.  But on Sunday morning I was able to get out and water my veggie garden before the show.  Little did I know that there would be a wonderful surprise at the end of the day.

So after the pack down of the show and getting home, the front fence was completely finished and there was another beautiful looking garden bed at the top of the three I already have.  Also my bean seeds and corn seeds have sprouted - so excited.

My baby beans just starting to sprout!

On closer inspection I found these tiny corn seedlings had finally sprouted!

Preparing for Craft Out West

Oh my goodness!

Shows and Expos always come round so fast.  Still so much to day and only a few days left to get things done.

Today I have been working on my little giveaway that I will be giving to special customers :)

I have been frantically cutting out on my Silhouette Cameo for everyone.

In each pack you will get the word Joy, with the 'O' being an ornament, a Ho Ho Ho title, a jingle bell with a red ribbon and a vintage lamp post.  Here are a few ideas that you can use to create some cards using these items.

The background papers or cards are not included, only the main shapes.

Have fun everyone!

See you at Craft Out West this weekend
West Wave Recreation Center
20 Alderman Drive
Henderson

10am - 4pm
Saturday and Sunday
8th and 9th November

Who is scratching at my ceiling?

The other day Grace and I came home from Aqua Zumba and after my shower Grace said she could hear scratching but wan't sure where it was coming form.  I stood beside her and sure enough there was a scratching noise coming from the ceiling - the attic.  This got me concerned that maybe we had a mouse or worse ... rats.

Well I didn't think there was much I could do so I went out to the workshop and did some work on the online shop and thought when Brad got home he could take care of it.

When I came in for lunch I decided to face the 'rat' or 'mouse'.  But when I opened the attic door and climbed half way up the stairs I could hear a baby bird peeping.

Sure enough at the far end of the house sitting on the top of the pink bats was a little sparrow fledgling.  Grace and I carefully stepped on the beams and Grace was able to get the little sparrow into an empty Weet-bix box.  The we saw the other fledgling, but it was dead.

Once out of the attic and into the kitchen I made some mush with Weet-bix, water and a tiny bit of honey.  I used a toothpick and carefully fed the little sparrow.

It turned out that the night before Brad and Melissa could hear the peeping of a bird that sounded like it was in the house (because little did we know that it was).  We do have a family of sparrows in the corner of the house under the gutter area.  So it looks like this little sparrow was from the family and had hopped out of the nest and up under the roof on the building paper where if fell through into our attic.  But seeing has it did not have very strong wings yet it could not get back up to its nest.

When Brad did get home we managed to get the dustpan under the building paper and sent it back towards its nest.  Since then it parents outside seem to be calling more and it sounds like more than one baby responding back in the nest, so hopefully it made it back to Mum and Dad (who we have nick-named Jack and Jackie)