Some paper flowers to show you

Beautiful Perth viewed from the even more marvellous Kings Park (which I was surprised to learn is larger than Central Park in NYC)

It is so stinking hot here in Perth these last few days. It is 39 degrees C in the shade (that's 102.2 Fahrenheit for you wonderful Americans). It is partly cloudy so I am grateful for that and an air conditioner in the Robbiebago (our caravan). Cooler weather is promised with a storm yet to come and that will bring it down to an expected 31 degrees C (88 in F). So that means it is too hot to work just now, so I am happily sitting down in front of the air con reading some craft mags, catching up on blogs and looking for some inspiration for the new yummy Chatterbox card stock I picked up early this morning when it was still cool enough to run around.

As my husband is committed to some volunteer work here in the outskirts of Perth until next Monday at least and there is no real work for me at present then I have some time to craft and what not.

Anyway as I was tidying up my photo album I rediscovered some photos of flowers that I made last year whilst on the road that I thought you might be interested in. Some have gone onto boxes already and so I will post some boxes too over the next few days. After drooling over some of the Prima flowers at the scrap booking shop I went to this morning I am most envious of their talent... but I will keep making them and hopefully improving as I really get quite a kick out of paper flower making. I am so inspired. I already of thinking of adding more glitter & bling and feathers etc to jazz them up a bit... we'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out.

First off though I am considering making another photo album type Explosion box since the last one was so popular. I might be able to sell one at the next markets I go to.

Christmas Card and Crafts

I am back at last. My husband and I are back on the road. We flew 4,000km back to the other side of the country to continue our trip around Australia in our caravan. We stayed in Perth for 4 days, settling in efore heading south. You can follow our trip if you are interested on our Robbiebago blog. I have been busy cutting out flowers and other images, In the meantime I let me show you some of the craft items I made this past Christmas. First the first time ever I made 50 of the same card design for Christmas. I really wanted to use my lovely poinsettia Spellbinders die and I fell in love with a pleated sort of card design and ends up being an almost exact copy of a card designed by Valita. Click here to see Valita's blog. The leaves were cut on a silver metallic paper with a brand new hole punch which sadly didn’t last the distance, doing less than 5 punches before breaking and punching paper only too! I took it back and replaced it with a L-Em punch that is similar in design. The swirly stamp is embossed with Gold embossing powder. It is about time too as  I don't think I have done heat embossing for a long long time. The triangular pleated feature is very simple and looks great. It is explained in great detail and on Valita's video tutorial for those who like to see it being made.
The note books were commercial notebooks I picked up at Officeworks and I covered them with lovely decorative papers and ribbons. The flowers were hand made by me and are very dimensional and glazed with UTEE. The skeleton leaf is one I bought from Print Blocks eons ago and the green leaf is hand cut and distressed. The letters hearts are chip board from my collection which I painted and/or glittered accordingly.

More Early Explosion Boxes

My husband and I were to take our caravan, affectionately called the Robbiebago after my husband,

Robert, who designed and built the van, on a major road trip up the centre of Australia

and down the coast of Western Australia as we joined the great Grey Nomad exodus.

A more formal white on white with a touch of gold. This one holds a gift card in the centre.

Another formal white on white with a touch of pink. This too holds a gift card in the centre.

As I can't travel without some crafts, I quickly decided to concentrate on making explosion boxes

and the flowers to decorate them with. 

I can't stick with just one design either. I love to experiment and that will continue as I go.

Blessings is the saying here. Purple roses adorn a rainbow brayered background.

The white layers (and on the white ones above) are embossed with a cuttlebug folder to give textural interest.

I have all my flower punches  with me - which is only about 5 at this stage -  

but mostly I end up hand cutting the flowers as my punches were not large enough for me.

Open style Floribunda roses quickly become an early favourite.