Sometimes I amaze myself

Sometimes I amaze myself...
I am posting something I have just drawn up a WordArt that I think is nice enough to post here to share. My daughter asked me to make 2 retirement cards for her boss but I didn't have anything in greetings to use. So I thought I would fiddle with WordArt and this is what I came up with. What do you think?

So here I offer you that thought, straight from my slightly warped mind. The words being, 'Don't look at it as retirement... think of it as a 7 day weekend'.
I am aiming to make a cheeky card, though that is yet to be finalized, you will get to view it later.

Anyway, my amazing idea, is now all yours... enjoy...

My apology

I have been unable to add the last few boxes as the photos and files are on my laptop which my daughter has borrowed as her laptop was stolen along with her cabin luggage upon arrival back in Sydney after a marvellous week spent in Palm Cove near Cairns.

Having been away from home for 14 months, there is, as you can imagine, a lot of things to catch up on. I expect to see my daughter this weekend, and though I wont get my laptop back just yet, I will download the files and get them uploaded soon.

Australian Grass Tree Explosion Box

I designed this Australian Grass Tree Explosion box in honour of the beautiful grass trees that we have seen around the north west of Australia in particular and the need to make some boxes that might appeal to a male recipient. In the middle I have added a gum tree and 2 stamped gum trees cut and erected as a free standing pop up. The background mountains, sky and ground has been sponged.

I used Archival Jet Black ink to stamp the trees and sponge the mountains and ground with a hint of brown and yellow inks for the middle ground and blue for the sky. The masks for stamping were free torn post it notes with 'peaks & valleys' torn as I went.
All these were done on glossy white photo paper which were then matted on orange card stock then black before laying the whole onto bright yellow card stock. I cut the corners into a diagonal cut for a change to make it quite bright. For contrast I made the lid from the same orange card as the layer. I just couldn’t help myself, I just had to add a few dancing butterflies.

The trees are all Print Block stamps from eons ago. The cards are from my stash which could be from anywhere. Sorry most of my papers & cardstock were just bought and kept with out any reference to who & where they came from.
Do you think this is more suitable for a male? Or is it too bright?

Lilac Tissue Flower

Sorry it has been a while since I have blogged. I have been busy making all sorts of flowers, but I am running out of room for storing the explosion boxes in my caravan.

When out for dinner one night we were given this lovely purple serviette to cleanse our hands and face... instead I hoarded mine and went back to the van and made it into two 3d tissue flowers. I folded the serviette into 4 and then hand cut the wiggly circle shapes. I separated them into individual layers and then reattached them into two piles with a brad in the centre  of each flower through all layers. To make the flowers I then proceeded to scrunch all the layers separately and then partly open them to create the dimension and interesting petal shapes. I think it kind of looks like an old fashioned rose.

To make the box I used my cuttlebug to emboss 4 top card layers through the textile folder and then edged the card with a sponge and colour swiped off an inkpad.
The little flowers were made with a retro punch and a snowflake punch as stamens and touched in various colour inkpads.  For a change some of the flowers are also up on the acetate strips. I like this look. I may do more like this in future at times.

The small leaves are birch leaf punch from Carl and the swirl is a punch again from Carl. The larger leaves are hand cut following the basic shape of the birch leaf punch but using my deckle edged scissors. My butterflies are hand cut and glittered from a long forgotten museum website.

Here is a close up. Feel free to ask any questions.

Baby Animals Photo Explosion Box

My newest box has just been completed at the last camp which was at a Christian campsite near Perth.  (See Robbiebago if you want to know more about our trip around Western Australia). I had bought this cute wrapping paper at an el cheapo ($2) shop and thought it would make some cute images for a baby themed box. And then lo and behold I saw these foam shapes of animals too that I just had to buy as well. So here is the box I came up with. Click on any of the links to get a larger image up on your screen.

The flower is made of 'silk' frangipani flower petals that were given to me after being used as table decoartion at a party back in Geraldton. I altered them by tinting the white part of the petals with Denium Adirondack ink using a cut down sponge. Then I punched 3 flowers from my EK Success 5 petal flower punch and shaped the petals and punch a smaller Carl Sukura flower. The centre of each flower has a 'Designlines' spot of dimensional paint in metallic white. This is the same paint I used to create my own swirl of pearl embellishments that you can see. The animals are a combination of foam or paper cutouts. I made the paper ABC blocks, the foam lion and the foam zebra stand up using acetate strips behind them in much the same manner as I use the acteate strips to have the butterflies 'fly' above the images.

These top pages have tags that can be removed for either journalling or photos

These two images show the middle layers as having oval tags that slide into a pocket

 

The bottom layers have pretty tinted paper doileys with foam animals adorning them ready for photos.

The both sides of the layers can have photos or journalling so that all in all you could have upto 20 photos. What a beautiful & fun way to have your photo album on your coffee table ready for your guests to look at. it would also make a lovely gift. This box is for sale at time of printing. Custom orders are also welcome. Send me an email if you have any interest in purchaing one.

I thought my hobby was…

all sorts of card craft, especially making explosion boxes lately but I think it is really browsing the blog looking at everyone else’s fantastic crafts. I have been too tired after working in the heat the last couple of days to even make some flowers so instead I just decided to browse some of my fave blogs and even thought I would look up some of their fave blogs that I haven’t looked at yet! It is unbelievable the amount of talent there is out there and I just can’t seem to leave the computer. It is almost as though I might miss something if I go away and do something else. Consequently there are a few more links I recommend on my side bar. I just can't list them all. My interests and 'taste' changes and so might my links from time to time too.

But today, I am going to discipline myself and show you a couple more of my earlier boxes, since I am up nice and early and church is yet a few hours away before i need to get ready. Then I am going to be super good and finish my latest explosion box. I am getting quite excited by it. It is so different to my earlier work, but more on this in my next post!.

Last year I made two explosion boxes nearly the same. Oriental lilies are the favourite flower of one of my daughters and this inspired me to have a go at designing a flower and thus a box to house it. The flowers were hand cut card which I coloured using sponges & pink ink and a pink art pen to draw on the spots. I then proceeded to roll the petals into shape and glue around the card stamens that I had cut in a quilled style, flaring out the tips and adding a touch of glue & glitter to them. Both boxes had ovals cut using my Nestabilities dies. On Camille’s box I had modified a poem that I found on the net and typed up my version and printed it onto cardstock ensuring that it would fit within the oval before cutting. It wasted a bit more cardstock this way but ensured that it looked a lot neater than so much of my own hand writing would have done. As usual there are butterflies fluttering around. Camille loved her box and I hope you do to.

The second one is so close to being a carbon copy but it is generic and made for sale as a Happy Birthday box.

The boxes and flowers are time consuming. I really don't know how long it takes me to make one box as I rarely sit down and do anything in one go. Once in a while, I might have a couple of boxes on the go at once. It would save more time but I like making each one different and unique. As I have said previously, I make most of the flowers in the car whilst my husband is driving. As we are currently on a big trip around the centre and western part of Australia, there is a lot of driving involved. One day I will time it one time just for curiosity's sake.

Sorry I don't have a close up to show you. I never thought I would have a blog and I just took the photos for my own recollections.  I will endeavour to take a closer up view of some of the details in case anyone is interested with all future boxes.One day I might even make up tutorials if people are interested.

Thank you for looking. Do leave a comment as I would appreciate some feedback as to what you guys think of my blog and boxes. Suggestions are always welcome too.

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.

Whooo 's back on the road

Well we are back on the road having picked up the Robbiebago (our caravan) in Perth and then we headed not far down to Cardup for a week. I was able to start on the Stampin Up 2 step owls that my friend Christie graciously sent me (see Christie's blog for more Stampin Up ideas and supplies).

Here are five of the owls made up

Then of course I need to make up a card with one of the owls. I tried to vary the expressions by the eyes.

I have saved the others for a later date as I really had to get into making a new explosion box as a thank you for our host family. I experimented with a new flower and came up with my version of the Australian Strawflower. I also made a new 'something' flower (buds on a stem) but I can't remember what flower it resembles...can you name it?

Closeup of the centre with the strawflowers

 I really needed to knuckle down and make my first Explosion Box in 3 months as I needed one as a thank you gift for our hosts. They have a large family and lots of Australiana country crafts in their house, so I wanted one with a Australian theme. The photo album I thought would be ideal for their large family of 11 kids. I also made some additional flowers and other embellishments for them to add along with their photos.
Below is the finished box. Click on the photo to get a larger photo if you want to see more detail.

My Strawflower Explosion Photo Album Box

Thank you for looking. I would be nice to get some feed back from time to time, just to make sure people are looking at what I put up on this blog. If you want to know more about my trip around WA then just click on the Robbiebago link in the right column. See you next time!

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.

Camille's Scrap Album: last pages

At last we come to the end of Camille's book. I hope you have enjoyed viewing all the pages. It was a big project to me. Being my first off the page book I think I was a bit ambitious and over my head, but I kept on swimming and eventually got it finished albeit 2 years late. (I had promised it for her 21st!!! - Note to me: Never ever make promises!!!)

The medallion is stamped 5 times and hand cut leaving out a section each time making it smaller and smaller with each layer. I coloured it & glittered the purple sections for interest. The butterfly (unknown source) was hand cut & glittered.

I have always love the analogy of the caterpillar transformation and Christians are a new creation. If a person calls themselves a Christian and a transformation is not evidenced in their lives then I wonder??? but enough of that - none of us are perfect. The quote is computer generated and the shape was traced around it and handcut since my cuttlebug is 4,000 km away. The butterflies (source unknown) are also hand cut. A simple tie and you can pull it open to reveal a hidden message.

This analogy draws upon the new creation verse of 2 Corinthians 5:17
"If any man (woman too!) be in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are finished and all things become like new!"

Do let me know if you find this blog and if you have enjoyed viewing it. It is a lot of work to post it whereas I could be selfishly happy and crafting away making more stuff, but I do enjoy being inspired by other people who have gone to the trouble to make their creations available for all to enjoy and learn from, I thought it time I give back and pass on some love and I hope I can encourage some others to give it a go!

Camille's Scrap Album Pages 13 to 16

Getting close to the end now. Just one more installment after this one. I have gone into so much detail as each page is unique and worthy of showing.

The background you can see on page 13 is done with a crackled paint technique. It has 2 lots of tags that swing out to reveal a single word, such as Memories, Friends, Enjoy, Sweet, Celebrate, Love, Smile& Life. I have embellished with a couple of simple punched daisy flowers with a diamante centre. Page 14 is dry brushed background and has a simple stitched border tag with a heaven smiles quote embellished with metal flower, wire butterflies and hand ink dyed skeleton leaf.

 

Of course I have my favourite pages and 2 of them are right here below

 

 beautiful daughter of God

God breathes and the beauty of nature is revealed

You, Camille, are amongst His most beautiful creation & I am left breathless.

Adapted from some quote I picked up from somewhere and kept. 

I googled it and found scrapbook.com/quotes. It is attributed to S. Brown.

Camille You amaze us... is written by myself.

Now the flowers on these 2 pages are all made from combinations of flowers I have collected over the years mostly from budget $ type shops. I loved mixing the flowers together to get this bright and colourful collection. The butterfly is punched with my new Martha Stewart punch and a colour magazine which I glittered. I also added a pearl beaded string for the trail.

As I said it is one of my favourite pages!

Camille's Scrap Album Pages 9 to 12

Yet another installment of photos. If you have any questions, I would be only too happy to answer.

Flowers add so much to your life as do friends

 

I love to recycle and re purpose items. A friend once accused me of being stingy but I think of this as being creative. I guess one wonders where to draw the line, maybe I have stepped over it a few times and probably will again some time in the future!
The metal behind the flower on page 9 has been floating on my desk for a long time. I have no idea where it came from, but I have finally found a use for it combined with one of these wooden flowers. I think they go together very well.
The pot is a broken wooden pot I had re purposed.  I first painted it with acrylic paint. The snail is a shank button with the shank snipped off.and the flower I made using a silk flower and layers of buttons and topped with a diamante.

Pages 11 & 12 continue the idea of  introducing text on 'petals' around the page. These 2 pages are about ways to live your life. Page 11 is adapted from the  beatitudes out of the Sermon on the Mount to be found in the Gospel of Mathew Chapter 5. Page 12 has quotes and some verses, some are direct from the Bible some are quotes I like.

Camille's Scrap Album Pages 5 to 8

Here is the next installment of photos of more pages. I apologize for some of the poor quality photos. I am still learning to use my new camera and now my daughter has the album in her hot little hands I can't ask for it back just now to take more photos.