Knit one purl one

I'm knitting these little tops /dresses and hats for babies in Africa .Not your usual pale baby colours as they show the dirt too quickly .These little outfits may be worn for several days if the family is poor.They don't take very long to make and I do them in the evenings when I watch TV.

Off to do my ironing now ,catch up with you later .

A ticket to Paris

Papercraft Star -challenge 93 - Something French -

The Eiffel Tower and Fleur de lis are from THATB the poster is from Very Merry Vintage.

Austin Powers or Herbie

I was such a happy bunny this morning ,we had two hours of rain, NO gardening ,NO laundry which means I can craft.It is short lived and the sun is now blazing down.

Anyway ,this little card which is all cut by hand is for challenge 10 at Unstampables.Use the colours of your countries flag and not use a square or rectangular card shape.

Rainbow Lady's challenge 201 - St George's Day /Patriotic/British.I was patriotic to Britain for 42 years before I moved to Saudi Arabia and then to Australia. I'm sure this won't be my last place to call home ,I can see another move in the future,perhaps a retirement home Europe .I can only hope.

I'm not really into using strong colours like blue and red together ,HOWEVER this paper (which came from Merry at Unstampables )is perfect .I couldn't decide if the numberplate should be LOVEBUG from HERBIE or to go with the psychedelic car and AUSTIN POWERS.The sentiments are stickers.

A busy day filled with colour

The washing machine is rumbling away and I'm chopping branches from overgrown shrubs then raking the lawn .It was such a beautiful morning I decided to grab the camera and take a few pics.I've only gone for the larger flowers ,it may be Autumn but the garden is awash with colour.











This camellia with the leaf insect on the right is my favourite pic.The intended bloom had a large ant crawling about inside so I flicked it off along with half the petals. Luckily I saw another bloom and it had this little visitor.

Enjoy your day,I have to paint this afternoon so I am not sure if I will have time to make a card.

So Tweet

Papercraft Star - challenge 92 -Umbrellas.

2 Sisters - challenge - 87 -flowers ,not just embellishments but flowers which are part of your image.

Sarah Hurley - challenge 64 - Circles - cards or scrapbook page.

Flowers and more flowers

How hard can it be to find time to make a card ? Very hard at the moment my hands are full with either a paint brush or a garden tool , it should be craft scissors.I took time out this morning to make this summery card .I like the idea of flowers over the garden fence.

The green paper is Kaisercraft 'Chanteuse Collection' the pink double sided paper is 'Enchanted' from Pebbles.The large flowers I hand cut and the centres are a small heart punch.I went a bit overboard with the bling and used big stones.Not sure why the green looks a lot darker on the pic showing the inside of the card,you can see in the bottom pic it's a very pretty bright green.

The Crafter's Cafe - challenge 3 - A Spring theme with pastels.
Everybody- Art- Challenge 188 - Spring

Welcome Twinnies

Our new challenge at The Lollipop Ladies - Gummy Bears + Fur . .

My little bears are on the inside of the card . I cut an aperture from a card blank and then covered it with pink paper .The blue frame looked better offset and added a bit more interest to a plain card. The sentiment was a freebie which I won't use again as I really don't like having a word upside down.The rocking horse is a clear stamp which I cut out.
You have two weeks to enter .Our DT cards will be shown along the way.

What time is it.

Yeh ,I got to use my favourite brand when making this card ,Graphic45 .They have some fabulous paper and tags in amazing colours.My local craft shop stock all their papers .

This clock paper is called 'Timely Point of View' from the 'Proper Gentleman' Collection .After sticking a page from an old book onto the base card I fussy cut around one corner of the clock paper .The sentiment is computer generated.

Papercraft Star - challenge 91 - Anything goes.
Sugar Creek Hollow - challenge 5 - Birthday - Vintage style.

All that glitters

Challenge 42 over at The Lollipop Ladies is Fruit Loops and Glitter.My card is very simple ,the paper was a magazine freebie .I used a circle punch and edged it with glitter.The glittery flower is on the inside of the card,just for a change.The sentiment was also a freebie.

Please pop by and say Hi

My lovely friend Merry sent me this award a few weeks ago, a big thank you .

This award is meant for up-and-coming blogs with less than "200 followers". You need to pass the award onto five bloggers and let them know. I would like to pass this award on to the following inspirational blogs, hope you can check out their beautiful work.

Now the hard part choosing only five bloggers .

Just Cards =I love the simplicity of her cards.

Jan at chai tea 'n me > =Not a stamped cutie or any colouring in sight.The queen of tags.

Marcia Pringle = I love her cards and scrapbook layouts.

Kasia = Another gal who keeps it clean and simple. Check out her button card (posted March 13th) .I will be making one of these.Her card on March 9th also made me smile.

Sophia's Sundries = This lovely lady makes a little go a long way and is always sewing or knitting .Her items usually go to charity and in Africa and India there will be lots of very happy faces.

So ,as you can see my ladies are all very different and when they receive this award some of them might say "Gail who" . I may not always leave a comment but I do stop by on a regular basis. Please pop in and say hi to all these very talented crafters.

Happy Birthday

I've got a few male birthdays coming up and when I saw this paper I thought it would make some effective cards.I used a black card blank as a base.The paper is
'Faithful' from Bella . I used a HOTP tag template to make the oval ,a bit of twine,some brads ,stitching and a sentiment.It works for me.

bird house

I've seen a couple of the book birdhouses and thought it might be fun to make one. I actually made two last week whilst watching TV. I don't seem to have the time during the day to do any crafting .

I didn't join this one together but left it flat and stuck it to a length of wood. I'm not sure how much decoration to put on it. Some of the pages have flowers or buttons stuck inside. I quite like the clock face and the butterflies,not so sure about the blue Easter chicks.

Unstampabelles - challenge 9 - Easter + folds .

Papercraft Star - challenge 89 - Spring.

I will be back tomorrow with another card and other stuff ,the housework will just have to wait for once.

Too much chocolate is a good thing

Our challenge 41 at The Lollipop Ladies is Malteasers,with a hidden message. I must have eaten hundreds of these as child .
This was a very easy card to put together ,the paper is from Kaisercraft and was already stamped ,I just had to cut out the section I wanted .I only stuck the paper to the card edges and left the top section open to slide in my message .The flower and butterfly were part of a prize win along with the sentiment stamp,I'm pretty sure they all came from Kaszazz.For a little extra detail I used a white pen to add a few dots. The 'celebrate' sentiment is on acetate and came from Hot off the Press ( "Cardmakers Birthdays -Clear & Frosted Overlays"). I'm not sure I like the double stamped idea,it looks like a bad attempt to cover up a mistake.Anyhow it was a pig to photo as the light kept bouncing off the acetate .The clock and tag came from a cheap craft pack I picked up some time ago,
I haven't had much time to craft as the decorating seems to be taking longer than I thought ,I've also been making some new cushions .

Snakes Alive

The challenge over at TLL is colour and curves represented by the jelly snakes.

Crafting of a different nature

Happy Tuesday

I'm up a ladder today painting ,if it gets too hot I may abandon my paint and brushes and make a card .Fingers crossed ,I can see the mercury rising.

The pic is of me on a glacier in Alaska . After sledding with a team of excitable dogs who just love to run I had a quiet moment for some cuddles with this adorable puppy.

Yummy cupcake

Papercraft Star - challenge 85 -Something from the kitchen - My sweet tooth will always pick a muffin ,on this occasion a chocolate one.

The Ribbon Girls - challenge 16 - Pink, Cream and Brown .These colours conjure up lots of yummy food stuff ,cupcakes ,choccy pud with raspberry custard ,mashmallows ,I could go on.

Creations by Gill - challenge 2 - Colour- blue,pink cream,chocolate.

I trimmed down a card to make a cupcake shape and covered it with paper from Wendy Irving called 'Diamond Days ' .Chocolate card for the muffin top covered with bits of bling and flowers .I can feel my bum getting bigger as we speak.

Welcome to another challenge at The Lollipop Ladies - Tiramisu is the sweet treat ,with the addition of LAYERS.

My papers are Elegance,Tickets and Postcards ,all from Kaisercraft.The little flower was already made just waiting to be used .The section with the half circle cut out can be used for a gift voucher or cash.

Something smells a bit fishy

I did enjoy doing this despite a couple of runs ,even added my name .









Card making is not my first love when it comes to crafting and only came about due to a friend who made lots of cards and had an enormous amount of craft supplies.

I enjoyed doing this batik in the traditional way with hot wax and cold water dyes.The melted wax is poured into the tool on the right and with a smooth motion is pour along a pattern line .Cold water dyes are then used to paint the various sections. Once it's dry a good wash in hot water to get rid of the wax .I did make one mistake ,the green pot with the pink rim has run ever so slightly ,I obviously didn't have enough wax in that area.The whole thing measures 41cm x 24cm .

To make things easy you can buy a wax pen to do the outlines and also Pebeo Gutta.The fabric must be silk or 100% thin cotton.

City Crafter -week 95 - Colours of the Rainbow .pic at top
TCP Tuesday - Rainbow Inspiration - pic at top

Happy Birthday

My take on the photo from Cupcake Inspirations -challenge 145 - The medallion stamp is from Rosie's , the actual stamp is twice the length shown here so I used a little masking tape to get the size I wanted. The card squares are 4.5cm x 4.5cm , the black square is on raised sticky dots.I wanted to use some flat back pearls for the centres but didn't have just the right colour green so the gems will have to do.Sentiment from Stampit .

I've been up and about since just after five this morning .A pesky mosquito in the bedroom, poor Steve has five bites on his face .

Brush those teeth

The Lollipop Ladies are back after the Christmas break and I have joined the team - Challenge 38 is inspired by the photo - Fairy Bread - I have to confess I have never eaten Fairy Bread.

My door hanger is for the bathroom to remind little people to brush their teeth.
I started off cutting a piece of chipboard 10.5cm x 25cm .I cut out a 7cm circle. The background paper was just perfect to represent the sprinkles .The image is Tooth Fairy Cynthia from The Stamping Boutique . I've used a mix of felt tip pens and gel pens to colour her .Come along and join in ,the challenge is open for two weeks .