At The Beach...

I WISH! No, I am NOT at the beach, but this bracelet that I recently made reminds me of being at the beach...and so it was named.


The beautiful lampwork focal beads are called Ocean Waves, and are by Candice Mathewson of Beadgoodies on Etsy. I can highly recommend Candice's work. She makes beautiful beads.


It is a cold, windy, overcast day here in our beautiful capital...so I thought it was appropriate to put up something sunny and reminiscent of warm places on my blog...especially given tomorrow is the first day of Spring...HELLO...have we forgotten about Spring...HMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm? PLEASE, please, pretty please let it be warm and sunny tomorrow!

Think warm thoughts...ok?
Sam.

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #33

I saw a beautiful Christmas card on Nancy Riley's blog this morning, and was inspired to go and make a Christmas card myself.

Like Nancy, I have used Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #33:



This is the card I have made:


List of Ingredients (all from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted, stamped images © Stampin' Up!):

Stamps: Tree Trimmings and Christmas Classics
Ink: White Stazon
Cardstock: Kraft and Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Ski Slope Designer Series paper, clear acetate, On Board Lots of Letters, crimper, dazzling diamonds, Dress Up Ribbon Originals, dimensionals, mini glue dots, two-way glue pen, sticky strip and SNAIL adhesive.

I did want a bold, large, white Christmas greeting down the left hand side of the card (maybe a rub on, or some thickers or the like), but I couldn't find anything suitable in my stash...so it is now a faint, small, almost transparent Christmas greeting.....SIGH...I'll get over it ;-).

The bauble is stamped on acetate, and is sitting up on offcuts of dimensionals with a heap of Dazzling Diamonds behind it. I originally put so much under there...that it was packed solid and didn't move at all (Derek would have been proud). I had to open up some of the dimensional packing and empty about 3/4 of the glitter out and then re pack the hole. UGH...talk about fiddly!

The card is 6 x 6 inches, and opens from the bottom.

Ciao ciao bloggers! Thanks for dropping by.
Sam.

The ski slope just keeps on appearing from nowhere...

I've used the beautiful never ending card that Di recently sent me (also shown here, with links to instructions)...as inspiration, and made one myself.

I used lots of my new favourite Designer Series Paper (DSP)...Ski Slope, and my new favourite Christmas stamp set, Christmas Classics:










List of Ingredients (all from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted, stamped images © Stampin' Up!):

Stamps: Christmas Classics
Inks: Riding Hood Red Classic Ink
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip and Whisper White plain cardstock, Baja Breeze Textured cardstock
Accessories: Ski Slope DSP, stamp-a-ma-jig and SNAIL adhesive (zowie..that has gotr to be the shortest list of ingredients I've ever written up).

The Stampin' Up! Spring Mini catalogue says that Real Red is the colour in the paper...but I beg to disagree. The 'red' in the paper appears to me to have a bit of a pinkish tinge...so I've used Riding Hood Red, although Rose Red would also have done the trick in a pinch.

I found the panels a bit tricksy to line up...and they were kind of catching on each other at first...so I needed to do a bit of post-sticking trimming (UMMMM AHHHHH ;-)...but it worked in the end.


Just some more photoshop tinkering above, using Pioneer Woman's Photoshop actions. This one has had the B&W Beauty applied, followed by the quick edge burn. Love these little cuties so much :-)....the kids I mean (although the actions are pretty cute too)...hehehehe.


This one has had the Heartland action applied. That food wasn't all his...it just happened to end up in front of him. Mr 3 has a decent appetite...but not THAT big!

Have a lovely Sunday everyone,
Sam.

The card that never, ever ends...never, ever...

I received this beautiful treasure in the mail recently...from my lovely friend and fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, Diane Barnes.

If you can believe it, the following photographs are all from the SAME card. It really is, the card that never ends:










I showed it to my 3 year old, and he was fascinated by it, he kept turning and turning and turning it over, then looks at me and says 'it doesn't finish mummy'. Clever little boy ;-).

Diane also kindly supplied me with the location of the instructions to make this little treasure. You can find them on Karen Rogers' blog, and a video tutorial on Dawn Griffiths' blog.

Thanks again Di, it is stunning, and so much fun to play with.

Last but not least...don't forget to...


SMILE! :-)...I captured this shot of the iconic Sydney Harbour grin on one of our last trips to Sydney.

(Sorry about the unattractive light posts. If I had all night, I would have 'shopped' them out...but seriously, you'll just have to imagine it without them ;-). Thanks also to the fabulous Ree Drummond for her wonderful Fresh and Colourful Photoshop Action, which has been applied to the Luna Laugh...).

Have a great rest-of-the-week!!

My Stepper Box

...and no, I'm not talking about aerobics! As I mentioned in my last post, these cute little boxes are called Stepper Boxes, or Fantasy Boxes. I used the instructions by Terri, found here, and my friend Kim also gave me a link to the instructions she used, here.

So here is my first attempt:






List of Ingredients (all from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):

Cardstock: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip and Baja Breeze
Stamps: Merry Merry
Ink: Chocolate Chip Classic Ink
Accessories: Ski Slope DSP, Valet Ribbon Originals, On Board Lots of Letters, On Board Essentials, Dimensionals, Sticky Strip, Mini Glue Dots, Anywhere Glue Stick, SNAIL, 1 inch Circle Punch and 1-1/4 inch circle punch.

I am very pleased with the way it turned out. Kim also said she had increased the size of the piece of cardstock used for the lid, from the listed 6 3/4 inches square, to 7 1/4 inches square. I made mine 7 1/4 inches square, and it fits perfectly.


A sample of the Ski Slope DSP...available from the current Spring Mini: Aug - Nov 2009.

I was outside this afternoon, and it looked so pretty out there, so I quickly got a few snaps. I thought I'd show them to you now, because after the gale force winds the ACT is expecting around midnight tonight...there will probably be no pretty blossoms left on my trees :-(. I love my backyard so much.


ETA: The grass is faux....we are not wasting tonnes of H2O here...just in case you were worried ;-). It is fabulous stuff...really soft and lovely to lie on.

Accccckkkkk, NCIS has started...I have to run. Sorry...
Thanks for stopping by!
Sam.

Long Time No Blog...

..it has been almost four weeks since I last blogged, although at this end it seems like only about 5 minutes.

We've been busy...a couple of trips to Sydney, a bit of building, a bit of celebrating, fun stuff!

I haven't made a single papercraft project in that whole time...but I did knit my first ever scarf!! I bought some hand dyed silk yarn at the recent Craft and Quilt show in Canberra, and managed to knit a WHOLE SCARF (without dropping a single stitch). I feel like an absolute LEGEND.

I am still making the tassles on the ends, then I'm all done...just in time for next Winter ;-). I might put a pic up here when I've finished...but you'll have to remember that it is my first ever WHOLE scarf...and tension is a knitting term that I am not very familiar with.

It was also recently my birthday, and I got a beautiful handmade card and gift from my friend and downline Kim, that I thought I'd share with you:




The little drawers in the box were filled with embellishments, including some Provocraft cutting dies, fancy brads and eyelets. There were also some delicious chocolates in those drawers...but they seem to have gone missing (I don't have a lot of luck with chocolates...do I?). Thank you again Kim :-).

ETA: It is called a Stepper Box, and you can see a great tutorial by Stampin' Terri on how to make it.

My husband and tiddlywinks gave me this gift:


My first thought...Why on EARTH would anyone want to beat their child with a drum ;-)?


...Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh, THAT sort of child beating drum! Of course!!

Then I got my 'REAL' gift...a Child Beating Drum being amusing for only so long:


How lucky am I??????! I have been spending a fair bit of time setting this little beauty up. It is so small and light. I haven't installed Photoshop yet....hence the lack of image tweaking...sorry.

It has a camera, so of course I had to have a bit of a play with that:


Ok...so that's about all I have to say at this point. Scintillating stuff eh?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Sam.