Happy Christmas

It's that time of the year again and I thought I'd do a quick post to wish you all a very

Happy Christmas.   

I have so enjoyed having a crafty blog to show some of the things I've made during the year, and without which these creations would sit on a shelf somewhere gathering dust, and nobody would get to see them.

Thanks to all those bloggers out there who are so inspiring and don't mind sharing their creations for others to enjoy.   I love being on a papercraft journey that continually changes and evolves and is such fun!

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to look at the Bible passage, Luke 2:8-20 which tells of the birth of Christ, without whom we wouldn't celebrate Christmas.  He is truly the reason for the season.

I'd would like to wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas, sharing all that this season has to offer,  exciting presents, yummy food and spending time with those we love.

hugs,
Helen

Christmas "Kitty" tags?

Today I thought I'd show a couple of quick tags using some different bits'n'bobs of techniques.

This tag is made from spritzing Ink Refresher onto the tag, scrunching it up to make sure the Refresher soaks in nicely, then blending Distress Inks together and finishing off with some Perfect Pearls and set with a quick spritz of water.  I've then added the words from Dylusions and "Kitty" from Stampotique, and gently gone around the edge of the words with Distress Ink to make them pop.

In this tag I've again blended Distress Inks together, stamped "Kitty", and used a dotty stencil and dabbed Stormy Sky Distress Ink through the dots to give the idea of snow.  The letters came from my stash and of course since it's summer here in Australia, there is no way it's going to snow, certainly not in Sydney!  To finish it off, I added some glossy accents to some of the dots (which are rather hard to see, sorry).

Have a crafty day!

Dylusions - Frog Princess

I can't believe how much fun it is to ride play (I've got Jingle Bells in my head lol) with Dylusions inks etc.  Each time I get them out, and with nothing concrete in mind, the colours and designs just flow somehow.  All I need is some more ink colours as I currently only have 6 of the 12 available, and you can never have too many stamps!  (Hint, hint, Christmas is coming ....)

I thought I'd like to do something Christmasy with this page using 'Christmas Words' from Dylusions but what other stamps would I use?  First up, I inked up the body from 'Pondering Petunia', changed her head, added an enormous hand, and gave her shortened legs/feet from 'Ruby Rainbow'.  I then added one of the borders from  'Around the Edge'.

On with the colouring - first the border.  For all the colouring on these pages I have just simply dipped a little paintbrush directly into the Dylusion ink and painted .... so easy.  The colours are really vibrant, I just need more of them!

I decided I'd go with "Kiss you under the mistletoe ......." words but what was I going to use for branches.  After searching through my stamp collection, I decided on a leaf from 'French Foliage' from Stampin' Up!  I inked it up, stamped it, and thought 'oh no, this looks terrible' but stamped it a couple more times anyway thinking 'what a mess'.  Then I painted it green and suddenly the 'mess' turned into 'hey that's actually ok'.  To connect the branches to the frog princess, I stamped the ink splodge from 'French Foliage' using Fired Brick Distress Ink across the page.  To finish off, I added dots of gold Liquid Pearls to the border and around the eyes, and lime green Stickles to the crown and randomly through the red splodges. 

Now I know these pages are primarily white, but I don't mind and I'm happy with how it all came together.  As I said earlier, you just need to start and somehow it flows and turns into a 'masterpiece'.

Happy crafting!

Dylusions - Mela's Garden

My plan for yesterday was to start my Christmas shopping but instead I stayed home waiting for a delivery (of course you never know what time of day it'll arrive) and while I waited, well ... the housework beckoned.

After lunch I thought I should get some sample cards made for upcoming classes early next year, but after procrastinating, instead I played again with  Dylusions.  So come and have a look:

I wanted to do a page without the colour seeping through to the before and after pages, especially as the previous page was already finished.  So I started with the white pages and spritzed colour through the spotty and brick stencils, carefully paper-towelling before lifting the stencil.  Great result and as I hadn't spritzed water first, it didn't seep through, woohoo!  I like having some white space too.

Next I added the border along the bottom, with a few extra circles in the top corners, stamped "Mela" from Stampotique, and added the leaves and flowers.

The spider and web came from Graphic 45 "Happy Hauntings" and to give more depth of colour to the different images, I dipped a little brush directly into the Dylusions inks and painted the leaves, flowers, circles and Mela's dress.  

First thing this morning, I was off to start my Christmas shopping and was able to cross a number of names from my list.   I came home when I realised my 3 hours parking was almost up and I really didn't want to pay to get out of the carpark.  So after revising my list, I'll head out again tomorrow.

Happy crafting!

From Old to New - The Driveway

A little over a week ago the tradies with their bobcat started work on getting rid of the old cracked and pot-holed driveway with the untidy garden (actually mess of plants would be more accurate) to create a lovely new driveway that would allow the cars to park side by side instead of single file.

So we went from this:

and this:

to 'it's starting to take shape':

The reinforcing wire went down next before the concrete was poured the following day.  Colour was added to the concrete and then a design was stamped into the wet cement.

Looking good, now that it has been sealed the colour is much brighter.

It was OK to walk on the following day, so now we just leave it to all dry properly for about a week and it will be ready for the cars to return to the driveway and no longer be parked on the street.  Next we need to tackle the edges and fix the mangled garden (whats left of it) at the bottom of the front steps.  It looks so different to how it was and has really opened up the front of the house and we're very happy with it.

Until next time, happy crafting!