Paper Hugs

Congratulations to Less is More this week, on reaching their 200th Challenge!  What a great challenge site this is!  The always friendly, encouraging comments from Chrissie and her DTs are so appreciated. To celebrate this milestone, well, the theme is Celebrations, naturally lol!  I am entering a card I will be presenting tomorrow, to a dear friend, husband of my card-maker mentor, so although I don't mention or use the word 'celebrations' on the front of my card, I hope it qualifies.  An 80th birthday is certainly worth celebrating! I love this colour combination for male cards, making a similar card to this for my grandson earlier this month, as he turned 17.  The stars were cut using framelit dies by Stampin' Up!, as well as a die by Sweet'nSassy for the outline star and I have assembled them using the inlaid die technique that I have seen on Pinterest lately.  A real test for my spatially-challenged brain, but so worth the effort, I feel.  ...

Christmas is on its way, as I'm sure we are all too well aware, so no surprise that the challenge this week at Less is More is Jingle all the Way.  I don't have any bells (though I've been lusting after some dies I have seen!) but I do have some humorous digi stamps by Make it Crafty, with an Aussie flavour, which I decided to use, rather than the more traditional images.  As usual, I have not checked out the entries yet, so have no idea if anyone else has gone down this road, but here they are.  Now, I have never actually seen an Australian Christmas tree like this, but knowing the Aussie sense of humour, and love of beer, it is quite possible! My second image is called 'The Red Nose Roo', and isn't she cute, with her little joey joining in the Christmas fun.  The MFT snow drift dies have morphed into sand hills for this card and I decided to keep the rest of the background simple, as I thought the first card might be a bit 'busy'.  For th...

Hi there!  Today's card is for Scrapbook Boutique November challenge where the inspiration photo is decidedly Christmasy!  I have been wanting to create a wreath of my own for some time, but never seemed to choose the best foliage to use for this technique.  This time I used a small holly twig from a Bo Bunny set that came with a craft magazine, which I originally chose to buy because the Father Christmas image was divine.  I was delighted when I noticed that little sprig, because it was just what I needed for this wreath.  I used two green inks by Memento - Bamboo Sprouts and Cottage Ivy, added some red berries, and a few wispy strands of foliage found in a SSS set along with the little star shapes to mimic the scattered balls in the photo.  A bow from another SSS set, a Happy die and the text Christmas from Stampin' Up! and all of this mounted on stitched squares by Lil' Inker and adhered to a Kaisercraft square card.  This was fairly quick to pro...

Congratulations to ATCAS who turns 2 this week, with their 52nd challenge being a sketch. I have simply used a nativity scene die by Precision Cutting Dies bought from Frantic Stamper Inc and kept pretty much to the sketch.  The stitched square is by Lil' Inker and the sentiment from Annabelle Stamps. On a personal note, I am privileged to be helping to celebrate the 90th birthday of a dear friend and member of our Probus Garden Club.  Heather has a wealth of knowledge about plants and flowers, which she often shares with us all, and we are meeting at my place tomorrow for a little garden party morning tea for her. I made this banner for her by stencilling letters onto stitched calico flags, and added felt flowers and butterflies and printed a couple of botanical posters.  Heather loves pretty colours, and so I made these rose pots from cardstock, using the Stampin' Up rolled rose die, to decorate the tables.  They were pretty quick to make once I got...

We had a wonderful visit to our daughter in the States, recently, but it is also lovely to be home!  One of my first tasks was to put away lots of 'stuff' I brought home with me, and the next thing I did was re-organise my stamps and dies, following Jennifer McGuire's tips on Youtube - you can find one of her many posts on this subject here .  I am so happy with the progress I am making, and the resulting ease in finding just what I'm looking for so easily.  I urge anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by their supplies, and the wasted time it takes to search for that special image you know you have but can't quite find, to check out Jennifer's ideas!  You won't be disappointed.  FYI I am using the Avery Elle pockets and find them excellent. After all that organisation, I couldn't wait to get back into crafty business,  and set about entering the   LIM challenge this week.  The theme there is:  more than one tree - how lovely!  One of ...