Happy New Year

Hello friends!

THis is just another quick post. I wanted to wish you a very happy new year and let y ou know I'll be 'offline' on this blog for a couple of weeks. I'm working on some projects that I"ll do my best to share with you really soon, but just in case I don't get to for a few weeks, please be assured that I WILL come back!!

There are SEVERAL things happening in the next month or two, so I'll be very busy. One I can't tell you about yet, but will share when it all happens, the other is that we're searching for a new house in a different state (as I've mentioned before), but we're hoping we'll be moving no later than March, so it's 'all stops out' from here on in, we've got a LOT to do!! We also had my birthday yesterday, it's my brother in law's today, then Charlotte's at the end of January (plus we had another 5 in the past month!!) and LASTLY, Charlotte is having surgery at the beginning of February, so I'll be getting prepared for that. Positive thinking--all will be fine and she'll be perfect and fixed after that :)

anyhoo, please accept my apologies for a bit of a lapse in the next few weeks if there is one (which I'm thinking there will be!). I hope you all have a wonderful New Years and stay safe!

We're hoping to spend a few days at a farm in the south of Western Australia before Charlotte's surgery, so if we do, I'll be sure to take photos and post them on here :)

take care and I'll talk to you in 2011!

Love--Linda xx

Merry Christmas

Hello dear friends

Just a quick post before I head to bed in the hopes of hearing sleigh-bells ringing and a clatter on the roof :)

I wanted to quickly share a funny little story with you--Isabella (who's just turned 3 a few weeks back) has been VERY excited about Christmas arriving.  She didn't really have much concept of it in general and we tried to let her discover and learn on her own.  She loves to watch 'home movies' (videos of us doing things around the place/on holidays/birthdays etc) almost every day so she's watched the one of last Christmas several times.  When we brought out the tree she was so excited and she's been full of joy and excitement whenever she's seen a tree or santa, or anything to do with Christmas out at the shops etc. 

A few days ago I mentioned to her that on Christmas night, Santa comes and leaves presents for you while you're asleep. Well...that didn't go down well. AT. ALL.  Her little face became tense and she got VERY stressed every time someone came to the door (even if it was a family member--she heard the keys in the door and would come sit practically under my feet.).  I stopped mentioning it and assured her she was safe.

Tonight, just before she went to bed, she got very tense again (she must have worked out that tonight was the big night) and she got SO stressed over the idea of Santa even coming near the house (we tried telling her he'd leave presents in the mailbox, just like the mailman!!), that I had to "ring" Santa on my mobile (cell) phone and tell him not to come!!

lol. That's my little worrier! So funny. She only relaxed when I convinced her Santa was NOT coming near us. lol talk about going against the grain!
anyhoo, I kind of loved her even more in that moment because she wasn't worried about presents etc like so many kids would be (We've never introduced the concept of asking Santa for gifts either, we don't really like it), but my little old lady just wanted no strangers in the house. haha.

Anyhoo, I'm off to bed to wait for Christmas morning with my babies. Matt is working unfortunately so we're doing a few presents in the morning with their grandparents (who we live with) and then we'll do the 'big show' when Matt comes home.

Wishing you all a VERY safe and happy Christmas my friends!

Lots of love

Linda xx

Happy Birthday Dadda!!

Hello!!!!!

So today is my lovely daddy's birthday and we had a nice family dinner to celebrate, but I thought I'd make a card for him.  I'm much more of an 'embellish and add ribbon until you can't fit any more' kind of girl, but I enjoyed making this nice simple masculine card that still had a touch of whimsy and prettiness.

 I stamped the Hero Arts It's a Village with Stormy Sky Distress Ink, then I used some Distress Stickles over the centre house to highlight it as 'the party house'. Then I cut the circle out of the stamped card using my Martha Stewart Circle Cutter.  Next I cut a circle (1/4" bigger than the blue cardstock) out of my kraft notecard.

 Using Hero Arts Birthday Wishes clear set, I cut apart the sentiments so the words 'they' and 'say' were seperate, I layed them on my card then curved them appropriately.  Then I sat my acrylic block on top of the stamps, (which picked them up exactly how I needed them to sit) and stamped them on using Tsukineko Tuxedo Black ink.
Then I attached several tiny brads and hand-sewed long strips of black string to make the bunch of balloons (which is meant to look lik they're coming out of the 'party house'.)

Finally, I attached the two layers together.

On the inside, I used a piece of white cardstock, cut to the same size, stamped with the same Its a Village Stamp but with Soft Stone Shadow Ink to give a really subtle tone on tone effect. Then I stamped the sentiment in Tuxedo Black ink.

 I then adhered that level to the inside of the card.

 As a cute little touch, on the back of the card, I stamped this adorable little cupcake from the Birthday WIshes Stamp set used earlier.

Here's a close up :)

CUTE!!

I hope you liked it!!

Talk to you soon xx

Linda xx

yes i'm still alive

Hey everyone

Sorry it's been so long, this past few weeks has just been a blur. I've got nothins to share with you tonight, because I'm EXHAUSTED!!

Loooooong story short
*I'm trying to do the ALi Edwards December Daily...and I've only gotten up to day 5 done because
*My printer has kicked the bucket multiple times AND living in Australia, anything I order takes at least 12 days to arrive (i.e. my Technique Tuesday stamps lol)
*Isabella suddenly got sick ON me yesterday just as I was about to walk out the door to take CHarlotte to her specialists' appointment--needless to say that was fun
*Charlotte will need another surgery and we're scheduled for early February. We'd been praying she wouldn't but the stats were against us this time so it has to go ahead. I know doctors really know what they're doing, but the thought of taking her for another surgery has me all twisted in knots.
*I'm hating on my craft space a bit at the moment. I cleaned it all up again the other day and my desk is now lovely, but because it's in a room that is in use (and I have 2 young kids who can reach everything), I have to pack everythign away whenever I leave the room, which makes for a BIG annoyance every time I want to make something or I get interrupted in the middle of making something (which is 99.9% of the time)
* I never have an actual long stretch of time to craft so I've been tending not to bother trying and I hate it
*Its christmas and despite the fact that I have lights and decorations all over the house, i just CAN"T get into the spirit because it's SOOOOOOOO hot here.
*we almost bought a house and then found out that there were major problems with it so we decided not to (depressing) and now we're looking for another *time consuming*

anyhoo, in case I don't get back on here again because this month has already RUSHED past me so I have no doubt the rest of it will too--I just want to say a HUGE Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you have a Safe and Happy New Year.

I'll be back on track with my little piece of Bloggy paradise really soon I promise :)

Talk to you soon(er than Christmas I hope) *wink*

Linda xoxo

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas

Hello dear friends!!

This will just be a short post, but a goodie!

You simply MUST check out Tim Holtz in all his genius with his 12 Tags of Christmas.

You can see his blog HERE.

Check these out:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

He has made some truly amazing creations. SO INSPIRING!!

*sigh*...I'm off to get inky :)

Don't forget to share your creations on flickr and leave a comment with the link!! I'd love to see what you make with all this inspiration floating around in your head!

PS The photo titles ('day1' for example) is a link to that day's blog update on Tim's site :)

Talk to you soon sweets!

Linda

just a quickie

Hi Again!

Just a quickie today. I'm in the middle of trying to get up to date with my December Daily, so it will be another day or two until I post again with something.

I've got christmas cards laying half-finished, ideas floating around in my head at rapid speed and my kids just refuse to sleep at the same time until after 8pm when I'm exhausted--thus my lack of updates!

Anyhoo, talk to you again soon :)

thanks for your patience

Linda xx

December Daily

Hi there!

Today's post will just be a super quick one, it's late here and I'll no doubt have to get up early with Charlotte.

I just wanted to quickly show you what I've been working on. I decided to do the December Daily with Ali Edwards this year, I've heard of it before and loved the idea but thought I'd never have time to do it all.  Next year I definitely plan on being organised earlier as Ali was, but I had some issues getting the album I was hoping to get (living in Australia is REALLY Frustrating when you need craft supplies fast). SO long story short, I got an album that I really wasn't sure I loved, but now I've had my way with it *wink*, I'm close to being in love with it...it still needs one more thing--I just don't know what that thing is!! 

So here is my cover;

I had a LOT of trouble deciding what I wanted to do. You see, all year this year, I've been dealing with a LOT of Americans (especially working with and running a blog and DT for a U.S based company!) and I've really not been feeling the Christmas vibe here in Australia because it's so hot.

I've always wished for a white Christmas as I've mentioned before, but this year especially, it just doesn't seem like Christmas with this heat!! So I wanted to create an album that was reflective of how OUR Christmas is, hot, sunny, bright etc, but finding Christmas ornaments and decorations that don't have snowmen, stockings, the word snow, snowflakes, etc etc was proving impossible. 

I thought and thought and thought and eventually decided to just make the album pretty and use colours based on our Christmas tree this year--which looks like this:

It's much brighter in real life. The baubles are fuchsia, aqua-blue, purple, gold, a few silver and black. They vary between being matte, gloss and glitter-covered.

Anyhoo, here are a few close ups

 

To make this section I used my Silhouette-baby (she needs a name...hmmm any suggestions?). I cut 3 of the exact same image out of kraft cardstock then CAREFULLY glued them together, this gives the effect of chipboard. (THANKYOU NICHOL MAGOUIRK FOR THE AMAZING IDEA!!) See the cool dimension?! LOVE IT

I gently distress inked over the image with Antique Linen (and a TINY bit of Walnut stain on the edges, just to make the lettering stand out a tad more.

Here is another angle so you can see my Diamond Stickles Star at the top :)

Here is another Silhouette diecut word--I loved Nichol's title font so I copied a bit :) but made mine sunny yellow, with a hint of diamond stickles on the top (I can dream of snow right?!).  I also layered this on 2 layers of kraft cardstock to give it height, but I put the yellow (top) layer on slightly off centre so that it gave a shadow effect. (Thanks again to Nichol for the inspiration :))

 This next little section really gave me trouble, I re-did and re-did and re-did it. *sigh* I'm happy with it now, but maybe one thing more...I'm thinking it needs a button  :) buttons always make things better right!? Anyhow, after looking at Sarah Martina's DD album, I was struck with inspiration (are you noticing it's taking a lot of other people to get my creative brain to work?! lol)

 There are a lot of layers here.

1. a doily that I Glimmer Misted with jade green (can't remember the name and I'm too tired to get up and search for the bottle--sorry!)

2. Then 2 Silhouette diecut snowflakes that I've put Diamond AND Icicle stickles over (one of which I distress inked with Tumbled glass first)
3. then I diecut (yup, with the Silhouette) a star shape 3 times out of kraft cardstock, stuck them together, added some tiny "sugar glitter" that I've had in my stash forEVER, painted it gently with white paint and added a tiny bit of gloss over the top.
4. Finally the numbers are just little glittery diecuts that came in a pack for about $2 from a super cheap craft store we have in Perth (they're the cheapest in the whole city to tell the truth, but not all of their stuff is great quality, however, they're fantastic with the prices!)

I've got my journalling and photos organised for day 1. Day 2 was decorating the Christmas tree with Isabella but I haven't journalled it yet, I'm letting the thoughts and words simmer in my head a bit (otherwise I find I babble if I just type 'on the go'. Day 3 is today and honestly? We did nothing Christmassy at all, but I finished my journal cover, so I'll be making that my story for the day :)

I'd kind of semi-planned to do the online class of Journal your Christmas, but the last time I tried to do an online class, it was a complete bust.  The email prompts just went straight into a file in my inbox. Hmmm maybe though.

I'm having a hard time getting PhotoShop Elements to work for me. I can get the layers right, but they never seem the right size. When I get an overlay in the right position, I try to resize it but the lines get fat and look distorted...I have no idea. Any hints?? I'm a complete PSE FAIL!!! Knowing me I'll just give up and put plain photos in. (this would be easier if my printer hadn't decided to DIE this week. GAH!!!

 This is a Whiff of Joy Elephant and the grassy area, coloured in Copic Markers. The sky is a Hero Arts cloud background stamp stamped in Soft Blossom Shadow Ink (Pink Elephant was my original plan, but then I thought a pretty pink sky would be cute). The banner and letters within are Lawn Fawn :)

 OK, I'm off to bed! this took longer than I thought it would (always does!)

Take care lovelies--what are you doing to get ready for Christmas? I'd love to hear your traditions/stories :)

Linda xx