Happy Australia Day!!! (and THREE cards!)

Hello!!!

So here in the big "Down Under" (Just so you know, we Australian's never actually use that term haha!), it's Australia Day. January 26th every year is a public holiday and most people swarm towards their local city centre for the massive fireworks displays that are put on for free by the local governments.

This is a great shot of the fireworks that are held over the Swan River, which sits RIGHT in front of Perth CBD. (FYI Perth is where I live, it's the capital city of Western Australia.)

There is a lot of info surrounding the history/background of Australia day, but too much for me to write here. If you're interested, click HERE and have a read. 

A few weeks back, I asked my dear friend Joy, if she'd like to participate in a little 'Aussie fun' in the way of Australian-inspired cards and she said yes!  I'm so excited.  If you would like to check out the amazing cards she's made for this special even, click on over to her blog.

So we decided to go with the Green and Gold theme, which was REALLY hard for me, I never like this combination and to be honest, don't even like it as our National Colours, they just clash to me, but that's what our colours are, so let's go with it! I tried to make it work as best I could.

Anyhoo, here are my cards. 

This first one is a bit cheeky, it's a bit of a play on what I'm sure you poor unknowing 'foreigners' are subjected to in the media when it comes to Australians (Think Crocodile Dundee...*sigh* can anyone say Stereotype??). Anyway, I thought it would be funny to do a bit of a silly card to address the fact that very little in Australia, is like you see or hear in the media.

• Hero Arts (HA) Snow Chalk Ink stamped "Happy Birthday" (from H.A Birthday Sayings clear stamp set)repeatedly on vellum to tone down the UGLY orangey-yellow cardstock, I really love the effect. 
• HA Graph Background stamp in Tumbled Glass distress ink, stamped onto white cardstock, then edged/distressed with a little Walnut Stain DI. (Punched the edge with an EK Success Notebook edger punch). The "Just a Note" title and little paperclip are both from the Hero Arts "Just a Note" clear stamp set.
• HA Green ribbon (from their Christmas release) and some yellow eyelet-edged ribbon from my stash.
• HA Dark Green notecard from their "Foliage" set, which I swiped around the edges with the HA Snow White Chalk ink to make it a more attractive colour.

This is a TERRIBLE photo (sorry) but I was trying to show you my home-made brad using my handsome little baby Mr I-top and some cute gingham fabric.

I used Lawn Fawn's "Harold's ABC's" and H.A Happy Birthday Clear Stamps to stamp the sentiment in Memento Cantaloupe and Pear Tart inks.

Australia Day is generally one big party for most people, so the sentiment seemed appropriate (as well as making a bit more sense of the 'list' on the front of the card).

Here's card #2:

This card was kind of inspired by a card feature Nichol Magouirk did HERE.   I saw it months ago and always wanted to try to replicate it, so this is my take.

The backing card & circle frames

First I trimmed the Hero Arts Green notecard down to 4 1/4" long (it's already 4 1/4" wide, so no need to trim that too).

I used the Hero Arts CG144 "Time to Stamp" cling stamp and embossed with AC Zing Mustard Yellow embossing powder.

Next I took some matching yellow cardstock (AC textured) and cut it into a circle with my Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles Large Die.  Then I cut a white circle with the smaller frame. I edged both with a touch of Peeled Paint Distress Ink and attached both to the centre of the card.

The Butterfly

Taking scraps of ribbon, I adhered them onto a small piece of plain cardstock. (any scrap cardstock will do fine)

**(I covered the cardstock with 'tape' from my Glu Glider Pro and then just lay the ribbon on top gently in case I needed to move any of them around, which I did in the end, before pressing the ribbon down firmly.)

I didn't bother to trim the ribbon ends if they were scrappy as they'd be cut off by the die anyhow.

Next, I ran my cardstock through my Big Shot machine using a Cuttlebug Butterfly die (I have no idea of the name, I got it ages ago).

Because of the thickness of the whole thing, the die didn't quite cut all the way through (I could have used an extra piece of cardstock as a 'shim', it would have helped), so I just carefully snipped any little areas that hadn't cut properly.

Then all I did was adhere it to the centre of the white circle (on an angle obviously) and added some pearls from the Prima e-line. (Remember me saying in my last post that I really need to update my prima stash?! lol)

Here is a close up of the butterfly. I love the textural look of it. In reality, it's very 'touchable'. The shiny sections of the two Hero Arts ribbons (the two green) really add something to it.

Although this card was made with the Australian colours in mind, it would work in a multitude of other colours. I'm actually thinking I'll make a sympathy card out of the exact same style, but with darker, more muted colours...I wish I could do that right now actually lol but no, I have another card for you!

OK!! Onto Card #3...(are you sick of me yet?!)

 This was actually the first card I made for this little challenge of ours, and I'm happy with it. I thought and thought and thought some more about it, did I want to add some red somewhere, should there be birds on the tree branches ...and you know what?! Yes, there could have been both of those things, but I'm going back to my trusty old 2011 Intentions album and trying to:

remember this?!

And so this card was left as it is!! And I happen to think it's pretty darn cute.

hope you like it too!

here's what I did

I stamped some white cardstock with the HA Graph Background stamp in Tim Holtz Pumice Stone DI.
Then I die cut them into clouds using Papertrey Ink (PTI) cloud dies.  I then edged the clouds with a touch of Broken China & Pumice Stone. I adhered one cloud flat to the blue notecard (also Hero Arts) and the smaller cloud on some dimensional tape, as you can see here.

I then cut a little circle from some yellow paper for the sun and attached it to the card, peeking out from behind the cloud.

Next I stamped the tree branches from the HA Kiss from the Sun Clear stamp set, using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured in with Walnut Stain DI (and my Inking applicator from Ranger).

I stamped the HA Hello Flags (still one of my faves) using Memento Tuxedo Black again and then distress inked them with Mustard Seed and Peeled Paint. I then cut the flags out and laid them on the card to position them correctly before adhering them down with dimensional tape.

I added some twine from PTI to the branches (this took a LONG time to get the length right :)) and glued the twine behind the banners so it looked as though they were attached.

The "celebrate" sentiment is from HA Birthday Sayings Clear set and stamped in Mustard Seed Distress Ink.

Inside the card I've stamped "they say it's your birthday" in the same colour ink (Australia day is considered a bit of a birthday).

Uber simple and very much inspired by my lovely friend Joy's card, so I hope you like it! (But I know you'll LOVE Joy's one :))

Pop straight over to her blog HERE (right after you leave a comment :))

A big thank you to Joy for joining me on this fun challenge, I know how busy you are Joy, it means a lot to me that you found the time :)

If you have any questions about how something was done, as always, please let me know and I'll do a tutorial for you!

Thanks for looking!

Happy Australia Day friends

Linda xx