Friends

How beautiful a day can be when friendship touches it.

I want to show you two beautiful hand made cards I received. 

The first one is from my dear friend Chrissie - it is so delicate.  The photo doesn't do it justice.

This one is from Sue.  The colours are quite lovely and the watercoloured flower is beautiful.

Anything that is hand made has a special message for the recipient, and I was very touched by these cards.

I needed to make some Thank you cards and settled on these simple ones.

As always, thanks for popping in,

Mary

A few more April cards.

Being so far behind with my posting it is just as well I took some photos along the way to jog my memory.  This first one was for an 11 year old:

and then a couple for my Grandson who just loves turtles, frogs, lizards etc:

and another princess card.

Cheers,

Mary

Wedding invitations

A very dear friend produced all of her Wedding invitations, place settings etc. using the SU embossing folder "Finial Press". 

The front of the invitation was embossed as well as the left side of the envelope.

As you can see from this photo it was a triple fold with the right hand side being detachable for the rsvp (they used the perforator on SU's Cutter kit - a great little gadget !).  The smaller envelope for the rsvp was also embossed.

Considering they had never done anythiong like this before I think they did a super job.
Mary

March and April Birthdays

I just loved this little sentiment so had to use it for a special friend.

The feature on this one was also taken from a calendar:

Then I was really running late for my Nephew's birthday and made this one in a few minutes with the help of a packet of stickers.  A week or so later I found the card I had made for him back in January !!  I hope I can find it again for next year.

Another quick one using lots of SU vintage stamps and papers.

and back to the calendar for this little cutie.

It pretty much sums up how fast this year is going too.
Mary

Some rain must fall

"Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."
............................ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Without further ado I will try to catch up on my paper crafting.

I guess it is paper of a different kind - a "cake" for a baby shower.  Very cute and very easy to construct.

Yes, it is made of disposable nappies - so cute as well as practical.

On St Patrick's Day we had a great celebration for which I made this banner.  As per usual my photography is pretty ordinary (how on earth do you photograph something like this??), but I am sure you will get the general idea.

Will be back later with some more pictures.

Mary

Time for a catch up

Hard to believe it's nearly two months since I last posted on this blog.  Life has been busy and likely to be even more so as I have a new grandchild due on 6th April. 

The majority of birthday cards on my list for January are for men, so I made 6 at the same time:

This one uses SU Wanted paper and the words are computer generated.

Connor was next on the card list:

I needed a get well card for a friend, so I pulled out SU Friends Never Fade and introduced it to ink for the first time:

as you can see I did it in a hurry and didn't use the stamp a ma jig to line up the "friends" stamp onto the Notably Ornate image.  Melon Mambo ink.

This next one is a bit of a mixture.  In an effort to make it vintage I dyed the lace black by using the Stazon ink pad to do it - that was more than a little messy, but worth the effort.

and while I had the Red out I did this one with SU Candy Lane dsp and the small sprig from Embrace Life.  I was so pleased with it I made 3 more.

I do love the Riding Hood Red and chocolate together.

Then I needed two cards for my ten year old grandson, so broke out SU A Little Treat for the first one:

and right now I am sitting here in disbelief because as this photo loaded onto blogger I saw immediatelythat I have the background paper upside down !!!!  This card sat on my table for a week and I didn't notice it.  Oh No! !! Now that's a big oops!

and this was the second one for him - I hope the music is the right way up!

Something a bit prettier - a 21st Birthday card - and I tried to make it "mail friendly" as it went to the UK.

February is another busy birthday month in our family.  My Son starts the ball rolling now on the 6th:

and I made a 'spare' while I was doing his card:

This card is a case of one I found on the Papertrey website using "Birthday Bash Sentiments".  I love the simplicity of it.

The roller skate party inspired these two:

and then back to the "Treat" theme for the next three:

Have you noticed all the letters on these cards?  I am so rapt in the SU/Sizzix Timeless Type Alphabet Junior - it is just wonderful.

I loved the SU Bird Punch as soon as I saw it but hadn't actually made a card from it.  There are many lovely cards out there using the punch and I had saved one picture because it was so cute.  I just meant to get some ideas from it but ended up casing it completely and unfortunately I didn't realise until now that it doesn't have a name on it so I apologise to the original owner (let me know if it is yours):

Edited to add:  Fiona from Fiona's Crafting has let me know that the above card is one of hers.  Thanks Fiona.  If you haven't already been there you should pop in and see her work.  She has the most amazing wreath on her header which is made from the scallop circle punch (around 200 of them!).

and here is mine:

St Patrick's day is coming and at least I have the cards done:
I got the idea for the squares from this card of Mary Fish.  I have done mine in Old Olive and Kiwi Kiss and it doesn't have the same impact as Mary's card and her flower is great too.

If there is anyone still there - thank you!  I will post more frequently in future.
Cheers
Mary

..and so this was Christmas ...

... and now it's all over for another year.  Reminder to self "I must start Christmas cards earlier next year, I must start Christmas cards earlier ...".

I did do some cards early in December for our Christmas stitching night - mostly large tags, but forgot to take a photo as I was in a hurry to finish them.

I spent (wasted ??) an inordinate amount of time just trying to decide on the design for the majority of my Christmas cards - the ones that were to be mailed to family and friends both here and in England.  Those cards needed to be "mail" friendly so this was the design I made.  I cased this from a card I saw at a paper show a few months ago, so not an original idea, but I liked it at the time and bought the necessary bits, ie. silver stamp pad, stickles etc.  The tree stamp used is a Penny Black "snow dust" and the words are also Penny Black "a wonderful Christmas".

Not the best of photos but here is a close up of all that glitter.

and here it is on the production line along with my other card which is not at all mail friendly and so only hand deliverable. 

The other card is a lovely little folded number which features Dasher from Stampin Up - just love him!  I got the idea of the folded card from Sandi's blog and then had to decide what to put on the front.  Dasher only just fitted.  In retrospect I should have made the card a bit bigger.  Isn't hind sight a wonderful thing?

The designer paper is also from Stampin Up but it is from last year - and it looks so good with the Real Red.

Again, I had a production line happening for these.  Stamped my greetings on the reverse with the white kraft ink.

and just to keep it all matching, I used Dasher again for my gift tags, along with the new SU Finial Press embossing folder - believe me it looks fabulous on the real red but you can't see it from my photo.  

 I was pretty happy with them, but as I said earlier, I just need to start much sooner next year, so I can enjoy the process.

Back in November my Brother had a gift of chocolates delivered to me.  They were from "Lollypotz" and were a novel idea with Ferrero Rocher chocolates wrapped in tissue and wired into a little bucket to look like a pot of flowers.  They have been sitting on my bench since then because I knew I just had to have a go at doing something like it.  I bought a kilo of Heritage chocolate bells and this is what I came up with.

I have made five of these now and while I don't think the other company is likely to be worried about my competition, I think they turned out well.  They are quite time comsuming because everything has to be wired (not good on the fingers!) (and this is why they are so expensive to purchase). 

I was determined to make a banner for Christmas !!! but I didn't get around to the one in my head because I needed to do something for our "front door decoration competition".  Obviously a normal banner wasn't going to fit across my front door so I made this funny little one .  I reversed the pennant shape into a tree shape and just went with "Ho Ho Ho", but I should have made it a lot bigger as it didn't have the same impact as a banner.



So that's about my lot for now.  Thanks to all of you who have made it to the end of this posting.  I will be much briefer next time.

I wish all of you a very happy 2011 - may it bring you good health and happiness and lots of paper crafting.

Cheers,

Mary

Thanks

The majority of Australians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but my Daughter's friend was born in America and so they always do.  This year I made a banner for them.  Yes, I know I have the banner bug, but I do find them a lot of fun.

Evidently it fitted perfectly across their mantlepiece and is still up on show now, so I guess they liked it.

The next card I want to show you was a request from a friend and she gave me the lovely little centrepiece that she wanted on it.  I had bought that lovely striped paper a few weeks beforehand and had it on the floor with my Christmas papers and it just jumped up at me.  Once I had chosen the background paper, the layering seemed perfect.

so now on to the Christmas bits and pieces.

Mary

Halloween Banner

I started to make this Halloween banner for the children but needed to fly out to Darwin in the middle of doing it.  I finished it off and I guess it will be ready for next year.

Mary

A mixed bundle

I am so far behind in posting that I am not sure where to start - at the beginning is always good but I am not sure where the beginning was !!!  A lot of cards went out without a photo because I was busy catching up on birthdays and banners, but here is what I have a record of.

Back in October I made a card as a thank you for the lady who always picks up the books for the book club group.  A friend gives me the old daily pages from the beautiful calendar she receives from America (don't know the name but sometimes the initials ME are stamped on the images) so I had the perfect sentiment to use.

I loved this one when it was done.  Maybe it is all that lovely red!!

The next one was a birthday card for the friend who supplies the calendar pages so I used one on her card too.

As you can see I was still in red mode !!

The daughter of dear friends has received her first posting as a school teacher, so that was a milestone that had to be recorded:

Birthday cards for twins turning one:

 but unfortunately I spelt Lily's name incorrectly !!! 

I have used this simple card for a few of the male birthdays recently:

and this last card is for  my great niece who wants to be a pastry chef:



Happy Birthday Dana!

So that's about it for the cards I have made, but I want to show you this lovely card I received from a very dear stitching friend:

this photo doesn't do it justice - the very fine gauze/silk of the flower and the lace on the card have been dyed to give it a wonderful vintage look, and the edges are stitched as well.  Thank you Chrissie.

Congratulations and thank you, if you are still with me after this long post.

Mary