Roll up, roll up ....

I enjoyed playing with the lovely bright Big Top circus papers from SU, so I decided to use them again for Owen.

The name doesn't stand out so well in the photo.  I had originally intended putting it at the top of the card but decided the greeting looked better there, and as I had already cut the letters and covered them in gloss, I wasn't about to redo them. 

Got a bit carried away with the glitter in an attempt to simulate sawdust!! lol 
Although you can't see it, the Lion and seal are popping up from the page.
Lots of fun making kids cards, but I have to keep reminding myself that they are just that - kids cards! and not spend so much time on them.
Cheers
Mary

Popping Up

That would be me popping up with a Pop Up card. 

A friend mentioned there was a challenge this week at Just Add Ink to make a pop-up card and since I had just made one for my Grandson I thought "why not give it a go".  As I had already given the card, my Daughter has taken the photos for me, which was probably a good thing given my lack of skills in that department.

 

The elephant and the clown are the pop up bits and the elephant is looking a little off balance as the card has been opened and shut quite a lot.

Those beautiful papers are SU Big Top Birthday and the matching stamp set  is Under the Big Top.

Now lets see if I can add this to the challenge.

Mary

Edited to add:  I was lucky enough to get an honourable mention for this card.

Halloween

Day two and I thought I would show you the cards I made for the Grandchildren for Halloween. 

The spiders are cased from blogland - not sure whose idea it was originally, but it was an easy one to do if you don't have specific Halloween stamps.

 

I loved the cat stamp as soon as I saw it - SU Frightening Feline !!  Took the idea for this one from "Frenchie"

 

and lastly SU's Bootiful Occasions.

 

 

Saw a little poem while blog surfing that started off : "Trick or treat, smell my feet" but when I went to write it in  the boys' cards I couldn't remember the rest of it!!  Old age is more frightening than Halloween!

Mary

Hip Hip Hooray

it's my special day today and as I had lots of spare time I thought I would update my neglected blog.  Unfortunately, to do that I had to upload card photos to my computer and that proved to be a very long process.  I got a new computer back in May and it does not recognise my camera software so have been taking photos with the iphone and ipad and these do not upload as I would wish- ie in date order!! - so there are photos all over the place and to add to the confusion every time I connect the ipad to the computer it loads ALL the photos again.  Yikes, I am out of my depth here.

 

I have a friend who posts one photo of Melbourne a day and maybe that is an idea I will run with for a while.

 

This card was for a very special friend in England who celebrated her 80th birthday back in September.  A friend of hers made her a birthday cake decorated with "Toy Boys" dressed only in top hats - I do hope she sends me a photo of that.

 

 

Back soon,

Mary

 

"Fun Birds" and February birthdays

Most of our immediate family celebrate birthdays and anniversaries in January and February.

My oldest Grandson starts the ball rolling on 21st January and this year I made him an Angry Birds card.  I had seen a few on the blogs and picked bits and pieces from them to create my own version with the punches and papers that I had.  The card proved very popular and I ended up making quite a few more:

and, yes, I did go a bit overboard, but they are disappearing fast !!

One with the lot !

finishing off with a large circle card which was totally my own design and which I loved.

Then it was birthday time for our princess:

Beautiful butterfly:

 This one is a case of a card I saw some time ago on the blog of Laurie Zoellmer.  Such a simple design but quite lovely.  I had some trouble with the Elegant Lines embossing folder cutting too deeply and had to add an extra layer of card to correct it.

Thanks for dropping in,

cheers till the next batch,

Mary

A final fluttering

of cards to formally farewell the year.

This one was a belated birthday card but it is also very appropriate for today:

The picture was taken from a calendar which has a different picture and thought for each day of the year - they are all far too cute to throw away so I recycle them when I can.

Here are a few more of them:

I find these cards much easier to design - not just because there is little or no stamping, but more because when I am using a stamp set, I have usually seen many cards made with the stamp and in an effort not to copy/case them, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get something original. 

Here are some of the stamped cards I have sent out in recent months:

This one uses "Jolene" by My Favorite Things.  Is it just me or does she look sad ?

The ice cream cone worked well for twins:

Tilda for a little girl:

and one for the guys - a quick one using Birthday Bash Sentiments from Papertrey!!

and I nearly forgot to add my Christmas card for 2011 - the Ornament was originally to have been very much a 3D item but time beat me and I had to settle for this version.

these were two of the cards I had originally intended to make for Christmas - not sure why I changed my mind as these seem much brighter than the one above.  Oh well ......

and a shoe or two (or three):

Funny, how they are all red - having a love affair with everything red at present.  They actually look great as I covered the red with glass finish and they look so shiny.

And last in this marathon is a teapot ( Papertrey - Tea for Two) in slightly unusual colours.

Well that's it from me.  Maybe 2012 will see me better organised with posting - that's not a resolution, just a vague hope.

Hope you have a very happy New Year and that 2012 is filled with good health and much happiness.

Mary

Shoe Boutique

Catching up on the blogs and making a last minute dash to enter the Scrapbook Boutique challenge. 

Here's hoping my lucky number comes up !!

Cupcakes

While I was checking out Scrapbook Boutique this morning I saw this beautiful photo

which is the inspiration for their latest challenge and decided to give it a go. 

This is what I came up with.

Now, the challenge will be to see if I can work out how to post it to their blog.

Mary

Edited to add:

I have posted it on the Scrapbook Boutique blog but it is not a good photo - it really does look better in real life.  Maybe I should wait for some sunshine and try agin.

Look what I won

While busy posting my cards a few days ago I completely forgot to tell you about a lovely surprise I received.  I have been lurking around blogs for ages and started to leave comments to let people know their work is admired.

I came upon a blog hop from Case Study and left a comment on a blog that was new to me and I was very lucky to have been chosen at random as the winner of some goodies.   I have copied this photo from Sue Kohler's blog to show you my bundle of supplies.

Two very cute MFT stamps which I know will be great to use on cards for my Granddaughter's little friends; some pretty striped twine, Annabelle ribbons and rhinestones and some of the cardstock to use with Copics.  Maybe I will have to try the copics because Sue does such lovely cards with them.  What a great way to get to try something new.

Thank you again for my gift Sue.

So now I need to get brave enough to enter a card into a competition.  On a couple of occasions I have made cards for that purpose but never quite get around to working out how to enter them.

Mary

An accumulation of cards

This is quite a mixed bag as it covers a whole month.

First one up is a sweet butterfly card for Caitlyn:

one for Dylan:

Then one for my dear friend Chrissie, using SU Nature Walk, Clearly For You, and of course the scallop die.

opened:

and closed - with the matching box behind it.

I used the scallop die again to make a 70th birthday card:

and again, opened:

Next up are a few cards that have been made for a while:

Share a cup: I cased the layout from one made last year by Mary Fish and I made it in two different colours.



I just had to try this technique when I saw it on Andrea Walford's blog some time back, so this is another case.

Now a bit of Disney for the little girls - a Princess with her own castle:

and inside:

I am always looking for something a bit different for cards for the men so I used this Matches paper that I had bought ages ago to make a couple of very simple cards.

This card was inspired by Dawn Olchefske who has a tutorial for it on her blog:

Yep it's the scallop circle card and the Butterflies again.

I saw a cute baby dresser card at a paper show I went to a few months back and have tried to replicate it from memory.  I believe the lady who made it is "Michelle".  I tried to find her but don't think she has a blog.

I had a lot of fun making the next four cards - saw this beauty on Dawn's blog and again, just had to try it.  I got carried away and then turned all my efforts into cards which I am pleased with but they are not a patch on Dawn's original.

I made this little group of cards at a Glitter Class at Michelle Grech's home - very sparkly!

Just thought I would pop in this picture of some tealight covers that I made from paper doilies - very quick and easy to make and they look lovely massed on tables for a party.

...and last (well done to anyone who has stayed this long !!)  I went back to my very rusty calligraphy for this card.  It's for my older Brother so I can get away with the words.

I should have made the title of this post "How to fill in an evening" as it has been quite a marathon.  Of course if I didn't leave it so long between posts it would be much easier, but I am not going to make any promises. 

Thanks for popping in

Mary