Happy New Year! 2014!

Hello Friends!! I hope this newly hatched year brings you great things for the entire year ahead!

I can hardly believe it is two-thousand and FOURTEEN! I'm sure I am not alone when I say that when I was young we figured by the 2000+ years that we would have hover cars and jet packs and teleportation! haha! Maybe by the year 3000!

I want to Thank You all for your support and friendship throughout the years, to friends old and new! I really appreciate it. I've found myself in a funk lately where I cannot be inspired, and any attempts to work in my art journal turn into messy, yucky disasters! So I'm not sure when I will be able to share some artwork or creations. The old Mojo needs rekindling.

But in the meantime, I thought I would share the amazing Christmas cards I received off my amazingly talented blog friends, who handmade their cards!  So you can check out their amazing work!

The first card I received for the season, was from the lovely Lorraine in England. 

You can find her blog at Coldwaters2:

 I love the embossing and white on white! And great decoupaged snowy image! 

We don't get snow where I am in Oz, and definitely not at Christmas! So I always love the magical snowy Christmas images. 

Which brings me to my second card. From Shirley-Anne of South Australia.

Her blog is at: Stamping For Joy:

A great easel card with the cutest cartoon character penguin and polar bear I ever did see!  

From Dawn L in the USA at Dawns Craft Place:

 

A gorgeous Tilda card, I do so love these Magnolia images!

 From the Brilliant Brenda in England at Floral Fantasies:

A masked, brayered and stamped masterpiece of ink! 

From Jules in England at Always with a Heart:

 

A penny black Hedgie Card! Great traditional colours. 

From Wendy in Queensland at MerryMade:

Loving the Kraft cardstock and red, lovely reindeer. 

From Mags in England at Madcap Manor:

Beautiful diecuts!! 

 Lastly, from Sandy in South Australia at Sandy's Creations:

 

A beautiful Victorian vintage image, which I just love! 

So they are all the cards I received from people with blogs, who handmade their cards.

Thanks so much for all the time and effort put into to making and sending these great cards, I appreciate them so much!

Christmas is over for another year, and I noticed that hot cross buns are already in the supermarkets, and many craft blogs are advertising Valentines Day cards and items. So it already feels like 2014 is going way too fast! hehehe! 

But I hope it's a great one for you all!

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxo

Lily Birthday Card

Hi Friends, sorry for the lack of posting this week and deviation from the schedule, but I've been helping Mum out with doing a big Spring Clean about the house.

 The major item that took the longest, and was the dirtiest, was the Air Conditioners... We often clean and vacuum the filters and vent screens in them. However, in turning them on for the first time since last year when we had the first of our hot days, bits of black fluff was coming out of one! When we shone a torch up into the part where the air blows we noticed LOTS of dirt and muck up there. We were shocked!
 So a day was spent carefully taking the front off the Air-Cons and removing the louvers, so we could get up in there to clean them out. We got stuck in with a bottlebrush, an old toothbrush some rags, etc, and even the vacuum cleaner to get all the yucky muck out from up in there! It was really disgusting! and quite embarrassing, too! We just never thought that section of the air-con could or would get so filthy!!! Figured that is what all those filters and lint traps were for, but apparently not. Had anyone else noticed this? But now we know about it, we can keep on top of it, so it will never get that bad again! There would have been 5+ years of muck up there, and I must say the Air-Cons sure did run a lot better after the big cleanouts!!! LOL!!!

Anyway, a Birthday week in our house, with my Mothers  sixty *cough cough cough* birthday! lol... She keeps saying she wants to forget them and stop counting, and maybe make them reverse... I told her that is not how it works! hehee

Of Course I made her a card for the occasion, she loves Flowers, and I had this lily image already coloured up in my coloured up image tray and made a simple card, semi inspired by the floral fantasies of my blog pal Brenda...

 

I decided to keep it reasonably simple, and just use layers of coloured paper to make the flower the focal point, and so the papers just resembled the colours in the flower. The paper is from a couple of My Minds Eye paper pads.

 

The flower would have been coloured with Spectrum Noir Markers, and all edges and layers were inked with some distress ink to help them shadow and stand out, etc.

I hope you liked seeing this card, and hope to have some more to share soon!

Thanks for stopping by, My Friends!  

❤

Merry Mirthful Monday - Aussie Christmas Cards

Happy Monday friends! I have been busy today making up more Christmas cards, this time Aussie themed ones! So Mixed Media Monday will sit on the back-burner for a while, as I finish my Christmas Cards for the year... So again it's;

 I made four Kangaroo themed Christmas cards..

These are tall/long cards in DL size:

The background paper is of some plant life we have here in Australia, that is nicknamed a "Kangaroo Paw" since it kind of looks like a Kangaroo's front paws.

 

Three Koala cards in standard size;

 

Again the background paper features some native plant life, Yellow flowers of the Eucalyptus tree which you all know Koalas love!

And here two smaller sentiment cards using some scraps and leftovers:

All of my cards were made from this Aussie Christmas Paper Pack I got from my local Spotlight craft store last year, its by "Sugar & Spice Studios" and features lots of themed papers that are just perfect to make Australian themed cards from to send locally and internationally this Christmas!

 

So I hope you liked seeing my Christmas Cards this Merry Mirthful Monday.

I will have more to come using this paper pack and other Aussie Animals.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Merry Mirthful Monday...

Hi Friends! I hope this Monday finds you all well after a great weekend!

Usually Mondays theme is Mixed Media, but since I haven't done a mixed media project this week - but have done some Christmas Cards - I decided to name this Monday; Merry Mirthful Monday, for the occasion! Try saying that five times fast! and Check out my Christmas Cards:

 

Four simple cards I made using a Silhouette Tree Stamp and the Stamp sentiment "Joy" both  from a Recollections stamp set, which I heat embossed in gold onto watercolour paper which I had already diecut with nestabilities dies. Then coloured each with different variants of Distress Ink. 

 

For the left the colours used were Mustard and Crushed Olive I think it was... and on the right I used Dusty Concord and Tumbled Glass... I grabbed out these simple vintage papers and sponged ink around each of those to coordinate with the images...

 

Left I used Festive Berries and Rusty Hinge, and for the right Peeled Paint and Evergreen Bow.

Just some simple vintage effect cards, which I hope you enjoyed seeing!

Thanks for stopping by, and all your lovely comments.