Etsy shopping

Well hello and happy Monday to you.
On Christmas eve i was browsing my favourite blogs and i ventured into Michelle Woodersons Etsy shop. I love her style, all mixy matchy and layers, so i treated myself to two of her notebook kits. (and yes i do not take notes but these are very cute and i will use them at work)
Here's the first one

and the second one

both were easy to assemble and they would make great gifts.

My PTI order for December finally arrived on Friday (they have just had their Jan release and i have only just got my Dec order, no ones fault that's what happens when we live half a world away). So even though they are now old they are still new to me, so here's a card i made playing around with their heart border die

and yes i did order more today, cant help myself its an addiction.

Tomorrow i will have my PL to show you, the first week anyway, i cant guarantee that i will have finished last weeks pages before tomorrow.

TTFN
xx
..and just a little note-the etsy order from Kansas only took ten days to get here yet my pti takes four weeks.hmm i wonder why that is?

Chrstmas Decorations

I have had a lovely day today and have spent most of it in my craft room pottering around doing this and that and finishing a few projects. So i have a lot to share with you today.

The three of us caught up a week or so ago to make a Labelcrew project here are some photos

Tracey's is on top and as Susan was the hostess she didn't get much time to make hers (to busy decorating a yummy pav) so the three pennants are hers and the blurry one on the bottom is mine.

I worked some more on mine at home, changing the ribbon and adding some buttons.

Cute cute cute.

here is what i played around with today and Andrew has just told me that i have a "glittery moustache"
oh well you get that, it is Christmas after all.

and here is another project from my Mouse Paper Scissors Give class and i am not giving this away

OK its meant to be an interchangeable theme where you just add a different photo but i wanted Christmas so even my backing is Christmas, i can always change the photo every Christmas.
Now here is a close up of the flowers as guess what i made these all by myself, so happy, they turned out really well, you just need a tea light candle and some polyester type slinky material, so just ignore the singe marks where i got a little close to the flame.

I think i need to distress the star a bit but otherwise i love it.

and tonight i may just do some hand stitching and try and get up to date with some of the stitch a longs i am involved in.

thanks for visiting
xx

Two days in a row

Yep I;m on a roll.
I have had a Smash book for ages now and knew what i was going to do with it but hadn't done anything about it until last night that is. here is the front cover

As we seem to go out quite a bit now i am going to do a food journal, here is the inside page

how perfectamondo is that blackboard paper, just like being in a pub or something-ok not quite but i got excited when i found it in my stash
and here is a close up of the journalling

and guess what? as Caitlin is in Bali (more in next paragraph) and Joe has an evening shift Andrew and I are going out to dinner so i will be able to put something in my book straight away.

Caitlin phoned to say "having a ball mum, hotel is great BUT....last night my camera ($400.00) got stolen out of my handbag" ,
"where were you" i said
"at the Bounty"
well.....THOUGHT i if you visit such a den of inequity THATS what will happen.
and I'm still not stressing or thinking about it.

Last night while journeying around computer land i found a beautiful digital Christmas pack from Jessica Sprague, i only purchased the elements ($3) because it had this wonderful word art transparency on it.
I clipped it to some red razzle dazzle paper and printed it of. I planned to put it in one of the frames i had in my junk basket but i think daughter has nicked it so i will have to go and buy a frame.

Isn't it great
and i also made another couple of choccie bags

These are for little girls aren't they sweet.
Must rush Andrew just told me the time and one must go and get ready for dinner and make sure my trusty I Phone is ready to take some snaps.

Bye all
xx

Playing

Yahoo its Friday afternoon and the weekend. I am making a concerted effort to show you all the things i do and post more frequently. So today i have two things to show you.

My PTI was delivered during the week and last night i was playing with some of the new stamps, so here is a card.

This uses the new Tag Its No 10 stamp set. Do you think it's alright for a boy card?
and next is a bit of re-purposing.
I needed somewhere to put my quilting pins and what better than a chocolate box that Caitlin was given.

I removed the chocolate -yes there was only one left, took of all the stickers and used the new PTI stamp set called Stitches & Swirls isn't it gorgeous. This set comes with heaps of stamps and i am thinking of stamping some onto some fabric to embroider. Well that's the plan it will get added to my never ending must make one day list.

Other news-Caitlin left for Bali yesterday with 6 or so of her workmates, she will be there for eight nights and i can honestly say that these will be the longest 8 days of my life.(trying not to think about it).
                 -there is a parcel waiting for me at the post office, i hope that its my Fig Tree quarterly project from The Fat Quarter Shop, i will pick it up before i get Joe from work
                  -booking our next trip to Penang on Monday (two weeks from the end of March 2012)
                  -haven't bought one Christmas present yet
                  -or written out my cards like i said i was going to do
                  -haven't done any more sewing on my table toppers,
                  -but have managed to stay on my diet for a whole week

Time to get Joe
have a great weekend.
xx

About Time

Hi there and a thousand apologies my poor bloggo has been badly neglected over the last few weeks.
Here are some of the things i have been doing,

making jam, and how cute is this label,here's the top of the jar

making these oh so very cute gift boxes (and not a cricut in sight)

Here's the link and a great tutorial from Cosmo Cricket The boxes are quite big and will hold a lot of normal size cards and envy's.

Tracey has been busy making some more cards and of course i had to copy (and copy i did, this is exactly like hers-thanks Trace)...(have i no shame-na i love her cards)

and here's a cute fun card made with leftovers from something

and yes my table toppers are still a work in progress, this one is half quilted and i only have three weeks left to finish them

My to do list is BIG and i had better go and start writing out my Christmas cards or my international ones will never get there.
Have a great week.
xx

A Family Gathering catch up +++

Hi there

how are you all?

i thought it was time to show you my progress on my quilt that "the three of us" are doing, just in case you thought i had given up

here are four blocks

and here's a close up of the aeroplane block

i designed this one myself as i wasn't to keen on the block in the pattern, and my cricut was a great help, it cut out the plane, suitcases and clouds. I had intentions of drawing faces in the windows but they didn't come out very well so i will have to wash them off.

my latest block "dads shed" if i remember correctly

and here they are all together so far, yes there is a place for one more block and then after that we have another whole row to add to the bottom, so about 4 or 5 blocks to go.

On Friday the "three of us" caught up for our monthly craft night and although we used some label crew labels this was not a Sweetwater pattern

the first apron i have ever made
and here's how i used a spare label

here's the link to Tracey's blog where you can see all three aprons. Susan made her apron a while ago-just to make sure that it wasn't too hard for Tracey and me, as you may have gathered Susan is our own personal guru at anything that involves sewing machine and thread, i tell you its great to have such fantastic ladies as friends.

OK enough of the mush

 

i just have to leave you with this cute, cute oh so cute angel i made with my PTI delivery the other day. I bought the dies especially to make her and used 4 layers of cereal boxes glued together 

oh it's just love love love

so so so easy, perfect for gifts and i can think of a 101 ways to use her OK maybe not 101 but at least five starting with a brooch for us to wear at work.

phew did you make it here to the end
thanks
one more week of holidays left so i will have to do as much craft as i can
enjoy your week ahead everyone
thanks for stopping by
Linda
xx

The Juicer

Hi one and all
its school holidays here-yippee
my new buffet/side board arrived yesterday so that meant i had to get out my polishing cloths and unearth this antique from a packing box that has been in there for years. My MIL gave it to me because it was a pain to clean and yes it is but i love it.
I have searched books and websites trying to get some info on this solid silver antique all to no avail, unfortunately my MIL has been diagnosed with dementia and other illness's so i doubt if she would remember so if anyone has any info on this piece can you please leave a comment.

here's another one from a different angle

two of the glasses sit on these cute flower like somethings, my FIL told me that even the glasses are antique (they have a lot of antique pieces and were collectors for a couple of years)
 Now for the next one just pretend its a lemon, i had no lemons so used an apple instead.

So happy that its finally out of its box
Also on my buffet is my new collection of glass-nothing antiquey just stuff that i like

and here are some more projects i have made using the art philosophy cartridge

beautiful lace doily

cute little gift box and flower and tag

some more flowers

yep you guessed it more flowers.

The postie just dropped of a Papertrey Ink package choca block full of goodies so i am of to play.
See ya
xxxxx

A canvas

Hello everyone
We have a long weekend here yippee.

A couple of weeks ago a teacher asked me to make a canvas for her mum and dad as it was their wedding anniversary coming up. Their whole family had been to Bali for a holiday and had some professional photos taken and i had to use these on the canvas.
So what does one do when they are asked to do something creative for someone else, well in my case wait and wait for inspiration to hit, which of course it doesn't. I knew the photos would be bright and colourful so i wanted to keep the canvas mainly white to focus on the photos. Alas more waiting and thinking about ideas, ho hum nothing jumping madly out at me. Then i had to deliver some PTI goodies to Tracey one of my craft mentors (I am lucky to have two mentors-Tracey & Susan) who were/are both scrapbook and card teachers who i am very lucky now to call good friends-anyway i digress as usual.

Tracey suggested a few things and gave me a piece of Collections tissue paper and this was the end result

I am so so happy with the way it turned out.
here's a close up for you

I just might have to make something similar for myself, have to add that to a already long list.
I am just finishing of our sewing project from last night so hopefully i will be able to share that with you all tomorrow.
Enjoy your Sunday
xx

Waste not want not

Is that how the saying goes?
Anyway here is a little file that i made from an envelope i received in the mail last week. I used my last piece of canvas from my Cocoa Daisy kit and other bits and pieces.

Next up i was experimenting making flowers with the cricut and these were too pretty to waste so using my new Paper Tray Ink background stamp i made this card.

Now my next card i don't like at all it didn't come out at all how i imagined but instead of throwing it away i thought that Caitlin might use it sometime. The back flower was meant to be made out of felt but as i didn't have any white/cream i cut it out of cotton wadding, there is also a Paper Tray doily die on here (i do love that)

i don't know maybe its just the colours.mmmmmmmmm still don't like it.

Now the three of us met last Friday night and shock horror i have nothing to show you, instead of working on our current label-crew item we sat and hand stitched the next block in our caravan quilt and as its not quite finished i cant show you just yet. (thanks Susan for a lovely night and Tracey i am so sorry that our drive home was extra long-guess who was talking to much and missed the exit ramp???not me-never)

Only two more days of work left until the Easter hols-yippee-and i am now going to turn around and make a couple of Easter cards, i have had an idea looming in  my head so lets just see if i can put it together to be something special. (oh and by turning around i mean that my craft desk is behind me so i will just swing around and begin)

enjoy your week everyone and thanks for stopping by
xxx

Still hot

Hi there
yesterday some parts of Perth had a very small tiny storm but oh what damage it caused leaving 50 000 homes without power and yes we were one of those. So from 3.30pm until about 7am the next day we sweltered as it was 39 degrees or 102.2F (i looked that up). No air con no lights no nothing, gosh i couldn't even see to do a bit of hand stitching.
and i so wanted to be on my PC as i am doing a Hybrid class at Jessica Sprague.com called Mouse Paper Scissors and it is so much fun. probably the best online class i have done and with the class we got an actual real paper kit
so here is the first thing that we have made.

and the inside

love it and so does Caitlin and of course she wants me to make her one and any of the teachers that she is paired with this year at Uni, they will make the most perfect gift.,
and here is one of two cards that i made for my friend to give her daughter (she chose the one with more butterfly's) but i didn't take a snap of it before i gave them to her.

and yes i have sewn on this card.
have to go now as i want to catch up on my class as i am now a day behind
xx

Some Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day everyone
hope you all got spoilt
my delivery of flowers must have got lost as i don't seem to have received them yet.
now my poor little blogo has been a bit neglected of late and i am sorry about that, i am still trying to find a balance of going back to work, house work, home life etc as i am sure you all know.
that does not mean that i haven't been crafting it actually means that i haven't had time to photo and upload my craftiness as i would rather just read all your blogs

i did make these cute little notebooks to give as Valentine's to my work mates.

here's a close up of one

wish i had gotten a photo of them all wrapped up, so cute.
and here is another Valentine that i made three of

oh so cute and oh so easy.

The "three of us" met up on Friday night to sew our Label Crew monthly kit and i am busy sewing the finishing touches to mine so hopefully i can share that later in the week

and click here for a lovely free antique dictionary clip art page.
Enjoy your Valentine day everyone
xxx