Sweetie's Sketch with Inkspirations Colour Challenge

Well, I had a lovely day off school today - how good are holidays! They really are my favourite days in the whole year. I spent the morning getting a few jobs done and then had lunch with my good friend Carrie. I had a neck and shoulder massage at Westfield and came home for a three hour afternoon nap. Then I went for a walk to the broadwater and did some wii fit. Ben and I made and ate dinner and then lucky last I made a card. It really couldn't get any better. I must work out a way to make a million dollars so I can buy a house and give up teaching! Let me know if you know a great way of doing this!

My card tonight is for the Sweeties Card Sketch. I was blog-hopping tonight and hopped over there and I saw that I won the card sketch for July! I was so shocked, surprised and honoured that I won the card challenge. It made my already good day even better! While I was there I thought I might try their card sketch for August and I have combined it with the Inkspiration colours. I have had this SU designer paper for ages, have loved it, but have never known how to use it. Tonight it fell out of my scraps drawer and wanted to be used. I used a white background - I think this is the first time I have ever used a white background on a card. Victoria has inspired me to use white as she often does it and her cards always look so fresh and beautiful. I have added crystal effects and glitter to the flowers but I have taken the photo while it is still wet so you can't really tell yet. I coloured the flowers with SU Watercolour crayons and an Aqua painter and outlined them with SU markers.

While I am posting tonight I would like to thank Cheryl for this Inspiration Award:

Cheryl kindly encourages me with my card making and scrap booking by leaving such lovely comments and I really appreciate her blog support. Cheryl's blog is always inspiring as she makes such lovely creations.

Two ladies that also really inspire me with their card-making are:

Victoria and Jeannie.

I love visiting their blogs and I love the cards they make so I will pass on this award to Victoria and Jeannie. If you have time pop on over and see their lovely work.

Thats about it for me tonight. I hope you had a lovely day. Thanks for stopping by.

Sweet Sketch Wednesday

Wow it has been a challenge to make a card and get it posted these last few days! But it feels so good to get one up tonight. This is for Sweet Sketch Wednesday. I try to participate in their weekly sketches, and I have only just made it this week seeing it is Tuesday night! I followed their sketch and went for a country-themed card for my cousin's wife who lives in the country as it is her birthday coming up this week or next.

We get tomorrow off school for the Brisbane Show Day holiday, so I am very happy about that. I plan to have a lovely day all to myself. I hope to make some more cards and treat myself to a massage.

We sold our cards at the Franciscan Festival (school fete) at my school on Sunday. We did very well. I sold 12 cards out of my 16 so I was very happy with that. Of course I have quickly spent the profits on some nestibilities and other treats from Bizzy Becs. Can't wait for them to arrive!

I hope you are having a really good week. Hump day tomorrow! Wont be long until it is the weekend.

(For those that haven't heard of "hump day" before it is an Aussie slang (I dont know if other countries use this word) term for the middle of the week. Imagine the days Monday to Friday are like a hill. Monday you start the climb, Tuesday you get higher. By the time you get to Wednesday you are at the top of the hill so you only have to go down from there and then after Thursday and Friday you are at the weekend! This is why Wednesday can be referred to as hump day. Hope that clears it up for the non-aussies reading. Thanks for asking!)

Take care,

Magnolia Down Under Challenge

Thank God for card making! Sometimes it is the best thing for cheering you up after an unpleasant day...This card should cheer anybody up (although sometimes I do feel very tempted to put a smile on Tilda's face)! This is for the Magnolia Down Under Challenge "Winter is here".

I have to be honest and say it hasn't really been that cold here on the Gold Coast. Its about 15 degrees celsius on my car temp when I drive to work and it must get up to about 22-25 degrees during the day (I am not sure). The sun is out and shining and I even put on a bit of fake tan tonight as I am itching to get out of pants and into a skirt...see how I go tomorrow morning! Anyway besides all of that it is winter and I chose a tilda all rugged up in the cutest little Santa outfit. Well that's what it reminded me of and so my card turned out all red and white! But - I didn't want it to be too Christmassy as that was last fortnight's challenge so I added some red flowers and a big red bow. I didn't put a sentiment on - thought I might leave it blank so the card becomes more versatile.

One of the kids told me today that it is only four months till the end of the year and when I did the maths I realised she was right! Can you believe it... 8 months down and 4 to go. I think I must be suffering from mid-term blues at the moment and it is never pleasant! But on a more positive note, I will tell you some fun things we did at school today, boomerang throwing on the oval and painting. Friday tomorrow - yeehah! Bring on the weekend I say! Hope you are having a good week. Thanks for visiting.

Delicious Divas Sketch Challenge

Today is a very exciting day. It is the day of the launch of the Delicious Diva Challenge Blog. The Blog is designed and run by Kellie and Kristy in Australia and will have challenges every fortnight. I am very proud to be a Guest Designer for a little while on this blog and this is my first card.

My cardstock is SU Night of Navy and Ballet Blue - one of my favourite colour combinations. The Designer Papers are from SU's Urban Garden Collection. The image is a cute Penny Black stamp coloured in with SU markers - Old Olive, Night of Navy, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa and Bashful Blue. For the background I used ink from Old Olive and Ballet Blue ink pads and my SU Aqua Painter. To decorate I used some jewel brads, ribbon, butterflies and sentiments from my stash.

Why don't you pop on over to Delicious Divas and have a go at the sketch. There is an awesome prize up for grabs! I can't wait to see the beautiful creations everyone will make.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog.

A Scrapbooking Page, Award and a New Challenge Blog

Well the last two days I have been working on this little project. Scrapbooking just doesn't seem to come easily to me...but I am prepared to keep practicing until it does! Goodness knows I have enought photos to practice with! LOL! I used the August Sketch from Sweetie's Sketches and I used some baby photos of me...sounds a bit self-focused, but I am enjoying the journey of learning about my childhood from talks on the phone to Mum about the photos as I scrap them and I think it is actually quite healing.

I also wanted to thank Linda and Victoria for passing me on the Circle of Friends Award. I saw it floating out there in the blogging world and was hoping it might come my way. Thank you so much for passing it on to me!

I will forward it on to:

Beccy

Lucinda

Amanda

Jeannie

Tomorrow is the 4th of August and that is the launch of the Delicious Diva Blog! I am so excited because it has felt like such a long wait till the launch! I have designed a card for it so why not pop on over and check it out...there are even prizes to be one if you are a follower.

Well this has been the longest post ever! I am off to bed...Hope you had a lovely Monday. Thanks for visiting my blog.

An Altered Project

I felt like making something other than a card and I was blog-hopping around for inspiration. I came across the challenge at Stampin' for the Weekend. There challenge was "Alterations". You have to alter something and make it prettier. I have a lot of noodle boxes left over from Ben's party and I have been looking for an excuse to have a play with them. My friend Carrie also gives me little hand-me-down gifts all the time, like her magazines, moisturisers, perfumes and other things she doesn't need anymore. She is a very beautiful and generous friend so I thought I could maybe make something for her. Hopefully she can find some use for this little box.

I used the colours Sage Shadow and Chocolate Chip, the retired SU stamp set "Bold Butterfly" (one of my favourites) and some retired SU paper.

I am beginning an enormous project - Scrap Booking all my baby photos. I have already done a couple of pages this year, but now I want to get "serious"! Today I went to the camera shop and asked them to scan in 80 of my photos. They said it would cost $175! Can you believe it! Just to scan them in. I said I think I would be better doing that myself, so this afternoon I scanned in the first 20. It took a long time and then the computer started to make funny noises so I thought I better give it a rest. So I will have to continue more scanning tomorrow. Then I will just take my external hard drive to the shop and print them off.

I am a real beginner with scrap booking so I am looking for any blogs with really good hints and tips about all the tricks of the trade. If you know of any please let me know, or if you have any of your own tips I would be so grateful! I promise to post a few photos along the way of the work in progress!!!

Hope you are having a lovely weekend.