Catch up

I've been rather ill the past couple of weeks, which is why there has been no new posts since the September Unstampabelles Challenge post. I hate taking antibiotics and really do try to let my body sort out virus's on it's own. However, Bronchitis with Pneumonia, don't go away by themselves as I've just found. Two courses of antibiotics, and I'm almost completely better.

So, I'm now back in action and have a few photo's to post.
After this post, I probably won't have time to post until after our European holiday, we fly out of Australia on September 23rd, and return on November 14th.

We are fly to Rome and pick up a 21 day cruise, after that it's off to Venice for a couple of days, then we head to Germany to spend a couple of weeks with my brother and his family. After Germany we head to Ireland (Northern Ireland) for a week with one of my sisters and hopefully catch up with other family members if they can get over from England. Then we head off to Hong Kong for a couple of days before flying home.

I find the worst thing about this trip is what clothes to pack, as we are going to be crossing seasons, so it's going to be layering, layering and more layering with maybe some thermals thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, back to the focus of my blog CRAFTS!!!!!

The first two cards are my samples my Monday ladies group made last week. I've decided to try and make a feminine one and a masculine card each week, see how long I can come up with ideas for the men.

The Samples for the ladies for this coming Monday is Calendars, Heather and I had fun today making the samples, we did some feminine, and even two masculine ones. These are quick and easy to make and would make great stocking fillers for Christmas.

Card one is made using core-dinations card which has been cut and embossed then sanded.

 

I called this the embossed bird. I got the idea from Merry of Unstampabelles, who's Design Team card for this months challenge uses this technique. The stickers are from the Sticker Store, and the papers are Stampin Up.

 Calendars, I cut A4 card stock to measure 15cm x 24cm, this was then scored at 6cm, 12cm, 18cm giving 4 equal portions, all folds are mountain folds, the top and bottom portions overlap and are adhered together to give a triangle. Before adhering the base together though, Heather and I embossed the card by simply folding in half, and putting the whole piece into one of the larger embossing folders. We used a hot glue gun to adhere our flowers, pearl strands and leaves.

Some images have been removed to conserve space.

 

All very simple. Hope you find something you like in today's post.

Thank you for visiting my blog today. I'll catch up again once we return from our holiday.

Happy Crafting.
Hugs,
Beth

Unstampabelles Challenge #15

Unstampabelles Challenge #15 is sponsored by The Sticker Store, you can see a link to the Sticker Store on the right hand side of my page. Our Theme for this month is EMBOSSING.

I've been pretty unwell for the past week due to a nasty virus, and it was only on Friday night that I actually got back into my craft room after a few days in bed feeling like the shadow of death was hanging over me, obviously it's NOT my time to depart this earthly coil so here I am getting better, too slowly for my tastes, but then I've always been a want it and  want it NOW kind of person.

Given that here in Australia September is the first month of our spring, I decided to go with that and incorporate the embossing.
I've used two embossing folders, the first one is the background and is Spellbinders M-Bossabilities EL-003 and I used the inside design of this double sided embossing folder. The second embossing folder is by Craft Concepts and is called Sycamore.
Now please dont' be anal here folks and judge the fact that the  tree is called sycamore, the background is obviously NOT sycamore leaves, and I've put tiny Daisy's on my tree.

My base card is a lovely ribbed card which I buy from Blue Edge Crafts, it's a great weight card blank which can hold quite a bit of dimension weight added onto the front, I use it a lot for my base cards for just that reason, only wish it came in colours other than white.
For my background colours I've used Stampin Up's Certainly Celery, and Pink Pirouette. I cut and embossed the pieces then punched the edges with a scallop border punch by Kaszazz.
The tree was embossed onto Stampin Up's Whisper White, then only the embossing was coloured with Copics, I used E11 for the tree trunk and branches, and YG03 to give the effect of new spring growth.

I used an embossing tool to make my tiny daisies curl upwards, then stuck them into place and finished them with a tiny Stampin Up pearl in the centre of each.

The ribbon is Stampin Up's 1/8" Lucky Limeade organdy, and I've used a flower shaped paper clip to anchor it to.
The two dragonflies are from my stash and I've had them for ages, no idea where I got them from.
The sun is punched from Stampin Up's So Saffron using Stampin Up's 1" circle punch and the dove is a Martha Stewart punched out of SU's basic black.
The sentiment is a computer generated word art which I punched out and backed with Modern Label punched out of So Saffron..

 

I hope you like my interpretation of not only the embossing theme but of Spring also.

 

Thank you for visiting my blog today, please leave a comment and if you leave your blog address, I'll return the favour.

 

Happy Crafting.

Hugs,

Beth