Handmade - address book

We had a wonderful card class on Saturday. Every year we pull names from a hat and then make a gift for that person. I pulled Joyce's name. I decided to make her an address book.

The paper used was digital scrapbook paper from 2 peas in a pod. I bought a basic card book, but you can easily cut your own. The page tabs are a punch from stampin up. Bound very easily with two rings.The rose is the same as the tutorial - paper roses (earlier post). Ribbon to close and a little bling 'J' for Joyce.

Cake decorating - Butterflies and flowers

Wow - where have the past two weeks gone! I don't know who is more tired in the evenings - O or myself....Well happy to report that I have a few orders for this month...thanks to my amazing friends. I have just done some cupcakes for an advert that I am placing in a local magazine. Boy have I had sleepless nights - nothing seems to have worked the way I had imagined...good old murphy!

Well back to the grind stone and a crying O.....Take care all

Cake Decorating - Tortoise cupcakes

O turned one last month. I was inspired by a local animation for his birthday. Phil and his team at Sunrise Productions have created a wonderful, African animation that is universal. The baby tortoise in their character library just reminded me of O - big, beautiful, blue eyes.

I started with green fondant, shaped them and then hand painted the shells. The eye sockets were filled with white balls and then painted.

basic shape

Naked!!!!

The hatchery.......

close up...ain't I cute??

all of us

Well - only a few more sleeps till I leave the security of my job. Excited and scared - must make my hobbies pay my way now! Huge step - anyone got some good advice about making your hobby a business??

Take care and hope to hear from you soon!

Card Making - Early days

Wow - it has been a very long October, jam-packed with O's 1st birthday, My DH, Sister and Dad's birthdays and a buying trip to Chile. To end the month off I resigned from my job - so no time to post.
I hope you have all been well?

I was browsing old folders the other day and found some of the first cards I made......a VERY long time ago. So just for kicks I am going to post some pics....It all started with some punches, hand-made paper, beads and a stamp....

 

Very beige and natural...it is certainly fun to see where you started and how your style changes over the years! What has been your influence? How did you start?

Take care

Card Making - J is the letter

My latest two cards are more birthday cards for the lovely ladies at card class.  It was Jenny and Joyce's birthdays this month.  I was going through the scrap paper I had to sort into colours. I can across this lovely salmon pink with cream......

I used my Sizzix alphabet die and Big Shot to cut the letter J and the the nestabilities for the circles. My favourite Cuttlebug folder was used to emboss some brown craft card. I have this cute punch from Stampin Up that cuts the top to look like note paper. I am lovin the 'jute' twine at the moment, so had to incorporate it into my card. I use some CM ivory card stock to punch the flowers and embossed the top flower. The flower was finished off with a paper flower in a deep salmon and glitter brad.

This layout is from Stampers' sampler Take Ten (Sept/Oct/Nov 2010) design challenge results. My DH says it looks like the SA Flag! I used CM Ivory and embossed it one of the Cuttlebug folders and my Big Shot. Waste not what not - The cut out J from the above card was used and mounted on foam. The scrap book paper and textured 'web' paper were adhered to black card stock and then layered. Finally some ribbon and flower as above.

HMM - looking at it now - I think the black was too harsh for the colours I used.......Hey - live and learn!!
Hope the ladies had great birthdays. Ok - I am hearing too much crash and bang, so I better be off to see what havoc O is wrecking......We have a long weekend here, Heritage Day (or BRAAI DAY)! Looking forward to a yummy fillet on our Braai and some great friends down from Johannesburg.

Take care!!

Gift's - Making and decorating

Hi there everyone. Hope you have all been well.  We have had an inkling of summer this weekend, lovely weather - but another cold front is about to hit.
My little angel decided he needed a good sleep today, so I had 3 hours to wrap a thank you gift and make two gifts for card class birthdays.

My Mom and Dad have been amazing with babysitting O for me. With hubby's new rotation and my overseas trip, they have been over the moon to be asked to spend some extra quality time with their youngest grandson.

As a thank you I bought my Mom a lovely cookie book - she had mentioned she wanted some recipes so she could make gifts etc. I covered the book in craft wrap and then made the flower by punching out 2 different shaped flowers. I die cut the large tag with my faithful Big Shot and stamped THANKS from Stampin Up. This was all tied together with some string.

For Joyce and Jenny from card class, I made boxes using my scor-pal. It took me a few attempts to get the sizes right! The paper is from one of the digital scrap book down loads which I printed both sides. I used the scraps to cut out flowers to decorate the lid. Inside has a host of die cuts, some scrap paper and some ribbons.

I love the cream, brown and blue colours

Box open with the lovely bits and bobs. I hope the girls like them!

Take care all and hope to hear from you soon!

Card making - Welcome to the neighbourhood

Robyn, Nonny and Matthew recently moved into our neighbourhood. They had a fantastic house warming yesterday - they are fabulous cooks, so the eats were scrummy!  It was also so good to catch up with some friends we had not seen in a while.

I made them this simple and quick house warming card using scrap book paper, ribbon, brad and images from Stampin Up.

I dusted off my twinkling H2O's and did some painting. The window's were finished off with some 3d glaze!

Take care all and have a great week!

Cake decorating - Snake cupcakes

I really don't know where the time has gone. Busy, busy, busy.  It was my Godson's first birthday party on Sat. I had promised to make something. I hoped to find some fun things overseas, but alas, shopping was for clothes only!  Landed on Friday and had to spend some time with my O so only started making the snakes at 8pm. There is a lovely website www.cherryontop.co.za and Theresa does the most stunning cakes. She had done some snakes, so I used hers as inspiration....If you want to see some really fabulous cakes then pls take a look at her website!

I made 20 and did the patterns with Royal icing.....hope you like them!

Two that got away.....

Promise the next post will have some cards!!  Take care all

Cake decorating - Flood iced Giraffe

Okay - so I decided to play around with my blog yesterday and somehow the background fairy logo is now stuck over my image. I am not very computer literate, so it will have to stay that way till I have time to play some more!!

A good friend and I were pregnant together. We are also God mother's to each other's little boys. I made Robyn this cake for her baby shower.  It was vanilla sponge with vanilla butter cream and caramel piped edges.

I got the artwork from a supplier of mine and I knew that Robyn had loved the clothes this image was on! I was short on time, so I did the image onto wax paper first. Once dried and cake was made and iced, I transfered it and then added some stars to finish it off.

Card making - CC Birthday cards

Hi there. Hope you are all well. Just thought I would show you what I managed to make for some lovely ladies at card class last Saturday. I was unable to stay for the class due to Hubby working and me having to look after the boys. We did however pop in for a quick cuppa and some yummy treats.

Card for Helen - Helen and I met 5 years ago and she introduced me to the lovely ladies at card class. She is super fun, creative and a blast to have around. This H & S image reminded me of her sense of fun!

Mrs H (HRH Amanda's Mom) also celebrated her birthday this month. She loves teddies and is a whizz at knitting, so I just had to use this H & S image...

Christine is relatively new to our class. She is lovely and rather graceful, and I could picture her as a little girl enjoying flowers....Her birthday was in June, but I was ill and due to fly overseas the next day, so missed celebrating her birthday.

I hope you like the cards above and that they bought a little joy to the recipients. Hope you all have an awesome week. I am presenting my first two ranges for Winter 2011 this week, so pretty busy.

Bye for now and take care....

Card making - Mad for Tags

As a clothing buyer, I often have LOADS of tags that get cut off the samples we buy. I have seen many versions of cards using tags in magazines so decided that I needed to use some of mine.

Here are a few of the cards I made. The cards were created during a play date with some fab like minded gals. We had to bring a 'kit' with a stamp and some embellishments. It is amazing how easily cards come together when you have pre-selected goodies!

The tags were paired with some cuttle embossed papers, stamps, ribbons, brads and flowers. What do you think??

Hi I'm back....

Hi there. Sorry I have been so quiet - I arrived back this morning from 8 days in Argentina and Chile. It was probably the hardest tripe I have ever done - leaving O, who is almost 8 months, for so long. Luckily my wonderful hubby did a great job of looking after him, and I got lots of squeals and delight when I got home. I will try publish something this weekend. Hope you have all been well and I will try catch up on your blogs too. Take care!!

Card Making - R hearts C

A fabulous couple who are good friends of ours are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary! They are both young at heart and I thought that this was simple and a little fun.

The CS is ivory curious metals which I also used with my spellbinders Label die cut. The stamp is Hanglar and stanglar which is coloured with copic markers. Bling is in the form of glittered wings, chipboard letters and heart. I love the texture that the embossing brings and the softness of the organza ribbon.

The picture does not do it justice, but since it is late and there is no sunlight, I had to compromise. The last month has been so hectic back at work - Reviews and post seasonal as well as business plans. My MIL also came down for a visit and I have also been bringing work home. I get little to no chance to make cards and unfortunately they have to be quick and easy.....

Cake Decorating - Sunflowers

I love suflowers. The best thing about these is that they are edible! The cake is a lovely vanilla sponge covered in thick chocolate butter icing. The sides are covered in chocolate vermicilli and the sunflowers are done with butter icing, caramel and vermicilli. So easy! Hope you have a go....

Cake Decorating - Daffodil basket

Sorry for the bad pic - taken on my old phone. This is the daffodil basket made for Easter. The cake is chocolate and then iced in butter icing. The basket is made with basket weave technique and the handle is scalloped. The daffodils are made with royal icing and then placed 'in' the basket. Pity about the photo - it is really pretty in real life :o)

Card Making - super dooper stickers

So I only had 10 minutes to make thank you cards for the presents O received for his Baptism. I am not really a sticker person, but these have worked out so well!
The cs is the curious metals ivory (one of my favourites) and I have also used some scraps to cut out 'thanks' on my big shot.
This one above is my favourite. I know that they are very simple, but hey, at 2 minutes a card, they look ok!
You cold use them on tags also - just loved the fact that they were 2 D and the bling made them too irrisistable.
I used the 'shadow' from the thanks I cut out and corner punched for a neat finish. I won't be turning my nose up at stickers any more ;o)

Card Making - Robyn's card

A very close friend of mine loves baking and cooking so I thought that this image would be ideal for a quick birthday card. As you know, I love Magnolia Tilda images. I used copic markers to colour her in and then glittered her wings. I found this colourful scrap book paper for the background. I edged the paper in co-ordinating chalk cats eye. The base for the image is the nestabilities label that I cut using my big shot. I have a cute punch that cuts little 'tickets'. I stamped some circles and then wrote the greeting and finished with edging with the chalk cats eye. CS is white linen and lucky me has ribbon that matched the scrap paper!

Card Making - Floral Thanks

I just LOVE this scrapbook paper. I can't remember where I got it, but it just begs for simple embellishment. I used my cuttle bug embossing folder to emboss the edges with circles and then cut the 'thanks' in gold paper. The glue pen works so well here when you have small and thin things that need to be glued. The flower centre is part of a paper binder with some ribbon threaded through. The base cs is the purple curious metals to tie into the colours.