Ahhh! I feel so sick!

This week my darling husband came home with a cold, and generous soul that he is, passed it on to me. :{  Yesterday I lost my voice, today I've spent most of the day in bed with aching body, headache, tiredness and now I've got a temperature and a cough. BUT I made myself get up and make a card for the Muse #5 Challenge for this week. Details HERE.

This week's bright and cheerful card is by Marion Vagg and uses a mixture of washi tapes to create her unusual background. Since I have a heap of We R Memory Keepers' washi tapes from Paper Wishes, I figured I could do a quick card using the colours and general layout of Marion's card.

I also used some washi tape on white cardstock to die cut a flower to use for a little extra interest on my card. I was also pleased to be able to use my Hampton Art sentiment stamp that I've had for ages and never used. I've always found it too large to use on a lot of the cards I make, but on this card, I thought it worked perfectly with the space. I stamped it using Staz-On ink, so that it would stick to the washi tape and not smudge.

All in all, I'm happy with my effort and now I'm going to have some Nurofen, a shower and head back to bed. It's calling me - can you hear it?? Oh no! Now I've got hallucinations!  Ha Ha Ha!

Bye for now,
Janelle

Muse #4 Challenge

I'm posting a card I've made in response to the Muse #4 Challenge. This week's challenge was to design a card inspired by one made by Therese Calvird, a cardmaker whom I greatly admire, so it was a pleasure to use her design as a major part of my card this week.

The colours and layout of Therese's card were stunning and I loved her glass - it looks so refreshing. Anyway, I used her colour scheme and layout, but I still hope I managed to make mine still look original.

The ribbon I stumbled across at Lincraft on Thursday, while I was sourcing some other ribbons for a commission I'm working on for Australian Simply Cards. The stamps are from Annabelle Stamps Standing Tall and BBD3 stamps sets. 

Anyway, bye for now,
Janelle

Happy Valentine's Day, my darling husband!

Yesterday for St Valentine's Day, I gave my husband, Darryl, a valentine's card I made for him. As you can imagine, it's the biggest card he's ever received! Ha Ha!

I made it from two medium KaiserDecor hearts that I painted with gold, backed with red mirri card, created a hinge with seam tape and then decorated with wooden flowers and leaf die cuts (that I inked), rhinestone flourishes; and inside, roses wrapping paper, a computer generated sentiment heart and heart die cuts from Finishings. 

When I gave it to him, he was gobsmacked, poor love. But he soon got over it and I know he is quite chuffed to have been given it.

I've also made a card that I'm entering into the Scrapbook Boutique monthly challenge. This month is to use the following picture as inspiration. YUMMM!

So, not only the giant heart card but the card below are both suitable to be entered.

For this card I took a sheet from the Prima Romance Novel Collection 6x6 paper stack, fussy cut around part of it to frame the card and then stamped the sentiment. I like how the pink pearls around the typewriter create a focal point, establishing the visual triangle. I also like the effect of the dots of glitter glue in the centres of the flowers - just adding a "dash of flash".

Anyway, bye for now.

Janelle

Muse Challenge #3

Here is a card I made for this week's Muse Challenge. For this one, I decided to go back to my favourite style of classical shabby chic. Information for Muse Challenges can be found here.

The inspiration card was designed by Laurie Willison and I especially liked the format with the split foreground, which is why this featured in my card.

The band across the centre holds the design together which is why I also featured a variation of this.

I used : 

• flowers from Little Birdie
• the bird stamp from Kaisercraft's Periwinkle Birds stamp set
• the sentiment from Couture Creations' Words, Words, Words Stamp Collection
• papers from Crate Paper, Basic Grey and DCWV
• Copic markers
• Momento Tuxedo Black ink pad
• Kaisercraft cream lace
• a Prima flower
• Manor House leaves
• assorted cardstock, ribbons and trim from stash

I'll be back again soon.

Bye for now,

Janelle

How Cool - Check this out!

Today I bought the latest copy of Cardmaking in Easy Steps (Issue 8) and am delighted to say that once again some of my cards appear on the front cover.

My cards are the "Make a Wish" and the castle one. They are part of the "Make 15 cards from 1 kit" entry. This kit was really fun to design around as the elements were so cute and pretty - lovely colours and really cute designs.

I'm also including this set of cards I made from Kaisercraft's Check In Collection. A while ago, I  bought a kit from my local Kaisercraft outlet and it came with instructions for 5 cards (but no pictures); but by the time I came to make them, I had no idea what they looked like and so had to make up my own design using the instructions as a starting point. I'm sorry to say that the instructions weren't all that clear and you definitely would have needed the pictures of the cards to follow if you wanted to make them yourself away from the card class.

Anyway I'm happy with how they turned out. What a fun collection to use - quite vintage in style but with some modern colour combos.

I love it that these cards can quite easily be given to males or females - they're perfectly suited for both. I also just adore the richness of the purple used.

Anyway, bye for now.
Janelle

Today my smoke alarms saved me from my own stupidity!

Whatever else you do after reading this post, one thing I need you to do is check your smoke alarms! I now know that they SAVE LIVES!

I've mentioned before how I have had Chronic Fatigue for about 19 years and sometimes it affects my memory - so I hope you can understand why the following incident occurred.

This morning I dropped my son off at school and picked up a couple of groceries. As soon as I got home, I remembered that I had to put the ham bone on to simmer which was going to be tonight's dinner. Between the time of unpacking the groceries and going to the toilet, I forgot all about the pot on the stove.

I sat in my bedroom for a while to read a magazine and cool down before I was going to start some housework (with the door shut and the air conditioning on because I can't stand the heat at the moment). Unfortunately I fell asleep (which also happens to me a lot because of the CFS.) The next thing I know, the smoke alarms are blaring and it's difficult to breathe. I opened the door to find the house filled with smoke. (I also hadn't opened up any doors or windows after coming home.)

That is the closest I've ever been to having a fire in the house; and it was terrifying. I had to go outside to breathe, as it was too acrid inside the house for a long time. But with some fans and all of the windows and doors open, thankfully most of the smell has gone, but I can still taste the smoke in the back of my throat.

We often think that nothing bad will happen to us - things like house fires only happen to other people (those who smoke in bed or are careless with radiators or don't keep their electrical devices in good order or put something on the stove and then forget about it (how stupid would you have to be to do that?!) ) Well It happened to me today and I'm thanking the forethought we had to put smoke alarms in our house when we moved in. Things could quite easily been different for me today.

So check your smoke detectors now - make sure they are working. Your life or those of your family may depend on it.

Bye for now,
Janelle

Muse #2 and Annabelle Stamps Sketch Challenges

I'm just quickly posting this picture of a card I made for the latest Muse challenge.

For this challenge you have to respond to an inspiration card. This week's was designed by Suzanne Dahlberg, and so bright and colourful. I wanted to also include the sketch from the Annabelle Stamps Sketch Challenge, so combined the two and came up with my card.

I took the flowers as my inspiration and stamped them onto my card with Versamark before embossing with clear embossing powder. I masked off a rectangle with scrap paper before stamping to replicate the same shape in the sketch. I then stamped the flower, leaves and butterflies onto X-press it card, before colouring with Copic markers. I used some stamp sets from HOTP for this card. With the sketch design, it was easy to then position everything. I also tried to include the vibrant pink, red and a touch of blue from the original card.

I hope you all like my card as it was fun making it this time. 

Bye for now,

Janelle