First challenge of the year for SFYTT

This year I {Heart} 2 Stamp will have a monthly SFYTT (Sketch For You To Try) posted on the first Saturday of every month.  If you enter all twelve sketches in the year you will be eligible to win a big prize package at the end of the year.

Here is the first sketch:

And here is my card:

The stamp is an Elisabeth Bell digital stamp, coloured with copics, and the papers are from October afternoon.  I have put Stickles around the frame of the girl and added white dots to her head scarf with my white gel pen.  I fussy cut the background paper to have the song Merry Merry May Day displayed as this card is for a May birthday.

Copics used:
E0000, 000, 00, 02, 18, 35, 37, 39 and 99
R22, 24, 29, 85, 89, RV25
V04, Y000, 11, 15, 17, YG000, 01, 03, 17, G17
BV000, 01, 02, 04
BG13, 15
W0, 1, 2

Happy Monday morning.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Black, white and pink!

This card is for the Pollycraft Monday Challenge #77 which is a colour combination challenge... black, white and one other colour.

It is going to be a wedding anniversary card.

The image is a freebie from Pollycraft Designs (coloured with copics), and the papers are from Ocotober Afternoon.  I added stickles to their pom poms and Glossy Accents to their beaks and the hearts.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Another Monster...

I love Barbara's monster digis from Forgotten Scraps, so this weekend I decided to make another monster card to enter in her challenge.

I coloured this little guy with copics, added some glossy accents to his bubble and some googly eyes and made a quick and simple birthday card.

These are the copics I used...

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:
Forgotten Scraps Challenge #1
Mojo Monday Sketch #175
Copic Creations Challenge No. 42 (The challenge is to use something new, so I used this new monster digi)

I hope you all are having a lovely weekend.  It's a bit chilly here, but it didn't snow as we originally thought it might.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Farmyard animals!

I whipped up a Birthday card the other night for my niece who is turning one next week.  I can't believe how fast time has gone!  Last time we saw her she was just a few months old.  I hope it makes it in time... it seems the mail from Greece to Australia or NZ takes between 8 and 10 days whether or not you send it express.  I decided that since she can recognise animals and the sounds they make I should make a farmyard animal card.  My husband chose the animals from my stamps and suggested that the pig should fly over the other two animals.  It's so nice when he takes an interest in my crafting (I only had to persuade him a little bit to put his two cents in)!

The colouring is done with copics and I shinied up the balloons with Glossy Accents (gotta love Glossy Accents).  The paper is Cosmo Cricket and October Afternoon.  The stamps are from The Greeting Farm.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Monsters!

I finally finished the card I started a week ago for the Forgotten Scraps challenge to use one of their lovely freebie images on a card.  I chose the Monster Love image and put googly eyes on him as I'm not really into Valentine themed cards.  I think that neither my husband nor myself could be called romantic that way.  This is going to be a birthday card for a little boy.

Isn't he cute?  I have added glossy accents to his horns and his toenails and a little bit of bling to the flower and the top right background piece.

The papers are a mixture of Cosmo Cricket, October afternoon and one other.  I hand sewed around the edges with embroidery thread using a blanket stitch.

The monster was coloured with copics (I think mainly YR01, 03 and 06 for greens, plus W1 and BV000, 01 and 02 for purples.  The reds are R22, 24 and 29).

The ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl.









In other monster news, I just received some Christmas goodies in the mail yesterday from the UK Chickies and among other things I got a cool Monster Plushie book!

Image from Amazon.  Hmmm I don't know about the immature adults thing... but maybe they are right.  I'm looking forward to making some cool monsters with this!  Thanks UK Chickies!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Catimini - the most beautiful Children's wear

Hello there friends,

How beautiful is this little all-in-one suit!  Just loving the Ozsale (NZsale) website that Arabella told me about, to keep an eye out for beautiful children's clothing like Catimini - so colourful (and so expensive!)

Catimini is French I believe and make the most beautifully bright things to make us all happy with an injection of colour in our day!

I found these other sites which are also really good it seems for children's clothing at a good discount.

http://www.milkshakeclothing.co.uk/?gclid=CKCZ_enqu6YCFQse4Qod9iMoHg
http://www.designerbabes.com/DesignerBabes/Default.aspx

That's it from me, short and sweet, and hopefully more frequent!

Peace

Bookie Bird

Ssssewing Ssssssuper door sssssnakes

Have been having some wonderful fun with the sewing machine Arabella and I purchased recently - what fabulous Ikea fabric!

I've managed a cushion so far for our bed, and two very smart door snakes - one sans eyes at this stage - but the other fully completed and about to be scotchguarded for the lovely Arabella's draughty door.

Bookie Bird

Happy Birthday New Mum Chick!

You were born on a Saturday evening at 8:30pm at the Marymount Maternity Home in Kensington, Johannesburg, South Africa and I spent the entire evening telling every soul that came within 2 ft of me just how beautiful you were!

You weren't at all squashed and arrived dark haired, pink skinned and bright eyed with my heart in your little hand.

Birthday blessings on your special day. 

April Blackbird

Come on out and shine your light!

OUR DEEPEST FEAR
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I wish I knew you wrote this, do you?  Whoever did... you're wonderful!  Such food for the soul.

April Blackbird

A homemade light box for small item photography

The other day I tried to make myself a light box using the an online tutorial so that I could get better lighting on detailed photos of things like my cards and crochet bits and bobs.  The tutorial I used from Strobist was great and really easy to follow.  My box turned out really well, but I made it too small, so I have to start over with a bigger box.  I also need to buy myself a cheap bright lamp from Ikea to use with it next time I get around to making the trip up there.

I snapped a quick picture of a couple of Matryoshka dolls from a set I just purchased on our trip to Prague...

Just looking at this picture, I think I might try and pick up two lamps so I can light it from both sides...

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

A wedding card

I was feeling super organised on the weekend as I made a card for a wedding on the weekend that we are not attending until April!  And then I consulted the birthday and anniversary list that my mother in law sent through this morning and realised I am actually behind on cards that I need to have made and sent before April... Oh well... There's still time!

The wedding couple are Anya and Ian from The Greeting Farm and they were really fun to colour.  I finally got to break out all my copic greys to colour the suit.

Copics used:

Skin and face: E0000, E000, E00, E01, E50, RV00, V000, V01

Hair: E31, E33, E35, E37 and YR21, YR23, YR24

Suit: C0, C1, C3, C4, C6, C9

Dress: B0000, B000, Y000, Y11

Other: Y15, R22, R24, R29, YG03, YG07, YG17

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

A Happy Hello

Just popping in to share another card I made on the weekend...

I am going to enter this card in the Stamp Something (Anything goes) Challenge.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Something to cheer us all up! Some good viral marketing...

They made this while I was in the UK. Love it!

And this was just perfect for Christmas! Yayy... first time I've ever enjoyed advertising. Well, maybe not... I do remember going to the advertising awards in Johannesburg and enjoying the ads 'very much'.

Cheddar the mouse

I love the Soft Centres stamps from the Sugar Nellie Home Grown collection and they are so much fun to colour!

This cute little fellow is called Cheddar...

Cheddar is coloured with copics (as usual), the ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl and the papers are mostly from Cosmo Cricket.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
The Sugar Bowl Challenge # 51 - Sketch challenge
The Creative CAS Challenge - Fireworks

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Happy Birthday April Blackbird!

Happy Birthday Other Mum!  Hope you had a fabulous day and got to eat lots of cake!!!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Auctions for the Queensland Flood Appeal

People all over blogland are chipping in to help donate to the Queensland Flood Appeal.  Toni from Make it Perfect is organising a huge master list of online auctions to raise money to help some of the thousands of Australians that were affected by the huge floods of late put their lives back together.




Hop over to Make it Perfect to join in... there are some awesome auctions going on!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Attitude of Gratitude #14

And the rains came, too much, too quickly, too often.  And the results are devastating.

What a time this is for this vast country we now call home.  And, it isn't over yet.  Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are all in the grips of that element of nature we call water. Each of these States has experienced flooding to some degree. 

There is so much I want to say about the recent floods (and yes, I do know that there has been significant loss of life in floods in other parts of the world this week), but I cannot get past the images that are stuck in my head.

Toowoomba residents found themselves looking at a wall of muddly water.  An inland Tsunami!  A deadly flash flood that took out houses as though they were toys.  It arrived with absolutely no warning and the clean up is proving to be truly horrendous for those involved.

You can click on this link here  if you'd like to read more, or watch some of the latest footage.  There are incredible stories of survival and heroism.  Some people have given their lives to save strangers.

If you'd like to help in some small way, you can click here.   This country is going to need a lot of help to dig itself out of the mud and debris and devastation that has been left behind.  Queensland in particular, it would seem. 

So, yes... I am grateful that our family and friends in Queensland have escaped unscathed.  I am grateful that they've remained dry and safe. It would seem that they have a lot to be thankful for.

April Blackbird

Last day to enter the Sugar Bowl challenge!

Whew!  Now that I have started discovering challenges I just can't stop myself from entering them!  Today is the last day of the Sugar Bowl Challenge number 50.  This one is special one as it is the second birthday of the Sugar Bowl so there will be two winners!

Here is the sketch.

Once again, I struggled to make a nice oval without my Spellbinders or my Fiskars cutter, so I went with rounded rectangle.  I also don't have my embossing gear here, so I had to skip the optional extra embossing option.

Here is my card...

I love this image from the Sugar Nellie Home Grown collection.  His name is Rory... isn't he cute?!  He is coloured with copics, the paper is from October Afternoon and the ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl.

Have a lovely evening!  We are off to Bookie Bird's house for dinner.  It is the last night before her folks in law leave to go back home to Australia.  I made a sinful chocolate cake for dessert... we figured that since we are both on diets we had better make our one dessert this month a good one!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Mo Manning Challenge #64

I wanted to make a card for a friend of ours who is about to undergo surgery.  He loves his motorbike so I had a hunt around for a bike image to use on his card... I came across this really cute image of a little boy on his trike by Mo Manning that I thought would be cool and the reckless looking little boy reminds me of our friend, or at least how I picture he would have been like when he was a little boy.

I found the image was really hard to colour as it has so much detail!  I used the following copics...

I hope he likes it!  The inside reads:  "You'll be back on your bike in no time!"

I am going to enter this into the current challenge at Mo's Challenge Blog which is retro... The retro papers I used for this card are from October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

A little light card-making

Oh, my goodness - she blogs!  Sorry for my absence, I've had my most gorgeous folks-in-law staying and we've been exploring beautiful Winter Greece and spending loads of time teaching our young chick so many new things.  I am slightly bleak about their departure on Thursday!  Though it will be great to get back into a routine of sorts and continue settling into Greece, our chick has so enjoyed having all the attention and entertainment and I'm sure has come ahead in leaps and bounds with all the extra stimulation.

I had some time to make some cards the other afternoon with my lovely friend Arabella and my M.I.L - SUCH a luxury to be able to just potter about and create.  I did cheat a wee bit and use some bits I cut out of my 2010 diary - THE most beautiful diaries of Paulo Coelho - and the most colourful pictures that simply cant' be discarded at the end of each year.

I'm hoping to submit some of the coloured cards into the comps which Arabella has told me all about and that is my afternoon goal - though there seem to be another two teeth on the way in which is causing a bit of chaos with normal nap time!

The following are a little more copic based as opposed to those benefiting from the art of Mr Coelho!

I can't recall exactly which colours I used to colour... what I do know is I'm going to become a Copic addict!

Bookie Bird 

Clean and Simple

I have one more card from my card making session on the weekend...  This one is to enter into the Clean and Simple challenge at PaperPlay Challenges.  This challenge was a challenge after my own heart as I do love the clean look of simple cards.  I was inspired by Lucy's cards... I really love her cards.

The paper is from the Garden Variety range by Cosmo Cricket, the stickers are from Cosmo Cricket, the image is from The Greeting Farm and the twine is from The Ribbon Girl.  The image is coloured with copics.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Fairy happy birthday card...

We had an unexpected weekend off this weekend.  Unfortunately our bosses family all got the flu, so they could not use the boat, so we got to chill out.  I managed to get a few cards made, although it was hard getting my mojo back again after being sick all last week.

I do love square cards... they make me happy.  The image is from The Greeting Farm and the papers are from October Afternoon and Cosmo cricket.  The image was coloured with copics and I used Stickles for a bit of sparkle on her dress.  

I am going to enter this card into the Friday Sketchers first challenge of the year (#136).  Unfortunately I don't have my spellbinders with me or other shape cutting gear, so I couldn't get a tidy oval shape in there, but I'm hoping rounded rectangle is close enough.

I am also entering this card into the Charisma cardz Birthdays and Celebrations challenge.

The next card is one I made for the Splendid Stamping Farm Fresh Friday sketch challenge.  

The paper for this card is from Cosmo Cricket and the image is Cheeky Cowgirl from The Greeting Farm.  She is coloured with copics.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Mojo Monday Sketch challenge 172

I am relatively new to the world of card making blogs and things, and I only recently discovered Challenge Blogs and the concept of Sketches...  I thought I would start entering a few though as I find having a sketch or a guideline a really way to kickstart some mojo.

Today's card is a late entry into the Mojo Monday Sketch challenge for this week.

Here is the sketch:

And here is my card:

This gorgeous little boy is a free digital stamp from Sliekje digi Stamps and it is coloured with copics.

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

A few quiet moments!

It's Saturday evening and hubby is bathing Chickie whilst I have a few quiet minutes to catch up with myself ...

We had a lovely relaxing 10 days at our beach shack at Killcare over the new year. The weather varied between extremely hot and rather cold, which was odd. Our respective parents each joined us for a few days, which meant that hubby and I got a few nice walks on the beach and even blew the dust off our kayak and took that out a couple of times! I also took every opportunity to sleep and after 10 days felt like I had finally caught up! But best of all, I read my first non-child, non-pregnancy, non-new mother book in over a year, and boy was that wonderful. It has always been my tradition to spend about 24 hours on the couch with a huge novel over the Xmas holidays and read it in one go, breaking only for food and toilet stops when absolutely necessary. Very decadent, but ever so satisfying. Admittedly this novel took a full 10 days to conquer and was interrupted by many, many calls to duty, but was even more satisfying for having been achieved in the end all the same!

We are now back home getting on with things. I've spent most of the week trying to get myself organised for work next month ... I'm going to have to snap out of the baby brain phase soon or its going to be a struggle!

Chickie is more delightful than ever. 11 months old now and growing up ever so fast. She is cruising around the furniture and now brave enough to 'leap' between two items. She will walk if you hold one hand, and can stand up and balance on her own, but not quite taking her own independent steps yet ... soon enough. She 'chat's away non stop and has quite a few clear words and is also making some animal sounds. Of course, given my profession, it fills me with tremendous awe (and relief) to witness first hand the progression of her language skills.

Well Chickie is now in my office busy tearing things apart rapidly, so I guess that signals the end of my time.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Ciao for now

NMC

Friday Fabric Stash

I know I'm not supposed to be buying fabric at the moment, but Fabricworm had a sale on a little while ago (and they have one going now too) and I couldn't resist picking up a few cute fabrics...

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece