Anniversary Rose

Hello Everyone,
This time I am back with a card project plus a bonus project.  I so wanted to get into my new card making space and see how the set up was to use. So that I wouldn’t have a total mind blank while crafting I decided to follow along with one of my favourite card challenge blogs. Color Throwdown had just put up their newest colour combo #501 and I thought that I had an image that would suit perfectly for a quick and easy card so I sat down and made this card with this combo.

Aren’t the colours for the combo wonderful. I thought that they were so peaceful and would suit being used for an Anniversary card. So I pulled out a favourite stamp set of mine “Darkroom Doors Full Bloom Vol.1” and used the rose image and stamped this onto Kraft cardstock and coloured with my pencils.  Then I cut this image out with a die from my stash and mounted it onto some grey cardstock.

The papers are by Kaisercraft from my stash so is the yellow glitter cardstock which I thought helped to tie the image a bit more into the card. I was really happy with how the card turned out and my card area does work but there is a couple of problems which I hope to sort out soon.

I thought that I would share with you a bonus project that I did.  This is a card that I made for a dear friend at our church who just had his birthday. The photo doesn’t do the card justice – the yellow border is stamped with a subtle but striking pattern. On the giraffe panel I first used various red, orange, yellow and brown Distress Inks to achieve the sunset type backdrop then I stamped the giraffe, leaves and grasses in black ink and coloured in the giraffe.  The scarf that the card is sitting on top of is made of a very bulky acrylic yarn and woven on my Ashford Ridge Heddle Loom. I told you that I was into different crafts!! This is just another one of them – doing different crafts helps me to do different stuff depending on what my illness will let me do that day.  Today has been walking with my Son and making 2 cards … so all in all a good day.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog today. And as usual before you leave I want to leave you with this final thought:

Any day spent with a little or a lot of crafting in it is a good one. I find it relaxing and it’s like a medicine for my soul.

Have a Happy Wonderful Crafty Kind of Day,

❤ Tracy

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Progress but It’s Slow

Hello Everyone,
Just checking in with everyone … I am both on school winter holidays at the moment. It’s been colder this year and my body isn’t liking it much so sitting at my computer or my craft table hurt.  The progress of my shift around is going a lot slower than anticipated because of the cold but there has been progress.

The photo on the left is what my space looked like before I started sorting through.  The photo on the right is what it looks like now after I put in 1 1/2hrs in the space. There is still stuff in front of the shelving unit but it is more sorted and I have gotten rid of quite a lot from there. I decided to take photos of my journey and blog about it because I was doubting that I was making progress.  Seeing these photos though I now know I am making a move towards a more pleasant space to be in.

This is a photo of my craft desk in it’s new space.  I can craft at it but I while I am sitting there I know the mess that is sitting behind my desk and in the rest of the space.  Sometimes I feel guilty sitting there while the mess is still around me.  So I am not spending much time here …. 😦 Does anyone else feel like this? Wanting to craft but knowing that you should be doing something else so the enjoyment goes away from the time spent there!

I just have to remind myself that I am further along today than I was yesterday. Which comes to my farewell to you …. Thank You for stopping by to read this post and I hope that you are having a fabulous day. And so for my final thought for the day:

This is true in any walk of life. Always move forward. A little progress is better than none. I need to remember this as I continue with the shifting in my craft spaces.

Have a Happy Progressive Crafty Kind of Day,

❤ Tracy

Sew Beautiful

Hello Everyone,
As you may have seen from my previous post I am in the middle of shifting around my craft space to a bigger area. I am progressing but it is taking longer than I anticipated because of health issues… but it is coming along.

I have had this image printed out for quite a while but I hadn’t gotten around to colouring it in. So with my being down to smaller amount of supplies I made the best of things. I still had my Faber Castell Polychromos Pencils, distress inks and stencils available plus also my Cuttlebug. So with these things available I made the above card using two challenges as inspiration.

          
I love to start a lot of my cards with a sketch and sketch #278 by Donna was definitely a different one. And sometimes I also like to bring my colour options down to just a few so the combo from Color Throwdown helped with this.

I just got the stitched embossing folder and the pinking shear square edged die on the front of a magazine. Pairing of these two worked well together with my Sunbonnet Sue image which I finally got to colour up after it sitting in my folder for what seems like years. After cutting out the squares I used a woven stencil by Scrapmatts with my distress ink and foam blending tool just to give the pieces a little more definition.

It was so much fun making a card with limited supplies. But I will be happy when I am back with all of my supplies. Even though this feels like it will never be fully accomplished. And as always before you leave I wish to leave you with this final thought

I am believing on this statement. I have to believe that everything that I have been through and are continuing to go through all has a purpose. I don’t fully know what that purpose is and I may never know but I believe there is a reason behind it.

Have a Happy Sorted Crafty Kind of Day,

TracyB

Hit And Miss

Hello Everyone,
Just letting you know that I will be a little Hit and Miss with my uploading. As you may have noticed I haven’t posted anything for a couple of days. Well there has been two main reasons behind all of this ….

1. I am in the process of moving my craft area around….
   
   This is where my crafting happens at the moment. It is in the corner of our living room and I am feeling quite cramped here. I haven’t been able to get the storage right to stay in this area so I need to move. I actually find myself doing stuff out of this space so I am going to move into part of our garage.
   This is a photo of the area that I am going to be moving into. I have been here before but a lot of changes have happened to make this place a much nicer area to work in.

   So I will be without my usual space, as you can see from the photos a lot of packing and unpacking is ahead of me.  (((Let you in on a secret … I am not looking forward to that aspect of this GRAND idea of mine))) So since I have a few other things going on during this total move I am going to put together a box of minimal supplies so that I can continue to participate in my favourite online challenges … at least that is the plan.

2. My Hubbys Birthday was Today actually ….
   
   

   

   We had a wonderful lunch with family yesterday. Today after we went to church in the morning we went for lunch at a favourite place, Wellington Point Queensland, and my darling Husband got to have some time doing a favourite activity – Photography.  This is just a hobby but he is getting better with his photos and he finds it very relaxing.

So life is continuing on … My walk with God is becoming stronger, I am still battling health issues – but they are not my biggest task to deal with at the moment. I am taking life at a lot slower pace now and I am enjoying things a whole lot more.

Thanks for stopping by and reading a everyday blog post instead of my usual crafty post. I will be back soon with another crafty post … I plan on putting up more than just my cards because my other crafts give me as much joy as my card making does so I want to share those finished projects with you as well. And as always before you go I want to leave you with this thought:
Each of us are a unique creation created by a true Master of His craft.
No one is a mistake! Remember this ….

Have a Happy Unique Crafty Kind of Day,

Amazing You Are

Hello Everyone,
Yes I am uploading a 2nd card tonight for the same 2 challenges that I used for the previous post.  I had so much fun with the previous card that I had the supplies out and I had leftover double sided sticky coloured paper that I didn’t just want to throw into the bin. So this time around I decided that I would go closer to the sketch this time around and use stars in my background.  My card ended up a little different to the sketch but I will tell why after I show you the results.

and here are the 2 challenges that inspired all of this creating tonight

As you see from my card and the sketch #276 by Chrissy; I did come close.  But I will tell you now that the sentiment star is hiding a horrible horrible mess of both gold blobs and my attempts to fix said mess… more on this later.  As I was going through my stash of paper stock I found out that I don’t have any Aqua … I was sure I had every colour but there you go!  So I had to substitute a different blue for the Color Throwdown #497 combo … hope this was OK.

The cute Unicorn image is from the Stay Unique Photopolomyer Stamp Set by Uniquely Creative. It is such a cute set and is one of the add-on sets you can buy to give you more choices for your creations with the Stamp & Colour June Kit.

The horrible gold globs happened while I was making the background piece.  I cut a piece of black paper and put it into my colour splatter cubby. Then I mixed together gold Perfect Pearls with some water and flicked this mixture onto the black paper with a paint brush.  Well lets just say a HUGE glob went where I didn’t want it and I tried fixed it and I thought that I had got away with it. But it wasn’t until I was nearly finished that it stuck out that it wasn’t fixed so I almost threw the whole thing in the bin but I persevered and figured out a fix. I had to go a little off the sketch but I hope that it will be forgiven.

Thanks for stopping by to have a look at my card creation. Before you go though I would love to leave you with this thought:

Have a Happy Direction Filled Crafty Kind of Day,

Believe in Yourself

Hello Everyone,
How hard is it for us to believe in ourselves?
I actually find this quite challenging especially since I was diagnosed with a long term illness over 18 years ago. The things that I once did without even thinking are numerous and  it amazing how much I now have to plan things.  And sometimes I don’t get all of my plans done … so doubts about myself have/do creep in and I find it hard to believe in my abilities.  But I know that I am on a journey with my God and He does have it all worked out even though I find it hard to continue to trust the path that has been set. Why am I so certain of this ….. because it is written many times in the Bible but this verse is my favourite

2 Samuel 22:33
God is my protection [is my strong fortress; or girds me with strength].
    He makes my way free from fault [perfect; secure; a wide path].

I wanted to make this card for a friend who is going through some stuff just to let her know that she can believe in herself and things will get better.  I made this card based on these 2 challenges:

I loved the colour combo #ctd497 being used at the moment over at Color Throwdown and then I found the Sketch #276 by Chrissy over at CASe this Sketch. I knew exactly how to pull this sketch and colour combo together with my new Uniquely Creative supplies. And this is result

I had so much fun using the supplies from the June Stamp & Colour plus some colour paper from my stash.  The first step was to stamp and colour the cute dogs and pillows from the Dreamy Stamp Set, I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils for the dogs and some Derwent Watercolor Pencils to colour the pillow stack.

Then it was onto creating the colourful spotty background. This was a time consuming process but I am so happy with how it turned out. I first cut the dots from the cream coloured card stock using my Cuttlebug and the Sprinkle Dots Background Die which comes as part of the June kit. Then I backed 4 pieces of paper from my stash trying to match the Color Throwdown combo as close as I could with Double Sided Sticky paper and ran these through my Cuttlebug.  Then I had to find where the pieces matched up with the original cream piece but placing them was so much easier thanks to the double sided paper.

Then I assembled the card after cutting out the dogs and pillows by hand. My ScanNCut may have to make a reappearance because it is getting much hard for me to do fine scissor work as my hands get worse with pain. After attaching the images I used my stamp press to make the sentiment out of 2 separate sentiments so that it would say what I wanted. I love using my stamp press for doing this kind of thing and especially if I don’t get a good impression the first time I can repeat the stamping.

And that was the end of the outside of my card. I am happy that you stopped by to look at my project today, but before you go I would like to leave you with this last thought:

This says it all really. If you can find the good in the horrible then it doesn’t seem so bad. I know this to be true – sometimes I forget to do this!

Have a Happy Creative Crafty Kind of Day,

Monster Sized Birthday

Hello Everyone,
Today I am writing this blog for 2 reasons.  I want to introduce you to a stamp company that is new to me and maybe even to you as well. I recently found Uniquely Creative advertisement in a card making magazine that I had purchased and this weekend I met the people behind this company at the Scrapbook & Papercraft Expo.  I feel in love with their adorable stamps so much that I also signed up to be a part of their Stamp & Colour Bi-Monthly Card Kit. On my card project I used the images, paper and card base from the April 2018 Stamp & Colour Kit which I purchased while at the Expo.

And now my card project.  This card is inspired by the card sketch #275 (Retro#3) from Case this Sketch
and this is my take on it –

Aren’t they adorable!! I absolutely love the laughing monster and with this card I also decorated the inside with the rest of the characters from the set.  I coloured all of these images with my Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils.

All of these images are bringing back the enjoyment that I have for colouring and card making.  I am hoping that by joining the Stamp & Colour Kit club that it will encourage me to use my colouring more.

I want to thank you for stopping by and looking at my card creation.  Maybe I have introduced you to a new Stamp Company or at least to some cute little Monsters/Aliens.  And as always before you leave I wish to leave you with this thought:

Oh how so so true – I can attest to this one!  But I am finding some people who appreciate the cost and time that goes into the creating of any craft piece.  The supplies are not cheap but they are so so much cheaper than paying for a therapist!!
Crafting is my Therapy!!

Have a Happy Crafty Fun Filled Kind of Day,

Sympathy Bird

Hello Everyone,
I think that most card makers would agree that there is 2 types of cards that we don’t have an easy time making. Those 2 being Masculine and Sympathy cards.

Well today I was requested by a friend to make a sympathy card for her Son and his Girlfriend. She has just lost her beloved Grandmother.  So I set about finding an image that I thought would be suitable and a colour combination that I thought would work.

I remember the colour combination that Color Throwdown has at the moment and then I looked at one of my favourite card sketch blogs and I liked the sketch that was being used at the moment.

Color Throwdown #495 and Case this Sketch #274

and this is my interpretation of this combo
This bird image is from the Australian Simply Cards magazine Issue 117.  It is actually a layering stamp and this was my first time using such a set and I have to say I had a lot of fun with it.  I gold heat embossed the sympathy sentiment its very subtle but I like it.

I would like to thank you for stopping by my project and blog today. And as always I would like to leave you with this thought:
Decide where you are going to put your energy today.

Have a Happy Thoughtful Crafty Kind of Day,

Changing Crafts for Health

Hello Everyone,
I want to start by saying today I am celebrating!!
I am 1 year post partial left lung removal due to cancer.
How this all came about happening was a miracle because it was found during a scan of my heart.  After this scan they looked at previous scans and found that this cancer had been in my lung since 2002 and hadn’t changed!! Mostly lung cancers are quite aggressive but mine decided to do nothing for 14 years. My God was definitely looking after me because back in 2002 I was pregnant with our 2nd child. I was very lucky that I didn’t need any Chemo or Radiation afterwards because the biopsy came back clear. God is so good.

So lately I have been doing a lot of crochet because I am trying to complete some of my WIPs (Works In Progress) and I have been laid up in bed with my chronic illness.  But unfortunately I have found that I can not do the same craft for a long period of time otherwise my body starts to object to my continuing.  I had forgotten this until I started getting horrid shoulder pain because of the repetitive nature of crochet.

I decided to have some fun colouring an image and then I loved how it turned out that I decided to make a card.  Changing crafts worked and I was able to be creative again and not be in so much pain while doing it.  Diversity is good in a lot of things in life.

And this is the creation….

This card was inspired by 2 card challenges

My favourite place to start a sketch and this sketch #339 by Jen B from Freshly Made Sketches was this weeks challenge.  Then I loved the colour combination #495 put forward by Jodi from Color Throwdown so then it was off to find a suitable image to use. The image that I chose to use came from a set that I got from the magazine Creative Stamping Issue 37

This is such a lovely set, I haven’t had the chance to use it much but I am in the process of doing up my stamp storage so I hope to be able to make more use of these kinds of sets that I have accumulated.

I had stamped the image onto one half of an A5 sheet of  white heavy weight cardstock which I ended up folding and making into the card base as well. The flowers I coloured with my Faber-Castell Polychromos but used my watercolour pencils to make the burgandy/maroon colour in the background.  The papers I got from my stash same with the gold stickers.  I hope that you like my take on both the sketch and the colour challenge.

I want to thank you for stopping by my blog and I want to leave you with this last thought:
I am glad to be able to keep editing my story.
It is one of life, love, laughter and loss.
Live a life you would be proud for someone to emulate.

Have a Happy Healthy Crafty Kind of Life,

Happy Mothers Day

Hello Everyone,
While I was printing the image for the previous card I accidentally printed the digital image Pure Prairie Bouquet by Power Poppy twice. So instead of throwing away a perfectly printed picture I decided that I would take the opportunity to make a 2nd card while I had my colouring supplies out. But this time around its a really simple colouring which was inspired by the Power Poppy Blog.

The Power Poppy Challenges are intended to give us design power + creative spark. Their challenge for May is “Power & Spark with a bit of Drama!” The challenge is a black & white card with a POP of colour. And of course I could also use this image again for the Shopping Our Stash – Butterfly challenge.

And this is what I came up with for the challenge:

I don’t know if these flowers come in this colour but I love purple and it was the colour that I wanted to use this time around for this challenge.  Its a simple card but I love how it turned out despite that I photographed it at an angle. Shopping through my stash to find both the image which I have in my database and my black and white papers which came from my extensive supply of paper packs.  But you know that stack may be large but I found that I don’t have too many neutrals …. hmm…. maybe a Mothers Day or belated Birthday present for me will be some neutrals 😀

Once again thank you for stopping by and looking at my challenge entry.  And as always before you go here is a thought for you to remember:
This image is inspired by this Sunday (13th May) in Australia being Mothers Day.  I had a Fabulous Mum, unfortunately I lost her in 2017 but she is always with me. I have an amazing Mother-In-Law, she bought up a wonderful man my Hubby John and his 4 siblings. And I am a Mother. I have been a Mother for 20years since our Daughter arrived and then our Son 5years later.  I hope and pray that I will pass on many things to my kids and that they will have fond memories of our relationship in the years to come.

Have a Happy Crafty Fun Kind of Day,