August swaps - cards and embellishments

The card theme this month at Simply Crafty was "male cards".  I tend to struggle a bit with male cards, so I was looking forward to seeing what everyone else created :)  There were lots of amazing cards - will be CASE-ing a few of them!

Dilys' card

 

Danielle's card



 

Cathie's card

 

Linda's cars



 

Pauline's card

 

Kerrie's card

 

The embellishment theme was also male - I made the cogs (I was a bit lazy LOL).

 



Bookmark

On Sunday I went to Simply Crafty. Another lovely day catching up with friends, a bit of scrapping, swaps and lots of chatting :) The very talented Helen from Lorna Blue Studio demonstrated masking and painting with Distress Inks. I had wanted to try masking for awhile, but was too lazy for all the cutting involved LOL We made a bookmark to try out the new techniques - I love how easy it was to paint with the inks!

Doiley friendship cards

Two quick & easy cards to share today :)  I made a pink and a blue version, but think any colour combo and even having a coloured card base would look gorgeous.

 

 

Grey owl beanie

A friend asked me to make an owl beanie for her in "grown up colours". I thought grey, black and dusky pink were the perfect colour combo :) So happy with how this turned out and I hope she likes it!   This makes OTP number 10 - so I am half way to my 2012 goal!

 

Cruise countdown...7 weeks!

Dude You Rock cards

This card is a CASE, but I can't find the original link - sorry. There were a few slight changes though - I cut the cassette tapes from pattern paper (thanks Tanya!) instead of a stamp and I used mini alphas to write DUDE (cause I only had a "You Rock" stamp).

 

 

 

Layouts

It's been a while since I've posted some layouts. I have 3 to share today - 2 I finished from last night's midnight crop and 1 I scrapped on Thursday.

 

 

 

Thrifty Thursday

Mum and I visited a few op shops last Friday and I am so excited to share the amazing goodies I found! I think mum is my good luck charm LOL I can't believe how many wonderful things I found and we only went to 3 shops! I hadn't been to one of the shops for over 12 months (cause it's outside of town and I keep forgetting about it).

 

My most exciting find were these fuchsia shoes!  Only $4 and look brand new :)  Loving the cute pink clutch purse I got from the same shop for $1.

 

This gorgeous top was $6.  I love the handkerchief hem - this will look cute over leggings or jeans.

 

A ruffly skirt for $4.

 

 

Something for when the kids visit - books were $1 each, cute wooden dominoes (no pieces missing - yay!) $2 and Police wooden babushka 50c.

 

 

Yes more Tupperware :)  These are small containers ($3 each) and perfect size for storing baking ingredients.  The cream one matches a few other pieces I already have in my collection and the yellow is perfect match for the bowl I found last Thursday!  The brown TEA container was 50c.

 

 

Another book to add to my growing pile - $1.

 

Robot card

I realised that I had forgotten to share the card I made last month for my nephew's birthday.

Handmade soaps

Looking for an unusual gift idea or want to spoil yourself?  Pop over to Kinibug and check out the amazing soaps that Kel makes!  If you are keen to make your own soaps, candles, bath / body products, then Kel also sells all the supplies you need.  Need a little inspiration or help to get you started on making you own soaps?  Then have a look at the Kinibug blog and see all the great step-by-step tutorials!

I was lucky enough to win these "scary" soaps a few months ago - the kids will love them!!  I prefer to use shower gels more than soaps, which is a good thing cause I would buy one of every soap that Kel creates :)  I have brought some of her dog wash soaps and they are fantastic - lathered up well, good size to hold and wash the dogs with and rinsed out of their fur really well. 


Cruise countdown...8 weeks!

Thrifty Thursday

I managed to pop into 2 of my favourite op shops today :) The first shop had a sale today - $1 books / clothes / homewares...happy dance!! I found some great books - there were some craft books, entertaining / cookbooks and 2 novels :)
 

I brought some Tupperware from the 2nd shop - $3 for the green / orange bowls and $5 for the yellow container (all in great condition).  Love the retro colours ;)

What a busy, fun-filled weekend!



Oh m gosh - we had such a social weekend :)   Friday night Mum and Kate went to see Graeme Connors in concert, so Cohan had a sleepover at our house :) There was lots of games, cuddles, movies and playing with the dogs. 
 

Saturday night we went out to dinner to celebrate Mick's 40th.  Lovely night out catching up with Kylie, Mick, Cathie  and Andrew.  Delicious meal, chatting with friends and cake - who could ask for more ;)



Sunday was our busiest day!  First stop was the markets, then to Ryan's Baptism.  After the ceremony we went to Amanda and Justin's for lunch. 

Craig and I.  I finally managed to get my hair cut!  I'm loving the new, shorter bob style :)

      

After lunch we popped over to a friends house for a quick catch up, then off to the movies to see "Ted".  It was a very funny movie - lots of laughs :)

Cruise countdown...9 weeks!

Blythe

Last week I was very excited to win a wonderful (and very cheap) eBay auction lot of 40 pairs of Barbie/Ken/Bratz dolls shoes! I had checked a few forums to see if Barbie / Bratz shoes would fit my Blythe - at $6.50 I thought even if only 5 pairs fitted then I was still lucky (Etsy sellers average about $10 for one pair). My parcel arrived last week and I tried all the shoes on my Blythe - luckily most of them fit (they are a little big, but will fit better with some socks / stockings)!! The stilettos and ballet shoes don't fit, so I will give them to Kylie's girls for their dolls. I was excited that the black boots fit perfectly - my fave pair :)

I couldn't help myself - I brought a few more pieces from the seller at the markets :) A sweet blue dress -



A cute tshirt and pair of shorts -



Another jumper - this time a lovely soft pink / peach one - 

Thrifty Thursday

I haven't had a chance to pop into the op shops for the last couple of weeks, but I am hoping to visit a few of my favourites tomorrow though :) I spotted this gorgeous cake stand at a Trash & Treasure stall at the markets on Sunday and fell in love with the gorgeous lace edge and the sweet little lacy foot!. At $10 it's a little more than I would usually pay 2nd hand, but it was in mint condition and I couldn't resist :)

Washi tape holder

Remember the wooden dowels I posted about here?   I brought them with the idea of using them to make a washi tape stand.  I was discussing my project idea with Cathie and she offered for Andrew (with his little off-sider Mitchell) to make one for me.   Cathie's dad ended up making us both one (I had to buy another piece of dowel, so we could have 3 posts on the stand) - he whipped them up in no time at all (it would have take me longer to get organised and then make them myself LOL) and they look fantastic!!

Reading

I still seem to be playing "catch up" with sharing the books I am currently reading!

This book was really interesting.  It's based in medieval times and is about an apprentice priest who is sent to a convent to investigate claims of demon activity.  The way it ended makes me think there may be sequel.

This book was very similar to "The Goddess Test", but I didn't enjoy it as much :(  I found it confusing that is kept jumping from past to present.  I also found that the story rushed to finish and I didn't like how it ended, so found this disappointing.

I LOVED this book!  It's part of a series and I can't wait for book 2 to be released!  - It is about the search for the next Queen - girls are selected from each village / class and the selection process is televised to the whole country (similar to "The Hunger Games" trilogy). 

Horse birthday card

Just a quick share today :) A card I made last week using sketch #22 from Retro Sketches,

Cruise countdown...10 weeks!

New camera

**Warning - lots of photos :)

I have had a lovely weekend - Friday night I went to the midnight crop with Cathie & Kylie. I managed to work on a few LO's and chat the night away with the girls :)

Craig has spoilt me with a new camera - a Nikon D3100 twin lens! I wasn't happy with the photo quality of my current camera and we had discussed upgrading to a SLR camera for a few months. There was lots of looking around at various options, but I was very hesitant to upgrade to something that I was worried would be "too technical" for me. The decision was taken out of my hands when I dropped my old camera a few weeks ago and broke the lens :( So make & model was decided on and off we went to shop around for the best price - on Thursday we managed to find the camera on sale :D
 

Yesterday we went over to the Botanical Gardens so i could take some pictures and have a play with my camera (the dogs were sick of getting their photo taken LOL)

Today we went to the markets (I got some lovely scrapping goodies!), then popped in to say "hello" to my mum. After that we went for a drive down to the beach for fish & chips and to take a few more photos with my camera :)