A Card A Day finished

Set myself a challenge at the beginning of this month to make a card a day. Have reached the end of the month and the end of the cards. The final 3 are collages mixing various papers, fabric and stitch. Love those metallic threads for xmas sparkle.

Card 29

Card 29 features another bit of the serviette that I used on the Hope card. I like how they blend with whatever is behind them. Also enjoy recycling old stamps.

Card 30

Sari ribbon features again in Cards 30 & 31.

Card 31

Sprayed the background of Card 31 - the lucky last of the month. I really like the blue & silver combination.
And here are all 31 (click on the mosaic to see them a bit larger)

Create a photo mosaic here.

Which card was your favourite?

2 more cards

Whew - almost at the end of the month and my card-a-day challenge.
This time using some fabric paper I've had in the cupboard for a while.
Lovely rub-ons with Card 27, and still using that lovely machine stitch to edge with.

Card 27

Card 28

The tree on Card 28 is that same stamp from the previous post, this time embossed with a Tim Holtz distress embossing powder. Quite subtle but lovely. Check out Tim Holtz on YouTube demostrating how the powder works.
3 to go....hope you are having a lovely weekend.

Sharing

Back into the last term at school - back to homework, and cricket starting on Saturday, and Touch Rugby on Monday nights. Only 7 weeks after this one til the end of the school year so Christmas is going to come quickly....have got a little bit behind with my card-making this week, so cards  25 & 26 (which keeps me up to date until yesterday) are a bit similar.

I used my lovely new swirly tree stamp with Opals embossing enamel to give it that lovely dimensional gold look. Once again the stars are made a la Ruth Rae - sheer stitched over old book pages.
After our lovely book-making playday my friend Philippa has become reinspired and started creating some beautiful  "pocket poems"

These are her gifts for me - "White on White" chosen by her

and "Green spaces" chosen by me (I so loved the poem contained inside)

Isn't it cool how different looks can be achieved from that same tree stamp?
Each cover contains 1 original poem by her inside that folds out.

So love to share creative ideas and see how they lead to new & wonderful creations by others :-)

Wellington Road Trip

We did a bit of travelling at the end of our holidays. First Castlepoint on Friday, and then Wellington on Saturday.

Different focus from the beach - this time we went to shop ;-)
Boys got models and rugby gear, and I had some lovely creative time.
Check out the art work on the walls where we walked from the carpark.

Minerva is a lovely bookshop on Cuba Street - mainly textile focussed. Am always tempted when I go in and this time was no exception. I was quite tempted by this book :

I thought - I don't really NEED it, and she's bound to have a blog or website. Now I wish I'd bought it...She DOES have a website - click on the buttons for examples of her work, not forgetting the bottom purple button "contact" - click on the TV once you get there and play a bit of her talking about her work. Also read an interview with her here and check out her work Mobile Library. There's a bit more of her work on Flickr, but the book would have been a lovely reference....{sigh}
As we headed back up Cuba Street for lunch, we found this artist performing on the street.

His juggling act was great (can you see he's juggling fire sticks?)

and his hoop work amazing

Also got to Gordon Harris

Was very excited to find the Golden Airbrush Colors on special that I mentioned here.

Purchased 5 different colours, and now I'll be able to try out the ideas demonstrated here. Looking forward to seeing how they compare with my other sprays. Promise I'll share any play experiments.

Hope to Victory

Card 24

Yesterday we were hopeful....everything crossed for the All Blacks.
Last night was nail-biting - but in the end they did it.

So proud to be a Kiwi

Christmas cards

Bit of a scarey thought but Christmas will be upon us before we know it. When I first posted about this Card A Day project at the beginning of this month, I had thought I may continue into November with Christmas cards. However, I now have a couple of other projects in mind for November, so have decided that the first 20 cards I have made will suffice for the rest of the year, and I will make the remaining 11 around a Christmas theme.

Card 21

This one uses printed vellum attached with green staples - I love that they are quite festive and a bit different. The fabric is sari ribbon - such lovely colours for this kind of project.

Card 22

More sari ribbon and metallic thread.

Card 23

The dove and words are recycled from a card we received last year.
Long weekend here in New Zealand and a big night tomorrow night with the World Cup Final - everything crossed for that.
Do you think you might have time to make a feather this weekend? Let me know....have fun :-)

Family Road Trip

We managed a road trip to Castlepoint today.

Only a bit more than 1 hour to travel to Masterton where we had a wonderful lunch at Cafe Strada - highly recommended - and then another hour to the beach.

Was a perfect day - blue skies and sunshine.

We walked up to the lighthouse and looked out at the beautiful blue sea.

Sam couldn't resist getting his feet wet :-)

The promise of many more summer days to come.....

Stitched cards

Last 2 cards from these bases

Card 19

Back to stitch again

Card 20

That's the end of the bases - have to create something entirely new tomorrow....

Love and laugh

2 more cards from these bases, these are from Monday & Tuesday.

Card 17

Used rub-ons for my words this time.

Card 18

I can recommend this book :

"Leprosy may seem a macabre subject, but Brennert transforms the material into a touching, lovely account of a woman's journey as she rises above the limitations of a devastating illness"(words from Amazon) 
and we finally got to see this on DVD 

- do see it if you haven't yet...it is worth the accolades
Hope you're having a good week

Inspired by Jude Hill

Had a few months of being too tired in the evenings to do projects, but have had a nice break and am back into night-time stitching :-) My sari ribbon stitching that I started here 

has had some additions.

Be inspired by Jude Hill through her blog : Spirit Cloth.
She has started a collective stitching project focussed on creative sharing and giving.
Stitch a feather, send it to Jude, and she will "sew a bunch together and put the larger cloth to some charitable use". Her initial goal is 1000 feathers - as I post this she has got up to 393.

This is my first feather...may add a little bit extra to frame it, and I intend to make at least another square with 2 feathers.
Click here for all the details of the Magic Feather Project, including an initial instructional video if you want help with how to stitch your own feather.
If you want more - Jude has also created a FREE workshop called Whispering Feathers - in audio, video and PDF format.
You can also go to Gathering Feathers for pictures of the feathers made and sent this month or the Flickr page where you can see them all so far. And there is a facebook page too.
Tempted to join in? If you are in NZ and want to make a feather, contact me and you can post your feather to me and I will then post a bunch of them to Jude. Would like to post them off in November.
And if you like Jude's work, you might like to try out these links too :
A Trinket Treasury
Sweetpea Path
Tanglewood Threads
Stitching Life
Enjoy :-)

Using pens

Two more cards - decided to try my lovely sakura pens on these....

Card 15

Card 16

Inspired by a couple of recent cool blog posts on lettering : Julie Fei-Fan Balzar with Sakura pens and Rebecca Sower with some doodle lettering.
Hope you are having a great weekend.

7 card bases

I am enjoying my card-a-day challenge, but have to admit that some days are more of a challenge than others! We are in the middle of school holidays and the weekend is just around the corner, so decided it might help to create a week's worth of card bases in one session. Laid the cards down (turned different ways so when they are complete they're quite different) and used just a few of my lovely sprays and stencils.

Then sprayed through this lace paper

Works really well as a cheap stencil

I rearranged a couple of the cards and added a bit of spray through a doilie.

Now I have these 7 base cards to complete : a week's worth of creating in just a few hours ;-)

This is card 14 complete

Have you seen the free workshops by Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen? This latest (Part 5)  has got me all excited cos it's about using sprays made from Golden Airbrush colours and water in a spray bottle - something new to add to the spray mix. Can't wait to try this out - these sprays are NOT water-activated so once they are dry they are dry like acrylic paint.

On the 13th

I continue to be inspired by this wall-hanging on my sewing room door

The card is simpler - just gessoed over background papers that had first been sprayed with walnut ink.

Card 13

Trying something different with my next cards....see you soon