three ways to say goodbye (avant card special)

it's been a while since my last post... :( 'cause I was taking forever to edit this post ;)


One of the teachers at the Chinese school was leaving, so my sister asked me to make a farewell cards for each class to write in.

I sketched a few ideas... (ideas are things that look good on paper but don't necessarily translate that well off the drawing board) and then started creating!! :)

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and before adding the finishing touches...


The sketchboard idea was basically an origami flower which I kept, I've made a similar card before but I wanted a patterned background in this card. I couldn't be bothered looking through all my scrapbooking paper and I don't really like cutting it up too much... so looked through my postcards and found this really cute one advertising Taronga Zoo. Filled in the spaces as well with swirls and words and things :)

2/3

So here's my idea and somehow it became very different to the final card... ;)





This one I grabbed the idea from the postcards I had as I was sorting because the school went on an excursion to the art gallery to see 'The First Emperor', an exhibition on China's emtombed warriors. I just bought some Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels) and decided to see how it looked so sprayed it on the cardboard which ended up a bit damp so had to let it dry overnight before working on the card.

3/3


Since this was the first idea I drew up (out of about six), I wanted to make sure I used the design...

...in the top left corner the four-leaf clover didn't turn out :( so had to cover it up :P


The big pink button is actually covering up a picture of a woman jumping,

I should also title this post: button special as they all have buttons :)

In the end, one of my farewell cards didn't get used... obviously the Asian one was chosen and the other was the flower field one so I still have my origami flower one here. So that card has the special status of being a part of my 'getting to know you' presentation at the museum :P

hello, my name is...

Anyway, Monday Mob has started some team bonding sessions where each week someone will introduce themselves and talk about their interests or anything they want really. I was somehow chosen to be second (after the day leader's talk too -_-)!!!

I thought that I might slip in a little about my interest in cardmaking so I prepared some cards the morning before to showcase my interest and here they are :)... [Took me about an hour and a half including the photography. ;)]

Random-'have a nice day' card :)

Birthday card 1

+ the inside using the paper tape I just bought - lace pattern


Birthday card 2 (the photo didn't turn out well in the light outdoors because of the light colour and all the shiny sequins!)



My brother liked this card but he said the bird needed a rhinestone eye.


Note: Actually, I haven't presented my piece yet, we ran out of time the first week, and the second week was the holiday period so there are more things to discuss at the meeting... which tempts me to make more cards lol :)

Fiskars ShapeBoss

A friend of my sister just bought her the Fiskars ShapeBoss for her birthday... tried it out yesterday and it was pretty fun :) we have stencils already but I never did figure out embossing so I mostly used them for chalking lol (actually... I was just hoping to get a machine to do it hehe)


Having the ShapeBoss eliminates the need for a lightbox and it's probably a quick and easy way to add something nice to a card without resorting to looking for rhinestones, patterned paper etc. The paper did slip out of the stencil at one point when I was checking the pattern but I was able to reposition it easily enough.


I just did two quick samples, one on plain scrapbook paper and one on a patterned paper to see if it woud be hard to see it... and I had some leftover pieces anyway!

our favourite postcard greeting: wish you were here... lol

Sorting out the postcard collection...



*squeee* Prince William!

I collect heaps of Avant Card postcards, (those free ones with art and advertising you see in a lot of public institutions and tourist areas) so I can use them in cardmaking... the rate I collect them compared to using them in a card is very different!!!

I was looking for certain colours so I ended up taking them all out and sorting them into categories... for example: animals; patterns; Asian and some other ones :)

Getting there...



Very, tall pile... about half the postcards!



All sorted! (though should probably re-label them or re-wrap as you can't see the writing.


:)

Candle stamping

Last Friday night I went to a candle stamping workshop with my sister that was taught by a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I previously went to one of her classes over half a year ago!

My sister and I both chose different types of candles so we'd have one of each, her one was vanilla beeswax scented - yummy! Anyway, there were around five main designs that set up for us... Cherry blossom, Asian, swirls, and two other flower ones. Since I had a small candle it was hard to incorporate some designs but I figured something out in the end :)

Our candles, mine is the smaller one.


The making of:



The matching cards:

rabbits hopping through the looking grass

Made a grass head bunny rabbit at the museum today... basically you get a cardboard flower pot to decorate, then you scrunch up some newspaper to place in the bottom, put grass seeds onto muslin with cotton balls on top, then tie it all together and put that into the flower pot! Then it grows upwards like hair like in the photo.

I got the idea to make a bunny because I saw someone use the cotton buds as decorations lol!

Here is a close-up of the bunny with a flower made from paper circles (I didn't make it -_- but someone left it behind!) as well as a vintage Arnotts tin, newspaper and random drinks... I think the brown stuff is tea?? in the background ;)

You just need to keep the cotton ball moist and it should grow in about a week!


And with the cotton tail...


Unfortunately I gave it away to a colleague for her niece so I couldn't make some boring in-depth facebook album of the grass growing... but... I did get to take home this plastic pot that came with some lettuce and salad seeds, yay!! XD




I also received some nice material today, the person who received my lace and the bunny are the same person lol... and she gave me some materials that she had a lot of!


Pink string that is commonly used in scarves, gold thread and blue lace... as well as the crossword to fill in the empty space XD

crystal time!

Next part of my necklace (bought these crystals sometime last year) although I was thinking of rethreading one set of the pearls...



-Threaded necklace 1, but want to rethread it
-Mostly threaded necklace 2
-Working on necklace 3
-Then need to secure the beads on the string
-Need to make a lace flower (work in progress -___-)
-And then to make a pink ribbon to thread necklaces together