More Christmas Cards

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.  So lovely that you took the time to visit at this busy time of the year.
Hope all your preparations for Christmas are going as planned.  I'm pleased to say that all our gift shopping is done, I only need to worry about the food now, and that's a worry enough all by itself!  LOL!!

Anyway, I am here to share another of my Christmas cards.  I didn't make many this year.  We have been so busy over the last few months and we've also been away.  Then, when we got back from our Cruise, I ended up with the most horrendous cold and had no interest in doing anything much.  Most days it was hard just getting out of bed.  Hate colds with a vengeance!!  But, I did manage to make cards for my family so here I am to share another one with you.

As in my last post, I haven't used Christmas papers with this one, I have again used paper from the Gentleman Collection from Meg's Garden.  This one is called  'A Gentleman's Auto'.

I love these papers but, of course, the image of the car was not really suitable for my card so I made sure I cut my papers around that.  I will use that image on something else.

The chippie below is a piece from the 'Bubble Grid Panel' by 2Crafty Chipboard.  The quote is from Kaisercraft's Christmas Carol Collectables.

I simply cut a small piece from the Bubble Grid  Panel, covered it in gesso and then painted the 'bubbles' with acrylic paint and coated them with Glossy Accents.

The inside was lined with the same 'Gentleman' papers.  I gold embossed the edges, did a little stamping and stenciling and created a pocket on the left to hold a tag.

The quote on the tag was found as a free printable on the net.  The back of the tag was left blank for a personal message.

One again, my cards are all very similar this year.  When you have to make a lot of cards for the same occasion it is simply easier to use a design you like and simply change the embellies.  Especially when you've left things as late as I have.  LOL!

To take a look at all the wonderful products in the Meg' Garden on line shop HERE is the link and to find a 2Crafty Chipboard stockist near you, simply send an e-mail to salesat2crafty@optusnet.com.au

Thank you so much for visiting and leaving me a little comment, I so love to read them!

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Take care and God Bless.

oxox Marg

Christmas with the 'Gentleman Collection' Papers for Meg's Garden

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.  So pleased you dropped by.

I have finally started making my Christmas Cards.  Yes, I know, I have started them way too late, but my life has been a bit hectic over the last couple of months and hubby and I have been away on the most wonderful holiday as well so I haven't really cottoned onto the fact that Christmas is just around the corner.  Oh My Gosh!!!  Did I just say that!!  Yikes!!  I really do have to pull the proverbial finger out!!
 Anyway, back to the business at hand (before I totally freak out LOL!) I'm here to share a couple of Christmas cards that have been made with some sheets from Meg's Garden's 'Gentleman Collection' and I really love how they have turned out.  You all know that it is not necessary to use dedicated Christmas paper to make your Christmas cards.  For me, it's more about the colour and texture than it is about the designs so I decided that the 'Gentleman Collection' papers would be perfect.

Card No. 1

I did use a small piece of Christmas paper from Kaisercraft underneath but the top layer is 'A Gentleman's Auto' 12" x 12".  Did a tiny bit of spraying with watered down Distress Ink in 'Peeled Paint' and 'Pine Needles'.

Used some fabulous 2Crafty Chipboard  (Element Set 1, Card Word Circles - Christmas and Mini Reindeers) and a die cut  from Memory Box.  The lovely lace is also available from Meg's Garden.  

Love that gorgeous deep red bloom.  Meg's Garden has some beautiful flowers available in her shop but you should check it out on a regular basis as the stock does change from time to time.   To the cluster I added some die cut leaves, berries, gauze, the lace of course and some bits of twine as well.  

The inside was also decorated with the same paper.  Heat embossed the edges with gold and I created a pocket on the left hand side to hold some gift vouchers.  The right hand side was left blank so I could write the sentiment.

Card No. 2
This one is very similar to the first.  The sheet used here is 'Gentleman' 12" x 12" and I've just added some different colours and different embellishments.

Spread some crackle around on this one and inked it with 'Fired Brick' DI.  The tags are a freebie received with a crafting magazine.

Used the same type of flower and lace in the cluster but this time I added some dodo wire and different berries as well as a piece of  gold mesh and some die cuts.

The inside was decorated the same again just with different colours and different stamps and I've added a small piece of dry wall tape as well.

There you have it!!  My 'Gentleman Collection' Christmas cards.  As I said before, I am really pleased with how these cards turned out so I will be making all of my cards this year in the same manner.  I will be posting those up over the next few weeks so I hope you will pop back here to take a look.  In the meantime why not take a look at all the amazing creations from my Teamies over at the Meg's Garden Blog.  You can find it HERE.   To take a look at all the fabulous products Meg has in her online store, click HERE.

Meg's Garden products used
'Gentleman's Auto' 12 x 12
'Gentleman' 12 x 12
Dodo Wire
Lace 1.6cm white

Thank you so much for visiting and enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.

Marg oxox

Our Trip to New Zealand #1

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.  Hope you are having a wonderful day!

A little while ago I threatened ... oops ...  I mean, promised, to show you some photos of my trip to New Zealand.  Hubby and I enjoyed 14 days on a Cruise ship and I've finally downloaded some of the photos to my computer and thought I would show a few pics of our trip to Mt. Sunday.  For those of you who are Lord of the Rings fans, this is the place where they built the city of Eduras, the Horse Lords Capitol.

Because the harbor in Christchurch is not suitable for Ocean Liners anymore (after the horrendous earthquake of a few of years ago) we actually dropped anchor just off Akaroa, which is a lovely little French style seaside village.  

We boarded a Coach to travel to Mt. Sunday and these are a few piccies taken through the windows.

We stopped at Salmon World for morning tea where we enjoyed the biggest muffins we ever saw.  They were huge so hubby and I shared one and it was still too much.  They were delicious though.

Here we are just outside the valley where Mt. Sunday sits.  Love those snow capped mountains in the background.  If you ever have the opportunity to go to New Zealand don't hesitate ... this place is awesome!!

There are mountains all around this valley and the area is huge.  Makes one feel quite insignificant.

See that small hump in the middle there??  That is Mt. Sunday.  Not terribly imposing compared to the mountains in the background is it?  

That is a river you can see in distance, I think there are two running through this valley.  Afraid I was too overawed to really take in what our Tour Guide was saying.

When the area was first farmed, the workers used to come here every Sunday for a meeting.  No one's really sure what kind of meeting it was, could have been religious or perhaps they went there to gamble or just for a chat.  They used to ride their horses up there and would stay all day.  In time the place came to be known as Mt. Sunday.

This excursion was one of the highlights of our trip.  I  took a lot more photos than what I've shown here but I just picked a few of the best ones.

On our way back  to the ship, in a little place called (quite appropriately) Little River, our bus broke down.

We had to wait for another one to come along.  Luckily it was empty and our Tour Guide persuaded the driver to turn around and take us back to the ship.  Luckily too that we had booked this excursion through the Cruise Line.  We got back after the time that the ship was meant to leave but, because we had made the booking through them, they had to wait for us.  Would not have been much fun trying to chase it up the coast to the next port.

A quick shot through the bus window again as we got close to Akaroa.  Sorry it's so hazy but this was the best of the ones I took.

This wasn't our first stop but these are the first photos I checked.  I have a lot more photos to download and I will share them from time to time.  They won't be in the order that we visited places but I don't think that matters.  As I said before, if you haven't already been to New Zealand and the opportunity presents itself, don't hesitate, it is a fantastic place to visit.  The country is so beautiful and the people are absolutely wonderful.  Hubby and I had a fantastic time.  This was our second visit and I doubt that it will be the last.  Loved it!!

Hope you enjoyed my little picture tour and thank you so much for dropping by.  Enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.

  

The 'French Garden' Book for Meg's Garden

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!  So nice of you to drop by.
I would like to share with you my project using Meg's Garden's very latest Kit,  the French Garden Book Kit.  These papers were designed by Denise Boddey and, if you're into shabby chic, you will absolutely love them.  The colours are so pretty and there are lots of images for fussy cutting as well.  The Kit is available to purchase as both a download and a fully printed version, whichever best suits your needs.  
To give you some inspiration, the DT have been challenged to each create a Book with this Kit and here is my version.  The design for the pages came from Kathy Orta's "My Design Mini'.   She makes the most wonderful albums and has the most innovative designs, I love her work.  HERE is the link to the YouTube video.

All the papers used for this book were edged with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink.

The Title is a 2Crafty Chipboard piece which was coloured with Distress Ink and then brushed with multi matte medium and randomly sprinkled with clear glitter.

The large flowers below are all available from Meg's Garden, as is the gorgeous piece of lace.  The small flowers and the pearls came from my stash.  I also tucked a little gauze in amongst my blooms.

Instead of Texture Paste which can be a little expensive to buy, I use Multi-Purpose Filler which is available at Hardware stores and costs only a few dollars for a 500gm Tub.  I really love it because it is exactly the right consistency and it holds the shape beautifully as you can see below.

Before we go any further I must warn you that this will be a huge post.  There are only 4 page sets, as you can see , but there are quite a few fold outs, pockets and tags etc. to show you so there will be a lot of photos.

Here are the first 2 pages.
Page 1 (the inside front cover) has a butterfly, some small tags and the Queen of Spades which were all fussy cut from the Kit's ephemera.  The 'Queen' was mounted on card stock and attached to the bottom flap.  This flap opens down ...

... to reveal a photo mat and journaling spot ...

... and the top flap opens 'up' to, again, reveal another photo mat and journaling spot.  I have used a magnet behind the card to keep the flaps closed.
 The lace and the washi tape are, of course, available from Meg's Garden.

Here is the page fully opened.

Page 2 is a half page, and here I have done a little stamping for extra interest and added some more washi tape.     

 This page opens up to reveal more photo mats with the same stamp and washi tape.  The stamps I have used in this Album are Kaisercraft's 'Script' and 'Arty' Stamps.  The little white and red butterfly is also from the Kit's ephemera.

Pages 3 and 4.  Of course page 3 is the back of page 2 and it has ...

... two pockets edged with the Sevington Border die from Memory Box ...

... and two tags.  The bottom of these tags fold up when placed back in the pockets.

Page 4 has a belly band which can be used to hold tags or photos and, when you untie the ribbon the page opens up to reveal ...

... more photo mats that are suitable for larger photos.

Pages 5 and 6.

Page 5 has a pocket and tag.  The paper on the pocket is from the 'Damask Garden Collection' which is another range of papers designed by Denise.  I felt it fitted in very nicely with the 'French Garden' papers.  The strip at the top of the tag was edged with Martha Stewart's Floral Vine Deep Edge   Border Punch.

Page 6 is another photo mat.  Isn't the paper beautiful??  If you wanted to you could fussy cut the flowers and leaves and simply use them as embellishments.

Pages 7 and 8.
I do hope you're still with us folks, we're nearly finished.

Page 7 is a pocket ...

... which is held closed by a magnet (also available from Meg's Garden) and holds a tag.

Page 8 is another half page that ties with a ribbon.

... which opens up to reveal (surprise, surprise!!) some photo mats ... and opens out again to reveal ...

... (bigger surprise!!  LOL!!) more photo mats, one of which has a belly band made from a bit of ribbon from Meg's 'Camel Bundle' and the other has some fussy cut tags and tickets from the ephemera pages!!

Pages 9 and 10.

Page 9 is plain and simple, just a photo mat or journaling spot.

Page 10 has a pocket ...

... cut into the paper to hold ...

... a small booklet for photos which was simply bound with some black raffia from the Camel Bundle.  Here I have again used the Floral Vine border punch and also added a fussy cut butterfly from the ephemera sheets.

Finally (Yayy!!) the back cover which was left fairly plain.   I simply repeated the ribbon and pearl trim from the front and also added a metal trinket.

As I said at the beginning, not many pages, but lots of surfaces for photos, journaling and anything else you may think of.

I do hope you have enjoyed seeing my 'French Garden' Album.  I didn't make it as shabby chic as I had intended to but I'm sure you can see the potential.  I hope I have inspired you to try this Book Kit for yourself.  It is gorgeous to work with and there are lots of elements to this Kit which I didn't even use in my book.  To take a look at the full Kit HERE is the link.

Meg's Garden Products used
French Garden Book Kit
Blue & Cream Damask Garden 12 x 12 Sheet
Lace - 2 cm
Lace - 1.6 cm
Ivory Primula
Primrose Posy - cream
Small  white roses - 2 cm
Ribbon and raffia from Camel Bundle
Music notes Washi Tape
Vintage Trinkets - Round Filigree Large
Magnetic Discs

Thank you so much for visiting and do enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.
oxox Marg