Some gifts

My daughter's teacher recently had a baby and so we made some gifts to celebrate!  I decided I wanted to introduce a new image - it's always nice to give a friend a new design before it goes on offer in the shop!  So I made a cute little owl.

My daughter outdid herself! She painted a wooden coathanger and added a special message on the back, made a beautiful card and then had go at sewing on my sewing machine!  We made a butterfly garland for decoration in the baby's room.  We used the Big Shot and Butterfly die from Stampin Up to punch out varying colours and sizes of butterflies.  She layered them up and then we put them through the sewing machine - she just needed a bit of help and some direction.  We used two colours of thread to match the purple and pink theme, one on the top and one in the bobbin case and it gave a fun look to the garland.  We added a ribbon loop to the top and a couple of strands of ribbon to the bottom.  I think I might add one of these to the shop too! 

Here are her lovely creations.  She chose a sketch to follow for this one and chose all the papers, I just helped place one of the papers, measure and tie the bow she stuck it all down.

 The coathanger!

The pretty Butterfly garland.  You might need to click on this to see it better!

Just one other thing to share today. I made a little dolls quilt from a piece of cheater quilt fabric. This is my first ever go and I was quite pleased with it. The front looks good the back is pretty bad I have to say. I did photograph the back but couldn't bring myself to share it here!

 I was more pleased that I finally figured out how to attach the Even Fed Foot that has been sat in my sewing box for almost a year - I thought I had bought the wrong one!

And I was quite pleased with the binding!

Week 4: Do You Stack Up Challenge - Patterned Paper

Welcome to week 4 of the Do You Stack Up Challenge.  This week we have two sponsors: Black Leaf Design Solutions and Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps.

       

This week's challenge is: 

Patterned Paper

Well I have a tonne of that laying around so no problem there!  I used an image from Stitchy Bear called Butterfly Love. I LOVE how this turned out!

I coloured her using the Stampin Up pastels and one of their Aqua Painter brushes, gave such a delicate look to a delicate fairy!

I used papers by Dream Street Papers, so girly aren't they? I used three from the same range, the pink spotty one, a green one for the scalloped circle and I cut the pink flower from a piece of paper too.  I printed the image twice, using only the wings and one of the flowers from the second copy.  I coloured the wings the same but added some fairy dust (!) to give her some sparkle!  I curled the ends of the wings and raised the ends of the wings up on dimensionals and offset them, I really like the look.

A bit more of a close up of those wings.

So hop on over to the DYSU blog to check out all the other creations and then load up your masterpiece!

Look how much we raised!

Well my little luggage tags have been posted off to the winning bidder, thanks Angela! And today I found out that altogether our crafting auctions and raffles raised a whopping $99,089! WOW!



It was great to be a part of this!

Auction all finished now!

Thanks so much for those who took part in my little auction for the luggage tags.  The highest bidder was Angela with $60.  I hope you love them Angela!  For those who missed out or didn't know about it, make sure to check out Toni's blog tomorrow for all the raffles that are still going on until Wednesday.

Last chance to bid! [ALL FINISHED NOW!]

For all my lovely followers out there...and anyone else lurking around....this is just a reminder that my auction closes at midnight eastern australian time (about two hours from now!) 10pm Perth time as on the clock in the sidebar.  So if you would like to bid for this lovely set of fabric luggage tags made from fun travel themed fabrics then please click on the picture for details.  Current Highest Bid is AU$60.

The winning bidder will pay the money direct into the Premier's Flood Appeal so you know it's safe and going to a reputable charity not a fake one

Week 3: Do You Stack Up Challenge - Pink

If you are here for the DYSU Challenge, it is in this post, just scroll down.  But first I just want to promote the Auctions happening around blogland for the Queensland Flood Appeal.  I'm having one on this blog here for some Cute Travel Themed Fabric Luggage Tags.  The Master List can be found here and there really are some wonderful items available.  Please take a moment to check it out.  If nothing else you'll find some truly inspirational blogs to drool over!!



 

And now onto the third week of the Do You Stack Up challenge. Today we have two sponsors: Bugaboo Stamps and Pink Gem Designs, both are offering up prizes.

     

The Challenge this week is:

Pink!

The design team were offered images to play around with from the sponsors and I chose to use the Cuddle image from the 'A Kid's View - In Love' range from Bugaboo seeing as Valentines Day is just around the corner.

So head on over to DYSU to see all the other goodies made by the Design Team.  Add your pink creation to the list.

First Attempt at Patchwork!

My friend Lorraine made me aware of RetroMummy's 'Quilts for Queensland' drive.  She is asking for help from fellow bloggers to make blocks that will then be made into quilts by her army of quilters.  Well I have never attempted patchwork before as I always seem to think that the end product will just take too long to get to and I'll get bored and give up! I like short projects!  Anyway I figured that even I could manage a couple of blocks.  And yay I did!  I made these two Pinwheels, I believe they are called!

One of them is a little bit mis-match but I think it's passable. What do you think? Feeling very pleased with myself, although I'm not sure this is really the thing for me!  Might stick to my little projects!

So if you feel so inclined to help out then head on over to RetroMummy's blog and get all the details.

Card Patterns 98 and Jay Gee's Nook

Hi There Folks just a quickie today! A quick reminder that I have an auction for the Queensland Flood Fund.  It's some fun Fabric Luggage Tags You can find them here.

Now onto today's card.  I have three friends all expecting babies within weeks of each other so hopefully one will have a girl!  I used the sketch at Card Patterns and the colour challenge at Jay Gee's.

Thanks for stopping by!

Queensland Flood Appeal Auction: Set of four Luggage Tags

Scroll down to get straight to auction details.

As I am sure you are all aware, Queensland, among many other places, are experiencing frightening weather.  You may have read on my blog last week, that my family and I were there when it was happening and it WAS very frightening and we were relatively 'safe'!  To be honest I was pretty shellshocked the first couple of days after we got back, so relieved to be home and safe.  The pictures on the TV were harrowing. 

We were frighteningly close on Tuesday, we found ourselves trapped at a service station on the Bruce Highway as the road to the south of that junction was flooded. As we came off the highway we found that the roads east and west were flooded and the only options were to either wait there or go north.  As our hotel was south and we didn't know anyone north we decided to wait. After a couple hours we decided to book into the Motel that was next to the service station.  Whilst there we heard on the news that a town was being evacuated: Caboolture.  It was then that we realised the motel we were staying at was the Caboolture motel!  People were being evacuated from the nearby town of Caboolture to the Service Station area that we were at! After a few more hours the police opened the northbound stretch of the highway to southbound traffic and we took our chance and got going.  Driving back down to Brisbane was a bit scary as all the surrounding fields were covered in water.  The southbound part of the highway was 3 foot under at one point and the water was rushing under the bit of road that we were on and was not far from covering that too!

Brisbane at that point was not too bad, our hotel was in the CBD and our apartment was overlooking the river.  We saw the pontoons and boats floating down the river with all the other debris and it was going by pretty fast.  By the morning the walkways were covered and across the river a pontoon had been destoyed and the area was flooded. 



Tuesday evening

 

The Next Morning (Wed) the boat has been washed away, pontoon damaged and carpark in the top right corner is half covered.

We hurriedly made our way to the airport much earlier than would normally have been required just to make sure we got there safely.

Over the last couple of days I kept seeing blog posts that were having crafty auctions to raise money for the Flood Appeal.  I'm hoping I'm not too late to join in.  You can read about it all here, it was the brainchild of Toni from Make it Perfect.  There are heaps of auctions around for beautiful things, you can check out the master list here.

As my experience relating to this disaster was all to do with travelling I thought it apt that my offering should be a set of Four Fabric Luggage Tags made from wonderfully fun travel themed fabric. 

 They measure about 3x5 inches apparox (8 x 12.5 cm).  They have a clear plastic covering on the front with a pocket for an address label (included) or a business card.

I would normally sell these for AU$8.50 each to give you an idea of value, so the set would be worth AU$34.  Bidding will start at AU$15 so dig deep folks!

How this auction works:

1. Bidding will start at $15 (Australian).

2. You can place a bid by leaving a comment on this blog post with your bid amount and email address. Please make sure that your bid is higher than the previous bidder.

3. Your bid must be in whole dollar increments.

4. This auction is open to everyone. Postage is FREE.

5. The auction begins NOW and will END at midnight on Monday 24th January 2011.

6. At the close of the auction, I will contact the winner (please make sure your bid comment includes your email address). The winner will pay the winning amount directly into the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal and send me proof of payment via email. Once proof of payment has been received, I will post your luggage tags to you.

7. Thankyou for participating and happy bidding!

Week 2: Do You Stack Up? Challenge - Distressing

Ok I have never been so pleased to be BACK from a holiday!  We just came back from Brisbane yesterday.  We narrowly escaped being stuck in two places by severe flooding and I am SO grateful to be home, back in Karratha, despite it's high temperature of 39 degrees celcius and with Cyclone Vince heading towards us! 

It was heartbreaking being in Queensland surrounded by people who are losing so much.  Talking to people there and watching the news clips was heart wrenching.  At one point we were stuck with no way of getting back to our hotel, the only road south was closed due to flooding.  We were able to get through later when they opened the north bound side of the carriageway it was frightening to see the other side was covered in up to a metre of water and it was VERY fast flowing under the bit of road we were on.  I don't know how much longer that road remained open, we were so glad to have decided to go for it and get through before it was closed again.  We made it into Brisbane and then out early the next day before it got really bad in the city. Please say some prayers for the people in that area.

Now moving on, if you are here for the Do You Stack Up? Challenge then here we go.  This week marks the second Challenge from Do You Stack Up?  Today we are sponsored by Whoopsi Daisy

The winner will recieve two sheets of digital stamps.  They are so cute and very clear images to work with.  The design team were lucky enough to be given some stamps to play with and I chose this cute Christmas stamp of two little cuties waiting patiently to get a glimpse of Santa - too bad they fell asleep heh!? 

Our challenge this week is:

Distressing 

I have sanded and inked up the edges and on the image and the 'wallpaper', I used my finger nail to curl up the edges. 

Also got a lot of dimension going on this week!

What are you waiting for! Scoot on over to DYSU and see what the other girls have created and get crafting!

Baby Thanks

My friend Martine and I made 30 of these cute little elephant baby gift thank you cards for a friend who is heavily pregnant and at the time of posting may well have given birth!

Sorry about the bad picture, in fact there almost wasn't one as I almost forgot to take the picture!

If you haven't done so already remember to head on over to the DYSU blog to take part in the challenge this week!

Week 1: Do You Stack Up? Challenge - Buttons

Welcome to the very first challenge for the brand new Do You Stack Up Challenge Blog!  Drum Roll please!  We have heaps of prizes up for offer this week due to the fact that we have heaps of sponsors for the opening week!!  All the DT cards were made using images from Di's Digi Downloads.  There are heaps of cute images there so head over and check them out.

Our challenge this week was:

Buttons

I made a card and Pillow Box using Poorly Pup.  Thought you could stuff the box with tissues, throat lozenges, Lemsips and other useful 'gettting better' items!

I lightly dry embossed the background with pretty flowers.  I used some of my new buttons from Stampin Up on both projects.

I added some dimensional magic (glossy accents) to his nose and the thermometer. The sentiment is computer generated.

And here is the little pillow box, I used a template downloaded for free from the internet here.

Here they are together.

Thanks for looking, now hop on over to DYSU to add your buttoned up beauty to the list!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Made this card for my Mother-in-law's birthday, hope it arrived on time!  I used the Mojo Monday sketch from last week, but I didn't want to post it then in case she sneaked on here to have a peek!  Happy Birthday Terry!

Have a great day and remember to check back tomorrow for the first DYSU challenge.