Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Rest In Peace Janine, We Will Remember You...

Later this week, family & friends of Janine, a fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator, will be laid to rest.

Our friendship will not be forgotten.

Janine's gentle nature will not be forgotten.

Our late night conversations will not be forgotten.

Janine's talent & attention to detail, in her cards will not be forgotten.

Janine's generosity, especially to Combat Cards, Victoria, will not be forgotten.

Her incredible fight with the insideous disease of breast cancer will not be forgotten.


                           

It is for this reason that I made this wreath for her. Made from 400 rosettes, I have up-cycled old books from the Op-Shop.

It seemed fitting for a fellow paper-crafter...

Sleep well, my friend x

Saturday, July 4, 2015

When Darcy was away on camp!!

Our youngest, Darcy went to camp a couple of weeks ago, on the day of his 11th birthday!! He loved the idea of it, but the rest of us at home felt a bit strange not celebrating with him, that night.
We had had a family birthday the weekend before, but it just wasnt the same....

So from the  minute I dropped him off to school, Darcy's brother, Kyle, his sister Rachelle, Brett and I worked erratically to re-vamp his bedroom from a young boy theme, (light blue walls) of spaceships & rockets to an 11 year olds' basketball room!!
I decided that his colours would be Pumpkin Pie & Night of Navy, two 'wow' colours for his room!!

Can you already tell this is going to be a longer post????

Rachelle was desperate to help with painting, so she was quite active on the roller. She was also happy to help with cutting in, so we were all a great team together!

Kyle was equally excited to paint, but I think he found the navy blue quite different to the appearance of the orange, in relation to the way it covered the light blue, so he wasnt so excited at first...


When Darcy was born, he had a condition called Bi-Lateral Telepes, (known as Club Foot) & therefore had quite a few operations, a long time in a wheelchair & subsequent therapy, so the fact that Darcy has played basketball for over 4 years,  is a great show of his determination & character!! 

He has never really had somewhere to proudly show off his trophies, so that was something  I really wanted in his new room... 

Thanks to Pinterest, I found an idea that I worked with until we came up with these shelves - simply by cutting into a real basketball!! The quarters were then glue-gunned to the under side of the shelves I had chenut & painted & then drilled into the wall, simple but effective!!
                                        I was a bit chuffed with how they turned out!!

While I had been working on the shelves, Brett was putting up the basketball ring and fixing the curtain rail. Rachelle & Kyle snuck away & didnt let us know what they were doing, until much later. They were working on an Inspiration Board for Darcy and his passion for basketball, how cute, right!!
                               

So finally after 2 1/2 days of craziness with stripping, painting & redecorating his room, school & work for us, Darcy was home from camp!

At first he was a bit confused as to why we werent our usual selves, we were jumping around with excitement, but then the words 'awesome,', 'cool' and 'sick' came out of his mouth as he wondered around his revamped room!!

 He particularly liked his desk in his built in robe, Rachelle's idea, the trophy shelves, the curtains, the basketball and and and...

 The basketball outline on the wall was a great feature, sharing the length of his room with the tall boy, (out of photo) and some items from his younger child hood.
I think it was all a little over-whelming for him!! 

A few days later, friends of ours were getting rid of some furniture from their house and offered it to Darcy, knowing it would fit his theme perfectly...of course he loved it immediately!!


What a great finish to his room!!

Thanks for putting up with such a long post, I loved sharing our mini make-over with you, let me know what you think :)

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Finding My Mo-Jo...

Sometimes when I need time to simply make something, but have no mo-jo, I just play around with ideas... Sometimes a card doesnt work and I throw it all out AND sometimes I get better results!!

This time just happened to work for me!!

I was wanting to make thankyou cards & I came up with these 3 designs.

This card already in the cello bags, oops, is using the Tulip Flower Two Step Stamp Set. I used Pumpkin Pie & Old Olive ink and the Thankful thinlit from the Expression collection, (it's getting a workout lately!!).


Using Delightful Daffodil, Old Olive & Rich Razzleberry ink, this card was just as quick & easy, (queasy, us Demos say!!), as the first card. Flower Patch Two Stamp Set, with the matching framelits & a feminine touch with a Pearl makes the card simple, but effective!



This card took a little longer to put together, probably because I introduced a non Stampin' Up! item, *gasp*... and it was harder to make things match with an outsider!!

I hope you can see that the "Thankful" is glossy? A close friend gave me sheets of shiny leather type paper & of course, I had to immediately play with it!!
The Big Shot had another workout with the Lucky Stars Embossing Folder, giving more texture to this card.
I then dusted off  Thoughts & Prayers, (an oldie, but a goodie) & used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to get the extra part of the stamp below the matt, in Riding Hood Red.
Come back soon to see what else Ive been creating :))