Vintage pretties…

Even though Christmas in Australia is in the middle of summer, I still think of ‘traditional’ symbols of snow, snowflakes, and warmth from cold.  So I can live my own vintage, cold weather Christmas (at least through my craft!).  Today I was inspired to create some cards using some vintage things I’ve picked up along the way.  I’ve combined my finds with Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly paper, as Cosmo Cricket papers looks like it could be vintage anyway!

They’re rather red aren’t they?  I used my new Nestabilities label 8 dies to cut the shapes from old sheet music, and the little birdies and holly are vintage from old books.  The lace is vintage, as well as the metal buttons.  I bought some old gift tags a while ago, which I cut down to size to use for the greetings-thought this was a cool idea.  Getting the idea yet that I’ve been raiding my vintage stash?   Oh, and the florist frog/stand thingy I’ve photographed them on is the newest one in my growing collection, and it’s definitely old.  Thanks for looking at my cards!

Anthea

CPS #135

The other challenge cards I made today are for the Card Positioning Systems blog.  Here’s the sketch and my cards:

I love the chipboard stickers from this range, which is from We R Memory Keepers.  In fact, I bought the papers because of the stickers.  As a cat lover I couldn’t resist that super cute sticker-especially since you don’t see cat things that often.  For these cards I’ve also used my Cuttlebug to emboss and cut out the shapes from Nestabilities dies, and done some machine and hand stitching. Phew! (it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is ),

Have a great week!

Anthea

Card Patterns Sketch 34

I’m quick off the mark this week-it’s only Monday and I’ve already finished my card challenges!  Here’s the sketch for the latest Card Patterns challenge, and my two cards:

I’ve used October Afternoon papers for these cards, as well as the matching die-cuts (which are so cute).  The rub ons are from Crate, the brads are Basic Grey, and ribbons and vintage buttons are the finishing touch. Thanks for stopping by,

Anthea

The Cats Won!!

This is extremely exciting for those like me who support Geelong, in my little corner of the world.  The match was so nerve-wracking, I kept going to turn it off in the last quarter but I couldn’t miss a second.  Premiers twice in 3 years-a fantastic result!

Anyway, I’ve managed to put together some more Christmas cards in the last couple of days.  For these I’ve combined the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper with some Papertrey Ink paper, and K & Co chipboard stickers:

I’ve also used the Eskimo Kisses fabric brads on these, one of my favourite embellishments.  My Christmas card supply is definitely growing… I’ll be looking for a market to sell my cards very soon, I’m running out of room!

My other crafting news is that I bought these gorgeous book:

I’ve wanted this book for ages, so when I got a discount voucher I just had to get it.  It’s full of projects by Australians, put together by a lady from Melbourne.  I often read her blog of the same name- it’s called Meet Me At Mike’s. It’s great to see Aussie ladies making a go of it in the craft world! Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Anthea

The day before the biggest in our sporting calendar…

Tomorrow is the AFL Grand Final, and my team is playing in it!   There’s been a great atmosphere about Geelong this week as we build up to the big game tomorrow.  It’s cool being the only AFL team in Victoria outside Melbourne-everyone gets into the spirit, and if I see one more flag flying from a car window…  Go Cats!!

Anyway, I do have some other things to show you too, not just my ramblings… I’ve started creating with the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses range, which is just gorgeous!  I don’t know how they do it, but every Basic Grey range is lovely, and their Christmas range for this year is no exception.  I bought the 6×6 paper pad (surprise, surprise), and the woolies, which are so adorable.  Here’s a few cards I’ve made with them so far:

I just love these colours and patterns- I used my Nestabilities dies, Fiskars border punch, vintage buttons, and plenty of pink paint for these.

Thankyou for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Anthea

Card Patterns Sketch 33

I also finished my cards for the latest challenge at the Card Patterns blog.  Here’s the sketch and my cards:

I wanted to use these gorgeous vintage Christmas pictures, so I put them with the Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly papers, and some Webster’s Pages and glitter paper too.  The stamp is from Papertrey Ink, and I’ve used my Spellbinders dies a lot here too.  Very vintage, which I love to do.  More Christmas cards to add to the ever-growing stash, and it’s still only September!  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by,

Anthea

CPS #134

I just finished my cards for the latest challenge at the Card Positioning Systems blog.  Here’s the sketch and my cards:

As I’ve discovered it takes almost the same amount of time to make two cards instead of one, that’s what I’ve done here.  They’re very similar, but not quite the same.  I’ve used the absolute last scraps of my Basic Grey Lemonade paper (love that paper) which I’ve pieced together in a sort of patchwork for the middle square, and Fancy Pants kraft paper for the border.  The vintage pictures for both cards are from the same book and work beautifully. 

Thanks for looking at my cards,

Anthea

Simply Cards Christmas Sparkle

Wow, this is my third post today, so I will be quick, I promise!  I just wanted to share that my latest magazine article has been published.  It’s Australian Simply Cards, and my article is called Christmas Sparkle.  I’ve made a set of 6 Christmas cards in pink and turquoise, showing lots of different techniques for adding bling to your Christmas Cards.  Grab a copy if you’re interested in seeing the details!

Sorry about the poor quality, I’ve just scanned one page of the article to show you.

Thankyou to everyone who takes the time to read my blog and comment on my creative happenings-I appreciate all of you very much.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Anthea

The quilt is FINSIHED!

So I don’t know if you will remember, but months ago I blogged about the quilt I made myself when I was 16, using all my Mum’s fabric scraps for the patchwork top, and how I still have my quilt and love to snuggle up with it, especially when I’m sick?  Anyway, that’s what started my latest project-a funky, girly, bright quilt for my litle goddaughter (who just happens to be the daughter of my best friend, too .  Cherie wanted Heidi to have the same sort of thing, and so we’ve been meeting regularly the last few months to work on the quilt, with the aim of finishing it by Heidi’s first birthday (which is in 5 days!)    Well, I’m proud to say that today I finished it!  We used vintage fabric that Heidi’s grandma has been hoarding for over 30 years-it’s the coolest stuff, and combined it with some fabric I found in op shops.  I took some pictures to show as well. 

Here’s the quilt in the ‘planning’ stage, (which means laying out all the squares on my lounge room floor):

So you can see what I mean about bright and funky… Also, it did end up being rather large, but it will look great on a single bed.  Here’s some of the finished product:

The design is nothing fancy, just squares for the top, with some stitching along some of the seams of the rows to quilt everything together.  The fabrics look so cool that we didn’t need to do anything else.  Here’s a picture of the hot pink binding:

And this last one shows the red backing:

Pretty cool, huh?  It’s such a great feeling to finish a large project like this, especially when I’m used to working on the extreme opposite end of the scale, making my much smaller cards!  Hopefully I haven’t bored you too much with my ramblings, so thanks for stopping by

Anthea

Basic Grey Challenge 4

Hi, everyone!  It’s Saturday again, and it’s been two weeks since the last Basic Grey Challenge, so it’s time for a new one!  Here’s our challenge for this fortnight:

This weeks challenge is a nice and easy one, this is one of our Lucky Draw challenges which means it can be anything at all, the challenge ideas for the Lucky Draw challenges are all put into a hat (well technically random,org hehe) and one is picked at random to be our challenge , So the challenge picked for this week is Embossing, this can be Heat or Dry Embossing or even both if you fancy , its completely up to you , but don’t forget to use at least one item from BasicGrey if you want to be able to win our Fabulous Monthly prize, Also feel free to combine your creations with any other challenge blog that allows you to do so

I love using my Cuttlebug to emboss, and I felt like doing some bright cards, so here’s the two I made for this challenge:

These little house pictures are vintage and so cute.  The Lime Rickey papers worked really well with them, and the sentiments I stamped with a Papertrey Ink Stamp.  I also used my Fiskars border punch, some buttons, a Basic Grey file, and a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  If you get the chance, check out the Basic Grey Challenge blog and look at the cards from the rest of the Design Team-they’re all different, but great and very inspiring!

Have a great weekend ,

Anthea