total non-crafting post

well it is! i was on tv :> http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/56#watchonline hehehehehehehehehe

painting painting painting

i have always enjoyed doing paintings for kids...and a few for myself...so when i got a new catalogue from a local toy supplier i was inspired to turn a few of their toys into paintings. so here are my attempts... these paintings are for sale. so if you are interested please feel free to give me a bell :> cheers ears “Who was the first guy that look at a cow and said," I think that I'll drink whatever comes out of those things when I squeeze them?”

elite stampers march challenge

well i have been a good girl and done yet another challenge set by the amazing carol for the elite stampers group. it has given me a good chance to use colours i would not normally touch with a barge pole and use stamps i have but never use. the first challenge i did was a colour challenge of "Wild Orchid Nights" using Wild Wasabi, Orchid Opulence, and Night of Navy. As i only have the wild wasabi ink pad i was encouraged to dust off my chalks and use them to get the colours i needed for the challenge. so i chalked up the leaves and petals in mainly the challenge colours but also added some other colours to give the flower some depth. then i went over the chalks with my water pen and finished them off with some soft subtles markers and dazzling diamond. then i cut out various peices and stuck them up/down (who knows really?) to make them sticky-outy (is that even a real word lol?. I put them onto night of navy car but it looked boring so wondered what i could do to make it look good without distracting from the big pretty flower....hmm...some pondering took place i can tell you. then i thought i would try some so swirly on vellum.I versamarked with so swirly and tried that...nah too borign! i added some heat and stick powder to the versamark, heated it and then added the dazzling diamonds and....oooooooooo...pretty! The next challenge i tried was to use the stamp set bodacious bouquet. now i do not possess this stamp set but i had a few samples snaffled during the inklings team weekend away. so i thought why not use them to do something. i also have a fixation (as you have seen on previous posts) for little notebooks so rather than do a card i would use the bodacous bouquet to play on a notebook. so i punched out the various elements i had and stuck them together. i put in some extra holes and followed up with yet more dazzling diamonds (reminder to self: take out shares in dazzling diamonds factory). then i added a tab on the side and some fibre and ribbon snaffled from my ribbon box to top it all off . The last challenge i did was a sketch challenge which was really cool to do. i altered it a bit but have kept to the original idea i think. i wanted to go monochromatic as much as possible and i also wanted to use up scraps i had lurking in my scrap pile. i had my so swirly wheel still out from the colour challenge so i rolled that in some stazon onto the gloss white card. then i took my illuminated wheel and rolled that in versamark, added some silver embossing powder and heated it all to make the super dooper swirley back ground. i wanted some more silver but didn't have any card. so i versamarked a strip of scrap card, added silver embossing powder and heat gunned that to make a silver strip of card that kind of looked like ribbon. the next thing i did was find a butterfly image i had staz-oned (i think a touch of nature stamp set?) from an inkling gathering onto vellum. i added some glu-stik to that and squashed it onto some dazzling diamonds. then i let it dry as flat as I could with some blu-tak holding it down as vellum tends to curl when damp. then i put the whole lot together with soem black card, vellum and a punched out black circle and some brads. i was really pleased with how this came out. i like it when the card in your head matches the card that you make :> okies better go and do some mummy stuff lol cheers ears There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.. ~Indira Gandhi~

doing the monster munch

well here are some more boy cards based on our favourite frankenstein monster. these cards are so easy. green card for the base. add some zigzag cut black card for hair. add some eyes. the mouth is an oblong with 2 white oblongs for teeth. the nose is an oblong with folds at about 5mm and 10 mm which is then folded over to give a 3d nose. then i added a scar and some pimples with the crystal effects. inside it reads "have a montrous time on your birthday" cheers ears

feast or famine

yeah well i have taken a lot of photos of stuff i have done so i need to get it all in here while i remember and get some time on the computer while the kids are busy...sssshhhh but they are busy playing lego batman lol **touch wood** they stay there for the next 10 mins while i do this aye? so where were we...oh yes....i have been part of an atc swap with my fellow SU demos and it has been really loads of fun so far and I have been seeing great ideas and getting inspired. this months one is using glossy card stock. I also wanted to try emerging colour so figured this swap would be an excellent time to try it out. I also needed to use a stamp set that wasn't retiring which was pretty tricky as I seem to have got a lot of retired sets this year...ho hum..never mind...i might just have to buy some new ones...whistle...lol uh oh here comes the baby...must type quickly! anyways i stamped the cupcake from short and sweet in about 6 different bright colours all over the A4 gloss white. then i got circles from seeing spots and a circle and a star from some different sets. i versamarked them all over the little cupcakes, sprinkled clear embossing powder on them and heat gunned them to death. after that i added my fave colour <> with a brayer all over the card giving it a really bright happy feel to it. i scalloped edged the sides nad peirced them with a pokey stick and stuck it onto some tempting turquoise card. To make it more fun I added a little embellishment made from a paper clip with a stamped cupcake on it. i added a matching ribbon (i ran out of blue so had to do some with red **blush**) and stuck that on with stampin dimensionals. i over did the embellishment so thought i had better do something with them otherwise they will languish somewhere in a box somewhere on my desk somewhere in the study. so what does a girl do? make cards with them, of course!!! I added them to some card with some enbossed happy birthday card added. gave them some bling and voila-5 very easy quick cards which are always the ebst kind some days hahahaha okies better go-lego batman seems to be ahving difficulty dealing with some green goo adn mum the mighty game player is needed for her skill and manual dexterity to help him and robin out. cheers ears “Do you know why they call it 'PMS'? Because 'Mad Cow Disease' was already taken.”

inklings march cyber crop

truth be told i am normally very crap at doing these. I start off with the best intentions in the world and then it all falls apart :> so last Tuesday i made sure everything was in place and the planets were aligned so i could do what i was aked to do....and I still haven't finished :> but at least i made most of the challenge hahahaha our first task was to make something with an irish/st patricks day theme i.e. green was in!! my first idea was to make a mini album. I have been playing with my polymer clay and my cuttlebug embossing folders and made a few tiny album covers amongst other things. so i added some lovely SU paper to it and some rub-ons and a few stamps (am loving the SAB sets on offer) and some ribbon (although getting it through the teeny tiny holes was a complete mission)and was pretty happy with the result. I was thinking about makig some more but maybe a more girly theme....hmmm...will go away and ponder that one. whilst I was making that i stumbled across a xmas card i had made with the Pretty Princess stamp set that had her wearing a santa hat instead of a crown. i wondered if I could adapt her to become a wee irish lassie. So i staz-oned the dress outline and then coloured it in with water colour pen and ink pads. then cut out the dress very carefully. unfortunately the legs fell off whilst cutting **blush*** so i tried some thing new and opted for some bead legs instead...hmmm...not sure if it works or not to be honest but at least she looks as if she is doing an irish fling now :>. I used a pink button for her face and some brown wool/fibre i had lurking in my ribbon box for her hair. i added the ugly green flower as an after thought as the card didn't look quite finished. it is supposed to be a clover and if ti wasn't so stuck to the card I think i would have taken it off as it looks naff but ... meh...what's done is done aye!!! the next challenge was to make a box. i used up some card stock i had redecorated for an atc swap. it was wax candle drawn onto white gloss card and then daubered over with red and purely pomengranate. i added some pretty punched flowers and snaffled some lace from my ribbon box to finish it off. it was really simple and am seriously thinking of doing this at my next workshop. okies that's it for now. i still have a layout to do-will attempt that tonight and possibly add it some time hahahahaha cheers ears I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. ~Henry Louis Mencken

may the force be with you

and it was! as mentioned on a previous entry i belong to a internet card swap group that ahs a different topic each month. this month was boy's cards which i often find quite tricky. so imagine my surprise when i found this idea http://www.campbellcreations.net/?p=482 and adpted it to my own. i had a ball making this card. firstly i found a simple darth colouring in picture off the net and cut it into 2 peices. then i cut the peices out of black card, splodged versamark ink all over and covered the peices with black embossing powder. then i heat gunned it and made it all shiny and plastic looking-just like darth. i suppose gloss black card would do the same job but i didn't have any :> then i outlined darth oh so handsome features with a silver gel pen. i tried white but it didn't stand out as well. i stuck the hat down with 3d tape and the face with dst. then i printed out a favourite darth saying onto gloss white card. i stuck the whole lot down onto some blue bayou card stock which i prettied up with some star stamps in taken with teal ink. all in all i was quite pleased with the result although a dozen darth vaders staring at me on my desk is a little scarey hahahahahaha. if you want the template for this card please contact me here or at clare@crafty-cow.com and i am happy to share :>