Childhood Revisited

For a while I've been nagging Gus for a Nintendo DS so I can play games on the train trip to and from work.  After much debate about whether the DSi-XL was worth the money, we finally settled on getting either a DS Lite or DSi, depending on what the costs were.  On the weekend, Gus found a great deal on eBay on a used DSi and it arrived today.  Whoo hoo! 

It's still in very good condition and doesn't look like it's been played much. Maybe it was an unwanted present?!? It came with two games, of which one hadn't even been opened yet!  I wanted a pink or blue one, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.  At least it's white and not black.  I can alter it with cut vinyl from the Craft Robo I guess. LOL

*happy dance*

I'm not sure I've been this excited over an electronic gaming device since I got my first Nintendo Game & Watch when I was about 8!!!  I'm sure you other Gen X'ers know what I'm talking about. LOL

At least I had some excitement on this otherwise grey, rainy and thoroughly boring day!

*hugs*

Dusting Off the Copics

My UKS friend, Toni, has been doing a bit of colouring on her blog, and that reminded me of what I did this past weekend.

In November 2009, as a reward for achieving a particularly difficult goal I set for myself, I bought myself the complete set of 144 Copic Ciao pens.

After lots of oohing and ahhing and lots of photographs of the pretty colours, I put them safely away to be used when I had the time.

And that is where they have sat for the past 7 months.

Until this week!

Having spent soooo much money on them, I couldn't let them just sit and gather dust, so I pulled out the two boxes, dusted them off and gingerly lifted the box lids. The pens were still nice and shiny and were begging me to use them.

So I did. I stamped a CC Designs stamp with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink onto a piece of cardstock (not the best, but I'm still waiting for some X-press It Blender Card to arrive) and started colouring in following an online tutorial that was using the same stamp.

I think I have a lot more practising to do before my shading will look any good, but what do you think?

*hugs*

Like the New Look?

As you may have noticed, Photobucket seems to be stuffing all the blog background providers around, and Hot Biggity Blog was no different.

So I took this opportunity to find a new background - like it?

Maybe with this fresh new look, spring might come earlier? LOL

One can only hope!

ETA: For some reason the background doesn't always appear. :( Maybe I'll have to choose another background.

*hugs*

Inaugural Monday Giggles

Welcome to my new weekly post - Monday Giggles!

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to laugh more (see THIS layout). Okay, so it's taken me seven months to actually do anything about my resolution, but by now you should know that I tend not to do things in a timely manner. "Last Second" (forget the Last Minute, I'm down to the Last Second now!) seems to have become my middle name. LOL

So, I came up with the idea of having a regular weekly post containing something that will make me (and hopefully all of you) laugh - ESPECIALLY on a Monday as Monday-itis has been rampant of late. Monday Giggles will include videos, cartoons, funny photos, jokes etc. If you have an idea or something funny, by all means let me know and I can include it in future posts.

Without further ado, I present to you the video that sparked the idea of Monday Giggles. Enjoy!



Come back next Monday for some more giggles!

*hugs*

A Couple of Cards

I made a couple of cards this week - one for a work colleague and one for my little nephew.

A lady at work has been with the organisation for 25 years. 25 years!!! Good grief - that's staying power for you! Anyway, a few of us convinced The Boss that the organisation should pay for her ticket to the final Wicked show since a group of us are going anyway. He agreed and I said I'd do up a card and voucher thingy:

I didn't take a photo of the voucher (which I stuck inside), but it wasn't anything exciting! Just a Wicked Logo with the details of the show underneath. The card was more interesting!

So onto the card for my nephew. He turns 9. I can't believe how fast all my nephews and nieces are growing!

And wouldn't you know it? I've already used some of that stash goodness that I showed you yesterday! I thought the My Minds Eye Lil' Robots collection would be fantastic to make cards from and sure enough, it is!!

It's been quite a busy weekend and I'm pretty exhausted so today is going to be a do absolutely nothing day! This week will be busy too, but I'll have a 5 day weekend next weekend, so I hope to do some scrapping or cardmaking at least!!

*hugs*

Oh my! Stash Delivery Ecstasy

It's stocktake sale time in Aus and I've been having a ball going through all my favourite scrapping stores and buying up big. I know that my recent teeny pay rise probably wouldn't even cover half of ONE order, but I am so helpless when I see "__% off" emails/signs. LOL

So, here are the first three orders that have arrived over the past week.

The first one was absolutely huge!! Here are the papers:

Here is the rest of the order:

The second order was a bit smaller and was just paper with a Sakura pen as well:

This shop I bought from have a freebie every week for lucky person and yours truly received the freebie this time, yay!! And what a fantastic freebie - a huge lot of chipboard shapes from Scrapware. Chipboard heaven!! LOL

Finally, I received a huge order of ribbons that are all absolutely divine!

"So, are we going to be seeing any of that gorgeous stash on any layouts anytime soon?!?" I hear you ask. Short answer? No.

Not until I'm done stroking. LOL

*hugs*

New Life Layout

Well, this week it's the Urban Faeries Team who are hosting the Weekly Challenge over on UKS. That's my team if you haven't already guessed. LOL

We had five elements to the challenge:

1. Make your own background or patterned paper
2. Embossing
3. Stamping
4. Use summer colours
5. Use lace

So here's my example layout:

Close-up shot:

Journalling close-up:

I made my own patterned paper by dabbing ink through an Impressibilities stencil onto orange paper. With the yellow cardstock, I used a Fiskars Embossing Border Punch to create the lacey border. The stamped elements were the little birdies and the journalling circle. The lace is pretty self-explanatory. LOL Finally, I did use Summery colours. Sort of. I couldn't help that by "going-with-the-flow", my summery colours tended towards late-Autumn-early-Spring colours! LOL

Right, well here are the materials used (are you ready?!): Bazzill White CS; Grant Archival orange paper; DCWV yellow & aqua CS; Spellbinders Flowers Impressibilities; Fiskars Eyelet Lace Embossing Border Punch; MS Arched Lattice Corner & Border punch set; Kaisercraft gems; Prima E-Line Celebrations Bright flowers; Green Tara mini flowers; The Paper Co Whimsical Birds clear stamps & Kaisercraft Journal clear stamps; Distress Ink Peeled Paint; Memento Dye Inks rose Bud & New Sprout; Green Sakura pen; Blue & Orange Whispers Markers; Staedtler pink pen; ribbon and lace unknown; Font for title is Storybook Regular, cut on CraftRobo. Lastly, I used a Pagemap Sketch from the first Pagemaps book.

I had fun doing this layout, although stressing at the same time because I was winging it along the way with regards to all the elements. LOL As I tend to scrap mostly in muted Autumn tones, I had to dig through practically every box in my craftroom just to find brightly coloured stash! Note to self: throw more bright coloured stash into shopping cart when stash shopping.

Oh, and what happened to the second week of Jessica Sprague's Cardmaking course and the rest of Shimelle's course?!?! Um . . . coming up in the near future!

Or perhaps not so near . . .

Stay tuned!

*hugs*

Shimelle's Love Your Pictures Love Your Pages

I signed up for my first formal Shimelle course last month - Love Your Pictures Love Your Pages and it started today.

Well, it technically started yesterday (5 July 2010), but with all the time differences (Aus, UK, US), I didn't start until late last night and not really properly until today! Considering it was close to midnight last night by the time I saw the challenges, I wasn't going to stay up any longer to post them here!

Anyway, Shimelle had posted two challenges to do before the official prompts. Challenge 1 was to find a photo that makes me smile. This was hard because there are a lot of photos that make me smile! But here is one of my favourites:

Wherever we go, if there's a ball to be found, Falcon will find it - even if the ball is almost bigger than him. And yes, he will want to play fetch with it. LOL

Challenge 2 was to take a picture within the next five minutes (of having read the challenge). So I took this one of Falcon sleeping in MY chair!! Incidentally, we had ordered two new leather recliners and they arrived last Friday. Since then the dogs have spent more time in the recliners than I have. LOL

I really love this photo. Without trying, it turned out perfect with the leading lines, the thirds and the nice depth of field towards the back. The lighting was just right too as I bounced the flash off the ceiling, but left enough shadow to make it look quite moody. Maybe I'll even turn it into B&W and see how it turns out? We'll see.

Stay tuned for more Shimelle and Photography goodness (I'm already two prompts behind!!! *rolleyes*)! :D

*hugs*

"Computer Tricks for Cards" - a Jessica Sprague Class

Wrap-up of Week 1

Jessica Sprague is currently offering a free course to teach hybrid cardmaking called Computer Tricks for Cards. It runs for two weeks and we are currently in the second week of the course already.

As usual, I'm running really behind, so thank goodness that it's a self-paced course despite the classes being posted daily. Over the weekend I thought I'd better catch up, so amidst lots of procrastination, taking the dogs for walks and feeding us all, I managed to go through all the lessons up to last Friday. So without further ado, let me show you what I did:

The first class was to try printing on different papers to see what they all look like. The top photo was the original file and I printed it on matt photo paper. In the bottom photo, I used different digital papers (Shabby Princess Vintage Floral), but printed on normal 190gsm cardstock.

Still on the first class, but a different card. As above, the top photo was the original file and the bottom photo I used different digital papers (Gina Jane Butterfly Gold from Daisie Digitals. I printed the original file on gloss photo paper and matt photo paper.

The second class taught us how to "clip" papers to various digital elements. A simple card, but I did learn something as I didn't know how to use clipping masks. :D

The third class is where the card got a bit more interesting, and not so "flat". This one had dimension and I learnt how to use digital elements paired with real life supplies to create a great looking card. I used Fiskars Threading Water and Upper Crest punches, and I have no idea where the ribbon is from! I changed the greeting as the original was "Congratulations". I don't usually give congrats cards so thought HB was more useful. :D

I think this one is my favourite card so far. The making of it was a teeny bit more complex, but still very easy. The top photo shows the outside of the card, nothing special but quite cheerful and colourful. I love the pop up bit when you open the card (bottom photo) as I think it's really cute. I added the greeting and tree border in a moment of rare creativity. LOL

Finally, Friday's class. I learnt how to use Photoshop Brushes as stamps (the different camera images on the background kraft card are all from a Photoshop brush), which was pretty cool. The rest of the card was just basic assembly. The bottom photo shows the inside which is something different - not an element I'd think of to put inside a card, but there you have it!

Saturday's class was about making a card holder to hold all our cards, but I think I'll skip this one and make it another day. Sunday was a revision day - to go back over what we learnt throughout the week and see if we can apply it to our own cards.

So far I'm loving this course as I've learnt a few things about Photoshop that I didn't know before. The cards aren't really my style and I do kinda find them a little "flat", if you know what I mean. I still love the lumpy bumpy look!

Join me again at the end of the week for a wrap up of this week's classes. :D

*hugs*

80s Awesomeness!!

If you are a child of the 80s like I am, have I found one of the best blogs for you!

Oooh, look! Dukes of Hazard! Oh, and there's He-Man!! Wait, wait, KNIGHT RIDER!!!!!

I'm in 80s heaven! LOL

Branded in the 80s collects together some of the best ads, candy wrappers, books, DVDs etc. of the 1980s. Talk about a blast-from-the-past!!! Unfortunately most of it is American but which country hasn't had it's share of Americanism?!?

Enjoy the reminiscing!

*hugs*

My New Hat Layout

Well, as promised earlier on in the week (although a little late I know!), here is the layout.

I pretty much used all Kaisercraft products and the paper range is Prairie Lane. I spent FOREVER cutting out all the flower/snowflaky things and my hands and arms are still trying to recover!

The journalling reads: "Winterfest 2010: After hours of enduring the freezing cold, I finally had enough and brought a hat to at least keep my head warm!!" And yes, I realised afterwards that I should have used "bought" instead of "brought", but I couldn't do anything to fix it! They should make brown liquid paper. LOL

Here are some close ups of the flowers:

Thanks for stopping by!

*hugs*