HAPPY NEW YEAR To You ALL!

Seems like ages since I've last posted anything in here, but life and its convoluted 'surprises' didn't allow me to pursue my hobby in the last 2 weeks, or to enjoy visiting your blogs.

Right before Christmas, on the night of December 23rd, my Mum died.

She has been in the hospital for four days after having a stroke (on Dec. 19th) and her health got worse and worse, with numerous complications. It looked like her poor frail feeble body gave up on her. :(
Some of you know that in September she had cancer surgery, had most of the big tumour removed, together with her right eye and also had 2 skin grafts to cover the "hole".
We had to wait for three months to finally get the biopsy result and we were about to see the oncologist for prescribing a possible treatment. But three days after we've had those, she had the stroke and it was just too much for her body.

Anyway....

I just wanted to let you all know why I've been AWOL and to excuse myself for not commenting or emailing/replying much (if at all).

Also, I wanted to wish you all

A VERY Happy New Year, with good health, peace of mind, fantastic great moments with your dear ones and lots and lots of good luck.

Big hugs,

Mada

JCBC #11 - Sketch by Gry-Heidi... and other cards too

The way it looks lately, I can only deal with this blogging stuff once a week, on Saturday or Sunday. I hate that but have no other real option for now.

The new challenge for the coming week on Just Christmas and Birthday Cards (or JCBC as I like to call it) is to make one or two cards following Gry-Heidi's sketch which, as usual, you'll get to see tomorrow when the new challenge will be posted.

In the meantime, try to decipher what the sketch looks like by looking at my two cards. LOL

Christmas Card

Stamps: Basic Grey [for the background] and Anita's [Santa Clause]
Some heat embossing on the tag, glitter glue, peel offs, ribbon and two zooms


and Birthday Card

Stamps: Whiff of Joy
Papers are free downloads, flowers, gems, peel offs and ribbon are from stash.
The ribbon says "Happy Birthday!" in Romanian. :)

Both images were coloured with a technique I've never tried before, using regular (non-watercolour) pencils (Caran d'Ache) and baby oil.

I LOVE it and will use it all the time from now on. :)

I am aware that many of you have heard about it and are using it, but I first saw this technique explained on my friend Tracey's blog.

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Here are a few other cards I made over the weekend:

A small thank you card using an awesome Spiral Whisper stamp designed by our talented Chris


A Christmas card with Herb (Whiff of Joy stamp) and a sentiment I've fallen in love with, from Anita's Christmas Classics stamps set


Another Christmas card, this time with my very favourite angel - Charlotte from Whiff of Joy

As mentioned above, all images were coloured with pencils + baby oil. All the cards smell very nice, believe me. :-D

Well, now I have to return to my other cards that need to be made. I still have 7-8 Christmas cards to make real quick, for "local" people. The "international" ones have been taken care of. Yay!

Thank you for passing by, hope you all had a great weekend.

Challenge #10 -- Just Christmas and Birthday Cards

For this week the sketch we had to follow was made by my talented co-worker Kristin. :) I loved the sketch - very versatile and easy to follow. Thanks Kristin!

This is the sketch:

And here are my two cards:

Birthday Card
(the one you can see on the JCBC blog)


The green background paper is made by me in Paint Shop Pro
The image is a stampprint I received from dear Karin.
Some peel offs, flowers, punched mini hearts and that's about all.

Christmas Card


I stamped the cardstock with snowflakes, bordered it with peel offs, added 3 stripes of Dovecraft DP then the stamped and gold embossed reindeer on showflake paper from Tracey's Blue Christmas Poinsettia Pack.
The stamps I used - Anita's Christmas Classics - and the white poinsettia flowers are a recent gift from my dearest friend Sue.

Hope you'll drop by our blog this week, we will have an EXTRA Challenge on Wednesday and the main prize for that one will be a lovely stamp from Spiral Whisper.

Thank you for being here! :)

Whiff of Joy Challenge - #10

I'm so late, late, late with this and I don't think it will be eligible as the challenge ended on Tuesday - it's already Wednesday where I am :(

But if I finished it I might as well give it a try. The WoJ challenge was to make "other than a card" and I made a small giftbox from scratch - draw the template (my printer is without ink), cut it out, dressed it with paper. Then I stamped and heat embossed the Whiff of Joy Christmas Tree and added some gems and a small bow. The box closes with a piece of ribbon.

I did everything in an hour, which is my personal record of the moment. :) The problem is I started working too late.

Well, here it is:

This is the first giftbox I've ever made myself. Please be kind. :D

Thank you for looking.

(Too many?) Holes for Dutch Dare #25

The Dutch Dare Challenge #25 asks of us to make a card with a hole somewhere on it.

I've put so many on mine, there's enough for everybody - LOL.

Added about a truckload of all sorts of shimmery stuff and a stamped and heat embossed snowflake (a Basic Grey stamp I think).

But Christmas IS all about shining stars and bright lights and colours, isn't it? :-D

Thank you for looking!

Learning from Mel and JCBC #9...

Having the day off today was much more rewarding than I would have ever thought. Knowing I don't have to be up at dawn, I stayed up all night and I am still up... but surely not for much longer :)

I am so very very pleased with myself because I crafted in one evening/night (add a bit of today too) more than I did over an entire week. And I have to say that I also really, really like the cards I've made - that's a very rare statement, I tell you.

Let's start with Mel, her fabulous creativity and blog - if you've never visited you should. :) Over the months I've been saving ideas and cards from her blog, thinking I will have to try them sometime. And I did today...

HERE you'll find one of Mel's cards that I adore and details about a technique I was planning to experiment for some time now - "Embossed Silhouette Stamping"

And here is my *Homage to Mel* ;)

I've been having this nice little stamp from my dearest friend Sue, and never had any idea how or where to use it, until I saw Mel's card. Of course, I couldn't "copy" it properly and make an elegant card like she did but I do think I've come up with something that resembles the original some 25%. :-D

** Another technique I've admired on Mel's cards was the 'knot embellishments'.

I thought to myself that if I keep focused and give it my whole being, I will be able to use a big needle and 'tangle up' a few threads. LOL

Well, I did it and it was an adorable experience. I will definitely repeat it soon.

Thank you Mel, you're a great inspiration and a fine teacher!

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Now about the JCBC # 9

I used knots for adorning the background paper on the Christmas card I made for Just Christmas and Birthday Cards, the challenge blog where, unbelievably, I am one of the DT members. :)

Have a look at my knots first....

You can't see them? :D You can click the pic and see it bigger. There's a bit of gold thread in there...
Well, they're the non-shiny ones on the big white snowflake near Joel's head. I so love this dear deer and I felt like a monster having to decapitate him for this card.

The whole card looks like this:

Stamps:
Whiff of Joy - Herb with Bird
and
Toodles & Binks - Joel, the Reindeer
(both coloured with watercolour pencils and some glittery markers)
Designer Paper: Dovecraft - one of their Christmas collections from last year

• This week's challenge - #9 - at JCBC uses a sketch made by my co-worker Amanda. It's an adorable sketch and very versatile, there are tons of things you can do with it or on it. :)

Thank you Amanda!

I've used the same sketch for producing this Birthday Card...

No stamping on this one, except for the sentiment which I've "invented" using a big letter (from a "Just Rite" set) and part of a clear stamp (Studio G) which I've cut out. Originally, it was a tag stamp which said "Oh, happy day!"

Designer papers are a gift from my generous friend Karin. I've punched a few flowers and added itsy bitsy ribbon, blings and peel offs.

Thank you for bearing with me through this long and convoluted post.

Hugs to all!

Many, Many Yummy (blog) Candies

The kindness and generosity of blog people has always amazed me. I've been even more amazed at some of the Blog Candies for this month.
Christmas has started early my friends, and here I present you the dear Santas who are offering us some absolutely gorgeous presents :

• Karin, my wonderful friend and boss (over at Just Christmas and Birthday Cards) is offering 2 blog candies. One of them consists of 3 - yes, three! - Magnolia stamps.
  

Check out Karin's candy and see the goodies for yourself! :)

Candy closes on DECEMBER 7th.
Winner will be announced the day after.

• The fantastic ladies at Whiff of Joy Stamps have started an Advent Calendar and they're disclosing a new gift for each and every day, from now till Christmas eve.

Pop up at their place and be a kid again, opening one window a day with lots of excitement and treating yourself with a chance to win
gorgeous WoJ stamps.

• The lovely Crafty C-laire is giving away a fabulous candy to celebrate her over 36,000 hits in just over a year.
  

May there be many more ahead! :)

You really need to see for yourself her loooooooooong list of gifts - they are all fab! [ a few of them I would kill for :-D]

Take care and do so until Sunday 14th DECEMBER, when
the yummy offer ends.

• Now go have a look at Artfully Ila. OK, at her picture too if you so wish :), but I was actually sending you to see the two goodie packs she's offering - you won't believe your eyes how many fantastic things are in there. And you even get a chance to brag about your favorite Christmas movie or your favorite Christmas song.
  

If you find all that as tempting as I did, enter yourself
into the competition... by Wednesday night DECEMBER 3rd.

Not much time left so hurry up people! :)

Now I just have to go and put my name on those lists.... bye-bye!