Stamps Ahead

I was recently asked to lead an evening community group make Rustic Christmas Logs.  The original leader was unavailable and I was asked to step in.   Here are the ladies (and two fantastic young ladies) with their rustic log creations.   It was a fun evening and I was so pleased with each of the creations made. They will all look great on Christmas set tables this year. Thanks for looking, Margaret.

Here are a few Christmas cards I created for a class I lead at a local community college. This was first one I played with - using distress inks. I did not end up going with these colours for the ladies and stuck to more conservative Christmas colours for the one below.  This card using stamps that were 'freebies' in a Papercraft magazine this year.  I went with the gold embossing to create this elegant card. Tonight I am heading off to lead a class in a completely different craft.  Stay tuned for photos. Thank you for looking.   Margaret :)  

This layout is for song lyric challenge over at Soul Scrappers .  Now this layout really has nothing to do with the Bee Gees, even though I am posing with their sculptures in Redcliffe, Queensland.  It is about the lyrics, again not the Bee Gees but lyrics by Francesca Battestelli from the song I Am Home. The chorus includes the words, " Maybe I was made to wander, m aybe I was born to roam." These are the words that inspired me. The sticker I adhered to the handwritten journaling (by the way covering up a flower or two) also inspired by the north, south, east and west included in the song. From childhood I think I have had wanderlust - we had a family friend who we called Uncle Frank and he would go on holidays and bring us back tales of his travels and one time I remember we got the old fashioned airline bags as a gift.  Did it start then? Later, we had a neighbourhood friend, a few years older, who went on a ship to England for a year, she came back and shared with...

Here are some more layouts I completed during the past weekend at the retreat I went to, enjoy and I would love you to comment (if you are able) as I love to see where the visitors to my blog come from. I appreciate all the comments (except spam that is instantly deleted). Thanks, so settle back as I write a little about each layout. Recently, I went around to my sisters and said "it is a beautiful day let's head out for lunch and a bit of relaxation."  So we grabbed a couple of sandwiches, soft drinks and a cake from local shops, and headed to the waterfront at Woy Woy in New South Wales.  Just down the road for us about 5 minutes away.   The pelicans were resting on the shoreline, and sure enough this one, we nicknamed "Mr Percival" came over to join us as we ate - shoo, go, we have no food etc etc but he (I am assuming a he) stayed for awhile and looked at us as begging for a handout.  Not that day!!! The organizer of the retreat sets a bingo challenge...

This layout is for a challenge over at White with 1 The challenge was: The colour Niagara. I think this is the first time I have done a challenge at White with 1.  I was in a quandary about just what blue was Niagara.  First a little about the photo - this time last year I was getting ready for a holiday in Europe.  One of the places that the tour went was the Swarovski Factory in Austria.  They had this tunnel of sparkle that you walked through - you can see the many reflections of me and my blue coat in the photo. I kept the layout simple as it just did not suit flowers!!!!   I did use a gelato colour watered down and applied through the circle stencil and also I used a white gel pen with the stencil for bit of added 'whiteness'.   The distressing of the layers is to give the impression that I will walk further into the tunnel - well that is what I was trying to achieve!!!.  Oh, and by the way, I am exaggerated in size in...

This past weekend I was on a scrapbooking retreat and I managed to complete several pages - I will be sharing with you however some were for individual challenges and so I am posting them first. This layout was for a challenge over at ARTastic Challenge Blog  and their challenge criteria was Vintage style. At little about the photo.  It is a photo of my grandfather, who we called Pop.  It shows him in his garden beside some climbing roses.  It is how I remember him - he always had his pipe, his braces and mostly wore his slippers.  He came from County Derry, Ireland in 1900 and he never lost his Irish accent on certain words.  This layout started completely different, I had plans to use a photo of the seaside, but when I found this photo I knew that I had to use it.  It seems strange using pink on a masculine page, don't you think, however the pink climbing roses dictated the colour scheme.  I made the tags, the large pink flower and the fl...

Another challenge over at Soul Scrappers  was to use lace and/or ribbon on your card.  Here is my card, I went vintage style....  I was going through my stash of papers when I found a sheet of images in Meg's Garden, A Vintage Christmas Paper Stack - some larger and some with different images.  When I saw them I immediately thought I will go all out 'vintage'.  So I raided the lace stash and found some vintage lace, raided the button stash and found vintage buttons and the addition of a piece of twine (not vintage-haha) and added to the card.  Next I went on the internet to find a vintage greeting for the inside - see below - so perfect. No stamping, so good for those of you who do not like stamping, just a little bit of sponging. Thank you for looking.   Margaret :) It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

There are currently Christmas Card challenges over at Soul Scrappers  and I created this card for the challenge "add a wreath to your card".   Lots of fun punching out medium daisy punch from Kaszazz and manipulating them to have some dimension. I wanted it to be like a wreath hanging on a door. Thank you for looking, Margaret. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."