Month: July 2013

Golden delight

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, PhotographyLeave a comment

I have been saddened to hear off all the incidents around the world – Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Florida. My thoughts go out to everyone that is affected by these tragedies. I hope this photo helps send a little cheer to everyone out there in blogosphere.
I was a little concerned as my daughter is travelling over in Europe at the moment as had been in Italy last time I heard from her. I was really pleased she rang me today to reassure me she was ok.
I hope you all have a good day and Happy Snapping.
Patricia

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Spring ray of sunshine

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Photography5 Comments

We have had the most amazing weather over the last few days and the daffodils are starting to come out in the garden which is lovely. It is so heartening to see the bright splashes of colour after all the grey and drab days of winter. Soon there will be more flowers and the days will get warmer and longer and then it is the downward ride towards Christmas and summer.
We have had some more earthquakes but I haven’t felt them, but I know a lot of people are getting quite nervous. We certainly are getting an idea of what the people in Christchurch have been through in the last 3 years.
I hope this photo cheers everyone up and helps them get through the week.
Happy snapping.
Patricia

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Tears of Spring

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Photography8 Comments

Welcome
We have had a torrid time of it lately with severe storms and just recently an earthquake on Sunday night. Fortunately, we have been very lucky but it has been a wake up call to remind us that we are living in the Shaky Isles.
However, yesterday I noticed that the daffodils are starting to come and heralding the onset of spring. We still have another month to go before we are officially in spring but it is heartening to see the signs of the seasons changing and that we are heading towards better weather.
I think this jonquil is called Early Cheer and it certainly does cheer us up with their colour and scent.
I hope you all have a great day.
Happy snapping
Patricia

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Special cards for the Special person

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Cardmaking, Crafts, Greetings7 Comments

Welcome back to my blog and thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and leave comments.  I really enjoy getting your feedback.

Here is some more cards for Make Shift and this time I tried to keep to a very simple colour theme.  I love the look of cream on cream, gold and cream and white on white with lots of different textures and shapes. Plus I have added a little bling with some gold glitter cardstock to add some sparkle to a few cards.  My Cuttlebug has had a good workout with the embossing folders and die cuts to create the different textures and patterns.  I have also purchased some dies to make my own flowers and find that they add a different dimension to my cards.

Gold and cream birthday card Cream and gold card Cream and gold card Cream and gold card Cream on cream card Cream on cream card Cream on cream card

 

I have used a few different companies to create these cards and the materials I have used are:

Memory Box dies – Cherry Blossom, Chloe, Pippi Butterfly

Spellbinders dies -Fantastic Flourish One, Fancy Framed Tag Two

Fiskar punch – flower

Marianne Creatables – English Rose (LRO162), Branches (LRO151), Ivy (LRO206), Lord and Lady (LRO211)

Marianne Craftables – CR1204

Embossing Folders – Nellie Snellen – HSF004 (oval frame) and HSF005 (rectangle frame)

Peelcraft Stickers

Kaisercraft pearls

Stampin’Up greetings

Ribbon from my stash

I hope that I have remembered all the materials I have used.  As I have said before I am working through all my stash so that I can start fresh with Close to My Heart products.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Happy Crafting

Patricia

 

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A solution to the Creative Memories pages and protectors dilemma

On By patriciamanhireIn Close to My Heart, Crafts, Creative Memories, Photography, ScrapbookingLeave a comment

Welcome back.

This is a quick post is for all those people out there (like me) who have Creative Memories albums but not enough pages or protectors.  The very resourceful new CTMH Consultants in Australia have discovered a solution to your dilemma.  You can convert the CTMH page protectors to use in your CM albums and save a lot of money instead of trawling through Trade Me or Ebay and paying exorbitant prices.  It looks to be very easy to do and the CTMH pages are really good quality and will protect your photos in many years to come.  I am really hanging out until the time I can sign up as a Close to My Heart Consultant in New Zealand.  Hopefully it will be early next month.

Please check out this YouTube video for further information and details:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5rIJlpQEpY&feature=youtu.be

I hope you find this useful during this transition from Creative Memories to Close to My Heart.

Happy scrapping

Patricia

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Mirror Mirror

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Photography2 Comments

Hello again.
I do apologise that I have been a little remiss in updating my blog lately but I have been very busy making cards for Make Shift and having to work through a lot of fatigue as well.
The weather was lovely today and I took the opportunity to go back to the duck pond for another photography session. I have another camera club competition next week and the theme is ‘reflection’. I have tried several times to capture a duck and a perfect reflection but haven’t been too successful with the sun in the wrong place and too much wind. But the conditions were very pleasant today, despite the ducks being a little spooked by some rowdy children. This photo came out quite well and I will look at entering into the competition with it. It will be interesting getting feedback from a professional photographer about it, so I can develop as a photographer.
I hope you all have a good weekend and Happy snapping.
Patricia

 

A whole new world coming to New Zealand with Close to My Heart

On By patriciamanhireIn Cardmaking, Close to My Heart, Crafts, Creative Memories9 Comments

Welcome

I have just been to the Close to My Heart Opportunity Event in Auckland last week and I am very excited about this opportunity.  The career pathway looks great and the products will allow people to be a lot more creative.  I have put a Cricut Expressions 2 on layby and can’t wait to get the cartridges from CTMH to play with.  They look so cool and it will be nice to be able to make my own embellishments to match my scrapbook layouts and cards.  I am also looking to the three dimensional elements on the cartridge and will be looking at doing some workshops at Make Shift when Make Shift gets established.  The other thing that is really cool is that I can just do parties online as well as doing parties with people.

We had a little play with some inks, papers and cute glitter embellishments and the papers and cardstock are lovely.  It took a while to work out how to use the ink pads, but I have got it sussed now.  The stamps are great and easy to use and I will be looking at building up my CTMH stamp kits.  I am also looking forward to playing with the alcohol markers as well.

Just as well I have joined a de-stash Facebook site to start clearing out some of my old stock to make room for Close to My Heart.

In the meantime I have got back to basics and will be teaching heat embossing at my card making class tomorrow at the Upper Hutt Library.  When I first started doing cards too many years ago to remember I started with heat embossing and I still have my heat tool as well (which is starting to get a little sick and I will finally get a new one once I sign up with CTMH).  I remember a lot of hit and misses then, but I have discovered using a embossing buddy (a kind of chalk in a bag) that helps with keeping the card clean and my endeavours are much more successful now.  Here are a few of the cards I have made with heat embossing:

Embossed flowers card Embossed flowers Embossed flowers Embossed flowers

 

I found some papers that I bought years ago as a 6 x 6 paper pack at The Warehouse and they matched perfectly with the pink cardstock from Stampin‘Up.  I also like the combination of gold and pink and the result is some very retro looking cards, but some people still like these classic cards so I will be putting them in Make Shift as well.  I have coloured the images using a watercolour pen and Stampin’Up inks.  I have also used my artist quality paints in the past with good effect as well.

The materials I have used here are:

Stampin’Up Cardstock – pink

Stampin’Up ribbon – Light Pink

Stampin’Up inks – Old Olive, Artichoke, Regal Rose, So Saffron, More Mustard

Kaisercraft stamps

Kaisercraft rhinestones

Peelcraft stickers

Creative Memories Custom Cutting System – ovals

Creative Memories Border Maker – Twinkle Chain Cartridge

Cuttlebug and embossing folders – Swiss Dots and Edges

Cuttlebug Die – Whimsy

For the heat embossing I have used a versamark ink pad and the powder is Ultra Detail Embossing Powder – gold.

I hope the ladies tomorrow get inspired to branch out and do more with their stamps and inks.

I am now going to look at doing some digital scrapbooking to get put onto canvases for Make Shift to sell.

Happy crafting

Patricia

 

 

 

Special cards for the budding ballerina

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Cardmaking, Children, Crafts, Creative Memories, Greetings, Scrapbooking2 Comments

Welcome back.

I have been busy going through all my stash and found these gorgeous papers that I bought years ago when I first starting scrapbooking.  They are from K & Company and the pack is called Hopscotch.  I have no idea if they are still available, but the papers make beautiful cards.  I have already done a couple of layouts of my ballet forms from many years ago and will perhaps keep a couple of papers for layouts for my daughter for when she did ballet.  I managed to match up the colours with various cardstock that I had already and I am really pleased with how they turned out.  For most of these cards I have distressed the edges and that has helped with making the different papers stand out more from the backgrounds.  The little pictures of flowers, butterflies and tutus have been fussy cut out from the paper.  These cards have been easy as the paper and colour coordination was made easy by using the same range of papers.

I am sure these will go down a treat at Make Shift.

Here they are:

Ballet card Ballet card Ballet card Ballet card Ballet card Ballet cardMaterials used for these cards:

K & Company Hopscotch 12 x 12 pad

Creative Memories Cardstock – Pink Shimmer

Bazzill Cardstock – Bling (sorry not sure of the name)

Peelcraft stickers

Kaisercraft pink pearls

Stampin‘Up greeting

Versamark stamp pad

Gold embossing powder

Creative Memories Place-n-Punch – Blossom

Creative Memories Custom Cutting System – circles.

Tim Holtz Distressing Ink – Victorian Velvet

I am really excited to be going to Auckland tomorrow to find out more about Close to My Heart and also get my hands on some of the products.  I can’t wait to join up and start having workshops at Make Shift.

I hope you all keep well and safe and Happy Crafting

Patricia

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