Life and Family

…not that I’ve been in action lately, at least as far as my blog is concerned, but I’ll be taking it easy for a little while as I’m heading off shortly to have all of my wisdom teeth extracted this afternoon - ouch!

I have quite a few things to share and will do so as soon as I am back to bloggin’.

Thanks for your ongoing patience with me…

I didn’t have any specific stampin’ plans today, particularly since it’s school holidays here but during the first of my usual series of daily phone calls to mum (*waving* Nanny!!) she mentioned some beautiful watercolouring she had seen during a blog surfing session (I have heard this called “blurfing” recently - how funny!  Sounds rude almost….) and thankfully, unlike myself on many a blurfing occasion, she actually was able to recall where she’d seen it!  And I’m SO glad she did!  Amy Wegener is absolutely BRILLIANT with an Aquapainter and ink!

I have actually seen Amy’s blog before in my cyber travels and CASE’d a funky Christmas tree card of hers last year, but oh my goodness, her watercolouring is something else!  So still in my jammies, but all inspired to get cracking with my Aquapainters, I went in search of some outline stamps that would be suitable for the job.  I decided to use my long neglected Time Well Spent level 3 hostess set and set to work on this….

The flowers are all stamped in StazOn onto watercolour paper and coloured using a variety of inks with the Aquapainter.  The colour is quite a lot deeper in real life, but you can kind of see the different shades blending together here, although I have a bit of a way to go before my images are literally jumping off the card like Amy’s!!  Mine are helped along in the jumping off with some dimensionals ;)  Here’s a slightly different and closer angle….

I spent aaaages poring over the colouring and thoroughly enjoyed myself, until such time as I emerged from my stampin’ hibernation to find every dress-up outfit my children own strewn about the loungeroom, along with a large variety of everything else they own!  So my Time Well Spent stampin’ was swiftly followed by Time Not So Well Spent Tidying Up After Cyclones Hannah and Sophie!

This card will shortly be on its way to a very dear friend of mine who has been going through a tough time of late, hence the greeting stamp (taken from Loads of Love).  Hopefully the bright flowers leaping off the page will bring a bit of a smile

“Time Well Spent Watercolouring”
Stamps: Time Well Spent, Loads of Love (greeting)
Paper: Cameo Coral, Ruby Red, Old Olive, Basic Black, Watercolour paper
Ink: StazOn Black, So Saffron, More Mustard, Cameo Coral, Ruby Red, Apricot Appeal, Pumpkin Pie, Certainly Celery, Old Olive
Accessories: Aquapainter, White Gel Pen, Pumpkin Pie striped grosgrain, Stampin’ Dimensionals

My lovely mum has been making some gorgeous stuff of late and I have been busting to share this particular project, but as the gift was only given last weekend, I thought it best to wait just on the offchance that the recipient might pop in and have a read of my blog, which I happen to know she has done before…. (*waving* Lucy!!)

So…………..without further ado, here is my mum’s beautiful ensemble in her own words!!

“I wanted to make a little gift bag to put my Niece’s birthday present in.  I had seen various examples of bags while browsing various sites (as you do), but I found a tutorial for this one on Cambria Turnbow’s  blog.

I did make a few changes though.  I didn’t have a Round Tab Punch to make the tags at the top of the bag, so I used Hodgepodge Hardware instead and because I didn’t like the idea of the back of the brads showing, I added a strip of Designer Paper on the inside of the bag around the top.

 I had such fun making  this and I was quite happy with the result. I also made the card to match, the design of which I found on Marelle Taylor’s blog”

Let’s hear it for Nanny’s adorable gift ensemble!!

“Nanny’s Gift Ensemble”
Stamps: Scribble This, All Year Cheer I (retired), Scribble Jumbo Stampin’ Around Wheel
Paper: Old Olive Prints DSP, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Mellow Moss, Whisper White
Ink: Versamark, StazOn Black, Regal Rose, So Saffron, Mellow Moss
Accessories: Corner Rounder Punch (retired), Word Window Punch, Clear Embossing Powder, Certainly Celery grosgrain, Hodgepodge Harware (Pewter), Aquapainter