Michelle Perkett BLOG HOP!

Below is the card I made from "Leilani" from the so-creative DT of Michelle Perkett Studio Design
for her blog hop. I painted watercolour paper for the sunset background, added handmade paper for the sand, and then makde a shaker for the sea.

"Summer" digistamp

The second card for Digistamps4joy.com was made from their digistamp called "Summer". I decided to be a little ambitious and try making a 'swing card'. Well I got it right, but it took me nearly 3 hours to make this card from colouring the stamp to cutting out all the card pieces! The end result is quite pleasing and eventhough I'm not an 'orange/yellow' person (blues, pinks, and purples for me thanks!) I quite like the colour of this card. Luckily I had a whole packet of orange and yellow flowers on hand. I think my biggest concern while making the card was that the oval topper would keep floppnig down. I may have overcompensated for this as it is quite stiff to turn!

Front and back of the oval swing topper.

NADIYA stamp

I am thrilled to be able to advertise the Digistamps4joy stamps, and this is the first card I made with the stamp "Nadiya". Isn't she absolutely gorgeous? Did I mention before that I love bling, well this stamp lends itself perfectly to looooots of bling!

I used my watercolour pencils to colour her in, then added lots of bling to her clothing and golden necklace. Two circles were cut with the largest 2 of the Nestabilities 'Petite Scalloped Circles', and the edge of the smaller circle was glued and glittered. I cut a floral border with a Fiskars punch, added some organza ribbon and pink gems, and stuck all of this onto a pink cardstock with hearts. The swirly flower on the left is a rub-on.

I think I'm still going to have lots of fun with "Nadiya".

Window digi

Last night I designed another digistamp, this time trying the Inkscape software. It took me a little while to get comfortable with making rounded edges, but I'm happy with the result. So now to make a card with the stamp!

I decided to make an easel card, print out 2 x images, cut out the inside panes of the one and then layer this onto acetate. The second image was coloured in then I cut out the background behind the curtains, found a picture in a magazine with some paintings on the wall, then stuck this behind the curtains. The front window frame was raised onto the second image with foam pads. I think it came out quite nicely and really looks like a window!

Then I hit a blank! Every piece of cardstock or backing paper I put the window on top of just didn't look right, until I found this piece from the Once Upon A Time Mat Stack, and the whole card just fell into place. Does this sound familiar? I glued on a small clay vase, filled it with flowers, and found a 'large leaf' I had forgotten about which I used for the overhanging tree branch. The sentiment "Mom's home" was printed on the puter and raised with foam pads.

Using puff paint

I am lucky enough to have a sister who is a professional screenprinter, and who just 'happened' to give me a whole liter of white puff paint (very difficult to find in craft shops!) the last time I visited her! So .... as there is one little animal that God made that lends itself perfectly to white puff paint, of course I had to make a card. The 'ewe' also provided a super opportunity to play with the word - hehe.

I had a lovely piece of bright red card with a white backing that was just waiting to be cut into a heart shape. My little ewe (also compliments from my sister) was cut on the Cricut and I coloured the legs, squeezed out lots of puff paint from a fine nozzled bottle, puffed the paint with the hot air dryer, and then stuck on one googly eye and a red ribbon. Isn't she cute? The words ... 'Thinking of ewe" were printed on the pc, then a border of puff paint put on to resemble a cloud. Both the ewe and the cloud were raised with foam pads. The flowers were an afterthought as I had this large empty space top left of the heart, but they seem to have done the trick!

Cracker shaped 'shaker' card

This card was made for a challenge viz. "make a card in the shape of a cracker and add serviette, clay, and mirror tile". Cutting the shape of the card was not as difficult as I thought it would be, and the shape is actually quite pleasing. It was the adding of the tiles and clay that stumped me at first. That is until I saw this absolutely gorgeous 'fat lady' decoupage paper and the creative juices just RAN! I probably went a little overboard with the 'shaker' oval, but I love making shaker cards and they are always so popular with my customers.

 So this is where I used all the challenge pieces:
1. Serviettes - I cut out 4 purple daisies out of a serviette and glued them onto the patterned maroon coloured paper.
2. Clay - the only clay embellishment I could find that suited this picture was a tiny peach coloured rose which I glued on top of the acetate of the shaker box.
3. Mirror tiles - In the image, the fat lady is looking into a mirror. Yes, you guessed it - I replaced the mirror part of the image with four tiny mirror tiles! Worked like a charm, and as they are all inside the shaker box no one handling this card will get hurt - a bonus in my opinion!

I could not resist the tiny gold shaker beads to compliment the gold colour around the purple daisies, and the gold spotted ribbon just finished it all off. A lot of work, but well worth it.

Freebies (topper and digistamp) - men's tie

For those of you who have not tried using a digistamp yet, here is a freebie for you to start with. I have also added a coloured stamp (= a topper) which you can also download (right click and save).

And don't forget I'd love to see what you've done with it! My card design is below.

      

Instructions: How to make a Tri-Fold Shutter card

This card - although it looks difficult to make - is in fact so easy once you know how! Follow the instructions below, and remember to have fun!

What you need

• Coloured cardstock for the base of the card – a piece 5 ½ x 12 inches ( x cm)
• Scoring pen
• Paper trimmer or guillotine
• Patterned paper to match the cardstock colour (I used the ‘Tweetstitch’ paper from the Cardmaking CD Issue 21)
• Toppers or other embellishments to suit your theme (mine is a girl toddlers’ birthday) (I used the toppers in the ‘Animal Magic Collection’ from the Cardmaking CD Issue 21)
• Craft knife
• Ruler (preferably a steel one so your blade won’t cut it!)
• Adhesives (glue, double-sided tape, foam pads)

 Steps 1 and 2
If your piece of cardstock is 12” x 12”, cut it down to 5 ½” x 12” in size. Mark your cardstock as shown below, then score along the dashed lines (---).

Now mark 1 ½ “ in from each long side of the card, and using your craft knife, cut (bold dotted lines) a slit between the 2” and 10” marks. Remember to do this on both edges!



Step3 (folding the card)
Fold the card along the scored lines using valley and mountain folds, and the best way to show you is in the photo below.

Step 4 (cutting the patterned paper)
Using your folded card as a template, trace the T-shaped section onto your patterned paper – twice as you need two of these shapes. TIP: if your pattern is a 1-way pattern eg. the birdies on my card, remember to FLIP the second T-shape otherwise your birdies will be upside down (I learnt the hard way!). Cut out both shapes. Now trim these patterned paper shapes on all sides by 1/16”. From the same patterned paper cut out the following pieces: 4 x pieces 1 7/8” x 1 3/8” each; 2 x pieces 1 7/8” x 3 7/8” each; and1 x piece 2 3/8” x 3 7/8”.

The aim is to stick a piece of paper onto EACH of the panels between the score lines, and to allow a tiny border of the base cardstock to show around the paper. This means all your rectangles should be about 1/16” smaller than the panel. Test them out before you go to step 5!

Step 5 (attaching the panels)
Using double-sided tape, make sure all the patterned panels are stuck in their correct place (be careful not to stick it on upside-down!).

Your basic card is completed, and you can go on and decorate it to your heart’s desire. Here’s how I did mine.

Step 6 (the fun part!)
Your basic Tri-Shutter card is complete, well sort of. Now comes the fun part of embellishing it with all sorts of doodahs and bling! Because my card is for a 3 year old, I printed out two large number 3s, and raised one on top of the other with foam pads, then covered it with glitter glue. The greeting (Veels Geluk = Afrikaans for Congratulations or Happy Birthday) is a peel off I stuck onto the ‘board’ the teddy is holding. The toppers were all printed out twice and paper-pieced to raise some pieces. Just for fun I hung 3 tiny teddy beads on jumprings underneath the ‘3’.

 So now you've made your card, I'd love to see it!

Soccer side-stepper card

Soccer '2010' fever is high in South Africa at the moment with only a few days left to go! The 'double stepper' card's base is made from green cardstock (SA's soccer colours). The soccer images and background papers come from Avril's Crafting Corner (the Football slider card) and from Juliannes Designs( the rosettes) on the http://www.card-making-downloads.com website. I flipped the left soccer boy on the computer to create the boy on the right, and then coloured his skin with watercolour pencils. The stripes on the uniforms and their hair are made with glue and foil. The banner was put together on my PC. I 'floated' the ball between the two boys by cutting out 2 images and sticking a piece of tiger's tail (beading wire) between them, and then fastening the two ends behind the boys' legs. By the way this card won 3rd place in the monthly competition!

Stamped 'lady'

I found this gorgeous 50's look rubber stamp which was sreaming to me ... buy me buy me! How could I resist? I stamped 3 images and coloured each one in with watercolour pencils, then paper pieced the lady together, and glued a guineafowl feather under her hat. The background was a printout of a freebie onto which I stamped a brown butterfly and added some tags and jewels.

Hello Kitty card

My granddaughter turned 7 and wanted a card showing "hello kitty". The image I found was perfect for making a shaker card with the 'heart' that the kitty was holding. The background was a piece of scrapbooking paper I found with an allover design of Happy Birthday, and I just highlighted some of the words with clear glitter glue.

FIFTY Birthday Book

I just have to show you this wordbook I made from scratch!

It was my sister-in-law's 50th birthday and we were invited to her party. Once again I decided to make something as I know she appreciates craftwork. As there were no downloadable '50' wordbook templates on the internet, I decided to try my hand at designing my own. I used the letters f-i-f-t-y and played around with some A4 scraps of paper to get the proportions correct. After downloading a font called 'pharmacy' from the internet, I typed the word 'fifty' in MSWord, and made the letters as big as possible. I then cut each one out and pasted the letter onto a piece of grey chipboard, each piece progressively wider than the last one. The hardest task was to cut out all these chipboards pages! My hands were aching afterwards from all the pressure I had to put on the craft knife!

The first job was to cover and paste some nice embossed paper onto the front and back of each letter. The lefthand pages were kept for guests to write on, and the righthand side for photographs which she could paste in after the event.

The book really looked nice after all the embellishments were glued on, and my sister-in-law absolutely LOVED it!. All the guests wrote little notes to her on the tags provided. The pages of the book were bound together with 2 large rings, and then some nice organza ribbon threaded through and tied up.

The 'closed' book.

The back of the letter "f" showing little pockets made with small notelets in each one.

I also inserted her 'clinic card' from when she was a baby. I had inhertited this card with a suitcase full of photos when her father died, and felt now was the perfect time to give it back to her!

Two weeks after her party, we put her photos in and completed the album!

Baby Shower book

This was my first scrapbooking 'word-book' I made. I was invited to a baby shower, and because I am not fond of buying gifts 'made in China' I decided to make her a little 'shower' book in which all the guests could write a message at the shower.

I was then lucky enough to find a super little booklet kit at a local shop, with 6 pages cut out of chipboard, 2 binding rings, and few embellishments. The booklet was a huge success, and the mom was absolutely thrilled with this as a gift, so my goal was achieved! Here are the pages I put together - before everyone wrote on it - with odds and ends I had at home. I designed it so that all the guests would write on the left-hand page on one of the tags provided.

Masculine scrapbooking pages

While working on my deceased husbands' scrapbook album, I had very little problems doing pages for him as a little boy. These two matching pages were prepared around the theme of a train pulling the carriages, each with a successively older picture of him as a boy. The train was paper pieced "by hand". I still don't own a fancy cutting machine!

The page I enjoyed doing the most was the page of his airforce duty time. I still had some of his original uniform badges, so polished them up and added them to the one page.

However, finding a theme for a few portrait photos of him as a mature man was a different story! None of the photos screamed any particular theme, so I ended up doing 2 pages called "Portrait of a Man", and paper-pieced a little man to fit in with the pages. The other bits and pieces (hats, waistcoat, shaving brush etc) were all cut out of a decoupage sheet I found in one shop.

Table weights

Niki decided she needed to make some extra cash, so I got roped into paying for some items to make table weights. Not that I minded really, because I was glad she was doing some craftwork at last.  So we ended up at this one large bead shop, and must have spent nearly 2 hours there while she tried to make up her mind about which beads and stones matched, and whether they were the correct weight - or not!

Armed with this heavy bag of goodies we set up 'camp' at home in the craft room, and spread out everything on the table. Tiger's tail, pliers, crimps, newly bought shells and beads and stones ... we were ready to sell to the world!

The end results of this craft session were four gorgeous sets of table weights - quite exclusive actually (Niki has expensive taste). We set about working out their costs, and then adding a bit extra on for profit. Have we sold any of them? No. Two have already been given out as gifts - one for a 50th birthday and the other for a wedding gift. Of course we made exclusive boxes to gift them in as well. Now we just need another 2 weddings and they will all be gone! Must say though that they turned out rather nice.
(Top left = glass+pearl; top right=conch shell and pearl)
(bottom left=paua shell; bottom right=semi precious stones).

Denique Crafts

At long last I have found a name for my craft site ... Denique ... which is latin for - wait for it - "at last", and is pronounced de-ni-ke (and not de-neek). I also made the banner on top in a new free software programme called Inkscape, so 'at last' I'm getting there!! Hope you like it.

Scrapbooking - Mom's pages

 I started scrapbooking earnestly in 2009 after the girls had a book made up of my life to date, for Mother's Day. What a super present! My first 'book' was one of my mom, and I am happy with what the finished album looks like. Here is the second page of her as a baby.

 Of course, at this stage of my scrapbooking, I did not have much equipment and did all my cutting with a pair of scissors! Slowly but surely I built up my collection of what I now call 'essentials' such as various glues, shape scissors, various punches, and loads and loads of embellishments and ribbons and gems! I also acquired a few different computer scrapbooking programmes, making my life so much simpler!

A year of my life in 2008

Man, but 2008 just FLEW away and it felt like the year was shorter than normal. When I look in the mirror however, I can see that time has gone by. Did I accomplish everything I planned for the year? Certainly not. Regardless of all my goals and plans, the year has slipped by as if to spite me. No regrets however – I am very thankful to the Lord for this past year – no matter how difficult it may have been.

New year (2009) celebrations were raucous to say the least. I got the distinct impression that everyone was making up for last year! What a noise – the sound of exploding fire crackers seemed to go on forever, and the smoke (and smell) of cordite hung in the air like a grey blanket, dimming the street lights and making my nostrils tingle. I spent a lot of time talking to and calming my two Great Danes who were shivering from ears to tail, and each trying their level best to get as close to me as possible!

Apart from being given a gorgeous new grand daughter on the 10th December 2008, the other two grandchildren doing well and growing up fast, the rest of the family has been well. My only two visits out of the country this year were both work related, one to Botswana and the other to Malawi (my first visit). I loved Malawi and the people there and hope to make another trip back doing something different and more personal like Bible placement.

This has been a very busy year - craft wise - and probably an indication of the higher stress levels I was under. The higher the stress - the more I craft!!!!

JEWELLERY

I started the year by signing up for a silversmith course and learnt to make metal jewellery. Eventhough I went home after every lesson with less skin on the tips of my fingers (from filing metal), I have enjoyed this new skill so much. Certainly not a cheap hobby though, so I only bought the basics and set up a jewellery worktable at home. We leart on copper first, then progressed to silver. Gold? Noooo too expensive and if you see how much gets filed/sanded off, you would also think 5 times before working with gold! Here are “some” of my original items I have already made. The "moth" earrings are actually a replicate of the African Armyworm moth that I research!

Then it was onto SCRAPBOOKING!

I can’t explain but for some silly reason I have put off learning this skill for 3 years! During a week-long visit to my sister however, we spent every day doing a little scrapbooking and a lot of shopping for items! I came home after my visit with a boot full of goodies and a head full of ideas. Since then I've completed an album on my mom, and have started one on my deceased husband. Great fun but also an addictive spending habit!!!!!!!!

WOODWORK

The only project that was completed was a vanity table for my granddaughter for Christmas. My daughter had been given this item by a work colleague, but it was in desperate need of repair. My fingers ‘itch’ when I see things like this! So my young grandson (4) helped me to sand it down, and then I hid it from prying eyes until it was varnished, painted, and ‘prettied up’. Here is the end result and my granddaughter loves it!.

GENEALOGY

The family tree has more than doubled in size during this year (3,800 names) as I have found many side family links, mostly through the Stride (Dad’s mom) and Hockey (Martin’s mom) lines. The Kieser and Powell lines have unfortunately hit a brick wall but who knows maybe 2009 will open some doors there. It’s probably time for me to start putting all this information into a book form, but genealogy is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle – you’re never satisfied until all the pieces are in place. The problem with this particular hobby is that there is ALWAYS another piece!

So .... 2009 here we come!

Margy

Catch up on 2007

I don't seem to be very good at this blog thing do I, with a year gone past after my last message? The problem (I think) is that I get so busy with other things in my life I forget all about writing here!

So, to catch up on 2007, I am taking snipppets out of my Christmas 2007 letter sent to family members and friends.

2007 was an up-and-down year with highlights and lowlights. The troubling bits were the farm attacks (2) on Dad and Judith on the farm, and then Dad's ill health and two very big stroke scares. If it wasn't for the fact that my hair was dyed brown, I would probably have noticed many more grey hairs!

One of the highlights for me was my work trip to the Karoo to do some more brown locust field trials. We were lucky enough to actually find a large hopper band that we followed (and measured hourly) for one whole day. I really am lucky to be able to enjoy my work so much.

My craft work seemed to take a bit of a back seat with all the house repairs I undertook. Oh, and I eventually got that wardrobe built into my room - something I will never regret! This is my first built-in wardrobe - ever - so is absolute luxury for me. Not of course that we coudln't afford it when I was a child, or in my marriage, but we always seemed to have these loose wardrobes that could be shifted around when the room was re-arranged! Here's a photo of the cupboard in the newly painted room, and before I moved back in. Then, to complete the makeover I went and purchased a bedroom suite and now have a matching bed, dresser, and stool (also a first).

One project I did manage to complete - something I have been meaning to do for the last 4 years – was to sand, repair, and varnish the doll’s cot for Abigail. This cot was one that my Dad made for me when I was a little girl, and I have kept it all these years. It needed a good sanding, new wire springs installed, and then a few coats of varnish. To round off, I made a new mattress, pillow, and linen for the bed, and decoupaged some pictures onto the headboard. Abby helped me choose the material for the bed, and then stood like a supervisor next to me while I sewed all the items. She would not let me even take a tea break until it was all finished and she could put her doll “to bed”!


The next big and expensive project I tackled was to seal and repaint the roof of the house. I was getting rather tired of trying to find enough buckets and salad bowls to catch the water dripping through the ceiling every time it rained. Not only that, but I ended up playing ‘musical bowls’ trying to juxta position them under the various drips. I put in leave for a whole week, hired my gardener and my daughter's boyfriend, and the three of us scraped the roof, pasted sealer cloth down, and then gave the roof a good coat of paint. We started on Monday, spent every day on the roof, and finished late Friday afternoon – absolutely EXHAUSTED and with aching backs!! I was determined that there would not be one leak anymore, so EVERY screw, and vertical and horizontal overlaps were patched with sealing cloth! Yes, the roof looks like a patchwork quilt, but during the recent freak storm (3 inches in 1 hour!!!) there was not one leak!!! I have however come to the conclusion that at 54 years of age, it is no longer easy to climb onto-and-off a roof! Well, at least the view was good from up there and the job is now done.


The last task I undertook for the year was to have a very large fish tank custom built for my lounge. I have always had a fish tank but a small one, and nothing to brag about. I am thrilled with the new tank and have had so much fun putting in plants and fish. At the moment there are one Plecostobus (my "vacuum cleaner"), 2 x Bala Sharks, 2 Corydoras, 5 LARGE Angel fish, and 2 Pearl Gouramis. The fish must be happy because 2 Angel fish have paired up and laid 12 batches of eggs already!! The problem is of course that while the eggs are being laid, the Bala shark (male) and the male Gourami are stealing them from under the female's dorsal fin!

The Genealogy database is still growing and at the end of 2007 I had 1,621 names in the software, all linked to either my father's line or my mother's line - and still growing. Great stuff!


Now you can see why I get so busy I forget all about this blog.


Margy