Handmade Card–Stamps and Glitter

I wanted to share with you card I created for my sister (and I also sent my cousin a similar one) I was so excited to get using my new Martha Stewart glitterI got for Christmas and I’d had a major score of 50% off stamps from Spotlight.
This year I’m heading back through my archives of cards and highlighting them on my blog with a short description of how I made it and links to similar products so you can try your hand at it (yes, I’m looking at you digi-scrappers!)
If you want to follow along here's a link to some equivalent products. As I make cards from my stash, quite a lot of items are discontinued.
Make it my way using

• Cream card (A5 pre-scored)
• Martha Stewart bouquet Inks
• Heidi Grace Sweetest bug stamp
• Martha Stewart glitter
• Martha Stewart glitter letter stickers

1. Ink up the stamp using various colours
2. Stamp  
3. Roll some adhesive dots from your dot roller on the heart and flowers and glitter (rub off the excess with your
4. Layout the letter remove the paper behind the bits have overlap
5. Glitter the letters on by one
6. Admire your handiwork and tidy up the glitter!
7. Take a photo
8. Write, address and post!

New52–Housesitting Edition

This past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. Firstly we were housesitting for some friends, so we had Emily, a dog, bird and too guinea pigs to care for.Emily LOVED the animals. The first words each morning we were there were dog, bird and then after a few minutes… pigs. I enjoyed the routine of extra walks with the dog.

Rainbow Lorikeet image via Wikipedia

Emily once let the bird out, so I pegged the cage shut and we were able to return all the pets to the owners in one piece… I must get some photos from Lauren on this one!

Secondly, Phill got shipped off to Argentina on Saturday night (we found out on the Wednesday before he was leaving), for a yet to be determined length of time. He’s been gone for just under a week and I’ve hardly had time to miss him amongst caring for Emily, the pets, teaching digital scrapbooking, moving back to our ‘apartment’ and organising bits and pieces for our new home.

Oh and a funny story. Phill put his work clothes into one of the girls wardrobes and then we took them back to our ‘apartment’ before he flew out on Saturday. However before we left the house I was going through each room to check we’d got everything. In checking this same wardrobe to see that all Phill’s clothes were gone, I noticed that one of the girls had the same dress as me (no biggie, it was just a Kmart dress) and she had it on a hanger with the same Temt cardigan and I had. Wow, that’s amazing I thought, and said so to my sister who was helping me out. The next day Cait got a message saying she’d left a dress at the house. Sure enough it WAS my dress and I’d just forgotten I’d brought it as Phill must had hung it up on the first day we arrived!

But back to my new things for the last 2 weeks. I learnt:

• How to care for a fruit eating bird.
• That although I enjoy the daily tweeting of a Rainbow Lorikeet, some people find it annoying.
• That internet speed in the Argentine Andes is better than the mobile phone coverage.
• My husband is (despite his assertion to the contrary) quite a writer, his daily trip summary is touching, funny and helps me feel like he’s not so far away.

Learn more about the New 52 challenge here.I’m finding that looking out for new experiences is helping me appreciate that my life is full of variety. What new things have you tried?

Melissa

*affliliate links where possible*

Yesterday and Today–Album cover

I’ve been able to find time to work on the Yesterday and Today Class over at Big Picture Classes. Ali is so inspiring and I love watching the videos each week. As we are housesitting, I’ve not watched week 3 or 4 yet (I don’t want to use up all their bandwidth with 2hrs of video!).
Week 2’s layout was the cover for our album.

Me at birth,4yrs, 6yrs, 19yrs, 25yrs (wedding photo) and 27yrs
Credits: Ali Edwards Template from the Yesterday and Today class for week 2
CVW SupplyTracker 
IOComfort_Flergs_Paper1
Yesterday Today Word Art
Ztampf Alpha StitchedPaleYellow_M
Ztampf Paper Naturae
Kristin Cronin-Barrow I Love Cocoa Ribbon – from a previous The Digi Game
I’d love to see your latest page, so please leave a comment Are you part of the class too?
Melissa
**Disclaimer: For each new account created with my Registration Code as a "friend", a 10% off code will be issued once the new account has purchased one class. Code will be available under "My Rewards". 10% off code can be used towards Self-Paced classes and Workshops. Code cannot be used towards gift certificate purchases. Melissa’s registration code is D952F179 - or click on http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/register.php?refer=D952F179

Bible in 90 days–Week 3

With a sick baby and housesitting (with a few pets), I am excited to report that have kept up with the challenge. Since I last posted I’ve read the rest of the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges. I’m so looking forward to the next few books as Ruth and Esther are my childhood favourites!

I am so thankful to live under grace and go through my life without having to perform all the rituals. Though in some ways we need to work harder to remember God in our everyday lives,as we don’t have so much physical symbolism and ritual in Christianity.

I am again reminded of how God cared for the Israelites giving them divine wisdom in everyday things – such as ridding their house of mildew all the way through to providing them a land for their inheritance.

Want to know more about the challenge?

Melissa

New52–Week 3

Image via Wikipedia

• I watched Twenty20 cricket via Foxtel on Michael’s Xbox – lo and behold Australia acutally won a game! My last time watching Fox was a couple years ago at my cousin’s place and involved some show about people dressing up their pets and generally treating them like children. (Just a random memory for you there people!)
• I also tried Reese’s peanut butter cups – they seem salty to me. I could eat more. I thought of my brother’s quote upon eating another goodie from the US… Just ate a pop tart. I may feel like I sold my soul to america but it did taste good… I think it would apply to my feeling about the peanut butter cups too!

Next week’s post will no doubt be huge as we are house-sitting for friends, a lot of new stuff coming up this week!

My Memory Logbook

Thanks to Kristin from Log Your Memory, I’ve now got my hands on the downloadable edition of the Memory Logbook. I’ve printed the calendars and the pages for January and February. I’m keeping it nice and slim to fit into my purse easily.
Supplies I used for this project:

• 2 sets of Bind-it-all 7.5x5 inch raw chipboard covers
• 3/4 in silver O-wires
• Martha Stewart Glitter in Verdalite
• Large fabric flower
• Bella alphabet rubons
• Paper flowers yellow and white
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink walnut stain
• Martha Stewart bouquet ink in Meyer Lemon
• Martha Stewart flower glitter stickers
• Lemon mini brad

I’ve linked to similar products as many of the items in my stash are no longer available.
I decorated the cover with some glittery leaves and a large fabric flower and some rubons for the date, simple and pretty. I inked the edges of the cover with walnut stain distress ink.
To create the bookmark I cut off a bit of one of those advertising fridge magnet and stuck them on a stripe of cardstock. I then layered the flower and secured it with a brad. Simple and a pretty way to keep my page.
I bound it with my Bind-it-all (yes you’ll see heaps of Zutter projects this year!
Just doing a little something to make it special is well worth the time I invested, especially when it will be used every day!
Melissa

Want to know more about the 2011 Logbook?
*using my affiliate links supports my blog - thankyou!*

Back up your data and save 10%!

I've just signed up to Mozy Unlimited Backup in December. I trialled 2GB for free and now since we have enough upload speed, I've dived in and bought a subcription. It costs $4.95 per month.
I've heard some good stories about Mozy improving their services lately and my friend Steph has many a story about how Mozy saved her from losing data. She's even had them send external hard drives over to her. Which, though it costs extra, was a convenient way to get data back when it is multiple gigabytes.
Over the years I've used floppy disks, CD's, DVDs, USB sticks and external hard discs to back up my files. I do still use an external HDD, but with so much data (and the fact that I don't like to use the system backup on my computer, so I do my backups manually), Mozy seemed like a simple thing to add to my backup regime.

I have set it up so that Mozy throttles the bandwidth during peak times and unthrottle it during our off-peak times (2am-8am), to ensure we don't go over our monthly limit. It seems to be working well with 23.1Gb uploaded as I write this.

If you are interested, you can try the service before you buy - Mozy give you 2GB Totally Free.

If you do want to buy, use the code JANUARY and my link to sign up for Mozy and you will save 10% off your purchase of Mozy Unlimited Backup.

How do you tackle backing up? Any tips you want to share?
Melissa

One Little Word 2011–Grow

After much thought about my One Little Word I’ve settled on grow.
The prompts in Ali Edwards’ One Little Word class for this month are focusing my thoughts on what this word means to me. By chosing this word I am inviting into my life change, maturity, wisdom, health and joy. I want to grow on the good foundations I’ve built into my life and change for the better this year.
I loved the thesaurus entry and I’m focusing on these aspects: flourish, abound. rise, develop, thrive, mature, sprout, take root, ripen, mellow, increase, gain strength, change.
My little album is 7.5”x5” and created using my new Bind-it-all.
I used:

• Bind-it-all tabbed acrylic cover
• Bind It All Inner Pages 7.5"X5" Sheets 10/Pkg Cream
• chipboard letters
• Prima flowers - I used Camelot Roses - Vanessa
• Martha Stewart Copper Ink - on the letters
• Basic grey porcelain rubons

Most of the items I'm using are from my stash, so I've linked you up to similar items.
Are you documenting your resolutions or word for the year?
Melissa

*affliliate links where possible*

Related articles

• Olw 2011 (twowritingteachers.wordpress.com)

Bible in 90 Days–Exodus

After reading through Exodus it is amazing to see God’s provision for the Israelites. Last night I was finishing up reading about the offering for the Tabernacle and the fine artisans who worked on it.
Once again I am reminded that God give creative and artistic skills to us for us to actually use them! Often I forget that my skills are just as valuable as those of farmers, accountants and other more ’essential-to-life’ skillsets. God no longer requires an earthly tabernacle, rather His Spirit dwells in me. I hope I can honour Him with the work of my hands
Want to know more about the challenge?
Melissa

My latest scrapbooking haul

I love a great deal and Spotlight has been very generously discounting a lot before Christmas. I’d videoed (very unprofessionally I might add!) my purchases, then ScrappyJedi inspired me to finally post them all on my blog.
I received some Martha Stewart Glitter for Christmas – so excited! So I got the glitter stickers to use with that for free, 50c and $1!
I got some Fiskars and Heidi Grace stamps to add to my collection, ranging from $1.50 up to $7 for the priciest set – and a few stickers. The Fiskars Stamp Press Phill picked up for $2 (usually $15) ! I got some awesome deals on Zutter items too, everything shown cost me 50c or $1 Australian. Even the Zutter corner rounders which are usually $20 each were only $1!

Oh yes, there’s a lot there, but the cute 7.5x5” tabbed dividers are already part of my One Little Word album for 2011.
If you’d like to see more, here are the videos.

My Martha Stewart Haul

Zutter Bind-it-all and Score part 1

Zutter score part 2

Have you got yourself a good deal lately? I’d love to see!

Melissa

*affliliate links where possible*