Hey! Long Time No Blog!

Yeah.... so what can I say - I have lots of excuses but none of them that great - lets just say I have been flat out at my day job - no recession when you work for a company that designs restaurants for McDonald's - the mighty Big Mac is recession proof! however that has meant that my creative mojo has been near non-existent.

So a couple of months back my dear friend Amy's little man Monte had his first birthday....being one of the child free thirty-somethings that I am, I am generally not the best with kids cards - and especially when it comes to boys - so I was actually pretty chuffed with how this came out.

Here's The Front:

And opened up: (This photo is stitched so don't look too closely!!)

I can't say that Monte was too excited by it but his mum liked it at least...his present however (a toy vacuum cleaner dog that really picks up stuff) comes out whenever mum does the vacuuming....sensitive new age guy in training - next year I think we'll get him a toy oven and a chef's uniform!

The Last of the Naki Day 7

Well, by now I am no doubt having a ball in Wellington - Out last night for Cocktails, off to see the Monet exhibition at Te Papa or trawling the antique shops for treasures...but I thought I would schedule this post so you could see the last of the great Anniversary Day Cards I made.

I will be back home tomorrow - around mid day so I can do all the fun stuff there is to do after a weekend away - unpacking, washing etc and most of all spending time with my dog who I am missing very much....hopefully I have time for a little stamping too!

And mum took advantage!

So, right after I finished that wedding card, mum says is a small voice, "I need another card for one of the girls at work its her birthday soon".....I of course am too soft, and had been toying with some ideas with colour combinations I had seen lately, so I thought I would just give that a try.

It was also a chance to get ink on my new (well not yet touched) stamps from the Summer Mini.

Wedding Bells - Naki Day

This card was supposed to be made and designed by my mum....funny but somehow I ended up doing the lot - Funny how family get the better of you at times....mum came over to my place with a piece of fabric from my cousins Wedding Dress  - taffeta tartan...so I had to come up with something on the spot.

 

   

So that explains the front...inside the rose ...well her middle name is Rose, and she is quite partial to the rose as an icon as a result.

It was rather a large card - hence kind of difficult to photograph.....again, non SU Ribbon.

ok...the next in the series...

Great Anniversary Day Card # 4 is this:

Obviously inspired by a card I posted the other day for my friend (yay - am off to her place in around 30 hours for a girls weekend!)    But a simplified version for those whom I can't bear to part with the 'precious bits of metal' for .

Off to bed now - aaah got to be at work in less than 8 hours!

KWerner Color Inspiration #45

Hello everyone, hows your evening?....You know it's strange how life imitates art - as just tonight I have been at the hairdressers and what colours did I go for my hair but blond on top with this great black underneath...then off home I went to do this colour challenge - black, white & grey....thankfully I don't have any grey hair yet though :)

So here's my entry.....for someone who predominantly wears black this one actually seemed a little challenging - I really wanted to add a splash of something!

Just in case you can't quite see it (am increasingly dis-satisfied with my camera lately) I started with a basic black base and embossed this with clear embossing, then away I went with the rest - this card ended up coming together quite quickly! Ribbons on this one are not Stampin' Up....bargains from a clearance at Spotlight last year! Righto - must get this on to Kristina's blog....Oh my goodness its just gone midnight!

(12.34pm the next day: just updated the pics - slightly better in the day light....but still think I need a new camera....hmmm Christmas is how many months away??)

Color Throwdown #33

OK - so I seem to have gone from 1 extreme to another - no posts for months then all of a sudden I seem to be non-stop stamping and blogging.....hmmmm why could that be?

Anyway here is my attempt with these colours (which to be honest I wondered what on earth I was going to do with!)

My green of choice?  Well I decided I needed some designer paper to help me along, and wintergreen held the key - Certainly Celery it was!  I have to say I really enjoyed making this one, I finally got the chance to get my Nestabilities out (which I purchased months ago at SENZ) and also, I am loving butterflies at the moment - secretly hoping that we are getting some lovely ones in our new catalogue coming soon.  Right, now off to post this on the Color Throwdown blog.

Today's Naki Day card

ok - number 3 of the great Naki Anniversary day of stamping is this:

Have to fly - just quickly getting this done in my lunch break and have spent too much time searching for a new blog background!  If you can't tell already - I have really been enjoying using the floral background stamp....why oh why does it have to retire?

Now for Take 2

Ok - as promised here is the 2nd attempt for the night...a bit more of a simple one - and I was enjoying Wild Rose so much I just had to use it again.(sometimes us girls have to take our roses where we can!)

Now Its kind of hard to see but I used the Chunky Glitter on the rose too add a bit of glam....Not sure what I think of the effect though?!?

Right, now that's 3 posts in one day (a new Melinda record)- and I was tired when I got home from work!!! I must get off to bed just as soon as I add this to Makeesha's blog too.

Inskspirations Colour Challenge #5

OK...so here goes......a first for me as I normally can't find the time to do this kind of thing but here is my first attempt at a challenge:

Apologies for the shadows - my lounge does not have great light for night time photography.....Anyway, I have wanted to give one of these pop-up cards a go for AGES!! so this was the perfect time to get onto it...also, a chance to get out the lovely Wild Rose set (I even paper tolled the rose - and I am not a big fan of cutting things out!!) and more of the precious shiny bits of metal I love so much! .....now I just need to load it on to Makeesha's blog here and its official - My first Challenge complete!!! (But wait there's more - I have a second card done for this challenge too!)

Card #2....

As promised, the next card from the great day of stamping (yesterday):

My Favourite of Favourites - Chocolate Chip features in so many ways on this card - and man am I gonna miss River Rock!

Anyway - am totally exhausted today for some reason and I have something I want to work on tonight - if I can just find something to peg my eyelids open.  Will post if I get it achieved.

7 cards made...

...so I should be able to post once a day for the next week?!? 

Well - some of them I am not so sure about so I will have to see if they grow on me.

So here is number 1....I have been dabbling with some new ideas for cards to sell so any feedback is appreciated.  This was the first time I have used the Embrace Life set, and I still feel this might be a little plain.