It was about time....

For those of you that are following my blog and wondered what has happened with me, well, I'm still around, still crafting, just haven't put the time aside to actually post any of the things I have done.

A lot has happened since my last post. March and April we had adventures in Europe, France, and Connecticut (east coast of the US where we used to live a while ago, for my Aussie friends), changed a leaf in the passing of time as I joined my friends in their thirties (I was told the thirties are great and if you all lied to me I will not be very happy!) , came home and were sick for a while and then we had wonderful friends from Australia come and visit. (Jeremy and Shiami it was an ABSOLUTE pleasure to have you guys over, and we treasured every minute of it! We love you guys!)

Jamie had to go to Paris for a conference with work and seeing as it was around my 30th birthday I thought it would be just perfect to tag along! And my mum was able to join us for a few days and we surprised my grand'ma with this trip also! 

 Champs Elysees 

 Bateau mouche sur la Seine

 Saint Malo on the west coast of France, in Brittany (we spent about 5 days here)

 Jamie and our beautiful muffins

 Jamie's artsy shot

When we were in CT I had the pleasure to stay with two of my dearest girlfriends, Rebeca and Marta and I even got treated to going out with the girls about 3-4 times!! Thanks to Rebeca's wonderful mum who offered to watch the kids! Thank you Lidia :-)

Well after the long 4 week holiday was finished and we came home (Jamie had come home after France as someone has to do paid work to support all these overseas trips right? Thanks hon, I love you) we all got sick. That was downright nasty! Jamie managed to get this really bad flu from somewhere and brought it home and was bed ridden for nearly a week. And when Jamie does not get out of bed a whole day, you know its really bad!! I mean he didn't even go to the garage or his CAD work....he was really sick. After 5-6 days I thought, gee this is really good, I've managed to not get this, my immune system is awesome! And then the next day that was it! Sure enough it lasted about the same, one week, but I have to say it was a very long week looking after the kids when you're sick and tired and the kids bounce of the walls...I had never been so sick in my life and don't ever want to experience the flu again! Miserable miserable week!

And then we were blessed to have fear friends from australia visit for 9 days! This is how I get to go into SF and do touristy things! Loved every minute of their visit and was very happy to see them again. And I was also in for a treat, Shiami did some Sri Lankan cooking :-)))

and and and....and that brings me to today...

I thought it was about time to get my act together and publish some of the things that I have been up to....

One of the girls at church had a baby and I was thought it would be nice to make a new card for her. I had some in my box, but they were more boyish ones, and I wanted a very girly one for this new little baby girl. So this is what I came up with.

I used a retired Stampin' Up set with lots of babies (not sure of the name as I do not have the box), but it is very versatile. I did not have a current baby set to use, and this one is so very cute! The saying is from a SU set called For a Friend.

Not sure how visible it is from the pics, but it is actually a window card, the baby pics are punched with a square punch and glued to the card itself. Above it there is a layer of Melon Mambo cardstock in which I had punched 3 windows with the same square punch and adhered that with 3 dimensional foam to make it pop.

I then used a layer of the lovely DSP Cheerful Treat in melon mambo and Wasabi (unfortunately that is retired also, pity it was my favorite!) and then glued the sentiment on the curly label punch, layered another one underneath and attached them with 3D foam.

BIRDIES, BIRDIES, BIRDIES!! 

I had a few days of mad crafting and made a few cards that I had been wanting to make for a long time! I have a whole folder on my computer with cards that I want to try to use as inspiration. Finally it was birdies time. This one is greet as there is no stamping! I used the bird punch for the front, but added 2 wings on the birdie. I thought it would look really nice to add another wing in the DSP paper that i used on the left panel. Only the last card uses Stampin Up Designer paper, I had some really nice paper leftover from my kids scrapbooks and I wanted to use it. The orange and pink ones are really beautiful, shimmery and embossed. The orange ones went really well with the Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive Cardstock, and for the pink one i used Rich Razzleberry and Very vanilla.

For the inside I chose to add the top note die cut with the Sizzix Big Shot- this has got to be the most versatile and used die SU sells!-.

The card is the normal size, but the front is folded in the facing the outside and then it is tied with a a ribbon. I love the effect this gives. I sent the bottom one to Elizabeth, my sister in law and she really liked it :-)

Well, if you've made it this far, congrats on your patience! I promise I will try to be slightly more consistent with my posts. I have quite a few more projects to share, including some birthday calendars that the girls made at my FIRST calendar class!!! Thanks for coming :-)

Hugs,
Renate