Poinsettia and Pomegranates

I recently had someone ask me to make five large (A4 size*) Christmas cards. I've never made a card that big, let alone five of them! All of the dies I have would've looked too small on the large card, so I chose to use a digi stamp and enlarged it (a lot!) to fill up the front of my card. The image I've used is from Powerpoppy called Poinsettia and Pomegranates. I used artistic licence and made my pomegranates blue instead of red :-)

Copic colours used:

Poinsettia: R89, R37, R24, R14 and R12

Poinsettia centre: Y17 and Y13

Pomegranates: B37, B34, B32 and Y17

Pomegranate leaves: YG67, YG17, YG23, YG21 with a dash of Y13 on a few leaves

Thin leaves: G29, G24 and G20

As I had to make five of these in a short amount of time they are not blended as much as I would normally colour them. Pretty much just chucked the colour on but I'm happy with how they turned out anyway :-)

I've used a black A3*, 210 gsm card as my base and then used Bazzill heavyweight cardstock for the layers to make it more stable. I added a white piece on the inside too to study up the back piece. I've added some chunky white and gold embossing frantage (I think it's called Shabby White) to the corners and inked the edges with Distress Ink Festive Berries.

The Merry Christmas is also a digi stamp from PowerPoppy 'Chickadee in Barberry' but I've just removed the "to you" part.

I also added some mini prills to the centre of the poinsettia.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

*A4 size is 210 mm x 297 mm or 8.27 x 11.69 inches; and

A3 is double the size of A4, so 420 mm x 297 mm or 16.5 x 11.7 inches.

It's nearly Christmas!

Wow! I wasn't planning on being away from my blog and cardmaking for that long (just looked at my last post and it was November 2016!) - I have been soooo busy this last year - but I guess everyone else has too.

This year I have stepped up to be the Kingdom Kids Coordinator (Sunday School for 4 - 7 year olds) at our church and teach most weeks. I've also taken on our church broadcaster (newsletter) each week and my paid work (even though I'm doing the same hours as last year) is now spread out over 4 days. We been on our "lifestyle" block for just over two years now and loving it - but it's definitely more work than being in town! But I'm loving tending to the garden (vegetables and fruit trees) and animals (we even had baby ducks this year!) - so I've been a tad busier than before and haven't found as much time for cardmaking.

I've really enjoyed teaching the little kids at our church about God and seeing them grow in their knowledge and love for Him and I've done a lot of learning and growing at the same time!

I've also done two, one day bible courses this year through the Trinity Theological College. They run some units in the South West of Western Australia through their Trinity in Town program. Earlier this year we did a unit called The Framework: Seeing the Christian Truth as a Whole and then we just finished a unit on Life in the Last Days: Revelation (still finishing off my assignment for this unit). All of the units I've done have been fantastic (I've now done 8) and it gives me a renewed sense of how awesome, majestic, wonderful and marvelous our God is - and yet, those who don't trust in Jesus, are sadly going to spend eternity away from Him. It really saddens me to see people all around me blinded to how wonderful God is. I need to keep reminding myself to take every opportunity to tell these people about Jesus and what He has done! But also to keep encouraging the Christians I fellowship with too! I am grateful to those friends who continue to encourage me! One friend recently told me about The Bible Project's website - and even though I've only watched two of their videos so far - I found it a great, if very quick, overview of the book of the bible (I watched the Revelation videos). They appear to have done videos for most (if not all?) books of the Bible - you should have a look.

But I have spent some time in my craft room this year making some cards and I wanted to share a few with you.

This is one I made for a work colleague who went on maternity leave.

Stamps by PowerPoppy, Mo Manning and Stamp-It, coloured with Copics

I entered some cards in the Brunswick Show again this year.

Dies and Paper from Our Daily Bread Designs.
This card won Second Place

This card won First place

This card won Second Place

This card got a highly commended

This card got a highly commended

This card won second prize.
I've made a card pretty much exactly the same as this one before. It was so much fun I made another one!

Altogether I won one first, four seconds and two highly commended. I also won the "trophy" for the most points in the card making section.

My children also, once again had fun making things to enter in the show. My eldest daughter won second place in the scrapbooking section.

The photos were of our first baby duckling that our pet ducks had :-) Her name is Honey.

My youngest daughter won first prize for her Christmas ornament. I was so impressed with her patience with the cutting, folding and gluing this ornament together!

Not a great photo but a lot of effort went into this one!

I'm super busy now getting ready for all the end of year things - at church, school and home! I can't believe Christmas is only three weeks away!

"Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord." 

Luke 2:11 (NIRV)

Jesus is the reason for the season!

It's been a while...

It has been a while since I have been on here and I have to say it will probably be a while before I am on here again. Life has become just a little bit busy, maybe a tad stressful at times and my cardmaking has sadly suffered for it. On the upside I have been spending some more time outside in the garden and enjoying God's beautiful creation (along with the dog, sheep, chickens and duck).

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
Psalm 19:1

I did spend a little bit of time making some cards for our local Brunswick Show (one of Australia's biggest one day shows). I was thrilled to get 5 firsts, two seconds and a highly commended. I also took out the overall cardmaking trophy (third year in a row!!). 

Both of my daughters also entered items this year. The eldest won first for her chocolate brownies and second for an "item using a gluing technique" - she made a paper mache turtle. The youngest won second for her salt dough bowl that she made and painted.

Here are a few photos:

First Place - Child theme greeting card with stamping
Whimsy Stamps - Silver Fairy

Whimsy Stamps - Sweet Blossom

Second Place - Non-child theme greeting card with stamping
PowerPoppy - Tulips in Hobnail Pitcher

Highly commended - Christmas card without stamping
Using Our Daily Bread Designs and other dies

First Place - Non-child theme greeting card without stamping
Using various dies

First Place - Christmas card with stamping
PowerPoppy - Heaven and Nature Sing

First Place - chocolate brownies

Second Place - Item using gluing technique

Second Place - Item made from salt dough

So that's it from me for a while. Cards will still be made, occasionally, but may not always be posted. My Copics will not be forgotten either :-) Thank you all so much for looking.

I can't say for sure when my next post will be (but I don't think I will post much in 2017 - aiming to be back on a more regular basis in 2018). So until then, thank you and take care.

I'll leave you with a few (maybe more than a few :-) verses:

God Creates His Kingdom

 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

"God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good." Genesis 1:31

"The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."" Genesis 2:16-17

But people reject God

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." Genesis 3:6

 "And I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel." Genesis 3:15

and God banished them from the Garden

"So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken." Genesis 3:23

Everyone has rejected God

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23

But God loves us so much

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him shall have eternal life" John 3:16

Jesus is the way

"For the wages of sin is death, 

but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23

Jesus said... "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

because of what He did for us

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

If you have faith in Jesus, our sins are forgiven, we are washed clean

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

But life is not always rosey...but our focus must remain on Jesus

 "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

James 1:1-4 

"And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Hebrews 12:1b-2

 "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."

Hebrews 11:1 

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever."

Isaiah 40:8

Wedding Rose

I love my Copic markers and I've been using them for about 4 years now and its been a big learning curve - but you can always learn more. I've found Kit & Clowder to be a great community of inspiration, learning and fun and am glad I found their facebook community and Alyce's online classes. 

Alyce announced a while back that she is getting married in October this year and wanted the community to join in. She offered a free wedding rose colouring class (more info on the FB page here) and once coloured, we can send the rose(s) to her and Jon. 

This is the rose I coloured:

My children also did some roses (sorry no pictures) and they are on their way to Alyce and Jon :-)

Thanks for looking!

Fragrance

I had intended to enter the Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light monthly challenge quite a few weeks ago but only just got around to making my card this week! Better late than never right?? :-) Here is my card:

The challenge was "Anything that grows" - I've stamped the image from Our Daily Bread Designs "Fragrance" numerous times onto kraft cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with prismacolor pencils. I've then diecut the piece using Our Daily Bread Designs Double Stitched Rectangles dies. I've also used ODBD Bitty Butterflies, ODBD Lovely Leaves dies, ODBD Bitty Blossoms dies, ODBD Mini Tags and Labels dies and ODBD Mini Tag Sentiments stamp set. 

Here is a closer look:

 

 Thanks for looking!