It was Tony’s 43rd birthday yesterday. I can’t believe we are getting so old. Anyway, as he is the chief cook of the household we had takeaway for dinner from a new restaurant that we found – Ginger & Spice. I highly recommend them if you live in the North of Canberra. They have a lot of gluten free dishes and are very, very helpful.

Of course I made dessert and as I didn’t have a lot of ingredients in the house I decided to make a pavlova. Instead of topping it with cream, I used the leftover egg yolks and made custard.

We went to bed with very full bellies last night!

 How could you not want to try Whoopie Pies? Mary didn’t believe  that there was such a thing. Peggy wants to call them “hubba hubba wang dang doodle pies” as she loves the tiny headed cat from The Twisted Whiskers Show:

Anyway, back to whoopie pies. I used this recipe from Bakerella and adjusted it ever so slightly.
I used Orgran Gluten Free Plain Flour.
I used 8 tablespoons butter instead of 4 x butter and 4 x vegetable shortening.
I used normal brown sugar as that is all I had in the cupboard.

For the filling I creamed together the butter, peanut butter and salt. I did not use the sugar as I wanted my filling to offset the sweetness. It worked perfectly and they were delicious. I have extra filling still in the fridge so I need to whip up another batch of whoopie pies. I used smooth peanut butter, but crunchy would be great for a little bit of texture. Go and make some – it’s so worth it just to say ‘whoopie pies’!

No cards to share today!

We started back at soccer on the weekend and the kids had three wins again. All three teams are doing extremely well. Billy kicked yet another goal – he’s a bit of a goal scoring machine this season.

This pic was taken during the school holidays. Both Mary & Billy participated in Kanga Cup. We had ten games over four days and were running around all over Canberra in two cars ensuring that we got to games on time. it was cold and wet, but the kids had fun.

A few months ago one of my cards was on the front cover of Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft.

I love this card – it just came together really easily and worked.

Hey look! No Copics, lol.

Stamps: Darkroom Door Butterflies, Sentiment – Hero Arts
Ink: Versamark
White embossing powder
Paper: Pink Paislee, DCWV, vellum
Embellishments: Crochet flower, Prima leaf, buttons, sheer dotty ribbon

One of my more recent cards that I have just photographed. This stamp is from the most stunning unmounted plate! Again, we are sold out but have more on order.

I coloured the chipboard in with a couple of warm grey Copics.

Stamps: ©ching-chou kuik plate #43
Ink: Copic markers & Memento Tuxedo Black
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey, Scribble Scrabble & Pink Paislee
Embellishments: Pink Paislee Artisan Elements Swirls, Twiddleybitz Fine Fern Leaves chipboard, Green Tara roses.
Tools: Martha Stewart Double loops combo punch

Sharing another card that I made last month. I started out wanting to make this card in brown and blue as I was inspired by this card, but somehow the pink ended up in there too, lol.

We are out of stock of the Flowing in Blue stamp at the moment, but have more on order from Sweet Pea.

I’ve always loved violets. It’s a long story and involves my grandfather and bunches of tiny violets for my birthday in May – brings back a lot of memories.

So of course I had to have this Hero Arts Floral Scallop stamp and I made this card.

I stamped it twice and coloured one in full with Copics. On the other image I coloured in three of the violets and carefully and patiently cut them out. The also have a little drop of Distress Stickles in the middle.

The scrunched flowers and leaves were cut using this Sizzix die in my Cuttlebug. I sprayed the flowers with water, scrunched them, layered them and popped a brad through the middle to hold them together. I curled the leaf tips with my fingernails. Of course I also used my favourite Martha Stewart Garden Trellis punch.

Sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, lol.

I spent all day Saturday at ACTSA stamp camp and while the lovely ladies were in class I got a few images coloured and ready to turn into cards. The is a challenge and a tutorial on B&W colouring at Colour Me Copic if you are interested.

I coloured The Greeting Farm’s Cheeky Mate in twice. Once in colour and once in shades of grey.

Colours used:
Red hair -  E31, E08 and E37.
Skin - E00 and E11.
Outfit - YG91 and YG95 with a teeny bit of B93 for the blue accents.

The grey images uses W1, W5 and W7.

Now I have to turn them into cards.

Recently I had two cards published in Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft issue 16-3. It was in the Studio Steps section where I was asked to make two cards – a simple one and a more advanced one.

This was my more advanced one:

I love the photography in CS&P! They must have the biggest storage unit full of props as they always come up with the perfect additions to the cards.

This card uses Doraline with Sunflowers and I coloured it with Lyra watercolour crayons.

Back in May I attended a Copic Certification course in Melbourne with Nic and Teresa. I love colouring with Copics! I made this card a few weeks ago and I love the colour combination.

Stamp: Hero Arts Large Line Flower
Copics
Punch: Martha Stewart Garden Trellis
Black Metallic Vine – Flourish with a Bling