Make It Monday #46

Hello hello!

  

It's another day in Christchurch and Mother Nature is still rock'n rollin'. Not too bad today though. Nothing 'major' since the 5.1 magnitude wake up call at 6:30am. There's still the odd little shakes, but nothing we're not used to ;)

  

Today, I was out seeing an old friend at the park. Malls were surprisingly not so packed - I suspect yesterday's shake ups have freaked a few shoppers out.

  

Anyway, I've tackled the Make It Monday at last! I really don't do well with tags, but I gave it a crack.

So this week's challenge was to turn any die into a folded tag. It's more or less the same theory as the Shape Up series dies.

  

I went back to using my Front & Center die. I really don't use that die enough and I just find it a little big for my head to get around. I don't do so well with large spaces - hence I've held off scrapbooking.

 

I've kept this one very simple. And I cut the Front & Center die cuts smaller so I didn't have a large area to decorate. I just stamped it with Polka Dot Basic II and added a tag. Simple as.

  

   

And you might be surprised that this simple thing took me forever to do.

 

Thanks for coming by.

 

Merry Christmas to you all, and hope that you get a well deserved break and family time :)

 

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

STAMP: [PTI] Polka Dot Basics II, Everyday Button Bits
INK: [PTI] Fresh Snow; [Memento] Tuxedo Black; [SU!] Calypso Coral
PAPER: [PTI] Melon Berry, Berry Sorbet, Vintage Cream
OTHER: [PTI] Front & Center die, Limitless Layers 1.75" Circles die collection; button; [Celebrate!] satin ribbon (cream); baker's twine (orange); [American Crafts] ribbon; [Copic] Sketch Marker (Y38)

Earthquakes and Cards

Earthquakes and cards have nothing to do with each other. In fact none of the cards below have anything to do with quakes we had today, but I thought, surely, it would seem like an interesting title for a blog post. So there.

  

Anyway, what a day it has been. Today is Christmas Eve Eve (yes, it's 23rd December) and Mother Nature has kindly decided to join in on the party. 

  

As an update from the previous post, power lines and phones have been down on the Eastern suburbs (yet again - that side of the town as had so much damage already this year, and to have to go through it all over again, my heart goes out to them), there's fresh liquefaction, rockfalls by Sumner/New Brighton/Lyttleton area, we had rest home residents trapped on a floor, airport is closed, busses running once an hour, malls evacuated, but all in all, no one died today. Thank goodness. Just as well we're in the middle of sunshine and it's not cold like it was when the first earthquake struck in September last year.

I'm on one of the best areas of the city in terms of quake-damage, so my house got away without a single crack and everyone's doing a-ok :)

 

So, shall we get onto some cards?

 

I can now officially say that I can't flick those mists without making a mess! I've given up on flicking inks. I might just stick to spraying. i swear this card looked better before I flicked all that mist onto it.

    

     

And I finally got a hold of those Shape Up series cupcake dies!!! And who said you couldn't use the In the Meadow snowdrift dies for things other than snow? I used it to make that puuurfect cut for the icing ;)

  

     

Here are some cards I've cased. The first one's Nichole Heady's card. It's very clever in the way you use the back of the stamp to get the solid ink images on the card. I just wish I had New Leaf ink pad...

    

   

This card is a case of Maile Belles' card. I love this card so much <3 It's just such a neat card. Maile used a pink shimmer cardstock at the bottom, but I just sprayed it with my Calico Shine mist - VOILA! It's a shimmer cardstock!

 

I had no black buttons, so had to substitute with Raspberry Fizz ones.

   

   

 That's it for the day! I have to say that I'm a bit inspiration-less these days. I think I need a little break and hopefully when my new dies arrive along with the Tiny Tags sets, I'll have a bit more inspiration :)

 

I hope the city pulls through this setback as well. It sucks for those on the heavily affected areas because it's Christmas and it's meant to have been a great time to relax and chill after a long, difficult year.

 

Kia kaha ("stay strong") Christchurch.

  

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

{Just a Little Something...}

STAMP: [PTI] Everyday Button Bits

INK: [SU!] Early Espresso, Calypso Coral

PAPER: [PTI] Vintage Cream, Summer Sunrise
OTHER: [PTI] Tin Types Impression Plate; [Studio Calico] Mister Huey's Color Mist (Calico Shine); buttons; [We R Memory Keepers] Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper (aqua)

 

{Cupcake card}

STAMP: [PTI] Cupcake Collection

INK: [SU!] Early Espresso

PAPER: [PTI] Raspberry Fizz, Vintage Cream, Sweet Blush
OTHER : [PTI] Raspberry Fizz button, Shape Up: Cupcake die collection, Tin Types Impression Plate; [Celebrate!] Satin ribbon (pink)

 

{For You}

STAMP: [PTI] Year of Flowers: Carnation, Fillable Frames #2, Fillable Frames #5

INK: [SU!] Wild Wasabi, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight; [Memento] Tuxedo Black

PAPER: [PTI] Stamper's Select White, Ripe Avocado
OTHER : [PTI] Edgers #1 die, Fillable Frames #2 die; [unknown brand] ribbon

 

{Wishing You Happiness...}

STAMP: [PTI] Year of Flowers: Carnation

INK: [SU!] Early Espresso, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink

PAPER: [PTI] Stamper's Select White, Sweet Blush
OTHER : [PTI] Edgers #1 die, Raspberry Fizz buttons, button twine (jute); [Studio Calico] Mister Huey's Color Mist (Calico Shine)

Mother Nature's Way of a Christmas Party

Just in case anyone read the news (seeing it's currently on BBC frontpage on the web) - we just had another series of aftershocks. First one hit around 2pm and was of magnitude 5.8 (and shallow). We've had another several of similar magnitude (at least what felt like) since though not officially reported yet by GeoNet. I am ok and so are all my family & friends.

Just putting it out there in case anyone worries.

It had neen pretty quiet in the last few months with hardly any noticeable aftershocks. Well, Mother Nature sure knows how to party. Last year she shook us with a decent one on Boxing Day (day after Christmas & biggest shopping day of the year).

Here are some attractive seismic drum images I nabbed off GeoNet website. Ooh here's another aftershock as I'm typing. The first image shows all the different major seismographs we have in the country. As you can see by the big thick black lines going across, we've had some decent shakes here. 

Ooh, another sharp jolt. After over a year of shakes day in and day out, really, you get used to them. I didn't even duck under my desk although we hadn't had a decent shake in months.

*SORRY IMAGES GOT LOST*

 http://geonet.org.nz/earthquake/drums/

 

 This one below is specifically the McQueen's Valley seismograph. It's the closest one we have to Christchurch. All the red bits indicate where the graph has been cut short to prevent it from cutting across into the other lines (indicating it was a reasonable shake - usually if the red bit's quite thick like it is here, it's a big shake). You can see how quiet the graph had been up to about 2 hours earlier, and BAM! Surprise from Mother Nature!

*SORRY IMAGES GOT LOST*

 http://geonet.org.nz/earthquake/drums/mqz-drum.html
  

 Thank god we still have power at home. I hear phone lines have been out since the first quake.

Anyway, I just put that up for interest, because I've always been into earthquake stuff even before we had the September one last year. I used to look it up and such way back in high school as well.

I'm alright here. And by the look of Facebook updates, all my friends are too :)

Take care everyone and I'll update you with some cards soon - when I can be bothered replacing the batteries in the camera LOL