Better late than never ......

Happy New Year and hope your Christmas holidays have been restful and spent with those closest to you.  I noticed that my posting has been non-existent since October, we had such a busy end to the school year, but my hands have not been idle.

Before school finished in early December, we had auditions for Percussion Ensemble and the Middle School band, a piano exam to endure, and the general worry about end of school reports.  Don't know why I bothered to waste energy over worrying, it all worked out well.  Then we had end of year ballet concerts, my daughter danced in all 4 concerts and was completely shattered by Sunday evening.  It is great  to see the progression of these poised young 11 year old girls, who have turned into wonderful dancers as well as delightful young ladies and close friends.

The following weekend was my daughter's belated birthday celebration.  She wanted to have friends for a sleepover - in a tent in our backyard!  A wise friend told me I will only do this once, I should have just taken the advice.  So my husband had the assistance of 8 girls in putting up the tent, a decision I think he later regretted.  Some slept very well, others not so much (darling daughter included), so apologies to those parents who had vile tempered children the next day. They behaved beautifully, ate well and were, on the whole, considerate of our neighbours.

We made these take home bags, inside which were a few camping essentials.

I stamped each child's name on the bag.  I was told in no uncertain terms NOT to put any bling what so ever on them.  Just not the same.

Along with Christmas cards, I also managed to do a few jobs that have been hanging around for a couple of years.  I am no scrapbooker, and my style is, well, basic to say the least.  But I have finally got all my daughter's dance photos mounted, along side the ones my husband had taken on open days, so it is a reasonably complete record of her dance career.  Then there was my recipe folder, overflowing with bits ripped out of magazines and printouts.  Now, they are all in the appropriate sections of the folder (bet I won't be able to find anything now!)

Christmas was a lovely family time, then some time at the beach.  My husband and daughter then went camping on Fraser Island with friends, right at the time when we had a spell of extremely hot weather (40C).  For me, camping doesn't happen and it was the start of my month of intensive TV viewing - the tennis.  We spent a day sweltering at the Brisbane International, the tennis was great.  Sadly it is nearly over and RF went out of the Australian Open last night!!

Next week we are back into the school routine, which I think will be welcome after 2 months off.  Her group of friends have  caught up periodically over the summer, mostly at birthday parties as they all seem to fall around this time.  The bags are packed with new books and pencil cases filled with brand new pens.  Just need to get the ipad cleaned up.  Here is one of the birthday cards I made, regrettably, I forgot to take a photo of the card I made for her ballet friend whose birthday was last night.

So, maybe after all that waffle, a challenge card is in order.  I can't resist pink and it has been a while since I have participated in a PTI blog hop.  I have just watched the videos for the latest Online Card class - Stenciled and I am inspired.  I resisted stencils for quite a while, the image in my hands is a bit blurry and not quite my taste.  but what the ladies have done is just breath taking.

It is a mixture of a ideas used by Jennifer, Laura and Debby and yes, it is a Christmas card, but I didn't post any on the blog this time.  I don't do much distress inking, I leave that to my daughter.  I get ink all over my fingers then all over the card.  But as I said, I very much wanted to try and it took a number of practice runs.

I still can't quite master the art of starting off the page without the corner of the sponge "stamping".  I adhered the stencil to card with adhesive spray, which seemed to work well.  

What you need
Cardstock - PTI white, black
Stamps - Background Basics:  Text Style;  Tree Trimming Trio
Inks - Ranger Distress Inks (Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry);  Versafine Onyx Black; Versamark
Stencil - SSS Ornament on a String
Embossing Powder - Judi Kins Extreme Peacock
Adhesive spray
Zig Wink of Stellar (clear)

Hope you made it to the end of this long winded post, as it is a long weekend in Australia, I may get round to more challenges.

Happy Australia Day to all Aussies for tomorrow (26th).