CPS card sketch - a lifetime of Happiness

 I've had this flocked SU paper since well before Christmas (from the Mocha Morning set), but I just opened the package this morning!  I'm trying very hard not to be as much of a paper hoarder as I have been in the past - and this paper is (was) a prime example of the type of paper I hoard - so gorgeous, it's almost too good to cut!   But cut it I did, and this is the result. 

The sentiment is a Penny Black Stamp, "Happiness", and the flourishes around the sentiment are bits of a Hero Arts Stamp, "Elegant Brocade".  I followed this week's CPS Card Sketch (below) - well, I tweaked it a little bit :)  I've also shared this card on Make it Monday - thanks for the reminder, Lisa ;)

Chip off the ol' Block - CASual Fridays & Lily Pad

This week's CASual Fridays Challenge is to use chipboard on a card - it is also the challenge at Lily Pad Cards!!   I don't use chipboard much at all, but I did have a sheet from Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love collection stashed away, so out it came, and this is what I came up with.

Moxie Fab - Map to your heart

I've had this map of London in my stash for a while - it's from October Afternoon's "Thrift Shop" 8X8 pad - so, when I saw the new challenge from Moxie Fab, I knew exactly where to go!

I thougth I had this card finished when it looked like this:

but it was obviously missing something - and the challenge at Moxie Fab is called "the map to your heart", so I knew what to add :)

My favourites from 2011

I have read some posts by a few fellow bloggers today who have posted their favourite cards from 2011 - and I thought I'd join in!  My particular faves are the ones in the larger photos :) 

(I was going to make it my top 20, but it ended up my top 30! LOL!)

Dear Blogland...

Dear all,
     I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, and a fantastic New Year so far.  I've been absent for a while now - December was filled with much fun and frivolity, but also with an inordinate amount of singing - 16 performances for Crown Entertainment Complex, 3 different community carols concerts (one that got us all drenched with a summer downpour), the Carols by Candlelight at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Christmas Eve (my 22nd consecutive year in the choir), as well as all of the rehearsals that went along with them all!  It gets a bit exhausting, especially with the hot weather!  Then, on Christmas Day, my computer decided to play silly buggers, and refused to connect to our WLAN.   As the guy at work who can fix it was on leave (as many workplaces were) until yesterday, I've been unable to do much at all until today - and voila! Computer is fixed!  (gotta love the computer guy!)
     Anyway, in the last few days, I have been making some cards, but I have decided to try to get a couple of cards published in a magazine this year, so I can't post them here!  However, the online card class "Clean & Simple Cardmaking" by Kristina Werner, Jennifer McGuire and Julie Ebersole (YAY!!!!) begins on Monday next week, so I hope to get really stuck into some serious card making then - especially as, the following week, I will be off for a 4 day masterclass in preparation for "Opera in the Alps" - should be great fun, but no time for cardmaking!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Michelle