Looking Back on 2008

I know that it is New Years Eve tomorrow however I will be going away so I thought I would post here tonight.

This year has certainly been full on. I have learnt so much and made so many new friends.
Some of these friends I would like to thank - they are in no particular order:

• Ruth - for sticking by me even though you are half a world away.
• Donia - You may not know it but the emails that I have sent you have also helped me in so many ways.
• Betty - For your ongoing love and friendship even though I am terrible at keeping in touch
• Vivian - for teaching me so much and opening me up to new crafty options (and therefore lowering my bank balance). :)
• The Journal Junkies - for being a top group of ladies who are all very skilled. May 2009 bring more exciting new skills and creations.
• Carmen - for agreeing to be my diet buddy next year
• Sulea and the guys on L 3 for welcoming me with open arms
• The girls at Scraptivate - for creating a store that is like a art gallery where I can go and just breath (and spend) on my lunch break.
• Kelsey - for being friendly and willing to give out information on techniques when I can't make a class and for teaching me how to do ATCs.
• Jackie and Tim - for being great friends
• Mandy WA - for keeping in touch
• Mandy Tassie - for finding me so that we can be friends again
• Nicole - also for finding me.
• Blogger world in general as it has opened me up to knew friends and ideas.

Now I know that not everyone mentioned is going to read my blog and find the thankyous as they are way too busy however it is here in print for the world to see and know how special these people are to me.

On a side note, today I had my cousins daughter here for some craft time this afternoon. We made a lovely album from the Christmas photo's. I would love to show you photos of the finished product but for some reason blogger has decided to post them sideways (I think blogger is on strike at the moment). Anyway we had lots of fun and despite the major tidy up of the studio yesterday it is now a big mess again. It will be tidied when I get back from my trip to sunny humid hot Queensland.

Have a great new year everyone and see you in 2009.

Santa won't go home

Well it appears that Santa has no control over the 6 white boomers (kangaroos) in my title and they have decided to stay indefinitely. I know how to add and remove an image from the title but for some reason this one insists on staying. Any suggestions on how to give Santa the boot will be greatly appreciated as the Easter Bunny will be here soon! :)

For some reason I have not been notified of every ones comments and therefore some are missing. I have had a quick look in blogger issues and apparently this is a known error and was fixed on Dec 6.

Christmas Part 2

Instead of loading a whole heap of photo's I decided to put them in a slide show (Below post). We had 8 kids and 8 adults for christmas all up. Of those kids 6 were boys and talk about rowdy (sweet revenge on the noisy neighbours). Ashtyn is the daughter of the cousins that have moved to Melbourne (came over for Christmas). She is a gorgeous thing and I wish I could see her more often. She is in love with my craft studio so she and Kiara came to me halfway through the day and asked if they could do some crafts. I obliged even though everything from inside the house had been thrown in the studio and I had no idea where anything was. We managed to find something and by this stage Kiara's hyperactive little brother wanted to join in. Luckily I had three chipboard stars. They chose their paper (the expensive stuff with the embossed glitter on it) and we sat on the floor for the next hour or so cutting and taping and chalking edges then putting stickers on. When it came to tying on the charms we had to cut grooves so that they didn't fall off. I handed each kid a stanley knife and instructed them to find one of the men and tell them to do some work! In the middle of all this Tayne decided he wanted to do something so luckily I had a little chipboard christmas tree. He grabbed some paint and glitter and went outside with mum to paint it. They all did a good job.

You will also notice in the photo's the state of the floor when we started to open the pressies and the state of the floor towards the end. I am surprised that the kids could even find their things. There is also a photo taken outside of the 5 women in the family. I am the fat one standing at the back but Carmen and I are going to be diet buddies when I get back from another cousins wedding in Qld.

Well the family arrived at 12pm and left 9 hours later. The dogs were locked in my room for the better part of the day because the youngest boy is dead scared of them. Eventually we let them out (poor things).

So that is another christmas done and dusted. It just seems to come around so fast. Enjoy the photo's.

Christmas Day

Holidays

You can tell I am on holidays. I seem to be doing about two posts a day. I am not sure why but I think my Christmas Spirit missed the post this year. Even putting up the tree and listening to carols hasn't made much of a difference. This is not me. I love Christmas. Maybe it is because my cousins kids are all growing up to fast and the fun of hiding presents and planning little things for the day has gone.

Yesterday I had Carmen from my JJ group come down for a visit. It was nice to have her here and show her around. We are both around the same weight so after Christmas I am joining her in a diet. We are going to be diet buddies. Yeah I know you have heard this all before but I am really hating myself and I am sick of hiding away from society. I can't say I will be successful but I will give it a good try. Carmen has already started hers but I have a big family Christmas and a wedding in my near future. Starting a diet is immediate diet suicide. I don't gorge myself which is a good thing and I think God has blessed me with a cavity which means no overly sweet stuff either.

Mum and I will be up way past midnight tonight as some friends of hers have invited us back to their place once they get back from mass. That means around 1am. Luckily our family Christmas is on boxing day this year which means I can sleep all day tomorrow (that of course depends on the noisiest neighbours in the world who live next door - the second noisiest are on the other side). Ruth has asked that I take photos of my Christmas decorations. I think it is because her daughter is very mobile now and loves shiny things, hence not many decorations up.

Back on the subject of Christmas I have posted pictures of one last gift I made. This is for my cousin who is a chef. I doubt he is interested enough to read this blog but just in case I have waited till now to put his gift on. He flew in today with his family and most likely will not get onto the Internet in the next 48 hours.

The ingredients for this masterpiece were:

• 2 flat canvas boards - one as the main and a small square one in the centre to raise up
• Modelling paste that I textured with a palette knife and Making memories sponge stamps
• The cutlery and the coat hanger I got from scraptivate (where else)
• The ivy leaves and the black border at the top are from the German Scrap Collection. I used luminart paint on the ivy leaves to make them shine.
• Last but not least Tim Holtz alcohol inks. I just love how they look on the modelling paste.

Cameras

I have a really good digital SLR camera that I use when I take photos unless I want close ups. It is the worst camera for closeups. Mind you I have found that any SLR camera digital or not are shocking for closeups. My mothers little pocket size digital camera does much better. In fact most of the photo's I post on the are from mum's camera. At least with the SLR I can take the photo set on a high mega pixel and then crop it later and still have a good quality image. It's just more hit and miss that way.

Just thought you needed to know that thrilling bit of information on Christmas Eve and to top it off I saw this fly today stuck in an old web. I am guessing he died of shock because the spider is not around and he is not majorly tangled in the web. I just loved the colours on him. Not sure if he is a normal house hold fly as they always look black. The photos really show how hairy they are as well.

One is with a flash and one is without.

Things to be thankful for

1. friends
2. family
3. pets
4. a bed to sleep in
5. food on the table
6. the chance to have travelled
7. religious freedom
8. I have a job
9. my craft skills
10. music
11. computers (sometimes)
12. a roof over my head
13. to learn new things
14. having a patient (though maybe a little frustrated) mother
15. ability to do things for others to make them smile.
16. living in a country that has no war
17. water
18. my niece
19. The Sabbath
20. weekends
21. rain
22. grass in my yard (in some countries grass is rarely seen in the suburbs).
23. Forests
24. Ocean
25. animals
26. laughter
27. health
28. ability to do normal everyday things
29. a good sleep
30. Email

They aren't in any particular order. The challenge now is to see if you can come up with more.

For Ruth

This is for my impatient friend Ruth. It is an album of her daughter which is supposed to be a gift. Normally a gift is meant to be a surprise but considering she has been at me for photo's of it for months and that she was going to be home in Australia for this Christmas and isn't I thought I would give in. :)

Promised

For those of you who were interested I have finally photographed the page of the 1970's craft book that had a string lady to create. Mine is similar but different.

Coincidences just keep happening

Prepare for a long but interesting blog. I will start at the beginning:

• Last week I received Ivy's name as my person to buy a secret Santa gift for. I asked Simon who her close friends were to figure out what to get her.
• I email Sue Le (whom I have already mentioned on this blog as being very creative) and through our emails found out that we had many things in common almost down to the suburb we live in.
• Two days ago I took Sue Le to scraptivate where we started talking to a mutual friend (yes that would be Kelsey). There was a tool we were discussing that I would like to get but it was around $40-$50. Sue Le also mentioned how she was missing certain art things she knew she had but wasn't sure where she had put them.
• Yesterday Simon asked what we should do with 350 CDs that can not be used any more. We thought that decorating the boss' office would be great.
• 6:30 am this morning I rock up at work and Simon is starting to chicken out. We decided that the boss' office was not a good place as there was sun streaming in it left right and centre and we didn't want to blind her so we did the back wall instead.

This is our Santa Clause

This is our snow flake

This is a presant with Simon's artistic tinsel bow

This is the presant again once he realised the CDs cut well

This is Simon putting a star on the tree.

This is the tree

• Later on that morning Sue Le came to my desk with a little gift. It is absolutely gorgeous. The first photo is it altogether but I took it off the ring to get some better photo's. She has decorated each house back and front with the tallest house being around 8cm (2.5 inches)

• Even further into the day I get an email from Sue Le telling me she finally found what she had been looking for and was really happy about it. She said she also found tools that she forgotten she had. I replied telling her that it is great to receive "Xmas Pressies" like that.
• Half way through the afternoon the Secret Santa's started to be handed out. I was standing with Ivy and Sue Le when we were opening ours. Instead of writing Ivy's name I punched out an ivy leaf. She couldn't figure out how Simon knew that was the one for her and then she said "Oh I see it, it's in the corner!" Unknown to me the paper I used actually had Ivy written on it in the corner.
• Sue Le got a lovely blue candle but I think the hit were the bells on top of the box that tinkled. I can see them going into an art piece real soon.
• Ivy was taking her time because she liked the paper so I opened mine and guess what I saw ... the tool kit I had eyed off in the store!
• I spun around to Sue Lea and said "are you my secret Santa!?" As if I didn't know already but once she confirmed I proceeded to hug, tell her off, hug, thank her, and tell her it was way too expensive considering we were only supposed to spend between $5 & $10.
• Apparently it was the tool she found that she had been referring two in her email earlier that day. She didn't realise she had two of them. She also said she got it at Bunnings which is a little cheaper at times than Scraptivate. She also said she couldn't stop laughing when I started emailing her about Ivy. All this was the first contact we had ever had!!!
• It is the best Secret Santa I have ever had. Photo's are below with a small explanation as to what it is but first back to Ivy.
• Because we were standing next to each other she already knew Sue Le was my Santa. When she opened up to find her puppy staring back at her she loved it and looked straight at me. Apparently out of the whole office people there are only two creative people so I was the obvious last choice. I then got to explain that I didn't realise her name was on the wrapping paper and that the leaf in the "TO" is actually and Ivy leaf punch.

Ok so below is the tool. For those not in the know it is the alphabet and numbers. You can use them to indent words into cardboard, wood and all sorts of things. If you go back to the photo of Sue Le's art work (which by the way was the original gift and still given as a deterrent - didn't work too well :) ) you will see the house with the small jigsaw pieces. The word JOY at the top has been done using these.

Once again, thank you soooooo much Su Lea. You are very generous and it is a gift I will treasure forever ... and have lots of fun with.

More gifts

As promised here are a couple of other gifts I have made. The first one is for my Aunt. I love the Collections Leaves. They are so pliable to play with. The bird is either Scrap FX or Twiddly Bits.


My cousins little girl is crazy about fairies so I made a 3D fairy hanging for her. I just love her face. The fairy charm I painted with alcohol inks.

6 Degrees of Seperation and presants

I haven't been blogging much of late due to this being the silly season I decided I would make most of my gifts this year. More on that in a momento.

Today in my lunch break I took Sulea to Scraptivate. She has only been there once before but it was a while ago I think. She actually met a couple of ladies that she knows. It was dangerous taking her there because she had money in her purse AND she spent more than me which normally is saying something but I spent under $30 today. I musn't be feeling well.

Below are a couple of photo's of the old man of the house. He sleeps most of the time now. In fact he did not even flinch when I took these photo's with a flash aiming directly at him. He has become stubborn in his old age too. He refuses to come when called because it could mean one of three things: going outside; tablets; food. He would rather the risk the fact that he may be missing out on food and deliberately ignore us now. Until of course he sees Tess going crazy with her toys running full speed back and forth through the house. This is a very good indication that food is involved.

I have also discovered this week that the CEO of the company used to be the Boss of Jackie's husband Tim. Talk about 6 degrees of seperation. I emailed the CEO today and asked him if he knew Tim and he could so I caught him up on a bit of gossip.

Ok back to the christmas pressies. In a previous blog I mentioned how I met Sulea through the Secret Santa at work. I have a close friend of hers. She sent me some photo's of my SS new puppy. Isn't it gorgeous. Anyway I printed off a close up of its face about 5 times and then created a 3D image of it. I got the words from a dog desk calendar that I have. I will be using this quote for a picture of Tess as well I think. Anyway I need to take it to work tomorrow as we open them on Thursday so I hope she likes it. I will post a couple more gifts in the next couple of days. I won't do all of them just in case my cousin in Melbourne does happen to look on here (I have no idea if he does or not). Anyway I don't want to put his up just in case. I think he will guess straight away who it is for.

I found someone

... who has literally been under my nose at work this entire time I have been there. It is only through the simplicity of Secret Santa that we started talking. Here is a link to her blog. You must go check out her artwork. I have also put a link to it in my favourite blogs as well.

Now my apologies to those of you who thought I had found a man due to the title of this blog. No such luck I am afraid. :)

Dare 43 : Celebrate

Ok I must confess, I didn't really have time to put any thought into this one as I was busy making gifts for people for Christmas. I realised that one of the gifts I had made really fitted the theme so here it is. To find out how I did it you need to go to the Aussie Dares blog site.

An amusing sight...

I saw a guy fishing today.

What is so amusing about that you ask?

He was standing in the middle of a park!

I wonder if he caught any cat fish?

Crafting Joanne

I happened to be surfing a few blogs today and came across Crafting Joanne. Please pop along and take a look at her work. It is mainly cards but they are quite simple and elegant. Great ideas there for Christmas. If you go visit and leave a message on her blog before Dec 3rd UK time you can be in the running to win some really neat items.

Weekend was too fast and yet I didn't really do anything other than finish those christmas gifts that got splattered the other week.

This next week has the potential to be extremely boring at work. I have no appointments and no one is booked in for training. Can you believe it. I just hope that my phone rings off the hook so that I have something to do. My daily reports can be completed within the first hour of the day.

Time for bed so I will leave you with a photo I took last week. If you click on the image you may be able to view it larger and see the birds tongue. He was after the honey but certainly made a mess on the ground.

Pop goes the weasle

Or in this case the lid of a dabber. Here I was almost finished creating two christmas pressies when I decided that the background for one needed to be a bright orange red colour. I decided on my Luminart one because it was lovely and shiny and it was the least one I had had problems with when using it. It came out well at first but I thought a little gold would be nice so I grabbed the gold dabber. This one never works well so I always take the lid off and use a brush. On went the gold and ended up being too much so I grabbed the first dabber and gently squeezed when suddenly the sponge popped out of the lid. I think the shock made me squeeze harder because orange paint ran and splashed everywhere all over my work, on the floor, even on the ceiling!!! I also in my shock, knocked over the gold which had no lid on so the gold went all over the table as well. Mum and Jacki ran to assist as soon as I yelled. It took a good half hour to clear everything and a good scrubbing in the bath the get the paint off of me. As you can see by the photo (which is a rare photo of me as I hate my picture being taken) I am covered. I am lucky it didn't get in my eyes. By the way the little spot on my top is nothing compared to what was sitting on my stomach. Lucky I am fat so most of it soaked into my clothes rather than running to the floor. So go on and have a good laugh. I now have to redo my christmas gifts because they are covered in red and gold splatters.

Catch Up

It has been a while but hopefully I am back. Work has been so hectic lately that I have barely had time to breath. In fact today a client ticked me off so much I was shaking at the end of it. Even one of my colleagues said she had never seen me so rattled. In fact I was so rattled I needed to go somewhere and calm down. Luckily it was lunch time so I hopped in my car and went to one of my favourite places that provides the means for me to relax. I went to Scraptivate! When I walked in the door I was greeted with the usual warm smiles. I said "it may shock you but I am not here to buy anything, I am here to de-stress!" Of course I spent some money $12 actually which must be a record for me. Anyway I breathed in my artistic relaxation for 15 minutes before heading back to work.

I am in the process of possibly changing careers. I have looked more into my own Internet business and the more I look into it the more viable it becomes. I can contract out to my clients as well if they need assistance with the software. Not sure when it will happen but I am hoping to be out of an office with all its politics and into my own work from home business by the end of the financial year. Fingers crossed and God willing.

In a previous post I mentioned my wonderful, wonderful Uncle and how he put a reverse cycle air-con in my studio. Below is a photo of him. I am not sure if he is taking a breather or if he is thinking about how to fix the leg on the table that broke when he fell on it. As you can see he is ok and that is the main thing. The mess on the floor is everything that fell off the table.


I have also had some more fun with creating ATCs. I love the one below but I am yet to meet someone else who likes it. I think the words rebellious and disorderly written above her head on the burnt paper is perfect. The silver paper is also burnt. It was a thick wrapping paper which when put near heat the silver side crinkled. The other goldy part is gesso with rub and buff on it. The charm has gloss accent in it and it really illuminates the colour of the rub and buff.

This next one was created at Kelsey's ATC class at Scraptivate. It is done mosaic style using embossing powder and cutting a picture. Check out her blog it is so full of creative ideas.

This one is a photo I took of Karina (I hope I spelt it correctly this time otherwise she will shoot me the next time I see her). I have used sparkling H2Os for the background, crackled the arch and in the arch I have mica flakes (love the mica). Her wings are a rub on that I painted with the H2Os and then covered with the glossy accent. I have to keep it hidden from her mother until she makes her own! :)

The technique used here is bleaching which is what I learnt in my first ATC class. The stamp is embossed in a clear powder so the dark blue you can see is the original colour of the card before I bleached the hell out of it . The orange background is actually a red piece of card that I also bleached

Finally this last one turned out much better than I thought it would. In fact it doesn't look anything like I originally planned. The photo is a picture of one of the Bollywood stars. I don't know her name but I love her eyes. This image was black and white with a hint of colour. Her hair had a tinge of auburn that I really liked. As the background progressed I thought she would disappear so I took a piercing tool and scratched away at her hair. I then used the bleach again. The colour of the hair came through as reds shading through to yellow. I did not touch up the colour on her hair. Actually this photo does not do it justice. It is one of my favourites at the moment.

Well hopefully I will have more creativity to show soon. I am making as many Christmas pressies as possible this year to save money so they may not go on the blog until after Christmas in case some cousins of mine actually do look here.

Two more days till the weekend .... YAY!!!