William the Wombat

Today has been one of those days where interesting little things have happened (hence the 2 blog entries). After the noise in the wee hours of the morning our neighbour came over with some freshly made chocolate muffins for us. Apparently her alarm is somehow connected to her sons mobile so she phoned him this morning and asked if his phone had rung in the night. He said it had rung 3 times. She asked, "why didn't you do something, I could have been strangled!" He replied that he knew she was okay (probably because it goes off so darn often).

This afternoon Jackie and Korina came around and we took a little trip out to Scraptivate. Prior to that we had to photograph William. William is a Wombat that Korina's teacher thought up and he has been travelling to try and locate his parents. He has a school uniform on and has a backpack that is full of things from his adventures. He even got a seat in business class on a flight to New Zealand (one of the stewardesses was an ex student) where he was picked up by another teacher. All the kids there got to take him home and he has an album full of photos to remember his holiday. Anyway he is home in WA again and it is Korina's turn to have him for the weekend. She is taking all the photo's herself and really having fun. She has him at the table eating taco's and going down a slide.

Just before they turned up here I remembered that I had a toy wombat I picked up in Tassie years ago. So when they arrived William got to meet his long lost cousin Wally. We went down to a bushy area and took some photo's of the reunion:

This is William nice and snug in his seat belt

This is William and Wally catching up.

This is the gang heading back to the car.

Wally still has not found his parents so if anyone has seen them in their travels I am sure he would like to hear about it.

Noises in the Night

It was around 1:30 am this morning that the neighbours house alarm went off. This house alarm is not your usual monotone alarm. It changes every few seconds to something different. Sometimes it goes off during the day when she is not there so we have a key to the house and the code to turn it off.

She was home last night and I knew that she didn't sleep well and often took a sleeping tablet. We waited a couple of minutes hoping she would turn it off. She is mums age so I started to get a little worried that something may have happened to her. I got up and heard mum at the front door at the same time. We stood looking at the house and could not see any lights on in her bedroom. What I could not believe is that even though this neighbour is well known to everyone in the street and liked by them, mum and I were the only ones who got up in the cold to go check on her. We were hesitant in case there was an intruder but I kept praying as we crossed the road that all would be ok.

The alarm is right outside her bedroom window and it was very loud. So loud that it should have woken her even if she had taken a sleeping pill. Mum banged on the window and called out to her. We heard the dog bark from somewhere inside. That relieved me a little as I figure if there was an intruder the dog would be barking continually.

She got to the door fairly quickly and opened it saying, "is that my alarm going off!" Apparently she hadn't set the alarm so thought it was another neighbours going off and lay in bed cursing them for not turning it off! She is such a character. There we were standing in her doorway in the middle of a winters night in our PJs talking about how loud the alarm was and that she couldn't believe it was actually hers.

Such is life in our quiet little neighbourhood.

Art Journal

I finally took some photo's of my art journal. Because it is a work in progress you will not see all the pages. The first picture is of the cover and the binding. Vivian sells these lovely silks in her etsy store. They are so beautiful. For those of you who are knitters apparently you can knit with them as well. The book cover I chose ended up too small so I made my own cover. I used acrylic paint and twisted the brush to get the texture you see. The paint is holding the dragon fly that I have on the front.


This is a view of the pages that I created. There is a variety in here: standard paper, water colour paper, polished card, fabric, baby wipes, and paper towel.

Each page has been painted or inked. This one has also had rock salt on it to absorb the paint and make a lovely pattern. I have done a similar thing when I dappled in silk painting. The eyes in the metal are my attempt at soldering (the metal that is). I cut the eyes from a picture. I thought they were just beautiful. I have two of this picture so I can use the full image at a later date. This is the page I will attach it to. I just have to decide how.
Finally one of the pages that took me forever to do. I chose the picture and cover it with a plastic so it didn't get ruined. Then the rest of it was attached either by hand sewing or machine sewing. Vivian did something similar with an arch. I like arches but I thought I would try a circle and it worked out quite well. On the other side I have done some ribbon embroidery but that will be another photo.
Below is just some metal charm and silk ribbon fun I had. I have no idea what it means but it was fun putting it together. I actually created it to hide the metal tie offs of another charm on the other side. If you have a look back at the second photo you will see the mask charm peaking out between the pages.

We are all going to get back together on a regular basis because we all became good friends during the class. I have a feeling the plan is to create an art journal club where we can show what we are doing. Nothing decisive has been made except that we will be meeting at Carmen's house first and apparently muffins are involved (I think).

I have been playing with the transfer styles as well considering I did such a rubbish job on Sunday. My heart really wasn't in it that day. I don't know why (maybe exhaustion from the wedding was catching up to me). Anyway I have nearly perfected it. I think I will need to be one of those patient people who have to wait for the gel medium to dry before removing the paper. I have been surfing the net for stacks of images to use and have a nice little collection now. It would be nice if my printer worked properly though. How red gets into a black and white image is beyond me!

The Wedding

It was a perfect day for a wedding. At 22 degrees C the sun was warm and bright (maybe a little too bright photo wise). The wedding party arrived in a gorgeous black and silver stretch limo. I was told by the driver that the limo was made of aluminium and therefore no one could lean on it because it might dent. You would hate to be in an accident wouldn't you!

The ceremony was at the celebrants house. I think he must of had it built with weddings in mind. Just inside the front doors is a gorgeous stair case. I ended up taking most of the photos in there because the natural light coming in was really good.

The ceremony was held outside under shade cloths. At first I thought this may be a problem with the colour of the photos but I took a few (close up and distance) and found that it worked fine. Then I changed to a zoom lens and the colour became very blue. I did not notice this until after the ceremony and was about to do family shots in the garden. At first I thought it must have been the lens but I changed back to the standard lens and took some shots in full sunlight with a fill in flash and I still have a lot of blue. All I can say is thank God for digital colour correction. Below is one of the "blue shots." Deb was determined to wear heals with her dress so that made Geof reach her shoulders. The guys organised the passing of the stool (they changed it to step to make it sound better). Geof stayed on it for the whole ceremony!

The Bride wore a lovely royal blue and her bridesmaids (sister and 3 daughters) wore a mix of colours. They all looked stunning. I haven't put photos of faces on here as I need to ask permission first. I don't think they will say no but I at least want them to see their wedding photos before the rest of the world does.

Well I must head of to my 5th and final Art Journal Class. What will I do with myself on a Sunday now?

Bring on the weekend

Actually make that Christmas because then I have my holidays. For the last month or so each week has been going so fast that it is the weekend before I know it. This is good but then my weekends have been so full on that time for rest does not happen. I would love to be able to sleep for a week. That would be nice.

This weekend is a wedding and my last class for the Art Journal. I have been trying all week to get my journal bound but I have not quite been happy with the cover. Last night I finally tried to glue the spine to the cover and the glue would not set. Thank God for mothers because she is making a special stop at Spotlight to get some decent glue for me.

I was searching the web the other day and came across this gorgeous picture of a Chihuahua. Make it's eyes look a little guilty and that would be my Rambo. I have used it in my art journal.

A Days work

Today has been one of those days where one minute everyone wants your attention and the next minute there appears to be nothing to do. Yes this is one of those quiet moments so I thought I would sign in and rave about my week.

Well my week actually started with an abusive email from a member who is currently trying to lodge a loan from Europe!!! I was accused of not being willing to help when an issue was presented on Friday. At what part of the 2 hours I spent researching the issue, and liaising with the lender (only to find out that the info that was supposedly missing was in fact due to the members eyesight) was I not being helpful. I have since had further emails from this person who refuses to accept the information I have provided direct from the lender. In all I would say it is 8 email all with an accusatory tone that I am not listening and not doing my job. Aside from forcing a major bank to change their rules just to suit one Broker there is nothing else I can do. There are many things I would like to say to this Broker but that would be unprofessional and go against my Christian morals. That said however my boss is aware of the stupidity of the broker as I have a copy of all correspondence proving that I am doing my job and that the Broker does in deed need a thick pair of classes.

Now that is off my chest I feel much better. In fact I am even smiling. I need an iced coffee!

This weekend is the last of my AJ classes (sniff). The next ones won't be until next year which is way to long to wait. I have made some good friends in this class and would love to stay in touch with them. I think I am the only one on this side of the river. I already travel around 90km round trip every Sunday for the sessions. I can't wait for Remida to move, then the sessions will be closer (yay).

Well I am now ranting for the pure fact that I am wanting to fill in time. Only 75 minutes and I am out of here, then it will be another 45 minutes and I will be in the front door of home having fun with some paint. :)

Weekend

This last weekend was pretty full on. I had a work function to go to in the city (cocktail party) and I must say the mocktails were to die for. I didn't stay very long though as I am not that good in big social events. If it was with our members I would have more fun because I deal with them more than the people I work with. Sad really.

On Sunday I went to the fourth Art Journal Class. I tried my hand at soldering. It was interesting. Not sure if it is something I would invest in though but that depends on what the future holds business wise (yeah I know I keep saying I will start up an etsy store and my only excuse is plain laziness mixed with being too busy).

This coming weekend I am going to be taking photos for one of my oldest friends wedding. He can't afford to pay me so I said I would do it for free. He is after all an old and good friend. It is good to see him so happy after so many years of heart ache as well. I may add some photos next week if he and his new wife agree to it. On Sunday is the last Art journal class. I can't believe that it is almost over. Seriously I will not know what to do with myself on a Sunday now. Actually I lie ... I am sure I can fill in the time quite nicely with my new skills and scrap booking etc.

I watched the opening of the Olympics. It was very impressive even though they copied a little of it from the Aussie opening ceremony in 2000 but who cares because copying is the best form of flattery. Anyway in the traditional catch cry for any Australian at an international event:

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! Aussie! Oi! Aussie Oi! Go Aussie!

Hi Ho It's off to work we go

If only I could be that happy to get there. There is one person at work at the moment who is making my life shear hell. I won't go into detail except that she has one of these personalities that has to follow the book on everything and if you slip up for one minuscule part of a second, she will tell you about it. Thanks to her I did an extra 90 minutes at work today when the rest of the team got to leave happily on time! Stupid thing is that it really wasn't necessary. My job is not as enjoyable anymore now Mark is no longer my boss. It does have some benefits but the enjoyment is gone.

In other news the leak in our roof can not be found. We can find where it goes into the ceiling but the roof itself has no cracks. Roof restoration here we come. Oh and the hot water system died on us today as well.

On a good note I managed to get a lot more done in my Art Journal class on Sunday so I am very happy. Next week I need to try the soldering. I didn't this week because I really wanted to get more of the book completed first. Hopefully there will be photos soon.

Well that is my start to the week. I still have some work to do and then I am going to bed.