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!!!

Dare 42: String

The Aussie Dares blog has been updated so I can now show the finished product. For more information you will need to go to the Aussie Dares blog site. There are some really lovely ideas there. I love Edleen's and Michelle's layouts. Two creations that have inspired me are Sarah's and Bec's.

I can't wait to get started on some more fun. I need to tidy up a bit though - again, as per usual! I have no excuse not to go into my craft studio anymore. My wonderful, wonderful Uncle has put up a reverse cycle air conditioner so that when it is 40 degrees outside it's not 55 degrees in the shed. It was also raining the day that he did it and it meant that half his time in Perth visiting was taken up with finding, purchasing, and mounting the air-con.

This now means I need to get to work organising the shed in a way that I can also store all my mixed media stuff as well. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I currently have a stack of racks that store my papers but that takes up sooooo much room.

Anyway I promise more photos on the way of some of the things I have been working on.

String Teaser

Why are weekends so short all the time? There are just not enough days to have a decent weekend. I think there should be law that says we work for 4 days and have 3 off. The world would be less stressful then,

I went to my Journal Junkies afternoon today. It is fun getting together with everyone. Carmen taught me how to use soot in my art work without burning the building down (photos another day). Vivian dropped in to say hi. Joanie is back from Canada (she mean - she didn't take me with her). We would have all been there if Suzanne hadn't gotten herself sick yesterday.

Anyway I spent the first half of the afternoon completing my string challenge for Aussie Dares. I have put some teasers below before I show the finished product

Instructions:

1. Think of how you can manipulate different types of string and then come up with a design to incorporate them.
2. Cut out the shape of your design from some thin card. In pencil draw internal external lines of your design onto some thing cardboard and then cut it out.
3. Place wax paper on top of some firm foam and place your design cut out on top
4. String Circle - I used cotton string for this as it is nice and fine however any string will do depending on how big you want the circles. Put a drop of glue onto some wax paper; pin one end of the string in the centre of the glue. To stop the string from spinning around when you form your circle place another pin in the paper close to the first pin. This allows you to wrap the string in a circular motion until you have achieved the size you want. I used another pin or reverse end of a pencil to push the string into the glue. When the glue is dry, remove the pins and pull the circles away from the wax paper ready for use in your design.
5. In the below picture I have two other techniques aside from the circles. First I took some packing string (twine), frayed it and then cut it into fine slivers which I then sprinkle onto an area of glue. The second technique (shown below the circles) is making use of three types of string: twine (brown), fine cotton (green), and a loosely woven household type of cotton string (white). I cut the green into two lengths and knotted them at one end before I secured it to the foam with a pin anchor. Both the brown and white had various lengths all cut the same. One at a time fold each length in half and tie the green around it a short way from the loop. Repeat for the next colour placing each length close to each other on the green. Once you have enough, fray each end of the string so that it opens up nice an full. A pin will be sufficient to do this.
6. To block out a whole section I would put some glue on the cardboard design, pin the end of the string and move it in an up and down motion to create lines. At the top and bottom of each row I would use a ping to hold it in place.
7. I also plaited the string and also just glued down plain cut lengths.
8. WARNING: This is very time consuming and not good if you have bad wrists.

Any ideas as to what it is? You only have today to guess because I am sure the finished product will be on Aussie Dares tomorrow. Oh if you were at the Journal Junkies you are not allowed to tell.

Has it been over a week ...

I can't believe it has been that long since I sat down and blogged something. I have been creating but I am not sure if I can put it on my blog because I am doing something special for my ex boss that involves his baby boy. Yes the one who thinks Scrapbooking should not have the letter 's' in it. Would you believe I showed him my ATC's that I have created and he actually liked them. If I had had a thermometer with me I would have handed it to him and tell him to shove it somewhere because I don't think he was at all well.

I would have posted some of my ATC's on here but mum has gone out for the day and taken the camera. After all it is hers. I would use mine but it is not good with closeups and doesn't take a small shot very well. Anyway instead here is a gorgeous pup I receive in my inbox yesterday.