Tuesday 30 December 2008

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.

Monday 29 December 2008

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.

Friday 26 December 2008

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

Wednesday 24 December 2008

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.



Tuesday 23 December 2008

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.

Monday 22 December 2008

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.

Thursday 18 December 2008

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.






Wednesday 17 December 2008

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.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

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.



Friday 12 December 2008

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. :)

Thursday 4 December 2008

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.

Monday 1 December 2008

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?