Monthly Challenge 4

Yes I know there was a month in there without a challenge but they didn't do one, and they have upped the prize to $30 which is good. I am going to be doing an album for my good friend Ruth so she has sent me all the photo's of her daughter. When it came to choosing the papers for my challenge there really wasn't much choice but I found the perfect photo amongst Ruth's photo's that matched the colours.

Firstly I coloured the sides of the canvas board with the Luminart paint I have been playing around with. The felted ric rac and the brads were a must for use as well as the two types of papers. The ric rac was not in a colour I wanted so I used my luminart paint and fabric medium and painted it up. It matched perfectly. After an hour or so of placing everything the below photo's are the result. Techniques used were sandpapering, ripping, and fraying.

Ruth, I am going to send this to your mum. Can you email me her address please. I am going to do it anonymously though so don't tell her who it is from. I thought it would be a nice surprise. If her birthday is close let me know so that I can send it then. Just remember that if I win I won't get it back until the end of June.

Chirp Chirp Chirp

This morning there was a lot of chirping going on outside. Upon investigation I noticed that there were a couple of parrots and lots of little birds trying to eat the flower on the neighbours palm tree (if you see any black dots they are the bees).

The sun was right behind them so to get some decent photo's I had to stand at one side and get some angled shots. This meant that my trees were in the way. I ended up crouching on the cubby house floor (it's an open cubby) and taking photo's through it. I am glad the neighbour didn't come out because it looked suspiciously like I was spying on them.

Below are a couple of the photos. I have some more good ones but I need to crop them and after cropping these ones the program said that was enough and wouldn't do anymore.

Arrived

This has been a busy week. I have had to go to Adelaide for two days in order to help the new training officer there. While I was there our company had to make people redundant (due to the financial market at the moment). My head was on the chopping block (along with the rest of the training department) but thank God the State Managers intervened and said that we were needed. This is not to say that our training team is unaffected. We have lost 2 people. I am still unsure what the future holds for me at this stage as well.

Just before I left for Adelaide I received an email from Donia, my FCS3 pal (who I bought for) that she had received the package from me. She really likes it which is good. Donia is mainly a knitter but does a little scrap booking on the rare occasion from what I understand (or at least wants to). She also collects magnets from around the world, and loves chocolates. Soon after the colour swap started her cat, Louis passed away. I knew exactly what she was going through and went looking for a plush toy that at least resembled him. It ended up being black and not grey. Anyway she loved it which is the main thing.

As you can see I sent her some Macadamia Chocolate (of course) some grey cat scrap booking to go with any pictures of Louis and an Aussie bookmark considering she loves to read.

These are the magnets that mum and I managed to find. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a nice Aussie magnet. The kangaroo wobbles his head.

This is the plush cat I sent. He can sit on the back of her chair like Louis used to. I also sent a small glass cat that will sit on her desk. She has a new cat now called Sybella. If you click on this link you will be able to read about Sybella's reaction to the plush cat

Now here is something I have never heard of before, even my mother, who is an avid knitter did not know what stitch markers were (well she did but she only used paper clips). It appears to the rage, when it comes to knitting, to use fancy stitch markers. I managed to find a few pictures on the web that gave me an idea but was still not sure if I made them correctly. Below are the stitch markers that I made. When I took the photo they were still waiting for rings to go on them (I believe they attach to the needle???)

The best thing about the swap is that I now have new friends which I otherwise would not have met.

Craft and Gifts

As you know my boss is now a proud father of a baby boy. I told my boss I was making something for them and he truly believes that it is something to do with scrap booking. I am actually doing a birth announcement cross stitch which most likely will not be finished until bubs first birthday.

When I decided to do over his office again I bought a chipboard L for the Learner dad sign. It was too small really. Luckily the babies name is Eli so I went and bought an E and I as well. I thought I would paint them up nicely and put them somewhere in his office. When people at work saw it they demanded that I put it in a frame and give it as a gift instead. So the letters came home.

On Thursday night the SA trainer and myself went shopping (with money we had collected from the other trainers) for a baby gift. We managed to find a nice plastic frame at Red dot for $7. I painted it up today so that it matched the paint on the letters. Below is my finished masterpiece and I would like to apologise to my boss that yes it is a form of scrap booking but if he throws it in the bin there is going to be trouble.

Below are the other gifts. The blue beanie bear wrapped in a blanket is specifically for my boss. He wants to know who came up with the phrase "sleeping like a baby" so he can shoot them. Anyway the SA Trainer and I told him that if you look at a sleeping baby it is peaceful so that is what the beanie bear represents.

Considering he is into exercise and health we also bought a Jolly Jumper for Eli as well as an exercise outfit that will fit him from 3 months on. It has a hooded sweat shirt, joggers, 2 pairs of matching socks, and a matching T-Shirt. There were matching shoes to but we had no money left.

The orange zebra is made of chewable, washable thick synthetic type material which I thought was just perfect for one of the many things to go in the mouth.

More Office Fun

After almost three weeks of sick I finally made it back to work. I am totally knackered. In fact I slept for over 10 hours on Monday. My boss kindly took my training session this week which was wonderful of him.

Prior to the sick leave I knew that my boss' wife was due to have her baby at anytime, so the usual office decorating suspects were on call the minutes we found out about it. Unfortunately it was soon after I got sick. Considering I had all the stuff the office never got done.

It was decided that we would do it last night. Two of the decorators could not make it (on leave). The trainer for SA was here and she was more than willing to help out. Her training however went overtime and a third decorator had to leave. I then found out that the boss was having a daddy day care day today so it was decided that it would be done today after work. Decorator no.3 had called in sick and the SA trainer had flown back to SA which left just me so I went down to IT to round up a couple of helpers. It didn't take long. I managed to get 2 people and when we started a couple more joined in. Anyway the photos of the office can be seen below. It isn't as way out there as the first one but it will do. We had mini rattles, mini babies, baby booties, baby shower decorations and a sign for a learner dad.