STRUGGLING along

Really where does the time go. Since my last post and my trip to the Gold Coast for a work conference which was great, things on the NZ home front have developed to " I don't know what is happening really" our NZ family look like they want to keep our grandchildren who have been taken from the parents. This has caused me and Geoff undue stress and upset  as we never thought that our family would do this. They were to look after them until passports were arranged and I could go over after the Gold Coast trip and bring them back here. So now we have to go to New Zealand for a Family Group Conference and have to see what the family who have never been involved in any of the previous FGC's decide.
Really the children should be with us as the Grandparents. It is our sons wish that we take them for the time it needs for the parents to get themselves together or what ever they decide to do with thier lives.
So life has been a bit up and down for me, but the Children are worth it all, it will be a huge  life-style change  for us.

This photo of Paul and Toria was taken on Paul's 3rd birthday last weekend.  I am sure they will enjoy places like Werribee zoo, Melbourne zoo, Luna park etc that we can take them too over here.

We are going to NZ on the 1st May as FGC is 4th May, but we have to travel up to Kaikohe.


ARTwise not a lot. see next post.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Paperarts Yahoo group is doing a year long book monthly, but for ourselves. We are doing Alice in Wonderland and I have chosen to do mine in Zetti Style, I still really like it. (Zetti) The actual size is 7x7. I eventually will put the pages in as a slide show but for now I will load pages done. January was The Red King.
I first credit card techniqued the background with Golden paints, then added a bit of Distress ink, the Red King image I found somewhere and changed him by adding a head from image sheets from Teesha Moore and then a crown I have among my images. The same with the pic of Alice, I have given her legs from one of Teeshas sheets. I am thinking I will use that image throughout the book.

Next for February was The Red Queen, same again, I did the credit card technique with Goldens and Jo Sonja paints and Distress Inks, found all the images and changed them with my Zetti stamps and Teesha's image sheets.

This months is The White Rabbit, hes still running round my head at this stage, but will try and get him done before the end of the month so I am not too ""Late"" for the monthly date.

While I was up on the Gold Coast, Carol and I went to see the 3D Alice In Wonderland, it was fabulous and now I have loads of ideas etc for the rest of this book.

Twinchies and things

Well CSR is only 3 sleeps away and I can't go as I am only 2 sleeps away from going to the Gold Coast QLD for work. But I stayed in the Leonardo Twinchie swap as it was for all members who are on the Creative Soul Yahoo group.

Here is my effort.....  We had to do them in Da Vinci colors and use his work. I like this pic and actually enjoyed making them even though we had to do about 25 of them. Black Testure Paste Kelsey  (who is the Queen of Black texure paste and I think I come a close second to her LOL..)     I love that stuff. I have been using it since my shop days in Wanganui. Now to be able to get them to the lovely Lucy before Wednesday. I might have to drop by Elizas house or Evas and hope they remember to give them to her for me.  Ohhhhhh Evas, shes got one of the lovely tutors staying with her, might just have to get a peek visit seeings as I can't go  hehehehe..............

I also in this week made some ATC's for a NZ group swap, the African one and also did one for WTA (winner takes all) on ATCMixed media group.  Gosh I wish I could work out how to put these pics in the right place. I start out with them correct then they move to a place of their own doing. Well to make them look ok I moved the Arican one  to the left as well and I will rabbit on here to fill the gap.

For Paperarts group we are doing Alice In Wonderland, the First month being The Red King, then The Red Queen then this months is the White Rabbitt. I have decided to do mine in Zetti style as I still love that style of doing art.

I have only done the Red King so far, have my Red queen started and the White Rabbitt is running round my head still. So I will attempt to load that one here too.

  

Wow it went it where it was meant to go. The words on the page say "The Red King normally was snoring, but he realized he was putting on too much weight. He put on so much weight his rolls dropped from chest to feet."

Anyway, I better sign of and stop rambling here.

Visitors from New Zealand

Kristi and family arrived from NZ on the 1st March. They spent the first week with us here in Melbourne and then went to Ballarat to see Kristis brother. While there she met up with the lovely Jen Crossley

who we had done a make and take with at Paperific on the Friday, how cool was that. She arrived in time to get to a paperific show.

They arrived back here in Melbourne yesterday afternoon and today amidst shopping a bit more for yummy ScrapFX houses etc and last night a quick trip to Heaven Scent to pick up a BigShot, lucky her :-) we headed up to Sassafras, stopped in at the Sky viewing and sat in the big chair.

Whoops thats the GIANTS CHAIR

We have had a great time together and the time is too short. They leave early tomorrow morning. Safe travelling Kristi Ross and Zac, see you ASAP.

ATC from Christy Laudig

Well I promised you a pic from Christy Laudigs ATC that I won from her blog, link previous post, so here it is. Isnt it lovely. Brrrrrrrrr from a very warm Melbourne.

So again Thank you to Christy for sharing her artwork. She says the image is of her father and his brother circa 1940's, plus Artchix images.

A long month and half has passed. (Grab a Cuppa)

Well, where did that time go since my last post. I recieved the prize from Christy , lovely it is too in the flesh. I will put it here soon, just have to scan it.
In the same time frame I had to cancel my attendance at the CSR retreat, because of work committments. I was so upset, took me a while to get round to telling Bevlea that I had to pull out. But I have to go to the Gold Coast for a conference, good thing is its with Roland and Heidi Baker from  Mozambique who would be mine and Geoffs CEO sort of if we ever get out onto the field on a permanent basis. Anybody else and I might have refused, walked the plank as such LOL, not a lot comes between me and art, hehehehe...........

Anyway... a few days later and we are into the build up to Christmas, pressies posted to NZ, pressies received here from NZ..  This is our Chrissy tree, a live one we bought and intended to keep it growing for years to come, well the darn thing has turned up it's toes, sad, but never mind, I always did like the chase of going and finding a lovely real tree and a large one floor to ceiling if possible and decorating it up, so next year if over here will have to do that. First will be taking along the spider spray. Ohhhh all them nasties that might be lurking in the branches.  Talking of spiders, I have a fierce dislike of them, well one Huntsman decided to visit inside the house this morning, big mistake, well Geoff decided to come to its rescue and herded it out the door, It went over the side of the deck headed for goodness knows where. Less than 5 mins later I took the rubbish out to the bin and there it was perched on the side of the wheelie bin. Tough luck spider . A large board was beside bin, so Spider is no more.....................

We had family here from the Gold Coast ( Rhys and Ruth) for Christmas through to New Year and a Kiwi friend from here in Melbourne Tracey came over for  lunch, so that was good. Yeah, I worked out the camera  to take a delayed pic, thanks Bevlea...........

Unfortunatley Geoff had to go back to NZ in that time as an Aunty passed away. So a busy time was had driving backwards and forwards to Tullamarine 4 times...

Anyway, one pressie I got was a goodie and it sits beside me in the studio, it was from my good friend Kristi, She gave it to me to remind me I am still a Kiwi at heart. She does not want me to give up my Kiwi heritage. No such luck girl, it speaks out me mouth all the time according to my Ozzie friends.

Christmas over and work was on the horizon again. We only had a few days off anyway, so were back to work on the 5th.

Artwise, I have been doing a few things, I need to catch my posts up with that. Maybe tomorrow night. I can show you the jewellery I made at our play day in December and then another last week, plus some other art pieces. But for now, I must get some shuteye or I will be useless or more useless at work tomorrow LOL.

Ohhhhhh

I won a gift of Christy Laudig's Blog How about that. She had a competition to leave a post on her blog to celebrate her 50th post and I won.......How cool is that. She has asked for my snail mail address, so I will be watching the mail box with anticipation to see what one she is sending me.

I must count up my posts and do something similar. Well I can do something even if people don't want my art stuff LOL, but I am making more of this jewellery so that might be what I could do, we shall see!!

December Play Days

Well, where did that month go.  A few days after moving into our new abode, we, the 3FL+1 got together at my place and we put together our  Spooky books, using Itkupilli Images,  we were joined online by Margaret Weiss, poor Margaret it was a bit hard going for her. The slide show is the book that I put together. I love my cover and found the neat little house in a local scrapbook shop.

The next play day was at Lucys where we made a start on Stephanie Lees book Semiprecious Salvage   and made a couple of things , One being the Scroll brooch/necklace , and the other was a small wire nest with Pearl beads that Lucy showed us how to make. Pic below. They are easy to make and I will be making a few more for different projects.

Then we had another play day on the 18th, what fun, we are now the 4 FL, I got relegated to a FL instead of +1 as I must be showing the effects of sitting in an office and too much choccy :-).

Anyway we made some more stuff from Stephanie Lees book, The button pendant and the Pages pendant.  I think for now I am over bending metal, heheehehe, til next time....

 The words on this pendant are    great.

AH! WHAT TALENT "YES" Well done I thought as it was just a page out of an old book and I didn't even choose the page to be the front. The page pendant was a bit fiddly with the tiny bolts, but made me go on another excursion with Eliza to Bunnings Tool shop, her favourite toy shop to get a small spanner for my tool kit. Oh and I managed to get a few other bits a well.

We had etched the metal on one of our other play days, more needed now. Cut a piece of the etched metal about 1 x1 1/2,  cut up strips of old books and made a book block, then bent the metal over to make a spine along the top, put in a wire and some beads and then put the tiniest screws and bolts in.

Now, heres a couple of pics that should be labeled.

AS RINDERCELLA SAID "IT FIDN DID"

How cute are these LOL..... See told you we had a fabulous time..

We also exchanged Chrissy presents, and heres a couple of pics of mine from Bevlea and Lucy. Thank you to you both. Mery Christmas

This was the last play day at Bevleas abode as she is on the move on the 29th Dec, sounds like we will have a fabulous play area, and  get a cook for our lunches etc, as Bevleas sister Caryl and her hubby will be sharing the large house. They must be saints as I would probably kill my sister if we lived together LOL..

Oh well, better get off here and get on with other things I need to do.

Have a very Blessed Christmas everyone. REMEMBER THE REASON FOR THE SEASON....

New ATC

I made this ATC for Paperarts Winner Takes All tonight, by the skin of my chinny chin chin, LOL or something like that.........

I saw Kelseys post on the Magic Stamp and thought aha!! I have one of those and haven't used it for years, so out it came and I did the said technique, "smooshed" the background and then stamped on a cuttlebug folder with the warm foam and them put distress ink on the foam and stamped over the smooshed background. The smooshing looked yuk, but the finished article looks much better.
Thanks Kelsey..............

Now for the winner to be drawn by Bevlea who won last month's....... Pick me, pick me!!!!

Spooky Book

Well I finally did it, got the Slide show going of the fabulous work in the Spooky book from Paperarts. Bevlea, Lucy and Eliza came to my place a few weeks ago, amidst the chaos of my moving house and we made our covers and put our books together. You can read about the fun day in a previous post.