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.

Helgas Challenge #2 Artchix

I have been trying to upload a pic to the yahoo group and it just will not do what its meant to, so I will put it here and write a message on the group. Helga is doing this challenge weekly and as my previous post shows you can be a chosen winner by her kitties.

Here is this weeks challenge. Magazine pages etc, which had to incorporate part of last weeks circles and dots and then add circles etc in this one. Well I hope that Bruno can feel the love from down under and chooses me again this week. Yep I am greedy....LOL
I hope Marion gets chosen too and all the other wonderful entries as well.... I am not really that greedy you know Best of luck everyone.

Revealed

Glenda +1 Lucy, Bevlea and Eliza 3FL

We took this pic at Elizas on Friday and Bevlea has edited it beautifully.......

We had a great day, Eliza provided wonderful food and great coffee for those who drink the smelly stuff and an awesome box of various teas to choose from. I have yet to finish my pages which are now bound with fabric etc and I will take photos of them and put up a show for you to see very soon.

Wowser!!!

as Barb would say............
I won I won, well one of three, but the Kitty, Bruno chose me first.

Here is the pics of the cats choosing the winners for Helgas challenge. So how cool is that........She put each cat up to take a treat and each persons name was attached to a treat.
I intend to do the next part of the challenge too, yeah I'm greedy that lovely kitty might choose me again.....

Helgas Artchix yahoo group challenge

this week was to make a piece of art just making it with circles and dots. Not to think about it just do..

Here is my effort. I used my Caran Dache watercolor crayons for some of the backgrounds, the first was a bottle top painted and stamped randomly over the crayon. I added the clock with a trusty gel pen. Next was painted and then a Hero Arts dot stamp, 3rd top was watercolor crayons again and flowers drawn as circles and dots for stamens. hmmmmm base leaves not so good. Next row was a peice of scrapbook paper, then three rows of circle masks which I wiped over with Ancient Page ink and then drew in the black ones. Next was watercolor crayons again and drew various color circles with different permanent markers. Third row was painted and then two different circle stamps I have,  that I love for zetti work, next was paint again and my large scroll stamp that I drew the scrolls out to make circles, added some gold rings with pen, the last one is just straight black paint on bubble wrap and pressed directly onto the watercolor paper. You can see more of the entries here.  or at least see what it was all about.

While I was playing with this I made an ATC from scraps on my desk for Paperarts group for the Winner Takes All. Here she is.

She's made of bits left over from the Spooky book pages. I had skulls and skeletons etc lying around. Hey, my motto "I'm creative you can't expect me to be neat too!!" so the song "Dem bones dem bones dem dry bones now hear da Word of the Lord " was ringing in my ears and an ATC was born....

I have been home from work for over a week, pity I have not been in a good space to do more artwork, but....... its not good being unwell and home, doesn't make for good playing time. But I am off to Elizas on Friday for our belated play day where we hope to finish our frame books  that we got from Jen C. I know Bevlea is finished hers and made a slide of it. Hers looks fabulous and I cant wait to see it.
Today I unpacked a box of photos and stuff I had just re packed to find photos of Geoffs mum etc to scan to finish my frame book. Hmmm, loads of photos in that box that I need to do something with apart from carting them round the world in a box..........Oh well another day. But was good to see photos of my own rugrats etc, gosh were they that little...........

Final Page for PaperQueens

At long last I have finished my page for Joy Welsh. It was part of the Fabric book on Paperqueens group that Bevlea has now deleted.
Joy's page was Nature and I had a serious mental/art block with this one. I had the background page done for ages but kept putting it aside. Anyway HRH came over for a play day and she is good at prompting my slow brain into a great page, well I hope Joy likes it.

Also the day with Eliza was great, probably the last in this craft room, before the move across the suburb to the next ridge, I will miss our complete view of Yarra Valley, but good things to look forward to. At this stage we are going to build a new craft room  and 2 car garage in the front of the house, so something really good to look forward to. But loads of hard work ahead.

So now for the draft drawings of the buliding, apply for permits etc and on we go. Will be good though as I can get what storage I need planned at the same time etc...

Spooky Ancestors

The Paperarts group is doing a Spooky Ancestors book swap. There are 13 of us in the swap. :-)
My page is a Spooky Toy house. The two cousins. Millicent and Baby Amy are escaping from the house as they got scared when Aunt Dorothea with another cousin Tabitha appeared after finishing the Merry go round ride. I think it was really the presence of the resident bat that they were so frightened of.

This has been fun to do. I am sure the finished book, which will have the Metal Etched cover on it will be absolutely stunning and a tribute to Itkipulli images that we have all had to use.

New Zetti and Play times and news

I have been rather busy the last few weeks. But I found some time to do my Zetti swaps for ATC Taranaki a New Zealand group I moderate. Gosh work is a drain on play time isnt it.
Anyway the image I used was from Teesha Moores sheet#c106, the head was from sheet #C60. The wings a butterfly image I have. The second was from sheet C105 and the legs from another.
I have put the sheet numbers here because of the copywright issue of a previous post, to show that I have the sheets in question as well, but have used a different head this time.

I have some work to do this week on my book for our play day that is on Friday.
Here is one of the pages front and back.
1: Mum Laing as a baby.                                                2: Mum Laings wedding

Now, the reason we all go to work is because we owe, we owe, we have joined the ranks of homeowners in Australia. We have just purchased a house in Chirnside Park and settlement is on the 6 November.
Craft room, hmmmmmmmmmm not sure yet what's going to happen there. We will need to add on probably, but in the mean time I am sure I will find a space even if its on the massive closed in deck..........

Might be a bit hot in the height of summer, but I am sure I will sort it out won't we Elizabeth :-)

Metal Etching

wow, I loved this new play. Last Monday I went over to Bevlea's and joined Barb, Lucy and Eliza along with Bevlea and we had a play with metal etching, what cool fun, apart from the very smelly Liver of Sulphur, phew, havent smelt anything that bad since I was in Rotorua last February. I was bought up among that same smell, but you sure forget it in a hurry. Don't think I will use that stuff again, might make me homesick for NZ lol. It wasn't good stuff for Lucy either.

It took awhile to get the solution off our hands and fingernails, poor Bevlea's was the worst as she's a doll and did most of the clean-up for us.
Heres my efforts.

I'm not sure what I will do with them yet, but we did a large piece as well and you will have to wait to see that one, its got a specific purpose.

Now I really need to get on and finish my zetti city scape. The other ladies from the 3FL+1 (you need to visit Bevlea's blog to see what that means) are well and truly ahead of me on that one, the cityscape I mean hehehehe.
I have done one side, but need to concentrate on the night side and then bind it and put up a slide show of it. This week hopefully. Gosh work does get in the way doesn't it.

Then I need to get onto our second project, that one needs family photos and is taking some time to clean up in Photoshop the old photos of Geoff's grandparents etc. I am making it a tribute to my Mother-in-law who I adored. She was the best. I hope I can be as good a mother-in-law as her.

Marions Zetti Swap has flown in

Todays mail bought a yummy envelope from Germany. In it was my swaps from Marions annual blog swap.
It was great fun and truly pushed me into using bright colors.
Thank you to all participants and to those whose
ATC's I am now the proud owner of.


Arent they yummy From L to R top is from Marion, Chris Bockel, Ilka, and bottom L to R is Johanna, Angelika and Birgit.
Again thank you ladies. I will look forward to the next swap.

FAIRY DRESS and City Scape

I saw a lovely Fairy Dress when I was over in New Zealand in May in a shop.
It's taken me this long to make one of my own, but here is a pic, if not a very good pic of what I made. But I hope you can get the idea. I enjoyed doing something that was not paper and paint for a change.

On Friday I met with Eliza and we headed over to Lucy's where Bevlea had already arrived and we had our next play day. We had show and tell with our last play which is the City scape. Everyone's looks great. Go over to their blogs and have a look at what they have been doing.

Here is a couple of mine. Still not totally completed, but this is the day side except the one with the car, that is the first night side.



I am really enjoying this style and thank Teesha Moore for sharing her passion with others. Most of the background's started out as bright scrapbook paper's and then I added some paint and swiped a bit of distress ink over them, added a few quirky but simple stamps, then added images from some image sheets I have as well as made up ones, ie cut a bit from here, a bit more from there and put them together with some quirky arms and legs.

So this week, I will be attempting to finish these both sides, do a recipe card swap for NZ and do some of the Book we started on Friday. This one I will probably do as a tribute to my husbands mum, as I loved her very much. It has pages that have transperancies in the windows, then we will add some images to the sides etc. We made our covers and the box for the trinkets to go in. OK......... are you intrigued, well you will have keep coming back for a browse and see what I did. See you next time..

More Zetti

I just did another Zetti for a group swap, Eliza has coveted what I did previously for a swap LOL and it's now hers either way, if she makes one or not. I am sure enjoying this Zetti style at the moment, I must be coming out :-)LOL Now, I give credit to Jade Adams of Michigan USA and Teesha Moore for the parts of the image used.
For copyright reasons I have removed the image...........

I still have to finish my cityscape to take to our play day with Bevlea, Lucy and Eliza on Monday as we have to show and tell.....Oh dear another late night tomorrow to get it finished or near enough to finished.

Barb's Challenge to Marion

I just went to visit Marions blog and noticed that Barb had challenged her to show what was in her fourth album and the fourth picture, so I am following on and here is mine.



It was a page for Marg in the Bookmarms tipin page swap I did last year. Her title was 1970's.
Thanks for the challenge Marion. I quite liked that page back then.
So for any that follow on in the challenge, post a comment here and I will come and look at your creativity.

Oh, and off I go to visit Lucys blog to see her next finished pages in our City Scape and see she has challenged me to do the same and I have to choose four other bloggers, so I choose

Margaret W : http://margaretweiss.blogspot.com
Martina H http://artymarty62.blogspot.com
Kelsey O: http://ko-ok.blogspot.com
Marilyn: http://wwwmarilyninmyroom.blogspot.com/

So girls I will look forward to seeing what you have as your fourth picture in your fourth album.

Zetti Tryptich

I just completed this Tryptich for a group I am in. It was this months swap. I quite enjoyed it, so different from my normal style, as you will notice it's crept in to my art a bit lately. Must be the craze huh!!!

The first side is the Zetti by day

and the second side Zetti by night.

I sure hope the recipient likes it as it will be quite hard to give away.

I am looking forward to the ATC's from Marion's swap coming back too, that is a Zetti ATC swap that she has on her blog.
Anyway Ciao for now.

And Two days later...........

Geoff and I, decided to go for a drive today in the bush. It was such a nice day. We headed for Mt Donna Buang and didnt quite get there. We went to another area instead. We stopped on the way and there was all these beautiful birds. I managed to get one on my hand by offering it some cake we had with us. Well it was fruit cake home made off course so very healthy for a Female Ecclectus.
Here it is. Its so beautiful I am happy for you to take this picture and use it. Its not copyright :-)..............

I am just finishing my Number ATC's too so will load it shortly.

HALF MASKS

A New Zealand group I belong to has had a half mask swap going. Every two weeks we do a half mask to a specific theme.
The first two were Shades of Peacock or Cirque de Reinvente and Golden Girl or Tacky.
Here is mine, that I chose to do, that are on their way to new owners. They do look so much better in the flesh. So Doreen and Kelly if you want to be surprised don't peek.
They were fun to do and a change from ATC's etc.....

The next theme is Asian or Spring, havent decided yet which way I will go.

I am about to make my ATC's for Paperarts group entitled "Numbers". All going well I might be able to add the pic tonight as well. So look back later.

Creative Mondays and more

Once a month three friends get together and have a play time, this last Monday Bevlea, Lucy and Eliza came to visit my place and we started a 7Gypsies CityScape Board Book. Lucy chose Vintage, Bevlea Gothic and Eliza and I are doing Zetti, We must have needed some practise LOL.
Here is a sneak peek at a couple of pages started last Monday.
I had not done much Zetti at all and finally understand the way it should be. Bevlea explained to me that Zetti can be done two ways. Zetti by day, bright colors and Zetti by night, old Circus colors. So my plan is to do one side daytime and the reverse will be Night time.

I also have joined a Zetti ATC swap run by Marion Bocklemann The challenge was to make three Zetti style ATC's to send to Germany and swap with other International artists. I have done two lots of three.
I had fun doing these as they are much brighter etc than what I normally do.

Marion they are postal tomorrow.

I also need to learn how to put the pics in a good spot. HELP!!!! LOL

AND THE WINNER IS

ME, ME, ME, I entered into the discussion on Barbs blog where she had put a challenge on for people to comment about why some people don't comment on some blogs that they visit. Barb had been on a blog JESSICA WESOLEK and she had an article about GIVING BACK, it made very interesting reading, and we all had to comment on it to go in the lottery to win this
ATC from Barb. I had coveted it anyway, so am very pleased that it was MY turn to win something. Thank you Eliza
for the heads up to go look and see who comment number three was.


FINDINGS
Today during our walk with the dog (Zaccy) I came across this tree that had gorgeous bark on it and I couldnt resist bringing some home to scan and use as backgrounds.

So, for my Kiwi friends you might see it on a background (paper) as it would be confiscated at customs, the Aussies probably think I'm loopy, but hey I liked it. I think its paperbark???

The ATCMixed Media Yahoo group run by Eliza and Lucy had a Tryptich Arch swap for last month and I offered to fill the gap and do two. Here is one of them that has been posted and Sandra can peek or not :-)
The second one I will load when it is finished and posted, probably tomorrow.

A couple of swaps.

I have made these items for a swap on paperarts
The "Ravens" was about Edgar Allen Poe, the background painted black and then put Jo Sonjas crackle then painted cream and it didnt work boohoo..........

So next was cover the lot with credit card technique and black and silver paint and spritz with a little water and then wipe some off...... Ok, then onto adding images etc........ I hope the recipients will like it........

Also for the same group was a microscope slide pendant. I had done some soldering at Evas a few months ago and we did microscope slides. So I did similar this time and made two. Now which one will I send eh Barb

anyway I enjoyed making them and had also shown HRH very quickly how do do it too.

I am also starting a swap for an NZ group ATC Taranaki, we are doing half masks.
I will take photos as I go, bit hard to scan masks. This first one is Shades of the Peacock or Cirque Reinvente. So stay tuned for further developments

Sunday night

Well less than a week has passed and here is a new post. My my.........Yesterday Eliza came for a visit and we played all day. Well she showed me how to do a journal in fabric etc and I did the work sort of........ While she played with my blog backgrounds. I fell in love soempics I found so we put this new background and the header on my blog. I love it, but might get a bit sick of the brightness of it. Who knows, so check back and see occasionally.
So........we started off by masking some watercolor paper with gel medium and then leaving it to dry. Then came some fun. Sewing which I have not done since leaving NZ. I will do a series of uploads of pics to show you the stages of the journal.

these are the covers for the book. I think that the signature covers may hang out a bit much but I will see when I put it together. I need to go find some upholstery type scraps somehwere and some other bits. I have heaps in NZ but Eliza shared hers with me for this journal.
Here is some of the signatures and the covers.............













We started the day about 10ish. At lunch time, Geoff called us to come and get a cuppa and he had made us yummy bacon and cheese scones for lunch. He's a good man.
Well off he went to do the job he had to for work and we continued to play, no scones for afternoon tea, just a drink and on we went playing and sewing and talking. Geoff came home and he watched TV we thought, but just as I started to show Eliza how to solder microscope slides he called us to come for dinner, hey Eliza was going home LOL, but he had cooked a stew of beef and veges for us. What a man......... and hes all mine .....So, now....... I need to continue the process of finishing the journal by making the signature pages and then putting it all together with a book-binding technique. I did a course for two years in NZ with Yoka Van Dyke in Wanganui. She is a very capable and accomplished Bookbinding expert and taught at the Wanganui Arts College.
Hey Yoka, thanks for the patient teaching. Wish I could do more with you. One day!!

So as I do more to it I will load the pics for all to view.

I went and bought a Scrapbook Creations magazine today. Ahhhhhhhhhh you all say, but nope inside was a lovely canvas done by none other than the lovely Kelsey , a canvas about her grandparents wedding. Well done Kelsey, its fantastic and love the texture paste use..... Was it black LOL.............. I am going to do a bit of scrapbooking this year as I have loads of photos that my poor kids would have no idea who, what where etc if I should conk out of this world LOL...........

See you all in a few days.