Home kit

Hi all. Here is the finished HOME that Bevlea, Lucy, Caro and I bought at Paperific from Scrapware
We were going to make them at our last play day together but decided to just talk and laugh after a fab lunch after making the Angels from Collections.

Anyway, I finally got mine done and its hanging in my lounge. I quite like it actually.

Hinged Canvas for Paperarts and family stuff.

The October swap for Paperarts was a Hinged Reversed Halloween Canvas, it was supposed to be 5x7 but I couldn't find that size so did it 6x8. Hope that's ok Barb :-)
I did mine more in the Spooky line with images from Itkupilli as I am not a fan of Halloween at all, very American. At first  I was not even going to do this swap, but after seeing Bevlea's fabulous canvas I changed my mind and decided to the same type of theme as hers.

I hope that whoever gets my canvas will like it and isn't expecting pumpkins with candles in it :-)

I have painted the outer edge of the canvas with Golden burnt umber and over painted it with Light umber then a coat of micaceaous  iron oxide  , then on went some trusty black texture paste as well over the staples on the canvas and then more micaceaous iron oxide. I even branched out a bit and put some mica on the windows.

Family Stuff.
Well, the children's mother decided she could not hack it here in Australia any-more as she  wanted to be with our son, her partner back in New Zealand. So she lost the plot last Sunday night and threw a hissy fit and we booked her a ticket home. She left the children with us on Tuesday morning (voluntary, abandoning them) Haven't heard from her since. Quite frankly after talking with the neighbours here who were home during the day when we were at work, hearing what was happening, (wish they had told us), the children  are better off with us even though it is going to mean a huge upheaval for us all and childcare at least 3-4 days a week etc for them. Victoria is blossoming in just the few days the mum has been gone. Some (family) may never understand why we insisted on having them here in the first place instead of leaving them back in Kerikeri with other family members on Geoff's side of our family as they all wanted, but the past history with their mother has proved correct, she is incapable of looking after them . Anyway, they are two precious little souls that need a loving stable environment to blossom in. And with help from our work colleagues  and our friends here we will get by.

COLLECTIONS ANGEL

Bevlea and Lucy and  I got together last week for our regular play day. Caroline had family commitments and was unable to be with us.

All four of us had bought the Angel Wings project from Collections at the recent Paperific... while it didnt go as smooth as we liked they were all done by lunchtime, we had fun just the same (As Bevlea said maybe it's just us but the instructions were a bit confusing lol).  
We had finished it by lunch time and enjoyed a beautiful lunch provided by Lucy. We talked and laughed and talked some more, and laughed a bit more, we  then decided to leave our next project a House frame we bought from Scrapware to do at home by ourselves and then have show and tell next time we get together. Both Bevlea and Lucy have done theirs, ho hum, I work too much. But it will be done by show time.


At the moment I am completing some ATC's  for our New Zealand Stampers monthly ATC swap, this months theme is Angels and then I need to do the Paperarts ones (Cemetery Art)  before Barb heads off overseas on a well deserved holiday. 

9 Years ago

Who could ever forget. Thank you Sarah for the reminder among our art friends. The picture is from (www.freerepublic.com)
9 Years ago today Geoff and I landed at Sydney airport on our way home to New Zealand from Mozambique. What a scary, scary thing to come down too as originally our plans were to go home via USA etc, so we would have been flying into probably  New York at that time. I remember being glued to the TV screen all day at our friends place in horror. Travel changed for ever that day. Instead of relaxed travel between countries we now have the rigid rules, no sharp objects in your carry-on luggage so no chance of knitting, embroidery, artwork or something to while away the boring hours on flights. And as Sarah says no chance of children ever being able to go to the cockpit for a visit with the flight captain etc .
 Changed forever.
"In sympathy we mourn with those lost,
In gratitude we embrace those around us,
In sympathy we reach out to those who still grieve,
Be strong and pull together to help each other
no matter race, creed or color.

THE WHITE KING, Earthquakes, floods and things

Wowee, how about that, Bevlea announced the Challenge for this month on Friday night the 3rd, its now the 5th and I have done it already, what a feat. LOL...
I loved it and a special thanks to my friend Barb for a suggestion, Oh my she's quick that lady.hehehehe..............................

Anyway, here is my Zetti White King......
For those non Aussies White King is a bleach in a bottle.
The background is a scrapbook paper which I distressed a bit with inks, stamped with white the circles and added some pen lines etc I also used a bit of star burst stains on it too. Gave him a mop head of hair and crowned him with a crown.
The story is that Alice in the first chapter of  "Through the Looking glass" The White Queen had rushed past the King and knocked him over among the cinders, where he got covered from head to foot in ashes. Alice gently picked him up and dusted him off a little before she put him back on the table.
This challenge for the book of Alice is such fun. Now I need to backtrack and do the two from earlier in the year that I didn't find time to do.

Anyway, to my Christchurch friends in New Zealand,  I hope the severe earthquakes have not done too much damage if any to your homes. I am still waiting to hear from two families there. To our friends in  Shepparton and surrounds also Jen Crossley in Ballarat, I hope the water recedes with no damage to your homes....................................

Also there has been severe unrest in Maputo in Mozambique, which is where we would have been had we gone over there on our first missions 3yr terms. I was meant to be going in November for a short term trip, but having the children here has stopped that for a time. I heard from Steve and Roz  (team leaders) that there has been severe rioting , tyres burnt, cars overturned etc etc outside the compound and apart from stinging eyes from tear gas from the military trying to stop the unrest they are all ok.

Scary sight, Steve said all the missionaries, the kitchen staff and the children are all ok, but most workers are unable to get to work as its not safe to be out on the roads. It has arisen because the cost of living has  gone up so high. On 1st September the cost of bread rose 30%, the cost of a sack of rice doubled which is a huge amount for the people in one of the most poorest nations in the world where only 14% are employed and the money they earn is not very high either, when we were over there we gave a beggar 10,000 meticals and then realise it was only about $1.50 our money, but for him it was a weeks wages or more. Sad but true......................

Another Alice Book Page

This months challenge that Bevlea set for Paperarts book Challenge was "The Gentleman Dressed in White Paper" quite a challenge actually until Barb sent me a link and a clip or two of men in hats etc. Anyway, here is my silly whimsical page. I used the credit card technique for the background with three colours, added some distress inks and also put a mask over it and put some green ink over that. And as the story goes........
 The man dressed in white paper, who Alice meets when she travels by train through the 3rd square, is a political joke; Tenniel's illustration shows a cartoon of Benjamin Disraeli, who was Prime Minister when Carroll lived. Carroll and Tenniel may have had in mind the ‘white papers’ (official documents) with which such statesmen are surrounded. Before he illustrated the Alice books, Tenniel had once portrayed Disraeli in a Government White Paper suit.

One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets as a fellow passenger riding on the train with her), as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat.

  'So young a child,' said the gentleman sitting opposite to her (he was dressed in white paper), 'ought to know which way she's going, even if she doesn't know her own name!' are the words that I have written along the top, and being whimsey, zetti it just had to have Thomas the tank engine as the train LOL.

Now, altho I am up to date with the current month, I actually have two more to catch up with, being Mad Hatter and Knave of Hearts, so keep looking back they will be here soon.

An aside to Arting,

 Zaccy is ok, he had the drain removed tonight and has his stitches out in ten days time, but he is still not himself, hides in our bedroom most of the day. And has lost a bit of weight which he could not really afford to lose. Thanks to those of you who have left good wishes and kisses for him.

My Poor Boy

Oh my gosh, I got a phone call from Pauline today to say Zaccy was bleeding from his head and she couldn't stop it. I came home and although the blood flow had stopped a little, the wound looked bad, we had no idea what had happened.
Anyway, $400 later, he has several stitches and a drain in his shaved head and an Elizabethan collar round his neck. The vet said it was worse than we thought and we still don't know how it happened. the penetrate and exit is quite wide apart. Its almost like he has been shot in the head with a pellet or something, we don't have nails or anything dangerous around our section(block) because of the little ones, so who knows???

Anyway, here is my poor boy, laying on our bed tonight, a little worse for wear. I have a closer pic of his head but I don't want to gross everybody out too much :-)

Anyway............ I am off to Paperific tomorrow morning, meeting up with Bevlea, Lucy and Caro, so should be a good day, but looks like I won't have much to spend now eh!!! But I am sure I will find a few $$ somehow hehehe..........................

Friday's Play Day

We had a fabulous time at Lucy's on Friday.  We welcomed along Caro this time as she has completed her Art School and can now come and play................
We started of with some etching of metal, yummy play that is............. Ive got to get a LARGE bottle of the chloride to play some more at home.
Anyway, we made some cuffs, which we  I  am still to finish, got to get into the Ice Resin and put it  in the bezels that Geoff painstakingly cut for me, with a new pipe cutter I just had to have, don't you just love Bunning's....I will put in  a pic or some watch part that our fabulous Bevlea pulled apart for Caro and me, one was my G watch that died about 6 months ago and the other was my Mums watch, that one I will use the face plate as a bezel for something special.

Bevlea is a fab photographer and she took some pics of our day...........

About to Patina my pieces with Lucy and her precious little mate Otis  looking on

Ready to Patina

Bevlea, Lucy,Otis (who can't be seen easily because of my black top)  me and Caro smile you're on Bevlea's Camera..........

We had a fabulous day, its great what we can achieve together, sharing our supplies etc.

Now to finish the pieces. I have bent them into a cuff that still needs the Bezels etc put onto them, tomorrow hopefully. I have never used  the Ice Resin yet, so that will be a treat, looks easy on Jens site, but only time will tell. It only has a shelf life of 12 months so I need to get on and use it..... Time for another trip to Bunning's I think and buy a long piece of plumbers copper to get DH to cut up for me, so I can make lots of bezels. 

ALICE PAGE

Well, how good is this to do two pages in one week for the Alice Challenge book.  This time it is Alice, she has taken the drink of the potion and is rather tall and not able to fit through the door that White Rabbit is trying to get her to go through.
Again Zetti style, sort of, hmmmmmmmm might need to add a bit of night circus colors.

A couple of people have said they can't get their head round the Zetti, but Bevlea explained it to me as day time Zetti is bright colors and night circus is blues reds etc and make anything you like using pics from magazine bits etc, change bodies around, have fun...............

Thanks to those who have visited my blog and left me a comment. It is truly appreciated.

Oh well onward I go, only have to do The Mad Hatter and Knave of Hearts to be caught up on the challenge. Also need to do some more of our affirmation journal pages that Lucy, Bevlea and I started on our play days.
Ciao for now..................

ANOTHER ALICE PAGE

Well I am way behind in the Alice Challenge book for Paperarts, the joys of having children and D.I.L in the house, but I caught up all last months swaps and so decided to do another page for the book.
So Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee it was. Its quite a challenge to me to do the

pages that are set for each month in the Zetti style, this one probably does not have enough background stuff, but then I may add to it as the mood takes me.
It has been done with some scrapbook paper and then grunged a bit with Distress inks etc, then a few stamped images which I have added white pen to. The body of the boys are images are from Itkupilli which I have, the heads and big bird from elsewhere, as Barb says they look  "cute and arty"  LOL.
Anyway, I have my Alice page started to so will load that one here soon too...........

Paperarts ATC swap this month just gone was Steam-punk, well that was a challenge to my not so steam-punk brain LOL, The image had to have moving parts, so my wheels on the house-plane actually do move round like wheels should.
Probably could have had more cogs and things for this but hey............................ he would have been able to go "up this way" if they did...

PLAY DAY  for the Art Queens is coming up again this week on Friday and we are going to Lucy's,  being joined this time by the lovely Caro. Will be good to catch up with her again. I haven't seen Caro since retreat 2009. Our project this    time involves metal, etching, metal charms, embossing folders, ice resin (yeah!! haven't used it yet) and  a few other bits and pieces. I will leave you with that teaser and hope to see you back here early next week to see what we created :-)

Another Play Day

Today dawned early....... groannnnnnnnnnnnnn  The kids woke early but hey, great because I was off to the other side of Melbourne to have a great play day with two great friends Bevlea and Lucy  Bevlea sent the email that we were doing a page from Stephanie Lees "Semi Precious Salvage" Panic I couldn't find my book, Oh dear had I left it somewhere, then the light went on aha, I had carefully put it with another Metalwork book and DVD I have, panic over, by this time its midnight or later, gotta get packed to take with me but what??? Book now found, find bits to take, all packed...............................Off to bed for some sleep.....
Breakfast done, emails checked, bed made etc etc... And off I went to Bevlea's, where Lucy had arrived too from her part of the city.
We had a great time and made a necklace. It really did turn into a shared piece of jewelry as I gave Bevlea one of my antique dolls arms, she shared some beads with Lucy and myself and the tiny heart charm on the dolls arm Lucy shared with us. The etched metal we had done on a previous play day. We had finished the necklace by lunch time so decided to make some earrings a new "thing" for all of us, they took a little longer to work out, but all of them turned out great. Bevlea and I don't usually wear dangly's but they do look good.
After a long drive home as it takes about 50 mins to get over there and usually longer coming home because its getting close to peak traffic, I made it "just" but had to crash for a Nana-nap........Late to bed  and early rising and don't make for a very good energetic day.................
Poor Bevlea had a mishap before we arrived too, she had fallen in the bathroom and hit her head quite badly and had rather a large egg on the back of her head. I hope by the morning she will be rested and the egg reduced in size considerably.
Thank you both for a fabulous day................................................. Here's to the next one!!! Hopefully our friend (Diva) from Wagga Wagga can join us next time. miss ya GF.

AND THE WINNER IS

1. Sue M
2. Marilyn Rock
3. Barb T
4. Loes
5. Hermine
6. Svetlana
7. Jen C
8. Margaret W

Timestamp: 2010-07-11 13:28:14 UTC

I used Random.org to choose the winner

So congratulations to Sue Maher.              I am sure I have your address Sue, so watch the post box. When I have sent the gift and it is received I will post on here what it was :-)

Ohhhhhhh this if fun, I must do it again..................

60 years plus 1 month GIVEAWAY

and this is my 61st post, how about that. hmmmmm might just have to find something to giveaway.

So please leave me a comment about the lovely birthday gift I received from the Lovely Lucy , she gave it to me yesterday at Evas. If you want to know how she made it please visit her blog. The top has the words. "THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING" I love it...  Thanks too for Pic Lucy

I felt a bit neglected for my 60th because we live over here in Australia now, altho the family here in Melbourne put on a surprise dinner at home for me. We should have gone to NZ to a family wedding  but too many things needed to be bought and replaced etc etc at the same time... never mind, next decade, maybe  I will jump from a plane tandem or something next time. LOL.....

Anyway, as well as receiving this lovely gift from Lucy we got together at Evas and learnt to do enamelling from a friend of Evas.  Pic of Lucy and I absolutely LURVING EACH OTHER LOL..... heeheehe...

Here are my samples at left, probably won't do to much of this as it requires either a kiln or a big gas torch, larger than the one I have got.

It was good fun though. The two discs were done by first preparing the copper disc, then putting the enamel on it and firing it, then adding a paper template and adding a different color of enamel and firing again. The S one was putting a color on the prepared copper disc firing, then another color and drawing in it with a toothpick and then firing it. The third was a different technique called swirling, which we put three or more colors on the brass and then melted it over the torch and then when it was a honey consistency I drew in it with a metal pick, (with a glove on, off course)

The picture of the kiln, I stole LOL...............

Anyway, look forward to your comments and I will choose a winner random.org style and send of a little something to the lovely winner.

Please Leave me a Comment

I have had to moderate my posts as there were some very unsavoury links on a few comments posted lately.
So please do leave me a comment. I love receiving them and will always try and get back to you to say thanks for visiting me.
Regards
Glenda

Another Alice Page

for Paperarts 2010 challenge book.
There has been a lot of talk on the group about how behind most of us are with our pages, that it inspired me to do a page to try and catch up. I think the fabulous Lucy is the only one who is up to date.

Anyway, here is THE WHITE RABBIT...
I am mostly doing Zetti style for my book, but this one is a bit dark as I used a fairly dark background, possibly will add a bit more color as I get more dissatisfied with it. LOL.....

Next I wll do Alice and then Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. As I sit here typing this my daughter in law is out in dining room actually watching a copy of Alice on my laptop that a friend gave me. If you didnt see the movie try and get to it as it was great. I went to a 3D viewing on the Gold Coast with Carol when we had finished our work conference we were up there for.

UPDATE ON JOURNAL

    COMMITTMENT...........

As previously posted Bevlea, Lucy and I are having fabulous play days, we are doing a journal of affirmations.

My card chosen from Bevlea's little box was Committment.

I did a face painting of which I am not very good at, at all.. LOL and I pasted it to the page. My committment is to practice to do better faces among other things... To learn and Grow in that area.
The page is dictionary paper that had committment on it and I then painted, glitzed and textured the page, then added the face I did on scrap paper :-)  and blended it in with rub-ons etc, then stamped a foam stamp with Lumiere. Did a bit of jornalling which is mostly the words from the affirmation card. I guess as we work at them I might add more to this page too........ I enjoyed it very much because it is just for me....

WOWEE WOWEE

Check this out..
""GIVEAWAY
Thanks to everybody who entered their name into my double book giveaway from the last meeting of The Book Guild. There were 94 entries and 2 winners. JeriAnn from Commuter's Journal won a copy of Digital Expressions. Glenda from Glenda's Artscapes won a copy of The Journal Junkies Workshop. Congratulations to you both! Please contact me via email with your mailing address. And keep visiting on Sundays for The Book Guild as there are many more giveaways to come! ""

Seth, thank you so much and to find it came so close to my birthday too.
I am so looking forward to it arriving, as you can see from a previous post "The Art Queens" namely Bevlea, Lucy and I have just embarked on a journalling journey, so this will come in handy. Again thanks so much and I will be back......
 
 
 
 
Now , I received two lovely cards from some lovely people too..

From Eva and Lucy.  Both cards open out as a stand up canvas. Fabulous and thank you so much to both of you. Bevlea sent me a lovely spiel about the 3/6 1950. Great too, I had no idea about all those things that happened etc on that day.
 
 
 
 

Linda Baldocks Give Away

Linda is giving away a piece of art. Go check it out. And good luck to all who leave her a comment.
I know I would love to win it. Its fabulous.

Beginnings of an Art Journal

Last week Bevlea, Lucy and I "The Art Queens" got together to start a Journal each. We have wanted to do journalling for quite a while and  so we decided to make our pages first. We all just slapped around, torn paper, paint, stamps, moon glows, stencils etc etc... to form the backgrounds. Bevlea is using an old "boring as she calls it" book. Lucy and I are making ours on chipboard and will bind them later. Bevlea is bringing along some wisdom words that her daughter Fiona gave her some time ago and we choose one each time to use on our page. We will decoreat the page to show the quote and at the end will have a lovely Inspiration Book. 

This is a sample of some of the pages that I have prepared, with torn scrapbook papers and dictionary pages etc. they still have to be stencilled, glitzed, painted etc etc.
We had a lovely interesting natter about all sorts of things and loads of laughs while we were together.................

Back to OZ and more

Well time flies when you are having fun, or are so busy because 2 children and the mum came back here with us to live with us. So we are a pretty busy household with a 22mth old and a 3yr old here to care for and teach Mum to be a Mum and house keeper etc.

I am glad to be back........................ Even though its winter I love this SUNBURN'T country. I found NZ green trees to be very bland and couldnt wait to get back to the differnt colors of the gum trees etc. Yeah I know Sad eh!!! But true.

Marions Beatle Swap has landed at my house and I want to thank from Left to Right

Marion Rock, Charlotte Fern and Katrin Pieschel

for the fabulous ATC's received. Thank you again to Marion for inviting me to join in again this year.



Freindly Plastic
On Saturday I had Jessie from New Zealand call in and have a play here and she introduced me to the delights of Freindly Plastic, whcih I must order from Petra in Christchurch NZ as I have no idea where to get it in Aussie.

More tomorrow night I hope see you there............

Family

Just a quick update to the previous post about family.
The Family Group Conference is cancelled and the children and the mother are coming to Australia to live with us. They come here on the 9th May. We are leaving early am , like in about 4 hours time for the airport and the flight to NZ. Will be good to catch up with some very good friends before we head up north to pick up our family.

I am feeling a bit better about it all, but disappointed that it came down to our Kerikeri family trying to keep them. I talked with the mother's sister and she is keen for them to be with us as is our son and the rest of the family who have been involved all along.
Thought I would celebrate by putting a picture of pansies here, my favourite flowers...............

Marions Beatle Swap

Every year Marion Bockleman from Germany hosts an ATC swap. She tells you the title and you send her three ATC's in that theme. And you get three back.
This year she chose either Beatles or Rolling Stones songs. Both my era OK.............. So I chose "Babys in Black" by the Beatles. The chorus goes.
Baby's in black, and I'm feeling blue. Tell me oh what can I do. She thinks of him so she dresses in Black.
Mine is a black scrapbook paper torn in half and placed over some stamped words on white. Then I made a seat of black with the words Baby's in Black on it and seated the little girl that I have from Lisas. I changed the color in Photoshop of the dress and boots from brown to black. Down the side I have melted save-a-stitch with some sparkle embossing powder.
I so enjoyed her swap last year and the ATC's that were returned were fabulous
I need to put a link on Marions blog now, so go and visit her and follow some links to some fabulous blogs

Art

Iv'e done this week includes the page for Paperarts Morphed Ancestors. Mine is "Great Uncle Arthur is very one eyed  about life. We used Jen Crossleys packs of chipboard frames.  I painted the background, used bubble wrap as a mask and the cog is a new stencil I have that Lucy got for me from http://stencilgirlproducts.blogspot.com/ I used a thin layer of texture paste and then went over it with distress ink and then  added Distress Crackle Paint "Rock Candy"  I then added  bit of green to natch his eyeball and then  the words, actually I also put a line of black texture paste around the oval frame too and rubbed it with golds rub-ons too. The man is part of something I found a few years ago, I added the eyeball in photoshop.

Also for Paperarts we did the Seven Deadly sins.. Mine was to do "Sloth". I used some scrapbook paper as the background, cut out a found image of the lady, mounted the 7 as we had to use the number of our Sin on the ATC, added some black texture paste and rubbed with gold rubons. Then the words "I am Sloth. I have little desire for activity. I will avoid anything that requires exertion"

See you again shortly....

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.