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.