Brown/Beige/Cream

Here is the result of having some fun playing around with brown/beige/cream for the Make a Moo or Two challenge this week. The image is ARTchix. Brown seems to be the colour of the day for me... I'm seriously considering the purchase of a new lounge today and it's chocolate brown. All I can think about are the quilts I'd love to make to go with it!!!

Sew Somerset

The latest edition of Sew Somerset (Summer 2008) is now available at Stampington. I feel very honored to have had a piece chosen for the 'Decore' gallery. I was really excited to see that I'm sharing a page with Audrey Hernandez - I just love her work! Audrey has a fab article in the mag called 'Fabric Notepads'. My wonderful and creative friend Debbi Baker has a gorgeous piece in the mag too!

Unfortunately, I haven't taken a photo of the hanging - I'm hoping that I'll receive it back from the US soon - so if you come across a copy check out page 81!

Have a great weekend, everyone! I'm hoping mine will involve some creative time ;)

Tantalizing Turquoise

I'm so excited because a hanging I created for the Tantalizing Turquoise challenge for Stampers Sampler has been published in the June/July issue. The picture above shows it in the process of being put together... just before I had the gumption to start sewing on it. I often hesitate at this stage of the process because once something is stitched, it's pretty permanent. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a photo of the finished product, but if you click on the Stampers Sampler link you should be able to find a photo of it!

Make A Moo Or Two & ATC Swaps

I've finally managed to complete an online challenge... it's been a while since my last one. I've been working on some ATC's for a swap with a beachcomber theme and made this Moo at the same time for MAMOT's theme Beach and Sea. The image is ARTchix and stamps are from Stampington's Shore Cliff Trim.


I've also finished these ATC's for a swap with Melinda and Robyn. Our colour theme this month is purple.

Core'dinations and Kookaburras

Here's Sean Alexander and Grandpa at the beach in January.


The lovely Steph at Southern Stationery gifted me with a packet of the new Core'dinations Vintage Collection cardstock. The Vintage Collection has a presanded look to it's textured surface and is two toned in colour, rather lovely I think, and no need to sand it yourself which is a bonus! This is one of the things I've made with it so far. I've torn some of the edges and inked them with dark brown ink, flipped some card pieces over to show the lighter colour - pretty easy, eh! The vine stamp is by A Muse Artstamps and the alphabet is Hero Arts.

It's pretty hard to see (bad photography), but the image on the Australian postage stamp is of a kookaburra. I often get woken in the early dawn to the wonderful sounds of the kookaburra's laugh! One of the first songs I ever remember learning at school goes like this...

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh kookaburra, Laugh kookaburra,
Gay your life must be.

It's sung in a round, which would have been rather difficult to teach to six year olds, but it's stuck with me and I do so love to sing! I'm in a singing team at my church.

Emerging Flair!

I'm not really sure where the last two weeks have gone, but gone they have! I've had a creative holiday break and have managed to complete a number of projects that will hopefully be published a little further down the track.

I enjoyed my outing to The Wizard of Oz with two of my neices - it was so lovely to spend a little time with them. They had never been to the Town Hall before, so it was extra special taking them there for the first time. I'm heading back there this Friday night for a concert... more on that later.

'Emerging Flair' by Julie H

In the second week of hols, I had the opportunity to catch up with Julie H. She's a talented local mixed media artist and she presented me with a drop dead gorgeous ATC called 'Emerging Flair' (the textures and composition are awesome) along with a little bag of delectable charms. It was so lovely to catch up with her! Thanks, Julie! I feel very blessed!



Another extra special event was babysitting Sean Alexander. He's now seven months old! Time flies, eh! My SIL went on a mini shopping spree and left the two of us together for a morning! Sean is rolling all over the place and it seems that at present his favourite pastime is playing with empty boxes and paper - just like me really :)

The Wizard Of Oz!!!

I'm taking two of my nieces (I have six - all adopted - and one adopted nephew, as well as Sean Alexander!) to see 'The Wizard Of Oz' next week. Georgia and Olivia are sooooo excited and really looking forward to our outing. I thought I'd give them the tickets and flyer to 'stick' on the fridge for a little keepsake! Only nine more sleeps!!!!!

Shoes!!!

I've been hoping to be involved in the ATC Challenge at Blue Bazaar for quite some time, so here's an ATC I made last night to fit the theme Accessories: Shoes. Unfortunately I've had trouble uploading a picture onto their site, but I thought I may as well share it here anyway.

The ATC is pictured here with my first ever teddy bear - I wonder where my love of all things pink has come from?!!

The shoes are by Paperbag Studios and BEBE' is Oxford Impressions. Now I feel like hitting the shops to find some new shoes - pink ones at that!

'Take Flight'... SBD's ATC Swap

So here are the ATC's I've been working on for Scrapbook Designs monthly swap. The theme this month is, 'Winged Things'. The stamps are Collections, paper is Basic Grey and of course there's a little fabric thrown in for good measure!

I kinda wish I was like this little girl and could take flight to some amazing place and create to my heart's content... oh, that's right, I can!

DCM - Butterfly, Flutterby

It's soooooooo nice to be on holidays!!!! I've had my second cousin Karen stay with me last night (so lots of mad tidying up yesterday!) and today we've been making cards. I've completed my first contribution for Daring Card Makers with the theme 'Butterfly, Flutterby'. The lady and butterfly are both ARTchix Studios images.

Karen managed to make three gorgeous cards (sorry, no pics of these) and I've also been working on some ATC's for a swap via Scrapbook Designs. I'll post pics of these tomorrow.

Grandfinals!

See these trophies! They're both mine!!! I'm so excited about them!!!

I play indoor beach volleyball twice a week. On Tuesday nights I'm in the Ice Maidens B grade team. The team consists of 4 gals and 2 fellas. Anyway, we managed to win our final (by the skin of our teeth) last week and then played in the Grand Final that night and won! So the reason I'm so excited is that this is the first trophy I've ever won in some 30+++ odd years of life.

Then Friday night's game was even more exciting as my team Hit & Hope (mixed - 3 gals & 3 fellas) had played in a number of grand finals and choked each time. (We were thinking of renaming ourselves The Chokers because of this.) At one point towards the end of the game, we were up by 10 points... in the end we won by 3!!! I thought I was never going to hear the wonderful words 'TIME'! But alas, we did and I have the trophy to prove that we won!

The extra special thing about this, is that I've never been in a regular sporting team until I took up volleyball 2 years ago. It's been an amazing experience for me being in a team, working together and having a lot of laughs (and a lot of sand in unmentionable places)!

Lime!

Just a quick post to show you that I've been up to something, even if it's only a little something! On Saturday I made these 'Lime' ATC's for this months colour swap with Robyn and Melinda. For whatever reason, the end of the text has photographed blurry - it isn't in real life! The text and image are both by Oxford Impressions.

I'm on holiday countdown... three days to go and then hopefully a whole lot of creative time ahead!

Arte y Pico

I've been given the Arte y Pico award by the very talented Jo. I feel very honoured to receive this award from Jo as I'm constantly inspired by her work each time I visit her blog, so make sure you check out her work... it's brilliant!

There are 5 rules attached to this award and they are:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.
4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show th link of "Arte y Pico' blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. To show these rules.

These are just five of the blogs I seemingly obsessively visit - all full of fun and cretive inspiration!!!

Gillian Hamilton - Eclectic Me

Sephi K - Night Owl Designs

Laura - Layers Of Colour

Heather Bailey - Hello My Name Is Heather

Sharon O Young

Thanks to each one of you for your wonderful contributions to the blogging community!

Rustic Charm

Here's another project that was published in Stamping & Papercraft Vol 12 No 10 - just in case you missed it. I was really pleased with the way they stylised the photograph. Now if you saw the envelopes I made in December for my school's graduation you will see some similarities in the one I made for Liam.

Twice on Saturday!

Well I wasn't sure if I was going to manage to make something for the Wednesday Stamper challenge (Purple) this week, but I found this gorgeous purple fabric this morning and got all inspired!!!

The apricot fabric has been stamped with a flower by Penny Black and the transparency image is ARTchix.

Had He Not...

I'm really enjoying the Make A Moo Or Two challenges each week. The theme for this week is Text. It's such a fun way to use the little bits 'n pieces I always have lying around the place, but can't bear to throw away.

The stamp is by Collections and the image is ARTchix Studio.

Mixed Media Monday

This is my first contribution to the Mixed Media Monday challenge - the theme this week is Bright Colours. When I saw Debbi Baker's gorgeous orange and pink pieces yesterday, I was inspired to have a go too. I've been tidying up my 'studio' (aka the kitchen) a bit today and these bright fabrics just seemed to fall together. The floral and pink pieces cost me 10c each (and there's still some left over) - what a bargain!!! I've added a bit of sparkle with sequins and gemstones. The image is by Paperbag Studios - 'Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them'.

Easter Bunnies

I had the loveliest of days yesterday - our trip to Denmark was great. We ended up at the Alpaca Farm... and got to cuddle some real live Easter Bunnies!!! There is quite a menagerie of animals at the farm and my friend Sue's grandkids loved seeing all of the animals. We ended up that the markets later in the day and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the art works of some very creative people - very inspiring! I was particularly tempted by the wonderful hand knitted beanies and tea cosies from Peaceful Bay, but somehow managed to walk away empty handed.

Here's my first attempt at a Skinny. I took up this weeks Skinny Saturday challenge - Women At Work. The stamped images are both by Collections.

Spring!

Here's my Moo for this weeks theme 'Spring' at Make A Moo Or Two.

Over in my part of the world we are beginning to experience the coolness of Autumn, but I'm sure before I know it, it will be Spring again.

It's a quick post, I'm off to the Easter markets at Denmark with some friends.

May you have a blessed and safe Easter!

My First 'Make A Moo Or Two' (Or Three)!

Okay, so I now realise that I didn't have a full appreciation of moo cards, until I set about making some of my own, and read the dimensions (and re-read and re-read)! I did wonder if I would be able to work on such a small scale, so these were a little experimental! The current theme for 'Make A Moo Or Two' is 'Children'. Somehow I think I will be making more of these in the future and I'll thank Jo Capper Sandon for getting me hooked.

Obviously the pics are of Sean Alexander and paper is Daisy D's - Saltwater Taffy

I also now have an even greater appreciation for the wonderful inchie art works I've been seeing lately. Check out some of Debbi Baker's inchies. I think they're incredible!!!