Almost there

Well its been a month since our house suffered water damage and we are still in a state of disrepair.  Not for much longer (says she with her fingers crossed).  We have picked the carpets and we should get a phone call anytime soon.  We just have to empty our built in robes so they can be taken out before the carpets are put in. We are also having new carpet put in our bedroom as well.  So we are going to have to move stuff out of 5 rooms so that they can lay the carpet on the same day. We have gone for Stainmaster IQ twist (something like that). They tested it in the New York zoo for 3 weeks and then gave it a clean and it came up as good as new. If the elephants and rhinos can do their worse on it and it survives that then it will survive just the two of us living on it. (plus future grandkids. hahaha )

Our Scrap hostess with the mostess Toni over at Jellybeanscrappers.com allowed me to set a couple of challenges this month.  The first was a monthly challenge which was inspired by the Graphic45 team.
 I was emailed a newsletter with instructions for a post-it note holder. I had made one of these a few years back and thought it a great idea.

 

 So I made these two with A Ladies Diary and Happy Haunting papers. and set them as the challenge.

 

Then Toni was kind enough to allow me to set another challenge. This time it was for the halloween Cyber Crop night. For this challenge I  made some Halloween Tags.



For the first tag I just did some T!m Holtz techniques for the background (blending and water splattering).  I used the rickety fence die and the branch from (oops I can't remember and my dies are all outside). And the second one I used the haunted house die, embossed the fence, white washed the house using the distress markers inked the edges with black soot and used graphic45 happy haunting cut-outs (the moon and witch) then popped on some googly eyes, a few spritzed flowers and ribbon and hey presto. my tags.  If I had my scrap room in order I would be able to tell you all the names of the dies and embossing folders. so my apologies to T!m Holtz. lol

Tomorrow (maybe) I will show you what else I have made but for now I am going to relax before hubby gets home from work.

ciao for now.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Where has the time gone

My daughter informed me a couple of weeks ago that i have been slack in updating my posts (and also told me off for my grammar and punctuation. Kids!)
Well what has happened in 5 months?? A lot but not a Lot. If that makes sense.
I had my birthday in June.
I think the most important event is that  our eldest daughter purchased her own home and moved into it in July.
A lovely 3 bedroom villa only 5 minutes from Mum ( thank goodness). Her Dad has painted most of the rooms and occasionally phones her to say "is it alright if I go around to your place and do this or that". So its all coming together for her. She just had her new lounge suite delivered yesterday.

I also started a new position at work, Quality control.  Its not really hard work but it takes time and can be mentally exhausting.  I am enjoying it.





We had my lovely sister-in-law & brother-in-law come and stay for the weekend in August and had a lovely 3 days together. We went to Glenelg one day and had lunch and a few drinks at the Watermark Hotel and then drove along the coast up to Semaphore and had afternoon tea at the Palais.  And as you can see brothers and sisters never grow up.

September was fairly quiet. We celebrated my Mums birthday, and this was the card I made for her.and as every good mother does.... it goes in her display cabinet. lol.














October is a completely different month as it started on a good note, well the first two days.  On the Monday night we went out for tea to celebrate my nephews birthday and then on the 2nd hubby and i
packed up and headed off to Mildura ( a 4.5hr drive) for 4 days of rest and relaxation.  That idea went out the window 6pm that night when we received a phone call from our youngest daughter to say she had gone to pick something up (an apple pie we had left in the fridge) and found the inside of the house under water.  Gary told what she had to do regarding turning the water off, which our little hero did despite the mains tap being in bug infested bushes. A few phone calls later we had 2 daughters, 1 father, 1 future son-in-law and our 2 best friends at our house sucking up water and moving furniture up out of the water.  2 bedrooms, the lounge, study and kitchen ended up being effected.  But if it wasn't for all their help things would have been so much worse so we are so grateful to have these people in our lives. Now the house is dried out and its the waiting game to get things replaced or repaired.  The insurance company have been great so far.
 I am so glad I raised daughters who love their food. lol.

Well that's my life blogged to date.  At the moment I am trying to make my Secret Santa gift and if I don't stop surfing the net and procrastinating it's never going to get done.


Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Well its the weekend again YAY!
What have i been doing for the last couple of weeks? Hmmmm???
I have been knitting scarves. I have used Moda Vera's Honeycomb mesh and it only takes one ball to make this gorgeous scarf. Here is the pattern and a pic of a pink one http://promotions.spotlight.com.au/projects/yarn/scarves-hats/E13_12_HONEYCOMB_MESH_SCARF_PS.pdf
 I've made 5 so far. 4 for girls at work and one for myself ( mine is Cookies and Cream)  I have 2 more to make. another one for me and a black one for my daughter.

I've been to Sydney with hubby and friends and had a great time. I took my new friend Billie

My daughter bought her back form Tasmanian for me just a few days b3efore we flew to Sydney so i thought Everyone takes a Gnome or something to take silly pics so I'll take Billie!!!  hahahaha

Hubby thought I was nuts but he got in one the fun and so did our friends.

While we were walking through Sydney we past a lane way and I saw these hanging from two buildings. I think it is such a beautiful idea in such an unusual place.

That was two weeks ago and its just back to normal again. Well as normal as life can get.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

May nearly at the end

Hello everyone.

Can't believe its been over a month since I last posted.

so lets see what we got up to in April

Iwas lucky enough to win Toni's Digi Challenge at Jellybeanscrappers with this LO (above). The Challenge was to do a European style LO using white space and lots of embellishments. Toni is our esteamed leader over at Jellybeanscrappers.

I also won this Challenge. Kym's Sketch challenge (a very talented young lady). the challenge apart from the sketch was to give it a heritage look. The photo is of my mum and dad on their wedding day in March 1961.  I used to play dress ups in her wedding dress which looking back at it know i would have loved to have worn it on my wedding day.

This photo was taken at Grant Burge winery up at the Barossa Valley.  We had my gorgeous

Sister-in-law and brother-in-law come stay with us the week after Easter and we all went up to Peter lehmanns winery for a Ploughmans lunch. We stopped here on the way through Its amazing how a couple of months can change the look of this area.  The year before hubby and I took my cousin to this same spot and i took this pic



The lunch at Peter Lehmanns was just beautiful so was the company

Noriel (on the right) & I enjoying a bottle of Peter Lehmann Princess wine.

And the empty bottle.

So that was a few things that happend in April.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Lesson 6

Ok this is my second and final upload for today.

this lesson was all about the distress markers.

the first tag (again the middle)
Watercolour with markers technique
for this one we coloured with the markers on dry and wet paper.

the second tag ( on the left)
we coloured by blending the markers on the craft sheet and lifting colours up with the lighter marker and then colouring the butterflies

the third tag (on the right)
This time we had to colour the stamp direct with the marker and then stamp the paper. (it was supposed to be specialty paper but i didn't have any so i used the back of the glossy paper). then inked it with the blending tool and flicked it with water.

So that is it for tonight.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Lesson 5

Yes i am still behind on my tags but got three done this afternoon.

This lesson was all about distress stains.

the first tag (in the middle) is



Stained Kraft Resist Techinque

I didn't have any of Tims kraft resist paper but had something similar so i followed the instuctions and again i have used Kaisers stamps Le Chateau and Tigerlily.

Tag 2 (on the right)

Stamping with stains technique

for this tag we stamped with Picket fence stain as well as using the stains for the basckgrounds.  This was my second attempt for the back ground as i used to much Fired brick on the first one and yuck!!  Iused Kaisers Tigerlily butterfly stamps on this one.

And the third tag for the lesson (on the left)

Marbled stains technique

Not completely happy with this one either as this was third attempt. the first one looked like mud and then the second one was all red  although i used tumbled glass and shabby shutters on it.  Conclusion Don't use red or very little of it. Again i have used Kasier stamp this time Decorative Lamp.

Half way through so i had better get a wriggle on and try and do some more.  Off to do lesson 6.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

lesson 4

I am 4 days behind but work interrupted and family well what can you do.  Although they are big enough and..... well even as adults they still demand attention.

Sotonight i finally hd a go at two of the tags for lesson 4.

Watercolouring with re-inkers 

I used Darkroom Doors Essentials 7 collection and as you can see i didn't stay within the lines.  hahaha!I only have a few colours in the re-inkersbut i'm happy with the outcome.  A few more to add to the colour collection and who knows what can be achieved (even for a non-watercolour artist).

Layered Misting Technique

For this tag i used spiced Marmalede, spun sugar, peeled paint for the base, My template is "The Crafters Workshops" Mini Harlequin. and i sprayed with faded jeans.  I'll play around with the different templates and masks that i have.

But i couldn't do the custom stamp pad as i didn't have the right supplies and unfortunately i have to reign in my spending for at least another week. :0(

Any way thats my efforts at a Masters techniques. 

Until next time



Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx