A Quick Hello!

Just had a chance to access a computer and the Internet at a friend's place so am taking this opportunity to say we are still in the throes of moving to our new place. We are temporarily without a home, therefore are also without land line phone and Internet! The trip down in the Ute was fine - all the animal and human travellers survived well. We took three days to get here. All of our furniture is currently stored at our son's house till we can access our new house on Thursday. After that, I am trusting things will start to return to 'normal'.

Am having papercraft withdrawals - another friend gave me some papercraft magazines just before I left and i am studying them as often as possible! Maybe I'll have some new techniques to show you soon.

Thanks for calling in and leaving comments. It means a lot - am looking forward to visiting everyone's blogs again VERY soon!!

And YES! I have seen my granddaughter, and she is the most gorgeous baby on the planet, I am sure!!

I'll be baaaaaack!!

Moving News

Thought I'd share a cross stitch of my mother's with you. She created this by making a pattern out of a photograph of my daughter. Isn't her work amazing?

We had a letter (via snail mail) today saying out tenant is moving out next Wednesday, so we can move in to our new house early! We also had a phone call saying the new owners of the house we currently occupy want to move in on Friday, which is the day we are moving out!! Yikes! This changes how we are packing and the speed at which we are getting things done. Most of the rooms are packed up. I am not sure how we shall get things cleaned before the others start moving in though. We can only do what we can do.

I am hoping this means we won't have to double handle our gear now. We can maybe move straight into our house instead of having the stuff unloaded at our son's place first (we thought we couldn't have our house till the end of July).

On the papercraft front, I received a lovely RAK (Random Act of Kindness) early birthday card from a lady I have never met in Ireland. I wish the card hadn't been packed before I scanned it. I hope to find it again once I get settled down south.

Circle Journal #3

At Scrapchat we're still passing around those Circle Journals we started at the beginning of the year. I completed my pages tonight. This one's instructions were to complete a double page layout of someone who inspired you. Well, I chose one of my Grandmothers. I was only allowed to talk about one person, or I would have included BOTH grandmothers. This picture went a little better with the paper colours I had on hand though, since a lot of my stash is now packed...Oh and we were to also do a tag about ourselves which tucks inside the paper bag pages. I don't know if you can tell from the bad photo but the background paper has old postcards and letters all over it. It reminded me of how much my grandmother liked to travel.

Most of the entries in this Circle Journal so far have been of female relatives (one lady admires the Surf Lifesavers though, and that's easy to understand - they do such a great job).

It's kind of scary and awe inspiring at the same time to think that I have a chance to be inspiring for my own little granddaughter. What a responsibility!

Amazing skies

Australia has been whipped by high winds in the last week and it has produced some spectacular cloud formations over us. What passion nature can display! I don;t think my camera, as good as it is, captures the true impression of the sky this day, but it did a pretty good job all things considered.

The packing continues at our house, even in windy and rainy conditions. Col has now packed out food up. I'm hanging on to my craft materials (in a reduced state) by the skin of my teeth. The camera is an easy thing to justify keeping UNpacked. We might see something interesting on our two day trip south!!

Inchies Swap

I did it! I packed AND I completed some images for a Scrapchat swap! You just never know when you can sneak in and work on some papercrafts around here! Col is watching the footy so I snuck in to cut and paste - he he he.

We're swapping 18 "inchies". They are called that because they are literally 1" square, (or as close to that as I could get them), and I was required to do three lots of six. I chose to find some inspirational women and make them the subject of my inchies. Here I have featured (from left to right) Florence May Austral who was a singer (1892 - 1968), Elizabeth Riddell who was a journalist and poet (1910 - 1998) and Georgiana Huntly who was an artist and diarist (1804 - 1890). The photo doesn't show the colours or the pen work well. If you click on the image you might get a better view.

I am planning to get another swap done - the Circle Journal one - and maybe do a little 2"x2" square as a surprise to add to the inchie swap (the lady organising it is putting together a 2"x2" tiled collage of people from Scrapchat).

All this and packing and sorting and throwing away and giving away and farewelling and trying to get meals in a depleted kitchen (Col packed most of my cooking utensils and appliances today - guess it will be takeaway for next week! Lol!) Oh and washing curtains and furniture covers and pillows and so on as well! Joy!

An update

I'm still here! Just distracted by all the life events happening around me at the moment. I probably need to take a break from blogging now till after the move, but we shall see. We are packing and cleaning and tying up loose ends, and will move out next Friday (not tomorrow - the following week). We'll be on the road a couple of days then settling in to our temporary digs for about a month, before moving in to our permanent 'new' home.

I'll be back. I plan to find time to papercraft once we are in our temporary place. Take care meantime.

Abbey's birth card

We wanted to send a little gift to our new grandchild today so it was time to make her her first card! I enjoyed doing this though I had to make the face three times. Simpler is better - I was trying to be too detailed!!

I used Stampin' Up! card stock from the Soft Subtles range. I punched out the flowers and circles, hand cut and shaded the arm, cut the blanket from a circle template, embellished with silver and black and pink, and added lace, buttons, oh and the background is SU!s' Canvas stamp in Versamark.

It's going to be great to get to see her in real life - only about 13 days to go!!!

How big are your termites?

I always wanted to get a picture of one of the enormous termite mounds we have here in Far North Queensland, and I finally got one. Colin is standing next to it to show the size. These things are everywhere in the bush up here, and termites come to town too.

We have to guard our houses against being eaten in the dark!

Seriously, these things do eat wood, and we do have to keep watch fro little clay tunnels running up the walls, but most people manage to avoid their houses being infested :-)

I would have put up a photo of Abbey fro you today but still don't have one on the computer.

It will come! I promise!

We Have a Baby!!

Well, it's official. I am a Grandma! Praise the Lord!

About ten minutes ago our son called us, and Abbey Emily was born at 11.02pm, about 40 minutes ago!! She weighed 8lbs and and has lots of lovely dark hair. New Mum and baby and New Dad all doing well, and we New Grandparents are rejoicing!

The adventures of Dottie

If you haven't seen Dottie's adventures with Jaqi yet (Dottie is from Chriss's The Artist's Trading Club - Swap till you Drop) I do suggest you visit Jaqi's blog! She has gone to a lot of trouble to tell the story of Dottie's visit there for a week!

I posted a picture of Dottie so you will recognise her. She doesn't always dress this way. Her wardrobe is extensive - lots of crafters have provided her with outfits from all over the world. She visits Chriss' friends for a week at a time, and she certainly got up to a lot with Jaqi. The week isn't even over yet and she has had to be rescued twice by men in uniform. But don't let me spoil the fun - have a look for yourself!

Try something new!

Leonardo da Vinci was a pretty interesting person. He was always trying something new, just like we papercrafters do. I found this quote from an e-zine I subscribe to this morning:

"What is it that makes Leonardo such a genius? I believe it’s not just that he was so prolific and talented in so many areas, but that he was constantly trying new things. He constantly propelled himself to get way outside of his main areas of expertise to try something new. He wasn’t afraid to be “bad” at something, because he knew that the only failure was not trying". Marney from Artella

So try something new today with me! You don't have to aspire to being a genius! I made a collage of my dear husband's (working hard) feet as my attempt! He's on a ladder, by the way (not suspended in the air), working at something on the edge of the roof.

Artella has a challenge or two you might like to consider as well :-) Here are the details of their most recent dare:

Introducing Artella's The DaVinci Dare! Spread your wings and try something new! Here's how The DaVinci Dare works:

a. Go browse in The Artella Land Store and specifically look for things that will challenge you to try something new. If you need suggestions, you can visit the interactive DaVinci Dare Worksheet, which we created to help inspire you to make the most of Artella's DaVinci Dare!

b. Make your selection. Again, aim to pick items that will truly challenge you to try something new...that’s your part of the DaVinci Dare pact! (Hint: if you're slightly nervous when adding the item to your cart, then that's a good sign that you're on the right track to your new Renaissance!)

c. Our part of the DaVinci Dare pact is to reward you with our most generous instant savings ever on the Artella eProducts that you've selected. To find out how much you will save on the downloadable Artella eProducts in your purchase, simply go to this page to enter the amount of your total purchase in the Magical DaVinci Decoder. The DaVinci Decoder will tell you the amount of your savings on eProducts, and the coupon code to use when you check out.

d. If you like, you can add more to your shopping cart and re-visit the DaVinci Decoder again, to see how the Decoder will reward you for challenging yourself...DaVinci style! When you are ready to complete your order, simply enter the coupon code from the DaVinci Decoder. The appropriate amount will be deducted from the eProducts you've purchased.

This offer expires on June 15, 2008, at midnight EST. Remember, the most important part of the DaVinci Dare i s to have fun! Stretch yourself in new ways and enjoy the DaVinci Dare rewards for doing so!

NOTE : Now, you don't have to buy anything from Artella's store to try something new. Choose something in your own environment that challenges you and take a picture of it to show what your inspiration is.


Have a great June day!

Alpha Negatives turn Positive

Thanks for the positive feedback about my scrapbook page from yesterday! It's on its way now to the lady who is making the album up.

Do you have chipboard letters? Have you used them and are you left with the surrounding chipboard shapes, like these in the picture? Can't bear to throw them away? Why not turn the negatives into positives?

I'm in a swap right now where we are doing just that. Last night I completed three of the six letters I owe the swap. Here's some 'before' and 'after' examples (I'm going to turn the 'befores' into 'afters' sometime today, I hope. These needed to be in the mail last week!) There are endless possibilities with these little projects and they don't take long to do. Get your imagination going and let me know if you do complete some alpha negatives!

No baby news yet. We're still all awaiting.

Scrapchat's 1st Birthday Album Surprise

Scrapchat is an almost 1 year old paper craft forum! We are celebrating a year of chatting by making an album from all members who want to contribute as a surprise for the founder. The forum is pink so the album theme is predominantly pink. I made a postcard for her as she loves them. It was fun to make and required some thinking!

I made the postcard to slide out of the pocket on the lower right hand side. Hopefully the page protector on the album will allow that kind of thing (someone else is compliling the album - the members are just supplying that lovely person with a layout each).

I have given you a cloesup of both sides of the post card. You will recognise the butterfly I think :-)


Shhh - don't tell Gypsy that this is here until about the 21st of June! That's when she should receive the surprise.

A picture or two...

With our move looming so large, I'm crafting away here but haven't got anything quite finished to show you all. There are several swaps and commitments I made to various people and I so want to get them finished before we move so there will be some paper craft things to post soon. I do have some pictures I've been taking for a photo challenge that I would like to share with you in the absence of a finished card or scrapbook layout.

One of the photo challenges was to depict 'Music'. Well, in my case that had to involve my flute. I have played the flute for most of my life. It is my faithful friend and it means music to me - solitary or in company - doesn't matter. When words can't express what I feel, often the flute music can. The velvety material and the swirly pattern on it reminds me of music, as does the texture and light playing on the material.

And I must tell you I am pretty excited - there will be more music and celebrating around here very soon - our daughter-in-law's baby is due any day! There's no sign of her baby yet but it is time. This first baby in a new generation is going to make Colin and I grandparents, my sisters and brothers great aunts and uncles, my other 'children' aunts and uncles, my mother a great grandmother, my own aunts and uncles great-greats (though not for the first time for them). I'll have to do a whole lot of adjusting to all these new titles....

Moving Day is confirmed

Well, I have a lot to get done in the next two weeks. I have lots of swaps I need to get finished, and a few significant events to make cards for - our youngest DS got engaged and our oldest DS is going to be a father any day now.

I have to get everything done as we are indeed moving. The house inspection went well today and our buyers want our house. Moving Day is 20th June - EEK.

The Butterfly of a few days ago...

...is called a Yoma Sabina. It is the one you can purchase for release at weddings. The picture is here.

I just had to share that with you!

Scrapchat June Card Challenge

I had some time to make some cards this afternoon so I followed Gypsyangel's sketch for June from Scrapchat. I've put the sketch up for you to see.

Recipe: I used designer paper from Crate Paper, brads from Paisley and Petals, Stampin'Up! cardstock and foam letters from Big W. I did the 'Thanks' letters with felt and gel pens. I also used the Fresh Fillers stamp set from Stampin' Up! for the background, stamped with Versamark.

Tagged

Suzanne has a game going on her Blog that involves telling six UNimportant facts about yourself. If you would like to play along I have just tagged you!

Please let me know if you list 6 things about yourself so I can come visit. Here are the simple rules to follow. The last of which I just broke.

1) Link back to the person who tagged you: here's the link
2)Post these rules on your blog
3)Share six (6) unimportant things about yourself
4) Tag six (6) people at the end of the entry

Here's my six UNimportant facts:

1. I usually cut my nails while seated at my computer. There's a handy craft bin here after all, and I also have a pair of nailcutters handy! LoL!
2. I love chocolate but as I get older, I am liking GOOD chocolate better than ANY chocolate. It is simply more satisfying to have, say, Lindt chocolates instead of pseudo chocolate that you get in cheap Easter eggs, for example.
3. Last night I toasted marshmallows in our fireplace. They were too small for the fork to have a really good grip on them, so they were only half melted. I still ate them.
4. Suzanne talked about furniture in her six random facts. I have hardly any new furniture either. Almost all of it was bought or acquired in the late 1970's.
5. When I am thinking, I often jiggle my right foot.
6. I am dreading going through my two old filing cabinets prior to moving.

And there you have it! Hope these UNimportant facts gave you a giggle or two!

June Birthday

You aren't going to believe this - I MADE A CARD!! The card making drought may be broken! OK OK - I admit it - it was a gf's birthday today so I simply had to make something for her. She loves handmade cards and I really wanted to be sure she had something nice.

Recipe: I used all Stampin' Up materials for this one - the stamp set is Blooming with Happiness. I used sponge daubers to make the background on glossy white cardstock and to colour the cake. Where I wanted bling I used Crystal Effects over watercolour crayons/the daubing. A little pink gingham ribbon finished it off. The cardstock is Pale Plum and Certainly Celery and the inks are black Stazon, Lavender Lace, Pixie Pink, and Certainly Celery.