More Tim Tags

Hi All,
Well it certainly has been a long time since my last post.  Whoops.

Anyway, I have been able to buy a few more of the Tim Holtz Die's for a swap I am in (refer to the previous post). 

So I have created two more sets of tags.   The Dress Form Tags have gone to Lori, Lillian and Jen. And the Umbrella Man tags will be heading off to Inge in Belguim, Jacquie in FL and Alison in the UK.  So they are certainly getting around.   And with all the tags I have made one for me too.  

I really have enjoyed doing these tags and in a way I would love to do more.

Till Next Time
XOX

Time for Tags

I love our group of International Artists.  And so pleased that I have been able to meet almost all of them.  I think there are about 5 that I haven't.  But I need to win the lottery to get to England, Belguim and back to the USA. And I need to plan a trip to Gladstone to meet up with the other Australian Member.  

This is a wonderful and exceptional group of ladies.  Love them all and so glad that I can call them all a friend.  

The leader of the pack (whoops, group) Elena, comes up with these totally insane and outrageous ideas that she has seen somewhere.  Decided to email them and they just magically appear somewhere.  Elena, you are the best and Love YA!  So it's all good. 

Anyway, Elena saw this idea for a fabric book (yeah great, I do have a machine!) and to make the tags we are only to use stuff by Tim Holtz. Not a bad idea, but not all of us have a mini Tim store at home.   Elena, being helpful and generous,  sent some of us die cuts from Tim's range, as not all of us had many or any of his dies.  Anyway, at the time I had two.  Tags and the mini gears.  Over the past three weeks, I havel slowly bought more, but mainly the movers and shapers. 

Here are the tags that I have done so far.  I have made 5 and the are all virtually the same.  The only difference is the muse token at the top.  Four are heading off to either the USA or Australia.  I have kept the test tag.  

I have loved this project.  Hopefully later this year I will be able to get mine all assembled.

Anyway here are my tags.  These three will be heading to Elena, Eileen and Marita.

Till Next Time

XOX

 

Another Marie Page

Sometime back in 2010, I was crazy enough to sign up for a journal based on just Marie Antoinette.   At the time I wasn't sure I could do this.   But now after 18 months, I know that I should NOT have done this.  It has however gotten me out of my comfort zone.   I have tried new technique's, new products (to me anyway).   And after quite a few emails asking where are the pages, I finally completed these pages for Sue in Illinios.  As Sue is a retired French Madame (Teacher), I found this a little hard to do.  But after soaking off the wine label from my empty bottle and finding the Eifel Tower at a scrap store in Burleigh, I finally had some direction.

Here are my pages for Sue.  They are currently in transit to Sue and I hope they will be there soon.

Till Next Time
XOX

A Shopping Trip

Officially it is day one of school holidays.   So the girls and I headed to Robina.   After going to 'Max Brenner's  for morning tea qwe did some shopping.   After all the girly stuff it was off to the last destination, Kaisercraft Outlet at Robina. 

Oh my, the fun I had.   There was a crate (container is just not the right word) and it was 20 items for $10.00.  This included clear acrylic stamp sets, rub-ons, embellishment packs and more.   This was however limited to old christmas stamps etc.  But it wasn't hard to chose 20 different items.  Especially for my US/Canadian/English friends.   There was even packets of brads marked down to .49 cents each. 

Anyway here is what I purchased for a little under $40.00.  

A lot of this will bea heading off as gifts to friends and family.

Till next time.
XOX

Pages for my NY friend Eileen

We are part of a group called Artistic Evolution where you have to evolve from the person before you.  For me, I have found this challenging at times and takes me out of my comfort zone.  But at the same time I am loving it.   

I have evolved from Gina's Seeing Eye dogs to a game of 'I Spy'.   The paper of the glasses I got from a store called smiggle.  And I had been searching for a magnifying glass for a few weeks and decided that making one would be so much better.

Left Side of Eileen's page

Right Side of Eileen's page

And to add a twist to all of this, we have to add an 'over the edge' element.

Till next Time

xox

School Holiday ART

With only a few days left of the winter school break it is time to showcase a little of what the girls have done this week.   It has been nice to have a school holiday without rain.  The last four have been wet and of course in January we had all that flooding as well.  This time round we have had nothing but glorious sunshine on a perfectr winter's day.   One of the reasons why I love a Gold Caost Winter.

Anyway, this week I booked the girls into some school holiday activities and one they both enjoyed was the art classes run by Susy Boyer. We had the opportunity to go to both classes and I was also able to participate and do it as well.   This was the first art classes for all of us.  And I sure had fun.

On Tuesday the girls did a sketch and pencil drawing of a tiger.   They were unable to get them finished but here is what they did.

  Claire's Tiger

 Katie's Tiger

 And finally my tiger.

On Thursday we all did Chalk Pastel drawings of a Frangipani.  I will get Katie and Claire's printed onto canvas for their bedrooms.  They both did so well with this and I am so proud of them both.

  Claire's Frangipani

 Katie's Frangipani

 And here is my Frangipani.

For me, I had so much enjoyment from something I have never done before.  Enjoyed the challenge of something new and loved watching Katie and Claire do their art work.   If anyone has the chance of doing these school holiday workshops with Susy, they are great.  She was a wonderful teacher and we will certainly be back.

Till next time

XOX



Steampunk and 1920's chic

It is Queen's birthday long weekend here and again the annual Scrapbook and Papercraft expo is on.   Lots of goodies to tease us with.  Especially with some of the out of town stores and the online only ones that come too.   But it was packed.  Could barely move and walked around first and decided who had what and who had the cheapest.   Was only able to get to one 'make and take'. 

Anyway, the main purpose for me going this year was that I decided to learn a little about Steampunk.  Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door was our tutor.  And we got to play with the new-ish Tim Holtz distress stains.   I had already bought two, but had to get two more.   The stamps we used of course came from Darkroom Door and hopefully soon I will be able to get the Steampunk set that we used.


1920's Chic ATC



1920's Chic Greeting card

Steampunk Greeting card

Steampunk ATC



I am quite happy with what I was able to make.  Loved watching and learning from the Demo's.  Now time to start saving for the next one and hopefully I can do some more classes.

Till Next time
XOX

Monkey time

Well it has been a while.  My mojo has taken a little holiday.  It will be back soon I am sure. 

But anyway.  Over the weekend just gone we received the girls netball team photos and in the pack was an individual one of Katie and Claire.  Just can't believe that this year they will be turning 10 and 8.

And for a little bit of fun lets add in one more photo.  Taken in 1983 when I was 12!  At that stage I liked having my photo taken.  And it is a school one so really dorky.  Kind of embarrassing.  But hey, how many of us still have our school photos?





Katie





Claire





Sarah (ME) in 1983! Yikes.

Till next time

Enjoy XOX

Oh no, I feel like I have neglected you

I can't believe that it has been two months since my last blog post.  Time just flies.  

I have been doing a fair bit of art with the groups that I am invlolved with.  I am not doing too many ATC's at the moment.  My ATC mojo is on a very long holiday.  Hopefully it will return soon.   I miss it.

Just after my trip to Florida we started on a new project called Artistic Evolution, and this is where the pages are different sizes and you have to 'evolve' from what the previous artist did as well as go 'over the edge' and decorate it somehow.

I am finding this hard.  I completely stuffed the first one and it rocked me a lot.  I have recently just finished those pages and this time they were liked and just what they were after.  

These are the pages that I have done for Sue.   The previous person had used Grapes so I worked on that and decided that it was time to head to France.  Sue is a retired French Teacher so I used that too.  And after a little research a trip to Burgandy was needed for some wine.  I love my white wine and of course France and Paris is on my 'Bucket List'.  My over the edge part was all the fibres. 

After completing this. I have now enrolled in a course to become a Teacher Aide (Teacher's Assistant).  This course will start in July and I also have vocational placement to complete.  That will occupy two days a week.  Hopefully by the end of the year I will be employed.   It is really hard to secure a job that is school hours and you get the holidays off as well.  

Hopefully I will not take too long between blog posts.  

Till Next Time
XOX

The retreat...... this is a long one

This will be long (I think) so sit back with your favourite drink and enjoy.

In the days leading up to March 6th, I was busy packing for what I would call my trip of a life time.  The time had finally arrived for me to board a plane to go to the Keys for Art Retreat in Key Largo, Florida.  I had only been on Skype with Elena and talked alot through emails.  I was about to get on two planes and meet her for real and everyone else I have been in the journal groups with for the past three or four years. 

The Qantas 747-400LR to LAX

I had a nice flight over, didn't sleep much.  Was near the tail end of the plane where there were only two seats in the row.  I was joking around in the check in line with some other passengers (check in took over an hour!) and ended up sitting next to one of the people I was joking around with.   Arrived in to LAX around 7am.   An interesting city for sure and next time I would love to explore more.   It was faster to clear Customs at LAX than what is was to check in at Brisbane Airport.  

I had an 8 hour layover at LAX and next time I have a layover this big, I might try and explore the city a little bit or even pay the money to go into the Club lounge and relax a little.   Terminal 4 at LA was boring, not a lot there and no wi-fi or internet kiosks.  Then there was the 5 hour flight to Miami.   I ended up sitting next to a guy from Australia and what was even stranger was that he lives in the same suburb as me.  What a strange co-incidence. 

By the time I had arrived in Miami I had been travelling for almost 30 hours and I was exhausted.  

I recognised Elena instantly, and with Elena was Lillian from somewhere way north in Canada.   She almost lives on top of the world.  How cool is that.

Anyway after 5 days of fun, laughter, some art, more fun and laughter it was a great trip.   What a way to spend your 40th birthday.

Pancho - the very vocal Maccaw

Tuesday night party time.

I have more pics to upload but will do it in the next post. 

This was the best trip ever and loved every minute of it.  These are some of the most wonderful people I am pleased to call friends.

Till Next Time.
XOX

I am home....

From the Keys for Art Retreat at my friend Elena's place in Key Largo, Florida. I arrived home happy, tired and exhausted.  I think toothpicks were holding my eyes open last night.  Once the girls were in bed sleeping, I was on my way as well.  It sure felt good to be back in my bed.

I couldn't have had a more wonderful 40th birthday than what I did with these wonderful people.  Thank you all so very much. Mwah.

I left Australia with just over $500 and came hone with 9cents.  And a used visa card LOL.

It was great to be able to meet almost everyone that is in our journal groups.  We have been together as a group now for about 4 years ever since Elena came up with that first idea and we were all hooked.

Here are a few of my photos from the first day. 

Daisy, Jen, Gina and Marita getting into Karaoke........

Julie Nutting and Ingrid Dijkers - two of our wonderful tutors

Elena and Tracy..... now has Elena 'crossed over'??

That is a few photos for now, I will post more later.

Now to get back to normal - post retreat life.   So not fair.


Till Next Time
XOX

A lovely mail day

In the post yesterday I received my box from Darkroom Door.  They were having a warehouse sale.  

This is a selection of the stamps, there were over 30 unmounted stamps and one shhet of ezy-mount.  I ran out of that so need to get some more.   I have some favourites here and love the quotes and butterrflys.  These stamps are just perfect and I can see me shopping here a little more often.  But it will have to wait until I have been to America.

A selection of the stamps.

Enjoy,
Till Next Time
XOX

Not long now......

Until 6 March.  This is when I board a big plane bound for America.   I am lucky enough to be able to attend the Keys for Art retreat in Key Largo, Florida.   I feel so priviledged that Elena (the hostess with the mostess!) would have me.  And to my hubby who said yes you can go and this is your birthday present.  While I am there, I turn 40.  What a way to spend a birthday.   I still remember turning 30, just moved to Australia and expecting our first child.

I am looking forward to meeting so many wonderful people that I have gotten to know through emails, and our various journal groups over the past three or four years.  

If I could call this a trip of a lifetime, it is.   I have flown many times before by myself but mainly between Australia and New Zealand.  This time it is a little bit further.

Hopefully I will be back soon, with some sart to share.

Hugs to all
Till Next Time
XoX