How depressing......

More gales more rain, all the trees we staked up yesterday have all been flattened again!
There's nothing left except comfort food!!

Mmmmmm Banana cake just out of the oven! Margaret, eat ya heart out!! (teehee)Carole, (who's scoffing banana cake!)

Lots of ATC's today!

What exciting mail! I received a letter from Debbi, it looked way too interesting even to open! Don't you just love the tissue! (doesn't it have lots of potential!!)Inside were 2 ATC's. I love the colours, the pink one seems to have a felted background and the brown one seems to have a stamped back ground with beads and stitching. It also has 2 layers which is neat. Thanks so much Debbi! I love them to bits!

Last night I decided to make some ATC's. Darkroom door in Australia is running a swap. You can make ATC's or cards to swap, but you must use their stamps somewhere in the project. I have bought 4 stamps off Rachel, so thought I'd join in.
First I spent ages colouring some fabric with neocolours (water colour crayons), painting them with water and tweaking the colours and heat setting them.
Then I ink a sheet of glossy card with alcohol inks and stamped it with the Flower Filmstrip.
Then I cut our the individual flowers and glued them to one of the Darkroom door's cardboard filmstrips. Which I then attached to the fabric with brads, sewed some wool round the outside. Then I didn't like it!
I flipped it over and attached the stamped image to the other side and really liked that! It seems more simple for some reason, so made 10 of those.
Now I'm wondering if I've used enough of the Darkroom door's stamps? I hope they are ok!

Have to say hi to the following girls who visited and left comments:
Gwyneth- Thankyou for your lovely comments re the ATC. The background is handmade fabric, kind of a collage of fabric, wool, threads and all sewn together using dissolvable plastic. When it was all stitched, I rinsed it to get rid of the plastic.
Megan- Thanks for dropping by. The quilt is pictured back a few posts, it is all made from scraps. Oh, and I meant what I said about your work!!
Hope you are all well,
cheers,
Carole

LOOK at THESE!

I nipped down the road to buy some milk and mail Debbi's ATC and these were on the counter! Just look at the colours! Anyone who knows me, knows how much I like sweets/candy/lollies! (even more than chocolate!) But I had to buy these just because the colours were so bright, goodness knows what they actually taste like!I made some clay tiles today, you saw the one I used on the ATC yesterday. I thought it worked well, so I need more. The only problem now is that I've run out of Hearty, the air dry clay I use, and no one seems to have it in stock at the moment! I like using hearty as it feels nice when it is dry, and it is easy to get a needle through if you want to sew it to something.
I also spent some time sewing 1 1/2 inch squares together into long lengths and ironing all their seams open. These will be used in the sashings for our charity quilt Dawn and I are making. She didn't want to do this job, so seeing I'm on holiday I told her I'd do it. There were millions of them!!
Gotta say hi to the following people:
Anna: I love alphabet stamps! I have 4 sets that I use all the time, but I always think I've never got the right looking letter for the project I'm working on!
Tania: Thanks for dropping by, it was nice to meet you!
Godelieve: We have 6 sheep here, so I thought the sheep was cute, pleased you found the answer to the noise!
Margaret: I haven't seen that book, perhaps I better check it out. Thanks for the link you sent too. Did you buy a heat gun? Are you able to buy art supplies easily in Switzerland?
Michi: Thanks for the advice on the Adironack stamp pads. I have bought my first 4 colours, all earthtones. I feel liberated now, I can put my black stz on aside and use other some other colours!

Must off, Have a great day!
Carole

Winter, Yuk! Oh, and a question for bloggers!

With the absence of sunny beautiful hot weather, I made this ATC for a swap with Debbi (oops! hope your not visiting today!) Well we sat the storm out last night. It was upgraded to a "weather bomb" (?) There was only 8mm of rain, but the wind was pretty strong. Our power went out at 1/4 to 10pm and was out for 2 hours. Then it went out again at about 1/4 past 1am. This wouldn't have normally been a problem, but we were waiting up to watch the rugby match, the All Blacks vs the Wallabies, (Aussies). The game started and the power went out! If I wasn't so darn tired, it would have been quite romantic in front of the fire, with a flickering candle in the background! (It's also very hard to be romantic when you have 2 cats and a dog trying to push their way to the front, and climb over you so they can hog the fire!) We went to bed. The radio said the All Blacks got a thrashing!
This morning the damage doesn't look too bad, I think we got off lightly. The veges in the garden have a distinct lean to them!
And our young wind-break hedge trees have a lean as well. Even the trees that were staked are leaning, the ground is so water-logged everything goes!
Well I thought I might ask a question on a regular basis to get your ideas thoughts, etc...

Question of the week: What art supply have you bought that you've tried and not liked?
I bought some paint sticks, which I've used 6 or 7 times, but I don't like them. I don't like the strong oil paint smell that lingers with the finished piece, and I don't like how it takes so long to dry. Anyone want to do a swap for some paint sticks??

Carole

I'm over winter now! Thank goodness for some mail!

This morning I ventured outside, it was icy cold and very windy, but not raining, yet! This is what it's like (above). We are waiting for a storm to hit. It should get to us tomorrow morning, heavy rains and gale force winds, but it is on the northern half of the north island now. Yay just what we need more of!
I thought I'd check out the vege garden, see how it's coping with the wet. At least the lettuce plants all look pretty good, (I'm amazed anything is growing!) Also there are 2 rows of peas up, (on the left). However this poor hydrangea (below) is looking pretty sad on it. It is a stunning white flowered one. Hope it makes it, it's kind of sitting in water.

The broad beans are looking good too, some even had flowers on them. Just imagine what they are going to look like after gale force winds! A nice pot full of mint, that will come in handy for the new potatoes when summer arrives!
DON'T LOOK DOWN!
There is nothing like some exciting mail to cheer you up! Today I got the latest copy of the NZ Quilter. It is good to see what others are doing round NZ, but it doesn't touch mixed media or media arts other than quilting, so it's a little boring at times. I am thinking I may cancel my subscription and order CPS instead.
I had some yummy stamps arrive in the mail today. I bought them from Stampers Anonymous, drool, they had so many lovely stamps, it's hard to choose, and then you have to be mindful of the large amount of postage which has to go on top. I don't ever buy much from overseas because of the postage.
But in saying that, I also treated myself to this dvd from QA. It's by Ruth Rae, who is one of my fav artists. Looking forward to watching this! (Or I could perhaps save it until my creative muse is lacking! .....NAH, can't wait!!!)
I hope you are all safe and enjoying your weekend! And I'm not going to stress over all my daffodils getting flattened in the wind.....
I'm off to sit in front of the fire and read some back issues of QA mag!
Carole

WOO HOO! It's Friday!

Friday! This means I now have 9 days off! A week off work plus 2 weekends! I have made no plans, other than I want to visit with my daughter as it's her birthday next week, and I want to start some spring cleaning! (Just a little bit!) Isn't it funny how everything seems more exciting when you're on the verge of a holiday?
Margaret- how's everything on the help desk? Running smoothly I trust? Thanks for your comments on the ink pads. I haven't used the Distress pads with a wet sponge, (I do use them with a brush) but I was told last night that if you spray water over an inked page, or stamp, you get great results. This woman also told me that if you ink a page with the distress ink, spray over it with water and place some rock salt on it, you get incredible results too. So I might have a play next week!

Last night I attended a "Night of Paper Passion" with 2 friends. Doesn't that sound interesting? It was held at the local scrap booking store here in Palmerston North. Apparently they run one each month on a Thursday night, from 6.30pm to midnight. None of us had been before. For the first hour we learn't another way to make a great gift card. (above) I've never been into card making as those of you who know me will know. But I was very impressed with this effort! It is almost enough to make me want to start! First we stamped a sheet of small stickers and then coloured them with ink. Then transferred them to card. It was sooo easy. Then there was a quizz, and everyone got lolly pops. Then we were all given a lovely sheet of scrap booking paper, just for coming. And then on top of that all of those people who were new got a free sheet of stickers! For the rest of the evening we worked on our own projects but we could use all sorts of cutters and bits that the teacher and store owner had, (that wasn't shop stock). We all thought this was a great value night out for $10.00!
I worked on my book. Wanted to finish the tags, "watch out for the bird".
I also started another page. I glued tissue paper onto the page. It needs some text, so will think about that. It looks a little brown in the pic, but it's all pinks and gold.
We are expecting some mean, nasty weather over the next few days, so I have some ATC's I need to finish and start, what an ideal time! I dread attempting to venture out into the vege garden, everything is swimming in water, I think the fruit trees will be fine, but I wonder about some of the other things. Oh well, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it! My best friends are my gumboots at the moment! LOL
Morning Dove, Hi! I look forward to seeing your book! Keep going!
I hope you have either had a great Friday or are about to have one!
Take care,
Carole

This is way cool! Check it out!

Just found this on Tejae's blog - it's a demo on making the coolest little houses that would be perfect for embellishment or a bracelet! Just click on the link!

Carole

Work progressing on my altered book

I have been working on my altered book. It seems to be a work in progress, even the pages I've finished I seem to want to go back and add stuff. The page above on the left has a large kiwi fruit glued on and layers of paint and words. The page on the right has been cut off and replaced with 2 small paper bags which hold a tag. I haven't done anything to the tags yet, an looking for ideas and inspiration for them! The two small hands are made from air dried clay.

Below is the following page. Sorry about the flash glare, I think I need to purchase one of those small tripods so I can take the photo without movement or glare. Anyway, the page has two sugar sachets glued on and has been stamped with the stamp pad, and then over stamped with a scroll stamp and writing. Don't know that the colours are that exciting, but I kind of go with the flow and see what happens!

Remeber the first page I did?

Well I went back and added the filmstrip and eyes. I got the filmstrips from Darkroom Door in Australia. I think I will have to start collecting magazines too, they seem to be useful for cutting out random images and words! I'm amazed at what I can use in my art work!

I don't own many stamp pads. I have 4 TH distress pads and one staz on in black which I use all the time. However I have found that the distress inks don't dry too fast, which is a pain in the neck when you're waiting for stuff to dry. I would like to purchase more stamp pads, and am wondering if the staz on is the way to go? Does anyone have any reccomendations?

I also want to say hi to Anna who left a comment about the shredded paper, why I didn't think of turning it into paper I don't know! Doh! Talk about the obvious! Thanks for triggering something upstairs!

Hope you are having a fab week!

Carole

Some random snapshots from the weekend!

There is absolutely no hierarchy at our place. And there is even less respect for those who pay the bills, those who cart the firewood in every day, those who place food in the bowls of others, and especially for those who provide spaces in front of warm fires on a cold wet winters day!
Aren't cats special animals? Mine never cease to keep me entertained, that is when I'm not tripin over them!
This is Buddy relaxing in front of the fire on Saturday night.

One of my quirky little habbits is purchasing odd pieces of china. I quite like Royal Albert. But I also collect Torquay Mottoware (the pattern of the single story house). I also like Carltonware. These two pieces are my latest purchase, the teapot is a piece of Wade, the Bramble pattern, and the little bowl and saucer is Ducal. I love the colours and the patterns and the feel of them.

Of course after they arrived I was left with this! Now I have been racking my brains all weekend trying to think of a creative way to recycle, but I can't think of anything, so I think it will all end up in my compost bin.

I did get a chance to make a start on the arch I owe Annette. Sorry about the flare from the flash, this turned out the best photo for colour. It is a photo transfer which has been coloured by alcohol inks, it is sewn onto tissue paper which is stuck on Jack paper which is on the Fast to Fuse. I think it needs something else, but I'm not sure what? May have to leave it sitting for a while until something hits me!

And finally, over the weekend we had our very first daffodil open it's colourful petals! It will only be a matter of days until there are more out in bloom, I love daffodil time, last year I was able to pick bunches and give to friends and have vases of them inside. They are so cheerful and loud in their colour!

My daughter came to stay and while she was here did some sorting and cleaning of some of her things stacked in a wardrobe. Amongst things she was throwing out was a pile of "junk" jewellery, which as you can probably guess ended up in my sewing room! What a fantastic find, I have been busy pulling necklaces and earrings etc... apart. They'll make great embellishments! Thanks Traci! As they say, one man's junk is another man's treasure!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

Carole

Still round, but...

Hi friends,
Just thought I'd let you know I'm still around, but have been busy catching up with my daughter who came to visit, and I haven't had the chance to do much creating! I hope to have some pics for you tomorrow.
Till then,
Carole

Outing to the movies

Some yummy mail in and a birthday card out

What do you think of this? Isn't it stunning? Well I think so! It is made by Annette, for an arch swap. My theme is garden and my swap partners can make any design arch as long as it has some garden related theme to it. Annettee has stitched a satue she saw in a garden and placed it with creeper and flowers. I just love it, thank you so much Annette.

This is a birthday card I made for my sister-in-law. Leeanne, I hope your not reading this, but if you are, sorry it's a couple of days late, and hope you enjoy your pressie! The little tag has some writing on it and the card flips open to reveal more writing. This is pretty much the first time I've delved into the card-making area, they are so expensive to buy, and I'm sure this looks just as good as a store bought one.

Hope you are all having a great day!

Carole

Nothing much happening today....

It's a quiet day on the creative side today, so thought I'd share this photo with you. It was taken on the west coast of the South Island during a trip away last year. A wintery type photo.

Hi Connie! Thanks for dropping by! The munching sound you can hear is the sheep on the side bar. He is chewing, if you click on him he baaas too! I thought he was just too cute, seeing that we have our own sheep!

Hope your day is going well!
Carole

Altered book page and sugar

I did some more work on the 2nd page of my altered book. I added some words. The word music is stamped and the word Sing was stamped in the same lettering too. I don't like them. I covered over the word Sing, and I think it looks much better, now I think I need to re-do the word Music! It's bugging me! Then I think the page will be finished. I think the colour is a little out, it's a bit pale in the photos. (sorry)

I made up the saying. I really like how the "sing" word comes together now.


We went out for coffee yesterday. I loved the sayings on the sugar packets. I don't take sugar in my coffee, but I knew that I just needed these! I think my new nickname could be "magpie"! Watch out for up-coming projects!!Hope you've all had a great Monday!
Carole

All Blacks win!

Our national rugby team, the All Blacks, played against the Springbox, (South Africans) last night in Wellington, in freezing wet conditions and won! 19-8. Well done All Blacks, they actually played a good game and deserved to win, (in my opinion!)

This morning it's still cold, there is a cold wind blowing, and every now and again when the grey murkiness lifts we can see the snow now lies along the tops of the hills. It must be cold for it to last this long!

Hope you are all having a warm weekend!
Carole

Weird and wacky weather!

This morning Dennis came and woke me up to tell me that the hills by our house had been dusted in snow. It was very light and looked like a sprinkling of icing sugar! The air was very icy.

Then came the hail. Every shower we had it rained hail. This was the heaviest we had, but 9kms away in the city they had it real heavy, and it was so cold that it stayed on the ground all day.
Then around lunch time a thick mist came down, as though someone was drawing down a curtain. Everything disappeared into the damp greyness.
After about 30 minutes the mist started to clear and slowly the hills revealed themselves to us again. This is the first time since we have lived here that we have seen snow on these hills. I checked the temp guage in the car, it said 3 degrees C. I put on 2 coats and gumboots and went out to take some photos.
The photo above is looking south towards Wellington.
These 2 pics are looking east.
The snow was quite low down!
We have lots of water in the paddocks.
Standing at the house looking down the drive, with the snow behind the pines. I could stand and look at it all day! How exciting!

The above photo is looking north towards the windmills. I even discovered the first flowering spring bulb!
Then the colours changed and the sun tried to shine thru the grey. The colours were rich and the sky remained watery and threatening. The photo below is looking west.
And then the sun did get thru, if only for half an hour, and the snow started to retreat. Then by 4pm it had turned dark and grey and the cloud had returned and blocked out the hills again. As I write this it is raining hard. What an exciting day!

Hope you all had a great Saturday!
Carole