Pieces of me

post christmas swelter

HAY CARTING IS OVER FOR ANOTHER YEAR. WOOHOO!!

it's a crap job, but it's got to be done. Check out the supervisor sitting under the trailer & the load we almost lost on the top right corner! I'm the driver, John's the tosser and Alana the stacker. Erin runs around and helps out where she can. Some years we have more people helping out, this year it was just us.So, so glad we got it done yesterday before today's 41degC sweltering heat!

My garden journal sketchbook:

the flash & varnish has washed out the images in the boxes, but these are sketches I found in my sketchbook from about 10 years, or so, back.

Cover is so thick I had to drill through it to create the holes for the binding. This book will be for me to put in garden plans, plantings that I've done, ideas, etc.

Here's how I put it together.

1. The shadow box look has been created by 2 x pieces of medium cardboard with the same windows cut out of each and glued together to give depth. These were then glued to a flat piece of cardboard to provide the backing.

2. Next, I used torn out strips from an old dictionary (it has a really cool, aged look to the pages, love it) and layered/collaged these to the cover, over edges of boxes, etc. Used glaze paste to glue it down, then slapped a whole heap over the top to seal.

3. Once the paste was dry, I built up around the edges of the windows with texture paste and slapped some texture paste over the covers.

4. Next I layered Jo Sonja (JS) Decor Crackle

(allowed it to go just touch dry), then JS Crackle Medium over the top of these areas and left it to dry. Really love the crackle/texture this creates. Here's a closeup of a crackle'd area after the next step (antiquing).

5. Next mixed JS Gel Retarder and Burnt Umber paint and brushed this over the whole surface so that it accented the crackle. I made sure to drizzle it into the edges of the windows to create a built-up dirt look (see image below). I then lightly wiped it off where I needed to to created the look I wanted.

6. The retarder needed to dry overnight as some areas were quite thick. Then finished off the details.

Pic below shows one of the sketches (sweet peas) better. Also the spider. Love the fact that I hoard things so that I have stuff like this when I want it. I cut the top of this charm to create the antennae, painted the spider black, put on the red back, then once it was dry enough, sanded it back so that quite a bit of the silver showed through.

Stamped title "GARDEN", and used another old label plate I had around to highlight. A couple of red flowers from Bumblebee.

Other part of the title stamped on a piece of cardstock cut to size to fit in one of the windows. This sketch is an opening lily bud.

Really like the closer I used for this book. I don't know what these things are (maybe some kind of picture hook?) but they work great for this.

Another snow layout:

The bottom scroll is (maybe?) Fancy Pants chipboard that, again, has been in my supply box for a long, long time. I painted and glittered it.

The other scroll were hand-drawn.

Stamped snowflakes (making memories - christmas foam stamps).

Here's a closeup of the scrolls so you can check out the texture.

And this......can you believe it? I'm still in shock even though this happened back in October. Cannot believe Ben's 18. Super-simple layout. No great photos from this event so had to work with what I had- I was too busy doing the food, etc, John snapped a few pics for me.

Have a good NYE! hx

3 more sleeps!!!

I love Christmas! There's nothing better than having an excuse to indulge in making "stuff" for days on end!! Yesterday I made my traditional Christmas pudding. Today we make chocolates, meringues and toffees. Love it!

I've got a lot done over the past few days. Big Pond, in it's infinite wisdom, stuffed up my account and took the codes off my line, and we were without internet access for 4 days. Well, I made good use of the time and started thinking about table settings, etc, for christmas day.

I'm generally not a "theme" person for Christmas. We just have so many old, new, handmade, kid-made decorations that we just throw everything on the tree and go with it. This year, after making Erin's advent calendar, and buying a box of 72 silver glass baubles, I decided to go with a blue/silver/white theme this year, and I have to say I am loving it! The tree looks wonderful. I picked up the most gorgeous blue wire/beaded butterflies from Myer along with a few boxes of glass and glittered blue baubles. So, to go with this theme....

I have been looking around for the past few months for a candle chandelier without any luck, well, last week, I was walking past our local discount store and lo and behold, I spotted exactly what I wanted through the window.

I was so excited!

I converted it to this:

I'm really happy with it. Looks wonderful with the candles on it. This will hang above our table for dinner. We're eating outside on the verandah. Hopefully there's not too much of a breeze and I can light the candles.

At the moment this is hanging in the window behind the christmas tree and it looks so good, and wasn't hard to do, just swapped out some of the large beads for alternative decorations.

I made the 3d metal stars from silver shim (see below how to do this). These took the most time. 6 small ones hang around the outside row, 3 around the top (alternating with the crystal beads), and one large one suspended from the centre. The only other things I added was some silver beaded garland and 6 small glass baubles in 2 shades of blue.

Thursday Erin helped me make boxes (blue & white) for the chocolates we're making. We're giving everyone a little gift box of chocolates with a name tag on it - we'll use these for place settings. We can finish these today when we fill them :)

I found a couple of glass containers to hold some nice, fat church candles that I'm using on the table setting.

I stripped some foliage off the pine trees in the bottom paddock to wire up some garlands for the bases, then used a folded length of wire and threaded beads, stars and bells on one length and twisted after each accition to create the garland.

I think these'll look great on the table.

I'll probably sprinkle loose stars, baubles, etc over the centre of the table around the candles to tie it all in.

I also made a hanging wreath for the front door using the foliage and baubles. Will probably add a few of the metal stars to this too, if I have time to put them together before Tuesday.

I also made a big star (about 35cm) out of metal shim to put somewhere - haven't decided this yet. Here's how I made it (this is exactly the same technique for the smaller ones too).

I used word to draw the star - for the size I wanted, I needed to print part of it over 4 sheets of paper and stuck them together.

I marked up the outline using a metal ruler and stylus on the "back" of the metal. I found the easiest was to do this was to push the stylus in through the paper to create a dot indentation at each inside and outside point of the star and then removed the pattern and "joined the dots". I knew if I attempted to trace over the pattern I'd move it for sure, this seemed more foolproof and worked out o.k. :)

Next, also on the "back", draw lines with the stylus/ruler from each outside point, to it's corresponding, opposite inside point. Turn the metal over and re-trace the shorter, inside points from the centre, (highlighted on the pattern).

Cut around the outside of the star, leaving about 1/2", 1cm border. Cut into edge of inside points so that metal can be folded. Also, tape the metal at the tips of outside points so these fold in neatly.

Use a ruler to hold against fold line when folding to create a nice, crisp edge. Gently fold other lines (long, outside points out, short, inside points in), use a ruler to support and keep lines crisp and straight. Metal tends to want to do it's own thing if you don't support it when folding.

After this, I painted the star white. Let it dry well, then sanded the edges and folds to distress.

Last night John brought me home 2 big (15cm dia) foam balls that I'm going to attempt to paint up, glitter and hang from the roof. LOL. But first, onto the chocolates!!

Have a fantastic christmas!

hx

elf yourself.......

How cute is this? Erin is going to love this when I show her tonight :))

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1310057581

hx

Sunday

Love Sundays! So nice to not have to take the kids anywhere. John and I headed into Healesville & had lunch & a milkshake (john) & frozen espresso (me). I checked out a really neat store that had some terrific xmas decorations - gave me lots of ideas that I'm keen to try out :) Love living in the Yarra Valley!

The girls and I went xmas shopping on Saturday & I got most everything done, still have a bit more to do for Alana but that's it.

I'm still on the whole video thing - taped this one the other day at the same time as I did the last one.

This one shows a quick card using my gumflower stamp (the image below is the picture on the back of the stamp).

This is one of the first stamps I designed and is still one of my favorites, I love it for christmas theme cards.

I demo'd it at a couple of events when it came out & the technique on this video was one I was asked to show over and again.

The adirondack acrylics give the whole design a really nice dimensional apperance and really make it. Hard to see this on the video, though.

There are some pics of cards using this stamp in my cards & tags album (for some reason the stills at the end of the video didn't come through....hmmmmm?), which might show the design a bit clearer than the video if you want to check them out :)

Supplies used in the project:

• Stamps - Gum Flower 2708D & Merry Christmas 3676D - Stamp It
• Adirondack Acrylics (Ranger) - Cranberry & Butterscotch
• Marvy Markers
• Stamp Pad - Archival Ink - Black

There's a few "skips" in this video (maybe from overtaping?) & the word to get out of my system from this vid is NICE, NICE, NICE, NICE, NICE. ha! Hope you enjoy it!

I'm in the process of putting a garden journal together that I'm all excited about. It uses a few different techniques, so I'm video-ing this too. LOL. The taping part is easy (I just tape it as I'm making the project, and of course, I love to talk!), the editing I'm getting a lot faster at.

Hope you had a great weekend!

hx

Snow album

Some visuals from the snow album, which is (pretty much) complete. I need to do 2 more pages, but have run out of transparencies.

Finished album.

Front cover. Doesn't it look bare without all the stuff behind it? Any more than this was going to look overwhelming with the pages behind, though.

• Making memories snowflake foam stamp.
• Basic Grey rubons
• Scroll (Fancy Pants?)
• N, O, W, cut from cardboard - Times New Roman Font, painted white, stitched on machine before sticking on with xyron

Page 1.

See video link in this post for a step-by-step on how to put together this page.

Page 2.

• Jo Sonja Decor Crackle Medium brushed onto LHS of transparency, allowed to become touch dry, then brushed with white paint. Allowed to dry to create crackle.
• Blue cardstock mounted behind transparency, photo on top, to create layered look with crackle.
• Making Memories metal snowflake (painted blue)
• Scroll (Fancy Pants?) - painted white.

Page 3

See video link in this post with step-by-step instructions.

Page 4

• Making Memories snowflake foam stamps
• Mesh
• Making Memories paperclip

Page 5

Last page of the book - Alana dragging Erin home :)

• Making memories foam stamps, stamped with j/sonja white paint
• making memories tag, painted blue "the end" written on it.

 

oooops, I did it again.........

So, yeah, I'll do anything to avoid housework.............

consequently...............Page 2 of the snow album is done.

With this clip, I've gotten better at the editing, and it's a lot smaller than the last one (lower quality, too, but hopefully it doesn't effect it too much!)

I forgot to mention where I got my acrylic album: www.houseofscrapbooking.com.au I just bought 2 pages to use for the front and back of the album, instead of a whole album kit.

Page 2 uses crackle medium (Jo Sonja), paint (warm white - Jo Sonja), making memories christmas foam stamps and some snowflake brads.

Have a great one!

hx

I've got the power!!

Yep, it had to happen. Give me a super-fast connection and I'll be using it for evil instead of for good. Welcome to the dark side!

Below are the instructions for a transparent scrapbook page using painted/embossed mesh, embossed brad, etc, etc. So there's a few techniques in there.

Remember! This is a one-take deal - so, you have to put up with my lack of make-up, bad hair, smirk (probably 'cause I'm trying not to laugh - yeah, I'm a giggler) and incessant talking!

It's almost 10 minutes long, about 450mb, so if you're on a slow connection, may be too much for you to handle.

Let me know what you think, did you get anything out of it? is it worth doing again for another page? even though it's fun for me, I don't want to waste the time/effort if it's not useful/interesting, so please tell me :)

O.k., have to get this out of my system KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF, KIND OF........hopefully I now have it out and won't say it again (watch the video and you'll get it!)

And, yeah, "globbies" are an official helen-ism.

Does anyone know of a good pen that writes (and doesn't rub off) on transparencies?

Here goes..........

some experimentation

I've been consumed with the thought of adding video to my blog, maybe do some how-to's, say hi to my mum, video for the rellies, basically, just amuse myself for my own entertainment. LOL.

SO this is a very basic go at it just to see if it works.........the clip is all of about 90 seconds, the resolution is pretty crap (any hints on how to improve this? I just converted it to an AVI in canon video presenter) and gives you a quick glimpse of the horror that is my scrap-desk during a work-in-progress, as well as a terrifying close-up of my face - unfortunately, my arms ARE NOT long enough to get further away than this. SORRY. Close your eyes if you don't think you can take it!

Let me know if it works for you :))

hx