I had a fantastic day yesterday with my friend Ottie! It started on Friday night, when I caught up with friends Ottie and jane for dinner. JAne has just bought an apartment in the Doclands - with sea views - WOW! Can't wait to see it. For those of you who have come to the MPE dinner, well the building Jane is in is on the 10th floor in the building next to the restaurant!

So after dinner, I went back to Otties and stayed the night. This is the view from her lounge room window. We had breakfast downstairs in the cafe at the ground level of her building before we headed out shopping! We were going to go into the city, but South Melbourne was just so relaxing - no big crowds but still fab shops. The weather was just gorgeous - my car outside themometer said 28C when I was heading home around 6pm. We just had the best day. Here are my spoils - the clock was a present from Ottie, she knows what a Paris nut I am. We went into a little shop called Le Metro - which is full of all things french plus handbags and costume jewellery. I forgot to add to my spols 3 fridge magnets of the Eiffel Tower at various stages of being built ;-)

I saw this joke in one of the changing rooms yesterday...

A woman comes in and see's her husband with a fly swat.

"What are you doing ?" she asks

"Hunting Flies" he replies

"and have u caught any?" she asks

"yes 3 males and 2 females he replies

"how do you know that?" she asks

He replied "Well I got the three males on the beer can while the 2 females were on the phone......"

isn't this painting AMAZING! It was painted by a very talented lady called Jenene Evans from here in Victoria. Jenene gave me permission to post this on my blog. She doesn't have a blog, but does look at mine from time to time - so if you post a comment I'm sure she will read it. Perhaps it might encourage her to start her own blog ;-)

I must admit I am very envious of people who can draw/paint......

2 more Christmas deco's. The holly is shrinkie. I just LOVE shrinkie!

No time for losers

, for we are the champions OF THE WORLD!

Congratulations Garth Tander and the TOLL HSV Team!

A Xmas deco I made today....

Why do we all love rust so much ;-)

I said that this is the last year I'll go through this stress.... although now they are done... ;-)

I just can't bring myself to make them during the year....

No photos on this post but have a look here......

http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm//http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm

There is my sleeping beauty, cuddled up in my Stamping tote!

Look what I received in the mail today!

Isn't it divine! Thanks Jen........ :-)

I stopped in at Paper Heaven tonight and couldn't help myself - all these ribbons from the US! The vine is so gorgeous. I think it may find it's way onto my next puzzle swap.

And they say you learn something new every day ... well today I had some yummy strawberrys for lunch. Later in the afternoon and looked down and I had dribbed strawberry juice on my cardigan - B*GGAR! So I had a quick look on the net and the consensus seemed to be BOILING water! We have a boiling water tap at work, so I took the cardigan off and stretched the stain out carefully so as not to burn myself - and it worked! I couldn't believe my eyes!

At last the puzzle

pieces have gone up on the wall along with another Arty_oz tile swap - this time it had a cream and gold theme

She just can't help herself.............

Notice in the background, a future project - altering this wooden floor puzzle I found in an antique shop.....

Last weekend I made this birthday card for my friend Helen Franklin.

Gotta love those Collections products!

Well this one hasn't made it on to the wall yet, but soon.... Thanks to Glial, Ness and Jenny for their contributions. I just love these Basic Grey Papers - I am so annoyed that they aren't making them anymore. Their early papers are still my favourites and so more versatile than ones like skate shop(?) well the bright ones an

yway. I've made further use of the bicycle chain on this piece ;-) ............

Earlier in the year I hosted a Paris Tiles swap - the Tiles are of course made by Collections . The colour Pallette was black and white although a few people managed to add a little bit of colour - still it all tones in well with Basic Grey "Scruff". The MM letters I used for Paris have been covered in Opals - what colour? Well u might ask - it was from a packet I bought in a $10.00 pack from their "experimentation" range. I do wish this was in their range though, it's between a charcoal and a blue. The crystals have a more blue appearance than they do after they are melted. It was just the look I wanted as I thought the currawong (black - would be too dark and it'd also high gloss. This has a more matt finish - perfectamudo!

Thank you to Vanessa, Amy, Sue Thiel, Donna, Teresa, Jane and Julian for their tiles contribution!

Jen Crossley was down for the weekend to teach a couple of jewellery classes. We had a great day at the classes on Saturday and in Sunday before she headed home, we visited a couple of BIG hardware stores and then to our favourite "junk" shop - here are some of my finds. I just love the metal tape measure - too cool ;-)

My beautiful Jasmine , just making herself comfortable......................

She has just turned 15....

I just love Gaby's backgrounds, so using them as inspiration and using techniques learned in the Joy Bathie workshops, here is my 1st attempt! I wont tell you how many colours and how many layers!

An engagement card that I have made for a work colleague...

These Little Beauties were made by Jenny Crossley ;-)

Can't get enough of them?

Then join this swap! You don't have to use the Collections Houses but I do ask that you make them no narrower then 15mm and no taller than 110mm. So far we have Debbie, L, Kathy T, me, Ness H, Teresa A, Glial, Gisele and Linda signed up. I have added a link to Linda's blog. Her little Houses are to die for ;-). But if you join this swap then you will not need to die for them!

You will need to sign up by the end of October (just email me and I will send you the address to send them to) and have them in Australia by Jan 10th. Please make one for each person and you can make them all the same or all different or a mixture, whatever takes your fancy .

The other requirement is - nothing cutesy!

Look forward to hearing from YOU!

I've only had it 2 months.... Had loads of ideas as to what I was going to do, once I got the Collab book etc out of the way... Then when I was at MPE I bought the tree, as I loved it, and knew I could work it in with bird theme somehow. Then today, Debbie L invited me down to play with her and Kathy T, so I grabbed some paper, some new Collections houses, some new stamps and was on my way. And this is the result. Not bad for someone with a lingering migraine? I am really happy with it anyway and I hope Teresa will be too. Also used some of the plethora of rubons I have accumulated ;-)

Another piece from Jen. She gave it to me at dinner and before the night was thru I had lost a wing :-(

Look at the little metal key hole. Jen is such a finder of GOOD STUFF!!!! ;-). I got to fondle some of the jewllery I had seen on her blog and some that hasn't been on her blog either. It is SOOOO mych better in the flesh ;-)

I'm suffering from a migraine today, but I will try and upload some of the new collections goodies soon ;-)

Well here is thew finished puzzle. I am SOO pleased with it. Thanks to Gail, Ness and Jenny Crossley for joining in the fun. I'm thinking of mounting it on a canvas perhaps, for the wall....

Top Left :Gail Smith, Top right me Bottom Left Jenny C (where DOES SHE get these embellishments!) and bottom right Vanessa Henry...

;-)

Earlier in the year I held a swap using the Collections "little Houses". Each person made a house of JVO as well. So now I have finally finished this to display them on, and will give it to JVO at Paperific. I hope she likes it!

My swaps. Quick but effective?

How I love photoshop.

I do love these girls. I almost wish we dressed up like this today - although it might be a bit over the top for MPE??? ;-)

After seeing Jenny Crossleys fabulous jigsaw (can be seen on the front page of yahoo group arty_oz for all of October 2007) I grabbed 4 blank 4-piece jigsaws at a local craft store. Gail Smith, Vanessa, Henry, Jenny Crossley and I are having a private swap. These are my 4 pieces finished! The little girl is a Paper Whimsy image. http://www.paperwhimsy.com/

Isn't she gorgeous?

.... and she fits in so well with the basic grey vagabond paper. This has to be one of my favourite basic grey ranges. I stipulated this range as the backing paper, so hopefully the 4 pieces will all tone in together.

Here's just a peek at what the groups collaborative book contains. There are so many talented people in the group and this is a showcase of the talent. I will post more once everyone has their books!

Well here are the covers

I have joined a challenge on a yahoo group called paper_traders. It is a 26 week challenge, where we are given a letter to use and a technique or element to use on our page. This week was obviously H and we had to incorporate Dictionary text.

The 26 pages will complete a skinny book!

OK time to make the covers...

My collab book page - at last ! The first design went down the gurgler last week so here is my brand new one! I have 23 pages to make before next Saturday! Thanks to Gail Smith for her input today.



The metal on it is part of a bike chain - I wish I could say it was my great idea, but I saw some amazing work on flickr by Elaine Kerr . Here is her blog: http://abstractionsart.blogspot.com/



It was a bit of a trial tracking down an old chain, but my local bikeshop gave me one. I did try the bike shop near work, but the guy there was just an arrogant ........... The local shop owner such a stark contrast!

Oh how I do love photoshop! In a few minutes I was able to

change this very pink little girl into an aqua one ;-)

My first attempt at gel transfers! To the right is the

original photo of my uncles and to the left is the gel transfer. There is still a bit of paper to rub off yet I think...

The technique I found via Gisele's blog. It really is very easy, except for the rubbing back of the paper......

I love this little girl! So I decided to use her for my Aqua swap - just one problem - she was wearing a green dress! But that problem was easily solved with photoshop......

She really was having a really bad hair day so I added a crown... and she is a little insipid so some vibrant wings added a spark!

Don't seem to have much time to blog lately..

last weekend, I managed to finish one of my front gardens. It had got so over grown, with my bad back, I had just let it go. So I cleared it a few weeks ago and last weekend, I planted some new lavenders , and gave it a border of lobelia, so hopefully in a month or two I can put a pretty garden on my blog!

When Pete and I built the garden, we left a (small) tree stump in it as Jassie used it to sharpen her claws (when it was a tree in the lawn) But once it was in a garden and with the rest of the tree gone, she lost interest. It took me 2 weekends to get it out, but it was a good feeling to thrown that stump in the garden recycle bin!

I recieved this wonderful atc from Hermine Koster from the Netherlands - as a thank you for taking part in her background challenge.

Thank you Hermine - it is a gorgeous atc and will have pride of place in my collection....