Thank you so much Jenene for the tag and the hand painted atc - all I can say is WOW!!! And the rusty chicken wire - which is going straight in my MdeMeng class container ;-)

I may not have won anything on Tim's blog - but look at this!

King Neptune was kind to me today - I don't think I have ever seen a starfish in the water on "my" beach before ;-)

I have seen thousands of Jellyfish though - I have hardly ever been on he beach without jellyfish. The ones today were small, often there are some bigger than dinner plates ;-)

Although it wasn't all luck today, I got so carried away with my photos I stayed on the beach too long as it was getting quite hot by the time I left (about 8:45am). I ended up with a headache which turned into a migraine...

Here are some "changes" which didn't cut the mustard........

I went to the beach with 2 things in mind today - 1 to write the word change in the sand and photograph it for my blog, and 2 to take a photo of "local architecture" for a swap on arty_international. I wanted to show the beach in my atc and the architecture gave me a bit of a challenge - that was until I had a bright idea!... more later ;-)....





Rust - Isn't the colour of this sea sponge magnificent? And how about my other finds....



The rusty bottletop and the old rust nail and little piece of driftwood will go in my Mdemeng class container - which is a vivid lime shoe box with a yellow lid ;-)

Having visited Deb Lewis's blog and of course Tim's blog (who has a link from his word to Ali Edwards word....), I decided to jump on the band wagon too...

My word is.. Change.

1. To become different or undergo alteration .
2. To undergo transformation or transition

3. To go from one phase to another .
4. To make an exchange .

While life is always changing, I need to bring about some change in my life... change in body shape, which means change in diet (no more Tim Tams!), more exercise (well that wont be hard considering exercise = nil)

Change in job, one that doesn't involve driving an hour each way and gives me more "me" time.

A change to keep my craft room tidier and more organised - well I think that might be taking it a bit far ;-) I just need Jen to come down more often do I have to tidy it up!

Don't they look cool together. 2 down 2 to go....

My puzzle pieces are finished! The background isn't quite as bright as this in reality...

I think this has to be one of my favourite images as she is so easy to change colour in photoshop! She started out pink and I have changed her to aqua already ;-)

No photos today ... well not yet anyway..

I have had wonderful mail this week - an exciting Christmas package from my friend Kathy in the USA. Always generously filled with wonderful bits and pieces. Lots of bind-all bits for the bind-all that has hardly been out of it's box!

Swaps have been arriving...... A fantastic package from Linda in the USA with her puzzle and little houses swap and a load of other goodies for yours truly! My puzzles are nearly done. And I am so pleased with them - except they are a little warped (like me). I did put the paint on paper first before putting it on the puzzle pieces so not quite sure what has happened there!

As i don't have any photos today have a look here:

this is a pretty fishy tale

and then I found this story along with Michelle Wards new challenge which has made me think I need to start a visual journal. A good start would be the envelope Linda sent her swaps in, the stamped images and handwriting is beautiful! Thanks Linda

I found anothe blog today Karen Cole but I might have known that Jenny Crossley has been there before me!

and look at these little cuties!

AT LAST! I have finally got my wonderful Christmas present from Julian Buttenshaw, mounted on the wall. I had to colour the hook it hangs from with alcohol inks to dull it down a bit

I went to a crop day at Paper Heaven today.

I got there a little after 10am (start time) and was surprised to find the first all-day car spot was still available. The girls who arrived before me had parked in front of the shop. It's only 2 hours (not really policed) but becomes a clearway at 4pm.

Lyn always puts on a fab lunch and today was no exception. Our lunch was rather late however, thanks to some lowlife who vandalised Lyn's son's car in his carport. (Lyn is house sitting and car minding while her son is overseas).

Anyway 4pm seemed to come around much faster than any of us anticipated and next thing, Nicole (who was minding the shop) came up to tell us that a nasty little man was writing tickets. I was so relieved to be legally parked - as the other 5 all had $110 parking tickets, as did visitors to a neigbouring house...

So what did I do today? Not as much as I expected - considering I had made a bit of a start to things already (So I would know what to take).

Still I made 21 atc's ( white swap and black, white and 1 colour swap) for arty_oz and got the backgrounds for my jigsaw swap with Gisele, Gaby and Linda, done. I know Gaby will like them as they are pretty bright ;-)

I decided to go with a black and white theme...

How lucky I am (again) - a Christmas card from JVO! And it doubles as a decoration...

A Jenny Crossley original ;-)

Thanks Jen!

THANK You Julian for my DeMeng inspired

piece. It is truly an amazing piece of Art! A piece came off during transit, so J can you please tell me where to reattach it (in the photos it is hanging on the tower beside the main piece. Not very good photographs and I have cut off part of the coat hanger. I will take more time over the weekend to photograph it properly (And hopfully have the missing piece reattached in the right spot!)

This was the arty_oz Christmas Present swap :0)

Look what I found today!!! Now how much do you think it's worth?

I can feel a necklace coming on... with a little help fwom my fwiend????

I got MOST of my cards and parcels posted today $58.00 of postage! Oh well that's what u get for leaving it to the last minute!

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 ;-)