Merry Christmas

Wishing all my blog friends a very Merry Christmas!

Did you ever wonder

I have finally finished my Christmas cards. I really shouldn't leave them to the last minute!

And here is a joke I got this week... it made me chuckle..

Ponder on these imponderables for a minute:-

1. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, doeshe become disoriented?2. If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Hollandcalled Holes?
3. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
4. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
5. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
6. Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
7. When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?
8. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a racing car not called a racist?
9. Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?
10. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
11... Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one?
12. 'I am' is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language.Could it be that 'I do' is the longest sentence?
13. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it followthat electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged,models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?
14. What hair colour do they put on the driver's licences of bald men?
15. I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoonsand forks so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
16. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What arewe supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures onthe postage stamps so the postmen can look for them while they deliver themail?
17. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
18. No one ever says, 'It's only a game' when their team is winning.
19. Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 apiece on those littlebottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE
20. Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?
21. If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhoea, does that mean that one enjoys it?
22. Why if you send something by road it is called a shipment, but when you send it by sea it is called cargo?
23. If a convenience store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 daysa year, why are there locks on the door?

Kris Kringle

This is the Kris Kringle gift for someone in arty_oz. I have spent way too many hours on it!

I hope she likes it ;-) You might recognose some of the page designs

House Collab Book - My Mother's House

This page is for Glenda

House Collab Book - Friendship

A page for Rhonda.....

Collab House Book - Family

House page for Kaeren Sutherland

Photoshop

I have been playing in photoshop again.This time it's for Kris Kringle.

The persons name that I drew out had just been to Thailand and had some of her photos on the network. Well by the time I drew her name out they had been deleted, but thankfullly I was able to get them restored (Without her knowing!) So I am going to turn them into a calendar for her.....

So anyway I thought these photos might look better sans other people!

what do YOU think???

Cream House Page from Ness

I received this stunning house page from Ness

This week. Next time Ness can you take a better picture LOL

2 more cream Houses

Two more Houses arrived today! Left Kaeren Sutherland - who added French Test ;-)

and Linda Schutt. Can't wait for my book to be finished!

Great Auntie Alice

This was my Great Aunt Alice. My mother's fathers spinster sister. She was such a sweet little lady. She had polio (I think) as a child which left her with one leg shorter than the other. She never wore a built up shoe, but rather had a partcular way of standing, as she is doing in the photo.

She had a little red mini. Poor little car, she was so deaf she couldn't hear the engine and used to rev the guts out of it!

Auntie Alice will have a page dedicated to her in my "Judy" book. I took the colour photo and made it sepia. but with some photoshop trickery I left the mini red ;-)

A Page from Sarah

Received this gorgous page from Sarah this weekend. Notice the white "Jasmine" cat... ;-)

Collab House Book - Cream Page 1

Page from Lucy Leatham. Isn't it gorgeous! Thanks Lucy....

Puzzle Piece - 4 of 16 or 25% complete

Puzzle Piece 3 of 16

Collab House Book Swap - Cream House Cover

My turn this month YAHHHHH!!! So I thought I better get my front cover made! The pages I have seen in Gail's book have been fantastic, can't wait for mine to start arriving

Puzzle Piece 2 of 16

Second Piece complete. Love the cream rubons!

Puzzle Piece 1 of 16

I bought this giant floor puzzle about 18 months ago at the Antique store in Mornington.

I have been collecting French themed bits for ages and have finally competed 1 piece!

Collab House Book - Asian

Asian really isn't my "thing" but that is the great thing about this swap - not everyones theme is your cup of tea, so it stretches your creativity. I think the dragon page was my biggest test yet. Dragons CERTAINLY ARE NOT my thing! Still once I found an image I could work with.....

As you know I received my Kelly Rae Roberts book this week and have been itching to try out some of the techniques. Yesterday I bought some more golden fluids -for my classes next year, and also bought a couple of shriva sticks. The latter are just divine - will have to get me more of those!

Anyway the top photo is my Asian collage completed. The background paper was very bright greens and I also added some text collage and other collage papers. Covered them in golden fluids and shriva sticks and you have the image to the left. After I scanned it I thought it looked a little unfinished, so I added a metal corner to the roof peak, and went around the children with while gel pen. I just thought that they were blending a little too much with the background...

Collab House Book - Lace

A Page for Joanne.

Taking Flight

I received this book today from Kelly Rae Roberts.

Just love it. Can't wait to play!

Lots of photos and step by step instructions!

Collab Book - Architecture

A page for Lucy's book

Collab Book - French Theme

A page for the lovely Sarah!

Sleeping Beauty

This was taken last night. It was quite warm and Missy made herself very comfy on the couch!

Yippee Summer is coming

Oh it's starting to warm up at last.

Look at my wisteria, isn't it divine! And the perfume is heavenly. I wish I could share it with you too!

It has never flowered like this before!

arty_oz Collab Book

Well it's over for another year... 31 pages. Had a busy but fun day at Teresa's yesterday. She had designed a fabulous fabric cover and there were 6 of us working in various shifts creating 62 covers (31 sets).

Well done everyone, especially Teresa for pulling it all together! Teresa is a working Mum with 3 young children, where she finds the time!

My favourite Page from the talented Sarah! Apparently it took her 3 weeks to make these. I could believe it - so many "bits". Absolutely stunning!

Win a handbag!

I visited my friend Gail's blog and found this link! YAhhh they are giving away a handbag an hour!

House Collab book

Another page done, and again not the theme for the month!

Dragons Den

HAve just completed this page (Thanks Liz for your artistic input!) I found this page a real challenge - having to work with a dragon! And No I don't mean Liz LOL. Took me ages to find an image I could work with. And the sad thing - it isn't even one of the pages I should be doing this month- ops! ANyway I know the next 9 months will be busy at work so I am just trying to get all my pages done early ;-)

HAd a great day at Liz's yesterday with Kathy and Debbie - not that I got a great deal done! But still I made a start to my calendar swap and I got this page started as well.

Next week I am off to Uni to learn SAP - not happy jan - but what can you do? At least it will be nice to be out of the office...........

Spring is here!

It is a gorgeous weekend here - yesterday mid 20's - but I am not kidding myself that winter is over. It is nice to have summer poking her nose in to Spring though!

My irises are out! They are such a beautiful rich colour.

I am hoping this week might be a bit easier at work, I have no helpdesk calls outstanding and I am hoping the new Payroll/HR project wont be to the forefront this week, so I can catch up on a few other things!

I managed to get away from work at 3:30 on Friday and went down into the city. It was so warm and NICE to be away from the office early....

House Collab Book

Kylie Mell is running a House Collab Book. I have finished Gails page this morning - her theme Vintage Men....

And this afternoon I have finished the page for Nikki Blowers - whose theme was glass house. I took the clear from glass and constructed my page from transparencies and used some of the "thick" transparency that craft items come packed in. I have been collecting these packs for ages as I knew I would eventually use it! The brown pattern down the bottom is like stickytape, but it has bubbled a bit despite my best endeavours :-( I had to use the photo turns so that I could add my details ;-)

Happy Birthday Friend....

I made this on the weekend for a friend who is having a birthday soon......

V8 Ride

I had a chance to have a ride in a V8 supercar ride car this week. I got 3 laps of Winton Raceway. It was OK but a lo of spinning tyres going around corners sideways etc... I would rather have had a ride in the ute as the lucky few who got to ride in that got laps where it went round full speed - much more like it ;-)

So that was a 3 hour drive to Winton, and then I came back via a good scrapbooking store in Shepparton ;-)

The Monaro was FILTHY by the end of the day - well it was grubby anyway and with all the bugs on the Highway it just finished it off! So yesterday I had it cleaned (We still can't do it ourselves due to the water restrictions) and I had it polished and the leather seats done as well - as the blue from my jeans comes off on them. It was just so lovely to get back into it clean agin, and the shine - beautiful!

Halloween!

I'm not a big fan of Halloween, but the lovely Sarah is, and is running a swap on arty_oz. SO here is my entry..

As you see the sewing machine is still out ;-)

I haven't been blogging much lately as work has been

very stressful. I just start to pick myself up from one thing and BANG and I get hit with another! I think I am starting to get desentistised a little at last!

Giving and Receiving

They say it is more blessed to give than receive. Normally I would agree with that but when you are on the receiving end of something from Stephanie Lee, well.... Can't wait for her class nest year!!

The pink cows and card are for a work colleague who gave birth (very prematurely) to two delightful little girls - Charlotte and Madeline. The pregancy had been very difficult, as there was some concern for one of the babies. They were born at around 26 weeks and weighed around 1200 grams. That was mid June and the healthier one (Charlotte) is expected home next week and Madeline a couple of weeks later.

I got out my sewing machine to use on the card. Last time I had the machine out I had loads of problems with it. But I reset the tension and threaded the needle correctly - and it worked like a charm!

It's my Birthday...

Well it was nearly 2 months ago.... And here are my beautiful Birthday cards, and my Birthday House from Teresa!

The top card, I made this weekend for a seller on ebay - she sent me ( 2 sets) of the wrong size MM alpha charms and then sent me the correct ones (2 sets) for free!

Happy Birthday Jannene

My work colleague is 50 tomorrow, so I made her this card and commissioned a bracelet from Mrs Crossley-Bagley.

I haven't felt much like blogging lately as I have been under a lot of pressure at work and feeling very tired and washed out. That has eased off temorarily....

I am however very excited to be doing a class with each tutor at the Soul Arts retreat next year!