Demo Day

Last Sunday for Vic Stampers was Demo Day at Beachhouse Boulevard , and I thought I would share what I was demo-ing with you all...


Yes - tags... it has been a while since I have played around with tags! Monika has the Basic Grey Porcelain range in stock, and wanted to show customers what could be done with the range. The tags use the paper, glimmermists and scraps of stuff left over from old projects... It is part of my new-found "use what you have" philosophy. The shabby chic style is so good for doing this - just colour up what you have!


This is a bucket of immediate "scraps" if had on my desk to use... such a cute bucket!

I would like to thank you all for your kind wishes and support this last week. I feel overwhelmed with your love during this challenging time. It has certainly helped to buoy my spirits.

Have a happy easter everyone.

love Liz

What a week!

Blog Award!

I am very pleased to announce that I have received my first ever blog award!

Thankyou to Bevlea Ross for nominating me, It is a great honour and I am among incredibly talented women.

The guidelines that come with this award are:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers."

It is my absolute pleasure to pass this award on to 5 other deserving winners... drumroll please!

Teresa Abajo : http://www.thetamarisk.blogspot.com/
Gail Smith: http://goosmith.blogspot.com/
Jo Hughes: http://joanne-mylifeisbrilliant.blogspot.com/
Kelsey O: http://ko-ok.blogspot.com/
Di O : http://docobhthaigh.blogspot.com/
some are old friends, and some are new, and all are very,very deserving.

GFC statistic

It has come as a surprise, but I was made redundant on Thursday. Bit of a shock! Anyway, I am going to take a couple of months to decide what I really want to do for the next 25 years and in the interim will undertake some contracting work.

I have been really lucky as many of my clients have been really supportive.

I will post again soon... while I am busy setting things up, It's not like I am in the office :-)

blog you later

Liz

and the art OOZED from every pore (part 2)

I wanted to add a couple of extra photos from retreat for you all to enjoy...

The first is DJ Pettit's classroom - great views from the windows, and fantastic light!


This one is a snap of Joan McAlpine in Bernie's class with me. Boy, am I going to get in trouble for posting this one... but the concentration was something else!


You will all be aware of the 50 houses that I had to make for retreat (oh the pain), well I took a wooden ruler (an old yard one) for Joan and I, thinking that all 50 would fit. When we mounted them I had about 10 left over!!! Therefore 40 houses to a yard?

Here are some photos of the finished presentation :

and close ups of some additional decoration...

I have placed mine on the doorframe between the back and front part of the house. Having an old home, the ruler fits perfectly!


I will have some more things to share later today.

Liz

and the art OOZED from every pore (part 1)

where to start with this blog post... from the beginning I suppose!

WOW, what a fantastic time I had at creative soul retreat! I am still a little tired, but artistically energised... This was the place we stayed at - Amberley (Stephanie's classroom was in that room with the arched windows).


I deliberately wanted to do a class with each tutor. DJ Pettit was my first on Saturday. Lovely lady, incredibly talented.



and I made this... isn't it great!


heaps of work for 1 day, and it is still not finished. pages to be done, beading at the bottom and on the spine, but I will get to that soon.

Day 2 was Stephanie Lee. WOW, never did I think that I could make jewellery like this.

Stephanie was a fantastic teacher... she made sure that every person in the class had some time with her (which is not something I usually get). I really appreciated what she did and have a newfound respect for jewellery artists.

Third day was Bernie Berlin, and this class was my FAVOURITE....

(I was too busy in the class doing art to remember to take a photo, so snapped one from afar in the break - but it is a lovely pic of both Steph and Bernie)

These pieces are great, and I am very happy with them. I struggled with the process a little, but will absolutely do it again (I was afraid of the bright red paint in the middle of the everything).

I will blog again later, but just wanted to get this one out today.

cheers

Liz

Well, hellooo

Hi all,

Things are hotting up around my house at the moment - I am rushing to try and get organised for Creative Soul Retreat 2009... In addition to packing bags (which is based on a loose "piling" system at the moment) I have been rushing to finish 50 - yes, you heard it right, 50, little houses. And they all look like this:


Whew! (sorry about the crummy pic....)

Competition Time

Beachhouse Boulevard is running a monthly comp for scrapbooking - and (gasp) I have entered! What am I thinking??!!?? Oh well, true to form I refused to be too traditional, and if you look back to last month's blog entries you can see a post about 1 of my comp entries (yes, I did a couple) .

If you head over to the blog you can see all the entries, and there is some stiff competition.

Up in Tumba

Since my last post I have been back up to Tumba for Tumba fest weekend. I had a great time, and th0ught I would share a few photos...

wine (from a great little winery - Mannus wines)

family


friends
and a creek

what a great day!

blog you later!

~Liz

My god it's a midweek update!

Whatever willl happen next? stars falling from the sky... who knows!

I received a couple more photos of the etching class from Jo Hughes and thought that I would share.

Unfortunately I don't have a "good side" at the moment unless it involves a knee-length paper bag (oh well)....

My ArtyOz Christmas Present

This is very remiss of me, I have been meaning to blog this since Christmas, but just didn't get around.

In the ArtyOz 1 on 1 christmas swap, the fabulous Teresa did my gift. She knows how much I love red... so she made me a red book! It is sooo cool.....



I was very lucky. Now the world can be envious of ME!

Thanks again Teresa, I love it (it has pride of place on my TV cabinet)

blog you later

Liz

Big post today #3: playing with chemicals in a heat wave

Melbourne sweltered through its hottest day on record yesterday - 46.4C (or 116F in the old language). The temperature, recorded at 3.05pm, smashed the previous benchmark of 45.6C recorded on Black Friday, January 13, 1939. It was the highest temperature in the city since the weather bureau began keeping records in 1855.

"Birds are dropping out of the sky" Barry Tapp, of Animal Cruelty Victoria, said.

At least 26 people are dead in the bushfires ripping through Victoria, but the death toll could pass 40. Whole towns have been destroyed and thousands of people left homeless with record temperatures and fierce winds sparking devastating infernos.

Crikey!! This is horrific. To all my country friends, please let me know that you are OK... call, text whatever.

While all this firestorm devastation was going on we were playing with chemicals! (call us brave, call us stupid...)

The ever-amazing Jen Crossley drove down from Ballarat (in this heat wave!!) to do a class on etching with 7 of us. Gail very kindly hosted and turned her aircon up to full blast.

Messy bunch aren't we!

BUT the mess was worth it! This is what I made:

and my inspiration:

WOW Jen is one talented lady.... However Jen proved that she is fallible with a little foaming chemical accident (oops) and a large struggle to make Gail's dremel work....

They failed to get it going .... but check out the cleavage!!! :-)

On a final note I give you the irony for this Sunday the 8th of February, it is currently raining (but not enough to put out a fire) and 21C in Melbourne, as this photo will attest....

hmmm... variety is the spice of life?

I have a few things going on this week, but I have a couple more updates for you so stay tuned!

cheers

Liz

Big post today #2

Welcome to part 2 of my (catch up) blog post for today...

The first 2009 VicStampers meeting was held at Beachhouse Boulevard last Sunday. The meetings are being held in shops alternating between the east and west side of the city this year which seems to have invigorated the membership a bit based on the numbers last weekend. We all had a great time catching up for the new year, and had some new faces at this meet which was really nice:

Monika did some great demos on watercolours, masks and (my favourite) the tattered angels glimmer mists:

(please note the vigorous bottle shaking going on here - papercrafts exercise 101)

The mask she is using here is the new Heidi Swapp 12" x 12" mask... can't wait for these to come in!

I have also managed to complete the first of my 2 entries for the new Beachhouse Boulevard kit competition. Here is a sneak peek of the finished product:

I am really pleased with the way this one has turned out... I could be spending the winning $25 voucher on a Heidi Swapp mask! More importantly though, I haven't done any sort of scrapbooking for ages, and it was great to get started on it again... I used some of the great shots I took at the farm in January.

I was at Beachhouse Boulevard during the week, and helped Monika re-jig (technical term) a class for a card holder. I used the gorgeous new Kaiser Argentella range to decorate it...

The cardfile is in 12 parts so that it can become a "birthday cardfile" that I can fill with birthday cards as required... ahead of time, an unusual concept for me!!! Monika will be running classes to help me fill it as I could always do with inspiration when it comes to cardmaking... she has some exciting things planned on that front, so keep an eye out for updates.

top up that coffee everyone, there is another post coming!

Big post today

Hi all,

well - I have been busy again! I have been feeling rather inspired, perhaps because the drugs have finally WORKED, and I am feeling better than I have in 6 months (YAY!!!!) OR it could be because I finally managed to find the top of my craft desk...


I had forgotten what it looked like (and BOY was it dusty and dirty...)

I have been working on whittling down the UFO pile.... that is the UnFinished Objects(d'art) pile, in an attempt to make some room for the upcoming soul retreat at which I will create like a madwoman!

So what have I amanged to achieve??? Let me show you!

This was the pin swap that I blogged about back in June, that have been sitting in a bag in the UFO pile for 7 months (and I might add that that is by no means the project that has been in there the longest...). They got their own hanger that I made from a braces clip (spotlight and grunged) with the last of the crowns I had floating around....

The next UFO to get treatment was a Zettiology themed book I did for the PaperArts group.


This one dated from May 2008, and needed to be "bound" in some manner. A bit of 7gypsies tape and VIOLA! Another tick!

Next up was the VicStampers Collaborative Book....


The covers I had been given had a different number of holes from the pages.... so it couldn't be bound like the others. The answer - rusty wire (like duct tape this stuff holds my universe together).

The PaperArts Christmas swap needed to be framed and hung...

The faux laundry hanger was one of 4 that I bought on the net from the US, back when the Aussie $$ was high. *sigh* those were the days...

Next up is a gothic arch book (i was going through a verdigris phase in June last year... still am as you will all see in a future post). covers:

my page:

Again all that was required was binding... I am feeling a common theme in my UFO pile.... unless I was subconsciously cherry-picking the easy stuff (which on reflection may have been the case).

Lastly is a jigsaw swap for paperqueens:

I had to redo 3 of the jigsaw pieces as they had become damaged in transit (one irreparably so). The redone ones were the middle, middle right and bottom left... the bottom right was my original piece for the swap. I have glued the whole lot onto a backing board now so I can do "something else" with them.

I mentioned soul retreat earlier in this post, and for Teresa who was bagging me out yesterday because I couldn't remember my class schedule, I am booked for the following classes: Saturday- Art Journal with DJ Petit;
Sunday- Stephanie Lee Chain Gang;
Monday - Bernie Berlin Profound Secrets...

I can't wait - although I have to spend some time putting my class supply lists together very shortly (like today). I am not sure what I do and don't have in my stash - and may have to go shopping very soon to fill the holes (what a shame).

Phew!!! go and get a cup of coffee girls (& boys?), and then come back for the next installment!