I'm Baaacccckkkkk!

Never saw that film, but the line is becoming a bit immortal, isn't it. I have been on the big island, helping family move house and recover from major surgery. At the same time.  It was a bit busy.

While there I visited part of the Yarra River that I had not seen before - Pound Bend near Warrandyte a suburb in Melbourne. My Brother-in-law had cycled there from Blackburn as a youngster and we went back there to visit on a beautiful warm day and I took some photos.  It was an interesting place:

Pound Bend

A tunnel cut through from one side of the bend to the other to divert the river

Looking at the water rushing out of the tunnel - a lovely spa!!

While I was in Melbourne I helped my SIL move house - 50 years plus of living in one place had to be packed up and moved to the new (smaller) town house.  We managed it!

There was a garage sale of the stuff left over, and what was not sold was given to the Salvo's. An interesting time......this was towards the end of the selling period, but there was a steady stream of buyers all day.

Lots of National Geographics!

Got home to find that all the Christmas Lillies had flowered at once! Beautiful smell in the lounge room and the  vase is so full! I remove the stamens so the yellow powder does not get everywhere.

I will be crafting this week - so will be putting up some photos.  I have just spent three days cleaning up my working area and rearranging things to fit a bit better. I have bags of off-cuts for a local primary school, and a New Years Resolution - do NOT keep scraps of cards and paper to the same extent! Lets see if it works! Thanks for following this ramble and keep safe with all the weather conditions in the world threatening life and limb. 

Welcome to 2013's first challenge for Unstampabelles!

Get out all your dies and have a ball!  That's what Unstampabelles  wants to see in this first challenge for 2013.

 DIES

How many can you use on your card/layout/object? They certainly have been a feature of 2012 and there are so many lovely ones out there now. I see one and lust after it, and then see another, and another....I am running out of space to store them!

Our sponsor for this challenge is

Prize from Craftmad for Challenge #19

Prize from Craftmad for Unstampabelles Challenge #19 - One Die or More.

Prize pack includes: Bazzill In SiStitchz template, heaps of stickers, foam stickers, patterned napkins, Brass Stencil and embroidered badges. 

Wow, what a prize package!

Now how do you store your dies?  I have three plastic boxes, about 30 cm (12 inches)  long and about as wide as an A5 (slightly bigger) card. These sit on top of a laundry cupboard that has been converted to storage.  I tend to use the packaging the die came in and put it inside a plastic sleeve. I have a store of magnetic sheet, and I cut strips of this and attach to the packaging to hold the dies more securely, and neatly, and reduce the size of the packaging sheet to fit: I get the sleeves in two sizes from Lily of the Valley, and they are the same as the ones their unmounted stamps arrive in, when you order these.  Unfortunately I have just about run out of space in these three boxes now, and will have to add another, but that means that I will not have space for my Big Shot to sit at the side of them. One of the boxes holds all the embossing folders, and two are currently for dies.  I know I have to reorganise my spaces again, and be ruthless about the rubbish I have (good rubbish!) - perhaps the time has come to reduce my library of books and free up some shelving space that way!

Anyway, that is enough of my woes.  Here is my card:

Happy Valentine!

I have used different textured papers, and embossed the red heart with hearts.  I have stamped the sentiment  (SU Sprinkled Sentiments - out of date now) using Poppy Parade ink. The cream background paper is textured and attached to a white card blank from Regal Press. I have used a Memory Box die to cut the filigree hearts and the other hearts were Stampin' Up dies.  The small individual hearts are from the MB die and are just glued on in a random way.  I added some SU ribbon (Poppy Parade) and some bling - including bling hearts. The larger white heart has been hand cut. 

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Crafty Mess:  Show sparkle and bling (lots of bling and the white paper shines and sparkles)
Crafty Catz: Anything Goes
Inspire me Fridays (Joyful Stamper): Anything Goes

Bush Fires

Last night we had record temperatures overnight of 25 plus, followed by 41.8 degrees (another record for Hobart) today accompanied by strong hot winds from the north. The consequences of that were that we have had catastrophic fires again. 

I grew up in the hamlet of Bream Creek/Kellevie on the south east coast of our little island and in 1967 there were devastating fires through that area, amongst others. Today they were there again, although a little further south. I was at school in Hobart in 1967, and not at home, but I remember the pall of smoke over the city, and the cinders dropping from the sky as we walked home early that afternoon - home to me was a boarding house attached to the school, full of country kids, and all night long parents and/or police arrived to tell one or other of these girls there that their house had been burnt down or family member died.  I was 15 and remember it as clearly as I remember what happened today. The school I attended before High School was a local country school at a small fishing village called Dunalley.  Today that town was burnt down, along with the school and 64 other buildings. The sky was full of smoke over the city too - but from a fire some 30 kilometres away to the north, where another small country community is fighting for its existence. I took photos from my balcony late this afternoon - the temp was still around 35 degrees and there was ash falling, as you can see in the second photo.

We are alright and unless Agamemnon occurs will be fine. But I am very sad. And apparently climate change doesn't exist.