Well, it did snow at sea level - eventually.......

The weather people told us it might and it did - but a week later than the first dire warnings! 

It snowed to sea level again

Photo of Geilston Bay from my veranda, taken by me!

We even had snow flurries at our place - but nothing settled of course!

Bloody cold but.......

Thought this card might be appropriate

I found some flimsy Christmas papers - magazine freebies - of penguins and snowflakes

See photo below to get an idea of the originals

So I cut out a section of penguins I liked and glued them onto some white card, and then fussy cut out individual penguins or a group of penguins in one case......

....and then took some of my Tim Holtz inks to the snowflake sheet in an attempt to create a sort of Southern Lights or Aurora by masking off sections and sponging on ink

The ice flow is from the pack of Dior perfume, cut to look like hillocks and with glitter on the top edge. I then positioned my penguins on these

I think they are Emperor Penguins - cute babies......

I put glue and sparkles on the snow flakes to create icy conditions

The sentiment is computer generated

My Aurora

So - my natives for this week - the penguins 

and the poor old Taswegians like me suffering from the cold weather!

Hopefully I have not caught a chill - yet!

Still a Little Dotty.......

At Unstampabelles, the challenge is to GO NATIVE, and I have been playing with the art of the original inhabitants of Australia, and their method of dot painting - while I am a native Australian, my ancestors are from Europe, and so this is a new technique for me and one I have greatly enjoyed using in my work. I discovered it is not easy to do, and that there is a language involved in the paintings - just google aboriginal art symbols - and see what I mean. Here is one example

It depends on the artist and the area, and the clan of course.

Then there is the amazing rock art, some of which goes back 28,000 years old and predates known European known rock art. Amazing huh!

This photo comes from the Northern Territory, and shows work in the region of the Katherine Gorge (Nitmilik National Park)

I have been lucky enough to see some rock art work in situ in America as well, in Colorado, and that too is awe inspiring, to see the work of an artist from so far back in time. I have been to some sites in the Northern part of Australia as well, and just been so blown away by the work. 

This is a photo I took at Uluru in 2004 

So, using all this information and my interest in the art work I made this

The background is drawn by me, the image is from Google images 

and after I had coloured him up with Copic marker, using the dot painting technique 

I fussy cut the kangaroo out and put him to one side

Then I did the background

On a sheet of Whisper White, I masked off a space and using post-it-notes to create layers of TH Distress inks in sort-of hill shapes. When I was happy with these, I took the masks away, and started to draw on them with a fine black pen.

I really enjoyed that part

Then I added the kangaroo to the white sheet with dimentionals. I used my Copic marker to outline the edges of the sheet, and then mounted this on black and then SU Peekaboo Peach card on a white blank. The sentiment is a rub-on and I was tempted to colour in the letters, but resisted.

The recipient loved it!

It was fun to make

So, Unstampabelles current challenge runs for another two weeks

It will be interesting to see what you create

Just me and a Geko.....

This is referring to the card I made for the current Challenge #59 at Unstampabelles

Go Native!

I decided to make a dot painting - not because I am trying to copy the fabulous work of the Traditional People's dot painting, but because I really like and admire the work of the new rash of modern young Aboriginal painters and wanted to try my hand at it. You can find amazing work just by Googling dot painting as well. 

I suggest you look up some of their work - it is stunning

Mine is very primary school by comparison but I enjoyed doing it and would consider doing it again. I started by finding a photo of a geko and drawing him up into a piece of watercolour paper - I then ran my embossing pen around him and embossed it with black EP. It wasn't as crisp as I would have liked but OK. I then pencilled in all the circles around the image so I would have the circles looking like circles. 

I coloured in the geko with Dylusions paint straight onto the paper - I used a minimum of water to keep the brush working so the paint was thick and rich. I used the end of my brush to create the dots - the light green was done with a larger brush end - and again used Dylusions paint. The texture this created was amazing. The white dots were added last after the blue had mostly dried. I hand drew in the circles then, with a fine line pen.

My biggest problem was the twist - a square card - as my Watercolour paper was rectanglar in shape. I added a die cut scalloped circle piece top and bottom as it looked empty without something there, and it then just looked strange so I drew on the top one and covered up the bottom one with the sentiment - a rub-on.  Still looks a bit awkward but OK. The background card has been dry embossed using a new SU folder - love it!

Anyhoo......that's it! Mounted on a commercial cream blank

So, my geko is my attempt to 'Go Native' and do a dot painting.......

Harder than it looks folks!

Unstampabelles new July Card Challenge: Go Native with a twist of Be Square

Hello Peeps!

It's July! Over at Unstampabelles, we have a new challenge for a new month

Go Native 

with a 

TWIST "It's hip to be square"

(Make a square card)

There is a prize as per usual

and DT Favorite will be chosen

Do you know anything about echidnas?

Pronounced EE-KID-NUH

THIS SITE has lots of information 

(Fact Number 3 truly freaked me out!)

Fact Number 4 says

4. Echidnas form mating trains. 

A strange process marks the start of echidna breeding season. Males line up nose to tail behind a single female, forming a train of up to a dozen individuals.  Trains can last more than a month, with males dropping out and rejoining. When the female is finally ready to mate, the males dig a trench in the ground around her. The males compete for mating honors by pushing each other out of the trench. The last one remaining gets to mate with the female.

My card is based on this fact

A photograph of a real-life echidna, sort of fussycut ; three die cut echidna's and a grass tree plant. The sentiment (pun) has been printed off on the computer and added.

It was the best I could come up with - better than "eats roots and leaves............"

Go on - go native yourself and enter the challenge

You have a month to enter 

Unstampabelles!

Last week of June and last week for the challenge #59 at Unstampabelles

That time again - only a week to go for you to enter the current challenge #59 at Unstampabelles.

#58: Pocket Books/Letters or Gift Card Holders 

TWIST include a crown

Here's mine!

Yep, this is a challenge to do something different -

• not just a card; 
• not just a box; 
• not just a tag; 
• not just an album; 
• not just a scrap page

So, what do we want? 

Basically anything that has a pocket into which you can put photos, tags, images, presents, gift cards.......

This is the prize

I used a D'Lish kit to create a Joy Fold card, and this one as a pocket inside

It is our son's birthday this month, so this is his card

He did spend some time in the US of A so will appreciate the colours!

The wooden objects have been painted and sprayed and painted again to match the colour scheme

The crown didn't arrive until the day it was due to be posted, so was added late. These photo's without it give you some idea of how it was put together

The button holds the edge of the smaller card so it is closed, thus closing the whole card

Inside the card front flap, is a pocket!

Inside the pocket is a gift card

(my membership card is being used here to show size)

Under the red flap of the smaller card, is a place for sentiment and personal comments

The left folds over and then the smaller right ref flap folds over that and slips under the button to effect a close and secure the gift voucher. Perhaps that is why it is called a Joy card!

I could have created my pocket under the red card and made the left flap a place for a sentiment to change it around a little. 

So, another way to incorporate pockets into a project.

You stil lhave until midnight on Friday 1st July to enter this challenge

Go HERE and scroll down to the link.

Project Life page for Unstampabelle's current challenge: #59

Challenge #59

The theme is 

#58: Pocket Books/Letters or Gift Card Holders 

TWIST include a crown

You can find more information HERE

This is the prize

I decided my pockets this week were going to be plastic ones and so I dug out a Project Life page - took me a while to remember where I had put them though! I originally liked the idea of these but went off them a bit when they arrived and so didn't use them apart from one page.

Now I quite like the effect and if you didn't want to do too much embellishment, they would be very quick to put an album together. Especially if they were about babies and children, I fancy.

This one is based on a holiday we had in Western Australia ten years ago.

A page like this for me would be a starter - the title page if you will

The pockets allow the cards (already supplied with the PL kit) to slip in easily

All I had to do was decorate to choice and add photo's and writing

Die cuts and such - the anchor is wooden

The bowsprit of the ship is pocking out the side of its pocket

This is cardboard and was already die cut when I purchased it

I painted it with Gesso and then sprayed and painted it with turquoise and yellow inks/paints but it didn't look right so I added some Brusho's and a spray of water - WHAM!

I had laid it onto some computer paper in the pizza box to do this and when I lifted it off this was left behind - think I will try and use it as it looks so retro!

Can you see my crown included here (look upward to the photo above this one) for the Twist?

It is a proper naval crown, found and printed off onto paper and fussy cut out.

This is the back of the page - no photo's in there yet but there is room for up to eight and/or space to journal as well on the back of the cards.

 So, off you go and create your own projects using pockets!

Don't forget the Twist either!

Unstampabelles

A Hard Cover Pocket Book for Unstampabelles Challenge

Week two of the challenge at Unstampabelles

WARNING: Photo heavy

#58: Pocket Books/Letters or Gift Card Holders 

TWIST include a crown

The prize

I decided to make another pocket booklet - a mini booklet

This one can be seen here on YouTube

I started with a 12 x 12 sheet and scored at 3", 6" and 9": turn 90 degrees and do the same.

Then cut up from base to 9; down from top to 3; and up from base to 9 as shown below

Starting at the bottom left corner concertina fold up, across, down, across, up, across and down

Yes, I have a different sheet now - the first one was too flimsy again so I went to a sheet of 12 x 12 Bazzil. Worked much better. You need to work out where the top is - if you look at your squashed concertina, you will notice on one side there are two solid folds - see above - across the top; on the other side there is only one. The one with one becomes the top. I attached a piece of paper to the top to make it clear - you can see it still in the photo 2 down.

I then started from the back and working forward, I marked with a pencil where the glue strips or double sided tape was to be place to form pockets. Mark first before adding glue - believe me, slow is best here. Make sure your first 'page' is left out as this is the cover page.

When you add the glue and create the pockets you get cover, three pockets - a blank - three pockets, a cover.You can see that clearly in the photo's; the paper and tweezers indicate where the two covers are and the pocket tops are open, while directly opposite the covers is a 'blank'.

Now cut out two cover sheets 3.25 " square from recycled card material, and the paper to cover these at 4" square. Glue the paper to the square card, leaving a small rim around the outside of the paper. Trim the edges of the paper, and glue the rim to the inside of the cover.

Can you see my notes while watching the video? I had to watch it several times to make it clear what I was attempting! Once I had the cover plates made, I inked the edges of my pages, including the spine

Then carefully attach the covers to the cover plates - I used double sided tape for this. If you want to you can add ribbon at this stage to go between the plates and the cover page, across the back of the spine, with enough length at the front to tie as a closure for the booklet. I forgot to do this, so made do with punching a hole in the cover plates front and back near the front entry, and tying some twine into them, which then ties together to close. It also suited my nautical theme better.

TIP: also make sure your plates face the same way - my cover paper has nautical rope and one plate his it horizontal, and one vertical!

I also inked the edges of my plates

The spine

Now you can decorate - I made 6 tags for the pockets - you could make two for each pocket I guess. These could also hold other material

I used papers from Culture Creation's Sea Breeze set to decorate.

You could journal on the pages or on the tag. You could add other photo's or remove the decorations and put photo's there. 

They are just glued in with Sticky Strip

I die cut a few things too

And fussy cut a few others - my dies are on the blank pocket

You can do whatever you wish really

It's up to your imagination

The twist was to add a crown!

The resulting booklet really is quite a cute 3 x 3 inch mini album with front and back covers. It took one 12 x 12 and one A4 sheet of card (for the tags) and some papers to decorate. 

Why not enter this challenge yourself - love to see what you create!

Enter your work HERE