Yada, yada, yada

I'm ba'ack!

2008-02-13T12:15:00.000+11:00

But you'll have to come over here to visit me!

Where have I been?

2007-12-08T08:58:00.000+11:00

Missing in action! Where do I start? I started this blog to promote Lime Tart, then we started up the Zest Blog because it looks so much prettier and is easier to use. But I kept this one for my personal projects and stuff. I still like uploading projects because it is fun to get comments, lol.

But lately I have just been a bit overwhelmed and of course the blog gets pushed down the list of priorities. I'm not sure I'll continue with this blog, but I'm a Gemini and I will probably change my mind tomorrow, or this afternoon, lol.

So why have I been overwhelmed? Mary, my darling little 7 year old has been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease and we had to go on a waiting list for a bowel biopsy to confirm the blood tests. During the waiting time, it was pretty awful knowing that the sandwiches I was making her for lunch were basically poisoning her. But we had to keep feeding her gluten so as not to have a false negative appear in the biopsy. We finally had the biopsy on Tuesday, which was stressful in itself. If anyone has watched their child go under general anaesthetic, they will know what I mean! The hospital staff were fantastic though, every single one of them. From the wardsmen who rolled her around on the beds (which she loved), to the Professor who did her operation. All wonderful!

But then the even harder bit begins, with us going shopping for gluten free food on Wednesday. Do you know how much of our food has gluten in it?! Milo! Lollies! Soy Sauce, Worcestershire sauce! Icecream! Besides cereals and breads. Icecream for goodness sake! *sigh* I know it's not the end of the world, and we will get there in the long run, and she will be healthy, and us too, but I think I had a little mini breakdown on Thursday, lol. So don't get me started on my opinions on all of these additives in our foods!

Now throw into all of that - my dad's mum passing away during surgery, a birthday party for Miss Six, other birthday parties, lots and lots and lots of work, Christmas celebrations - argghhhhhhh! I'm going a bit nutty.

So all in all, I'm a little tired and rundown and looking forward to a week off after Christmas. At least Mary will become healthy again without medication or further medical intervention. I am so grateful for that! But it does break your heart when your child bursts into tears knowing that they can't have a cheese and bacon roll from Baker's Delight ever again :( I think she is tired like me too. But she did get a delicious banana and honey muffin (gluten free) from Muffin Break.

On that note, I'm off to prepare Miss Six for yet another birthday party this morning, and then we are hosting lunch at our place for her grandma's and yet another birthday cake!

Hope everyone is having a fun December! I love shopping in December!

Oh and because this is a craft blog, guess who got a cover?! Me, me, me!!!

More stuff

2007-11-24T19:11:00.000+11:00

This is my final calendar art. I made thirteen of these for a swap. My words are tongue in cheek ;)

Angela, I couldn't reply to your comment, but yes the words on the Christmas card are by Cats Pajamas. I love this stamp! You can see it here - fourth row down.

We finally have Mary's bowel biopsy booked in, so I'm looking forward to that. It's been very distressing listening to her complain of her sore tummy over the past few months :( I guess I should go shopping for a breadmaker now!

Work in Progress

2007-11-17T16:06:00.000+11:00

I signed up for an online art class with Karyn Gartel and this is my work in progress. I'm still not confident on the collage side of things but I have enjoyed learning to paint backgrounds.

Other news - I'm so over my tooth and new plate! I can't eat properly, I can't talk properly, it's quite tiring. Roll on six months time! But particularly fast forward past January 18th, that's not a date I'm looking forward too. Besides the dent in the pocket, I think the procedure will be quite painful :(

I'm currently doing 13 calendar pages for a swap and it's due tomorrow, nothing like leaving it to the last minute! So I must go and glue and paste ;)

Next...

2007-11-09T11:02:00.000+11:00

The week after our night away, we had Mary's specialist appointment to get her booked in for her bowel biopsy. We were told that it would happen within the month, but we've received no phonecall yet :( Next Wednesday will be three weeks and I think I'll call them to check up on it. She's been very patient but every now and then will complain of a sore tummy and gets upset about waiting for the test.

I've been on a bit of a baking spree to clear our cupboards out of things that have gluten in them, in preparation for restocking. I did price up gluten free pasta at the supermarket the other day - WOW! Three times the price of the normal stuff. Maybe I should go out and get a part time job! We might need it to cover the grocery bills, lol.

I also went to ACTSA and had to make some Christmas cards for a charity challenge. I can't remember which charity - oops. But here is one of my cards. It uses Kaisercraft Christmas papers that I was sent as samples. Plus Cat's Pajamas stamps.

On the home front, my car had to go in for a few repairs yesterday *again* and our brand spanking new fridge is on the blink! It keeps beeping at me, lol, parts are on order, but my stuff is not staying cold!

Well aren't I in a mood? Must be to match the grey day, lol. So on that note I'm off to a school assembly to watch Peggy do a dance :)

Aussie Legends ATCs

2007-11-06T18:33:00.000+11:00

Here are all the ATCs from the swap that I held recently.

I did the Vegemite song. We also had the Picnic at Hanging Rock, Peter Brock, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Ned Kelly, thongs, Akubra, farmers, lamingtons and our little Aussie ring-in from Holland did the Flying Dutchman. The Lamington ATC even used real coconut! Thanks everyone.

Now Monique, if you are reading, I hang my head in shame as yours are still sitting on my desk :( Sorry, sorry, sorry. I promise they will go out this week. They got covered in new stamps - ooops!

Since then...

2007-11-05T13:07:00.000+11:00

I am still here, just haven't been feeling too social, lol. So what have I done since the 19th?

Well on the 19th I had tooth impressions done to start the major work on my front upper tooth. One of the major reasons why I've been feeling a bit sad and sorry for myself.

Then on the 20th, Tony and I stayed at the Hyatt Hotel. He won a $1500 night's stay at the hotel in a competition. WOW! It was amazing. We dropped the kids off at three different houses for sleepovers, then drove to the Hyatt in our trusty ute - all class!

We checked into our room, which was a Diplomat Suite. We stayed in one of these when we had our wedding dinner in Canberra over ten years ago. This suite is seriously bigger than our house! The bathroom is as big as our bedroom, lol.

That photo is looking from the entrance hall into the living area. It took us a few minutes to find the bedroom! To the left of the living area was a massive dining room and a small kitchenette, actually the kitchen is the same size as ours, lol.

To the right of the living area was the bedroom, and then down a small hallway was the toilet and bathroom. Plus off the entrance hall was another toilet. These toilets are as big as our bathroom at home! I can't wait to renovate!

Check out the tv in the bathroom in the pic below!

So after exploring our suite and acting like children, we went for a wander to find where our massages would be done. Tony had his first and I waited in our suite. While waiting, we had champagne and chocolates delivered. I then had my massage and arrived back at the suite to a full spa bath and champagne and chocolates! Billy laughed at us when we said we ate chocolate in the bath!
Then it was time for predinner drinks and canapes which we had in the "exclusive" Ambassador's Lounge while overlooking the lake and listening to some awesome Japanese drums for the candlelight festival. We really did eat too many canapes!
Dinner was amazing, but we struggled to eat it. We didn't even finish dessert! After rolling back to our room, we had to lay on those massive lounges for a while to let our food settle.
Up the next morning, we had breakfast, again overlooking the lake, then headed home, in the trusty ute.

What an amazing night. Thank you to St George Bank! So when next year's bank holiday is promoted by St George as "We take care of our customer's bank holiday" - think of us ;)

We're back...

2007-10-19T19:46:00.000+10:00

...and I bet you didn't even know we were gone, rofl! Too funny :)

Bright and early Wednesday morning, we drove to Dubbo Zoo to spend the night in a tent, admittedly a 5 star tent with tiled floor, beautiful beds and great ensuite, but still a tent! We also got three behind the scenes tours of the zoo, which were just awesome! Tony and I did Zoofari about 12 years ago and loved it then too.

Here are some photos

That's me being silly in a cafe in Dubbo. We visited the Dubbo Gaol while we were there, that was cool, although a little bit freaky. Mary wouldn't go in one of the buildings, she flatly refused. I wonder if she might be a sensitive soul? She also lost one of her teeth while eating her caramel tart in this cafe.

Can you guess what that is? An elephant's tongue! A few photos later I had elephant snot all over me! Her name was YumYum and when she said hello to us, she snotted everywhere!

OMGosh this is the beautiful creature that we got to feed carrots to for breakfast. The previous night, we also got a very closeup look at them from our bus, one of them poked her head in through the bus windows. Amazing!

I just love this pic, the keeper was patting her under her neck and she was stretching out and enjoying it. I think she looks like a toothless old lady.

This is cheeky Peggy at the Cowra Japanese Tea Gardens. It was just beautiful! Peggy was in a surprisingly good mood considering she had scraped the skin from her knee and elbow when she fell off her bike riding around the zoo. This morning she was told to go and wash her face before school, when we realised it was more scrapings and a big bruise on her chin!

This is Billy, who insisted on climbing to the top of the mountain, we let him do it by himself, lol. Okay it's tiny and you can't see him, he's standing above the middle green bush up in the top middle of the photo.

All in all, except for the long, long drive, it was an awesome trip. An expensive one, but certainly worth it for the close encounters with the animals.

New ATCs

2007-10-14T08:34:00.000+10:00

Here are the ATCs I have been working on:

This is for an African swap using papers from the October A la Tarte.

This one is for an ATC calendar swap. Tree by justjohanna, calendar by Purple Onion Designs.

This one was my prototype but I went a bit too far and added some stitching in the top corner and around the calendar. It just didn't do it for me! So I covered the corner with more paper and stamped the birdhouse image on another piece of paper and attached it over the top. Not a perfect save, but better than tossing it in the bin. All images on this one are by justjohanna.

Now onto the 13 calendar pages that I have to have done and at the swap organiser's house by the 1st November!

Nearly there

2007-10-13T09:41:00.000+10:00

The end of the school holidays, that is. We haven't done anything major, just lots of little bits and pieces.

Thanks for the replies on Mary. We had a paediatrician's appointment yesterday and have an appointment with the specialist in about 10 days. We have a couple of gorgeous new cookbooks too.

Me, well I've just signed up for an online painting workshop! LOL what have I done?! Oh well it should be fun. I've also been busy making ATCs and calendars. What was I thinking when I signed up for the swaps!

Mmmmm well as I'm at a loss as to what to blog about right now, I best make it short...

Oh hang on! Brag coming up - I got three magazines in the mail last week and I'm in all of them, lol. I got the November issue of Papercrafts and also the last two issues of Australian Papercrafts.

Okay that's it now, nothing else ;)

School holidays and other stuff

2007-10-05T07:46:00.000+10:00

We're nearly halfway through the school holidays. We haven't really done a lot. Monday was a public holiday so we did venture out to Borders Bookstore and the Pancake Parlour.

While we were at Borders, I grabbed a Gluten Free cookbook as we are about to undergo some major life changes in our household. Mary has been suffering from a sore tummy for a long, long, long time. We initially went to the doctor last year sometime, maybe even the year before. Then it was put down to her being a little stressball, which she is. But it continued and started getting worse. So in April this year we started tests. First it was fingerpricks, then blood tests, then more bloodtests, then ultrasounds. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Then it was mentioned that perhaps it was psychological. Well that's a blow to my ego that I could be turning my 7 year old into a little fruitcake, lol.

All the while, I'm thinking that she was hungry, or not hungry, or constipated, or nervous etc etc. Then one day a catalogue arrived in the mail and mentions coeliac disease and lists the symptoms. Mary didn't have all of the symptoms, but a lot of them. So I call the doctor to see if she had been tested for it, and believe it or not - she hadn't?! So off we trek again, but this time he tries to tell us she is constipated so give her prunes every day *sigh*. I nearly begged, and he gave in and we got the tests done. Two weeks later, not sure why it took that long, but they called us. The receptionist calls us "the doctor wants to see you", "but why", "I'm not at liberty to say". Are you serious?! Anyway, yes her blood levels are hugely positive for coeliac disease, but we can't change her diet just yet, we now need to have a bowel biopsy done. More waiting lists....

It's very, very hard to make a sandwich or give your child a biscuit when you know that it is basically poisoning them :(

But good news is, we now have her diagnosed and it's treatable through diet and not medication. So once that biopsy is done, I have to learn to read food labels and change the way we cook.

justjohanna forum

2007-10-03T13:52:00.000+10:00

Forgot to mention this in my last post.

World Cardmaking Day

2007-09-28T11:02:00.000+10:00

Come and join us! You should see the awesome prizes that Johanna has up for grabs!

We're back

2007-09-25T10:26:00.000+10:00

Check out the Zest Blog :)

Plus more cards using the new justjohanna range.

In threes....

2007-09-23T10:19:00.000+10:00

I hope that old saying of 'it happens in threes' is true because I have had three pretty stressful things happen since Friday afternoon! The third and final one is poor old Lime Tart, looks like it has hit the terrible twos and has chucked a major whammy on me. So if you are reading this because you tried to get to the Zest Blog, it's because we've lost a lot of Lime Tart in what seems to be a server disaster. Unfortunately I won't know more until Monday morning as technical support is not being overly supportive this weekend, lol.

Be patient with us until we get reorganised. You can check back here for updates.

On a similar note, we did have some major fun organised for Lime Tart's 2nd birthday in October which may be slightly delayed due to working overtime on fixing the site.

But I do know of some huge fun being organised for October 6th for World Cardmaking Day! Plus the prizes that are going to be available for this one are amazing! I just wish I was eligible for first prize but I'm not :( If you've signed up for the justjohanna newsletter, then you will have an inkling of what I'm talking about. Now for that horrible phrase that I don't like seeing on blogs - stay tuned ;) I'm off for a vodka, oh poop it's too early ;)

New justjohanna stamps

2007-09-20T10:44:00.000+10:00

Here's two card using the soon to be released Halloween and Thanksgiving images.

The kids had their school concert on Tuesday night and were very cute little rabbits, caterpillars and a leopard. We were able to get aisle seats so I could stand up and get some great shots. I need to edit a few first before uploading.

Yesterday we went to Floriade after school to finish off the treasure hunt that we started on Sunday. It was good fun and made us see a few things that we probably wouldn't have taken much notice of.

I scrapped again...

2007-09-17T10:42:00.001+10:00

A very quick layout using Buzz & Bloom chipboard.

Speaking of Buzz & Bloom, I did make the hard decision to resign from the design team last month. It was a huge struggle to come to the decision, and I will really miss working with Helene & Devorah. I did get a little sneak at the new stamps they have coming out very soon. Just wait and see! I think all will be revealed at Paperific. Which I'm not going to this year :( Unfortunately I have some major dental work that needs to be done and in one word - expensive!!

Yesterday, the kids and I went to Floriade to drop off our Gnome for the competition. The theme is Aussie Myths, Legends & Icons so we did a Vegemite jar. If you see our Mr Gnome, say hi, although I'm sure he won't be too lonely with all the other stunning gnomes around him. We're going back later this week, I'll get some more pics as it's a fantastic display. Yesterday was just far too crowded.

I scrapped

2007-09-16T08:22:00.000+10:00

I finished this layout on Friday night, it all came together pretty quickly although I think I may have overdone the rubons on the flowers, lol.

The girls had their last day of basketball yesterday with a little awards ceremony. Mary was one of three picked out for an award. They had three prizes - a tshirt, a full sized basketball and a little miniature basketball. The three children had to throw hoops and the first one to get the ball in had first choice of the prizes. The other little girl got hers in first and she picked the tshirt. Mary got hers in second so she had the choice of the large or small balls. What would you pick? I would have picked the large ball, but no, Mary picked the small ball. You could hear the parents watching all give a sigh of "omgosh why did she pick that one?" and a giggle. Well that left the big ball for the little boy. Everyone cheered and clapped. After it was all over, we congratulated Mary, and Peggy too. We then asked Mary why she picked the little ball and she simply said "because I already have a big one!". Of course! Why do you need two?! At least she picked what she wanted :)

After basketball it was a rush to the supermarket to buy sausages, salads and rolls. We then headed off to an end of year soccer BBQ at the lake. The kids had a ball. I thought it was a bit cold but a big glass of wine warmed me up.

Then there was this photo I got of Billy getting caught out! He wasn't supposed to be that close to the water! I really couldn't see his face until I loaded the photos last night and this one is a classic!

A funny

2007-09-14T09:32:00.000+10:00

While swapping emails back and forth with Gabbie last night, she sent me this funny. I know it's not nice but I found it hilarious! This girl has such a great way of wording things :)

The email was titled "depressing news"

Steve bought me some fish for my birthday... 20 neon tetras...the pretty
little tiny ones that glow...

the big bloody fat angelfish has eaten the lot!!!

#$%$#^&*%^!!!

Mission: Collage

2007-09-11T09:34:00.000+10:00

Julie is running a collage challenge on her blog and I'm taking part. The first part of the challenge was to use paint, paper and ink. This is what I came up with.
My base is just an extra thick piece of chipboard/cardboard. I've painted it with Matisse Cobalt Turquoise and Jo Sonja's Smoked Pearl. Then I tipped some Metallic Bronze Lumieres over the top and smooshed it around with a paddlepop stick. I've then stuck some torn bookpages on with gel medium and doodled with a black pen (the ink part, lol).

The next steps were chalk, pastels or crayons, then a photo, then charcoal.
I rubbed the paper with Artists' Soft Pastels in Raw Umber & Phthalo Blue. The photo was purchased from Fokvanger (I love this site!), printed onto photo paper and then transferred using gel medium. I have then used charcoal around the edge of the transfer and the edge of the 'canvas'.

Looking forward to Julie's next instalment so I can continue!!

Aussie icons, myths and legends.

2007-09-01T19:50:00.000+10:00

An update on the ATC swap that I'm hosting.

This swap is looking great :) We even have lamingtons! I've also seen some sneaks of other sets in the making :)

Players:
Me
Margaret
Sarah - received
Monique
Pam - received
Kaeren - received
Keilly - received
Kerri C - received
Judy - received
Gabbie
Mary - received

Swap 9 for 9 ATCs only, get one of your own back.
Due date 21 September.
You can interprete the theme as you like.
Send to me with a return self addressed, stamped envelope. In the
case of OS girls, we'll work something out, just email me if you would like to join :)

Back to basics

2007-09-01T18:37:00.000+10:00

I got a couple of layouts done during the week...

I was greeted by this little cutie on Friday after school! The toothfairy visited her for the first time that night.

Today was the usual soccer and basketball, then the girls and I went shopping and bought some Bindeez (sp? - too lazy to get up and look at the packaging). They are busy making things now.

Me - well I'm settling in for a night of cardmaking using the new A la Tarte.

Just do it!

2007-08-31T10:35:00.000+10:00

A few years ago I was a real competition junkie. I entered so many comps but did win quite a bit too. From cookbooks, gardening stuff, weekends away, kid's things... It was always very exciting. Well once Lime Tart came along, the competitions fell by the wayside, but occasionally I will still enter. Last month St George were running a competition to rename the Bank Holiday as they weren't going to close. I couldn't think of something witty and clever so I forgot to enter. But hubby didn't! He logged on and came up with "The we take care of our customers bank holiday". Was he serious?! How totally tacky and unclever, and yes I did tell him that. Well now I'm eating my words as in the mail today arrived a gift voucher for one night's accomodation in a Diplomatic Suite at the Hyatt Hotel (valued at over $800!!), dinner, one hour massage each, breakfast, predinner drinks and canapes. OMG! About $1500 worth. OMG!! And the best thing is we spent our Canberra wedding night in a Diplomatic Suite at the Hyatt Hotel back in February 1995. Or was it 96, no must have been 97, lol. How cool is that?!

Gel medium transfer

2007-08-24T11:16:00.000+10:00

Here is my dragonfly canvas. It's not really canvas but thick chipboard/cardboard. The background has been painted and collaged with bookpages, then I used vaseline to do that paintstripping technique. Fun! More painting and stamping and fiddling around and then I popped my transfers on. I got out the Cropodile to punch holes and proceeded to poke my eyes out constantly while threading with wire and beads. I think I need a pair of safety glasses! Each square is about 4".

Packing tape transfer

2007-08-23T17:27:00.000+10:00

I'm doing a demo on Saturday on gel medium transfers and while I was making (and still am!), my examples, I made up some packing tape ones too.

I found some great images of Hollywood starlets in a newspaper magazine and they worked brilliantly! It's got to be the quality of the paper, lol, these ones had no trace of white fluff left on them at all, I was very pleased.

I'm still finished the gel medium transfer art but I will show it when I've finished :)

Oh and the stamp and the paper could possibly be a sneak of the next A la Tarte!

New art?

2007-08-19T08:29:00.000+10:00

I'm flipping and changing with my crafting at the moment. From scrapping quickly with neat, straight, clean and no fuss layouts to pulling out the paints, gels and messy stuff to have a bit of fun. My favourite magazines are by Stampington - any of the Somerset ones, and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. What people can do with fabric is just so clever! Well anyway, I find them totally inspiring and love the work, but when it comes down to me creating something similar it always looks so much better in my head at 2.30 in the morning rather than the finished product.

This is what I completed the other day as one of my gel medium transfer samples. The bird and word is clipart that have been printed in reverse onto photo paper, then transferred using gel medium to the canvas. It makes for a really nice, clean transfer. Although next time, I think I will use a blocked image, a squarish image, in the centre with 'stuff' surrounding it. It might appeal to my clean lines side a bit more.

Perspective is word of the moment. When I'm annoyed, I have to think 'perspective', and as I saw on tv a few weeks ago, a woman said "so what? I have a messy house, at least we are healthy" - Perspective.

I got a bargain on the wire - 50c for 50m at the garden section in KMart! It's a perfect gauge too. I have a couple of other projects in mind with wire so I might even pop in and grab another roll, lol.

Blog candy - well it seems I overestimated how many readers I have, lol, either that or only one reader knows where I grew up! So Margaret, can you email me your postal address please? You get the Opals which are designed in Tasmania, which is where I lived until I joined the Navy at aged 18. Although I lived in a big town with shops, (hey we even had a Myer ;) ) called Launceston, not somewhere like Molesworth! Sorry Margaret, never heard of it, lol. I've heard of Mole Creek, been there, but Molesworth?!

Blog Candy

2007-08-17T17:47:00.000+10:00

I have a few little pots and bags of Opals embossing powder to give away. I think the pots are the Cools colours - blues/greens etc. Plus I have some baggies in gold, white, black, red and a pinky colour.

I have to open this to Australia only, sorry. I'm too scared to send white powdery granules overseas! Not that it's *that* sort of white powder, but I just don't want it to get lost or held up in customs searches.

So the third person to email me on philippa(at)limetart(dot)com and tell me what state I grew up in will get the package.

If you need a clue - it's the same place that Opals originates from.

Just stuff

2007-08-16T12:20:00.000+10:00

I didn't realise it was over a week since I had blogged! I can't even remember what I've been doing! Lots of cardmaking, I know that much. I've had about three sets of cards accepted for publishing in the past two weeks, so I'm pretty excited about that!

I'm doing a demo on gel medium transfers next weekend so I've been practicing, and making samples for that.

We've been baking quite a bit and the kids have even been helping out with making dinner. Billy helped turn the sausages in the pan the other night! I'm such an over protective mother :(

Oh but great news is that he is going to the Gungahlin Athletics Carnival next week! Pretty cool news considering he had two months off sport due to chipped bones in his ankle! Plus he got a credit in the recent spelling competition! My little all rounder. Oh and he's also on book 3 of Harry Potter and speedreading it too! He only started on Saturday and will be finished by this Saturday, I should think.

I went to the Canberra Craft Fair last week, and got to meet Carole. It was so nice to meet her in person and have a chat, I just wish I'd grabbed your mobile Carole! I would have liked to have caught up again over the weekend. I lashed out and bought myself a pack of Lyra Watercolour crayons. Very nice! Plus a roll of masking tape (special masking tape, lol), embossing powder and that was it!

The girls have started playing basketball again and are doing really, really well. I get surprised when they get a basket, lol.

The Lime Tart gallery is up and looks just amazing! I also heard it on good authority that there could be a new designer call happening soon, aimed specifically at stampers. So if you are interested.... keep your eyes/ears out.

On that note, here's my latest ATC using my watercolour crayons and justjohanna stamps :)

Now I best be off to make some cookies before the kidlets get home.... Does anyone else miss their kids while they are at school, but five minutes after they walk in the door you wish they were back at school?

New ATC Swap

2007-08-05T10:38:00.001+10:00

Thanks to Margaret for the theme suggestion. Margaret, I can't find your blog link!

Aussie icons, myths and legends. Obviously if you are overseas, then please replace "Aussie" with your country of choice :)

Same deal as always. 9 for 9. Due date 21 September. You can interprete the theme as you like. Send to me with a return self addressed, stamped envelope. In the case of OS girls, we'll work something out, just email me if you would like to join philippa(at)limetart(dot)dom. Yes I still can't work out how to do an email link, but I've read that this is the best way to do it to stop spambots :)

Now the theme comes from this years Floriade . Last year we did Carnivale, it's in the November '06 archives if you would like a look. Oh and the pic in my header is also from last year's Floriade. This year I have a digital camera so can go a little bit silly with pics!

Fire Faery

2007-08-04T13:05:00.000+10:00

An ATC that I made for a "Wings with attitude" swap. In the hosts words - "no cutesy stuff!"

I got this image from Folkvangar and printed it onto transparency. I've then covered the bottom half with a plain white serviette and sponged it with ink. I stamped a justjohanna stamp onto a book page, sponged with ink, cut out and attached. After attaching the ribbon and the transparency to a piece of cardstock cut to size, I have coated the bottom half with the web and the serviette with dimensional magic. To my surprise, when it dried it made the serviette sort of see through, which made it even cooler, lol.

I needed a name and Billy decided upon Fire Faery because her wings looked like dragon wings, but I reckon the web at the bottom looks a bit like flames too.

I also got a blogger award from Deb.

The Rockin’ Girl Blogger idea originated from Roberta Flanaghan. It works like this … you have to give her credit, put up the badge and finally, add 5 other rockin’ girl bloggers to the list. Trying to find five that haven't already received it, lol..... let me see, I nominate Julie, Marieke (even Donna Downey thinks she rocks, lol), Mel, Johanna, and Emilia.

Do you like?

2007-08-01T15:30:00.000+10:00

Do you like my new header?! How cool is it? I took the photo last year at Floriade, and Michelle banner-ised it for me. Go check out her blog as she is selling her talents, her digital ones that is, lol. Make sure you congratulate her on her new great news too!

Thanks Michelle!! Luv ya :)

So anyway I thought it was time to make this blog mine instead of Lime Tart's. But speaking of Lime Tart, pop on over and check out the August kits. Very nice, even if I do say so myself, lol.

I'm on a roll!

2007-07-31T14:01:00.000+10:00

Yes I have done another layout! You can only see a sneak of this one though as it's for the Buzz DT blog. So you can see more of it here, and if it isn't there, it will be in the next 24 hours or so :)

To celebrate hubby's birthday, we spent the night at a lovely B&B just outside of Murrumbateman. Mary went to Nanny's and learnt how to knit. The other two went to Nanna's and cooked cupcakes. We went to a few wineries, I got extra tipsy, we had a gorgeous spa room, lovely three course meal, asleep by 9.30pm, then up to a cooked breakfast. Nice!

I also have my own gallery at justjohanna's! Too cool! Check out the little icon that Johanna allocated to me :) How appropriate.

Oh and I also got a little blurb on the ScrapScene blog which is very cool too! Scroll down to More Altered Dress Forms.

Yet another layout!

2007-07-28T09:04:00.000+10:00

It's hubby's 40th birthday tomorrow and I made this layout, complete with love letters from myself and the kids. I thought it would keep better than cards.

I've used the August Half Tart which is so cool, and will be on sale August 1st, lol. The only things I added were the Hambly journaling rubon, the American Crafts rubons that spell out 'of love', and some Making Memories bookbinding tape.

The houses all lift up to reveal our letters.

I also made this ATC for a one on one swap today. The theme is Winter and I used all justjohanna stamps, and again I was completely inspired by Julie's work. I love stamping on bookpages now! So simple but so cool :)

...and again.

2007-07-23T10:22:00.001+10:00

I did another layout on Saturday night. This is about Peggy's obsession with pink. I scratched out the background from the photo with a paper piercer. It would have been nicer done in photoshop, but I'm a photoshop wannabe. I also tried to used up scraps and bits of old stash for the this layout.

We got the new Harry Potter book on Saturday morning. Billy went to a fancy dress thing and got a copy of the book included. I only got to read about 12 chapters on Saturday and then finished it off on Sunday, so I owe the kids some quality time when they get home today, lol.

I scrapped!

2007-07-22T09:13:00.000+10:00

Using bits from the July Full Tart and justjohanna stamps.

Mixed media art class in Canberra!

2007-07-19T13:34:00.000+10:00

Fantastic mixed media art class in Canberra!

When: Saturday 8th September 9am - 4pm
Where: The Mount Rogers Community School, Alfred Hill Drive, Melba
With: Linda Baldock
Cost: $75 which includes materials, morning and afternoon snacks, tea & coffee, water too ;)
Please BYO lunch.
Limited spaces available.

Spend a day completing a stunning project and learning some fabulous techniques. Looks can be deceiving, and with this beautiful and fun art housie, you will soon learn that the complicated is not so hard to master. Art is fun and beautiful, so come and sit, learn, and play the day away.

Linda is a "stay and play" at home mum with a 3 year old son under her feet and a 10 year old son at school, she makes the most of her time by creating art. She considers herself an "altered mixed media collage paper artist", and loves playing with products that are flexible and fun such as rust and fusible film. Linda has been published several times in APC and S&P, and even in Canada's "ATC Quarterly". Never one to follow rules she likes to explore and learn from her mistakes. Linda is the newest art teacher at Fred the Needle in Penrith. Her other credits include designing stamps for Artistree Stamps (Paperforest Designs) and Scrappin' Bug Stamps. She is also a member of the PaperArtsy (UK) Design Team and is in the middle of designing stamps under her own label "MADJAK".

Please email Philippa on philippa @ limetart.com to book your place.
Deposit is $30 with full payment due by the 25th August.
Upon booking you will be given a list of tools to bring along for the day.

Sneaks and Sydney

2007-07-18T19:44:00.000+10:00

A couple of quick sneaks of new justjohanna stamps that will be released very soon...

On Monday we went to Sydney to visit the new Wildlife place and the Aquarium. The kids said the highlight of the day trip was the monorail ride!

All I can say, is thank goodness for Nintendos for the car trip!

Quick ATC post

2007-07-15T18:01:00.000+10:00

I made 8 of these for a Stitching ATC swap. The background stamp is by justjohanna and the collage piece is by Artchix. The Artchix piece has been coated with dimensional magic which you can't see in the scan. I'm not sure if it's noticeable but the stitching is suspending the middle piece of the ATC and the white 'space' is space!

Is it sad...

2007-07-13T12:41:00.000+10:00

to be relieved to stay at home all day?! Gosh we have had a full on week. The kids are on school holidays and we have been out every day this week! From groceries, to doctors appointments, the museum to ultrasounds, lol. Mary is having constant tummy aches so we are undergoing lots and lots of tests to find out what the problem may be...

We bought a few board games this week and have been having fun with them. We even got Junior Pictionary and I'm pleased to say that Peggy aged 5.5 is having a ball! We also got Uno and Tipayatung.

Yesterday after more blood tests, we went to the National Museum which the kids always enjoy. Because of the blood tests, we all had chocolate cake for breakfast at the museum cafe! We had to replenish Mary's sugar levels ;)

Today has been lazy, oh so lazy.... Well not so much for me as I'm catching up on webwork, but I was able to do most of that in pjs ;)

I also downloaded pics from my camera and came across this one of the canvas that I made for our lounge a few weeks ago. It matches our new furniture perfectly and I've used orange bags for the background texture and Buzz & Bloom chipboard flowers. The canvas measures about 1 metre tall by about 75cm wide. It's sitting on the floor in this pic as it took a week or so to buy hooks!

Stamp camp...

2007-07-06T09:40:00.000+10:00

I'm off to stamp camp this afternoon and last weekend I found out I had to make 50 ATCs, lol. This year's theme was Four Seasons.

Well here they are, one of them anyway. Each of them have a different phrase, all cut from a book of Robert Browning poetry.

All stamps by justjohanna. Artwork completely and utterly inspired by Julie!

Creative weekend

2007-06-28T11:18:00.000+10:00

At 2peas on the weekend, the stamping board got together and organised the WSW - world stamping weekend. Lots of people organised challenges and prizes. It was lots of fun, even though I was in the wrong timezone, lol. I got quite a few projects done. Then last night I did a layout and today I have a 1 metre x 75cm canvas on the table to paint. It's huge!

This ATC has been printed and stamped on acetate and then white embossed. All stamps by justjohanna.

The background of this card is a justjohanna stamp and was stamped on white, clear embossed, then sponged over with purple ink. Chipboard letters by Buzz & Bloom.

I also forgot to update that the kitties did find new homes. One went to Gabbie and the other to Cass from Scrapbook Junction.

Getting there....

2007-06-22T12:17:00.000+10:00

Well after the hectic and sometimes traumatic week that I had last week, I think I am finally catching up.

It was a bad case of "what could go wrong, will go wrong" last week, but we got through it with a little bit of sanity still intact.

We spent most of last Thursday at the doctor's and hospital for xrays on Billy's ankle. He has sprained his ankle four times since Easter. Twice in two weeks, with me being called to the school to pick him up. So now we find out he has bone fragments at the base of his ankle (or wherever) and he must have rest for three weeks. Well try telling that to an eight year old boy! But we are trying. He's very disappointed in missing out on soccer each week too :(

Peggy had a hearing test on Friday due to needing retesting after her kindergarten screening. But all is good, they seem to think she may have had an ear infection.

Saturday was basketball for the girls and then setting up for the fundraiser. OMGosh we were busy! But on Sunday, I think it went off really well. It was a lot smaller than last year but we still made about $1100 for the school and that's always a bonus! I had promised a mystery class to everyone who attended and of course left it til the very last minute when a friend, Ethel, came to my rescue. A while ago, Ethel was kind enough to share her exploding box instructions at 2peas. So after a quick email, I was able to use her instructions to teach a class. Everyone loved it, so huge thanks to Ethel! I'll show pics of my box later :)

Oh and throw into the mix a 7th birthday party held after school on Wednesday for Mary and her friends. She invited three friends around for cake and munchies, plus they all decorated a papier mache piggy bank. It was a lot of fun, and her friends were really nice little girls :)

So then on to this week and catching up with all the work I had put on the backburner...

So all Gothic ATCs have been returned. What an awesome swap! The scans obviously do not do the layers and textures justice. Mine is the purple one in the bottom left and the background is actually see through.

Stay tuned for another one soon :)

justjohanna stamps have arrived at Lime Tart and I had fun playing with a few last night. I was hoping to do some Christmas cards for one of the mags but it seems I am too late for the Christmas call, lol.

So on that note, the house is clean, I'm going to put a jumper on and stamp!

Okay excuse the wacky formatting but blogger isn't playing nice today!

Fundraiser.

2007-06-15T12:29:00.000+10:00

I'm busy today doing all the final bits and pieces for the fundraiser so I thought I would post the list of generous sponsors here:

Acacia Paper Crafts - www.acaciapapercraft.com.au

Australian Paper Crafts – www.australianpapercrafts.com.au

DawnStar Stamping Studio – www.dawnstar.biz

Keep It Simply Stamping, Latham - lanamurray@bigpond.com

Lime Tart - www.limetart.com

Made Upon Memories – www.madeuponmemories.com.au

Really Just Ribbons – www.reallyjustribbons.com.au

Stampin' Up! Teresa Dabrowski

Stampin’ Up! Head Office - www.stampinup.com

Treasures for Angels - www.treasuresforangels.com.au

Shocker of a weekend

2007-06-12T18:11:00.000+10:00

Two British Blue Shorthair kittens for sale! Yes we have to give them up already! I can't believe it! The kids have been hiding in their rooms all weekend, Mary has been in hysterics, it's been awful. They are convinced these kittens are devils in disguise, lol. We have a lead on a lady in Sydney who would like one and if the worst happens then the breeder will take them back in Melbourne *sigh*. We certainly didn't make the decision to buy two kittens lightly, but gosh, who knew our kids would react like this! Anyway here's a pic of the cute little terrors. If you know of anyone who would like one....

I scrapped

2007-06-05T09:44:00.001+10:00

I got a few pages done over the weekend. This is a sneak of one of them, you can see the full layout at the Buzz & Bloom blog. I've also done a double but have to finish off the journaling first.

Today is going to be busy *sigh* I have a very long list of things to do, but most importantly I have to bake cupcakes! Mary turns 7 tomorrow. This time 7 years ago I was out shopping and having regular contractions, I got many, many funny looks during my shopping trip, lol. We finally went to the hospital at 3am, she was born at 4.30am and we were home just after lunch with a new little baby girl. Billy just wanted to cuddle and kiss her. He was only 16 months old. Now he just wants to ring her neck and vice versa!

She'll be getting her birthday present this Friday night but she doesn't know it yet. It is flying up from Melbourne and it means I will become a mother again. But this time to a little British Blue Shorthair kitten, well actually two of them! Yes I think I am a little insane to go from a no pet family to a two cat family. They will be Bob & Oscar, two little blue boys.

So on that note, I need to go answer some emails and then cook cupcakes!

Another ATC

2007-06-01T10:09:00.000+10:00

I made a set of these last night just because. No swap, no theme, no nothing, lol. I made the background on the weekend in a demonstration by Gail Hart. I've then modpodged it to chipboard and decorated. I love my new Versafine inkpad! Stamp is by Stampotique and we have a few of them at Lime Tart.

I've decided to change the name of my blog now that it is a personal one. Yada, yada, yada, of course, comes from Seinfeld. I used to despise that show! Then hubby and I went to the US, well we weren't husband and wife until we got there, lol. While we were in San Francisco, I remember being in our hotel room and had the tv on and Seinfeld was on. We became hooked! I don't know what changed, and why we didn't like it before then, but once we came home we loved it. So yada, yada, yada it is ;) Now I just need to change the header!

I'm a bit late...

2007-05-30T14:21:00.000+10:00

It was Johanna's birthday yesterday? day before? the 28th even, lol. So here's my card for her, using her stamps of course! The scalloped edge was done with the SU! slit punch, all the owls and the flowers have Kindyglitz on them, who'd have thought I'd pull that off the shelf!

I also made the Big Al card for a display on Saturday. The branch rubon is by Hambly, and a little owly told me that these stamps and the rubons will be in an A la Tarte kit ;)

Transfer techniques

2007-05-25T19:54:00.000+10:00

I haven't got photos but I'll try and do some step by steps on transfer techniques that I have used.

For all transfers you should use a photocopy of the image, or you can use pics from magazines. Prints straight from the printer will just smudge.

Cold laminate or packing tape transfers.
Place the laminate or packing tape onto the image and burnish it on well. I use the back of a spoon. Now pop it into a shallow dish of water to soak, before rubbing the paper off. I'm quite impatient though and actually use a little warm water on my finger tips and just rub the paper off. Keep rubbing until all the paper has gone and you have a transparent image. Let it dry. If you get milky areas, just repeat with the water. With cold laminate you can be quite hard in the rubbing. These two also retain their stickyness so you can just stick them onto your project. For the card in my last post, I used cold laminate. I buy it from KMart.

Then you can do gel medium transfers.
For this you coat your image up to six times with gel medium. Each coat needs to be dry before the next is applied and each coat goes in alternative directions. Leave to dry overnight and then you soak to rub the paper off as before. Use gel medium to attach. I used this technique using a photo for this canvas.

Then I have recently discovered acrylic paint transfers, which is what I used on the two atcs in this blog post.

Queen Elizabeth was a newspaper image and she smudged a little bit, see how her nose is missing, lol. The poppies were from a gardening magazine.
To do the acrylic transfer, I painted a piece of chipboard with a thin coat of acrylic paint then quickly laid the images face down. These dry pretty quickly so within 5 minutes I started using a wet finger to rub the paper off and voila! With this type of transfer the image is back to front, so don't use words.
Any questions, just yell at me :)

Okay, this card isn't a transfer of any sort, but I whipped it up tonight as a sample for tomorrow. The gorgeous floral border is by justjohanna and the alpha is by Purple Onion. Both of which you can buy at Lime Tart, lol, they aren't on the web at the moment, but you can email me.

Quick post

2007-05-24T12:25:00.000+10:00

Just a card I made for a challenge. We were given the stamped image and had to create something. I did a cold laminate transfer with mine. I stippled the background with different coloured inks onto a piece of tissue paper, adhered it to patterned cardstock with gel medium and then popped the transfer over the top. A bit of sewing, some more pp and rubons and voila! I hope she likes it :)

Other than that, I'm busy packing boxes and unpacking boxes, lol, oh and trying to get my washing dry. Even though it's sunny, it's just too cold. We need a new electric blanket after Peggy pee'd on ours last year, lol, even after cleaning it it would smell when you turned it on, yuk!

So on that aromatic note.... I'm off to pack more boxes....

New ATCs

2007-05-19T07:33:00.001+10:00

I had fun last night making ATCs for some swaps. This first one is for a one on one swap. Background is using my new justjohanna stamp ;) The lace is leftover from the torso that I made and was dyed with coffee. Butterfly was printed onto acetate and when not squished on the scanner, it's wings sit up like a real butterfly.

The second one uses Big Al by justjohanna. I used the credit card technique for the background. Quote was printed on acetate and sewn on. Chipboard is brand spanking new small Botanicas by Buzz & Bloom (but with the flower heads cut off, lol), then a few little beads thrown in.

New Buzz & Bloom chipboard!

2007-05-18T09:58:00.000+10:00

This stuff is so nice!

Check it all out here.

Lime Tart have some in stock, with more coming.

But shhhhh, some things haven't been uploaded to Lime Tart as they might, just possibly, you didn't hear it here, be in the June kits ;)

If you are after something in particular, let me know and I can get it in, I have the contacts, lol.

New Zest blog

2007-05-16T09:11:00.000+10:00

We've made a few changes in the blogging world of Lime Tart and have created a blog just for Lime Tart news & projects. Go check it out, there are a couple of small competitions running there at the moment.

This blog will undergo a makeover and become just mine :) Please keep visiting here too.

The new ZEST blog will fill up quickly with free (lol) step by step projects and sketches with loads of examples from the design team.

Other than that, I am working on some cards for APC, due in to their office on the 21st of this month, lol, I started yesterday! Nothing like the pressure!

I received a gorgeous box of stamps from the US yesterday, but I can't show yet as they are for the June A la Tarte. Don't you hate when people tease like that? Sorry.

Scrap & Stamp Fundraiser

2007-05-13T17:50:00.000+10:00

If you are in Canberra and would like to come along to a fun day of scrapping, stamping, eating, classes, goodie bags, excellent prizes etc etc on the 17th June. Click here to download the flyer with all the details. Any questions, please don't hesitate to call or email me :)

So far, prizes have been generously donated by
Australian Papercrafts,
Dawn Star,
Stampin' Up,
Lime Tart,
KISS,
Really Just Ribbons,
Made Upon Memories, &
Treasures for Angels.

Mother's Day present

2007-05-12T12:54:00.000+10:00

I did Wendy's Not Just a Torso class at Kiwiscraps, but wasn't overly happy with the shape of my torso's boobs, lol. I bought a second torso to play with here at home and this is the result. I did make a huge torso last year for Buzz & Bloom, you can see it here. I used a slightly different technique to Wendy.

This torso was sponged lightly with Distress Ink Milled Lavender. I dyed tissue paper with 7gs dye, then stamped with Staz-on ink. I then adhered torn pieces to the torso using gel medium mixed with a little purple pearlex. The lace pieces for the skirt were dyed with coffee or 7gs dye. I also inked the base with black Staz-on. The pearlex gives it a very delicate sheen. Then I made a card to match, all stamps are by Hero Arts.

Now I'm off to Mum's....

Layout from Kiwiscraps

2007-05-07T19:08:00.000+10:00

This is the layout that I did in Nic's class. The class sample was a 12x12 but I cut mine down. I didn't do a lot in class but did have a free hour in my hotel room where I got into the zone and relaxed and beaded. I have since added a little bit of journaling too.

I've been tagged

2007-05-06T08:19:00.000+10:00

Finally, here is my tag response for Manon, Mel, Sarah & Dawn:

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

Well here goes:
1. I freak out in crowded situations, I need personal space and quiet, thank goodness for human contact through the internet, lol.
2. I thrive under pressure and deadlines, although I will complain about it, I do love it.
3. I miscarried our first baby at 13 weeks.
4. I only bake, I can't cook every day food.
5. I grew up in Tasmania and left home at 18 to join the Navy.
6. I have screws and staples in my left knee from a full reconstruction due to playing a social game of volleyball.
7. I love flowers, particularly daffodils, oh and it's my birthday this month, rofl ;)

I also found this on Dawn's blog for a bit of fun.

You Belong in 1987

Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

What Year Do You Belong In?

Whirlwind week

2007-05-03T12:13:00.000+10:00

Well I'm back from Kiwiscrap, obviously, lol. I ended up leaving early on Sunday as I was just so tired, and believe it or not, eager to get back to the family. Yes, insane, I know. I missed my last class but I did get the class pack to complete it at home, although there seems to be quite a few bits missing from it, lol.

I had fun, I didn't learn a real lot, but it was nice for a break and to chat with friends. I haven't yet unpacked everything but you can see some of Gabbie's gorgeous projects on her blog.

So Monday was spent at a few eye appointments. Mary has a wonky eye, lol, and needs checking up on every now and then. We have exercises for her to do. Then I had one too, I've been seeing black spots, so got it checked out and I'm fine but I was told it's aging! They did put drops in my eyes to do the test and they open up the iris. They sent me off to do some shopping while it worked it's magic and omgosh it was so funny, everything starts to go blurry. Then I get home and look in the mirror and I honestly looked like that cat out of Shrek!!

The kids were tested at swimming lessons this week and they all went up a level! I am so proud, they have done amazingly well in twelve months. We are now swimming at Kings and I highly recommend them.

May kits are being sent out, most have gone. They are selling very fast this month. June stuff is coming in and it is NICE!

I'm selling off some old stamps if you would like to take a look here. They are second hand, but some have never been used, or simply inked to 'test' them, lol.

I'm also organising the school scrap and stamp fundraiser again this year on the 17th June, so if you are in Canberra and are interested in a full day of scrapping, stamping, amazing prizes, goodie bags, delicious lunch and a free class, then email me. Prizes have been generously donated by
Australian Papercrafts,
Dawn Star,
Stampin' Up,
Lime Tart,
KISS,
Really Just Ribbons,
Made Upon Memories, &
Treasures for Angels.

I'm off

2007-04-27T06:33:00.000+10:00

to Kiwiscraps, that is. My first class is at 12 but I'm meeting up with Gabbie for a whole weekend with her, lol, will we be able to stand each other, particularly as I have heard that she snores, rofl!!

I've been tagged a couple of times, will get to that next week. I won't be back til late Sunday night and then I have to organise the kids for their first day back to school, plus we have a few optometrist appointments on Monday. Who made them on such a silly day?!

I made three new necklaces yesterday, one was for Billy. I'm not overly keen on it, but it was something he has been wanting for months, so I finally gave in. It's jut a metal type rams head charm on some black leather, but he is a capricorn so I guess it means something, lol. He likes it and he knows the rules of not wearing it for sport or school.

I had my hair done during the week too ======>

I think I scared my mum when she came around ;)

One of my projects is up at Buzz & Bloom Atelier, the other should be released next week as it's using their new chipboards.

I made this card during the week out of the A la Tarte.

Oh and I got this last week, isn't he gorgeous?! He came from here.

I also got some gorgeous fabric from ebay too, I have some artwork planned for it. I think I will just simply frame it, nothing else.

Okay must go and finish packing....

Lest we Forget...

2007-04-25T15:38:00.000+10:00

A layout I did last year on my Anzac memories, yes that is me in the pic.

Me, at an Anzac March in the early '90s.

Miss you, Pa. :((

Another full week & a new ATC Swap

2007-04-22T11:09:00.000+10:00

One week of school holidays down, one more to go! The first week was a bit of a trial as we didn't have a car for three days. We needed a new alternator so I wasn't going to risk driving anywhere and breaking down with three children in the car. So Thursday we were booked in to have it fixed and we drove there and arrived, lol. After three hours of wandering the shops, library and having pancakes at a cafe, we were able to collect it again.

Friday morning was spent at the doctors with Mary, she's been continually having a sore tummy. They are now doing blood tests and I'm not sure were we'll go from there...

Yesterday I was busy uploading stock to Lime Tart and organising a sale. Go check it out ;) We've also got some beautiful new stamps in stock, which brings me to more ATC swapping! Quite a while ago, I saw this beautiful purple card on Monique's blog. I emailed Monique to ask her what brand it was and I now have them in stock at Lime Tart!

Okay I am getting there with this.... I have swapped out the Seasonal swap and all of them will be in the mail tomorrow. Unfortunately we only had 8 swappers so you will get two of your own ATCs back, but I've thrown in a little bag of bits that you can use on other ATCs. Anyway, no peeking if you don't want to see, lol. I have to point out that Sarah's winter ATC is a shaker! Very cool! My ATC is the bottom left one.

Okay so now on to the next swap... In honour of my new stamps, I would like the theme to be Gothic. Same deal as always. 9 for 9. Due date 31 May. You can interprete Gothic as you like. Here is what I grabbed from the dictionary:

Definition of Gothic

of medieval architectural style architecture belonging to a style of architecture used in Western Europe from the 12th to the 15th centuries, and characterized by pointed arches, flying buttresses, and high curved ceilings

of medieval artistic style arts belonging to a style of music, painting, or sculpture practised in parts of Europe from the 12th to the 15th centuries

of middle ages history relating to the Middle Ages

of eerie fiction style literature belonging to a genre of fiction characterized by gloom and darkness, often with a grotesque or supernatural plot unfolding in an eerie or lonely location such as a ruined castle

Catching up

2007-04-15T09:03:00.000+10:00

Lots been going on since my last entry.We lazed around at Easter, it was so nice. Lunch on Friday was lovely, as usual. Then the rest of the weekend was just spent relaxing or gardening. We mulched our front garden beds and they look so much better. There isn't much growing due to the drought but I do have some bulbs starting to peek their way through. I did get quite a bit of scrapbooking done too, probably about 4 double layouts. I'm still scrapping in 8.5x11 and boy is it fast!

Tuesday, I had one of *those* days, nothing was going right, but I did get lots done, lol. Lots of parcels have been arriving for May and for our next Gourmet Tart. The April gallery is up, check it out, lots of colour and inspirations. Huge congrats to Mel for her recent win, well done!

Not much creating, although last night I did play with some image transfers and made these two ATCs. Both are image transfers, one from a newspaper and one from a magazine. Elizabeth is covered in beeswax, and Poppy is using some Buzz & Bloom chipboard scrolls cut down.

On Thursday we were summonsed to the Friday school assembly and Peggy got an Artist of the Month award. It's her first award at the school and she was very happy!

Yesterday we got up at a ridiculous hour of 5am to go the the Balloon Festival. When we arrived at 6am, there were no balloons! Last year the balloons were all half up in the sky by 6am. I was starting to stress out, lol, but we were patient and it paid off. I got lots of photos but all of standard balloons. There were three that were slightly more interesting and they were an AFL football, a house with a cat on the roof and Mikey from Monsters Inc.
Then we headed off to the Pancake Parlour for breakfast, before going shopping at the new Canberra Centre and Borders. The kids had a ball in there! But boy... kids' books are expensive, particularly for the littler ones. The small chapter books aren't too bad, Mary desperately wants a cat so she bought this book about a Magic Kitten.

Today, well today I am preparing myself for two weeks of school holidays. Which also means it is less than two weeks to Kiwiscraps...

More creativity

2007-04-05T17:16:00.000+10:00

Thank you for all of the lovely comments on Mary's diorama. Her face lit up when I read them out to her.

Peggy has been doing some creating too. We love magpies in our house, we call them Maggies, which of course is another name that we can call Peggy as her full name is Margaret. On the walk to school every day there are lots of magpies and they talk to us in their warbling voices. We also have a family that plays in our front yard, they hang upside in the trees and roll around the lawn. Sometimes you will see two of them having a fight and rolling around the lawn. They are just like kids! Anyway, last week Peggy asked me for a yellow peg, a glass jar and some black and white paper. This is what she created, all by herself, with no suggestion or help from anyone. She turned five in December, so you can imagine how proud I am of her creativity!

As for me, I did a layout the other night using the April Full Tart. I have converted to 8.5x11 landscape and love it. I think I have to go and pull apart all of my 12x12 albums, lol.

I also made this card for the CPS#7 sketch. It uses Stemma rubons that I received as my CPS rak.

Other than that, my week has been full of ordering and unpacking. The new stamper's kit naming competition finishes up tomorrow night and the winner will be announced next week along with the launch of the new kit. I'm just waiting on the last of the cardstock to arrive and we will be ready to go. There is an awesome amount of entries and some very clever names! A few tongue twisters too, lol.

We are having lunch tomorrow with the grandmas and my wonderful husband is cooking (of course!). We have fish, calamari and prawns on the menu, plus pavlova and chocolate tarts.

Have a happy and safe Easter :)

ATCs

2007-03-30T17:33:00.000+10:00

I love making ATCs and I'm in a monthly one on one swap that is themed to the seasons. So this month's ATC is on Autumn. I have done a patterned paper transfer on the back of the microscope slide.

Make sure you check out the soon to be released Lime Tart kit and competition too. It's a fantastic prize, yes I know I'm biased, but it is!

A reminder about the other "seasonal" ATC swap I'm hosting:

Theme this time around is "Seasonal". You can choose the season, lol. Again 9 for 9, get one of your own back. Post to me with return postage and an addressed envelope. Overseas girls email me :) Due date to me is 20th April and you can grab my postal address from here. I've already received a couple and WOW!

Check out my arty, crafty little 6 year old's work of art. Isn't she clever?! Everything is her own work and ideas. She got me to cut the sun and the hands out after she drew them. But everything else is hers. I am particularly impressed with the bushes and grass and how she made them stand up. Check out the crying babies on the swing, and the cutest little dog bowl.... Papers by Bazzill, Fontwerks, MME, Making Memories, Basic Grey and others, lol.

More cards

2007-03-26T11:23:00.000+10:00

This first card is for the CPS sketch #6.

The second card is something I made along the way to making the first card, lol. I had stamped and coloured the images to use with the sketch but it just didn't work out, so this is how it finished up. All stamps are by Maryse Carrier and Cats Pajamas, and they have been coloured with Twinkling H2Os.

Dawn asked how I made the Pikachu cake - it's so easy! I baked four round cakes and piled them up with a bit of icing in between, then carved it slightly around the top. The legs and arms were made with alfoil and then jammed into the cake, lol. Cover it all with lots of icing and paint on the features with those little tubes of icing that you can buy ready made. The kids loved it :) I normally bake one day, carve the next and ice it the day of the party. The cake stays really fresh and it just makes it easier to carve and ice when it isn't baked the same day.

Creating

2007-03-24T17:57:00.000+11:00

It's been a very hectic week with me having to venture out to appointments nearly every day this week! We've had dentist appointments, hair appointments, gym appointments (yes I've joined the gym! shock horror!) and other things too.

But amongst all of that I have been quite creative this week. Things are coming along very nicely for the new Lime Tart stamping kit. We're now just waiting on the stamps to arrive from the US and we'll be ready to go.

I've had another set of cards accepted by Stamping and Papercraft using the Men Buzz & Bloom stamps, I finished an art canvas piece for a competition in Australian Papercrafts, I made nine ATCs for an international chain ATC swap and I have just finished two cards using the new colour inspiration on the CPS blog.

It's been a lovely, rainy day so perfect for eating popcorn and the yummy potato and leek soup that hubby has on the stove right now.

Here's my ATC for the chain swap. I've used Basic Grey papers, L'il Davis Designs & Hero Arts stamps, and microbeads.Here are the two cards for the colour challenge at CPS. Most products are from the Lime Tart March Full Tart, other bits are from old kits and one item there is from a future kit, lol.

Okay I'm off to grab some of that soup :)

Rak winner(s)

2007-03-22T11:29:00.000+11:00

Thanks for your comments everyone :) Drum roll please (lol, I'm being a bit silly today!).....

Jo, Dawn & Doverdi, if you can email me at philippa at limetart dot com your snail mail addresses please :) Oh and those pudgy little hands are my darling son's :)

New cards and a RAK.

2007-03-16T14:16:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I received an unexpected box in the mail, yes a box! Quite a large box, lol. It was my prize from the CPS blog. I got a stamp, rubons, photos turns, blossoms, more rubons, ribbon, buttons, embellishments, more rubons. What a very cool prize! Thank you CPS :)

So today here are two cards that I have made to the CPS Sketch #5. You also had to incorporate stamping. The first one uses Autumn Leaves stamps with a smudge of watercolour paint over the top, and a Fancy Pants rub-on for the sentiment. The second card is Autumn Leaves and Lil Davis Designs stamps, again watercoloured.

So because I was the lucky recipient of a prize yesterday, I'd like to send one out too. Leave me a comment and I'll get one of the kidlets to pick a winner after the weekend.

In other news, the Lime Tart gallery is up and absolutely stunning! Our new designer, Melissa, has set up her blog here. So go and check out her gorgeous work too.

Mel has received her very own limited edition kit that she designed herself. Shhhhh here is a little sneak, but you won't have long to wait, it will be released this month!

In other kit news, we will be releasing a monthly Stamper's Kit very, very soon. It's still being perfected but will be filled with everything that stampers love. A regular treat for your mailbox!Sign up now for our Lime Tart newsletter and you'll be the first to know about its release!

Don't forget to leave a comment ;)

Collections Tile Swap

2007-03-11T09:10:00.000+11:00

I received my tiles back last week but wanted to display them here finished, lol. I finally got them done late yesterday but couldn't get to the computer to scan and upload due to the rest of the family having computer time! Thank you to Glennie, Brenda, Ann, Gillian, Sharon, Maria, Jaki, Pansy, Carole, Sam, Tammy & Deb.

I have attached some gorgeous black grosgrain ribbon (from the March mini kit, lol) to the top to turn it into a wallhanging. My theme was "burgundy and beige romance". My frame has been painted with burgundy, then dry brushed with beige, then overstamped with black ink and a Hero Arts text stamp.

So back to the "seasons" ATC swap, I might change the theme to "seasonal", lol, not a lot of difference but you never know :) Due date to me is 20th April and you can grab my postal address from here.

CPS sketch #4 & new ATC swap

2007-03-09T20:16:00.000+11:00

Here's my take on CPS Sketch #4. I used my new Lil Davis Crillon 2 stamps, they are nice, bit of a bargain price too! If you want some, email me.

Big day at the school assembly today, with Billy hosting it and Mary doing a dance. So double proud mumma moment today.

I also got a phone acceptance from Stamping & Papercraft for a set of canvases that I made.

Then I spent the day packing a special limited edition kit that will be released on the site later this month.

Tonight I am hoping to lift Tania's idea and create a birthday calendar.

I've had requests for another ATC swap, so let's get started! Theme this time around is "Seasons". You can choose the season, lol. Again 9 for 9, get one of your own back. Post to me with return postage and an addressed envelope. Overseas girls email me :)

Update on the ATC swap

2007-03-07T09:18:00.000+11:00

They are all now winging their way back to all participants, and oh what a lovely bunch of ATCs! Here are some pics, remembering the theme was hats/crowns/headwear.

The Akubra one opens up to reveal some journaling about why Margaret chose the Akubra and what an Akubra is.

I do hate to pick favourites but I love Egypt! Tania has just amazed me with her ATC and from what I can gather, I think it was one of her first attempts at an ATC!

Here's a closeup of mine. The stamp is by Lost Coast Design, the background one is by Hero Arts. The wings were stamped again and coated in dimensional magic and then covered with crushed mica, sut out and stuck over the original wings for a bit of dimension. The corners are also mica that have just been stapled on.

Thanks again everyone :) I hope you enjoy your new little bits of artwork.

A week has gone by

2007-03-02T14:21:00.000+11:00

Yeah, yeah, the old cliche again. Time flies, yada yada yada...

I have been busy though.

I've baked, well I made a rice bubble slice for the lunchboxes this week. 3 cups of rice bubbles, 25 marshmallows and a dob of butter. Melt the marshmallows and butter and mix through the rice bubbles. I threw in a handful of choc chips too. The kids love it and it tastes so much better than the bought ones!

I've taxed, well I did the gst return. I lost all of October receipts, but I found them again, lol. All done, all sorted.

We got the new kits up on site, with our new colour combination.

I booked the kids back into swimming lessons and they are loving it!

I won a rak from the CPS blog. I also made a card this morning using their #3 sketch.

I used my new stamp, which is made from black rubber, very nice! I have also used Maya Road white blossoms, Buzz & Bloom chipboard, a SU! sentiment stamp and Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson ink. It is mounted straight, it's just too lumpy for the scanner, lol.

A new sketch blog

2007-02-23T07:24:00.000+11:00

I found this blog while surfing the other day, I think it was posted at 2peas. Anyway I'm a sucker for card sketches and I needed a break last night so made these two cards.

For Sketch #1 I have used all scraps from my brown tray, Hero Arts stamps and Stampin' Up stamps.

For Sketch #2 I used my new, just arrived yesterday, Cosmo Cricket Dutch Girl papers. How nice are they?! I have them in stock, just not up on the website yet, lol, I was too busy cardmaking to load them ;) Oh and I've used a Catslife Press stamp on this card.

I am freezing!

2007-02-20T19:51:00.000+11:00

YES! We finally have our airconditioner fixed! Oh gosh it is so nice! I have goosebumps, lol.

I had to take Mary to the doctor today as she has been complaining of a 'sore heart', we have a new doctor as our old one has decided to just do counselling. But this new guy was great! He was so good with Mary and very thorough, I was very happy. He even did a blood sugar test on her. Anyway it seems that she may have a little bit of reflux that we have to keep an eye on for a while.

While we were on that side of town, we popped into that really cool bookstore I mentioned a few posts ago and I got myself the last book of the Jamie & Claire series. I'm still on book 5 - The Fiery Cross and at the rate I'm going it could be a couple of weeks before I finish, lol. I go to bed each night and fall asleep with it open so then have to reread the next day! I also ran into Jo while we were there :)

I've also been filing paperwork like crazy this week, it had certainly built up to an obscene amount. Then I surfed for new papers for April kits. I've been getting some advice from the dt girls too. Lots of nice stuff out there, too hard to choose sometimes.

I got two lots of swap ATCs today in the mail. Very nice! Thanks Jo & Monique.

I also realised tonight that I haven't really shown any scrapping on here lately, lol, so here are some pages from our Christmas holiday album. I went back to basics so I at least got it finished.

Pikachu cake

2007-02-18T08:56:00.000+11:00

Here's a pic of the cake that I made for Billy's party yesterday. He got a LOT of Pokemon cards as presents and we have a LOT of leftover cake, lol.

2007-02-15T10:52:00.000+11:00

I know it's a cliche but how does time fly?! I think to myself that I don't have to blog as I only did it a couple of days ago and then when I check it's 9 days ago, lol.
So what have we been doing? Well the kids all started school. I didn't cry at Peggy's first day but I sobbed to hubby the night before. We got some great pics of her walking to school on her first day. She was off and running, leaving us well behind. Of course she fits in like a glove as she has spent so much time down there in past years. All the kids love their new teachers and class arrangements so that's all good.

I was contacted by Stamping and Papercraft six weeks ago to do a commission of ten cards for them, and guess when I started it? Last weekend, lol, they are finally finished and I overnighted them to the mag today. Nothing like working under pressure! Hey my excuse is that I was baking and covering school books.
Which brings me to my vent about covering school books and contact! How can different brands of contact vary so much?! Oh my gosh I struggled with the Pirates of the Caribbean contact that Billy selected. It just would NOT work. I wrecked one book and have to buy him a replacement. I was just about in tears on Sunday morning but was saved by the bell in a funny email from Gabbie, talk about the right timing. So on tossing out the Pirates contact that cost a small fortune, we pulled out the Creative Imaginations pirate paper and boy oh boy do these school books look good! I'm happy, Billy's happy, it took me longer to do as we had to gluestick them on, but cost wise was probably cheaper than the wasted contact!

Tony went to a friend's 40th birthday in Melbourne over the weekend. It was a real struggle to decide on a present for him, so I ended up making it. You can see it here at Buzz & Bloom. I got my next design team parcel from them today, with more rubber, woohoo, so now on to more creating. While hubby was away, I took the kids to the Egyptian exhibition at the National Gallery. I've always had a fascination with Ancient Egypt and Billy studied it at school last year, even making his own canopic jar with contents! So the exhibit was great, it was so unreal to be looking at artwork created 4000 years ago. We then went into the permanent exhibits and some of that artwork left a lot to be desired in my humble opinion, lol. There were two items that stood out in my mind. One being a plain white canvas, no shades of white, or textures, or even a tiny red dot in a corner, lol, just a plain white canvas that someone declared was art. The other was a box wrapped in hessian and tied with string, called art, in fact I think it's official title was 'box wrapped in hessian tied with string'. It all makes me feel not quite so bad in sometimes having the title of artist.
After the exhibition we went to a cafe called All Things Chocolate, and we walked out of there feeling very sick indeed. We had to walk off the food before hopping back in the car or I was afraid we may have had an accident on the way home, lol.
I also had coffee with Tammy last week, it was the first time that we had met, although she has met my husband before, lol. We got along really well, it was nice :)
Lime Tart gallery is up. Check out the newsletter and project sheets too! March kits have gone out to the designers, now to start thinking April ;)
I have just about finished Drums of Autumn. How are you going with it, Keri? I haven't heard of A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I must go google it, lol. Ahhhh okay another one to add to the wishlist. I won't read what it is about as I don't want to know, lol, I haven't even read the back cover of Fiery Cross. On the subject of these books, does anyone know why in book one a character was named Callum MacKenzie, but in book two, his name changed to Colum MacKenzie? I'm assuming Colum is perhaps more Scottish than Callum, but still....
Today I am baking cakes, I have promised a Pikachu cake for Billy. Even though it was his birthday in January, he is having the party this weekend. His current obsession is with Pokemon cards.
There, I think I have caught up, with blogging, not with life yet, lol.

Tagged, tiles, comets and books

2007-02-04T11:58:00.000+11:00

Yes I've been tagged by Gabbie :)

A - Available or Single: LOL
B - Best Friend: I hope she knows who she is
C - Cake or Pie: Lime tart of course!
D - Drink of Choice: iced water
E - Essential item you use everyday: coffee
F - Favorite Color: atm I've been told it's green
H - Hometown: Launceston, Tas
I - Indulgence: new clothes
J - January or February: January I guess
K - Kids & Names: Billy, Mary, Peggy
L - Life is incomplete without? should I get soppy (friends) or funny (a brain)?
M - Marriage Date: Dec 31st 1996
N - Number of Siblings: 1, I think, lol
O - Oranges or Apples: green apples
P - Phobias or Fears: crowds
Q - Fave Quote: Happiness is the journey, not the destination
R - Reason to Smile: I'm alive!
S - Season: summer or winter - Spring! I hate the extremes, especially living without our aircon! T - Tag 3 or 4 People: If you haven't done it, consider yourself tagged
U - Unknown fact about me: I hate elevators after being stuck in a tiny one with my three children and an old lady who was threatening to vomit!
V - Vegetable you don’t like: brussel sprouts and my mum used to buy them by the bagful!
W - Worst Habit: procrastinating
X - X-rays: knee, chest
Y - Your Fav Food: chocolate, mango, fresh raspberries, roast chicken and gravy in winter
Z - Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Tiles - I have finished my Collections Tile swap that Tammy is hosting. Here's a pic, don't look at it closely if you are in it!

Comet - we went out last Saturday night, I think it was, to try and find the comet. We drove and drove and drove for a good spot but to no avail. Finally we came across a street with lots of cars parked and in the darkness we could see people with tripods. We still couldn't see the comet but decided to stop anyway. As soon as we got out of the car we could see it! It was amazing! So much better than Haley's Comet, lol. So after watching for a while, back in the car and home again. We parked out the front of the house, got out of the car and guess what?! There was the comet! Right over our house! So we were able to go out on our balcony and now knowing what we were actually looking for, we could see it really well.

I'm reading Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon now, continuing the Claire & Jaime series. We headed out to the library on Wednesday but arrived too early and it wasn't yet open. So we did a wander around the shops and I found a new little bookstore, well apparently it's been there for over 6 months, lol. In we went and I'm such a sucker for books that we all left with one or two books. I was lucky enough to find both of the Diana Gabaldon books that I needed to finish the series for $8 each! Yes brand new - $8 each, I'll be going back there again!

February Lime Tart sneaks are up, actually they aren't really sneaks at all, lol. I haven't used the 6x6 kit yet, but I have been playing with the 12x12 and I love it! I have done an 8.5x11 layout titled 'ten years wed' and now I've started on a 9x9 album of our holiday at the coast over Christmas.

Peggy starts kindergarten tomorrow :( Let's hope that I can contain the tears that my baby is growing up...

8 days!

2007-01-30T15:09:00.000+11:00

What have I done in 8 days? Cleaned the house, made homemade muesli bars, ate same muesli bars, finished a canvas, built a bed, doing some swaps, washing, played cards, scrapped, paddled, ACTSA, oh gosh and lots of other things in between!

With all three children at school this year, I have decided that I am going to bake. I enjoy baking, I hate cooking. I want to make things for their lunchboxes that aren't full of preservatives and colours. So last week we experimented with muesli bars and omgosh they were delicious! Mary didn't like the sultanas in them so I promised I'd make some with choc chips. Each time she would have a piece, she would take a little tupperware container and return it with the sucked sultanas, lol. She had muesli for breakfast this morning and picked all the sultanas out before we poured the milk in. I think I might have to make her some sans sultanas!

Billy turned 8 on the 16th January. I am the mother of an eight year old, how did that happen?! I can clearly remember the day I found out I was pregnant with him, I had suspected for a while as we were trying, lol. I had previously had a miscarriage at 13 weeks, so we were desperately trying! I finally did a home pregnancy test on Mother's Day 1998, it was strong and I took the day to be a good omen :) Anyway, his birthday brings me to the building of the bed, as we finally caved and bought him a bunkbed with a desk underneath. It's given him so much more room and I've been quite surprised that he is sleeping so well in it.

I'm in a Collections Tile swap that Tammy is hosting and I'm doing a couple of squares each night which has been very enjoyable.

I got a card accepted by Papercrafts for publishing in Aug/Sept.

I finished my canvas for Buzz & Bloom, you can see the full pics on the B&B Blog.

We celebrated Australia Day by going to the Cotter Dam, eating sausage sandwiches and rhubarb icecream. We then drove to a quieter spot to have a paddle in the river. I paddled, the kids swap, we skimmed rocks, I got some great photos, not yet developed yet, lol.

Then I went to ACTSA on Saturday which is always fun.
I have booked into Kiwiscraps in April! Gabbie is coming up with me, I can't wait. It will be a fun weekend, I am sure.
Today we picked up school uniforms ready for next week and my clothes line is now a sea of black and red. I'm also in the middle of completing the scrap pages for last year's school photos!
February kits will be onsite later this week.
Oh and the crowns/hats ATC swap is going well, they are arriving in trickles and looking AMAZING!

Where does our inspiration come from?

2007-01-21T10:33:00.000+11:00

From the deep, dark recesses of our minds we can sometimes pull something from there that we didn't know existed in our memory.

I remember reading issue 33 of Scrapbook Creations many months ago and absolutely loving the Stitching Scraps article by Mel Nunn. Well that mag has sat on my shelf since the month it came out. I got an email from Mel on Friday saying she loved my layout (below) and had a giggle, well lo and behold, look what I pulled from the back of my mind! Here is Mel's layout that was in that article. Now I've seen hers, I wish I'd done mine on Kraft too!

Still struggling with the heat here, not much creating going on. I did start an art canvas for Buzz & Bloom last night which is way out of my comfort zone so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I started reading Voyager by Diana Gabaldon too. I'm about halfway there. One good thing about her books is that they are so long that it takes me at least a few days to read them. I do hate reading a good book in 1-2 days, it feels over all too quickly. I get really obsessed with books that I read and I'm even thinking in Jamie's Scottish accent, lol, oh boy that is a sad confession!

Okay I'm off to add some flowers to the hills in my canvas....

I'm melting!

2007-01-19T10:24:00.000+11:00

Our aircon decided to stop working when we got back from our holidays and when we were wearing jumpers on Christmas Day we are now sweltering in 40 degree Celsius (104F) heat! We have a solid brick wall facing west which gets the full heat of the afternoon sun. Whoever did the renovations here has a lot to answer for!

So the heat is stifling our school holidays a bit. We are too hot and cranky to do much inside and we can't go out everyday as it costs a small fortune!

Okay now I have that off my chest, lol.....

The ATC swap is going to be amazing! I have 14 signups so far, from here on my blog and from Time2Stamp. You can get my postal address from here if you need it.

Sign ups: 1. Me 2. Flea 3. Mojo 4. Lavandula 5. KristyC * 6. MargaretW* 7. Sephi - Received thank you 8. JoH* 9. Tania* 10. LindaB 11. Sarah* 12. Monique* 13. Kaeren 14. JoK*

If you want some stamps that may fit the theme, visit here, lol. We now have mounted and unmounteds, so make sure you click on both sections. I love these stamps!

I got my Buzz & Bloom DT package this week too, lots of fabulous chipboard and some great new alphabet stamps. Check out the new B&B blog, a couple of the girls have already uploaded artwork. I'm still in the thinking mode, but I did have a peaceful shower this morning where I came up with an idea, now I just have to put it into action!

I was also put to the challenge the other day on Scrapbooking Top 50 . I was challenged to create a layout using black handstitching, 3 brands of patterned paper and orange. This is what I came up with. I didn't have any black dmc thread so I machine stitched instead, but I did handsew the buttons on, lol. The pp is American Crafts, SEI and the notepad looking paper is actually Urban Rockstar from Urban Lily. This little man turned 8 years old on Tuesday. We made a lovely chocolate chunk mud cake which was delicious. He'll have a 'friends' party when he gets back to school, which is OMGosh in two weeks! It really does fly by....

Woohoo Fancy Pants!

2007-01-12T11:01:00.000+11:00

I love Fancy Pants products, we've had a few Lime Tart kits with FP papers and products and I think they are gorgeous. But check this out, how cool is this?! Mel, our own Lime Tart, has received an honourable mention in the FP design team search. Congratulations to Shirley too, well done! Shirley also did a guest designer spot for Lime Tart back in July 2006.

Struggling with the heat here, we hit 38 degrees yesterday I think, and our aircon is on the blink. We went to the movies last night to escape from the heat and I was freezing! We went to see Flushed Away and it was quite funny. The kids loved it, so did the big male kid in our family ;)

Kiwiscraps have released their class schedule for their April Crafting Connection. I want to go, I think I'll go, will have to see....

Time for an ATC swap

2007-01-10T14:29:00.000+11:00

Who would like to join me?

The theme this time around is crowns/hats/headwear, interpret how you like.

Due date is 23rd February in my letterbox.
Make 9 ATCs, get 9 back, including your own. This is the perfect amount to fit in an ATC sleeve.
The only rule on ATCs is they must be 2.5inches x 3.5 inches.

Who would like to join in?

I'm back!

2007-01-09T13:04:00.000+11:00

We went away for a week after Christmas and it has taken me this long to catch up on everything, actually I still don't think that I am caught up on the washing, lol.

So first up as I go through my digital pics:

I got this idea from Jaki's blog. How cute are they? Little marshmallows topped with melted chocolate, jaffas and mint leaves. We made these the week before Christmas to take to a party.

This was the delicious entree that hubby made for Christmas day. Lobster tail in lime butter sauce with something else. Yum! I forgot to take photos of the rest of the meal, lol.

So Boxing Day we took off to Murramarang Resort where we had a beachfront unit. It was our tenth wedding anniversary so we lashed out, lol. The kids had a ball, we swam, built sandcastles, ate, swam, bushwalked, went shopping, ate, read books, played cardgames, I got sunburnt.

I got The Time Traveler's Wife as an early Christmas present and finished it before Christmas so had to go out and buy another book for the holiday. I got Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon and finished it very quickly so had to grab the second one while we were still there! It was by sheer coincidence that both The Time Traveler's Wife and Cross Stitch were both on time travel, love and girls called Clare/Claire.

Since we've been back it's been work, work, work, and coping with three children on holidays who just want to raid my craft cupboard!

The January kits are up and selling very quickly, not many of them left. We've also added some fantastic Catslife Press stamps. Plus today we've uploaded some little kits with some fabulous papers in them. I just had to have these papers and they are perfect for those will little boys, or big boys. There's also a girly kit too. Lots of fun! Buy them now, or order them and we can pop them in with your next subscription parcel. These kits are very limited!

Oh and Buzz & Bloom have announced their new design team for 2007. I am very excited to say that I was asked to stay on for 2007 and I'm looking forward to lots of new challenges :)

I'm sure I have forgotten something but plenty of time for catching up....

Ho, ho, ho...

2006-12-25T19:47:00.000+11:00

Well today has been full of food, family and fun :) My husband sure knows how to over cater! We'll be eating leftovers for a week! The kids got an amazing array of presents from Santa Claus and the best bit was seeing their faces.

Well I didn't end up getting any Christmas cards posted, except for the obligatory great auntie ones, so here is a scan of the card that I made 40-50 of.

Of course it is now too late to post them out, so I am going to donate them to The Haemophilia Foundation. I've been donating Christmas cards to them for a couple of years now for them to raise money. So if I didn't send you a card - Merry Christmas!!

Lime Tart will be closed until the 2nd January. Any orders placed between now and then will be charged and posted out then. All emails will also be replied to then. Keep an eye out for our funky January kits, I know the designers have fallen in love with theirs.

So until next year, I'm off to indulge in another bit of meringue and strawberries.

Happy New Year (and happy 10th wedding anniversary to us!)

Getting in the swing

2006-12-21T09:39:00.000+11:00

We went out for a family dinner last night and on the way home we drove through a few little suburbs to check out their Christmas lights, and oh wow! At one house we could actually stop and get out and walk through their front yard. They even had their front windows done up with really intricate displays. Then there were a couple of cul-de-sacs that were completely decked out in lights. So gorgeous. If you are in Canberra, get yourself out to Amaroo!

So once we got home, I just had to watch Survivor and then I was too tired to complete the teacher gifts, so I got up bright and early and finished them off, lol. I made fudge, cut it into little stars and gingerbread men and then popped it into Prima Minnie Can paint tins. All decorated with the Lime Tart November 6x6 Kit, lol.

Here is the recipe:

Chocolate pecan fudge

500g Lindt Dark Coverture Chocolate or choc melts, depends on if it's for you or the kids, lol
395g condensed milk
dash of vanilla extract
125g chopped pecans

Slowly melt chocolate, condensed milk and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy. Quickly mix in pecans and press into a large slice tray. Refrigerate until set, cut into squares, or cut into shapes and enjoy!

I also made a couple of canvases for some extra special teachers. I only took a photo of one though, the other one was done in blues.

Here's a pic of our mishmash of a Christmas tree, lots of homemade decorations! The lights were twinkling when I took the photo, but I need a nice new camera - santa? Nope don't think so, not this year :(

Last pic for today is the beaded necklace I made for my Nan. I had beads left over too so I'm making myself a bracelet, I love this colour combination.

The Christmas mayhem...

2006-12-19T14:14:00.000+11:00

Saturday we swapped Christmas trees from our little fake one to a big real one! We were lucky enouigh to get the preschool tree this year. As our decorations didn't cover it, we spent Saturday making saltdough cookie decorations, then painted and sealed them and now our tree looks full. Very eclectic, but full :) The recipe if you want to try is 4 cups plain flour, one cup salt, one cup of hot water (I ended up using about 1 and 3/4 cups of water). Mix together, knead, roll out, cut, bake at 120 degrees c for 2 hours. Cool, paint, seal, voila!

I am completely blank as to what we did on Sunday, lol.

Yesterday the school had their final assembly for the year and reports were given out yesterday afternoon. Can I puff my chest out and brag? My two eldest children are the brightest, smartest little cookies there are! LOL, well I am their mother and they do have my genes ;)

Peggy finished preschool on Friday and was extremely upset when she wasnt' starting big school yesterday! Hopefully we can keep busy during the holidays to keep her mind off it, lol.

I'm still making Christmas presents, today I started on a couple of very special teacher's gifts. They will be 8x8 canvases and quite simple, I'll share when they are finished. I'm also making fudge in mini paintcans for some other teachers.

Other news - Lime Tart January kits have gone to the designers. February kits are looking pretty gorgeous too. We do have big news on the Lime Tart designer front though. Ange has decided to leave us due to life commitments and so today we welcome Deb Kingston as a Tart.

Okay must be off to put another coat of gel medium on :)

Things

2006-12-15T11:10:00.000+11:00

We received wonderful news on Wednesday that the government has decided to keep our school open. We had a special assembly at school for the principal to announce it to the kids and parents and boy oh boy was it nervewracking waiting for that decision. There were a few tears shed in the relief of the announcement. Unfortunately not all schools will remain open and I feel for the families and children who have to close up their school next week.

We had a celebration day at school yesterday, it would have gone ahead either way, something to either celebrate or keep the kids mind off it. Lots of fun with the Gecko Gang, sausage sizzle, face painting and so on. I then took my kids swimming and poor Mary was asleep by 5.30pm!!

Today is Peggy's last day at preschool, also my last child at preschool. I'm a bit sad, life goes too fast....

The Lime Tart gallery is up, with lots of beautiful ideas on how to use your kits.

My Christmas shopping is nearly done, I just have to buy a couple of little things for those hard to buy for couples that have no children and you really don't want to buy them something that will just be put in the back of the cupboard, lol. I really want to buy them a goat but I'm not sure how well it could be received.

My Christmas cards have been done for a couple of weeks but I haven't written in them yet! I get tongue-tied writing in cards, lol. Merry Christmas seems so boring, but writing lengthy personal messages gives me hand cramp, lol. Although I probably should go and do them as I guess I should post them all on Monday!

The postie has been again!

2006-12-10T19:09:00.000+11:00

On a Sunday! Today I received some very nice, and very different ribbon for the January kits. Think hot! I love this kit, lol, but I always say that :)

It's been a hot one today, it's still 35 degrees at 7pm, thank goodness for airconditioning :)

For some reason I woke up at 0630 this morning, why oh why I have no idea! I like my sleep ins but it just wasn't going to happen this morning so I got up and it turned into quite a productive day. We didn't go anywhere of course, just too hot, but I got creative. I altered a clock that I bought a few weeks ago for $12.95, a lovely clock with Elvis on it, lol, well it's now even nicer and decorated with the Lime Tart 6x6 December kit! I also made a card to go with Marieke's card sketch for this month. The newsletter will be out on the 14th so keep an eye on inboxes, or go and sign up for it now so you don't miss out.

I also went bead shopping again on Thursday, again for another Christmas present. This one is for my 15 year old niece.

Next handmade presents on the list are for the teachers. I still have no idea on what I will do. I might do a note book like we did in Donna Downey's class at Kiwiscraps..... I don't know, it's just not grabbing me though. Any suggestions?

The postie has been

2006-12-08T14:14:00.000+11:00

With a non-scrapping parcel! I saw some anti-bug balm advertised in a magazine a few months ago and I finally got around to ordering it. My kids get attacked by mosquitoes and I really do not like using chemicals on their skin, so I grabbed this stuff. We haven't used it yet but it smells awesome! The packaging is pretty cute too.

I also got some Hibiscus lip balm for myself and it's gorgeous, it feels so nice, not greasy at all. Plus the packaging is a smaller version of the little Sweetwater tin that is in the December 12x12 kit!

The speedy, friendly service and excellent packaging will make me go back for more things. Oh and I got a sample of this perfume, and it's very nice too!

I went Christmas shopping yesterday, and boy oh boy the mad rush has started at the mall. I got a few things done, not everything but I will finish off next week I think. Today I have been online ordering lots of fantastic new things for the January and February kits. I'm really excited about a new supplier who is doing a rush order for me for January.

Must run, I have to get some Christmas ATCs finished for a swap that I am handing over tomorrow.

Happy Birthday baby.

2006-12-05T11:14:00.000+11:00

My baby girl turned 5 yesterday and it's been a weekend of celebrations. We had a party for all of her girly friends on Saturday and we had a Gecko Gang member come and paint faces, play games and do balloon modelling.

After the party we decorated the Christmas tree and the kids wrote letters to Santa Claus. They have already received their replies back and Santa is a very special person!

20 sleeps to go....

Beads, beads, beads

2006-12-01T11:10:00.000+11:00

This beading thing is getting very, very addictive. This first photo is the necklace that I did in a class a couple of weeks ago.

This second necklace is one I made last night for a Christmas present.

The big bead sits a lot higher on my, the papier mache bust is a small one. Now to go shopping for some more beads :)

Oh and the December Lime Tart kits are previewing on site now.

Time flies, and I married a chef.

2006-11-30T12:55:00.000+11:00

Yes it's such a cliché but it is true. Tomorrow is December and what have I been doing since my last post?

Ordering January kits - very nice!
Making Christmas cards.
Beading.
Cooking.
Organising a birthday party (my baby is turning 5!).
Christmas shopping and creating.
Stamping.
Cleaning - yuk!

Oh and a big funny story - I married a cook/chef/food preparation person. Big bonus! He is no longer a professional chef but he still does all the cooking at home. I am the dessert maker - hence Lime Tart. One day Billy came home from school, probably last year, and said "mum, do you know that other mums can cook?" ROFL!! That was followed up a few months later when we bought a new vacuum cleaner and Peggy wanted the box and said "oh look it's a girl doing the vacuum cleaning!" Anyway I digress....

When you marry a chef, do not let them change the washers in the bathroom vanity! It's an expensive exercise in keeping the children out of earshot and then trying to find a nice plumber who can come in at short notice to replace the washers and the pipe that somehow got bent all out of wack at the same time!

I guess in hindsight that I do have the better end of the stick but it would be nice if he had a few more woodworking skills, lol, they would combine nicely with my new love of altering :)

I'm off to cook cupcakes!

Quick catch-up

2006-11-20T20:02:00.000+11:00

I haven't been spending much time at the computer as I hurt my back last week carrying a box of cutters, cutting mats and cardstock, lol.

So just quickly....

Here's a pic of the fantastic Carnivale ATC swap that I hosted.

I'll host another one in the new year :) Think postage stamps, real ones.

Billy & Mary both won Artist of the Month awards at school on Friday - how proud am I?!

I did another beading class on Saturday, this one was leather knotting and I love it! Guess what all the women in my family are getting this Christmas, lol.

I met Lee for coffee yesterday at the new Borders Bookstore in Canberra. How cool is that store?! I'm so glad it's not where I normally shop or I would be broke! It was nice to catch up with Lee too :)

The designers now have their December kits. I love these kits! The big one is Christmas, of course, but not too Christmasy. The paper is not holly or santas or stuff like that, you could use it for non-Christmas layouts. I really do love this kit :)

I finished my November newsletter project for Buzz & Bloom today, what a relief! I'm really happy with it now, after just a minor tanty yesterday when I didn't think it worked, lol. The newsletter comes out on the 27th, I think.

I'm off to ACTSA this weekend and we are doing a secret santa swap, so I must head off and finish that, then to start on my Christmas cards. I think I will be using my new Cats Pajamas stamps for them :). They are having a 25% off sale at the moment and I highly recommend their customer service!

Pizza, pizza, la-di-da-di-da

2006-11-09T11:22:00.000+11:00

One of Billy's fourth term homework projects was to "draw or model your favourite food on a paper plate".

He decided upon pizza and this is what we came up with. Materials: cardboard, cardstock, pencils, paint, texture paste. I think he did a great job!

Beading

2006-11-08T14:35:00.000+11:00

This could get very, very addictive! I have a few plans for more projects and I've booked in for yet another class next weekend. But here is what I've made so far.

This is one necklace for me:

This is a necklace for a gift for Christmas:

And these are the beaded tassles that we made:
1. is mine
2. Billy (age 7)
3. Mary (age 6)
4. Peggy (turning 5 next month)
The only thing I helped the kids with was the rethreading, they chose all colours and created the patterns by themselves. I'm a very proud mum!

Lime Tart October competition

2006-11-07T13:43:00.000+11:00

Sorry, this should have gone in today's newsletter, but I forgot!

Judging is underway but boy it is hard! We will have news soon.

Carnivale ATC swap

2006-11-07T13:40:00.000+11:00

Will be in tomorrow's post on it's way back to everyone! Gorgeous ATCs, thank you! I will post a pic later when everyone has them back. Make sure you sniff Monique's ATC, lol, she has used a beeswax collage and it smells delicious!

Lots of bits and pieces....

2006-11-03T12:31:00.000+11:00

Where to start?

I went bead shopping this morning! I did a small class on making beaded tassles yesterday and it was so much fun that I want to make more. I've booked in to make a necklace next week, so I bought more beads for that too.

Last night I made a present for our neighbours who are getting married on Saturday. I got out the LOVE letters that I started to make at Kiwiscraps and recovered them. One of their bedroom walls is blue and they have a chocolate colour down the hallway so I think that these should match nicely.

I've used MM paperbag paint, We R Memory Keepers paper, Eclectic Images stamp, Adirondack ink, Bazzill flowers, SU! ink, and teeny tiny beads for the centres of the flowers.

Here's a pic of my stash from Paperific. Some things are purchases, some are trade samples, some from my StampHappy dinner goodie bag and down the left you can see some of the ATCs that I got in trades.

The Carnivale swap that I am hosting is just about done. I am waiting on one more set and they will be swapped out and posted next week.

Today is the day for submissions to be in for the Towards 2020 proposed school closures. Ours went in last week so now we sit back and wait for the government to decide :(

Okay must go and wash clothes, clean kitchen, vaccuum.....

Paperific rundown

2006-10-31T09:58:00.000+11:00

I'm back! I have been since Sunday night, but have been so tired! I feel like I am hungover and considering that I didn't touch a drop of alcohol, well enough said!

It all started Friday morning when I had to be on the plane leaving at 6.30am! I am not normally out of bed by then! Arriving in Melbourne was so easy - get off the plane, buy bus ticket, grab bag and jump on the bus, very cool. I got to Spencer Street station and didn't have the patience to wait for a hotel transfer so started walking. I was told I was going in the right direction by a Melbournite but after a few minutes I realised that it was wrong and just after that I ran into Grace from Canberra! Freaky! So she pointed me to the right way and I got to my hotel, dumped my bags and walked over to the Telstradome. OMGosh, how cool was that, I really wish I took my camera. Seeing the stands and playing field empty was just awesome. I can imagine the atmosphere when there is a game on.

So on in to Paperific and I head to the Buzz and Bloom stand, Helene looks up and says hello quite casually, lol, then she recognised me and I got a huge hug! It was such a buzz to see all of my work up on the stand, hanging on the walls and my torso on the shelf.

(Blogger isn't letting me upload pics, will come back and edit later)

Just before I left for Paperific I had also received an email to say that I had received a special mention in the Get Creative ATC competition and my ATC would be on display, so I found that plus the magazine spread, that was a thrill too. You can see it in November's issue of Get Creative (a Spotlight magazine).

Then came the countdown for the customers to come it, very funny. The ladies who acted as MC's for any messages over the loudspeakers over the weekend were very entertaining.

I snuck into the trade show before it opened to meet the lovely ladies from Bumblebee Crafts - Dorlene, Joy and Jini. These girls are the best! The nicest! Nothing is ever too much trouble for them!

Then onto serving customers, doing the make and take table for a bit, a tiny bit of shopping, back to the hotel to freshen up. More shopping, then the tradeshow again.

On Saturday I did the make and take table all day, lol, this is a recording.... cut here, sponge here, fold, score, stamp, punch, tie and voila! How many people did I meet! It's all quite a blur. I met people I have swapped with, emailed, names I recognised, and lots and lots of lovely people. Saturday night was the StampHappy dinner organised by Liz which was just amazing. Everyone got a goodie bag with lots of freebies and everyone got a prize! I got an e-zine from Auzzart, which is very cool. I didn't think it would be me, but something changed on Sunday with my thinking and I have come home with so many new ideas and the e-zine fits in with that, so now I am enjoying the mag!

Sunday - more of the same, bit of shopping, chatting, meeting people, then saying goodbyes which is always hard. I headed back to the hotel and got the bus to the airport. Checked in, read my book and a mag, got on the plane, nearly threw up on landing, poor young, trendy guy next to me, lol, off the plane and was attacked by my children! Peggy would not let go of me, she held onto my hand tightly and each time the car stopped, she would unbuckle, lean forward and give me a hug and a kiss.

I didn't spend as much money as I thought I would, so we went out for dinner to treat the kids.

So much more happened, oh yeah I met Gabbie, lol. You can see a pic of us on her blog. That was really cool, we've been chatting for a good 18 months or more now so to meet in real life was just so normal, there was nothing uncomfortable about it at all, we just chatted, laughed, gossiped and giggled.

I also got to meet Deb, and you can also see an atrocious photo on her blog, lol. Those spotlights were hot all weekend!

So many other peope too - Barb, Linda, Ange, Sharon, the Canberra girls, the lovely Ellen, oh and Helene, Devorah, and Moshe, and Claire, Ruth (Claire's mum) who I've met before but didn't know was Claire's mum, Niamh, Jenny (Jendo), funny story there, lol, Gabbie introduced me to 'her friend, Jenny'. I said hi, she wandered off. Then Gabbie told me it was Jendo, lol, well why didn't you say so! Jenny said she thought my hi was a bit cool, lol.

Is that it? I'm not sure, I'll probably think of more later. Will I go back next year? Yep!

Paperific ATCs

2006-10-26T14:07:00.000+10:00

Well I'm off to Paperific tomorrow morning for two nights. I can't wait! It will be so nice to meet lots of friends in the flesh :)

I started and finished my ATCs to swap last night. I sponged, stamped, masked, stamped again, sewed, mounted, glued and printed 40 of them! Yes 40!

Now I have to go and pack clothes, lol.

Announcing the Lime Tarts

2006-10-20T11:49:00.000+10:00

I can't wait to work with these girls.

Go check them out on the site :)