Behind the Yart, 2016 edition

I've just had some artwork publishing in "Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft" - it's been a while since I've done that, so I'm pretty pleased.

The project features Dina Walkely's gorgeous bird stamps, the ones I insisted Michelle (of Mixed Media Art) get lots of for selling at Picture to Page, the fantastic papercraft show she was exhibiting at. And she runs the whole show too, so, you know, she doesn't have to do what I say. But she stocked upon bird stamps, and wow, were they popular!

So I decided to do a project with them.

The ideas for what project started when I made this birthday card:

The background of that main picture is printed with a Gelli Plate and a stencil from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. The awesome honeycomb background is a die from Sizzix, and I've picked out some of the hexagons to have decorative paper, and text, showing through. Yes, all of that was an awful faff.

So, I decided to make a project featuring the birds. I decided to leave out the gelli plate idea, because that's good enough for another whole project.

Here's on of my play sheets. I cut birds out of this, using the Stampin' Up Project Life dies (nice even rounded rectangles every time). Later switched to adding those background stamps AFTER colouring - the lovely Jane from the magazine warned me that colouring with alcohol-based markers over dye-based ink can be bad news for your markers, so I'm not going to recommend bad methods!

When I'd made my "bits", I spent ages shuffling them around, and had fun taking photos of the arrangements. That turned out to be super practical - I could walk away and review my work on the phone or tablet. It gets you thinking about composition.

Here's one of my compsition tests. There were lots.

And if you want to see you it turned out, maybe you need to grab volume 22, issue 6 of Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft! Here's a sneak preview:

Just love those adult colouring books...

We got a pretty new quilt cover just recently. And it comes with an activity!

So I got out my best colouring pencils...

Phew, that took frickin' ages!

Good day at the market

It's always a good shopping day when you have to photograph the capsicums before you can eat them!

Commission some art!

Here it is, the Christmas present solution you've been looking for. Commission some art! The lovely Sarah at Popcorn Blue did a beautiful drawing for my anniversary gift to Jeff. Now she's looking for more commissions for Christmas. I can tell you she consulted with me a lot, managed her time well, took heaps of care, and packed the artwork really well. Get her at [email protected]

A nice day's market shopping

Last week at the trash and treasure market, I bought a box of mixed coloured pencils. Look what I got out of it! A whole tin of (about) 90 Albrecht Durer coloured pencils. That's the fancy kind. And I already had a cute Lindt tin just the right size. The couple of short pencils were already in my collection.

More wallpaper for you

Just ideal to use as a desktop background on your device or laptop, here's a cool texture. You can see the real thing on an upper floor of Young and Jacksons pub in Melbourne. It's the decorative wall treatment on the stairwell.

Catriona's room coming along nicely too

The painting is well underway in this room. The dark blue wall is a special feature we cooked up. It's crying out for star stickers now, isn't it?

Winter day joy

There seem to be a lot of rainbows around Melbourne at the moment.

Here, have a desktop

When I take photos these days, I look for things I will enjoy as wallpaper on the PC, the Mac, the iPod, or the iPad. Here's one. I have a landscape version too, of course. This is the Corowa Chocolate and Whisky Distillery. We had the chocolate, not so much the whisky.

Anniversary part 5 - my present to Jeff

Did you do your homework? Go and look at part 4 again

For my present to Jeff, I approached local artist Sarah from Popcorn Blue (I bought a print from her at a design market) to draw us... as animals. Jeff gets to be a dapper meerkat, and I am a pardalote (a cool little bird). Sarah draws a lot of animals, but she was keen to try whatever I suggested.

Our bear, The Oxford Bear, is in the picture too, ready to join us on honeymoon.

Sarah drew this in Prismacolor pencils. I use them too, but I don't get the results she does.

Have a look at Popcorn Blue's site, lots of interesting prints to buy, and you'll find out where she's exhibiting next.

An actual use for that fancy duct tape!

Yesterday I was delighted - while shopping for back to school stuff for the kids, I bought some cool patterned duct tape. I never realised I needed that stuff!

But it was already in danger of just hanging around the house - it needed a PURPOSE!

Amazingly, a purpose arose just about immediately.

We have a few iPads in the family - two original ones, now used by the kids, and two new ones, belonging to the grow ups. We grow ups take pride in seeking out the nicest covers for our gadgets. Jeff has a cool Eiffel Tower. Mine was supposed to be bright green, but due to (my) mix up while ordering, it's plain black. Both the older ones are plain black. That means, it can be hard to know whose is whose!

Ta daaaah! This kids' one has penguins on it now. I like the result so much (and of course it can peel right off) that I'm off to do mine now!

Christmas crackers made by us!

This year, Thomas, Jonathan and I collaborated to make Christmas crackers. The funnies were written by the boys, and the treats were chocolates, choo-choo bars, tiny cars, and tiny toy mice. And spoons. Lots of spoons. They all went bang very loudly, thanks to the snaps I bought in advance.

Lime Macarons - that's tangy!

Pete at work brought in a bag of small limes - apparently a friend had been pruning some trees and had an oversupply. Well, I prepared a year ago by telling Pete that I love limes, so he gave a lot of them to me.

Here's what I made - Lime Macarons. There's zest in the shells, and lime juice and zest in the white chocolate ganache filling. Very tasty indeed.

By the way, I think I've solved the problem of air pockets in the macarons. See this post where I grumble about it.

I am using the same recipe as ever (that's the one that uses Italian meringue), but now I add about half a teaspoon of powdered egg white. That goes into the egg whites just before the syrup. That idea came from Adriano Zumbo, in his cookbook Zumbarons. Seems to make all the difference - the biscuit part of the macaron is soft bikkie all the way through now, not a thin layer of bikkie, then a bubble, then a shell.

Now just need to get the colour right. As a person who owns plenty of paint (not quite game to say "artist") I can't help noticing this green is not the right one at all. But I only have a few food colourings, so I'm using this closest. Do I want as many food colourings as I have paints? Probably not!

In a wibbly wobbly world of my own

I know what you're thinking ... who is that vivacious woman? Well, that's me. I had number one son take a photo of me. But why am I looking so pleased with myself? Well, it's partly because it's my day off, partly because the sun is out, but mostly because I have a new necklace!

The legendary Cathy Daulman, who comes to my stamp club, has been getting interested in polymer clay, and especially, making moulds. Tiny dolls are a special favourite of hers at the moment. And what are the nicest tiny dolls? Jelly babies! Cathy had a go at making a jelly baby mould - the first go was cast from an actual jelly baby, but it wasn't a complete success. So she turned her hand to carving her own jelly baby, and making a mould from that. The result was completely fantastic! I caught her tinkering with a necklace, and commissioned one on the spot.

We had much discussion about colours. I sent her samples of my favourite colours. I even questioned the colour of one of the prototype beads - but here's the end result, and I think it's FABULOUS!

Want one? Try contacting Cathy through her My Stamps web site, http://mystamps.bizland.com/

Purple paint is weird - scientific proof

I have a big set of Prismacolor pencils in my craft room. They sit in three cups, sorted into warm, cool and neutrals.

I also have a big skylight in that room. the room is very bright, if you leave anything printed there, it fades rapidly!

I noticed today that the pencils are fading! Well, not the pencils, just the paint on the casings of the pencils. And not all of them, just these few. All of the affected pencils are pinky-purple shades.

Since taking the photo, I've reviewed the whole set of 144. The ones that have faded are 929 rose, 931 dark purple, 956 lilac, 934 lavender, 993 hot pink, 994 process red, 1007 imperial violet, 1009 Parma violet, 1017 clay rose, 1029 mahogany red, 1038 neon pink.

I noticed 932 violet and 996 black grape are fine. As are all the other colors!

Just thought I'd record it here to see if anyone else is interested.

The holiday collage project begins

Last year in Perth I had fun making ATCs (that's artist's trading cards). This year I'm trying again. All I've brought from home is neatly cut cards, glue, scissors, pencils, a little tub of gesso, and what's left of the trashy romance novel I bought at an op shop last year. And some small stamps. And black ink.

All the other material I'm using is scrounged here - newspaper magazines and the like.

This is the first finished card (not counting the one I don't want to show). No, her grumpy attitude is not mine, it's just a good phrase I found in the book.

This years pencils are Derwent tinted charcoal pencils, so we're going to have a rather earthy palette. And messy fingers.

It's green, you know...

What do you want to see first, the work Christmas party, or a cool bug?

Yeah, me too!

This is a cool cicada Jonathan found on the Green Waste bin this morning. Made my day, just a little bit.

Put on your party shoes, paint the town ... green?

Work Christmas party tomorrow night! Jeff and I work together, so we are both double-invited! Always a pleasure to go to these events - the boss enjoys good food, and MAKES good wine (Gentle Annie boutique winery, look it up), so we always enjoy the night.

This year is special.

First, it's on a boat.

Second, we have lots of female employees this year. It's been a good year for recruitment. Naturally, all the tech women had a meeting today to discuss the important issue of - what to wear! We agreed to go for dresses, as elegant as possible.

I nipped out to my fave clothing shop at lunch time, not expecting success, but found a terrific silky green dress. My favourite green too.

But I don't have any suitable shoes. Really not a big shoe person. I do have these sort of silver flats that are very comfy. But they don't match at all.

So I whipped out my tiny bottle of Golden Paint's "Green Gold" and gave these shoes a quick green makeover. I'm delighted with the results!

Happy Birthday John!

It's John's birthday today, and I made HIM a card too. Had to make it last week to get it in the mail.

I had fun colouring this with Copic markers.

Happy Birthday John!

I made a card!

There ya go, threw every technique I know at it. I had fun. Used it to justify buying a few more Copic markers.