Fun facts and a friend's digi shop

For all you papercrafters out there, I have a good e-friend (Heather T) who just opened a digi shop, she sells beautiful digital kits she made herself.
Her shop is here: http://oohlalaartsy.wordpress.com/
her blog is here: http://oohlalaartsy.blogspot.com/
She's got some gorgeous stuff and I think it's really reasonably priced! it can even be used for non-(s)crapbooking applications!!! LOL!
Now i have to learn Photoshop!!
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Another interesting piece of news (well, it's not new news, but it's new info to me!) fancy my reaction when I found out that Crocs started in my homeland of Québec!! (oh yeah, don't mind, I think sandals are spelled "sandals" but the journalist spelled them "sandels". There used to be a time where spelling was an integral part of a journalist's tools? I make typos all the time... but I'm not a journalist ;) bee in my bonnet, that...
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Last night I got a good reminder to not believe everything I read on the Internet, that everyone who publishes on the 'net has their own agenda, some people's agendas are quite simple, share, have fun, etc. Other people's agenda is to incite you to believe in what they believe, and slyly do so... I got really upset last night about something I read on a website, about some policy (yes, I should know better!), then reading further than that one page on the site, I realised that the website in question seemed to have an agenda, and that the article that got me so upset might have been written (it was also translated from another language) in a way, and using words, to make us tend towards a different understanding than what was actually written. I do hope that's the case for that site as the article was quite disturbing. Anyway, thanks for letting me air this out... and remember, it's not all true, but the truth is out there somewhere... it's just very hard to find.

Again, the Internet, for all the crap and smut it serves up, is also a great place for information, inspiration, and opening our eyes to new concepts. New ideas. So Freedom of speech/expression does have it's place. Just check your facts, or scratch the surface a bit, if you're about to get upset about something :)
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SOME OLD, SOME NEW
I'm uploading some stuff on Etsy, hopefully all month, a piece a day: DESTASHING!!!
My last upload was a fun pair of toad earrings, which I called "Handsome Prince Earrings"... for $5! And if you are in Australia, and you ask (just say "I read on your blog that I could pay in Australian Dollars" or smoething), I will let you pay postage and all in Australian dollars. Not a huge discount, but it means you can DD without having to worry about currency conversion. Sadly this is good only for australian addresses.

ON THE CAR FRONT
we got a great deal from Tony's Car Hire in Fremantle... it's not a cadillac, but it runs and it's cheap and it'll do us good while our car is getting all fixed up!!

Ok, enough rambling, just really wanted to tell you about Heather's shop but I got carried away. It happens :)

Oriental Pendant

I just uploaded this to My Etsy, part of my efforts to destash and fundraise for our car (it needs a bit of a repair! it doesn't run at all at the moment)! *sigh* I hope to list one item a day for the next little while. It's a goal. We'll see if I can persevere.

Yes, our car died yesterday, and they announce rain all week, it's back to the "old fashioned way", gotta do the grocery shopping by bus again. Good thing I always knew this could happen and I still have my little "old lady bag on wheels" :)

On the upside, I found a friend (Hi JK!) who shares a guity passion for CSI:Miami so we're swapping episodes! Fun!

Nothing much else to report. So I'll leave it at that.

Earring Caddy

earring caddy
Originally uploaded by France : acanuckinoz

I've been wanting to make one of those for a while, and now I have!
I used to buy chicken/rat wire, and hang a large piece on my wall, and hang all my earrings from there. At the bottom, I would have S shaped hooks that you get from Ikea, to hang necklaces. My rack stayed in Canada when I moved here, and since we rent, I haven't even thought about asking permission to put in nails in the wall, but I'm working on an idea for the wall...
I have so many missing pairs of earrings, or singles, it'll be nice to have one place to put them all! Still working on a way to make the base a bit more sturdy.
I've been in touch with Stacey to see if she'll repost the instructions for the caddy, they are fairly simple anyway, you can sort of guess how just by looking at the pic.

i've made a few more things lately but since they are off to being submitted to VampStampNews, I can't show anything just now.

I also recently purchased some Aanraku bails and am in the process of making some very simple pendants (yeah, I keep thinking "Etsy" but I never quite get there!).

Ok, better go make dinner. And of course, the day wouldn't be complete, according to the girls, without Anzac Slices, a recipe based on Anzac Biscuits. We don't have relatives (luckily) who were in the war, or any war that I know of... but it's still a day where we have a thought for all those who lose their lives in these needless conflicts. I think it takes a very special kind of person to join the army, kudos to those who do, and thank you (I just wish the people in power wouldn't send you off to war!)

I've been tagged (again) and I finished my faux ceramic pieces!

I've been tagged by Zeborah Loray
This is how it goes:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.5
. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.
Here are my 7 random facts about me. They pretty much are still the same things I would say now, except maybe I'd add that I loved Hotel Babylon and had to find a way to watch Season 2 as Aussie TV hasn't put it on yet, and also have had to find a way to get my hands on episodes of CSI Miami cos it's been cancelled everywhere in Australia other than Victoria (where they have a blackout of Underbelly!) - so I guess, I'm addicted to a couple tacky shows ;)

Now, to tag 7 other bloggers:
Can't do that *grin*. If you do want to be tagged however, do let me know and it'll be my pleasure to do so :)

This said, I'm glad Zeb tagged me because I didn't know about her blog, and through her blog I found Annette, Barb, and AfterMidnight's blogs!!!
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I've been busy with Faux Ceramics (edited as I'd previously called it Porcelain. Go figure!)!! Finally finished my set of Krafty Lady Christmas Decorations!!! Yay! I'm pretty happy with them, and am finding that I'm getting the hang of the technique now, better than that necklace I made!! But I still like the necklace. :)

Anyway, Santa's eyes leave a bit to be desired, but I was never really good at painting, but overall I'm really excited about the results! If you want to learn about this, see my posts tagged "faux ceramic" (in the list on the right) I did cast these with Sculpey Ultralight, which I find, pound for pound, to be less expensive than regular polymer clay, and I find it works quite well for me for this technique (though I have no idea of long term results!) - they will all go up on Krafty Lady but ... here's a sneak peek of my Christmas set!!




I've made two more pieces, even including some rubber stamping! It'd been a while since I'd gotten out my stamps, it felt really nice, but I also felt like it's taking a while for my muse to be awake... But I had fun, and that's the main thing!
I'm submitting them to a magazine, so if they don't get accepted you'll see them here, or on the Krafty Lady galleries (Design Team's or Main Gallery).
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Better get in the laundry before the sun sets, it's been getting cold here lately... all of a sudden Summer is gone and it's Autumn! (though, really, Autumn officially starts here on 1st March!)

Again, thanks for stopping by :) It's really nice to see people from all over the world on my Feedjit map! Even if you stop by only for a brief moment, it's nice to know YOU were here!!

Lost little froggie

This little guy, made by Christen Jo Fraser, went walkabouts at the Sydney Easter Show. It won second place, and I have a feeling it didn't run away by itself, I think he was frogknapped... so if you do know where he is, can you contact me at france @ iinet. net. au (you'll have to copy and paste this and remove the spaces.
Jo wouldn't mind getting him back!!!

I will spare you a long dissertation on how I feel about these walkabouts.... and I'm sure most would agree with me, except those who do such things!

Yet more talk of Faux Ceramic and some eye candy

After scouring the web to find a "free source" for a technique similar to this tutorial I bought on ePattern Central, a few weeks ago, as a friend wanted to know the technique and I didn't feel too right sharing the paid-for-tutorial-in-a-pdf-with-a-password-even, two more posts about Faux Ceramic popped up on the blogosphere! I just had to post about THAT :) good things come in threes!! I guess.

Crafty Goat who links to Laura Griffin who credits Patricia Kimle for the original tutorial in Step by Step Beads magazine... well... Patricia Kimle is the author of the tutorial I bought on Pattern Central.com (Bright Light Beads)!!!


Today we went to Point Walter and saw up to 9 black swans at some point! Some were funny, they'd swim with one leg, having the other one sticking outside the water. The first one I saw like that, I thought had a broken leg, but then I saw three of them do it, then put their leg back in the water. Strange habit ;) I think I saw a dolphin fin too, but never saw it resurface... then again, maybe it was the Loch Ness monster *VBG* (I'm pretty sure I saw a dolphin's fin!)

It was a beautiful day with a temperature of about 26°Celcius! Just so relaxing!!!

I uploaded a few new pieces on the Krafty Lady website:




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Now I don't know if any of you got alerted to many new posts by me today, I'm sorry if you did. I decided to close my other blog (Stampamajiggies) where I planned on having tutorials, and place the posts here on this blog. This blog is such a mish mash of my whims and fancies that structure is the least of my problems, and then people don't have to go to two places. I still intend on updating (well, as up to date as it was about three years ago) the magazine index, to have it here on the blog as it's on a website that I don't even know if it exists anymore.... but that is SO different than what goes on here, that it's ok to keep it separated!
So they are all moved, all nine posts (as many as the black swans!) so this should be the end of mayhem! I hope :)

Another Faux Ceramic Tutorial!

Yay! Love it when things happen like that. Just yesterday I was posting about a Faux Porcelain/Ceramic tutorial and today, while reading Parole de Pâte (in French, with some English Translations), I find another tutorial I'd stumbled across before but couldn't find!! I remembered the picture quite vividly and thought I'd seen it in a book, but couldn't find it! It's HERE!!!

FUN!!! There's one more way to make porcelain looking beads on Parole de Pâte and this one has been translated in English.

Ooops, gotta run, it's Sunday, laundry to do, polymer clay to bake, grocery shopping to be done (heck, if they are opening shops on Sunday, I'll procrastinate Saturday, of course!)

Enjoy the school holidays!

Beads and moulds

I found neat tutorials for wire here and I subscribed to the newsletter.

There's the "dailies" (or would that be dailys?)...
Of course, we all know about Polymer Clay Daily, but there's also Beading Daily and I also found Polymer Clay @ Craft Gossip, they gossip about other crafts too:

CraftGossip Homepage, Knitting News, Crochet, Bath And Body, Candle Making, Jewelry Making, Scrapbooking, Recycled Crafts, Needlework News, Cross-Stitch, Indie Crafts, Felting, Stamping, Quilting, Polymer Clay, and Sewing ! Now, that ought to satisfy just about everyone!

I was particularly happy to find this post (linking to an old tutorial) because I bought a tutorial from ePatterns.com on how to achieve this effect -- it wasn't very expensive, but I didn't feel right telling the secrets as I know those authors make money from the sale of their instructions and I hadn't been able to find the same instructions for free elsewhere on the web, so I felt a bit bound by copyright issues, kwim? So now that I found a tutorial, I don't feel wrong pointing to it. I'm not giving away all the secrets of the project, but now you can achieve the glazed look... ;)

I did find however that this technique doesn't leave a rock hard finish, but rather a rubbery feeling finish... Maybe I'm doing something wrong. This was my first necklace with the technique:

I have another few WIP (work in progress) with this technique... I quite like the effect of the blue!! Looks like old porcelain or something.

Something else I liked finding at Craft Gossip was this post is about Amanda, a local Western Australia clayer! That was neat!

Ok! It's public now!!! There are new Art Moulds© on the Krafty Lady site! See here (AM332 to AM340), and here (AM341 onwards).



This little pic is just to whet your appetite, go to the site to see more!!!

Pain in the butt (and a post sans-eye-candy)

Yes, that was me yesterday, started on Saturday afternoon, went on through Sunday... I have NO idea why, but all I know is that I had a lot of pain in my buttocks, on the left side, middle of the gluteus maximus... and it sort of went from my calf to my waist... Must've slept weirdly or sat in a strange position for too long on Saturday (did lots of work on the computer, for a certain update on a certain mould site)... but OUCH!!! Hurt when I sat down, or when I got up, wasn't too bad if I was just sitting or just standing, but doing the grocery shopping on Sunday was painful... never knew how much I use my butt muscles when I stroll around with the trolley!!! Also never really noticed how people tend to get in MY way! LOL! I always try to have a good attitude when I go shopping as most people are in a foul mood and also always in a hurry, but on Sunday I found most everyone very annoying (pain in the butt, remember??), I stuck to my left, like any good Aussie should but people still got in my way!! Did you know not every country goes to the left when you meet someone in a hallway or on the sidewalk!! I found that out the hard way!! *grin*

Anyway, on Sunday evening I had had enough... I wanted to go to work on Monday, I wanted to get better so I could take a day off later in the week when I could run my errands, or at least walk them without pain rather than take a sickie! (Sickies are SUCH a waste of time!!)

I bought some wheat a while ago, and finally got around to making my wheat bag! I wanted to know how long to microwave it for, so I looked around on the web and found this website, loved the instructions, though I made mine my own way with what I had on hand. There's also instructions for neck warmers there, and a few other "warming" things... Might make a nice one for the girls, as we had a bit of a sad accident last year when one of our waterbottles leaked, with rather hot water inside... NOT FUN!!!

Not sure if it's the wheat bag's heat, the panadol, or a good night's sleep but I felt back to my regular self (still with plantar fasciitis and heel spurs and all, but at least no more pain in the bum!). If mine had been as nice as Angela's (and I do mean the wheat/corn bag, and not my bum!!), I would show you a picture, but in the meantime, go see her site and think about it... I heard you can make them with buckwheat too, and even add lavender to the mix. I also found this site from NZ Consumer Affairs, which talks about the dangers of such bags and precautions to take (for instance, I had no idea they could burn - i.e. combust!!).

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Onto things beady..... I found Beading Time, where there's a few beading projects -- beading AND wire -- under Beading Project, and nice close up photos... now I know what to do with those charlotte crimps... all those things I needed to learn are there (or the ones I was aware of not knowing all that well)...
There was another tutorial site I'd found via an eBay shop... but I can't find it for the life of me. I think I found the URL but the site has all changed... *sigh* what a bummer... Anyway if/when I find it again, I'll try to remember to bookmark it (and post about it). In the meantime, I think Fire Mountain Gems have pretty cool tutorials.

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Another fun tutorial I found (after Easter, but which I'm making sure I don't forget for next year!!) is this dyed eggs one. And while you're there, check out the bread pudding recipe. Looks delicious! She's got more eggs here

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Still no eye candy today (wish I could show you some of the upcoming KL moulds... but I can't!! Join the group if you want to be amongst the first to see them!!, I'm still working on the same swap... and I realised that when I start blogging, I start thinking about things, and wanting to share links, and it takes me forever to find them sometimes (and sometimes I dont even find them at all!!!) and I forget the initial reason for my coming here to post. :)
hmmm, I'm sure there was something else I wanted to say... guess it'll keep (if I can remember it!)

Quick card for last minute present!

A very quick post today...
Last week was really busy, and the girls had a birthday party on Friday evening, at 4PM, and we got back from school at 3:30 and I kid you not, I didn't have time to wrap the present or make a card (or get them to wrap the present) until 3:31 PM on Friday!!!
Luckily I had some spare $1 a sheet wrapping paper, from places like Red Dot...
Picked one that was nice and cheerful, and cut out a section of the wrapping paper for the handmade card (anyone who has made cards in the past probably feels the same way I do about buying a card, to the point where you almost wished you had because you're running out of time!). So this is what I came up with... stamped Happy Birthday randomly on the background (not even stamped that well, but in that case I figured it didn't matter, I am not one for "imperfect images" usually but sometimes it's got to do!!)... It helps too to have envelopes handy (which I did, I stamped Happy Birthday inside as well, the girls wrote their greeting, and off we went!!! We were the first ones at the party! LOL!)



Also I found out today that Inka from Inkastamps has a blog! And she even has giveaways on her blog. She is one of those "rubber stamping" person that you just can't help but love, she's generous, funny, and also a lot of fun to hang around. SHe used to have a Yahoo!Group, and it was just a hoot... anyway. I had to mention it.

Thanks for the nice comments (they are all friends of mine so far! LOL!) on my previous post!!! It's nice that notes I made (yes, I often will jot things here so I don't forget about them) are interesting to others... I'll try to ramble in that way more often.

I don't have much to show, all my spare time (whatever little I've had) was spent wrapping birthday presents and making cards :) or working on the Oriental Stamp Art swap.... Really, Seriously, Truly... oh, and how can I forget... working hard to update Kristine's Krafty Lady site!!! Of course!!! ;) better go, grocery shopping is calling, yet again!!

Welcome one and all!!!

I installed a little Feedjit gadget to my blog recently after seeing one on Tina D.'s website. Curious I guess, wanting to know how people get here, and if anyone came!
WELL!!!! I had NO idea! I've seen places listed that warmed my heart, some that surprised me even! Today I started with a new counter, just for fun. Why not?

Welcome to all of you! I hope your visit is worth it, I don't blog very often, but I try. Thanks to those who link to me, that was really nice to see to "arrived from..." but even the "left via ..." were great to spot, nice to know people are following some links I thought were worth a mention!!!

Following on the Freebie theme from last time here's another one I forgot about Whatever . . .Whenever

Here's Artella's Free Treasure Chest, with goodies for papercrafters and a free e-Artella too as the first free offer on that page.

Dover, makers of clipart books, also offer freebies. Each week you get a newsletter with previews of their books, and there's free downloads, in all sorts of categories, from recipes to origami!

Pate'n'roll, another France doing polymer clay things (she does really lovely things, but if I'd said "Another France doing lovely polymer clay things" it would have sounded a bit conceited! :) ) has an amazing list of Polymer Clay links to tutorials, the list is in French, but it links to French and English tutorials. Just go to her Blog and click on the menu on the side which states "Bible des liens vers tutos". While you are there, have a look at her gorgeous little Kosheki dolls tutorials. If you don't have Polymer Clay handy, I'm cure you can improvise... marzipan sounds good!!! :)

Kokeshi Originally uploaded by Pate'n Roll

Julie has some beautiful new stuff, go have a look!

While I'm here, I just realised (to my utter deception *grin*) that Beads Etc is bi-monthly, so the issue in which I will have the priviledge of having my necklace published, is not coming out next month, but, according to my very (un)scientific calculations, it's probably going to be out at the end of June or sometime in July.... it's going to be a long wait, but if my (un)scientific calculations are correct, I think there's also going to be a project by Lisa Henderson/Lily Briar Studios in the same issue.... To be continued.....

Altered Arts Magazine's Altered Tin I submitted might be a few months as well, so I'd better learn some patience... REAL QUICK!!!!!

Off to bake some polymer clay to finish a few items for a swap on Oriental Stamp Art and finish working on the new graphics for the new Krafty Lady Moulds!!! Wait til you see them!!!!!! They are not up yet, but you can see new items by the Design Team if you want to go have a look around!

Again, thanks for taking the time, even if only a few seconds, to stop by my little blog!!!