Fun(d)Raiser

I'm selling four items in my Etsy shop, as a means of raising funds for OrientalStampArt's new website. OrientalStampArt is a Yahoo!Groups community for Rubber Stampers who love the Asian/Oriental style of images. The group has been around for many years and has some of the most enthusiastic members around!

Affiliated with the group is a fabulous website, I invite you to have a look: http://www.orientalstampart.com/

That website is so jam-packed with information and artwork that our current server cannot handle the sheer amount of goodness we have to offer, and it has to be upgraded. This costs money.

Selling these items I made is my contribution to the cause.

All proceeds of this sale will be going DIRECTLY to the website upgrade.

Postage on this item is FREE to the buyer.



For more information on OSA see this glorious review by fellow Australian Carole Meisenhelter



Here are the items up for grabs:






That's all I have for today.
Yesterday I celebrated 10 years of landing in Australia for a "new" life.
Tomorrow, we'll see what tomorrow brings :)

The Maneki Neko necklace has been sold already as has the magnet with the Geisha holding an umbrella.

Faux wood, rice pudding, and a preview

I've been having another faux wood/scrimshaw attack... months after I actually made my turtle necklace (see previous posts). A technique can be very addictive when you enjoy it, I try to use it as much as I can!!!
But first, I'll point you towards Julz's Blog as she tried this technique and her results are wonderful. I've yet to bring myself to actually texturise the wood...

Oh, and you MUST SEE Kim Cavender's wood cuff, oh and this one too, they are absolutely gorgeous... When I grow up I want to clay like that!! Have a look at the rest of the cuffs while you're there (and the rest of her work. If you're not familiar with Kim's work, you should be!!).

And these are my latest "faux wood/ivory/scrimshaw" efforts:

I've also done some colourful playing, assembling some casts I'd made a little while ago. I used some oval jump rings for this. I'd probably need to hammer them to make them stronger! I'll get to that eventually. I even made the little clasp but it didn't fit in the picture.

I just love this mould. It's called AM019 Med Etruscan Shield and you can see pricing on this page near the bottom. This is the mould used in the top pendant too. The round pendant was made with AM332 X5Lge 7 UP (prices available on bottom of this page). You can order these moulds through various people depending where you live. If I get myself organised, I plan on bringing a few pendants to the next craft meeting, we're having a pre-loved sale, and a "bazaar" of things we make ourselves, if nothing else, it'll be great eye candy for everyone to see what everyone else has been up to :)

Here's something else I made with the Etruscan Shield:

And with two products I've been wanting to try for a while, some Sheer Heaven Vellum, and Tim Holtz's Adirondack Alcohol Inks!!! I've been using Pinatas, and quite like them (bought them before the T.H.A.A.I. were available) but, like many, I am a sucker for the colours in the Adirondack range! Specially Terra Cotta and Butterscotch!!! *grin* That stamp is one from The Stampsmith, which I hadn't used in a looooong time!!! I think I stamped it in Russet, from the Archival range (also from Ranger).

I'm also hoping to be shown the ropes of Felting, by Kylie Mell who has been playing with felt a bit. I saw her do ONE DOT and saw a gorgeous little calico bag she'd made. It's contagious! I've used the back of one of my calico bags to experiment on, so far, added 3 felt hearts (cut out from Spotlight felt) and even made a freelance flower with a stem, with fibres I felted myself. It's not perfect, but it's satisfying somehow... yup, all I need is another craft! Though, anything that is quick and yields good results is what I prefer these days as my time is limited and evenings are usually spent preparing something for the next day's lunches. My two are a bit ... how can I put it, particular about what they like and don't like, and I can't make anything with peanut butter, due to allergies (I respect that, but it does make my life a bit difficult as pb, but... I'd really hate to be the parent who sent a pb sandwich to school and killed a child!!!)

Speaking of food made me think of this recipe which I quite like on cold Winter weekend mornings: Creamy Rice Pudding, just make a bit more rice than you need for dinner, and you have the perfect excuse to have that the next morning! I made it without the egg the other day as we were all out of eggs, and it wasn't as thick, but it was still delicious. It did have a strange-ish but pleasant taste but that's entirely my fault as I went to pour in some cinnamon (I love cinnamon, I add it and nutmeg to the recipe) and realised, only too late, that I'd put cummin in there! I scooped out as much as I could (I don't think I love cummin in the same quantities as I love cinnamon). I kidded myself that it was an Indian breakfast! I did enjoy it. The girls didn't want to touch it, and by the time DH got up, there was none left ;)

I still haven't received my copy of Altered Arts Magazine, in which a tin I made is published, so I'm giving you a sneak preview anyway:

Hmmm, well, I can't wait til the postie brings this mag home!!!

Electronic Copy of Beads Etc is available!

If you subscribe to the newsletter you can see the whole magazine for free, and have access to past issues too!
The mould is from Krafty Lady.
Although I did mention it when I sent the article to the magazine, they didn't print it (well I didn't see it when I read it quickly, must read it more in depth, but then I wonder why since I wrote it, after all!)... the idea for using only two colours to get the look, came from this faux scrimshaw tutorial. I credit the technique throughout the Krafty Lady site! So apologies to my inspiration, I did try to give you credit in the article!

A picture is worth a thousand words

Beads Etc. Coming out in July! I am so very excited!!! The turtle necklace (upper right) is mine :) made with a Krafty Lady mould. Didn't they do such a great job with the photography!!!


Below, page in June 08 of Vamp Stamp News (also very excited)


The Egyptian, Paris, Blue Kimono and Daisy pieces are mine.
Stamp credit:
Egypt: Non Sequitur
Blue Kimono, Daisy, and Paris: Inkastamps
Moulds by Krafty Lady



the necklace is mine, this was on the back of Vamp Stamp News (June 08). Beads are stamped polymer clay, stamp from About Art Accents, focal bead is from Krafty Lady.

And I also have a tin coming out in Altered Arts, also in July, but don't have the magazine yet. What a busy month... and I haven't submitted anything since so that'll be it for a while in that field!!

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 :)

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!)