The Lovely Kate Crane ...

The very talented and lovely Kate Crane in the UK has awarded me a blogging award titled "One Lovely Blog Award" ... thanks so much Kate, I love all those little pictures running down my blog sidebar. You can visit Kate's blog here - http://thekathrynwheel.blogspot.com/ - there's some delectable art eye candy on this site for sure.

Like other blog awards, to keep them alive you pass onto 7 other bloggers. I love and visit regularly so many blogs and find it's so difficult to choose just 7 so feel free to click on any of the blogs I have in my list to the right of this post.

If any of you bloggers that are in my list are reading this post, please feel free to use this image on your own blog as I pass it on to you. I know some of you don't believe in accepting these awards, but as Kate said in her post it doesn't stop me offering it to you and if you want to feel free to pass onto 7 others that might like to receive this award.

While I'm on the subject of Kate, I just have to share with you the Christmas ATC she sent me. I am in loooovvveee with this card and keep looking at it daily, in fact it sits on a miniature wooden easel in front of my computer so I can see it all the time ... pride of place. There are so many layers to the background paint job, I can't stop trying to figure out how she's done it all. Anyway, I know I've already sent Kate a thank you email when I received the card, but I'm going to say thanks again because I can't believe she sent it to me after admiring it on her blog ... thanks so much Kate, you're so lovely and I'm treasuring this miniature artwork you've sent to me.

"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together."
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, German Poet/Dramatist/Novelist~

Bernie Berlin ATC Workshop #5 Swap ... more

My very first attempt at Bernie Berlin's Transfer Technique was a bit daunting initially because I just couldn't get the image to "transfer". Let me tell you that Epson gloss photo paper allows the ink to "stick" too well and the image just won't come off, no matter how hard you burnish it, whether with gel medium or onto watercolour paper with water. I dug around my office and managed to find a cheap no-name brand of photo paper and when I stuck it onto the wet watercolour paper, the ink just just came right off and transferred the image. Of course, I couldn't get the amount of water on the watercolour paper quite right so the images either ran too much or were too light ... either way, I'm pretty happy with the fact that my transfers kind of look like the image I started with.

Here's a couple of the ATCs that I'll be sending to Tammy in the US tomorrow as part of the ATC_World swap - the first one you can see the image has bled a bit and the second one you can see is fairly light and then I've added the original picture...

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
~Charles Horton Cooley, 1864-1929, American Sociologist~

Bernie Berlin ATC Workshop #5 Swap

I've finished a couple of ATCs for the next instalment of the Bernie Berlin Artist Trading Card Workshop swap through ATC_World. This time the techniques to be done are Fun Foam, Tissue Paper and Transfers. I have yet to tackle the transfers but here are the others.

Tissue Paper

Fun Foam

Nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself.
~Liberace, 1919-1987, American Pianist and Entertainer~

Wacky Chairs Swap

I finished my ATCs for the Weird and Wacky Chairs swap through the PaperArts Yahoo Group and sent them off on 22nd December. I made 11 of these and loved making them, although I was a bit over cutting out the little lantern part of the Genie. The background is painted with Making Memories Glaze paint in Emerald Green and then I've sprayed with a bronze glimmer mist and also a black glimmer mist that I dabbed off a bit so it wasn't too dark. It's a little hard to see in the picture, but there's a mist of Kindy Glitz rising out of the lantern and some embossing in the background with Lime Green and the Tim Holtz coffee cup stain stamp to add a bit of texture.

I love doing swaps with the PaperArts group because the quality of work is phenomenal and it has helped me improve so much. I can't wait to meet some of the members at the retreat next year.

Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers. ~William Penn, 1644-1718, British Religious Leader and Founder of Pennsylvania~

Merry Christmas ...

Where did the year go? Suddenly it is December ...... AGAIN ...... Christmas Day no less ..... and we realise that with giant strides we started in January and within a blink of an eye, 2008 is almost over!

A big "Thank You” for your friendship, mateship, laughs, creations and memories during 2008. Without you, I'm sure that 2008 would have been extremely boring.

I wish you all a magical festive Season filled with loving wishes and beautiful thoughts. May 2009 mark the beginning of a tidal wave of love, happiness and bright futures and I hope you get all that you wish for in the year to come.

And to those who want someone special, may you find true love;
To those who need money, may your finances overflow;
To those who need caring, may you find a good heart;
To those that are unwell, may you find health and happiness;
To those who need friends, may you meet lovely people;
Should you be driving during this time.....please take care and stay safe! And please if you win Lotto, remember who wrote this lovely note - "ho, ho, ho".

Merry Christmas and a have a wonderful and prosperous New Year!

So remember while December brings the Christmas Day, in the year, let there be Christmas in the things you do and say. Wouldn't life be worth the living? Wouldn't dreams be coming true? If we kept the Christmas spirit all the whole year through?
~ Anonymous ~

Extraordinary Dog ...

I'm so into dogs since Beau became a part of our family and I just loved this video of Kate & Gin from the show "Britain's Got Talent". Gin is a Bordie Collie, a working dog breed just like our Australian Working Kelpie Beau .... hmmmm ... I can see the lights now ... hmmmm ... Beau, Beau, come here boy ... let's get dancing ... only joking!

Have a wonderful Christmas.

More ATCs completed ...

I finished a couple of ATCs for swaps due this week through The Scrapbook Cupboard (in fact I'm a few days late for one of them).

The first one is for an "Era" swap and the title of my card is "Renaissance painters ... end of an era!". The picture is a tissue that I stuck down with Mod Podge with two angels that look as if they've been painted during the Renaissance period . I then added a frame of plumbers tape that I embossed with the Cuttlebug and rubbed black rub 'n' buf over the top. I used Tim Holtz splatter stamp to add som paint splats.

The next ATC is a very simple one for a "Christmas Tree" swap ... I had good intentions of doing a really cool transfer technique of the tree and then add the bauble and sign ... but time just ran away and I decided a quick card will have to do.

You'll be happy to know that I have done and posted my christmas cards ... finally ... and here's the finished product. Primarily family gets the hand-made cards ... I'm sure friends wouldn't want to have a picture of us sitting on their mantel. Ferg was a pretty good sport about the picture on the card in the end ... although in some of the Irish cards he wrote that he sat on Santa's knee for a promise!! He's a funny boy.

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."
~Norman Vincent Peale, 1898-1993, Pastor, Speaker and Author~

Christmas Carol

On Thursday I went to the Addicted to Scrap swap to hand in and collect ATCs with the theme of a Christmas Carol ... there was a little twist to this card as we were to depict the carol without using words. Of course, the carol I chose (We Three Kings of the Orient Are) I didn't even know (did a search on the internet) so I had to place the words on the back anyway just in case anyone was in the same position as me.

I had the best time making the backgrounds. I was inspired by one of Linda Baldock's techniques that she did sometime ago and I think I could be addicted to it. So here's what I did, firstly I cut up sheets of canvas into ATC size, I then ripped up loads of pieces of tissue paper and stuck them onto the card with Mod Podge or PVA ... I sort of kept the bottom area free, knowing that's where my image was going. Once the cards were touch dry, I sprinkled embossing powder over the card and melted with a heat gun. The next stage was PVA randomly swirled over the card, then zapped again with the heat gun ... this part was really cool because the embossing powder and glue bubbles and pops. I chose two colours of paint - light blue and purple - glaze paints by Making Memories (Linda originally used Lumiere's) and covered the entire surface, again I got out the heat gun until the surface was touch dry ... I really liked this part too, the paints also bubbles up and creates all this extra texture, not to mention the PVA and embossing powders underneath get going again. The final background stage is to add a little bit of gold Rub 'n' Buf and it's done ... voila ... backgrounds ready for image to be stuck down. Here's a pic of the background before I added the picture ... pretty cool huh ... well I thought so anyway.

Oh you might be pleased to know that I actually got my hands dirty ... yep, my hands were covered in glue and paint ... see Kyla, I can get my hands dirty!!!

Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
~Cicero, 106-43 B.C., Roman Author/Orator/Politician~

ATC Quarterly finally received

I received my copy of ATC Quarterly today and I was a little bit chuffed to finally see my work in print. I was featured in a Triptych layout as well as the centre spread with one of my ATCs called "Two Birds of a Feather Flock Together" as the theme this time was Puppy Dogs.

One must lose a fly to catch a trout.
~George Herbert, 1593-1633, English Clergyman and Metaphysical Poet~

Live Swap Meet

I went off the the Live Swap Meet at the Scrapbook Cupboard today and finished 12 of these ATCs this morning ... just before the swap mind you. The image is by Crafty Individuals, scrapbook paper by Cosmo Cricket which I ran through the Cuttlebug with the diamond embossing plate which I'd rubbed Ranger Antique Linen ink all over it and to finish off a little pice of Mica adhered with a few brads.

Now onto the next lot ... Christmas themed ones - Christmas Trees and Christmas Carols Without Words.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

~Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, German Philosopher~

Bernie Berlin ATC Workshop #4 Swap

I feel like everything is moving at super speed in the lead up to Christmas ... I'm either just getting my ATCs created by the deadline or I'm late (because of Christmas need to get them in earlier). I finished the final touches on my cards for the ATC_World Artist Trading Card Workshop Swap Part 4 today and quickly rushed down to the post office to send them off to the wonderful host Tammy (feel free to visit her blog - http://twodogstudio.blogspot.com/). I'm hoping they will arrive on time, but if it's like the last lot I sent to her, they will probably get there a day or so late.

Anyway, here are my interpretations of Bernie Berlin's techniques from her book - Nevr Dull, Phone Book Paper and String:

NEVR DULL - believe it or not, I actually found Nevr Dull at a shop called Horseland in Underwood (right around the corner from Scrapbooks Etc where I spend every Wednesday). As this is a product from the USA, it's not readily available here, so this was a real find. The background was a magazine image of a tiled wall, so I placed the PVA on alternating tiles and then rubbed out the bits in between with the Nevr Dull. The colour I added is of course a Glimmer Mist in the terracotta colour.

PHONE BOOK PAPER - I actually tried Claudine Hellmuth's Peeled Paper technique with the telephone book paper and loved how it turned out. I started with a canvas cut down to ATC size, then used various paints for the background ... I probably could have taken some more colour off as it's a little bright but I liked it so stuck with it.

STRING - by the time I got to the string technique, I was out of ideas and inspiration, so this is a very basic card with scrapbook papers as the background, a public domain image and string to look like rope to make the card appear like it's got something to do with sailors (the title is "Ahoy there Sailor).

I love trying out Bernie Berlin's Artist Trading Card Workshop techniques through this swap and will be doing one of her workshops at the Creative Soul Retreat in March 2009 ... I can't believe I'm actually going to meet her ... it's so exciting.

Now I'm off to start creating some ATCs for the swap I committed to attending on Saturday ... rush, rush, rush, rush, rush ... lucky my hubby's out of town this week. See ya!

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
~Source H. Jackson Brown, Jr, Life's Little Instruction Book~

Things that fly & Tanya's Birthday

I finished this ATC for the Stampers Hut swap which is always due at the end of the month. The theme this time is "Things that Fly" so I figured there would be lots of butterflies and birds and things, so I went with a "Flying Fish". The background is tissue paper sprayed with Sapphire and Spring Mint glimmer mists (I love those glimmer mists ... they're so easy to use).

A group of the scrapping / ATC girls went out to lunch today to celebrate Tanya's 32nd birthday. I was surprised at how many people turned up considering it is a work day ... it was so nice to get together with everyone, it's been ages since I've seen some of the girls.

L to R - Belynda, Kathryn, Kerri, Kyla, Tanya (in the black outfit), Pam, Jane, Lisa, Me (Diana bending), Sarah. Sarah's daughter Claire who's 5, took this photo, isn't she a clever little ducky.

Me and Tanya

You can always guarantee laughs when Kerri & Tanya get together.

I made Tanya an ATC for her birthday instead of a card ... I love receiving small personalised gifts like this and hopefully Tanya did too. The background is courtesy of Valerie Brincheck ... I just love having some ready made backgrounds lying around and the ones she created are beautiful. By the way ... Tanya loves owls, hence the theme.

"You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities."

~Barbara Bush, Former First Lady of the United States~

Kreativ Blogger Award

Another great honour has been bestowed upon me this week ... I've been nominated for a Kreativ Blogger Award from the very talented Kate Crane in the UK. You simply must visit her blog - The Kathryn Wheel - for some delectable art eye candy.

As always with these awards there are a few rules:

1. The winner may put the logo on their blog - check.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award - check.
3. Nominate 5 other blogs for the award - ummmm .... check ... see below.

So this is a Kreativ Blogger Award, does that mean it's to be bestowed upon creative people that have a blog or does it mean these people have creative blogs?? Don't really know, so I've chosen 5 creative artistic people with blogs that I love to visit regularly:

1. Shelly R Sessions - from Louisiana USA. I met Shelly through the ATC_World Yahoo Group and have traded a few ATCs with her over the past year. She's a wonderful artist and a beautiful soul whose friendship I have come to treasure.
2. Kyla De Ruiter - I have known for a few years now locally through scrapbooking and she's the one who introduced me to the wonderful world of ATCs. A talented artist that courageously tries new techniques and her creations are wonderful.
3. Lynette van Barrello - who I've known for sometime through Scrapbooks Etc as she's on their design team and one of their teachers, but only found out this week when I did her class that she has a blog . Lynette's an amazingly talented photographer, has an incredible way with words - her blog is such a laugh and a wonderful scrapbooker (the layout I did in her class last week is below ... isn't my baby Beau so cute).
   
   
4. Linda Baldock - who I know through the PaperArts Yahoo Group and happens to live not far from my mum and dad in Sydney (such a small world). Another very talented artist who also loves experimenting with new techniques.
5. Tammy Hixon - a moderator and hostess that I also met through the ATC_World Yahoo Group. Another very talented and creative artist who has been running one of my favourite swaps - Artist Trading Card Workshop - where the participants are gradually working through each technique from Bernie Berlin's book of the same title (did I tell you I'm doing one of Bernie Berlin's classes at next year's Creative Soul Retreat .... I am so excited).

Such diverse creativity in all of these blogs and these ladies are all so lovely. Do visit their blogs ... you will find so much inspiration.

Until next time,
Diana

Alexis' first Christmas Concert

Yesterday Sylvia, Dave and I attended Alexis' first Christmas Concert at her Day Care Centre Bonny Babes. At 27 months of age, she walked out onto the stage a little overwhelmed at so many people watching her, but soon got into it and didn't even cry like a lot of the other junior toddlers . She really got into the song and dance after a bit, even though she had a slight costume malfunction with her tinsel head band at the beginning. I spent most of the time with tears in my eyes trying not to cry ... I'm a very proud aunty!!

In the video, she's the one standing to the right of Jaxon the boy with the white t-shirt and dark shorts, who's really getting into it. She's wearing a Mrs Clause red Christmas dress.

By the way, the constant background giggling is her daddy and mummy ... they thought it was hilarious.

Enjoy,
Diana

"Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young."
~ Fred Astaire, 1899-1987, American Dancer/Singer/Actor ~

Make Believe

I finished another set of ATCs today for a swap at the Scrapbook Cupboard with the theme "Make Believe". I decided to use a Unicorn as my main image and was going to give it wings, but couldn't find any that I thought would suit so just went with an ordinary Unicorn. The background is K&Company paper (Rhapsody, I think). I then covered it with tissue paper sprayed the whole card with a red/dark pink glimmer mist. Once dried I stamped around the edges with coffee bean brilliance ink. A little bit of brown german scrap along the bottom and voila ... my "Make Believe" ATC is complete.

I missed the deadline slightly as it was due on the 25th and I only handed it in today ... naughty me.

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
~ Og Mandino, 1923-1996, American Motivational Author and Speaker ~

Santa Photo & Queensland Storms

Our local shopping centre arranged for photos with Santa to be taken with you and your pet. Ferg was totally against the whole thing, but I booked Beau in anyway, because I wanted a reminder of our first Christmas together as a family. The only way I could convince Ferg to come along, was to tell him that Beau will be in the photo with Santa alone, that I'll never show anyone and also that he should ensure Beau's safety with all those other dogs around. Once we were there, he got into the mood and we both joined Beau in the photo.

I think it's hilarious getting our photo taken with Santa and for an Irish man Ferg was not laughing much at all ... I think this will have to be our Christmas card photo this year, the one I send overseas to all his family ... now what happened to that promise where I don't show anyone - I'm sure he'll get over it!!!

After our little outing with Beau, I'd spent the rest of the morning updating my blog with the "Tagged" information and the "I love your blog" details, when all of a sudden the power went out at around 1pm. Of course, without access to the internet, I copied and pasted all my information from my blog and kept working away in a word document, until my laptop battery couldn't take it anymore. We rang Energex and were told it would be up shortly, 3pm came and went, 5pm came and went ...

We live on acreage and don't have access to town water or sewerage, so all of it operates via pumps ... which of course runs with electricity!! So we couldn't wash our hands, do the dishes or flush the toilet ... 6pm came and went. We did everything we could whilst there was still a little daylight and then the candles came out. Ferg and I played "Uno" for an hour and a half and then ... ta da ... we had light at 7.30pm ... just before absolutely everything in the freezer defrosted, thank goodness.

Queensland has experienced some incredible storms over the past week as the heat during the day hits 32 - 36 degrees celsius (around 90 - 97 degrees fahrenheit) and then at night the earth is trying to cool itself down and we get high speed winds, lightening, thunder and heavy rain or hail. A lot of places up the coast and in Brisbane have been classified as emergency zones, with 4 huge nights of storms in 5 days all the rivers and dams are at bursting point and there's been a lot of flooding.

We've been pretty lucky here in Coomera as we haven't been hit as hard as some places, but I'm sure our tanks have got plenty of water in them now. Only one small tree fell down and the structure we use to cover Alexis' sandpit is completely destroyed.

"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."
~Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970, Author of Think and Grow Rich~

I've been Tagged ...

I've been tagged by Shelly Sessions this week and as I understand it, this game has a few "rules" to play, so here they are:

1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Write seven random things about yourself.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post.
4. Pass on the tag to seven others.

So here are the 7 random things about me:

1. I am married to the most beautiful, supportive, Irish man - Fearghal, who I love truly and deeply and am so grateful that our paths crossed during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
2. We have a beautiful Australian Working Kelpie dog, Beau, as part of our family. He’s now 16 weeks old, very energetic and we just love him to bits.
3. I have one brother (David) and three sisters (Magda, Sylvia and Natalie). David is 14 years younger than me, is studying to be a chef and lives in our home town St Marys in New South Wales, Australia. Magda is my older half sister (but really there are no halves about our relationship). She lives in The Netherlands and has 2 sons - Ian & Evan. Sylvia is 18 months younger than me, has a daughter Alexis, is currently pregnant and we live together with our husbands on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. Natalie is the youngest and is 16 years my junior. She also lives in St Marys with our parents and brother, although she's up here visiting this weekend.
4. I much prefer to have snakes on our 7.5 acre property than rats, which tend to make their homes in our cars.
5. Ummm, random item number 5 ... I've still got three things to write ... this is not as easy as I thought. Ok, here’s another one - I am attending the Creative Soul Retreat in Melbourne in March next year and I'm so excited. I'll be doing workshops with wonderfully talented artists DJ Pettit, Bernie Berlin and Stephanie Lee and I can't wait.
6. I love getting together with the girls for a night of scrapbooking or creating ATCs and Art. We always end up laughing the night away and having loads of fun.
7. I adore nature and being outdoors. Nothing gives me more pleasure than being on our property and seeing the Kangaroo's jump away; the water dragons rushing across the driveway before we run over them; the ducks swimming in our dam; the Rainbow Lorikeets building their nest in a tree near the house; the hares bouncing out of perceived harm’s way; the goanna’s climbing up trees and little green tree frogs singing (or is that croaking) a chorus whilst stuck on our windows at night.

So the 7 people I have tagged in return are:

• Kyla de Ruiter
• Tanya French
• Linda Baldock
• Tammy Hixon
• Valerie Brincheck
• Kerri Head
• Sarah Walker

I look forward to getting to know you all a little better through your “tagged” responses.

Have fun with it.

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish Playwright and Nobel Prize Winner~

"I Love Your Blog" Award

I always wondered how some blogs received the "I heart (Love?) your blog" award and wasn't too surprised to find that Shelly Sessions was awarded this week and has passed the love onto me. I met Shelly through the ATC_World Yahoo Group and she's become a wonderful friend to me through our regular online chats that I so look forward to from time to time.

Even though I believe in "Blogging Without Obligation", there are a few conditions to accepting this award and because I feel receiving awards like this makes others feel good, I'm going to play along:

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog;
2. Link to the person who nominated you for the award (visit Shelly's wonderful blog by clicking here);
3. The winner then nominates at least seven other blogs (see some amazingly talented artists blogs in my list below);
4. Include the links of these blogs on your own blog (see below).

So, here are my choices for the "I Heart Your Blog Award":

• Linda @ Eclectic Visions of an Altered Journey
• Jade @ Jade's Funky Junk
• Valerie @ The Sum of all Crafts
• Kelsey @ KO ... OK
• Teesha @ Tee's Spree's
• Kelly @ Kelly Rae Roberts
• DJ @ DJ Pettit

I would also have nominated Kathryn in the UK as I love to read her blog, but Shelly has already awarded this honour to her, so didn't add her to my list (a must see blog by the way). I visit each of the blogs listed above regularly as they are all very talented and unique artists that provide me with so much inspiration and have me seeing the world a little differently. I don't know these artists personally, but feel like I've gotten to know them a little bit through their wonderful art and regular blog updates.

I'm also really excited to note that I'll be meeting DJ Pettit at the Creative Soul Retreat in March 2009. There was a vacancy last week and now I am going. I am booked into DJ's Face Painting Class as well workshops by Bernie Berlin and Stephanie Lee. I am so excited can't wait!!

Please visit these fantastic blogs if you have not already done so and continue to spread the love.

"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others."
~ Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894, Scottish Novelist/Poet/Travel Writer ~

"Initial" Swap

The theme for the Addicted to Scrap's swap this month is "Initials" and we were required to do an Initial card that corresponds with the letter of each participant's name. This was quite challenging for me because I wanted all the cards to be similar, but also different ... so I decided everyone was going to get an ATC with a flower that starts with the initial of their first name. For example, D for Diana = Daisy, K for Kyla = Kennedia Prostrata (do you know how difficult it is to find flowers that start with "K" and there were two Ks to do for this swap), P for Pam = Poppy (even though she wanted to be a Petunia - I didn't think of that one); L for Lynda = Lily ... you get the gist.

So here are 4 samples out of 13 ATCs I made for the swap ... not entirely creative as I just used lots of left over scrapbook papers to put this one together. The Garden Gnome was an afterthought, as I had a blank space that kept attracting my eye, so had to fill it with something.

A weed is but an unloved flower.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1919, American Poet and Journalist~

Beau Graduates

Beau graduated from Puppy School this week and I couldn't be prouder. Ferg didn't come along as he had to travel to Melbourne for business, so Beau and I went alone. He managed to sit and drop on command and after a few tries he stayed and came to me. He played up a little bit at his final Puppy School (probably because Ferg wasn't there) and even managed to be the only dog in his class to poop in the middle of the room (how embarrassing).

We'd started leaving the gate open so Beau had free range of the property, but we've had to lock him up again of late as he keeps eating seeds from one of the palm trees (which seem to me to be too big for him to pass ... but he does) and he's taken to munching on cane toads (which can kill him), so until he's a little older and realises these things aren't food he can only be out with us in attendance.

Here's some updated pictures of our little darling, he's 15 weeks old today and managed to put on 2kgs within the last week taking him to a total of 10kgs ... they grow up so fast ...

Beau gets a bone for the first time; Sitting pretty;

On the ready as soon as a ball is in our hands;

Loves playing fetch;

The graduate, he got a little graduation hat and everything (he didn't like it though).

"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person."
~Andy Rooney ~

Quotes ATC

I finished my set of ATCs for the "Quotes" themed swap at The Scrapbook Cupboard this month. I attempted to depict two quotes (or sayings) through the creation of this ATC, which also both tie in together. Firstly, "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" - this quote used to be my mantra when I was on a diet; and the second part is "The party's over when the fat lady sings".

So if you have a think about it, this depiction is kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy in some ways - so you go on a diet because you feel fat, then the party's over; and diets generally fail so if you happen to go on one all the time inevitably you'll end up fat, so then you go on a diet again and the party's over again so you'll be a fat lady that can sing??? Perhaps I haven't really worded that right ... but you get the gist of what I'm alluding to?? Even reading that back makes my head hurt, so here's the ATC anyway.

Enjoy, Diana

"Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels."
~ Unknown ~

ATCs completed for more swaps

I have a very productive few days. I managed to complete ATCs on Friday for the Scrapbook Cupboard Live Swap that I attended on Saturday, I finished the stencil ATCs for the ATC_World ATC Workshop #3 swap that went postal today, I finished the ATCs for the Zettiology Swap through Advanced ATCs UK Yahoo Group, plus 2 WTAs for the winners through ATC_World, 1 WTA for the winner through Advanced ATCs UK and 3 RAKs for people that have sent me cards or gifts without expecting anything in return. I feel like I can breathe again for a few moments before my next swap is due on 14th November.

Here are my latest creations, the first one is titled "Fez Monkey" and this is the ATC I created for the Scrapbook Cupboard Live Swap. The second one is my Stencil creation for the ATC Workshop swap.

If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.

~ Source Unknown ~

Masking ATC

I finished my ATCs for The Stampers Hut swap last night as they were due today, so I got them in just on time. This month's theme was "Masking". The ATC looks pretty basic, but did take a bit of time as there are three layers to the card. I stamped and embossed the lady first, then covered her over with a piece of paper cut to the exact size, I then stamped the barcode and covered that over with a piece of paper and then finished off with the final stamp, which is the script. I like the combination and was happy with how it all turned out.

I also finished all of my "gesso & magazine images" for the ATC Workshop #3 swap through ATC_World. They're not the best cards I've ever done, but it was the first time I've done this technique from Bernie Berlin's ATC Workshop and they're an experience. I ended up making 6 cards even though only 3 are required for the swap, because Pam & Kyla are also participating, so we're swapping with each other also ... the more cards the merrier I say.

I still have a set of ATCs due for the Live Swap tomorrow at The Scrapbook Cupboard, which I will be finishing as soon as I complete this post, as well as the "Stencil" ATCs for ATC_World, 3 ATCs for WTA Winners and my "zettiology" ATCs for the Advanced Artist Trading Card UK Yahoo Group swap that all need to be sent out on Monday ... I'm going to have a very creative weekend, luckily Ferg (dh) is in Sydney until sometime tomorrow, so I should get quite a bit done.

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
~ Arthur C. Clarke ~