Friday, September 27, 2019

10 things I'm Grateful for...


In no particular order...Here goes...
  1. My bed is comfy!
  2.  Air Conditioning.
  3. Friends who value me and the things I can do.
  4. Food.  Even though we are fighting right now. 
  5. Cocolime Fitness exercise videos for people with chronic pain and fibromyalgia.  
  6. Family - I learn so much from them. 
  7. My doctor, my dentist, my physio and all the nurses! 
  8. Art and the crafting industry.
  9. My Bible and religious freedom.
  10. Shelly.  She is so funny with her own little personality.  I love her so much! 

That's that then!

Friday, September 20, 2019

What do you do with all those cards?

If you're a card maker, this question is inevitable.  The most obvious answer is, send them to friends and family.  Of course, most of us make cards for specific people. Any sort of special event is a reason to make a card.  Any time someone needs a bit of encouragement, I like to send them a card.  Most of the time, my cards are made specifically for an event or situation, like these cards. 

Make Cards for (and Give it to) Someone Special

Special Birthday Shaker Card


I made this card for my Aunty who loves the colour Purple! 

I used a stitched rectangle die set to make the frames on this card and I stamped and die cut my own shaker elements. Stamps (with matching dies) are available at Catherine Pooler Designs

Swiped Sympathy Card


This card was made for a work colleague. 
She sadly, lost her mother a few months ago. 

This card uses a stamp set from Catherine Pooler and a swipe stamping technique that I learned from Jennifer McGuire.  It came together quite quickly and I was very happy with how it came out, despite the sad reason I had for making it.  I don't often make sympathy cards this way.  I prefer to keep a set of sympathy cards made up, which makes it a little easier to make them, but I didn't have any and I wanted to make this just for her. I love this design.  The swipe stamping is a great way to get a different look from those solid stamps.  

Fathers' Day Card


My Mum asked me to make a card for my grandfather for Fathers' Day this year.  As he is visually impaired, I tried to keep my card simple with a stacked sentiment and different textures. The Blue Stone drops from Nuvo were perfect for this card, although I need lots more practice at squeezing them out. 
Patterned Paper is from a packet of leftover scraps given to me by a friend. 


Made to Order Selling

Sometimes, a friend will ask me to make a card for them for a special occasion such as a birthday or wedding.  They often insist on paying me something, which is nice.  I usually use the money I am given to purchase more craft supplies!  Check out these cards. 

Wedding

A wedding card that a friend commissioned as they are going to family wedding.  

Birthday 

A pretty birthday card I made by order using some perfect pearls and products from a range of companies.  


Selling in a Stall

While lots of people sell their handmade projects online using platforms such as Etsy, many choose to sell their papercrafts in market stalls.  When my church held a Car Boot Sale as an outreach fundraising event, I thought I might try my hand at selling.  I knew I couldn't make enough cards to fill a stall, not in the time frame I had, so I asked my friends to join me.  One of my friends makes the cutest hair bows and has successfully sold many of these at various markets.  The BFF paints with watercolours and ink.  She creates beautiful pictures and does hand lettering. I love everything she creates and I have run out of room on my walls because I love to display her work.  The three of us put together a "handmade haven" at the car boot sale and we all managed to sell enough product to cover the cost of our stall space and have some money to spend on new supplies.  Happy Face! 
The small display of my cards at the Car Boot sale. 

 It was so much fun doing this together and we are exploring the idea of working together at markets in the future.  Excited Much! When I prepared for selling these cards,  I decided to make sets of cards as well as having a few one of a kind cards available.  Check out these sets of cards. 




Keeping them on Hand

I also make cards just because it's fun and I keep them on hand.  My mum, some of my friends, my Nan and my sister all ask me for cards.  They love to 'go shopping' for cards in my Card Stash and usually they find something they like.  If they like something about a card, but it's not quite right, I can usually make another one with changes to make it just right.  Sometimes, I gather a selection of my handmade cards and give them as a gift set.  Each set would include a few birthday, thank you, sympathy, encouragement and congratulations cards.  I don't give these to everyone but there are some friends who like to send out cards and they love having their own stash of handmade cards to choose from.  

That's that then. 
What do you do with all the cards you make?



Friday, September 13, 2019

Postcards from Canberra (Zoo)

Welcome to Part 2 of my Canberra Escape!! If you are interested, you can click on Part 1 to see it. So, let's get back to it. We pick up the adventures on Monday Morning.  

It was my Mum's birthday!! I gave her a birthday card when we both got up and we had breakfast at the Crown Plaza (where we were staying) and took it easy for the morning in preparation for our Zoo experience.  We were so excited we arrived at the Zoo almost two hours early!  The Arboretum is close to the Zoo so we decided to stop there for lunch and spent some time in the Bonzai Gallery. Check out these photos.  




Now for the main event... our visit to the National Zoo and Aquarium was the whole reason we travelled to Canberra and is a once in a lifetime experience.  We stayed one night at the Jamala Wildlife Lodge.
Arriving at 1pm, we drove into our reserved parking space (a real luxury after all the trouble we'd had parking) we were welcomed to the Zoo and our luggage was taken and delivered to our treehouse.  No lugging bags for us!  Afternoon tea was delicious and included a selection of savoury and sweet finger food as well as fruit.  Tea, coffee, water and other cold drinks were on offer too.  





After some obligatory paper work and a lovely snack, we enjoyed our first wildlife encounter.  A cheetah cub, called Solo (he's nearly two years old), came to visit with his surrogate litter mate, Zama (she's a dog).  If you want to read more about their story, check this out. We headed out to our first tour which included feeding an emu, watching the meerkats, communicating with the monkeys and learning about the Zoo in general.  This tour finished at our Giraffe Treehouse (which has deer and an alpaca in the front yard.  After about 10 minutes to settle in, we had another encounter, feeding the Giraffe who lives in the "back yard" of the Treehouses.  Hummer, the giraffe, walked right up to the balcony so you can hand feed him a couple of carrots! He also has a feed box attached to each treehouse balcony so when you run out of carrots, he still comes to visit you and eat grass/ hay from his box.  It's amazing!

Hummer really enjoyed eating food from our balcony.  
We really enjoyed spending some quiet time watching him. 


I'm not going to tell you everything we did at the zoo, I'm just going to show you some more photos!
















As you can see, we enjoyed several animal encounters, gourmet meals, 5 star luxury, and guided tours (yes, more than one) of the Zoo.  We also had two opportunities to explore the Zoo outside of trading hours, which meant no crowds!!! Everything was included in the price.  An added perk was the 15 % discount at the Zoo gift shop.






The service was excellent and the staff were all so friendly, helpful and professional.  I have to say, I probably won't enjoy visiting any other Zoo as this experience was top notch! It was well worth the luxury price tag.

After leaving the Zoo we went to Parliament House for lunch on "The Queen's Terrace" and a guided tour.  We also got an obligatory selfie on the roof with the big flag in the background! Then, we headed home, tired and happy.

The view from The Queen's Terrace Café at Parliament House.  
You can see Old Parliament House (the white buildings) 
Anzac Drive and The War Memorial in the centre back.

Soup of the Day at the Café, the food was delicious.
The Australian Flag that flies on the roof of Parliament House
could cover the side of a double decker bus! 
It doesn't look that big, but it is very high! 


If you are Australian, you MUST visit Canberra at least once in your life and enjoy all it has to offer.  Visitors to Australia, if you are coming this far you should definitely plan to spend at least a little of your time in Canberra.  Visit the Library, the Art Gallery, Parliament House, the National Zoo, the markets and the glassworks, check out the Arboretum, reflect at the War Memorial, walk along the banks of Lake Burleigh Griffin and enjoy the fine foods at restaurants in Kingston.  I haven't even mentioned Questacon, the other museums and galleries or the special events and festivals on offer.

I wonder where I will go next?





Sunday, September 8, 2019

We Interrupt This Program...

Sorry I am so late this weekend.  I was so sick this week, I actually took a day off school!  I spent two days in bed and the last few days laying down with ice or heat packs on my neck and back.  Therefore, I haven't been able to pull together the second part of my Canberra Postcards Post.  I will continue with our regular program next week, but for now I wanted to share some memes that helped me survive this week.

By the way, my "ONE WORD" for this year is "BREATHE" which really helped me manage this week.  I just had to keep reminding myself that my only job was to breathe.  Anyway, back to the fun part.




I feel ya! 
See you next week!