Acrylic paint and I are not friends.

#24
Do you know how many layers you need to paint to get a even finish of colour when using Acrylic?

Well I obviously didn't know before I started this project.  I think I have learnt my lesson.

And have started using my hairdryer to hurry things along cause the painting is the smallest part of the project that is underway!  I want to get to the fun part!

But I'll be OK.  Cause I have a can of lemonade to keep me happy.  Oh how I love lemonade.

I'll post pics once it's done!

Until tomorrow...

Christy

Skirt reveal & Stampin Up Party Goodies.

#23

So here is the skirt.

 

I told you it was awesome.  I might even wear it out tonight.

Today I had a Stampin Up Class/Demonstration at my place.  We made two things.  One was a Bon Bon Gift Box which is in the fridge cause it has chocolates in it and unfortunately I can't be bothered to go and get it cause it's downstairs and so very far away.  

But we did make this awesome card.

And I got this as a gift for having the party.

Pretty cool huh!

Don't forget about my giveaway.

Until tomorrow,

Christy

Question

I know I already posted for today but I have a question I've been dying to ask because it just puzzles me.

How do other Craft Blogs out there get companies to give them their products to do giveaways?

I mean do the companies literally track them down and contact them, or is there something I've not figured out yet?

I think about it almost every day and can't figure it out...


Christy

Just tired.

#22
Wow.  I am tired folks.  I am the kind of tired that I've felt in the past, like after climbing a mountain, like skiing all day,  like being forced to run in the marathon at school, like the day of my sisters wedding, like the day of my wedding, like it's taken me 48 hours to get from one part of the world back to my house on the other side of the world, like I never went to bed and had to go to work.  I think you get the picture.  Problem is.. I don't know HOW I got to be this tired.  I get 7-9 hours sleep a night.  I am sleeping reasonably well.

Maybe my body know's I'm taking holidays in 3 weeks and it's testing my patience for those holidays to arrive.  I've only had 9 holiday/vacation days off work since I started working for my dad in 2008.  I've had a few sick days thrown in there too, but I guess I haven't had much time to relax in a long while.  The kind of time to relax, where I can let go of pressures at work, at church and just in general life, and for the responsibilities that go along with those things, to vanish and let me be free from them! 

America.  You had better make me a whole new refreshed better self.  Or else.

On a happier note.  I finished my skirt today.  Well, like 90% finished.  I could wear it if I wanted to, but I would like to overlock the seams because, there are ALOT of seams and lots of fabric that is fraying that need to be stopped!  So I think I may give it a test run but aside from that I will endeavour to get it overlocked so I can wear it as often as I please.  I love the way it's turned out.

Ok I need to stop talking about it because you probably want pictures and I have none. Whoops, my bad.

I have been thinking what to work on next.  Here are my options.

1.  Mod Podge trinket box for my niece for Christmas
2.  Mod Podge wooden train garland for my nephew for Christmas
3.  Make a start on repainting GIANT Thomas the Tank Engine Wooden Framed Mirror that I found in an Op Shop for $5 aaaages ago.  I think it's his birthday present so I may let that one go a little longer.  His birthday isn't until March.
4.  Another skirt for me.
5.  Making the little girls dress from the pattern I bought at the Op Shop for $1 the other day.
6.  Make Christmas Cards
7.  Make patchwork fabric canvas for our bedroom with co-ordinating throw cushions for the bed.
8.  Make a softie.
9. Make real fabric bunting for the first time.
10.  Get a pedicure.

I might go for 1, 2, 6 & 10 (if the husby allows).

What do you think?

Oh crap I haven't put up any photos yet.  Ummm....

I know it's not crafty.. but it's just SO appropriate right now :)







I have a busy weekend which really has already began.  Last night we had company for dinner, then had to clean up, and reshuffle the furniture in the house for company tonight.  We (husby and I) did a cleaning overhaul of the entire house.  It is sparkling clean!  I think the only thing that didn't get cleaned was the shower, cause we ran out of puff.  Husby's work mates and their spouses are coming over for a BBQ dinner.  It should be good fun.  And then first up Saturday morning I'm hosting a Stampin Up party.  Busy busy!!

OH!  I almost forgot to show you these..

Tatertots & Jello made them on their blog and did a tutorial of how to make them here.  I think they're brilliant.  I may try it but just using the appliqueing method.  Love them!





Hope your Friday is full of fun and crafting successes!

Until tomorrow!!

Christy

My creative space...

#21

It's a work in progress.

7 tiers.

Every time I finish a tier I get more and more excited about how it will look when finished.

Just working on the 7th tier now, then all I need to do is hem and put in the waistband.

Maybe I'll have it finished by tomorrow...







Look over to your right... Does anything look different in my sidebar?

I have a updated button!!

Thanks husby.  Make sure you pop it on your page!

Until tomorrow,

Christy

Another giveaway or two or fifty.

I am scanning at work today.  Scanning LARGE documents.  There is nothing to do whilst waiting for a document to finish, so I"ve been on the hunt for more giveaways.  So here a couple of goodies I've found!

Die Cut Sets & Digi Stamps

Check out this giveaway on Sentiments 4 You.

Scrappin Stuff

Check out this giveaway from Cute Cards & Crafts by Jamie.

Paper, Embellishments & More

Check out this giveaway from Scrappy Latina. (you may need to use google translate)

Embellishments Galore

Check out this giveaway from The Paint Brush Goes Spotty.

Good luck!

Schnookums

#20
11 days to go.  I'm not counting or anything.

I made a little outfit the other day.

I was pretty chuffed with how schnookums it was.  I decided to try it on my niece for good measure.

Yep.  It's still cute.  Just like the little schnookums wearing it.

Until tomorrow

Christy

Deals of the Day

#19
I had ALOT of errands to run today.  New pillow, groceries, plan for 3 social eating events over the weekend, get lightbulb, get spray paint, get clock, get coat hangers, get dustbuster, get electric kitchen scales, get Christmas coloured candles.. just to name a few.  Now for some reason getting these items meant going to a zillion different stores, and I wasn't even successful in getting it all.  BUT, I found myself some bargains.  And I slipped into an Op Shop I haven't been to in a few months and was pleasantly suprised to find something that I had been thinking about going to Spotlight (giant craft store 30 mins away) to buy.  Anyway, here's what I found...

50% off..woohoo!  These are for upcoming Baby Shower Baskets.  I heart Aldi.

Vintage dress pattern.  Excited to try and make this.  I've never tried to make something on my own from a pattern before.  HOW CUTE IS IT!!  And the best part is it was $1. Good ole Vinnies!

Another Vinnie's find, a cane wreath for $3.  This is what I was going to go over to Spotlight to buy, but there it was waiting for me in the Op Shop.  Gotta love the timing.

No I'm not pregnant.  But the husby and I like to talk names.  We have very different idea's of what our children should be called, so we're getting in early and discovering what we do and don't like.. and it's a GIGANTIC book and was only $5.  So I thought why not!  It'll probably provide us with some good entertainment over the years.

An old Reader's Digest book, which I have plans to tear apart and use the pages in decopaging.  $2.

This towel was $3.01 from Target.  It was in the throw away bins area up the back cause it came in a set and the other towel went walk about.  I have a couple of ideas of how I could use it.  

And lastly, I spoke about the box I decopaged the other day in one of my blog posts.  It was an ugly blue shoebox that I kept my hot glue gun and glue sticks, and heat gun in.  I decided it needed jazzing up and decopaged it cause it's nice and easy and effective.

I have plans to put my Christmas decoration up in about two weeks time.  Husby and I are heading overseas on Nov 12th for a whole month.  We get home on Dec 10th, in the heart of Christmas season!!  I want to come home to a house full of Christmas so am doing it all before I leave.  The reason I'm telling you this, is I am SO tempted to put up my decorations already.  I am getting weak and impatient.  But I will be strong, and leave my box in the cupboard for another week or so.  

I feel like a kid again haha.  

Well I need to clean up the disgracefully embarrassing mess in my Craft Room.  Then I'm gonna take a shower, take a nanna nap, make dinner and then head out to my YW's mutual activity tonight.  We're just going Personal Progress planning so it's gonna be casual and fun.  

Until tomorrow,

Christy

Ok, so today has become a day of joining every giveaway I can possibly find.

I'm going a bit overboard on entering giveaways, so instead of continuing to post a seperate link for every one I find, I'm gonna put them all in here!

Fat Quarter Fabric & Teatowel Giveaway

Check out the giveaway on Flower Press!!

Martha Stewart Punch Set Giveaway

Check out the giveaway on ABC Toys and Crafts. 

Jingle Bell Ride Stamp Set.

Check out the giveaway on Pinkpuds. 

Transparency's, Embellishments & Other Goodies

Check out the giveaway on Little Smiles From White Ribbons

Mixed Package of Scrapbooking Goodies

Check out the giveaway on Pretty Little Paper Love.

Suprise Blog Candy Gift

Check out the giveaway on Floral Fantasies.

Bundle of Goodies

Check out the giveaway on Crafting Life's Pieces.

Ribbons & Embellishment Pack

Check out the giveaway on Really Reasonable Ribbon's Ramblings. 

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!  I sure hope I win something.  I love winning!!  Good luck to you all!!

Christy

Most GENEROUS giveaway I have EVER SEEN!

Holy cow.  Check out this photo...

Karen from Feline Playful is giving ALL of this away in a milestone giveaway - plus some more things not included in the photo.  I decided the photo needed to be gianormous to make sure you can see all of the amazing things she is giving away.  I'm in TOTAL shock at her generosity.  Please go check out the conditions of entry.. it is so easy to win and you could be the lucky winner!!

Good luck!!

Christy

Giveaway - get in quick, it closes in a few hours!

Cute Cards & Crafts by Jamie has an awesome giveaway of Acid Free BIC coloured marker pens.. but the giveaway closes in a few hours!! Get in quick if you're interested!

Yay for giveaways!!

Good luck!

Christy

Selfish reasons

#18
I have mentioned before how much I struggle posting daily for Blogtoberfest.  I'm past the half way bump which I'm super glad about.  But there is something I have also been thinking about.  What is the point in posting daily?  I mean, is anyone even reading my posts?

So today I ask you this, do you read my posts?  If you do, leave a comment.  You have no idea what it would mean to me!

In the meantime, here are some cute things I've found lately to make this post more visually appealing. 

Don't forget to leave a comment! (my ego is lacking in a big way)

Until tomorrow,

Christy

More Midnight Madess, Skirt Making & Proposals.

#17
So today's post is more of what I've been up to this week.

I forgot to add these photo's from the Midnight Madness which was mentioned in yesterday's blog post.  I TRIED, (tried being the main word in this whole sentence) to take some creative shots of the going ons of the room.  After trying for about 2 mins I forgot about it the rest of the night.. DOH!!

See that lady in the second picture with the short brown hair on the far right side, turning her head off to the right?  Yeah, that's my mum :)

I also forgot to mention that I got a Christmas Stitchery that night, which I haven't even looked at yet.  But I decided I'm going to take it to Amrika with me next month and it will give me something to do when I'm bored.  I'll show you once I get started on it.

I have started making myself a skirt.  I even drafted the pattern all by myself.  And the best part is I had to make it from A4 paper, all sticky taped together for the pieces.  It is going to be a 7 tiered patchwork gypsy skirt.  Here are the delicious fun fabrics I chose to use (from my stash):

So far I've only completed two tiers.. so I'll show you once it's all done.  I plan on working on it more this afternoon/tonight.

Yesterday husby and I went to Southbank on the Brisbane River, which is right opposite Brisbane CBD.  We were there on a mission.  You see, my brother proposed to his girlfriend yesterday, and he wanted the proposal to be an all day thing.  So they re-lived previous dates/experiences they've had.  One was they rode scooters around Southbank.  There were MANY stations and at each station there was a clue to the next location.  Anyway, our station was to have two scooters set up in a certain spot at Southbank, with a blue balloon and a Chuppa Chup attached to each scooter, and also to have the clue attached to a scooter.

We positioned ourselves a good 10 metres away under a big ole Palm Tree.

It was a gorgeous day.  The sun was amazing.  It has been raining here for pretty much 2 weeks.  I even got a little sunburn on my face, which for some reason excited me.  The lack of sunlight really made me cuckoo.
ANYWAY...  so we were somewhat hidden from the scooters, but close enough to make sure no one nicked them. 

This is right after they found the scooters.  They found us and came over for a piccie.

Well that's all I have time for, I'm heading over to my parents place for a family dinner to find out all the proposal stories.  I also decopaged a box today, but will show you piccies tomorrow when it's dry.  Hope you had a creative fun day!

Until tomorrow,
Christy

Midnight Madness, YoYo Trees and a NEW Headband

#16
I have a few things to report on, but I will be careful and not put all my goodness into one post, cause for all I know I could have a creativity block tomorrow and have nothing to blog about.

Firstly, posting on my blog everyday for Blogtoberfest is really hard.  I used to post only twice or so a week.  It is starting to hurt my brain.

Secondly, I have actually got a few things done over the past few days.  I'll share a few.

Midnight Madness
Every year my church puts on a Christmas Craft Night.  They always put it on super early BEFORE the Christmas rush, and of course to allow time to finish the projects so they can be used at Christmas time.  Last night was this said night.  It goes from 6pm till Midnight - thus it's called Midnight Madness.  I only signed up for 3 craft classes last night.  In years gone I've done up to 6, so it was a quiet night for me.  I made Christmas cards and gift tags.

They were all relatively easy and as you can see, they're very effective.  Geez Kristy (my Stampin Up Lady) is clever.  You should check out her blog, she is doing Christmas gift ideas every week for 12 weeks up until Christmas (you receive the tutorials if you sign up to her email list).  She is getting married soon and I have to try and think of what to get her as the engagement present.  I think she's gonna need storage for her GIGANTOR stash of SU goodies :)

Next I did the Wooden Ginger Bread Men.  These little men made me a crazy woman.  They don't look like much.  But LET ME TELL YOU.  They hurt my brain in a big way last night.

I had instructions, but they weren't relevant because all the supplies they used in the tutorial, were not available on the night.  So I had to freestyle it, and that doesn't always work with me.  So I open my little bag of 5 wooden gingerbread men.  I sanded the edges because they were a little splintery (is that a word?).

Then I needed to make all the edges brown.  There was no brown paint, so I had to sponge it with ink.  It took over an hour to do this.  Holy hell, my patience went out of the window with those little guys in the inking process.  BUT I PERSEVERED and ate lots of kabana and drunk lots of delicious lemonade to keep my spirits in order.  (And I realise at this stage I should have photographed all this as I went so you'd have instructions ((unlike me when I did it)) on how to make them yourself, but oh well).

Then I chose my papers.  As part of the pack that I bought to make them, I could choose 3 double sided patterned papers.  I had to like 5 of the 6 sides of paper.  So I picked my papers and traced the men on the papers and cut them out.  Then using PVA (or you could use Mod Podge, but PVA was what was provided) I glued the paper down to the men.  I then trimmed the excess paper overhang on the men, which was incredibly annoyingly fiddly.  Followed by sanding the edges to give it the rustic feel and to neaten up the look.  It is a great effect but of course took an hour to do all 5.  By this stage it was close to midnight and I hadn't even started to think about decorating them with embellishments etc.  Oh and did I mention I had fluid retention in my hands?  Yeah, it felt AWESOME!! haha!!

Then disaster struck.  But I didn't know it until it was too late.  I had one TINY picture to use as a guide for decorating.  In the picture the men had faces drawn on.  So I copied.  After I had finished all 5 faces I realised it looked TERRIBLE.

They looked like scary evil weirdo Gingerbread Men.  And at this point it was AFTER midnight.  So I just pretended I didn't care (but was so incredibly mad at myself inside for ruining them) and helped the ladies pack up and went home.  I showed the husby, and he too agreed they looked evil.  So guess what I did this morning?  Re-did them all over again.  From scratch, on the other side.  I didn't have enough paper from the night so I had to use some of my own too, which was difficult finding the right colour combinations because they papers to choose from last night were all co-ordinating becuase they were all from one set.  But I managed to work it out, and this is the new transformed Gingerbread Men that I am finally happy with.  Actually that's a lie.  I didn't need to pierce the holes on their heads and didn't realise that till I'd done them all but I'll have to get over it.  I finished them off tonight (after a really long day which included assisting in my brother's proposal, having a migraine, sleeping & baking) and have worked out where I am going to hang them for Christmas.

So there they are.  The feral annoying Gingerbread Men.  I'm sure I'll forgive them for being so annoying in due time.

You also may have noticed I never ended up doing embellishments.  I didn't trust myself to do it without ruining them all over again, and also decided that simple was better.  Really I was just glad to have them over and done with.  I love the effect and will do it again, but have learnt what to do and what not to.  Hopefully  next time it won't be so jolly frustrating!

Goodies in the Mail
I had a suprise in the mail for me yesterday from the giveaway I won at Kiwi at Heart last month...

And it had this inside!

Thanks for my Mini YoYo Christmas Tree!! I love it!!

NEW Tie Headband
So I have found another use for my old Thrifty ties that were 50 cents.  I will admit I broke the needle on the sewing machine so I realised I needed to handsew it together which was alot of work but definately worth it.  Do you like it?  

I likey.  Do you?  I might make another this week in a brighter coloured tie.  I was also thinking of doing this with a Christmas tie to wear on Christmas Day :)

**********

I'll save all the other goodies I've been working on for my posts over the next few days.  

Hope you had a great day, and don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already.  There's hardly any entries so far so you're in with a stinkin good chance this time!! 

Oh and I have a new button that my husby has been working on so I'll have to get him to get it all up and running tomorrow and show you.  It's the same as I have now but just jazzed up a little.  Next on the to do list for him is to do my name sign off coding doovey lackey, and then he is building me a website.  It'll only take 5 years to get it done :P

Until tomorrow...

Christy