November meeting coming up!

Hey, SERS folks, the November meeting is coming up.

Bunky the Art Sparrow says, come to SERS, stamping is even more fun with a bunch of people around you.

Oh, yes, this is a birthday card I made for my friend John - Happy Birthday John!

So, that's 1pm, November 30 for a regular meeting at Mount St, and also, December 14 at 1pm for a Christmas Party at Cathy's.

SERS Christmas Party will be December 14 at Cathy's!

YAY! The Christmas party is organised again, and once again, Cathy has agreed to host. It's always a pleasure visiting her place.

So here's the details :

Date : 14 December
Time : 1pm to 5pm
Place : Cathy's house (contact me privately if you don't know the address)
Bring : some crafty stuff to do, a plate of food to share
Also bring : A Christmas decoration you've made. We will be swapping them. When I say "made", it can be stamped, constructed, beaded, whittled ... anything really. 

Here is the ornament I took home last time - Cathy made it with Polymer clay and stamps. Gorgeous, hey?

Oh, and other entertainment ... We were talking at SERS about cable TV craft shows. Some are fabulous, some are worthy, and apparently some are a bit of a giggle. Cathy's promised to record some of the giggle worthy ones for us to snicker at!

And if we end up with too much food (which we always do...) we  all get to fill our plates with other people's goodies, and take some feast home! I rather like that bit.

October meeting - We did Gelli printing!

There was a special treat at SERS last meeting - Michelle brought along a "Gelli Plate", which is a lovely squashy plate for making monoprints. I've given you the link to the manufacturer there, and locally, I think Unique Stitching was a place you can get the goodies from. But this is not a sales pitch, it's a report about what fun we had!

Michelle made a bunch of prints as we watched and asked questions.

Here's a print - she's mooshed paint onto the plate, then laid pretty sequin waste over it (to act as a stencil), then paper on top of that. She ran over the paper with her fingers (no need for a brayer or other tools) and showed off the first print!

Then she pulled the sequin waste off the plate, and there was a second print to be had. Here they both are - on the left, printed with the stencil in place, and on the right, after removing the stencil.

A change of colour scheme, and some stamping over the top - this one is cool!

Two goes through the printing process here, once with a mesh fruit bag as the stencil, and once with a very pretty flower stencil.

And guess who made this birdy one!

Did you guess ME? Cos I did!

This is a huge CORK stamp, which we found pretty interesting for this function (although, just quietly, there are reasons rubber and polymer are used for stamps...).

Thanks Michelle for a fabulous demo!

Go and have a look at Michelle's Mixed Media Art web site - heaps of stuff to look at! Michelle's off to CHA, the biggest craft show ever (it's for professionals), so we expect her back brim full of news!

September meeting - to a Bollywood Beat!

The September meeting once again clashed with Grand Final day - maybe that's why there were just four of us! But Maria, Jenny, Chris and I had a lovely day, and all of these chocolate macarons. Yum!

A little way into our day, some Indian families started wandering into the community house, and you could tell something was wrong. Turns out, they'd been given the new kitchen for their booking (which is a terrific teaching kitchen, and has tables too, but it was too small for them!) Meanwhile, we were luxuriating in the big double room. As soon as we realised the problem, we agreed to swap.

So we had the pleasure of working in the new kitchen! Quite nice. Best of all, Indian music came wafting in from the other gathering, who were playing and singing with great joy.

Didn't take many photos. But I coloured in. How cute are these?

Oh, and I had a box of stamps for sale at bargain prices. Might do that next month too. Check out the Great Southern Stamp Sale blog to see what's happening with Ellen Eadie's last lot of stamps.

Lots and lots of stamps for sale

Remember last year we had a sale of excellent second hand stamps? Well, there are just HEAPS left, and I'm in charge of moving them on. I'm using eBay for that, so it's accessible to everyone.

Have a look at the Great Southern Stamp Sale, a special blog I've made just for the purpose, which will show what themes I am up to.

And have a look at this link, which will take you straight to my listings on eBay. If there's nothing there, that just means I'm getting some more ready. You can always ask when the next batch is coming.

And this exquisite stamp is one I've just listed (September 13). I'll bet you'd like it.

Now, back to club business. Next meeting is 28 September. Oh, look, it's Grand Final day again. Yes, we still meet. Yes, plenty of people come. Yes, you can bring your radio/tv/phone/other gadget for following the footy.

SERS August - the die is cast!

Hmm, long time between blog posts. SERS has been rocking along as usual, of course. Here's some stuff from the August meeting.

Cathy was having fun making a new mould! She recommends Pinkysil - that's a two part silicone you can make excellent moulds with. You can get it at Barnes, near Richmond railway station.

These big bottle will make you tons of little moulds.





Here's the setup ready for making a mould. The original shape we want to replicate is at the bottom (that's a little carved bird). It sits on a shiny tile. A ring of firm but bendy acetate makes a cuff around it, sealed down with modelling clay.

Then we measure out the right amounts of each solution - not very much! The 500ml bottles last a long time.

Fill the mould until the pretty shape is properly covered. If you only just cover it, the mould will be too flimsy.

I'm guessing this is where you make a fuss over getting bubbles out.

And here's a brand new bird mould. Ready to press polymer clay, or paper clay, or any other mouldable stuff into, and make as many little birds as you like!

Nice tutorial Cathy, thanks for showing us!

And what was I doing at stamp club? Photographing this pretty poppy, mostly

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Oh, and this - I scored an old PSX stamp second hand, and added it to my collection. Coloured in with bright Copics, it really pops, doesn't it?

Happy Easter from SERS!

A nice Easter treat - a SERS meeting right in the middle of the long weekend!

Cathy made these cute Easter egg nests - YUMMM!

Anne made these flamboyant paper flowers - wow!

I made this card - using some printed paper, something I usually don't do.

And I made these hot cross bun macarons - pretty nice!

February meeting - we welcome another author

February meeting, and Michelle, our engineer/artist friend, who runs the mixed media art  web site, has dabbled into self publishing. Here she is with the actual printed proof of HER BOOK!

Amazon Createspace run the whole show for you, turning your document into a really truly book, and offering it for sale to your happy readers. Might be a way to get rich (probably not), definitely a way to have some real fun!

It looked so fabulous, and really doesn't cost a lot to get started. So, what will OUR books be about?

Of course, Cathy is our club's other published author - her stamping tips book is available on her web site, My Stamps. Ooh, and Cathy's in Bendigo on 16 and 17 March with the Picture to Page Show. Bendigo folk, go and buy stuff, you'll enjoy it!

Lynda was making some beautiful cards for friends, but what I admired was her scrap paper! How cool is this?

Anne made a cool folded card, and Cathy was making goodies in silicone moulds. All I did was make the baby doll walk into the card house!

And I started on an ambitious eraser carving project - ambitious because I don't really have any talent in this area. What the hey!












And here's our happy group. There were raspberry and coconut muffins this time. Chris looks like she swallowed a lemon, but I think that's just the photographer's fault.

Australia Day at stamp club!

On Australia Day, we celebrated by having our first meeting of SERS for the year.

Smallish group (well, it was a long weekend) but we didn't mind. Louise brought some text books for my kids to use this year. we discussed driving lessons and Nerf guns.

Maria told us about her latest travels in Poland. Apparently, she was caught acting like the paparazzi - little did they know, she really WAS just photographing the building. How was she to know there was a film festival going on?

I made Aussie gingerbread ladies. And coloured in an Aussie stamp, from Kaisercraft. They have a new 'concept' shop at Chadstone - it's pretty, you should go and see it.

Next meeting is 23 February. That day, there will also be a big sale at Pedigree Paper. http://www.kwdoggett.com.au/pedigree-paper/ They are not normally open on Saturdays, but this time they are. Pedigree always have terrific stuff.

SERS is on again for 2013

For the umpteenth year in a row, allow me to invite you to have a SERS year. Why not make it your goal to come to some or all of our meetings? Or just to keep in touch? Anyway, it's not my place to tell you what to do, it's not that kind of club.

What it is, is a free space to make things! Once a month, big, clean tables, four solid hours, and snacks laid on. What could be better?

First SERS for this year is Saturday 26 January. All the details are on this blog. We love the venue, we're not moving unless they make us.

And here's a little construction card I made for Christmas. It's a game, see. The goal is to put the hat ... on the bunny. The recipient found a message inside, telling him that if he got a high score in "PTHONB", he'd win a prize. Which was a cool teenager-oriented Christmas present. And he DID Put the Hat on the Bunny. A lot. And won the prize.