This is what awesome looks like

Lovely stamp club meeting in November - we got to chat, and make things ... oh well, you know, the usual things.

In conversation, Nan told me she makes thank you cards for a hospital.

That's pretty cool.

Then she added that that is ALL she does for charity these days. Because she's raised millions of dollars for hospitals in the past.

I had to pick her up on that. "Millions", really?

So she did a little mental arithmetic. Yes, her group successfully raised around $60,000 a year, and they did it for 30 years. It checks out.

I asked what the money went to. She started on a list of the things she could remember. There was an incubator for a maternity unit, there was a comfortable waiting room for families with kids having surgery, computers and TVs for people to use in hospital, there was an upgraded nurses' station ... there was a lot of stuff.

So, if you are wondering who my heroes are, Nan is one of them!

Also, our Christmas party is on 12 December, at Cathy's place (ask if you don't know where that is). You might be lucky, and get to shake Nan's hand!

Zoo Biscuits spotted at SERS

SERS met last weekend, and Cathy brought along some Zoo biscuits - they are a treat from South Africa, and a childhood memory. With this much icing, no wonder the South African kids go nuts over them! Mine was a cute tortoise. One was enough.

And isn't this just symbolic of what stamp club is all about? An unexpected new experience; to one person, very familiar, but to others, new and interesting.

When you bring your crafty goodies and ideas to stamp club, that's what happens! You might think "Oh, I'm just doodling", but your idea might set somebody else off on a new creative direction.

The latest thing, by the way, is Letter Journals. Get a group together, and each person makes a book that fits into a DL sized envelope. Send it around, round-robin style, and each person does whatever decoration they want in the book. When it gets back to you, you own it. Cool, huh?

This is the one I'm sending off.



And Picture to Page is coming up soon (October 17 and 18), a mixed media craft show where you can see, touch, and buy crafty goodies, and get inspiration in how to use them! I'll be there, so say Hello. The venue is Sandown Racecourse. Racecourses are amazingly good venues for this sort of thing - they have lovely meeting rooms, catering, heaps of parking, and if you need fresh air, there's - a racecourse.

Just loving the gelli plates!

It was nice to have time to play with my gelli plates today. Here's some of my goodies.

Liz was decorating slide mailers, Iona was colouring with gorgeous pencils, Chris was making swaps for a convention, Cathy was doing calligraphy, and Michelle was adding to her personal journal. Awesome!

That is a fine pen!

Cathy and Michelle make the most of stamp club time.

We had lots of freebies today, most people went home with something new. I got ponies, Cathy got paint, Liz and Iona got mediums and canvasses, and Liz got a die cutting machine! Don't forget, Liz, you owe me a coffee!

Can anyone find my stencil?

It was right here... I was using it with blue and green paint. This was the scene at the end of stamp club today. We hate to leave anything behind.

Stamp Club for April

Hey gang! I've decided all my artwork from now on should be GREY!

Ha ha, only kidding.

This colourful mess might make a nice background for something.

Anyway, this is my way of reminding you that South Eastern Rubber Stampers is on this weekend (25 April). Yes, it's ANZAC Day, but we don't meet until 1pm, so you'll have plenty of time for the Dawn Service.

Details on this blog, and we also have a Facebook page you will have no trouble finding.

Celebrate 2015, arty style!

I do hope you spent New Year enjoying yourself and sipping your choice of beverage. I think for me, it was mostly water. It was hot! Oh, and I may have managed the occasional sparkling wine, like the lady in the picture.

It's time to come back to stamp club, for another year of fun and inspiration.

The January meeting is on 31 January, place and time as usual. We hope to see Michelle with her goodies from CHA. Just the catalogues alone are worth the visit!

We have plenty of crafty events coming up this year, including Picture to Page (now run by our own Michelle), Paperific (as always run by the lovely Naomi), Paper Arts Tarts (that's from Paperific as well, but a very different type of event), and I'm sure there are others coming up - I'll do my best to mention them when I can.