January meeting a delight, as usual!

Well, we had a super time at SERS this month. Maria entertained me with travel stories, Anne Marie made it for the first time (with angelic Mitchell in tow), and Sharon has finally lost the cast on her foot and can come again.

I entertained the troops with my Confetti Flinger Card. Yes, it's all I can think about right now, so it's all I'll be writing about. I tinkered with it, improved my technique, demonstrated the steps, and took photos. That's the sort of stuff you have to have a stamp club for! Michelle (an engineer in real life) was sitting next to me, and it was all we could do to stop from measuring the fling factor, and optimising.

I've posted my tutorial for anyone who wants to see it, and you will find it here.

Then I got out a fairly old stamp set, and made two rather different looking cards :

There's the pretty colourful one...

And there's this scruffy one. Love 'em both of course!

Forgot to take photos of people. As so often happens...

In February, SERS will have a Bring and Buy day. That means, bring along your pre-loved craft gear, anything you would like to pass on to a new owner. Label it with your name and a price, and lay it out on our sales table. See if you find a buyer. See if you can get home with your takings (you may well spend it on something else).

And apart from that, fun as usual at the 26 February meeting. See you there.

Sudden bulletin - look out for flying confetti

It's stamp club time again - Saturday 29 January! Hope to see you there. Fair warning, I've been learning how to make a Confetti Flinging card, and I will be practicing. I'll demonstrate to anyone interested too. So let's make a deal to vacuum before we leave, and spend a fun afternoon flinging!

Have a preview here if you like...

Oh, and I think it goes without saying, if you find confetti flinging, and construction cards generally, to be not your cup of tea, you can do your own thing too.

And there will also be cups of tea.

January meeting is coming up - Happy 2011!

Whoosh! Another year just whizzed by. We had a small but nice SERS Christmas party in December, I finally made Christmas cards, and we are all lined up for another Stamp Clubby year.

Next meeting is January 29, at the usual venue. No changes to anything this year, although I do think it's high time for a Buy and Sell day. Perhaps we'll schedule that for February?

Oh, and by the way, here's my Christmas card for the year. The message inside was "No corny greeting this year, just Peas on Earth".

November meeting is coming up!

Just time to remind you that the November meeting is coming up on November 27.

It's also state election day, so don't forget that in the morning. Oh, and there's one more thing ... It's my birthday! If I can I'll bring a nice cake (that way I can have several birthday cakes). But apart from that, business as usual - we will have time to make, do, talk and chat.

Usual time, usual place. And I think I'm a bit too tired to post much more than that to tempt you, but I'm looking forward to a nice day. See ya there!

Christmas Party is on!

The SERS Christmas party is on again this year. The usual time, and the date will be 11 December. The place will be Cathy's home. Contact me direct if you need to know where that is.

Bring a plate! And we will be Making and Doing in Cathy's well equipped studio, so feel free to finish Christmas cards, or just browse Cathy's amazing book/magazine/art collection.

Giving cards or gifts to each other is nice, but purely a matter of choice, and what you had time for. No stressing out allowed!

Psst ... I'd give a little appreciation to the host though! She'll be washing coffee cups all evening.

I did that collage!

It's club business, sort of, so I'll post it here. Michelle challenged me to make something with her Ephemera Pack. Here it is!

Visit my personal blog to find out more.

October Meeting - rainy day, sunny people

October stamp club happened on a rainy day. So rainy, once we were inside, we didn't want to leave!

Louise made a start on Christmas cards. What's a good word to use? "Celebrate" usually covers it. We discussed Hallowe'en, and what costumes she would be rewarding.















Cathy brought lemons from her tree to give away. They are Meyer lemons.




















Michelle brought a box of stamped/decorated papers, that were surplus in her stash.















Anne worked on background for her Christmas cards - she wanted a blue(ish purple) background, and decided she was too mean to buy new paper, so she painted some! She demonstrated the fact that some kids' paints have SO little pigment in them, they are little more than tints. So that's why we pay the big bucks for the good stuff.









Here's what I made out of Michelle's junk box. Ingrid liked the stamped vellum, and there were two, so she took one home too.
















Beverley came along with heaps of stamps to sell. She's a founder member of SERS - it's been going twelve years!

















Cathy got some new punches - wings and crowns, pretty!












Here's what else Michelle is up to - making Ephemera kits to sell on Etsy. Here's a link. On the left is what SHE made with a kit. Oh yummy!

I took a kit home, natch. With any luck, later today I'll post MY results. It IS raining in Melbourne, after all.








Here's my other result of the day. A Christmas card (see, the bird has a HAT on).
















This was the snack of the day - my home made fruit bread. Want to know how to make it? I already dictated the recipe to Ingrid.

Here goes:

FRUIT BREAD
3 cups bread flour
1/4 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp salt
1 2/3 cup water

Stir all that together , get all the flour wet, and put a loose lid on it. Let it stand for at least 12 hours.

Turn out the sloppy, bubbly dough, and knead it just a little, to get it looking like proper dough. You'll probably add some flour. Then knead in :

1 bunch* sultanas
1 bunch currents
1 bunch cranberries
1 bit** cinnamon
1 bit cardamom
1 bit ground cloves (smaller bit than the other spices, it's strong).

Let that rise, and bake it, inside a casserole dish for the best results, in a hot oven for 30 minutes. Finish it off with 5 minutes with the lid off.

* nice handful
** sort of a spoonful