So many years, we are still stamping...

... yes, it's turned out that updating the blog is a bit harder now than it used to be, so I've let it slip a bit.

But has SERS slipped? No! We keep meeting on the LAST Saturday of every month (except December, we do something fun then).

Do join us, at the address you'll find on this blog.

 My bird journal is finally full!

Here's some of the group from July 2017 ... Nan made it, Anne brought her!







Maria is working on a construction

Breaking news - glitter is pretty!

A lovely July meeting today. I was annoyed and bothered by a sore foot (and even more annoyed by the long, long wait for the doctor on a Saturday), so it was very nice indeed to see some smiling faces.

Jenny was showing off some partly made cards, using Lesley's (from Little Bits) classic glitter technique. So pretty, even unfinished as they were.

Cathy brought some a bits and pieces to share out. Clean ups are good for your studio.

And I started making this out of today's scraps...

And I caught Nan reading a trashy romance! Well, actually, it's the book I use for collage, and I believe she's a more discerning reader...

June SERS, roses and ink

A lovely SERS day yesterday. I expected dismal rainy weather, but we got winter sun and cool, crisp air. In the Mount Street room with windows all around, and the heater on, it was quite jolly.

We had Renee come for just the second time. And Marilyn for the first time in ages.

Marilyn's personal challenge was to ink only the raised parts of card that she'd run through a pretty embossing folder. Inking the debossed parts is easy, but her idea required finesse. Here's a picture of the opposite of what she wanted, but still very pretty:

I used that three part rose stamp. Funny, it came out a bit grungy when I did it. The hot tip is, stamp the middle image first .

Cathy brought a very old French magazine shed kept for years. And here's a super inspiring image - I'm just going to leave this here.

Come for a winter stamp!

Here's a sight that will make some stampers go SQUEE, and others go HUH? It's a page from a Zettiology catalogue by Teesha and Tracey Moore. It might be on show at the next stamp club. Actually, I have a collection of old stamp catalogues. I find them super interesting. And we have to remember, stamping has moved on so much, we shouldn't forget the mad old days.

And here's another sight that will make some stampers go "Totes amazeballs!", and others go "meh". 

It's a freebie that came on a magazine I bought in Scotland. You probably got the same one here. But what a good freebie - a three part rose stamp, and matching die. I'll bring that along too.

This Saturday is Stamp Club day, and it promises to be cold, bleak, gloomy, cold and bleak. So be with us! Nothing like a giggle to get through the day.

Easter stamp club - buns and gelato!

Stamp club fell on Easter Saturday this year. But I was home, and so were others, so... we had a delightful gathering.

Michelle brought the box of Art Foamies and Gelatoes we had been demonstrating at Picture to Page. I did the full demo for the ladies, and really liked my results.

Anne found some petty Gingko leaves in the garden, and we played with them too. 

Turns out, they can made a very nice print with Gelatoes and water. I smoothed just a little gelato colour onto the leaf, and pressed it onto very slightly damp paper. This was a watercolour paper.

And here's what a gingko tree looks like:

Get dotty at stamp club!

It's stamp club time again, this Saturday, usual time and place.

And here's the latest creative news - we've gone dotty! After seeing a cute project by Jane Clark in Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft, I did this dotty stamping piece. But this wasn't as good as the one Chris made... which I'll try to get you a look at.

So join us for more dotty times!

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.

It's nearly Christmas Party time again!

Plans are underway for the 2014 SERS Christmas party! It's on 13 December, 1pm, at Cathy's place. Ask if you need to know where that is.

Bring a plate of something to share, and bring an ornament for a swap. Bring a project in case we actually do some (lots of lovely table space at Cathy's). And if any of that fails, just bring yourself.

This fun bit of papercraft came about at the November SERS. I was stamping on some paper I'd printed with a Gelli Plate and stencils, and she was making flowers with a punch.  Pretty, hey?

 November SERS was so nice - guess why? Nan came back! After an operation she's tossed aside the walker (well, she's graduating to the stick) and she joined us for coffee and chatting. We took the time to set up her phone and make sure she knew how to send texts. See, you get a lot out of a stamp club meeting!

October meeting - dolls and jelly!

I took some dolls I had found at a trash and treasure sale to Cathy. Cos I know she likes them. Here's one of them:

And here's another one. I'm sort of glad I don't own it now.

Then Lizzie brought these, more cool dolls!

Michelle works on her journal, while Chris samples an apple muffin. She doesn't like junk food, so they must have been awesome.

I had a play with a Gelli Plate I got got from Michelle at Picture to Page. I was thinking it might be a bit of a hassle to use such a cool thing. But once I got started - well, it turned out to be so simple to get going, and no big deal to clean up. I made some cool stuff! These are backgrounds for the next step, whatever that is.

October - come and meet!

Hey Melbourne stampers, the weather's getting warmer. We all know what that means. Time to start the Christmas cards! Or the decorations. Or just round off your art journal for the year, and get the next one ready.

And here's a good idea - come to stamp club to do it!

We're meeting this Saturday. I'll be up to my ELBOWS in cool new stencils and paints and inks and stuff that I got at Michelle's awesome Mixed Media Art stand at Picture to Page a couple of weeks ago. I was her right hand lady for one of the days. Well, actually her sister was her right hand lady, but I was the eager helper. Bendigo show in March next year!

Hmm, did I get all my plugs in?

Nope, there's one more. Naomi (of Paperific fame) is running a cool event next year - Paper Art Tarts. This promises to be a different sort of a day out. Not just a shopping day, this is more of a doing day. Oh wow.

So, why not join us at SERS for a completely relaxed stamping day, where nobody tries to sell you anything. Well, sometimes someone brings in a box of preloved goodies, but that's pretty exciting, actually. Saturday 25 October, see you there.

September Meeting coming up!

Are you ready for a CARROT-themed card? I do like carrots. There's just not enough carrot based artwork around. Well, there's this one. And this one. But apart from that, practically nothing.

A little while back I spent a happy half hour at Officeworks photocopying vintage fruit and vegetable pictures from a book. And at a recent SERS, I use the packing tape transfer method to make this. Michelle helped me. IT WAS FUN! We haven't tried that method in years.

So if you are wondering how to make something as great and carrotty yourself, come to September SERS.

Oh, and you are allowed to make non-carrot based work too. Or just to sit and chat, really. It's your time!

Now, this SERS clashes with the Grand Final. If coming to stamp club would spoil your footy fun, then enjoy that, and we'll see you in October. If you prefer stamping, see you this month. If you can't decide, feel free to check the scores as you stamp.

Oh, I just worked out, I should make carrot cake for SERS. Yum.

April Meeting coming up, and I won't be there...

Yes, folks, I'm going to be on holiday this meeting day (that's April 26). So I've left Cathy and Maria to take care of things.

Wanna see something cool? I have a 3-Doodler! Here's a link to explain what that is.

And as I was saying at SERS a few meetings ago, I got it in the mail, and I got ONE play with it, then it disappeared. My son was having a turn with it too, and I could have sworn I'd asked him to put it away. So when the next SERS came around, I looked everywhere for it! And I'm sorry to say, I may have suggested that he made off with it, or broke it, or lost it, or some other bad thing.

While packing for our holiday, I found it, neatly in amongst the sheets and towels in MY room. Which is where I would put something I thought was not for kids to use unsupervised - so it was clearly ME that put it away.

I've apologised to Thomas for slighting him. Everyone has had some turns now. And I'll be able to bring the doodler to the MAY SERS meeting.

Here's what I made today. A lady with a blue dress.

And I made a hat for this little Lego guy!

SERS brings you - local craft news!

Local craft news? Is this a new thing SERS does? Probably not all the time, but I just happened to have a big day out on Wednesday (courtesy of my daughter who needed delivering to a few different places she couldn't reach by bus), and of course, I gathered craft news all the way.

First stop was Paper Place at the corner of High St and Blackburn Road, Mount Waverley. Lovely place for invitation style paper, and a surprisingly big range of art supplies. Turns out they are under new management, so pop in and say Hello.

Next stop was Shamrock at 21-23 Joseph Street, Blackburn North. Not a retailer, theses guys are wholesalers. But, like all good wholesalers, they wind up with excess stuff every now and then, and move it on to canny customers at their little outlet.

The tiny outlet store was well stocked with feathers, tiny doll hats, those frames you use to make purses, sequins, masks - basically all the stuff I had no need for, but you might. But there was glue, much glue. A whole display of UHU brand special purpose glues, which seem like a nice thing to try. I bought a biggish bottle of wood glue (regular PVA, my go-to glue) and two special purpose UHU glues, and my bill came to $6.

The outlet is off the reception area, so if it doesn't look open, just tap on the door and smile at the lovely staff. I noticed they support school fundraising projects. And they had a big sale last week. Also, they are about to be the neighbours of Bounce, the new trampoline centre, where daughter had a job interview.

Final stop was Bellbird at 74 South Parade, Blackburn. Turns out they are moving! It was very short notice, but some other people wanted the location to run a restaurant, and made Cathy an offer to take over the rent. The new location is not far away, at 138 Canterbury Road Blackburn South. It will be all crafts! ALL CRAFTS!

Cathy always has the nicest stamps (she has a good eye for them) so for local shopping, it's a great destination. She stocks Copic markers (that's all I bought on the day).

She has some amazing machines to sell you, and I'll bet she'd like the floor space back. Check out the Theresa Collins Stampmaker - Cathy has a couple to clear at $150. From what I've read, you need to know what you are doing to get good results from it - or rather, the supplied instructions are a bit poor. But our friend YouTube provides all the extra help you need, and people are loving their machines once they are in the know. This price is awesome, by the way.

February meeting - new goodies, new ideas!

Well, we were pretty lucky to have our own Michelle come to SERS. She'd been at CHA, the huge trade-only craft show in Anaheim. And she brought back catalogues, new gadgets, freebies, and of ourse, just stuff she'd bought for herself. That was just about all I needed to look at all day. Oh, the books!

So, what's hot? Carving stamps is hot, stencils are hot, zentangles are hot, and test sizzix catalogue had some incredible stuff! Also, everything old is new again. Mod podge is in, puffy paint is in, and why have one die cut machine if you can have three?

And we had lots of nice people making goodies too. 

And I made some pretty mess...