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...

SERS this weekend!

Have you seen? The latest cool thing is - DUCT TAPE! Yes, we've all been using it to mend stuff for years, and it's super handy for book covers. But now, fancy patterns! These were spotted in Ringwood Costco.

Oh, and SERS is on this Saturday 22 February. Hooray, a nice time for a laugh and to make some stuff!

A new year for SERS

Oh boy, 2014 already! And we've had the first meeting of the year already too! Just a small group, but it was so nice to escape the family heat and have some grown up time.

Here's some photos from our Christmas party!

We did our mostly annual ornament swap. Here's how you do one of those quickly:

• get everyone to bring one ornament
• line them up on the table
• number them off
• write a slip of paper with each number and put them in a bowl
• everyone draws a number
• be ready for redraws if someone gets their own!

Chris and Michelle both made folder paper ornaments - they traded ideas later too.

Chris ended up with my dinosaur in a snowglobe. See here for partial instructions on how to make one (well, it's actually only instructions for making a tiny hat). The snow in the snow globe is just salt!

And this is Cathy's pretty angel! What a Christmas treasure!

So, next meeting is February 22, at Mount Street. See ya there!

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!