February - freebies and Lunch Punch

Just had another lovely meeting! Here's the news...

Cathy's back from Africa, full of news and photos. Here she is

with Maria.

That's a copy of "The Artful Bird" on the table. Awesome book, by the way, and by a lady whose blog has inspired my 15yo daughter to do some serious sewing lately.

And the book link I've given you takes you to Can Do Books, a Melbourne bookshop that comes highly recommended for all kinds of crafty books.

Louise demonstrates how to turn a plain frame into a terrific girl's gift in one sitting (hey Louise, did you know you match your project today?).

Margaret has used some vellum to make her own gorgeous flowers for a

card. The leaf sprigs come from the Stampin' Up bird punch, and the larger leaf is the bird's wing! Each flower petal has been touched with metallic gel pen for extra pop! Plus a full assortment of flower punches, of course.

Ingrid took home some freebies from my "free to a good home" basket. She was delighted!

CB brought her whole collection of punches for

sharing (I had a go with the little heart). Here's Margaret (L), Pat (middle) and CB (right) discussing the relative merit

s of these very satisfying papercraft tools.

Then in conversation, CB mentioned that her daughter invented the Lunch Punch. The what? It's an awesome thing - a sandwich cutter that makes cool shapes, but doesn't waste the bread (we've all tried using cookie cutters on bread, but they are not designed for the task, are they?).

I'm loving the frog one. I don't think I'm too old to use them, am I? There are a bunch of other designs.

CB says she might bring some along next month for us to buy!! Well wow! Until then, hit up the Lunch Punch web site and buy online, or ask your local cute stuff shop to get them in. This has been an unpaid endorsement from someone who's suddenly hungry for sandwiches.

This is what I was working on - turning an old diary into a - hmmm, what do you call that... let's call it an Art Book and leave it at that.

Much collage, old dictionary pages, gesso, paint and glue went into this page, and I have a series of about 10 all on the go at once. When I pronounce them all "done" I'll make them into a book and then ... I'll have a strange book.

Next meeting is March 26 - see you there!

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!

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