Once again it's been a couple of years since I've posted here.  So much h as happened, so much has changed.   It's taken me a long time to recover from loosing my father and I don't think I'll ever get over his loss but life goes on.

 

Where to begin?  Herbie's job that we moved to country Victoria for came to an end.  It was a shock after all we'd done to get down here but Herbie decided to take the redundancy and 6 months long service leave.  We were financially comfortable for a while even put our house on solar energy and bought me a new car. I now drive a Kia Stonic SUV and we haven't had an electric bill for so long, best decision ever!  Herbie did after 6 months decided he needed to go back to work and now had the best job, 3 days per week and working from home!  Now and then he has to go into his office in Melbourne City but that's so rare, it's like having the best of both worlds. He's working but he's home, lovely.  My best friend Michelle finally married the love of her life Adam so we traveled back up to Sydney for their beautiful wedding too.

And now for some big news, Herbie and I became grandparents for the first time last September. Our son Ben and his beautiful fiance Bethany had a gorgeous little boy they named Lee!   Lee is nearly 7 months old and is such a good baby. He is little brother to Ben's stepson TJ and TJ adores his baby brother.  We are off up to the Central Coast north of Sydney in early May to see Ben's little family again and my sister Nicole.   Nicole has graciously let Ben and the family move in with her as my father left Nicole the house in his will.  

 

Now as for me, I was ment to have had a knee replacement by this time of 2025 but as luck would have it I had a bad fall (because of my knee!) on Christmas ever 2024 and broke my upper right arm.  I was so bad a break that after 3 weeks I had to have surgery to have screws and plates put in it. It was what's called a spiral fracture of the upper humerous bone. I haven't been able to drive since them and have just started physiotherapy a few weeks ago.  I am allowed to drive as of this week but only short distanced which is fine by me.  My arm is so week and can only just lift it above my head and there's no way I can get it behind my back like my other arm.  They tell me it's probably going to be about a year before I get full use of it again if ever. Dang!

As for my Stampin' Up! journey, that's had to take a back seat for a while with all of this going on.  I wasn't able to even write my name my arm was so bad let alone sit at my craft desk.  However the last 2 weeks has seen me travel to Brisbane for the yearly OnStage 3 day conference and I had a wonderful time.  My crafting mojo is back and I even managed to make swaps to take to the conference.  I met up with some wonderful online friends I'd not seen since before covid, it was wonderful! 

This is Ann who I share accommodation with and Nancy who was in our same hotel too

 And here's the front cover of the new 2025-2026 Annual catalogue.  It will be released soon but I already have some wonderful productions from it.

So this post as been quite long but I promise it won't take me this long to update again. I have lots of creations to share with you and lots of new stamp sets etc to play with to share as well.  Stay tuned for when the new catalogue goes live, I will post the URL for it on here so you can browse the PDF format of it.  I will leave you with a couple of photos of last year's Christmas cards that I remembered to photograph.

Til next time

happy stamping colouring and creating!
 

Yes, It's been a long time again...21 March 2023

There's a reason there's been no blog posting, besides me not having any creative mojo to get creating.  Sadly my father had been really ill. He went into hospital again in January for a week then came home. He was only home a week and had to go back.

One thing after another kept happening to my  poor daddy and in the end his body couldn't handle it any longer.  John Ellington Philip Hiscott left us on the night of 21st February 2023. His body had finally had enough. 

I made the long two day drive by myself up to be with him. My brother, niece & nephew rushed up as well.  We believe what the doctors said that the last sense to go is hearing because we were all in his room for hours. Including Miaa my niece's little 1yr old.  We think Dad was hanging on to see Miaa one last time.His only great grandchild.  Sadly he never woke up but we recon he heard us all because it was only hours after I finally left the hospital to get some much needed sleep when the doctors called us to say he'd passed on. 

Dad's funeral was held that Friday with just us immediate family there.  It's what he would have wanted. We managed to pull together some beautiful photos for a power point to one of his favourite songs.  As I was driving all the way up from country Victoria I kept hearing this beautiful song called How to I say Goodbye by Dean Lewis. I believe that was a message. I played it for my brother & sister who agreed we should have it during the funeral as well. 

We also had a bit of humour because what would it have been with out some.  Our father was always the happiest easy go lucky man.  He always made us laugh and smile so how fitting we should send him off to Always look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idol of Monty Python fame. 

We all went out for dinner that night to celebrate Dad's life and it was a long one of 89 years.  Though the last couple were spent mostly in hospital, his sense of humor never left him. We shall always miss you Daddy. I hate that I can't pick the phone up any more and hear your voice or pick you brains for cooking ideas. I have stored away in my mind and heart all the love and caring and advice you've given me and will always be grateful you were my Daddy, my JohnBoy! 

 

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Long time no blog post! 30th December 2022!

 Hi folks, well it's been such a long time between blog posts but there's been so much happen in my neck of the woods, I'm sure you'll forgive me.

My hubby got a new job and to do that job ment we  had to move. Soooo rather than move twice, we decided to take our "sea change" now rather than when hubby gets closer to retirement. Yes he's younger than me so he's never going to catch up to me being retired LOL.

So come August we started packing, it was a long haul as we had to sell our house and find a new home in our new location.  Where did we buy a new house?  A little country town called Grantville on the Bass coast of Victoria! Think Phillip Island and come north by about 1/2 an hour's drive and yup you got it we've relocated to country Victoria from the hustle and bustle of busy Sydney!

To say the change is startling would be an understatement but we love it. Our new home is just that, practically brand new compared the the Hampson's little Hovel we lived in in Sydney. That place was built in the early 1970s so you can imagine it's age.

I have my own crafting room/studio now and hubby has a home office too!  Our kitties made the treck about a month after I did. We flew them down and they are loving their new home as well. We've had a lot done like a new cat enclosure, airconditioning, new furniture, a shed will be built soon out the back and hubby has almost finished landscaping part of the front yard today too.  I will share some photos but have been reluctant to til now as I felt I overshared at our last home but I'll get over that.  

Grantville is not a new town but much of the housing is now new and new estates are going in in the future too.  We have been so blessed to find our home and buy it and doubly blessed that our Sydney home sold so well and fast too.  It's been a bit of a blur since September but now the new year is nearly here, things are settling down and we are enjoying the more relaxed life style in a home that is so beautiul to us we are still pinching ourselves that we got it! 

Yes I'm still an independent Stampin' Up! demonstrator but that had to take a back seat for a little while whilst we were selling up and relocating.  I've been living down here by myself for a bit as hubby has to see out his Sydney contract. He's here for Christmas & new year but has to go back for the last 5 weeks of the programme then he'll be back down here permanently from mid February when he starts work at HMAS Cerberus.  Yes he's going back onto a naval base. Good times!

I'll leave you with some photos of our new place and will try and be back more regularly in 2023

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

sea view from our back door!

Tutu Tuesday & a Tutorial 15 March 2022!

 Welcome back and happy Tutu Tuesday!

How's this gorgeous little number! It's no secret that I love Tutus and there's nothing more fun finding great little numbers that make a many of you smile!

Having selected this little cutie and those gorgeous colours this week, I've created a tutorial using alcohol Blends and 100% Isopropyl & a heat gun onto vellum. Once I had filled the sheet and it was all dry, I added some very fine lines of glue and adhered gold gilding flakes. Glued onto a sheet of basic white card stock so you can really see the results and tada, what a gorgeous background!

PLEASE NOTE: ordinary Isocol does NOT work this technique, you need 100% isopropyl. I bought mine from Bunnings. It is the Diggers brand, 500ml bottle. It comes with a spray top however, as it's a large bottle, I transferred some into a smaller bottle using a pippet.  The air puffer I have I have had for many years. I do believe it's still on the market but you can also get something similar from your local chemist which I think is used for cleaning out ears.  Basically you need something you can easily pump quickly with your hand to blow the isopropyl around your page to help spread the Blends' ink!

 

https://youtu.be/sa0vy7y_RoE 

 

Here are the finished pieces after the video was completed. One more Thanks card and 2 pieces left to create more cards. I added a bit of Magenta Madness to this 2nd background, gorgeous!

 

 

 

So, til next time, remember

happy stamping, colouring & creating!!

 

Product List

White Vellum A4 Card Stock [106584] $17.50	Bermuda Bay Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154878] $15.50	Daffodil Delight Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154883] $15.50
Granny Apple Green Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154885] $15.50	Water Painters [151298] $21.00	Heat Tool [129056] $50.00
Multipurpose Liquid Glue [110755] $7.00	Gilded Leafing Embellishment [154560] $15.75	Paper Trimmer [152392] $44.00
Mini Stampin' Cut & Emboss Machine [150673] $104.00	Amazing Thanks Dies (English) [157816] $47.00	Basic White A4 Thick Cardstock [159230] $14.25
Basic Black A4 Card Stock [121688] $15.25	Adhesive Sheets [152334] $17.50

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Colouring Ribbon Tutorial 11 March 2022

Hello and welcome to a new tutorial at last! I know, it's taken me ages to get back into the swing of things but I hope to have more newer tutorials soon and a bit more regularly too.

This Fabulous Friday at 5'o'clock (FFAF'ish!) shows you how you can change plain white ribbon into a colourful piece to be used on handmade cards and scrapbooking pages.   

 

In the past I have shown you all how I dye ribbons using rubbing alcohol mixed with reinkers then heat set with my heat gun. 

You'll find that tutorial here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad7QV46RLGg

These next photos show previously hand coloured ribbons and a finished card using them.  PLEASE NOTE: items used in this card are retired therefore no longer available to purchase but there are many other products available you can substitued what I've used to create with!

This time I'm using Stampin' Write markers which are dye based markers. 

Years ago I showed on an old blog how I did this however we no longer have that same width ribbon so I'm using the 1/4"/6.4mm wide crinkled white seam binding. If you have wider white ribbon, give it a go using it. I know some of us still have some that width though it's been retired by Stampin' Up! for some time now.

All you will need are the ribbon, a water brush or mini spritzer with water in it, a few colours of Stampin' Write markers that will blend well together.  A heat tool if you want to dry your ribbon faster as well. Yup, that simple.  Sit back and watch me blunder through my first video demo in ages.  Bare with me as I've new software as well so am also getting use to that too.

And here's a creation made using Basic White Note cards for the base & envelope, Basic White layer stamped using Blushing Bride, Gray Granite & Cinnamon Cider ink pads, Stampin'Write markers and stamp sets Artfully Layered & Hello Ladybug (sentiment stamp). 

Don't forget to decorate your envelopes & inside your cards!

til next time, remember,

happy stamping, colouring & creating!

Product List

Whisper White 1/4" (6.4 Mm) Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon [151326] $13.00	Neutrals Stampin' Write Markers [147158] $52.50	Subtles Stampin' Write Markers [147156] $52.50
Basic White Note Cards & Envelopes [159232] $12.25	Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad [147100] $13.00	Gray Granite Classic Stampin' Pad [147118] $13.00
Cinnamon Cider Classic Stampin' Pad [153114] $13.00	Hello Ladybug Photopolymer Stamp Set (English) [157693] $32.00	Artfully Layered Cling Stamp Set (English) [157752] $42.00
Multipurpose Liquid Glue [110755] $7.00

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