merry Christmas and little break

Dear Blogland dwellers thanks for popping by to We Cerate from time to time, it’s been great being here, getting all sorts of creative ideas form you all. I’m having a little blog-break but would like to wish you all a wonderful blessed Christmas…see you all in 2010!

Here we go…

craft apron 

 

 

         boxes/baskets to paint

    
                                                                       pretty fabric

 

 

paint from the garage…

 

yuck not so white 5 yr old paint          

          hang on… that’ll do

                     here we go

paint on boxes (not an easy photo to take)

& furniture…                    I’m starting small one corner at a time

stuck in the middle with you

If you were to engage me in conversation at the moment you’d realise I’m totally obsessed with shabby chic design and I’m totally obsessed with my craft room make-over. My craft room is one of those annoying rooms that you end up with after renovations – you know the room stuck in the middle between old and new – the walk through room. It has had many incarnations over the last 25 years…it started out as our main bed room, it’s been an office, a teenage bedroom and now it’s my craft room and I love it!

It looks out onto the pool and there’s a bush-rock waterfall right outside my window, there’s nothing like crafting to the sound of running water!

The view from my window

If you look closely you can see the water running…

While I’d love to have buckets of money to throw at this project I must face facts, I just don’t, so it’ll be budget shabby and that’s okay with me. I’m using the existing furniture and shabby-ing it up.

I’ve bought some lovely baskets that my good friend Renae found for me in Spotlight, and I have plans for painting that manly-blue wall (right) a feminine pink. MGM’s a bit worried (all the network cabling is on that wall) but I think his real fear is that the sahbby chci-ing will creep creep creep out into the rest of the house. His fears are justified…

Our youngest cherub has caught the bug too and is all excited about continuing the theme in her room too. But it’s okay because her room is in the extension and only one room away from my study, Now here’s the rub, because there is a room in between her room and the craft room it would not be fair to just leave that all daggy-looking, would it…?

So it’s settled #3 and I will shabby up the craft room and her room and the laundry in between, Renae has already made a donation to the laundry – how gorgeous is this little soap and hand cream container! (how lucky am I to have such a great friend). I have no plans beyond the borders of my craft room…right now I am content to spend a little time each day dab dab dabbing with my little paint brush…

would you like to see?

Hello again

Blogging at this time of the year is as vulnerable to Seasonal  demands as any other pleasurable past-time, you know…the things you like to do get put on hold while the things you must do impose themselves.

Anyway while I haven’t posted them I have been keeping up with my Christmas countdown card making (sort of – not as finished as I should be), here they are… 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were very quick to make with these cool dimensional stickers.

Total made so far = 61 (nearly there & not before time either).

WIP Wednesday

I’m so enjoying working this little kit.

Christmas countdown week 6 & 7

Yes I know I’m slipping ...no post last week because I was off celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary but I did make a card

which I have duplicated 4 times.

as for week 7? got nothin’ yet …am hoping for inspiration & hopefully I’ll have two for next week!

Work in Progress Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Becca…care to join?

Post about your current WIP and pop over to A Bowerbird’s Nest to leave your link.

 

here is my current WIP
Victoria Heart by Sweetheart Tree

 

 

this is what I’ve done so far

Christmas countdown week 5

I don’t want to alarm you but we’re into single figures…Christmas is nine and a bit weeks away …I will not panic…deep breaths…

here’s this weekend’s effort, no one said I was was going to do make my 100-cards-by-Christmas deadline by doing lots of complicated busy cards, with that in mind simple is good…

Christmas Countdown Week 4 (12 Oct 09)

I did post last week, I really did! I made a really pretty post, scheduled it to go up on Monday the 12th and then…nothing. It’s gone – don’t know where, just gone.

So here’s the card for last week …

When I saw “White Out” by Renee Dowling in Australian Stamping and Papercraft Magazine Vol 15 no 5 p14 I thought I just have to copy that one! I love white and pink fro Christmas, so outside-the-square.

I managed to make five of these cards so my tally is now 31.

Christmas Countdown Week 3

Thanks to World Card Making Day I managed to make 7 variations on last weeks theme. That means 8 cards out of the black lace paper (so I don’t feel too bad about spending $4.95 on one piece of paper).

here is my card for this week…

I really like it but I pretty sure I’ll only make two of these – very tedious.

craft road trip booty

I love long weekends – well who doesn’t you’d be un-g’dayed (sort if like de-barking for dogs only with Aussies) if  you admitted to not liking a long weekend in Australia.

My treat for this weekend was to jump in the car with two of my best buddies and cruise down to Berry for a lovely (if somewhat soggy) Sunday.

This is the  travel survival pack provided by Becca. Beautifully scrap-booked outside and filled with essential items – map to get us back home if the sat-nav let us down, tiny shopping list with reminder to buy cool stuff, chuppa chup (in my fav. flavour) glow sitck (for road side breakdowns in the evening), rope - for cliff edge falls (starting to get worried about Becca’s crafting expectations at this stage), super-glue (for MacGyver moments), tiny craft project (mini knitting needles with mouse-sized scarf started) & Christmas candy canes because it’s Christmas season (anytime from August on in Becca-land)

We spent most of our time in Sew & Tell and all of our money!

The Booty…

1. a shawl pin
2. three packs of gorgeous beads
3. Threadworx overdyed floss
4. some raw silk salmon coloured
5. Heirloom Christmas Sampler kit

 

 

 

We ate yummy food (Berry pie shop has to-die-for pies) and talked non-stop all day – as you do1 What a wonderful day and how lucky am I to have such great friends!

I have it on good authority that today is World Card Making Day (Renae found it on Rachel Greig's blog) and I am embracing this event body and soul.

Have told my family who have generously agreed to sponsor (contribute to my addiction) me.

 

Have even put a sign on the door to my craft room (to make it more official-like).

will post WCD show & tell soon…

Christmas Countdown Week 2

So far as good…last week I managed to repeat the week 1 template 6 times so seven cards last week – not blow-your-socks-off crafting but better than I’d been doing.

This is my card for this week week…

how do you keep track of it all

Isn’t it frustrating when you have lots of gorgeous handmade pieces of jewellery, designed to compliment your wardrobe and the piece you want is at the bottom of the pile, in a tangled mess.

I was finding it impossible to keep track of my jewellery (and the two daughters who share the wearing weren’t helping) so I spent many sleepless nights on a mission for possible solutions. It needed to be cheap (rather spend money on beads or glass), practical and possibly pretty; when I found some adorable little hooks at Lincraft over Christmas I was inspired. I planned and I measured (well not really but I had a serious attempt at eyeballing it) and this is what I came up with… My best friend reckons I’ve made an artwork of my jewellery and I was very flattered by that appraisal. It is very pretty especially at night because it’s right under a down-light. It’s so simple: two hooks, a venetian blind wand (because it’s stiff enough to stay taut yet clear so as not to distract your eye from the bling), and a row of the little hooks. I’m so enamoured I’m going to hang the next one near a window – how pretty will that be!

It works well in another way because each item has a dedicated hook so an empty hook means something’s missing…G-I-R-L-S!

Christmas Countdown

Yes …that’s right Christmas…again how did that happen? I love Christmas and, yes I do go over the top, and yes, making all my own cards (over 100) to send out is probably excessive but I started 2009 with plan to avoid being overwhelmed by Christmas preparations.

In a nutshell I planned to make 10 Christmas cards a month (quite do-able I thought) and then by November I’d have a stockpile of 110 cards. “hmmmm” I hear you say “I wonder how she went with that plan".”

Simple answer not so well, how many cards should I have in September? 90. How many do I have? 8 (and they’re all left-overs from last year!)

so my new plan is design one card a week (on the weekend), mass produce multiples during the week and record my progress here so I have some accountability as motivation – I expect merciless teasing if I don’t perform!

Week 1

Inspired by the gorgeous simple cards in a book Becca showed me at work and also by a work colleague who said “I just put pva glue in the shape of a tree and dumped glitter on it for my cards last year". I thought I can do that and this is what I came up with, so simple I made 5 cards in under 10 mins!

I love these iridescent pastel, heart shaped beads they bring a whole new emphasis on loving Christmas!