Wow I found this lady here: Erin Vale Designs and she had a fabulous idea for a teachers gift.

Little teracotta pots painted with chalkboard paint. In the pot is a printeable seed packet (for all those garden havested seeds – like Conner’s Snapdragons) and a piece of chalk.

I thought it was fabulous! Thank you for the inspiration Erin
She also has some great printable tags and packets and other ’stuff’ with instructions and in PDF to download.
So make sure you check out her site and look for those wonderful FREEBIES (gotta love the freebies)

http://www.erinvaledesign.com

Today DH and I celebrate our 8 year wedding anniversary. Not only did we marry on this day 8 years ago we also met on this day, 11 years ago, in 1998 ♥

Today is also my mum’s birthday. She would have been 59 years old today.

So it really is a day of mixed emotions.

It is also Remembrance day, which is set aside on the 11th day of the 11th month and we observe a minutes silence at 11am – as a day to remember the sacrifice of those who have died for Australia in wars and conflicts.
It was originally known as Armistice Day.
In most ceremonies of remembrance there is a reading of an appropriate poem designed to help the listener understand the experiences of service people and their relatives in wartime.
In Flanders fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead.
Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
John McCrae (1872–1918)

For the fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill:
Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.

There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869–1943)

I have made the most remembered verse bold, from the poem “for the fallen”

LEAST WE FORGET

xxTam

Scrapbooking Memories magazine has been asked to do a segment on The Morning show with Kerrianne kennerly tomorrow morning!! I recently had a canvas published in the Pink Issue of SBM Vol11 No10 and Kristy has asked if they can show it on the Morning Show!!

I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just in case you get a chance to watch its on Channel 9. The Morning show with Kerri-anne starts at 9am and goes till 11am. Scrapbooking Memories will be on around 10am! Tune in and let me know how it goes as I’ll be at work!

Here we have the basic setup…a frame with the glass inserted.

I have bought a large sheet of thick, white cardboard from the newsagents for under $5.00. I cut this into strips…4  lengths the same as each inside edge of the frame (mine are [2x]8.5 in x [2x]11 in) and around 1.25cm wide (or deep). The width of the strips will determine the final depth of your box. I have found for my lumpy bumpy layouts that 1.25cm is sufficient so that the glass won’t touch my embellishments but I’m sure you’ll find with practice that you will determine what width (depth) is right for your project.
Before I glue each strip in I check that they all fit nice and snugly inside the frame without gaps or bowing (which means they are a little too long) The cardboard also needs to be thick enough that it’ll hold the glass in place when you turn it over the right way.

If not perhaps glue two equal strips together, so that they are double the thickness. You could also cut strips of matching cardstock and cover your strips to match your layout or project!

Make sure you have no gaps that are visible from the front.
Notice in the above picture that the strips of cardboard hold the glass in the frame. This will stop the glass from falling in on your layout or project once it’s all together.
Then it’s just a matter of gluing each strip to the side of the frame.

I use Pritt Power Gel! My favourite gluing product – this stuff will glue ANYTHING!

I run a nice sized bead of glue down each strip, put into place and hold for about a minute. It sticks quite quickly!
(How long it takes to stick firmly will probably depend on the current temp, so just hold it and run pressure down the strip until you think it will stay without holding)

The next step can be a little tricky but I know you’ll ace it!
I then attach my layout to some more of that thick white cardboard. Making sure that it will fit nicely on that boxed edge. If it’s too small it will just fall in! Next lay your layout (or project) on top of that little edge.
I then use a wide masking tape to tape the back to the box edge.
See photo:


See it really is quite easy and once you make one you’ll soon find that you’ll want to frame ALL your layouts! (I hope that wall is BIG!)

This is what the strips look like from the front – on an angle of course! When you look straight on you hardly notice that you have made your normal picture frame into a box frame!
Good luck!
Here is the the full tutorial in pdf format for downloading

If you use this tutorial please give credit to the author, Tammy Templeton ©
tammytempleton.wordpress.com

Do you want Glimmermist in lots of different colours but like me can’t afford to buy them all!
Well let me tell you how to make your own!

I used the FolkArt Metallics paint (655 Metallic Aquarmarine – about $4.00 per bottle)
and a misting spray bottle (I used an empty hair detangler bottle because I’m too impatient to wait and go out and buy a little atomizer )

I squeezed a smidge of paint into the atomizer and the same amount in water. You don’t need to fill the bottle, just enough so it will be picked up and sprayed out. Then give it a good shake to mix the paint and water. Make sure to shake the bottle before each spray too so that the metallic particles are distributed evenly in the mixture (it tends to settle to the bottom)

In this example I am using a shape to mask a section of my paper.

Give your atomizer a shake and spray over and around your mask from about 30cm away – otherwise you’ll get big blobs instead of a fine misting.

I had used this mask previously so it was a bit buckled. You could spray the back with a non-permanent adhesive if you wanted it stuck down better or better yet a new one! (I told you I’m impatient! )

What you are left with is a negative of your shape. And see how its all shimmery – just like Glimmermist! (It does look much more shiny in real life and to be honest I couldn’t tell the difference between my homemade glimmermist and the bought one)

Once I finished I doodled around the inside edge of my mask and also around some of the bigger sploches on the page.

This would make an excellent journal block on a scrapbook page or you could use it as a photo mount

I think I’ll call it SHIMMERMIST!

[I made my mask by tracing around one of my Pumpkin Pink XL journal-it blocks]

Thank you to Lucy at Attic 24, I have been busy crocheting these gorgeous Hexagons. Now I’m more a knitter than a crocheter but I liked the idea of joining these hex’s as you go and I think they are lovely
You can find the pattern and all the tips you need on Lucys blog Attic24
Thanks Lucy!

In case of interest these are the balls of colour I am using. I had to go back to Spotlights the next day and get some more colours. I’m using ten colours now.

So that’s what I’ve been up to – now with the kids we have been making some things too.
Yesterday we got ourselves some wooden clothes pegs and popsticks…

and made these cute little planes

Today we made some tiger eyes. Talissa just needed to be reminded how to make hers and Conner needed a bit more help but I thought it would be really good for his hand-eye coordination. We really need to spend more time with him on this. Is that the bane of the last child? Not wanting them to grow up too quickly? Perhaps.
Then after dinner we made Tomboys for Talissa and Conner. We used a toilet roll and 4 pop sticks. I started Talissa off with hers and she has done about 2 feet worth! Pretty darn good sweets
I had Conner on my lap helping him with his. He laid his cheek on mine while we worked on his Tomboy. It was very sweet. I’ll try and get photo’s of those crafts tomorrow.

Talissa told me it was the best day of her life! How sweet is that – I love spending quality time with the kids doing crafts and knowing that they enjoy it so much…rather than buying them something and leaving them to it

I have been feeling a little flat lately. I’ve done a little bit of scrapping, a little bit of crocheting and a little bit of tv watching. I think this cold has really knocked me for a sixer – but the Dr gave me some super-duper strong antibiotics so i should be on the road to recovery soon

Now I was doing a Google search this afternoon and came across this ladys blog – Attic 24…Lucy is her name and she makes the most exquiste crochet I have seen for quite some time! Very inspiring – very colourful…fun and funky!

OMFG!!!!!!!! In the middle of this post we just had the MOST AMAZING HAIL STORM I’VE EVER SEEN!!!!!!!!!!!

TOTALLY AMAZING!
(and yes I got soaked )

Ok your probably thinking that this is quite lame but for us here in Adelaide this much hail is a real spectical and worth recording

So now after all of that cold, round stuff, I’m feeling even more inspired to crochet
But first to cook some apricot chicken for dinner. Num, num
This is me…signing off!

Do you know someone who loves model trains?
Well have I got a deal for you! Just kidding LOL.

As some of you might already know I work part-time in the planroom at Islington Railways. I love the old buildings there and the planroom use to be the old typing pool at one stage and also the pay office. Its over 100 years old and was actually built using the ballast from the ships. It has some history my office Its now called Inprotrans and we hold about 200,000 technical drawings of the former South Australian Railway, Commonwealth Railway and Australian National Railway.

Just recently we’ve been getting in negatives from an amazing photographer, Doug Colquhoun, which we are printing out on high quality photo paper and framing in gorgeous ‘antique’ frames. I’ve been helping Mark with the framing and I must admit that these framed photo’s are gorgeous! I’m not a train buff in the least but these photo’s are just gorgeous…photo’s of the old steam engines under steam (that means there are big plumes of smoke – or steam which makes for amazing photo’s), photo’s of railway stations like Stirling and my favourite at the moment is a photo of the train line that ran down the middle of Semaphore road! I didn’t even know that the trains went down there until I seen these photo’s!

Needless to say I am starting to build my own collection of framed photo’s It’s not so much the whole ‘train’ thing as it is of the history. Most of these photo’s where taken before I was born…the last photo I bought was taken even before my Nana was born…right on the turn of the century – 1900 – of King William Street in the city. Before bitumen, before sky scrappers, where there were a myriad of tram and train lines and people walking around down the middle of the road! (Not something I would do lightly now-a-days!) and not one motorised vehicle in sight – all horse drawn..

Anyway I digress (sp?) The point I was trying to make is the my boss Mark has some framed photo’s up on Ebay and I wanted to share them with you. Also to get ‘The word’ out there

I’ve just done a blog for work HERE and if you have a Father or Uncle or a Granddad or even yourself, who loves everything about trains then this would be a great site for them to visit, as you can order prints and drawings of anything railways related!

So here are some framed prints and I have linked them directly to ebay

Semaphore Road 1962

I love this photo too – a 720b steam loco on a wet day at the Mt Lofty station 1952

A 300 class railcar at Salisbury station 1978

So there you have it! This is what I have been up to lately at work
You can visit the Inprotrans Blog here
and the Inprotrans website here (which is due for a major refurbishment! – IMO anyways ) but I can’t say too much otherwise the boss might think I’m putting my hand up

Today I killed the kids Sea Monkeys
I put them on the windowsill to soak up the sun but I think I cooked them instead!

I didn’t mean to…HONEST! Poor little sea monkeys…I have been nurturing them for the last two weeks and now their gone I droppped Talissa off at Guides this evening and her first words to her troupe leader was…
“I’m very sad because my mum killed all my Sea Monkeys”
Thanks Talissa, as if I didn’t feel bad enough!

I have done a couple of LO’s over the week-end, one being for the Colour Combo’s Galore 132

Talissa at the Royal Adelaide Show this year had her face painted. I have used an Ann Lederhose chipboard feather and a Pumpkin Pink journal-it that I inked white.

I ‘was’ supposed to have a met up today with Tatum and Lou but both Conner and I are still struggling with this darn cold that we can’t seem to shake…I’ve got the blocked ears that make that swooshing noise with every heartbeat, runny nose and a yucky cough. I choose not to go today and I feel so disappointed too
I hope you girls had a great day

As promised here is a piccie of the gorgeous flowers that Miss Wally sent me
I’m looking forward to getting a spare 5 minutes to scrap with these Thanks Leeann xxooxx

This afternoon Talissa and I went to Kmart as she has sports day tomorrow and she needed a yellow t-shirt and green pants. We got the t-shirt and found a pair of trackies for $1!! Fancy getting a brand new pair of trackie dacks for that price! and we also picked up a new pair of sneakers all for $20 You gotta be happy with that!

The sneakers had laces – Talissa is 7 – so I thought it was well about time to teach her how to tie them up. We sat and practiced until she got it right She was very pleased with herself and we ‘had’ to take a photo for prosterity

Conner and I went to the TripleM radio station today to pick up our Show tickets and then we dropped them off to Valerie at her work – Valerie and her family are having the day off tomorrow to go – so if your reading this “I hope you all have a FABULOUS day”

xx