fimo is my friend

....so it has been a busy week or so doing workshops and having clingy whinging teething babies around and not much has been done in regards to my mighty blog...but now I return and hey presto..I have stuff to show! As some of you know my other love is fimo aka polymer clay. I have been playing with it since a teenager (I wont say how many years ago that is!!) and I love it. Having kids has kind of pushed it a bit into the too hard basket for some reason and I haven't managed to do as much as I have previously. However, I have been having a play with clay and the beautiful range of stamps courtesy of Stampin' Up. The Always stamp set from the spring mini catalogue is just inspiring and beautiful and really easy to adapt into polymer clay. To make it just roll out your clay on ye old pasta machine to a 4. Squash your stamp onto the clay. Then with a dauber, shade the clay with chalk or ink. Add a few mini beads and poke any holes in bits. Put a pin on the back (if you are making a badge). Cook for around 5 mins at 150c. Leave to cool and then add some glitter or rhinestones. You can also use these on cards too as the main picture or element. On this card I used the Seaside Sketches stamp set to make this Father's day card. I used a dark blue clay and stamped a mixture of metallic inks onto the surface before baking it. I am not 100% happy with it-it needs 'something' but not sure what though....I am sure it will come to me when I am mowing the lawns some time :> Cheers ears When a cow laughs, does milk come out her nose? ~Author Unknown

little boxes...little boxes...little boxes made of ticky tacky....

lalalala..lalalala...humhumhumhum...I think are the next words...I suspect it is a beatles song? some one feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Boxes are on my mind at the moment. I bought a whole heap a while back and they have been staring at me. So last night I had a workshop and did a whole pile of them...and I also shared some with my customers hahahaha As you can tell I stuck with mainly a girly theme and used a whole heap of glitter because that is what makes it soo sparkly.... :> and what girl doesn't like glitter and bling? cheers ears! All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. ~Grant Wood

oi what happened to summer???!!

grrrr...it was so lovely yesterday. I was even having guilt attacks about spending it inside doing some scrapping and card making.....yeah right!!! mwahahahaha :> today tho I feel totally justified as it is rainy and revolting and after a big night on the razz for me and hubby we decided that a very quiet Sunday in was what was called for... A couple of weeks ago I was wandering home with the munchkins and spied the Lifeline op shop in Bargo so I thought I would go in for a little look-see. Those who know me well understand my fetish for op shopping and how I love to meander through them and check out bargains. Well I spotted some cool little metal containers and thought I could (in the fabulous words of my friend Kris)"Clare" them...and so i have...let me know what you think! cheers ears! As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists. ~Joan Gussow

woohoo I am on a roll!

see I told you...I can remember to do my blog! I just would like to do this a bit more often like everyone else seems to do..well the gorgeous ones I always check out anyways. I will put those links up soon...when I figure out how to do it anyways:> Here is another goodie I did recently for some lovely ladies in Mittagong. We used some real red card stock and the Summer Picnic papers from the mini catalogue. I combined it with some of the die-cuts and loads of red ribbon! On the inside are 12 pages with a tag on them for each month of the year. It was very easy and looks cool...well I think so any how :> cheers ears! Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures. ~Thomas de Quincey

....and in the beginning there was paper...

...and it was good paper! It seems to be what I am obsessed by at the moment-mind you show me a scrapbooker or card maker who isn't huh!? I am in love with 'Holiday Harmony' designer series paper from Stampin' Up. It is in my favourite colour combinations of Purely Pomegranate and River Rock and it is also very adaptable to other projects that aren't Christmassy. Here is a card I made recently using my favourite combination. I used the One of a Kind flowers, It's Beautiful wheel and the quote from A Beautiful Thing. I also dabbled with the Dazzling Diamonds glitter and my daubers to add some life to the card. You'll also notice holes in my card...look carefully now...yeah...right there...uh-huh... So that's my first real post in my blog done...phew...now that wasn't too hard. Just have to remember to keep doing it now...remind me wont you all (if anyone IS reading this hahaha)if I slack off and don't do it! Cheers ears There's nothing like sitting back and talking to your cows. ~Russell Crowe