This was one of those cards that just wouldn’t happen. No matter what l did to it or stuck on it, it just looked AWFUL. lt was originally a card made for a colour challenge, but after a week of me shuffling round pomegranate, white, pale pink and banana coloured cardstock on my desk (and rescuing them from the cat who decided to sleep on them) l decided the pale yellow HAD TO GO. l had cuttlebugged, distressed, dimensional magicked, pop dotted, splattered, inked and sanded the bloody card to within an inch of its life, and it was still obstinately one of the fugliest things l had ever made. In the end, the yellow cardstock got incinerated and l replaced it with embossed cream and a flower and a pearl. l still don’t like it much, but at least it gets saved from the bin. Blech.

You know how Stampin’ Up! name all their stamp sets really snappy witty names, often with words starting with the same letters? (aliteration? - not sure). This one l have renamed ‘Fugly Flowers’. LOL.

arrrggghhh…l have a folder full of stuff l wanted to blog, and just haven’t had time to post it. Server problems with websites, work, family, and emails that are breeding like rabbits. Oh, and season two of Sex in the City to watch because l never watched them while they were on TV and am catching up now after loving the movie. (l have to say though, from what l have seen so far, l really don’t like Mr Big at all, do Carrie and he ever have a normal conversation!? Sure he looks sexy and all, but his character is so non-committal blase and uncommunicative, it drives me nuts!)

l’ve started making my xmas cards thanks to this stamp set that makes me laugh so much. lt may not be ‘artistic’, but l love colouring in stamped images, it is sooooo relaxing, and it’s nice to do something where you don’t have to think too hard to get a nice result. The crab is stamped onto arches watercolour paper. There is glitter on the santa hat and crystal effects (gloss) on all the eyeballs. Too cute! The kids loved all the little extras that came with this stamp set like presents and hats and a prawn, they were all covered in stazon, stamped and coloured in before l even got to look at them!

l’ve scrapped too. l’ve almost finished dd’s baby album, l’ve been redoing the pages in it for about 2 years now. (remind me never to re-do an album again!) The colours in this layout came straight from a digital scrapbooking website l happened to visit here.

after a crappy day with crashed servers, deleted files and too much time spent staring at this screen, l went down the art store for retail therapy and spent far too much money on these art markers which l totally love We had a whole subject on marker rendering when l was at uni, all the storyboards for ads and mockups were done with double ended markers, and it was really fun. A bit ironic though because in uni l would have killed to have this selection of colours, l’m sure l could only afford one a month, and it feels a bit indulgent to have them just for colouring in the odd stamp. l’m sure l’ll get over it though LOL!

 Another thing that makes me laugh about uni is that for our finished art (ie: for photography/printing setup) we used to use sheets of black letraset rub on letters to create titles for our designs. They were about $35 for one A3 sheet, in one font, and very often only one size to the sheet. Just think how cool it would have been to have scrapbooking rubons back then LOL! You had to rub them on absolutely perfectly and lined up straight, and do your spacing & kerning by HAND *freaking out*. For mistakes we all bought mini bottles of special white paint, l forget what it was called, but you couldn’t use liquid paper, and we had to have tiny sable hair brushes to paint out mistakes. We also had scalpels for cutting little letters out and glueing them down on pasteboard.

In my third year of uni they bought 8 Apple Mac computers and we started to learn a very early version of Adobe pagemaker and photoshop, and someone owned a scanner *shock*. There was an air of disbelief about it all though, l don’t think anyone really believed computers would take off

 And this pic is from way back then…OMG, 1988!!! l would have been about 19 or 20 years old here, l’m standing with two advertising dudes with an award l won for something. Far out, it feels like only yesterday. A bit scary

Anyway enough rambling…there’s more work to do

l think l may have found myself a new hobby. Just as well because l can honestly say l really don’t feel much like scrapbooking at the moment. I’ve run out of photos (except for the incredibly uninspiring ones) and my mojo has gone walkies. While going round in circles the other day trying to think of something to DO, l fished out the box of candlemaking supplies that l bought yonks ago and decided to have a play.

As you can see, l only have the very best high tech candle making equipment LOL - not! This is a washed, empty tin from a can of pie apples, and it is perfect for melting wax in on the stove. Inside it is approx 400grams of palm wax. l like palm wax because it makes really pretty crystal patterns in the sides of a cooled candle, and the higher the temperatures - the better the pattern. And since l don’t have a candle thermometer yet, there’s a good likelihood of the temperature being too high, and therefore some yummy patterns emerging.

Here’s the palm wax almost melted. l stirred it every now and then with the skewer, l was a bit scared it would burn or burst into flames and blow up the kitchen if l didn’t

Here is my only piece of high tech candlemaking equipment - my metal pillar mould. Later on l was to discover l was actually using it to make an upside down candle. The skewers and peg are holding the candle wick vertical, but - ah ha! - while waiting for my wax to melt l quickly googled candlemaking and learned that you are not supposed to pour a candle with the wick in, you put it in afterwards. Which left me a little befuddled - how on earth do you get the wick in a candle AFTER it is poured and set?

And the answer was - with a wick pin in the mould! (or, in my case, a chopped up wire coat hanger taped into position in an empty custard carton LOL) - can you tell what we had for dessert last night?!
Once the candle has set, you remove it from the mould, and take the wick pin out of the centre. You then put a wick straight through the centre, and it adheres on the bottom of the candle. This means that candles are made top down, and that the bottom of the pillar mould (or the bottom of the custard carton LOL) is actually the TOP of the finished candle. Which might explain why the bottom of my pillar mould has such a lovely curved, beveled edge *doh*.

Here’s my custard carton full of hot wax, flavoured with Creme Brulee candle frangrance. OMG it smelled divine.

Here’s my unmoulded pillar candle, and you can see the blu-tack holding the bottom of the wick in place…in what is actually supposed to be the TOP of the candle (argh, are you confused yet? LOL!) Check out the pretty crystal patterns though! This candle had a few drops of ivory colouring added, and also cinnamon vanilla fragrance. Good enough to EAT!

And here are the finished candles Even though they are upside down, l still love them. The seams of the custard carton make me laugh, hubby thought it looked silly though. I also need to learn how to finish them off, l don’t think those ‘fluffy’ edges are supposed to stay.
I’m going to buy some more moulds, more wicks, and also more wax. l want to try beeswax candles, and oooh, there is blueberry muffin flavoured fragrance, how can l resist!?
And now…every time l go to a bakeware shop or see muffin tins…l instantly think of candles *scheming*!!!

I discovered a pizzabox of half unfinished layouts yesterday while cleaning up my desk. This was one of them, just waiting for the journaling and a button. (l have to put a button on nearly every layout, is anyone else the same? LOL!)

This one just needs some journaling. Jessie is such a funny dog, l’ve never enjoyed having a dog so much, she is so well behaved. She has some very funny habits though…when the phone rings, she howls at it mournfully, like a wolf baying at the moon. The other really funny thing is the light reflections that you get on the ceiling when you might be using a saucepan or washing something stainless steel or reflective in the kitchen. She goes absolutely ballistic at them, she must think they are a ghost or something. lt is really funny! The kids now think it is hilarious to find something shiny and make it catch the light, because Jess then starts racing round the living room barking madly, bouncing off furniture and trying to catch whatever it is (maybe she wants to gallantly protect her mean and horrible family who are deliberately setting her up LOL!)

and finally l finished this one, just some photos from dd’s baptism last year (yes, we finally got round to it about 4.5 years too late!) She really enjoyed it, and l think it was kind of nice in a way that she was old enough to know what was happening and do it because she wanted to. (Privately though l think she was more excited about buying a new dress and going out for lunch afterwards LOL!)

Last night was scary, because l really wanted to scrap but just couldn’t make a page come together. I really felt like l had completely lost my mojo, and that l would never scrap again. (not dramatic much!) So l decided that the finished result didn’t have to be blogworthy, it didn’t have to be perfect, and it didn’t have to be a work of art. I wish l could remember these things a bit more often. There’s alot to be said for simple scrapbooking, and there’s also alot to be said for turning the bloody computer off so you don’t get distracted.

We had decided to have fish and chips for dinner one night and asked dd (6) if she would like to ask everyone in the family what they wanted, and write the list for us. When she presented me with this bit of paper l had to save it, l thought the spelling was priceless.

look what l made! l am so totally excited because l have wanted to know how to make ‘glossy’ things for so long, and finally l have (almost) learned. lt’s not the best glossy button ever, but l am suitably impressed and am going to practice till l have got it down pat.
ps. It’s meant to be a forum button, hence the speech bubble.
pps. It’s not meant to be this big when in use! *LMAO*

I can’t sleep. Neither can Smoky, who has decided that now is the time to attempt to wedge his bottom into this little basket that lives on my scrap desk. It holds all my new scrapbooking embellishments. All my new flattened scrapbooking embellishments it appears!