To help those victims of the bushfires that have ravaged Victoria, Stampin’ Up! have launched a Bushfire Appeal.

Here are the details:

From 12 February through 31 March 2009, Stampin’ Up! will donate 50 percent of the retail value of all sales from a select group of 10 stamp sets to the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfires 2009 Appeal. 

Here is a list of the Bushfire Appeal sets:

*These sets will appear on the upcoming list of retiring products, so they will only be available for the Bushfire Appeal–while supplies last.

I will also be donating any commissions I earn this month from sales - so if there’s anything on the list that takes your fancy, in particular the retiring sets, please think about ordering them now - and help Stampin’ Up! help those who lost their homes and loved ones in the recent fires.

Don’t forget, you can order from me, from anywhere in Australia, and Stampin’ Up! will deliver to your door!

As of 20th February, the total raised was $15,744.85 !! Lets see how much more we can raise!

Thanks for your help!

Wednesday night was my Christmas dinner for my ‘other’ job - I’m a nurse and I work in an Endoscopy clinic.

You do what ?

Look it up!

Anyway I LOVE that job as it’s a lot of fun, and I work with a fantastic team - so we had a ball at the Christmas dinner, my cheeks were sore from laughing. Anyhoo, the point of this is that we had a Caricaturist (I think I made that word up) there, and he drew all of us. He’s the bloke who draws Ginger Megs now, and he’s so fast at what he does, AND he uses a Tombow pen LOL!

So, if you’ve wondered what I look like, here is the LESS attractive version

Actually, I wish I looked half as yummy as that!! That’s a card in my hand - if you look closely you will see a sneak peek at a brand new Summer Mini catalogue set……. KIDDING!

Back to posting some papercraft again tomorrow! (Or later today depending on how organised I am for the Stamp-A-Stack tomorrow!)

This is a kind of, sort of, not related to stamping at all, post. Unless you remember my earlier post about not cleaning the bathrooms……

I use both these methods interchangeably. Works for me!!

Something happened yesterday that doesn’t happen a lot. I had an idea. A wonderful amazing sharing kind of idea.

I decided I would make some of those little spiders everyone is talking about, for Halloween. You know, just one each for the children in my daughter’s school classes. Oh and one each for my son’s kinder class at child care. And a couple of extra’s for teachers. Counting… counting…. counting….. hmmmm. That’s 70 in total I need.

Easy peasy, they’re such tiny cute things they’ll be finished in no time!!

Good lord, a WHOLE DAY later and they were all finished! And that was with the kids punching out shapes and sticking them together with me! We used Stampin’ Up! punches (of course!), there’s the Scallop Circle, the Photo Corner and the 1/2 inch circle. The black bits in the eyes are hand drawn with a marker, and a tiny dot of white gel pen finishes them off.

Underneath each spider is a little heart shaped chocolate, wrapped in red foil (colour coordination is a must LOL!), usually people put a flat round mint choc in these and sandwich another Scallop shape underneath, but I couldn’t find anything like that. The rounded hearts give the spiders a nice ‘jiggle’ when they’re put on the table to be honest - a bit creepy LOL!

Still, it was worth it! The kids at school and childcare loved them!

Hopefully it will be a while before I have another bright idea - I don’t think I have the stamina for another one anytime soon!!

Woo hoo!! This is a pic of me and Brian Canham at a party a few weekends ago - he got up to play with the band and deserted me for a while… but I managed to get this shot of us taken for old times sake.

Well if you believe that,  you’ll believe anything!!

What REALLY happened was that Pseudo Echo played at a surprise birthday party for a friend of mine - it was SUCH a blast from the past. I remember seeing them live at the ’1985 Thank God It’s Over’ concert at the Myer Music Bowl and falling in love. I had two of their cassettes (kids, you will have to ask Mum and Dad what that means ) and played them over and over and over. In fact I only threw them out in the last year or so.

Naturally, after listening to them play live, I was straight onto ebay the next morning, purchasing a CD of their album Autumnal Park. I still remembered all the words!!!

 And here’s a better one of the band, without my boofhead in the way.

I really enjoyed the music, but I think the best part was how much the band obviously were enjoying themselves too - it was just magic.

(NB. Also, as a matter of interest, Pseudo Echo are great to listen to when you’re on the treadmill - they have an amazing beat to all their songs, nice and fast so I can’t slack off!)

Thanks for coming on a trip down memory lane with me!!