A nice place to call home

Still in Scotland... I had part of a day free while Frank was at work, and I had a car. Well, I never want to waste a day, so I took off for a drive. Lorraine recommended Glamis Castle. And it was an amazing day. No photos inside the castle, it's actually a private (rather gorgeous) home...

But here we see the best bit, an oyster catcher, who has decided that the best place to nurture eggs is next to a frequently-visited castle. The staff roped the area off, to give this family the best chance.

Shelly Beach and the Best Creature Competition

We just had a trip to Ballina to visit Mum and Peter, and to the Gold Coast.

On the last day in Ballina, we had a bit of free time, and Mum took us to her favourite beach, Shelly Beach. We crunched in the sand, paddled in the waves, and clambered over rocks.

I announced the "Best Creature" competition - find a good creature in the rocks to enter. You know, crabs, starfish, lobsters...

The entries came thick and fast.

There were these anemones.

Jonathan found a tiny live crab.

Mum found a huge not-live crab, who agreed to pose very nicely.

Then mum entered again with a cool jellyfish.

And I took the time to enjoy watching the birds. The terns were doing that thing where they flutter into the wind, then dive for a fish, and come back up again.

I pointed this out to Jeff, and I assumed he'd join me in enjoying the pretty sight. Instead, he called Jonathan and Thomas over. "Watch this, guys". He made a gun out of his hand, trained it on a tern, and watched for the moment when it folds its wings back. Then he shouted "BANG!" as the bird plunged.

And the three of them spent the next fifteen minutes "shooting" birds. Sigh.

They are so quick...

...but I do like catching flying birds in my photos. On a windy day at the bird hide, I noticed the swallows were going pretty slowly flying into the wind, so I managed to snap a few.

Behind the Yart, 2016 edition

I've just had some artwork publishing in "Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft" - it's been a while since I've done that, so I'm pretty pleased.

The project features Dina Walkely's gorgeous bird stamps, the ones I insisted Michelle (of Mixed Media Art) get lots of for selling at Picture to Page, the fantastic papercraft show she was exhibiting at. And she runs the whole show too, so, you know, she doesn't have to do what I say. But she stocked upon bird stamps, and wow, were they popular!

So I decided to do a project with them.

The ideas for what project started when I made this birthday card:

The background of that main picture is printed with a Gelli Plate and a stencil from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. The awesome honeycomb background is a die from Sizzix, and I've picked out some of the hexagons to have decorative paper, and text, showing through. Yes, all of that was an awful faff.

So, I decided to make a project featuring the birds. I decided to leave out the gelli plate idea, because that's good enough for another whole project.

Here's on of my play sheets. I cut birds out of this, using the Stampin' Up Project Life dies (nice even rounded rectangles every time). Later switched to adding those background stamps AFTER colouring - the lovely Jane from the magazine warned me that colouring with alcohol-based markers over dye-based ink can be bad news for your markers, so I'm not going to recommend bad methods!

When I'd made my "bits", I spent ages shuffling them around, and had fun taking photos of the arrangements. That turned out to be super practical - I could walk away and review my work on the phone or tablet. It gets you thinking about composition.

Here's one of my compsition tests. There were lots.

And if you want to see you it turned out, maybe you need to grab volume 22, issue 6 of Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft! Here's a sneak preview:

Canon camera vs iPhone camera - who would win?

I have a cute little Canon camera, an Ixus 510HS. It's tiny, and pretty (it's white!), and for its size, it brings a heap of features to the table, including wifi, which is super handy on holidays. I expect it's completely obsolete now, being, oh, several years old.

But I also have an iPhone 6, so that means I have the camera that comes in that too. So, I find myself wondering, does this mean I can ditch the Canon and just carry the phone?

I mean, here's a photo I took on the phone, and I adore it. The full size version is my background on my work PC.

Credit for this cool photo also has to go to Cicerello's fish and chip shop in Fremantle, Western Australia, which as well as selling delicious dinners, has an aquarium quality display of local marine life.

So, that's one excellent thing the phone camera can do. But how does it fare in that other photography situation I like so much - I see a cool bird and want to snap a photo before it flies off?

This situation arose the other day, when our garden was visited by a Gang-Gang Cockatoo, which I thought was pretty cool. I had the phone in my pocket, so I snapped this:

Well, you can see the bird. If you knew your birds, you might be able to identify it.

Fortunately, this cockatoo was very patient, and waited while I went to get the Ixus. And this was what I managed with that camera:



Which I think is rather a lot better, and still with a pocket sized camera you can afford to carry everywhere.

So next time someone says they don't know why anyone would bother with a camera when they could just use a phone, show them this cockatoo!

Bird spotting in the inner suburbs

Jeff and I have seen two birds feeding on the ground in Collingwood. We've seen then a few times, so it looks like they were not just passing through. The nice thing is, they've found a grassy home, right by the extremely busy Hoddle Street. Hoddle Street is so big, we take our learner driver kids there when they are ready to learn about big multi lane roads. There's a vet there. I think that's what has attracted them.

Here's my photo:

I know, awesome shot, right? 

I took is with a camera phone, zoomed in the most it can, so I can't complain. The picture was good enough for me to identify it as a Red Rumped Parrot, a fairly common bird, but not one we get around our house (we're Rainbow Lorikeets folks).

Here's a way better shot of some of these guys, from Toby Hudson (I found it on Wikimedia Commons).

The Birds

I biked to work this morning, so I set out really early. Nearly didn't make it out, though. These thug birds were ALL OVER the silver birch tree. They are sulphur crested cockatoos. They've started coming because we put out seed for the smaller parrots.

It was all a bit Hitchcockian. To add to the atmosphere, I swear one of them was repeatedly saying "Hello?"

And at the end of the day, this was all that was left.

Birds, birds, birds... My triangular art journal

Here's a page from my triangle journal. As you can see, I like my pages neat, tidy, and ordered.

And I also like my pages messy and painty...

Bunky does it again

My triangular art journal is still going. Have I shown it off before? Not sure. I'll make a tag and add it if I have. This is a two year projeject so far. I bought a gorgeous blank triangular journal. As I went to sleep one night, I wondered what I would put into it. On waking, I heard myself thinking "birds, birds, birds". Not a very poetic thought, but, I do like birds.

The book is about half full, and every page has a bird. This one is, of course, Bunky the Art Sparrow.

You only Bunky once! Do you get it? Because, umm, he's Bunky... Oh, never mind.

It's super difficult to photograph a page from a triangular journal (when you are just using available light, as I am). Pro tip - take the photo upside down and rotate.

Feed the birds, $2 a bag!

Jeff has stepped up the bird feeding programme in the garden. As well as seed bells, he is hanging up apples (one of the local fruit shops offers big $2 bags of slightly second rate apples). Here we see the corellas and the rainbow lorikeets discussing who gets access to what.

And this apple got hung up at about dawn today. By 10.30 this is what it looked like!

Jeff's bird feeding pays off

Another nice interesting bird in the garden, thanks to Jeff's long term project of hanging bird bells. This one is a crimson rosella. When they are adults, they are lovely crimson and blue, but when they are immature, they are dull green. This one is right in between! So it's a teenager.

Happy Father's Day Jeff!

Happy Father's day Jeff! I made a cute little card ... it features BUNKY THE ART SPARROW, now in small form and with a die to cut him out! It also features a stamp that looks like washi tape. I have plenty of washi tape, but I'm really drawn to the fake stamp that looks like it.

We got cockatoos!

Well, who's that in the garden? We seem to have some cockatoos visiting the bird bell! Jeff loves getting birds into the garden, so is is a real score.

So that's who's been eating the possum food!

I caught this crimson rosella in the garden. It's unusual, we normally get rainbow lorikeets.

Awesome bird feeding!

Another pic from my bike ride. The householder here has put out some top quality bird feeders, and look at the fabulous results!

Ducks in the pool

I got home today to find two very excited boys - they'd beaten me home by a few minutes. They discovered there were some DUCKS in the pool, and Thomas decided to take photos. Jonathan found the camera and got some excellent snaps.

We went to the Aquarium!

It was COOL! And I do mean cool. This cool.



That, my friends, is a PENGUIN. None of your rubbish.

















We reckon this is Nick's new shark. Must have hung it up to defrost or something.












The jellyfish display is fabulous - for your convenience, they come in Whisper White ...











And also Very Vanilla...







Our favourite bit of the day was discovering that the big, round, main display room is called the "Fish Room".

More about my stamp club blog

I spent far too long yesterday playing with the SERS blog, for my stamp club. I'm not sure that a countdown timer to the next meeting is STRICTLY required, but it sure was fun.

Since starting it up, my concern has been to get it up towards the top of the Google rankings, so that anyone who wants to find the info, will.

At first, no luck. Of course, it takes time for the indices (that's the plural of index, folks) to be updated. Later in the day, I managed to get to the TOP of the search results, if I used the right search terms. The bad news was, the search terms had to include "Eclectus Parrot", and I'm not sure how many people would think of that.

But I just tried again today, and woo hoo, if you type "South Eastern Rubber Stampers" or "SERS Melbourne" or "Rubber Stamp Club Melbourne" or various other things that people would think of, you will see the SERS blog on the first page.

And just to keep Google on its toes, here's a photo of an Eclectus Parrot. At stamp club.

So, if you are interested, have a lookee at the SERS blog. If you are associated with SERS, feel free to add a link on YOUR blog or site. Your little link will help the blog to be findable to new people. Cool, huh? And no effort for me, which is a plus.

Paperific part 4 - my li'l owl

At Pipedreamink, I got to make an owl! Here he is. He's chipboard and Opals, and a little glitter too.

But check out his spooky soulmate from the church fete. Once again, I contend that he followed me home. And can I keep him?

Paperific Part 2 - Make it and Take it!

The best bit of Paperific is the Make and Takes. You get to sit down (pleasant in itself) and make some simple project, guided by a patient demonstrator, who has usually prepared all the bits for you. Here's Sue at Pipedreamink, showing off the gorgeous Christmas bauble she was inviting people to make. Very neat indeed, and you can even fold it flat for posting. I made an owl - no photo yet, it's still packed.

If you are clever enough to get on the waiting list, you'll be able to do a make and take at Collections. Yes, they are so popular you have to book - a very casual booking list, the demonstrator gives you an estimate of when to come back, and she tries to see people in order. I waited an hour and a half, but later in the day the queue was three hours! So get on the list early. This one was fun to make. And do you see? It's Bunky! Well, some people know what that means - that's a topic for a whole 'nother post.