Last night after a very busy fun filled day of stamping, chatting and then a little bit of work at the salon, and fantastic encouragement to sell my cards and gift boxes, I met with a lovely gal that works with Mike. Her name is Pupul, her family is originally from India but they have lived in Australia for many, many years. She even has relatives that live in Issaquah, Washington. That was cool to find out. Anyway...she helped me create my own fascinator for the Melbourne Cup. All week there are events and of course races happening. I'm going to Cup Day on Nov. 4th and Oaks Day Nov. 6th. Oaks day is ladies day and fashion is the key word, so I'm told! It will be fun to see all the fashions the ladies and men will be wearing. It's supposed to be quite a show!! Well, I had purchased my first fascinator at Myer when I bought my dress. Well, after seeing so many styles I thought how fun it would be to make my own! So that is where Pupul comes in, she made her own for last year's cup and being experienced I thought she'd be the one to help me. Here are the 2 fascinators I have. The purple one is for Cup Day and the pink is for Oaks Day.

 I wonder if you can tell which is the one I made???

Exciting News!!

After a lovely meeting with my friend Sue today I decided to become an official Aussie Demonstrator. Sue has welcomed me from even before I moved to Australia. After attending a few get togethers with her group of fun ladies, I just knew this would be the direction I'd be going. I'm still keeping my US demonstratorship so I can continue to take orders that way as well. 

The deciding factor for me was encouragement by local business people to sell my cards. I've already sold a few and am going to be busy making up more samples for the 2 businesses that are excited to showcase my work! Of course one is the hair salon where I work. The other is an apartment management company that used to handle the first apartment we lived in here. As soon as I showed Evelyn my cards and gift boxes she and her staff were amazed! She said I just had to sell them!! She even went right over to the little grocery store across the street to ask about selling my cards there as well. Too bad they have a strict contract with Hallmark so they couldn't take on my cards as well. She insisted I take my samples to the shopping center and put my cards in the some of the stores there! That's a bit ambitious for me right now. But in the meantime, Evelyn is going to bake up some of her famous macarons and see how many will fit inside the gift box I made and we'll package them up and hopefully sell for $15-$20 each. My cards will be between $5 and $6.50. 

Now I feel more secure in starting up my stamp classes in my home. 

Now for some more inspiration. These are 3 Christmas cards I made at a recent class. I want to thank Pamela for her creative inspiration. It is my plan to sell these cards very soon. 
These are made with the oh so easy treat cups that can be filled with anything from candies to confetti. Red and green M&M's were just perfect for the 2 cards on the end. And mini marshmallows are also perfect for the snowman! Arent they oh so cute????

Making embossed images pop

 This is one of the scrapbook pages I made for a wall collage of some of our memories here in Australia. The picture above is actually from last December when Justin and I came out for Christmas. We took a trip on the Great Ocean Road and saw amazing scenery and of course the oh so cute koalas. Justin was much braver than me about trying out the driving here. He did really well. I was so impressed, but had no desire to even try!!

 This is a page of postcards from our trip to Uluru. I learned about the symbols drawn in their paintings and decided to add some to this page. The one on the left is a campsite near running water, next is a little boomerang, and then running water, finally stars in the night.

 This is another page from my first trip here last December. We went to Phillip Island to watch the penguin parade in the evening. So during the day we went to a wildlife preserve. We were able to feed the kangaroos. At first I was a bit apprehensive, but after watching others I jumped right in. The kangaroos are so used to people feeding them, they are so calm around us.

 This page is from our recent trip to Uluru. After landing at the Uluru airport we were whisked away in our tour bus to get right out for an afternoon hike up Kata Tjuta. It was a pretty strenuous hike and after sitting on 2 airplanes all morning (we flew out at 7am) it was a bit of a challenge getting right into a hike. But we were pressed for time as we needed to be finished and set up for the sunset at Uluru. That was an amazing sight! I will have to get those pictures posted here too.

 This is a post card collage of our trip to Sydney. Throughout the year different colored lights are used to light up the opera house. It is just beautiful. I'm really looking forward to spending New Year's Eve here this year year.

Here is our clock wall! I am always having to count the hours to figure out what time it is back home. So, on the left is Seattle, middle is Melbourne, and on the right is Miami. The picture below the Melbourne clock is of Brighton Beach and the very colorful beach huts people have set up there. They are each painted by the owner and are all so colorful. In the background is the city of Melbourne.

I will post the scrapbook pages that I arrange on the wall as soon as I get more supplies to hang them up. I mounted them on the heavy duty chipboard that comes with scrapbook papers. I was thinking it would add stability to the page when I hang it on the wall.

Till next time, happy stamping all!

:) Karen

This was just a sampling of the lightning strikes that occurred in Melbourne last night. This was a huge storm! And this picture was taken in an apartment building just next to the one I live in. I'd love to find the photographer of this picture!! It's just one of many amazing photos taken last night.

Good morning friends! Here is another card I made a couple of weeks ago. I used the Wondrous Wreath Stamp set and cased Sandi McGiver's card. I used the babywipe technique for this card.

I have another card I want to share with you. This is from a set that I made for my students from last year to let them know I was thinking of them and incorporating some Aussie flair too.

It's been a loooonnnnngggg time!!!

Hi friends,
I know I've been away for awhile, a long while!!! So much has happened in my life since last year. First off, I moved to Melbourne, Australia for a year...maybe a little longer. I moved here in late June of 2014 and have been settling in quite nicely. Now instead of living out in the rural countryside I live right in the heart of the city. I've made some new friends, friends who share the love (passion) of creating cards with rubber stamps, lovely papers, inks, and fabulous embellishments. In fact, I am ready to start hosting some classes in my new home. Yay!! 

I'm off to a little birthday party this evening and here is the card I made for the occasion.