Harry Potter Exhibition

The Harry Potter exhibition is about to open at the Powerhouse Museum and I was able to go to the special staff preview (they called it a dress rehearsal, lol, because they hired new staff to work on the exhibition, a spot of tea if you know what I mean...)

I went in and my group didn't have too many kids so I volunteered to be the third to be sorted by the Sorting Hat, into Gryffindor no less (I should have said I wanted to be Slytherin - or she could have at least pressed the Ravenclaw button, don't I look like Cho Chang, the asian guy before me with glasses, she said looked like he could be a Ravenclaw, I mustn't look smart enough *sigh*)

Inside, we're treated to a lovely montage of clips from the movies and then are ushered past the Hogwarts Express into the main gallery area with all the super cool props.

I was a bit rushed for time but got a bit distracted inside the store, although I ended up exiting with some Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Jelly Beans! Managed to get almost all the gross flavours lol.

And in other news, aren't eggs great? I just bought this mega cute egg holder set from Morning Glory. I found one of them, and then another, and then another and was going through the painstaking process of deciding which one to buy when I saw the set of six and couldn't help myself XD I think I got it for about $8 as they were selling for $1.50 each anyway. Although it was a good thing I looked at both boxes, as one said $8 and mine scanned at $12 XD.

Paper Craft 2011

About two weeks ago I went to Paper Crafts festival which was in Penrith. I arrive on the Friday at around 11 (the show opens at 10) and there's a line!!! Anyway, it's not too long a wait and then I head inside and get a sheep stamp (craft clubbing!)

First off I did a round, remembering the items I liked, comparing prices (of course there's an upside and a downside to that) and I did miss out on an edge punch and sheet music I wanted *Disappointed face* =(

I started off with "Scrapware's Make 'n' Take by Angela Connoly", held by the store Scrapware who were selling chipboard products. The class was led by a mixed media artist mamed Linda Baldock and we made this lovely brooch. I was gonig to put gold paint over the top of the red but she told me to try the gold gilded wax and it was pretty cool!!! You can also see the gilded wax on the bottom layer with the embossed chipboard!

I started making my purchases and since I wanted some Christmas stamps I looked at all the stores and was quite tempted to buy a large tree stamp with "Merry Christmas" written in several languages in the tree/triangle shape but ended up with these cute ones ^^ I also bought two mini stamps which were quite detailed... I know I have a dandelion stamp already but this one was just so cute!!!

As I've recently bought a Sizzix BigShot (which was the biggest pain to open and also missing the washer!!) I needed to scout out some nice embossing dies. I chose these two Sizzix ones since they were on sale and since I had to keep within budget it was a choice between dots and baroque... and baroque won!

Practical Publishing Australia were giving out free bone folders (used for scoring/folding cardstock) so I gave them some patronage too... though I got 3 magazines for $15 because it was supposed to be 2 for $10, so seems like they wanted to clear some stock!

Went back to the craft table and made the other one they too!

Also bought a heat gun (finally) so I can put away the toaster, some cardstock, a corner punch (I know I can just cut it with scissors but it was in the sale bin -_-), some cute chipboards and liquid pearls (bought snow colours for Christmas cards!)

Afterwards I went in search of a book and caught a glimpse of Nicholas Sparks on the way (A Walk To Remember, Notebook, Dear John) but did wait in line for his autograph.

Dropped my new stash off at home and then I went to a Christmas card workshop hosted by the Stampin' Up consultant whom my family friend has parties with and some some really nice cards while sipping on tea!

A few more dandelion piccies ^^

The lawn's been mowed so have to wait a bit before taking more photos XD

Dandelions ♥

Finally took some dandelion photos which I keep reminding myself to do!

My... just-popped-out-for-a-bit day!

Just bought some Christina Re paper that was on sale at Officeworks and also some paper fasteners, probably have too many of them lol! Might be able to combine them, though the flower paper doesn't that much green, though I want to make some cards XD

Also bought an A3 portfolio, not for my work but to put my Big Bang posters in XD there was an even cheaper 30 sleeve one, but I think having 60 celebrity mini posters is a bit much >.<

Pre-ordered Inheritance by Christopher Paolini at Dymocks 'cause they give you a free book. I've been eagerly awaiting to see how the series goes... I have a friend who who is a big fantasy fan and refuses to read the series since Eragon was written when Paolini was fifteen. I can tell it's a book that would definitely appeal to the teenage base over some other books but Paolini's world really holds its own appeal!

cover

from the inside

Also a new cookbook which I recevied from some lovely friends on my birthday. (The photo is from my mulberry tree.)

Here's a photo of a portion of my lunch today XD when I make it, I either veer to the very healthy or very unhealthy side of the food spectrum XD

paper roses only

For my birthday, a friend of mine gave me some lovely kawasaki roses with red two-sided paper. I've attempted making these though couldn't really get the hang of it myself.

And here's a photo of one of those cute cupcakes from cupcake bakery ;)

Sizzlix Big Shot and Painting Time!

And time goes by again... but I just bought a Sizzlix Big Shot... w00t!! though no embossing/cutting plates yet :( props to my sister for carrying the heavy thing! Reviews said it was similar to Cuttle Bug except that it could take the XL plates which made it #insert favourite swear word here# heavy :)

And in other news, I just finished painting this, a few nights worth of painting! Hope it passes the assignment because the paint isn't that smooth in some areas, and I had somehow gone for a more camouflage effect rather than making it stand out. -_- The colour is a mix of Chinese Orange and a hint of Crimson Red. I was originally going to paint a toucan but the teacher voted against it because it didn't have enough tone variations.

5 colours: original colour, 3 shades of it and white

close-up

Materials:

Winsor&Newtown Gouache - Chinese Orange and Zinc White (which is better for mixing than the other one). I think the Chinese Orange isn't part of their range anymore as I bought it for 50% off.
Phoenix Gouache: Crimson Red
(They were the 14ml size and I pretty much squeezed the bottle dry, although I didn't use all the paint in the end, but it's good to have more because you need to pre-mix the shades.)
Brushes: Round 2, 4, 6 and Flat 1/4 (Artist First Choice Taklon & JasArt) The flat brush almost cost me as mucha s the other three combined >.<
Paper: A3 Watercolour Pad 3, Eraldo di Paolo, 300GSM medium tooth (I bought this for half price, huu~huu~ but I've only used 3 pages, having sold 2 to my classmates... yes sold... XD)

The cute puppy was based on this picture.

Not exactly sure on its origins but I found it through cute puppy (or something similar) from Google Images. But I'm pretty sure I had a higher quality one then the one shown ??

Another thing... As mentioned, I originally wanted to paint the toucan so I was thinking of buying a rainforesty blue, turned out I chose the wrong blue anyway! But since I had it, I painted this banner for a photography party which was inspired by a photojojo post on recreating your facebook profile. Close-up it's a little rough and the cardboard warped (don't use modge-podge >.<) but it looks fine in the photos :) (though I haven't seen the ones taken on the SLRs yet!)