AWOL - and Request

Hey guys, sorry I have been AWOL! Been busying about the place here, and also my laptop has gone on the fritz, so I only have access to the net on my old clunker computer, which doesn't take SD cards to upload my photos! So it will probably be a week or so until I can post back here, but in the meantime I do have a request of you...

If you get a comment that I need your address could you email me at emuupagumtree @ gmail.com  (no spaces) with your addy, I have started writing out and enveloping up my Christmas cards to send! I have most of my friends addresses by now, so there's only a couple I still need.

Thanks so much, and I will hop along to your blogs shortly to comment on all your awesomeness!!!

Bye 4 Now
Annmaree.

Lily Birthday Card

Hi Friends, sorry for the lack of posting this week and deviation from the schedule, but I've been helping Mum out with doing a big Spring Clean about the house.

 The major item that took the longest, and was the dirtiest, was the Air Conditioners... We often clean and vacuum the filters and vent screens in them. However, in turning them on for the first time since last year when we had the first of our hot days, bits of black fluff was coming out of one! When we shone a torch up into the part where the air blows we noticed LOTS of dirt and muck up there. We were shocked!
 So a day was spent carefully taking the front off the Air-Cons and removing the louvers, so we could get up in there to clean them out. We got stuck in with a bottlebrush, an old toothbrush some rags, etc, and even the vacuum cleaner to get all the yucky muck out from up in there! It was really disgusting! and quite embarrassing, too! We just never thought that section of the air-con could or would get so filthy!!! Figured that is what all those filters and lint traps were for, but apparently not. Had anyone else noticed this? But now we know about it, we can keep on top of it, so it will never get that bad again! There would have been 5+ years of muck up there, and I must say the Air-Cons sure did run a lot better after the big cleanouts!!! LOL!!!

Anyway, a Birthday week in our house, with my Mothers  sixty *cough cough cough* birthday! lol... She keeps saying she wants to forget them and stop counting, and maybe make them reverse... I told her that is not how it works! hehee

Of Course I made her a card for the occasion, she loves Flowers, and I had this lily image already coloured up in my coloured up image tray and made a simple card, semi inspired by the floral fantasies of my blog pal Brenda...

 

I decided to keep it reasonably simple, and just use layers of coloured paper to make the flower the focal point, and so the papers just resembled the colours in the flower. The paper is from a couple of My Minds Eye paper pads.

 

The flower would have been coloured with Spectrum Noir Markers, and all edges and layers were inked with some distress ink to help them shadow and stand out, etc.

I hope you liked seeing this card, and hope to have some more to share soon!

Thanks for stopping by, My Friends!  

❤

Photo Friday on a Saturday!

Hi friends, I missed Photo Friday, with everything I had going on here... I'm Doing a big spring clean and sorting through cupboards and such.... Realizing how many items really need to be replaced!  Like towels, and sheets and such... and I am also in bad need of a new bed! There's always something! lol...

Its really become quite summery over our continent, with lots of scary bushfires raging across our state and country... The air was very thick with smoke for a lot of days here, with some forrest out of town burning quite badly for days! We even saw the helicopters with their big buckets of water flying over quite often to try and subdue the flames, which by the news kept jumping and expanding! Thankfully a good rain pour came down yesterday, which eased it all in our area...

I did just want to share a couple of pics from about town, from this week - Taken with my mobile, as they were unexpected shots... At our City Centre Mall they have just had a big revamp and made a big area upstairs for eating and relaxing, with lots of cool chairs and such, and also some sculptures and artwork!

So I wanted to share with you the wooden sculpture that floats over the escalators at the top of the area: A Whale that is yet to be named;

 

This piece of modern art is 8 meters long, weights 300 kilo's, and is made from wood and metal. 

Our coastal city is known as a good vantage point to watch the migration of the whales during this time of year.

Here is another piece of Modern Sculpture art, that is on loan to the Mall, by the local Marine park who held a competition for local artists to decorate fiber-glass Dolphins -

This is the Sea Warrior dolphin - looking very Bionic I must say!

 

There were three other dolphins done by other artists, so I will share them here as well, but they are not my photos:

 

 

Aren't they stunning?  I am just loving seeing sculptures and art throughout my town.

I hope you liked seeing them, too! 

Thanks for stopping by.

Merry Mirthful Monday - Aussie Christmas Cards

Happy Monday friends! I have been busy today making up more Christmas cards, this time Aussie themed ones! So Mixed Media Monday will sit on the back-burner for a while, as I finish my Christmas Cards for the year... So again it's;

 I made four Kangaroo themed Christmas cards..

These are tall/long cards in DL size:

The background paper is of some plant life we have here in Australia, that is nicknamed a "Kangaroo Paw" since it kind of looks like a Kangaroo's front paws.

 

Three Koala cards in standard size;

 

Again the background paper features some native plant life, Yellow flowers of the Eucalyptus tree which you all know Koalas love!

And here two smaller sentiment cards using some scraps and leftovers:

All of my cards were made from this Aussie Christmas Paper Pack I got from my local Spotlight craft store last year, its by "Sugar & Spice Studios" and features lots of themed papers that are just perfect to make Australian themed cards from to send locally and internationally this Christmas!

 

So I hope you liked seeing my Christmas Cards this Merry Mirthful Monday.

I will have more to come using this paper pack and other Aussie Animals.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Photo Friday - Baby Kangaroo

Hi Friends, it's another Friday so time for more Photos!

There was not a lot happening this week! But I did get to attend a Bird Workshop at my local PetStock where we had talks from a couple of Bird and Parrot experts, and also had a toy making workshop. So that was a lot of Fun and I learned so much! 

One of the ladies is a member of a Wildlife Rescue Centre, and had a Baby Kangaroo that she was caring for! It was so little and sweet, we were able to have a pat... Here are some photos I got with my mobile cell phone, so they aren't very good, but I still wanted to share:

 

 She was so sweet and very soft to touch! I believe she is an Eastern Grey Kangaroo, they call a baby Kangaroo a Joey. The lady had said the Joeys Mother was hit by a car, and when they checked the pouch they found baby alive and well inside. So she will be raised by this lady until she is old enough to be rehabilitated back into the wild.

 - - - - -

There's not much else I photographed this week,  except for the pets - So I hope you don't mind seeing those...  But before I do, I have a bit of a funny story, that is kind of Photo Related...

I went outside to get the mail from our mail-box out the front of the house, and saw a snail on the footpath, slowly moving along. Its not unusual that if we're not quick to the letter-box that letters and junk mail can start to get eaten into by the resident snails... Holey mail is common!

 So as I brought the mail in I thought it would be good to try and get a pic of this tiny snail on the path, test my skills and such and hopefully get a good photo... So came inside, checked the mail, nothing important, went found my camera, changed the battery pack, was inside say 5 minutes, then proceeded back outside.... It was gone! Completely disappeared, and nowhere to be seen anywhere around....  I looked all up the path, and around the grass and letter box, thinking it surely can't have gone far being a snail... but nothing!!! I think I accidentally stumbled across the worlds fastest snail! TURBO IS REAL!

 HAHA!!! 

Well, our new additions - The Budgies - have settled in really well! They have lots of attitude, and are so funny to watch! 

 

Darby is mesmerized with them;

 

and Paddy doesn't much care, as long as She gets her head scratches;

 

Pushka the cat, however, likes to keep one eye on them...

 

 But all in all, he is pretty good at keeping his distance from the bird room ;-)

I hope to see you back here on Monday for a Craft Post, haven't decided yet if it will be Mixed Media, or Merry Christmas themed!

Thanks for stopping by.

Merry Mirthful Monday...

Hi Friends! I hope this Monday finds you all well after a great weekend!

Usually Mondays theme is Mixed Media, but since I haven't done a mixed media project this week - but have done some Christmas Cards - I decided to name this Monday; Merry Mirthful Monday, for the occasion! Try saying that five times fast! and Check out my Christmas Cards:

 

Four simple cards I made using a Silhouette Tree Stamp and the Stamp sentiment "Joy" both  from a Recollections stamp set, which I heat embossed in gold onto watercolour paper which I had already diecut with nestabilities dies. Then coloured each with different variants of Distress Ink. 

 

For the left the colours used were Mustard and Crushed Olive I think it was... and on the right I used Dusty Concord and Tumbled Glass... I grabbed out these simple vintage papers and sponged ink around each of those to coordinate with the images...

 

Left I used Festive Berries and Rusty Hinge, and for the right Peeled Paint and Evergreen Bow.

Just some simple vintage effect cards, which I hope you enjoyed seeing!

Thanks for stopping by, and all your lovely comments.

Photo Friday - New Additions!

 Hi Friends it's Friday here, so its time for:

 I have some news to share along with some of my photos today, we have two new additions to our pet-family... Two Budgerigars or Budgies as we call them, often called Parakeets in other countries:

Meet;

 

Laurel and Hardy

Laurel is the skinnier, brighter green one on the left, and the chubbier darker green one on the right is Hardy... Of course named after famous comedy duo. 

 

Long story short, we went into our Pet Supplies place, to get some more bird toys and feed... and I looked at the few birds they sell, cockatiels and parakeets... Usually I just look and continue on!

But I became taken watching a lovely bright green one playing so intensely with the toys in the cage, then noticed another chubby one making noise, like he was talking... Then noticed it bopping its head at me.... I watched them for ages, and finally snapped out of my hypnosis with them, getting what I came in for... But I couldn't get them out of my mind!

The next day I decided to take Mum to see them, and became smitten with them as well!

We watched how they interacted with eachother, and the other birds in the cage, and they were really sweet with eachother, and so playful!

We went back home and thought and thought... and we just couldn't get them out of our minds!

So we had to get them today! 

They came home, and they have been so active, cheerful and loving:

 

 Look at them grooming one another! Its the sweetest thing to witness! 

I am quickly becoming a crazy bird lady, absolutely loving my feathered friends! This brings our bird-count to 4, and a total of 5 overall pets...

1 Galah, 1 Cockatiel, 2 Budiges, and 1 Cat.... You would think it would be a recipe for disaster! But the cat is very good at keeping away from the "bird room" and we tell him "no" when he does come in the room (supervised), so he knows they are not "prey".

So they are settling in beautifully here, and I just love them!

Hope you liked seeing them, too!

Here are some other photos from my week:

This was a bird on our roof, I believe its a type of Heron bird.

 

 and here are two Spotted Dove Pigeons that we get coming into our yard, 

making use of the birdbath we put in:

 

Here are some pics of a wild Mulberry tree we came across during one of our walks -

 

Cool berries:

 

and some other tree, which I just loved the branches of:

 

and a cool Philodendron plants leaves:

So that's it for this weeks Photo Friday, I hope you liked seeing my pics, and meeting my two new feathered friends!

Thanks so much for stopping by!