Handmade Glass Pendants

I've added a small range of gorgeous glass pendants to the gift lines. These are handmade kiln fired glass that will give a lift to that summer outfit.

New Chipboard

I've been asked by a few people to let them know when this particular pack of chipboard is back in stock and I'm happy to say it is now. There's also a few new pieces from this supplier as well, the flower border for scrapbook pages looks great.

Unfortunately with the low Australian dollar some of the suppliers have been forced to lift their prices (some considerably) so when new stock comes in you might find a price difference. If you really want something don't wait, ask Santa for it.

This Sunday 14th December is the last PCYC craft market of the year and it should be a good one. I'll be there right near the front doors as you come into the building from the carpark. I've priced down some of the chipboard and stamps and probably a few other things by the time Sunday rolls around.

The supplier for Inque Boutique stamps have told me they won't be able to supply them in the future so if you're a fan of the $2 and $5.95 range now is the time to buy your favourites before they go.

See you Sunday.

Christmas Cats

I've made a few more cards, these couple are quite bright as well. It must be the way I'm feeling lately.

Gingerbread Men

Isn't it funny how we have certain food items at Christmas? I've made my fruit cake a couple of weeks ago but someone else will have to contribute the pudding as I've never tried to make one. It's one of those food memories from childhood that's associated with Mum (who made it look so easy) and even though I've helped her make one a few times my expertise was limited to flouring the pudding cloth and holding it while she tied it up.... oh and a bit of tasting the mixture when she wasn't looking. Fruit mince pies, stone fruit and real (homemade) shortbread are some of the other things that are good at this time of year.

We didn't have a lot of gingerbread growing up but I couldn't resist these cute little fella's when I saw them so they're available at Lorna Blue Studio for a short time.

Open Day

This coming Saturday two of my friends and I are having an open day to showcase our internet and studio based businesses.

Adele Collections has beautiful pearl and fashion jewellery as well as handbags, wallets and hair accessories.

Ambience Candles are a locally made, hand poured 100% soy wax product available in a range of gorgeous fragrances and sizes.

Lorna Blue Studio of course has the scrapbook, stamping and giftware range.

So on Saturday the 6th December between 9am and 4pm at 10 Forbes Court Avoca we will have our products out there for you to see. Feel free to drop by and bring your friends, you'll find the 3 businesses compliment each other to give a varied range of gifts.

We'll have credit card and EFTPOS facilities available and I'll have a sale table set up as well for anyone looking for a bargain.

Hope to see you there.

It's Christmas card time

I've finally started making some Christmas cards and I thought I would show you. With these I've done a combination of embossing and watercolour pencils. The bauble one is pretty bright and not what you would call traditional but I think it kinda works.

Well I did say I would tell you about the Rural Women's Gathering. It was held in Coonamble and over 450 women from all over NSW attended to attend talks, workshops and garden tours. From what I understand it's been going for around 15 years and it's an opportunity for rural women to get together to learn new skills (both for their worklife and hobbies) and network with other women and perhaps form friendships.

I have to admit I think the committee were a little overwhelmed by the volume of work needed to host an event with that many participants but it was a good experience overall.

The paperwork said that the accomodation in town was booked out but they would have "luxury tents" with an amenities block available. Well I haven't been camping (by choice) for a lot of years but I think I can tell the difference between luxury and not (this was definitely not). The camp bed was quite narrow and the mattress was 2cm thick, now I understand it would have been difficult to come up with the required amount of tents but they could have at least advised people to bring an air mattress or extra doona to sleep on if thats all they could access.

So now I come to the amenities block. In my mind I imagined something like a caravan park might have, but no, these amenities came trucked in on the back of a semi trailer which you then had to access by walking up a set of lightweight aluminium stairs. They were made out of a converted shipping container and they had 2 for showers (containing 8 showers in each) and 2 for toilets. The good thing with the showers was the water was hot but the bad thing was they were so small you had trouble protecting your modesty. You had to leave your clothes on a hook outside the shower stall, have a shower (trying to keep the shower curtain from wrapping itself around you) reach out to get your towel, dry off and then decide whether you wanted to attempt dressing yourself in a confined wet space or go out into the walkway and dress quickly while trying not to "flash" somebody. We had Sarah with us who is 21 and she tells me she's seen enough naked 60yr olds to last her a lifetime.

Now the toilets were delightful (sarcasm intended). They should have been OK but the trick was working out how to flush them. For those of you like myself who have never seen these type they have a lever (a bit like the peddle rubbish bins) that is attached to the base of the toilet that you depress with your heel, very firmly. However a lot of women evidently found this too difficult and you would find when you went to go it hadn't been flushed so we first of all tried to avoid using these toilets where possible but if need be we would flush the toilet and move onto the next one, our theory being that it would hopefully eliminate some of the smell.

I did feel sorry for some of the older women attending because I had to be careful when walking up or down the stairs and I'm fairly agile so for some it would have been difficult.

However, I met some lovely ladies and I had the opportunity to take some products and showcase my business so that was the good part of the weekend.