Last weekend we went to a Star Wars party for a guy that was turning 40. I spent most of Friday night and pretty much all of Saturday sewing a cloak for my husband. Luckily I was able to grab something from my daughter’s costumes to me look a bit like Padme from Star Wars. Natalie Portman is just beautiful in this outfit.

But I grew up waiting for each Star Wars film to come out. When I went to the movies, you got two films and a break in-between them to get snacks. I love Yoda who so small but particularly in the scene where he first meets Luke Skywalker. I love this because he is mischevious and kid like to keep you laughing.

I cut the storm trooper’s head in one cut out of black card stock and then glued it onto a specked white paper. Then I cut the 4 and 0 out very hurriedly glued them on as we had to leave in 30 mins. I didn’t have time to make an envelope but then stuck the gift tag into the middle and ask my hubby to write birthday wishes.

star wars card cutout

These Star Wars characters are so human like but like they have come from a different planet and the detail that has gone into each one which was developed Stuart Freeborn. He states that he put a lot of himself in Yoda. I think every artist puts a bit of themselves in their creations whether it be characters for a movie or creations that you make.

I happened to see this photo and just amazed at the detail with food. How about having chewbacca for lunch? Someone must have had way too much time on their hands but it is still very cool.
I think there is a lot to learn from Star Wars. The forgiveness between father and son, working and living beside people, wildlife and nature that may be different to you, and even looking within yourself to fight your fears.
Last of all I have to share my favourite clip of Darth Vader created in lego.

A little shout out goes to one of my favourite customers who is a star wars fan, so Amit if you are reading this ~ may the force be with you!! IF you think my card is cool and you would like a template for it so you can make one, then leave a comment and I will post it to my website :)

I like to treat all my customers how I want to be treated. This means that if you have a problem whether you want to change the colour of one of my message birds to replacing a squashed box if it travels all the way to the USA for a anniversary celebration. I want my customers to have faith that I will treat them respect and do the very best I can. Obviously sometimes it doesn’t quite turn out how the customer or the manufacturer thought it would go.

We have been subscribing to pay TV for quite a number of years until Foxtel took it over just recently ~ and there are just so many problems on different levels with their service. I woke up one morning to find that all my recordings had been wiped from the box. I was ropeable!!! I mean one of the recordings had featured the first tv ad that my daughter was in and of course vodaphone has stopped showing it, even on youtube. When I rang customer service, it wasn’t that they were sorry, it was ‘just how it is’ and ‘you’ll have to accept that sometimes as this happens’. Hmmmff! I said to myself. Who says that? It was all because they were redesigning the system, changing their tabs around and obviously changing the Austar logo to a Foxtel logo.

I said to the Foxtel customer service technical guy, why don’t you send out emails to let people know ~ then I might not be so mad. Why should we do that? he says…well maybe to keep your customers informed and that they can be aware of any problems. Now… this is where he got offended. He got offended that I should even say the word problem ~ and that I was insinuating that every time there going to be a problem. Well hell YES in this case!! It doesn’t matter whether you are writing software, or purchasing a new TV ~ there is a possibility that the connections or software could be faulty in someway. Foxtel sends out email previews for show so why can’t they send out an email letting their customers when they are doing an update or why? Seems foxtel is all about them and not what their customers want. They didn’t even ask us ~ the customers if we liked the old layout ~ they just assumed they knew what we wont. But these days the customer do know what they want.

~They did send out a new box set,refund me $40.00 and send me a new remote control which is better than nothing ~

When the shop owner tells you that you can only have white icing, you realise that this shop owner is focussed on herself and doesn’t want to do what her customers want.

A few years ago, I organised my father-in-laws 80th birthday party. Now my father-in-law is Chinese so naturally it is going to be a BIG party. Chinese believe that when you are born, you are one year old so they celebrate 61, 71 and 81st birthdays which are more important than your 21st. There is a lot of symbolism in the Chinese culture so for his birthday cake I wanted to do circle cakes to make up 8 0 and I wanted each circle to be a Chinese coin with red icing with gold chinese writing. The cake shop here in Cairns who was quoting rang me and TOLD me that she knew my father-in-law and well white icing would be better cause all the older people wouldn’t like their teeth stained with red. Unbeknown to her, white in Chinese is for funerals and well it wasn’t an western wedding cake. Hurriedly I went online to find another cake place called passion for cakes who did an amazing job in such a short amount of time.

OH well these are my two girls dancing for their grandfather which I just wanted to include because it was a special dance.

Comment below if you have had bad customer service and did they rectify your problem? or not!

I hope you enjoy this paper cutout art of one of my favourite animals ~ the bilby.

Easter is a great time to be with family and in Australia the bilby has become an easter icon. This little marsupial was nearly extinct but Haigh’s chocolates came to the rescue to produce the bilby easter egg. This is my paper cutout art design of a bilby hidden underneath a tree that is her home waiting for her children to come home.

If you are great with a x-acto knife then this paper cutout art bilby is ideal for you. Make it for a front of a card that can be used for a birthday or even cut it out and frame it as a present for someone special. It would look great in black as a cutout print.

So some tips if you are using a scalpel or x-acto knife when cutting this paper cutout art design, try to cut out the pieces within the design before you cut the outer edge. I cut out around the bilby underneath the tree and then if you can cut the grass and leaves which can be quite tricky.

Just remember if a leaf or branch from the paper cutout does break when you are cutting, you can cut it off and cut cleanly so it looks like it wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.

I hope you enjoy my design, please leave a comment below

Click below and enter your email to get access to the pdf and the SVG file once you have filled it in.

This is what I have been working on with paper. The first is my year of the snake paper cut out and I am cutting out a couple more to sell as is. Then the second is for someone we know who has lost a baby. A red paper heart with baby symbols within. I found a picture frame at the animal welfare shop and have started painting it in ruby red to match. The third is baby paper roses for a flower journal I have made. And the forth photo is for a pencil to paper design for the inside of flower journal. It will be up on Etsy soon. Send a comment my way if you like anything that I am working on.

The rose tutorial is fairly easy although I am fussy and keep making to see how they look with different sizes. I found the instructions on pinterest.

Source:

In Cairns, Chinese New Year is a big thing!! This year we had our Chinese New Year Festival on February 9th in Grafton Street celebrating the Year of the Snake 2013. This is the new CADCAI glow dragon which I think is just fantastic! And my husband controls the head.

Here it is during the day.

And Hayley Gillespie, myself and my daughter ran the paint a panda lantern stall. It was so busy, we didn’t stop until about 8.30pm when we had sold 150 lanterns.


This is us at the end of a hard humid night sitting on the curb waiting for the crowd to go be fore we could pack down all the Chinese Decorations. Luckily icecream helped us not go too crazy. :)

These are my baby pandas in a cup. I had bought these asian like cups at a craft market that we had at the high school and it has taken me this long to create the 3D paper sculptures that I wanted to put in them.

I love pandas! They are seem so cute when they are little and just cuddly when they are older. Let’s hope that they are saved from a life of torture and get to live out their life as they should. Do you have a favourite animal?

Well I just can’t help it!! When my daughter is featured in an ad I just have to share with you as a proud parent. But the ad is so funny too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzapzuvSmR8