Sunday, 21 June 2009

The neighborhood dogs

This is the first card I've made where one of my sons has walked in and said
I really love that card. Of course him loving dogs helps. I actually really love
this one in real life as well, as this photo doesn't really show how bright and
fun it really is.

Here is the Birthday tag, I had the idea of the dogs down the bottom but
wasn't sure if it would really work, but I thought what the heck give it a go
and if it doesn't I can just stamp another, but it looks great".


I put some clear dimensional on the vehicle to gloss it up and make it stand
out, I also put it on the windows to make them look shiny like glass and the
puff of smoke and the clouds above the houses I used Liquid Applique to
make them look cloudy and puffy.....




The section with the car is actually raised so it looks like it is driving in front
of the houses. I cuttlebugged the card above and below the picture and
pinned holes in the yellow. I've had this idea for so long and bought the
tailgaiting wheel not long after I started, cause Jay loves dog's so much,
and when the Neighbourhood wheel came out I just had to team them up.

I really enjoyed making this card.


TFL
luv, Kristy

Saturday, 20 June 2009

Another week done and dusted...

Wow what a week!


Thank god it's finally over. We have been full on mustering this week.
We had 42 decks of cattle arrive that we purchased, and because of the
rest of the staff doing training, John, Murray, Jay, myself and 2 other
fellas were the only ones left to unload, read and crossbrand. What a
day. Usually this is done by about 12 fella's so it was a long and tedious
one. I was on the NLIS (National Livestock Identification Services ?I think
it's services) reader, reading their ear tags, on the slide gate and pushing
them up the crush. But I gotta admit most days I do in the yards now
are usually 1/2 days when we are branding.
We were in the yard from 5.30 in the morning until 6 at night, and I
was exhausted! I found muscles I didn't know I had. And when those
cows charge, I just can't get up those rails like I used to. LOL




Here's a couple of pics from the week.


Lancen Joshua in the lead while we turn out.


This is the next day, we mustered a couple of paddocks of cows and heifers
that we sold for an export ship going to Indonesia. This is the chopper at work.


This is the chopper landing to fuel up.



I just had to put this photo in. Lyn and I were watching them bring the cows through the gate along the road and this calf got through the wire onto the wrong side of the fence. The men didn't realise and kept trying to chase the cow back into the mob, and she was having none of it, there was no way she was leaving without her calf. The calf finally scrambled through the fence and off they trotted back to the rest of the mob.

It was a real Ohhhh moment! What a great mum.

So anyway the trucks finally headed off with the sale cattle a couple of hours ago. John's headed off to check on some weaners, Jay's practising his guitar and I thought I should catch up on my blog. I've had no time to stamp, but do have a couple of cards I made a week or so ago that I am yet to post, so will get them up over the next few days.


Have had to cook for heaps of people over the last couple of weeks, don't you just get tired of it, especially when you work all day then have to come home and cook for strangers. All lovely people and no trouble, just sometimes you like to come home and just be able to veg, have a shower and put your jarmies on if you feel like it, or just cook something really simple.

Tonight will be the first time we will have the house to ourselves in a long time and I'm thinking.....Suimin! No I couldn't do that to my family LOL, I have some yummy jew fish defrosted. Mmmmmm, anyway better head off and try to do something with it.

TFL

luv, Kristy




Saturday, 13 June 2009

Oh Nuts!

Well I've been following a blog called The Pioneer Woman for
some time now, and it's really worth checking out, Ree who's blog it is has
the most wicked sense of humour and takes the most beautiful photos
and also has some fabulous recipes on there, so go and have a look.

Anyway back to the story, I was checking out one of her posts where she
is talking about calf nuts, lovely thing to be talking about, but a fact of life
on the land, that if you don't want all of your boy calves to grow up to be
bulls the calves have to be ....you know!......castrated.

Looking at Ree's photo's all of her balls are hairy, so I'm not sure how
it's done over there, they must cut the whole thing out, hair and all.

Here most of the time the dogs are sitting next to the cradle with their
mouths open hoping to catch a morsel, but the last
couple of times the men have saved them for tea....
Mmmm Bush Oysters they call them in Australia, and I have to admit
as kids we quite often cooked them in the fire or on the branding
furnace, but these days I can think of better things to eat. With
the last lot of branding I think they saved about 200. We do it a bit
different to Ree's family as we don't count the balls at the end to see
how many we did, we usually have someone marking as they go
through as we have both heifers and bulls going through the calf
cradle at the same time, as we also vaccinate, earmark and brand
and dehorn and tag and if they are bulls cut as they are going
through the cradle.

We had a visit from our Adelaide training team when the branding
was finished and Angela who is a real city girl was facinated to see
our bush oysters. Of course John had to hand her a couple of big ones.
I should have taken a photo of the big dish full.

Now Angela can blame this one on me. I just had to do a pretend like you
are eating them shot. What a sport, hey!

Mmmmmm yummy.

Anyway check back tomorrow I've got another card to share.

Cheers,

Kristy

Thursday, 11 June 2009

Makeesha Byl's Colour Challenge #8

Well I'll see how I go with the details, as my keyboard is playing up and I
have been having trouble typing. Above is the latest colour challenge
for Makeesha Byl, and I actually had a play with 2 cards this week.

I gotta admit these aren't colours I would naturally grab together,
the pumpkin and celery yes, but the pink is a lot brighter than the
one I would grab, but I gotta admit, they look bright and funky.

The first one was using the little sheep from the Pun Fun set.
Here is a close up showing the spotted background and the new su punch
as well as the always versatile Certainly Celery ribbon, whoops nearly forgot
also the CC brads.
And here is a side view to show it at a different angle.
This card is again using the Pun Fun set as well as the cupcake wheel
which are both in the new catalogue.
As tyou can see the background on this is using the happy birthday
embossing folder with my Cuttlebug. The little bird is holding a sign
which says Happy Bird-day which is raised up and also a little cupcake
which is raised.
Close up of the bird and it's sign.

The punches used around the bird are not Stampin Up, or the
cuttlebug folder, but all other products used are SU.
Thanks again for the challenge Keesh.

Monday, 1 June 2009

Lyn's Birthday


It was Lyn our Governess's birthday on Saturday, and she was originally
going to have the weekend in Katherine, so when she decided to stay home
the weekend instead I thought I better whip her up a cake.

Here she is above with her prize student...........


Here is the cake! I told you I made it in a hurry. Lyn loves Purple and
Butterflies so with limited supplies and time this is what I came up with.
The pink is actually cream and not icing. It was pretty yummy.


Here is the birthday girl. This is Lyn's second year here with us and
she also did a couple of years with us at Delta over in the Gulf.
She is such a nice person and is so easy going that it is great to
have her on our "team". She has been with us so long now she
is one of the family. We hope if our contract is renewed next year
that she sticks around with us.
Here is the card I made for her. This is the first time I used this stamp,
actually the second, the first time didn't stamp very well
and I ended up sanding it, which gave it a lot cleaner image.
I used my markers straight onto the stamp. (I'll come back with
colours later).
My base card is Pink Pirouhette which I stamped with the canvas
bg stamp, I then put Kiwi Kiss at the base and stamped that with
the BG Canvas stamp as well. The image was stamped on Whisper
White then backed with Rose Red and Regal Rose. I used the new
SU border punch along the bottom with the Whisper White Card,
and as you can see paper pierced in certain areas. I stamped the
Birthday Celebrations from the Upsy Daisy set in Kiwi Kiss and
lightly stamped some of the daisy's in PP onto the white as it seemed
too stark. Then backed it with Rose Red and PP. I placed a couple
of butterflies in Orchard Opulance and Regal Rose on there as
thought it set it off, but also because I couldn't give Lyn a card
without some form of purple or butterfly on it. LOL

Here is a close up of the flowers and butterflies.


After I finished the card, it still didn't seem finished to me if you know
what I mean. So ended up pulling the stamped image and backing up
and stamping the grass image from Inspired by Nature set, and then
I was happy.

We had a nice night for Lyn's birthday, with Pork Chops for tea
for a change from beef and watched the movie The Women, with
Meg Ryan it.

TFL

luv,

Kristy