Rachel Greig

Planes, trains and autumn leaves...

On the weekend we went to the Blue Mountains to go on the Hogwarts Wizards Express departing from platform 9 3/4.



It was a  magical night of spells, talking hats, wizardry, magic tricks and all round fun! The weather was quite warm for the Blue Mountains at this time of year too, so it was a pleasant evening! On the first train ride Ethan lost another tooth while eating green worms (read: green jube lolly) so it was an eventful evening!

So where does the plane come into it? Today I am off to Brisbane to teach a couple of photography and stamping classes at Stamp Art Studio.

Here's a couple of links I recommend you look at:

Michelle Loffler is our Guest Artist over on the Darkroom Door blog. She has created some amazing ATC's with all sorts of Darkroom Door goodies. Check it out here - and there's a prize too!

My dear friend Robin Beam has a competition on her blog too. She's looking for Bandana Art! So if you're keen for some inky fun, go check out all the details here.

And least but not least, I'll leave you with Ethan & Zoë having fun with some autumn leaves that we found on mothers day.... and aren't those kids just the cutest :)

Have a great weekend....

Four

Today Zoë is celebrating her 4th birthday! When we put her to bed last night, Stew told her when she closes her eyes to sleep, she will be three, and when she opens her eyes in the morning, she will be four. Zoë replied "Just like magic!". And so, just like magic, today she is four.

Happy Birthday Zoë!

(photo taken in our front yard while Zoë was climbing a tree. Canon 5D, 85mm lens, f2)

Mr DS and an assortment of other tidbits

There's a bunch of things that I want to share...

Sarah has been playing with MR DS.... check out her blog to see what she created with him!! Mr DS is off over to the other side of Australia to visit Bec at Scrappindipity, so stay tuned to see what happens on his adventure over there. I bet you Mr DS is glad he's out of quarantine and back in the hands of ladies again :)

The latest issue of Australian Paper Crafts is out, and has a feature that I wrote on using Grungeboard. You can view this whole magazine online here. Enjoy!! (You may need to subscribe to see the whole mag - but it's a free subscription for 6 months! Who loves freebies!!)  And a big congrats to Sarah who's card graced the cover with Grungeboard and with my Mother's Day stamp! (that's her card on the left side.)

Look what arrived in the mail this week! My stamping buddy Sylvie has authored her second book on stamping! Woo hoo! She has used a few of my Stamp-It stamps in her projects. And let me tell you, the projects in this book are just fabulous! She signed the inside of the book (LOVE having books signed by their author!) and wrote a little message to me. Thank you SO much Sylvie for such a fabulous gift!

And just in case you were wondering, Sylvie is from France, so the text is in French. (no she is not promoting stamping on women's personal hygiene needs ;) But it's worth learning French just for this book :) I'm glad I have my handy online translator.

But wait... there's more. Priya from India has commented here on my blog a few times and we started throwing some emails back and forth (as yo do), and decided we'd do a trade of goodies. She sent me this goodie bag full of Indian bling bling! And I sent her some of my Aussie products. Check out this bag of goodness! I tell you, my 4yr old daughter Zoë has claimed those glittery butterflies! I just adore those wads of ribbon. I made a quick card using some of it here:

It's a little difficult photographing some of the flowers because they reflect so much, but I'm sure you get the general idea! Here's a close up: (click on the images for an enlarged view)

Thanks Priya! I'll have some fun with this stuff!

Ok, that's all for today folks! :)

Five!

Five Things on my List To-Do Today
1. Send Darkroom Door & RGP orders
2. Buy Zoë's birthday present
3. update this blog!!
4. Soccer training with Ethan
5. Write instructions for a project that will be published.

Five Things That Make Me Happy Today
1. Our yard is clean! No leaves (for now), and the lawn is freshly mowed.
2. Fran is flying to France today! She is living her dream! woo hoo!
3. I have a new laptop
4. Handed down some of Zoë's clothes that no longer fit her to a family in need.
5. Darkroom Door. It just makes me happy every day that we did this.

Five Places I have Lived
1. Tottenham NSW (on a pig and sheep farm)
2. Central Coast NSW (Fountaindale, Forresters Beach, and Glenning Valley)
3. Newcastle NSW (Jesmond, Cooks Hill, New Lambton, and right in the city)
4. Sydney NSW (mainly Neutral Bay & Manly)
5. Europe in a Kombi van

Five Favorite Movies
1. Billy Elliot
2. Cast Away
3. Apollo 13
4. Forrest Gump (noticing a theme here?)
5. Anything with Tom Hanks! Or movies with a good dose of drama and meaning. I used to like real thrillers (Seven, Kill Bill, Saw etc), but as the years go on, I don't enjoy the 'squirming in the seat' feeling as much anymore. Does this mean I am getting older?

Five Things on My Desk Today
1. Orders & invoices
2. Camera media cards
3. empty tupperware container (did have M&M's in there)
4.  My old laptop that died
5. These cool speakers

Five Artists I Like
1. Brett Whiteley - I have several of his prints within my house
2. Steve McCurry - adventure photography
3. Robert Hicks - black & white photography
4. Dianne Poinski - beautiful hand coloured photography
5. Celeste Brignac - great pinhole images! I've only found her work recently and we did an art swap, so she has one of my prints and I have one of hers :)

So... what's your in your Top 5? If you're keen, do this little quiz (all or some) on your own blog or in the comments here! :)

Wednesday Stamper - Stripes

It has been a while since I've done any of the Wednesday Stamper challenges, but I've completed this weeks Striped challenge. Here's my card:

Supplies:
Darkroom Door 'Rialto' paper (striped background)
Darkroom Door Ladies Photobooth
Darkroom Door 'Liitle Dreams' stamp set (dream word, scrolls)

I'm not sure where I got the metal frame from, I found it in my stash. It fitted the Photobooth image perfectly.

Check out Wednesday Stamper to see what other stampers have created for the Stripes challenge.

Also, this week Sarah Schwerin has been our guest artist on the Darkroom Door blog. She has created so many amazing projects - go here to check them all out! Plus there's a GIVEAWAY of some Darkroom Door goodies, so go leave a comment over on the Darkroom Door blog to be in the draw!!!

Mr DS has been stuck in quarantine!

I've been receiving quite a few emails about Mr DS! (here's the original post about him).

Mr DS was in Ireland with Evonne, and she sent him to Sarah, but for some reason he was returned back to Ireland. So Evonne sent him back to me. He took a little detour through Australian Quarantine! I bet there were a few puzzled looks when they opened the package to find a Mr DS rubber stamp nicely wrapped in pink ribbon! He is not pictured here, as I packed him up right away and sent him off to Sarah. So keep an eye out on Sarah's blog for some Mr DS art!!! I'll be sure to let you all know when she has put something up on her blog about Mr DS.

Evonne also sent me the most wonderful Celtic art. The piece she has sent me is called 'Eternity'. The three interlocking heads of this piece are based upon the triskelle symbol, commonly used by the Celts. The meaning was to show the three most treasured thing to the Celts: trinity, life, and eternity.

Thank you Evonne for such a wonderful gift and for the effort in keeping Mr DS on his journey!

Wild Wild West!

What a great weekend we've just had out in the Central West of NSW! Our trip to Dubbo started with a visit to the zoo, and then on to see hi-5 in concert. Zoë is absolutely in love with Hi-5, and we even had a little boy who danced the entire concert (after having told us that he doesn't even like Hi-5). Imagine their excitement when we got to meet all the members of Hi-5 after the show!

Then it was onto Tottenham and Nymagee to visit relatives. And then onto Nyngan for a day with the Nyngan Scrapbooking group. My day started just on sunrise...

The road to Nyngan:

I had a fabulous day teaching at Nyngan!! Some of the ladies had never stamped before, so it's always fun converting them over and teaching them a few new tricks :)

Thank you to everyone who was in my classes for that day... and for the wonderful food. Oh my, one of the things I love about teaching at retreats is the food. It's always delicious!

I was totally spoilt too as the ladies had put together a little hamper of goodies and had all signed a card for me. It was very sweet and appreciated! Thank you!!

As you can see, there was lots of  spritzing and flicking with the Distress Inks...

And last but not least, here's the wonderful group of ladies from Nyngan! Thanks again for a fun day!

If you ever happen to be passing through Nyngan, check out Outback Country Crafts. It's a cute house that is converted into a store full of the most amazing handmade crafts. You'll find so many goodies in there from stamping, scrapbooking, quilting, beading, knitted crafts, soaps, gourmet foods etc etc. Go say hi to Narelle and Wendy in the store! You'll love it!! Tell them I sent ya!

Digital Reproductions Article

A few posts ago I mentioned the article that was written about me in the latest issue of Digital Reproductions magazine. Here is the cover with my photo of Brooklyn Bridge, New York City.

I was so honoured when they asked if I could be featured in the magazine. Colleen Bate, the editor, did the interview and I love how she has written the article. Thanks Colleen :)

You can read the article here:
Download DR12_Rachel.pdf

Right now I'm busy packing up for the trip out to the wild west tomorrow. Class kits are packed, stamps and other tools are packed, and my camera is packed! I feel like doing a slide show from this trip just to show you all a bit of rural Australia for all you overseas folk! I'll see how I go.

Hope you all have a creative weekend!

More on Nyngan

I thought you might like to know a little more about Nyngan... Here's a map of where I am off to:

The Red X is where I currently live. The underlined town Nymagee is where my Mum lives. The underlined town Tottenham is where I lived until I was 15. The light red line is the route we will take on Wednesday to drive to my Mum's farm. And there is Nyngan in the big red circle with the arrow pointing towards it! It's an 8 hour drive from my home to my Mum's farm at Nymagee. Even longer now with kids, and rest stops etc! This time we are staying in Dubbo for a night to go to the Western Plains Zoo and to see Hi-5 on Thursday. Then we'll continue on to Nymagee. I'll drive over to Nyngan on Saturday to teach the workshops.

and here's the page 2 article from the Nyngan Observer...

And even though it says I grew up in the local area (Tottenham, shown in the map) it has been 19 years since I have lived in the area, and has been several years at least since I have been to Nyngan itself. (so that's why I am still surprised they only used my first name on the front page. I must have made my visits memorable!! LOL) So I'm very much looking forward to being there on Saturday! I do hope to make this visit the most memorable one yet. Look out Nyngan... we're going to paint the town red! (or a nice shade of Distress Ink at least ;)

Look out Nyngan, here I come!

Apparently my trip to Nyngan next week is pretty exciting news! Don't believe me? Check this out...

Now, not only did it make the front page of the Nyngan Observer newspaper, but the most exciting thing is the fact they only used my first name! Gosh, who knew that I didn't need my last name after all! Go Nyngan! Can't wait to see you all next weekend!