My new obsession - Glass Etching

Oh who would have thought ....

As many of you know I love my Silhouette Cameo, but now I love it even more as I can now use it to cut designs that I can now etch onto glass.  For some reason when I thought of glass etching I thought there was a machine you popped your glassware into and it 'tattooed' the design onto the glass - OK you can stop laughing at me now.  Well, I saw recently that you could get a glass etching kit for the Silhouette machines and I just had to look into it a bit further.  After watching the video on You Tube and saw how easy it was (click here for video), and that you needed no extra tools and just had to order the kit.

So my kit arrived, I opened it, watched the video then left it for about a week and a half before actually giving it a go.  I did not want to mess it up.  Well over the weekend I did another project with the glass etching and now I am wondering round the house and off to the Warehouse looking at glassware that I can etch.  It did expect the etching to be a bit whiter, but I still love the end results.

So here is what I did.

After cutting my design on the vinyl, I used the tranfer paper to add the design to my glass jar.  I taped of the top and bottom edges using some washi tape then added a nice thick layer of the glass etching cream. (be sure to wear rubber gloves for this).  I left this lot of cream on for about 15 minutes.

After about 15 minutes I scrapped up the excess glass etching cream and put it back in the bottle so it can be used again on my next project.  Then I gave the jar a bit of a rinse, to rinse off the last remaining bits of the etching cream.  Then removed the vinyl stencil.

Here is the finished result. I am happy with this, now what to put in the jar ... and now ... another piece of glassware hunt.

This Glass Etching Kit for the Silhouette is available to order from my online shop - click here

Starburst Card Tutorial

I came across a fun card and just had to give it a go and here is my result.  I am really pleased with how this star-burst card came together.  It was so much fun that I just had to share with you how to create one for yourself.

You will need:

3 3/4"x 5" cardstock
3 7/8"x 5 1/8" cardstock mat
Cut 1: 4 1/2"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
Cut 1: 4"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
Cut 2: 3"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
Cut 2: 2"x 1 1/2" pattern paper
8 1/4"x 5 3/8" cardstock folded in half to create your card base
2" circle punch
Larger scallop circle punch
Tape adhesive
Foam tape
Sentiment sticker or stamp

To Make:

Take each pattern paper rectangle and cut on the diagonal from corner to corner to create 12 triangles.

Using the rule of thirds and your star-burst will be bursting from the top third grid square as shown below on the 3 3/4"x 5" cardstock.

Arrange your triangle pieces round that point on the grid until you like the pattern from the triangles. Be sure there is a little space between each triangle so the background cardstock is showing through. Don't worry that they are hanging off the edge.
Once you like the look adhere the pattern paper triangles, you may even like to flip over some of the triangles and use the pattern on the other side of the paper.

Trim away the excess of the triangles to the edge of your cardstock

Mat your star-burst to the 3 7/8"x 5 1/8" cardstock mat.
Then adhere your matted star-burst to your card front

Punch a 2" circle form coordinating cardstock and add your sentiment sticker or stamp to it.
Mat your circle to a slightly larger scallop circle punched from another piece of coordinating cardstock.

Adhere your matted circles using foam tape to hide where the

star-burst triangle points meet.

Xterra 2015

Last year we went to Rotorua for the Paymark Xterra series and had such a great time that we decided to do it all again this year.  With one difference - this time Melissa and I were going to do the 5.5km run as well as Brad doing the 26km mountain bike ride.

This year we stayed at the Distinction Hotel in Rotorua, we arrived early evening on the Friday.  A lovely hotel.  The registration and pack pick-ups were at our hotel as well so that made it real easy.  We went and picked up our race packs, checked into the hotel and proceeded to see what we got in our race packs.  Brad's company is one of the major sponsors of the event so we caught up with some of his workmates as well.

The girls had their own hotel room across the hall from us, so it was really nice for them and for us to have our own spaces.  None of us seemed to sleep well that night.  Not sure if it was the night before the race jitters or that the hotel rooms were too hot or what but never mind.

We were all up at 6am on race day (Saturday 11 April) and headed down to breakfast at 6:30am.  The breakfast buffet was lovely with so much to choose from.  It was great to see so many other Xterra competitors in the dining room as well.  We even saw Hamish Carter and his family at breakfast.

We left the hotel and headed off for the event at about 7:15am after checking out as Melissa and my event started at 8am at the Blue Lake.  We arrived with plenty of time, un-hitched Brad's bike for his event at 9am.

8am came round pretty quick.  Melissa and I were ready and waiting at the start line.  Melissa was going to try to stay with me for the first bit of the event.  But as soon as the whistle went there was a surge forward and we were separated.  She took off - and good for her.  She did so well.  I was planning to walk but signed up for the run so if I wanted to run I could.  With everyone round me running at the start I decided to just go for it and run I did.  I ran for just over a kilometer before having to do some walking.  I met up with Karina for Paymark and we chatted pretty much the rest of the way.

Once we got off the road and onto the trail it got pretty muddy as it had been raining in Rotorua for most of the week and the night before.  The weather was trying to clear up for the events, but the wind was freezing.  On the 5.5km I did warm up so it wasn't to bad.  Karina was doing the 11km so as we came to the finish line we separated and I took off until I hit the soft sand and had to walk until it firmed up again and then just went for it and ran to the finish.

I just missed the start of Brad's event, but both the girls were there to see him off. Melissa made it to the finish line about 5-6 minutes ahead of me - not too bad.

Brad found the course a lot harder this year just because of all the mud and muck on the course.  He did really really well though.  He managed to have about the same finishing time as last year on his old bike.  We reckon had the course been dry he would have thrashed his previous time.  It was funny seeing all the mountain bikers return absolutely covered in mud.  Quite an adventure out on the course.

We watched some of the individual and teams start out on the triathlon.  Man they were amazing, especially those doing the full triathlon on their own.  Looking forward to taking part again next year and hopefully beating my time - maybe even running more of it.   If the weather is good I will wear my vibram shoes next time.

That afternoon we visited the Redwood forest.  This is one of our favourite places to visit when we go to Rotorua.  We went for a bit of a walk to try and loosen up after our events.

After checking out a couple of other spots we headed back home.
Another great time in Rotorua.  Looking forward to our next trip.

See ya next year Xterra!

Duck Layout

At the beginning of this year we had a Mother duck of over 20 ducklings staying on our property.  We suspect she had more than one lot of ducklings as they were two different colours.  As you kind of expect with ducks the numbers started to dwindle and one day she was down to only 8 ducklings.  The next day we noticed she had what looked like a broken jaw, but we could not catch her.  She disappeared for a couple of days and then she was down to three babies and again we decided to try and catch her to take her to the local Bird Rescue, but again no luck.  It took us a total of three days, a borrowed cat carrier and two chicken nets.  Sadly but the time we did catch her she was down to just two ducklings.

Taking her and her two ducklings to the Bird Rescue was not to bad.  But once there she got out twice and made a run/fly for it.  I have no idea what happened with her care but I do hope she made it and the two ducklings made it to.

I did manage to get a couple of photos of Mother Duck and ducklings are they were caught and on the weekend created this layout.  I do like it when we have ducks and their ducklings, they are so much fun to watch and feed out the dining room window.