Stamping with Kathryn Lowe

Heroes & Pop-up's

Hi folks, hope you're having a nice week?

In Tuesday's post about Black Saturday, I included a tiny snippet of photo of some pop-up firemen - just like a chain of paper dolls.  This was a project I was happy to revisit, as it was another Altered Book Round Robin which I participated in about 5 years ago, and it took me quite some time to dig out the photos, so I hope you don't mind, but I thought I would share more of the project with you today.

The book theme was black & white photos, and the layout that month had to include pop-up's. Never one to shirk at a challenge, and influenced by the mood in the world at the time (the London bombings had only recently occurred), I decided on a pop-up that was reflective, but also celebrated the strength of the human spirit.

The small piece of text down on the right hand corner reads, "Inside every good heart is a hero waiting to happen".

I'm sure you'll agree that human adversity certainly brings out the hero in ordinary, every day folk.

Happy AUSTRALIA DAY!!

Congratulations to all our "New Australians" who receive their Citizenship Certificates in Australia Day ceremonies across the country today.  We had the pleasure of attending such a ceremony in our nation's capital, Canberra, in 2009 - it was such a buzz!  (or maybe that was the 21 canon salute, or the FA-18 flyover!!).

To celebrate today, I have gone hunting through some OLD photos and dug up a favourite project I did in 2005.  I was working on lots of Altered Book projects at the time, and this one had the theme favourite places.  The month's project had to include "windows" in the page, so I embedded acetate sheets between several pages and created some windows which I stamped one of our favourite national emblems onto - yes, the kangaroo!

Anyway, here's what it looked like!

The words are just a couple of verses from the very moving Dorothea Mackellar Poem, My Country, one of my all-time favourites.

Don't you love that last line . . . I know to which brown country my homing thoughts will fly . . . ?

It's like when you walk down those long corridors at Heathrow after a month in Europe and suddenly you see row upon row of flying kangaroos - yes the tails of dozens of Qantas jets, and with tears in your eyes, you realise . . . you're going HOME!!  Home to the best country on earth! 

Have a great day - enjoy this beautiful fresh air and sunshine and I hope your day is blessed with beautiful happy family memories!