ANZAC Day & My Personal Remembrance Shrine

Today is ANZAC Day and I want to honour all the Australians and New Zealanders who have been or are a part of our armed forces. Like a lot of women I know, I am not pro-war and wish we could find peaceful ways to all co-exist on this planet of ours but I also acknowledge that this view is the privilege that comes from living where I do. I also acknowledge that I get to have the right to have my own beliefs as a result of the efforts and sacrifice of others. My little ANZAC Day shrine, while a tribute to my paternal grandfather who was an Australian Prisoner-of-War in France during WWI, is also meant as a tribute to all ANZACs.

And to explain the significance of the shrine - and I apologise for the glare/reflection in the photo - the large photo is of my grandfather and his wife and children in 1930. My father is the baby in the photo (Dad would have been 77 this Friday). The Dr Pat tin was given to me to carry home some "treasure" by my grandfather when I was a little girl and I have hung on to it ever since. And I still love tins! The smaller photo, the bible and the "French for the Expeditionary Forces" were all my grandfather's possessions back at the time of the war and have a lot of personal significance for me. The rosemary bunch is of course for remembrance.

Sending love and wishes for peace...

5 Days of Bliss

In Australia we have a public holiday tomorrow for ANZAC Day and as it is mid-week I am taking the opportunity to have a five day break by having a couple of recreation leave days on Thursday and Friday. I have come home from work and I'm sitting here at my computer with a glass of champagne. I feel light hearted and filled with the promise of five whole days!

I'm about to move to the kitchen to make the tray of brownies that I mentioned in a previous post, then I am going to watch "Painting Australia" on TV (a rare event for me - watching TV!) I was watching this show when it first started, but missed the last two weeks as I am so inattentive to TV programs and forgot all about it. It is a really interesting show and fills me with even more respect for artists, so I really must try and remember it every Tuesday evening for however long it runs.

Tomorrow I am getting up early (promise to myself) and putting together, hopefully with the able and willing assistance of 16 year old Zach, the new bookcases that I bought during my lunch break today. I will also be getting all my domestic stuff out of the way so that I have most of the other four days for creative stuff! I am hoping Zach will also teach me how to use the Dremel I have owned for three years...

I am a bit accident prone (usually from trying to do too much in too short a space of time) and last night I burnt myself doing a waxed canvas for a lovely blog/stamping friend (who must be wondering where the promised mail is!!) so I need to be very careful with the Dremel as I can imagine that the potential injuries are a little more inconvenient than a blistered finger!

As I didn't finish anything last night I am uploading another scan of one of my "ochre" journal exchange pages. This one was waxed and probably involved a burn too. I loved doing these pages and got to use some of my favourite stamps - I love the tassels from Lazar Studiowerx and the calligraphy from Alphabetique.