Blog Along with Effy - Post Eighteen / International Bat Appreciation Day Hop

   

If you have been reading some of my April posts you will know that when I saw

Effy's Blog Along, I thought I would share some 'diary' posts, along with some of the crafty things that I have been doing.

When we first moved to Australia in June of 1998, the kids were 17, 15, 13 and 11. It took us quite a while to find a house to live in and schools for them to attend. So I had the job of keeping them entertained for a couple of months. Not easy when Tom, especially, at 17, had not been on outings with his Mum for years. Anyway, one day I suggested a trip to the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, just walking distance from where we were staying. Tom would have much rather continue playing on the X-box, but complied eventually, with an ill grace.

However, even he was pleased he had come, when we saw the colony of fruit bats!

I was just looking at my hair in that photo - I have had my hair short for years - but at that stage for some reason I had let it grow out. It is equally untidy now but that is with only having 3 visits to the hairdressers in 15 months. The salons are open again and I did try to make an appointment the other day but there was a queue... what should I do?

I mentioned in one of my posts that during these lockdowns, crafting has really kept me going. And related to that has been entering challenges. 

LeighSB Designs has had almost continual hops, inspiring us to make something new every day! When I saw the International Bat Appreciation Day Mini Hop on Leigh's blog I knew I had to join in! On each day in each of these hops I have tried to share something new - and something that I have made in the past.

Now it you think of a bat box, you might think of this:

But this is mine:

On Friday morning I joined another 'Craft and Chat' Zoom meeting (with UK Stampers Network) and Jo demonstrated how to make this ATC box.

I decorated the sides with ATC sized cards layered with sections of one of my Gelli pulls and put a bat on the top! Because inside I am putting some bat ATCs...

This is the first - basically a rectangle of pink card layered with a background from

Artfully Musing.

To this I added twin Betsi Batleigh 's, coloured with Markers and cut out.

Definitely "Too cute to spook"! The last time I used this image was in September of 2020 when I made a set of three ATCs.

That time the backgrounds were ATC sized pieces of Yupo card decorated with alcohol inks. To make the stripes I used my heart shaped blending tool with dots of alcohol put in a line across it. This was then just swiped across the card.

I will add today's makes to Leigh's Linky

That's it for now...more tomorrow...

Happy Crafting!