Pause for Thought

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

(with thanks to April on SJ)

2 more earthquakes & cards

Scarily enough, today there were 2 more quakes in Sumatra - just a hundred miles from yesterday's quakes and on the land this time, so more damage, more lives lost. The first was magnitude 6.8 and had our TV wobbling, and half an hour later I saw on the USGS web site that there had been another one of 5.0. I didn't actually feel that one, but I was still dizzy from the first one so maybe I was feeling it without realising. I'm still feeling dizzy with it all now, not only because the floor keeps waving around, but also with sympathy for the people of Indonesia who are being hit so hard.

I did 2 more Christmas cards this afternoon after the earthquake drama had subsided. This one is the second card in Fab's Challenge (I've missed the deadline, but never mind - it's another card done) to use the same materials to make another card. I have enough left to make quite a few more, and I will because I'm loving all this green! Can you tell it's my favourite colour? Have you noticed I like owls? ;-)

I'm just looking at the photo now and I've decided it needs some Diamond Stickles. I'll add that later.

Recipe:

Paper - BG as yesterday

Stamps - Hero Arts (owl) and Studio G (snowflakes and greeting)

Ink - Versafine Black and Artnic Green Tea

Copic markers, white gel pen

This one uses some of the same materials. It's for the current challenge from Truly Scrumptious, which is to follow their sketch and to include some doodling. I've doodled with the Lime Stickles - no easy task, I might add! So simple, but I love it.

Recipe:
Papers: BG, Cloud9Design Max's Backyard Collection (the stripes) and a scrap.
Stamp: Inkadinkado (earth bauble), Studio G (greeting)
Ink: Artnic Green Tea, Dew Drop Platinum
And of course the Lime Stickles

A Christmas card and an earthquake

Well it had to happen, didn't it? I've been moaning about the supermarkets selling Christmas cards as soon as the kids go back to school in September for years. I love Christmas, but I find by the time it's arrived I'm completely fed up with it. Nothing can be done to stop the tide however, so as they say, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". My Christmas card-making began today.

The current Basic Grey Challenge is to use embossing, either heat or dry, along with at least one BG item. And I just found a new blog today which has inspired me: Fab's Big Christmas Cards Challenge and the challenge here is green and more green.

He also suggests making two cards from the same supply of materials, which I had fully intended to do before close-of-play today, but I got interrupted by an earthquake which I suspect is a little more important in the general scheme of things. Honest. Don't believe me? Check the news. I'll wait... Yes, you've got it, that's the one. That 7.6 magnitude quake 53km off the coast of western Indonesia near Padang at 6:20 this afternoon. We felt it in our 19th floor condo in Singapore. The door was swinging, the curtains were swaying, and if it had gone on much longer than about half a minute, I think I might have felt travel-sick. It's the most peculiar feeling.

So Fab, I love your blog and you've completely inspired me to get working on my cards - thank you! I hope you will forgive me for not finishing my second card before the deadline, but I promise I'll finish it and post it tomorrow :-)

This earthquake is on top of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami which caused so much damage in Samoa this morning. And the typhoon Ketsana which has devastated the Philippines, roared through Vietnam and is now battering central Cambodia exactly where we were this time last year. Those poor, poor people.

So now to my card, and I promise it was not designed with any knowledge of today's terrible news. However much we help our human impact on the earth, we can't help the power of the elements. It makes me feel very humble and insignificant. I must add that inside there's a mistletoe stamp and the sentiment "have a merry one". In green, of course!

Recipe:
Patterned paper: Basic Grey Wisteria, Urban Prairie (Hayloft), Sultry (Patina)
Ink: Versacolor/Artnic in Sky Blue, Evergreen and Green Tea, Dew Drops in Galaxy Gold and Bamboo Leaves
Stamp: Inkadinkado (I'm dreaming of a green Christmas) and Stampington (tree)
Embossing powder in Verdigris, gold cord and gold staples from my stash

Ephemera

We're up to the letter "E" on the ScrapJazz Challenges. For September we had to create a LO using either ephemera or envelopes. I don't really like using ephemera which may not be acid-free, but the more I thought about it, I realised that the only reason to have an envelope is to put ephemera in! So after all that, I used a leaflet from our New Year celebrations in Hong Kong, and just hoped it isn't too acidic.

I'm not exactly happy with this LO. I couldn't even get it to photograph properly - the pink is actually a plummy kind of purple. Grr. I stamped grasses and flowers which look quite like fireworks as a background for the photos. The journalling is on the back of the "lift" tab, and the outside of the leaflet hangs outside the page protector. One thing I really like is the date stamp on which you can circle the month(s) and date(s).

Friday Funny

I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace.

Dr Phil proclaimed:

'The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished.'

So, I looked around our apartment to see all the things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving for work this morning I finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish cream, a packet of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how good I feel right now!

Cat City

One of September's Challenges on ScrapJazz is to create a page using distressing techniques including tearing, sanding, inking. We also have to use die-cuts too, either pre-cut, or cut using our machines.

Unfortunately my crafting mojo seems to have got a bit cheesed off by the rest of me being poorly, and for the first time in a long time I sat looking at all my pretty things and my photos without having the faintest idea of what to do with them. I thought about the challenges while I was out walking, on the bus and on the train; looking for inspiration in adverts, shops, magazines. I concentrated really hard, noticed a plethora of fascinating things which normally would have had me reaching for pen and notebook and hurrying home. But my poor little imagination just folded its arms, shook its head and told me "nope, not playing".

It's possible that DH's call to tell me he was coming home in a few days gave my mojo the kick up the jacksie that it needed. Or maybe I was just feeling better. Who knows? Whatever the reason, I think it's gradually filtering back. I spent yesterday enjoying my turn at the autumn Scrap Whispers main challenge (which I can't show you yet na-na-ne-na-na :-) but it's gorgeous) and today I couldn't wait to get working on today's candy.

I distressed the edge of the paper with an old emery board, tore the photo corners, and sanded "claw-marks" into the paper. I die-cut the journalling spot and distressed the edge. The arrow is also die-cut and inked. I used my new Basic Grey Lemonade papers and letter stickers

The photos are from our visit to Kuching, where there were cats, both statues and the real thing everywhere. The journalling spot reads "a little bird told me" and the arrow points to a sparrow perched on the bronze back of the cat statue, which tickled our fancy.

SW Challenge #43

Scrap Whispers Challenge #43 was a fun one! We had to choose our favourite digital scrap-booker, and scrap-lift one of their designs. I haven't got a particular favourite digi designer, because I think they're all better than anything I've managed! I chose our very own Lillypond from ScrapJazz. This is her LO Pool Time and this is my paper-and-glue version.

To be honest it's cheating rather, because 99% of that gorgeous design is the Bo Bunny paper. All I did was to cut the photos to fit, cut around the edges of the leaves so that they fitted over the photos, add a stamp and a little journalling, and squidge some lime green Stickles around to match the green in the photos. Oh, and then mount it on a white background. Even the photos were already printed out from another project, and I didn't want to waste them. Ah well. Recycling and saving paper is a good thing!