{welcome to my life}

{in my new home}

Phew... but I still have a bit of cleaning of the other house to do before Tuesday (eek!). I am loving my bright and airy scrap room, and my nice big oven. My internet connection was up and running on Tuesday so I managed to place myself a little order...

Look what turned up on my doorstep today:

The gorgeous first instalment of the Block of the Month designed by the lovely miss Janelle Wind! I ordered it through Quilt Fabric Delights and I had it in 2 days (i ordered late Tuesday afternoon). I am going to a scrapbooking crop tonight at the LSS, but I am so tempted to take this little baby!

I recently finished this album for the Imagination Factory (my Local Scrapbook Store). It is one of the Pageframes designs clear albums. There are more photos of it here, or you (if you are local)could drop into the shop and take a closer look.

That's it for me... I need to pack a crop tote!

{update}

For those of you that wanted to read the journaling on that last layout... Here 'tis:

Straight from the heart. Busy moving this weekend, so if you email me or try to ring LOL... I may take a while to get back to you. We have to move a crapload of furniture up hills and stairs. My scraproom is upstairs in the "parent's retreat". (Sounds like we will be having in a live in Masseur eh?) I'm not so hot on the idea of going up and down those stairs a dozen times a day, nut I keep telling myself I need to tone my butt. Not so sure stairs are gonna cut it though.

Over the weekend I have come across this cool site: here. They are a one-stop shop for all your clear album needs. Just so happens I am designing a Pageframes designs mini album for The Imagination Factory. NOW I AM IN LOVE!!! Where have these albums been all my life?!?!?! If you love clear albums too you can apply for their design team at clearalbums.com.

Well that's about it for now, as I type in a near empty room... Next time you here from me I will be residing in a different postcode.

Nite!!

{time...}

...is one of the prompts this week in the new Shimelle class I am taking. 5 weeks to making an album about me and my personality. I am loving it already, there is a photography challenge at the start of the week, then mid week we write and then finally make a couple of layouts.

Since I don't use a watch (I have 2 with dead batteries) I decided to take a few pics around the house of timepieces we have. Its sad because we have nothing but digital clocks except in the lounge room. I would love to get a nice old clock one day. Following on with the "time" theme, I hope to make time to finish this class!

Its nearly moving time too... We are moving to a new place closer to the family (we were close already but now walking distance). Two storey with a view. Should be lovely... scrap room upstairs with a nice view of Buninyong. Fingers crossed the rain stops for a couple of hours on Sunday so we can move the furniture.

One last thing before I go-

A layout for the boxx! Journaling from the heart in the June Newsletter. If you haven't gone over to "the boxx" yet, you should check it out! A funky new interactive forum, and each member has their own page within the site to customize, add photos and videos to. Awesome new idea Maria has created!

So will I see you there?? ;o)

{MIA}

I have been Missing In Action and I am not sorry for it at all... We have just spent two weeks on a driving holiday with the family. It was wonderful... And stressful too (mums of preschoolers would understand...) It was too cold for swimming though but much warmer than the weather has been back here while we were gone.

Damien's mum and dad came along so we had 2 cars and separated the kids. A great idea because any other time we have travelled any distance they fought and drove us nuts. I was lucky enough to win a portable DVD player a few weeks back and that helped relieve boredom for some of the way:

We took some long walks along the estuaries and did some fishing, the kids played in the sand and collected shells and pebbles. When the kids got tired this was a familiar sight:

So anyway... we are back, I have done a tonne of washing and its so rainy it is all in a holding pattern waiting for the next load in the dryer to finish. I am pleased that it did rain so much here while we were gone and it is still wet. The garden and the tanks need it so badly.

I have a few projects to share that are for SOMO . these were done before we left. I have others that are newer but you will have to wait for them because they are for the Boxx newsletter.

Ok I better go insert the next load of washing into the dryer... I hopefully will be around later for more pictures :D

{weekly happenings}

Been busy looking around for a new place to live, getting ready for our holiday next week, driving kids to kinder and play dates, catching up with friends and not a lot of scrapbooking going on in between. That about wraps up this week.

This week I hosted the Weekly Challenge over at Scrapboxx and I challenged the girls to do an 8.5x11 layout horizontally. I think some of the girls are itching to mount theirs on some 12x12 cardstock. Naughty.... the idea is to get out of your comfort zone! Here is what I used as my sample:

I love these colours... Not something I would normally choose but they were so pretty. This week I got a huge box of American Crafts goodies... I love being on the design team there... They are sooo generous, and I just love all thier products. I swear I have not met one scrapbooker who doesn't love Thickers...

And this one is of my nephew Jack. Isn't he just adorable? He has the deep brown eyes like the rest of my family. Anyone see any resemblance to my crew?

Still a couple more things to upload... I haven't taken a pic of my row of houses that I made at Jenny Crossley's class last weekend, or the other couple of layouts I have finished this week. Trouble is when the sun is shining and I should be taking pics of my projects, I am too busy soaking up the rays outside, or like today sitting at the kitchen table cutting recipes out of magazines.

Speaking of which, its about time to start on tea... using one of those very recipes...

Have a good nite!

{Sleepy weekend}

Just thought I would pop in and say hello... Just a relaxing sleepy weekend here. I went to a crop on Friday night, a class yesterday with the lovely Jenny Crossley, this morning I picked up a couple of old glass jars and some sheet music from the trash market and now I am just lazing about finishing bits and pieces. Nice...

Anyway, will post some pics of my finds and my class project once I am finished (which wont be long!).

Happy Sunday :D

{cough cough...}

Yep... That's about all I hear at 5am these days. If its not one kid coughing it's the other. Can someone please train my children to sleep in!?!?!

Monday afternoon Fiona and I thought we would get some shots of the kids in the Botanic Gardens. My little man wasn't his usual self (and early the next morning we discovered he had an upset tum...). Lilly was in fine bossy boots form and not posing for the camera at all. Bribery did work somewhat  though.

I managed these (the first is slightly out of focus but I love it):

Next up is Tobey who is always forthcoming for a photo even when he is a bit under the weather...

Now I always use the Adobe RGB profile in photoshop because I love the wider range of colour, but I read somewhere that the internet uses sRGB... So when I post a photo that I have edited and I think it has awesome colour, it shows up a little greyer on the net. I guess I will be learning a lot more about that sort of thing in the coming months during my photography course.

Just a little something to share before I go tuck the kids into bed:

This layout I did for the For Keeps DT competition at SIA on behalf of Scrapboxx. I wet the patterned paper to get the distressed edges and tears, and I stitched down some paper and ripped it off (a.k.a. the stutch and rup technique- thanks Leeann!). Lots of clear butterflies and sweet flowers on it. Can't wait to get it back...

Anyway I have a little impatient voice "come ON mummy..." that is getting more and more insistent... I must go read a bedtime story and tuck the little ones in for the night (before I lose my mind from the nagging...)

Nite!

{where does the time go??}

Where does it go between posts?? I have no idea... Anyway I have a few friends that are nicely nudging me to update, even though the most exciting thing happening here at the moment is the trip the couch took to the tip.

First I will share the product of a few week's obsession with the new Pink Paislee products I stalked at the LSS:

Tobey:

and... Tobey

and... Lilly and TOBEY...

and OMFG!!! Lilly: (where the F= freakin')

and houses:

Edited to add: These houses were featured on Holly McCaig's blog.... Miss Pink Paislee herself! see here!

That enough to keep you happy while I chat?? :D

During the week I had a pizza night at the Kinder with Lilly, for Mother's day. It was fun and (honestly) I did enjoy myself. We painted, iced biscuits and made patty pan necklaces. Then we sat down on itty bitty chairs and ate child size pieces of glitter encrusted pizza. At the end of the night the kids gave us a  ranunculus bulb in a pot. Can't wait for it to sprout (and then no doubt I will kill it oops...).

Just another layout share before I leave you contemplating my simply exciting and fast paced life:

another March layout using the SOMO kit!

Till next time... Happy mother's day to all the mums...

{why bother??}

... trying to get a "nice" shot of them together??

FYI: Lilly was not the only one to get an icecream... Tobey had already scoffed his...

{just the same}

The same old thing happening here day to day. We see the leaves turning yellow and falling however, and the cold nights turn into warm sunny Autumnal days. The colder weather means that my babies will become another year older. I can't come to terms with these babies being so big.

I love that they can do a lot for themselves, and that they sleep 12 hours uninterrupted, but I miss the goo-gaa and the sweet baby spew and dirty nappy smell that only comes from infants. *sigh* I am sure in a few short months my buddy Celeste will help me with my nostalgia, and I will be on track again. After I change a few nappies for her and hear the babe squawking it will be all good.

Have been scrapping up a storm... Finished up my layouts for the March SOMO kit. I loved this kit. When I first saw the paper from Daisy D's called The Wonder Years, I was not sold at all. The word "kitschy" kept popping into my head and I was sure that I was all for the geometric solid type patterns (eg American Crafts and Making Memories). Lo and behold when I opened my kit- I love them!! I have posted my favourite layout that I made with the kit but you will have to visit the SOMO gallery to see the rest (when they go up).

Ok... that's about it from me tonight... Hope you enjoy your evening!