blog giveaways!

I stumbled across this amazing blog and it has an amazing giveaway happening!
Have a look -

http://tabithalenox.blogspot.com/2011/11/did-you-hear-news-its-giveaway.html

And what about this one! It also has an fantastic giveaway for her third blogaversary! You need to scroll down a little bit to get to the giveaway. Some people are just too clever!!!

http://trashtotreasureart.blogspot.com/

And I just love the blog header on this blog. What a sweet birdie! And another blogaversary giveaway!!!!

http://marie-lostbirdstudio.blogspot.com/2011/11/second-blogeversary-giveaway.html

i keep finding these awesome giveaways on gorgeous blogs this morning. Here's another one!

http://spunbyme.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-cant-believe-it.html?showComment=1320881144228#c3362642722200929299

And this one is a lovely creative blog, by someone who must also be lovely, called SHELL. And she has a giveaway too!

http://bungalowbling.blogspot.com/2011/11/giveaway-time-custom-lace-neclace.html?showComment=1320881930816#c1527833201363458282

And now I will stop as I'm supposed to be writing reports not blogposts!!!

Shell
XXX :)

FRI/SAT CROP CANCELLED

Well if I wasn't convinced it was the silly season already - I am now!

I am cancelling Friday night's crop (Fri 11th November 2011) and Saturday's crop including the trip to Geelong (Saturday 12th November 2011) due to everybody having something else on - including me!!!

So we'll just have to head down to Geelong in January instead. I'll have money to spend then anyway.

I'm sure I will see most of you at Karen's Christmas Crop anyway so i'll catch up with you then! IF you have passed these crop dates on to anybody else please make sure you let them know that this Friday and Saturday are cancelled!!! :(

My scrap weekend away

Here are a couple of photos of my scrap weekend away. I haven't photographed my layouts yet but will do so soon. I only did 5 layouts but I did do lots of other stuff while I was there so was actually happy with 5!
I am so glad I went as everything was getting to me in the lead up to going away and I just wasn't firing on all cylinders, if you know what I mean. I very nearly decided not to go, and in the end got there very late on Friday night. I'm so glad I did as I relaxed as soon as I got there and felt so much better. I am very fortunate to have such supportive friends when I am falling to pieces and my life would not be the same without them. Thank you my lovely scrap buddies!!!!

From left, Sue, Pauline, Julie, Marilyn, me, lee, Kim, Karen

What do we look like???

 This is us after Julie, front left, concocted a home made face mask out of secret ingredients we had to bring. We had no idea what they were for as we only knew what we had to bring, not anyone else.

I am the glamorous one (??) third from the right wearing a black and white tea towel on my head and a red and white striped shirt. I sort of look like a demented pirate!

Once we had cleaned this off Julie then slapped on the home made moisturiser. It was hilarious and certainly softend up our skin. It felt lovely afterwards but was unpleasant when I was talking (what me, talk?) as Julie was applying the face mask and it went all over my teath - yuck!!! Next time I'll remember to shut my mouth!

Scrapping dates for November, December and January

It's about time I figured out some dates for scrapping together so here is what I have come up with!

FRIDAY 11th NOVEMBER 2011
11.00am 'til late

SATURDAY 12th NOVEMBER 2011 8.30am 'til late

HO,HO,HO????

Let's celebrate the end of the year early as it is just too, too hard to fit it in later!!!!
Let's scrap from mid morning Friday until late into the night. (for those that aren't at work, of course)
And , if the weather is fine you are more than welcome to jump in the pool, or just dangle your feet, if you want!
And then leave your gear here and come back at 8.30am in the morning and we'll go down to the Kaisercraft outlet at Geelong in my big car, and then return to my place to scrap into the night again.
If you want to stay over I have five single kids beds available but just remember that three of them are up ladders so you'll have to get in quick for a bottom bunk!!!
Of course, if you just want to come over for the Fri or the Sat that is fine too.
Just email, ring or text me and let me know.

FRIDAY 2nd DECEMBER 2011
11.00am 'til late
I'm probably crazy but I think I will need a crop night in December to keep me sane!
So I will schedule one for myself and if you feel like joining me, rather than Christmas shopping - be my guest!!!

FRIDAY 13th JANUARY 2012 
11.00am 'til late

SATURDAY 14th JANUARY 2012 
8.30am 'til late
Same as the November Scrap, leave your gear here overnight, and/or sleep here if you want to, then we can head down to Kaisercraft in Geelong to pick up some post Christmas bargains, or not, it's up to you, the participants. Or just scrap on FRIDAY or SATURDAY, if that suits you better.
Just let me know if you are coming or not.

What can you do with washi tape

Some people are so clever - follow this link to find a terrific list of brilliant things you can do with washi tape!!!

http://sweetlyscrappedart.blogspot.com/2011/10/crafts-with-plain-ol-masking-tape.html#axzz1a9IMgj4Q

I am inspired - must BUY some more!!!

Amusing

I just looked at my cluster map on my blog which shows where my blog visitors come from. I burst out laughing when I read this list. It just looked so funny to me.

Thursday, 6 October @ 6:27 : Melbourne, AU

Wednesday, 5 October @ 5:53 : Reservoir, AU

Wednesday, 5 October @ 1:45 : Saint Albans, AU

Tuesday, 4 October @ 6:17 : Brisbane, AU

Tuesday, 4 October @ 5:11 : Adelaide, AU

Tuesday, 4 October @ 5:08 : Hobart, AU

Tuesday, 4 October @ 4:32 : Riverwood, AU

Tuesday, 4 October @ 12:09 : Russian Federation, RU

Sunday, 2 October @ 10:44 : Craigieburn, AU

Saturday, 1 October @ 9:32 : Auburn, AU

Ha! Ha! It looks so ordinary until you hit the Russian Federation and then the next one is Craigieburn!!!!!

How would anyone in the Russian Federation find me????

Perhaps scrapshop in a box, a bag and a basket is a swear word in Russian????

I suggested this to Sam earlier (14 yo son) and he wanted to know how I knew this. Sometimes my humour is totally lost on my children!!!!

New Stuff and tonight

Even though nobody is coming over to scrap tonight I can't say I'm very sad about it as it is going to give me some time to get my own stuff ready for when we go away next weekend - I can't wait to get there!!!

I haven't been totally idle these school holidays! Look what I made!

I think the idea came from a post on Rockster's Scrappers Challenge list but I can't really remember. Anyway I needed to do something about going back to menu listing to ease the after school/evening chaos around here so I thought I might as well make myself something nice to write it on. This is American Crafts paper and black leathery thickers letters inside a 12 X 12 photo frame and I'll just write on them with a black whiteboard texta! I am really happy with them and one of my non scrappy friends has already asked me to make a list for her!

Oh and here is what Georgie looked like with her hundreds of chicken pox dots just on her face and these were taken when she was on the mend. I didn't take photos of when her eyelids were all swollen and she looked a lot worse, it was just too yucky!!!! And they didn't itch, they were hot and they hurt! Poor girl! They still haven't completely gone and it is two weeks since they appeared. What a way to spend the school holidays!

And , of course, I'll have to do a layout about it!!!

I know I should be doing other things but....

Yes, I know I should be doing other stuff but I am a bit fed up after dealing with one girl with the chicken pox all week! Finally they are starting to fade!

Have you seen this lovely blog???

http://craftygrl.blogspot.com/2011/08/inspired-by-moxie-fab-world.html

What a gorgeous card on the latest post. How simple yet how lovely!

And what about this blog???

http://craftroomtransformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/blog-candy-for-gratitude.html

And she is giving away a super pack of stuff as blog candy - whoo hoo!!!

And don't forget

Next scrap night at my place - (well, I haven't had one for a while!)

Friday 7th October 2011

TIME: When you get her 'til when you go home!

And here's another one of Georgie's dancing photos from 2 years ago! I can't wait to scrap these when we go away together!!!!

Drum roll please!

Next scrap night at my place - (well, I haven't had one for a while!)

Friday 7th October 2011

TIME: When you get her 'til when you go home!

Plenty of bargains to be had including -

 a whole box of new Christmas embellishments and papers

and a whole box of THICKERS alphas, some of which I have never seen before, $5 per pack!!!

And just because I can't put up a blog post without a photo, here is a 2010 picture of my lovely long legged ballerina. I can't wait to scrap these at our weekend away! Um, I will just have to remember to print them first!



New layouts and stuff

Oh, what a slack blogger I am! I will add some layouts now and try to add some tomorrow.


Life has been particularly crazy lately, full of junior football finals, footy club meetings and newsletters, broken telephones, emails, a mad shopping tour, computer breakdowns, head colds, sore throats, fevers, aches and pains, headaches, one red rashy face out of three (so it was probably 'slapped cheek'), 21st birthdays, dress up parties, a desperately needed clean out and makeover of my office, washing, washing and more washing, and I took two weeks off school on long service leave as I was utterly exhausted and the kids were all sick and at home with me and, of course,  I got  a runny nose and a headache and ended up as sick as all the others had been. I finally went back to school for a rest!


Sometimes I think my scrapbooking is the only thing holding this crazy person together.

I've uploaded some layouts, some of which I did at Fiona's last crop day which was ages ago. The layout above and below are a double page of course. The photos were taken on a crazy evening when I realised we all had our new pyjamas on. The layout is boringly simple as the colours and patterns in the pyjamas were more than enough. I was particularly pleased with the chipboard alpha which I had for ages but looked a million dollars with just some stickles added! I think stickles are my new favourite must have!

Here are my totally shy models in their pyjamas. Sebastian slapping his little bottom is hilarious!

This is a close up of the title and journalling. I found the title image on Google, printed it, cut it apart to add the extra word and added some flower stickers. I've just noticed that the word model might need a bit more adhesive under it!

More pyjama photos. yes, probably too many pages on the one event but i love these photos and wanted to scrap them. Again these were incredibly simple, quick pages but not everything has to be over the top! This is another double layout with the one below. The fancy scalloped frame is made from border stickers cut to the right length! And I love using up odd letters in titles like this.

Georgia's 7th birthday party in 2010. She had it at the local ice skating rink which is really weird as it is not ice at all but some sort of white waxy surface- how bizarre, must be cheaper than maintaining real ice! Georgia certainly didn't care. I numbered the photos to make sure viewers looked at them in the correct order.  I was amazed that I had caught her intake of breath and then the blow itself - too cute! These photos of the double layout don't really do it  justice as all the pictures were mounted on different pastel coloured glitter paper. which gives it a much more festive, girly birthdayish effect.

Oh, I don't think I'll tell Georgie I put this single layout in. This was taken on the pyjama model night and something didn't go her way so she was having a typical Georgie tantrum, with few tears and lot's of noise. Her tantrums were never indulged, believe me, but although they are much less frequent NOW SHE IS 8, they still happen occassionally - hence the large number in the title!

Another double layout of Georgia's 7th birthday party. There were swirly white lines on the mauve paper in the middle so when I mounted it and the photos on the darker purple it all looked a bit too blank so I used a white gel pen to draw more white swirls on the dark purple cardstock. All the title letters are glittery but again you can't see it.

What a funny evening this turned out to be below. We were sitting out the back on a sunny evening last summer, having a BBQ and Georgia and Sebastian were skipping with Adam's skipping rope. Yes, Adam has a skipping rope since he started going to the boxing gym! Funny thing is though, as i pointed out to my sister and brother in law who were there for tea, Adam can't skip! Well, that's not quite true. He can skip now but he absolutely COULD NOT SKIP then and it was truly hilarious to watch his uncoordinated attempts! How on earth did he grow up having never jumped with a skipping rope!!! There are several photos of Adam which are layered in little flip pockets (well long ones actuaslly that I snipped down to the right size) in the top left hand corner. Does anyone know where you can buy these flip photo thingys as I've had these for ages, have only got a couple left, and I can't find them anywhere? They have a pink strip on them which you peel off to expose the adhesive. You can see it clearly in the photo below. I really want to get some more of these so any help would be appreciated. I have looked on ebay with no luck.

A double layout of bald, bald Georgie watching her favourite television show, "Play School" when she was about two. She is sitting on a stool right up close to the huge screen as her vision is very poor and she really needs to sit this close. She looked so cute swinging her little feet in time to the music as she sang along I had to take photos of them. There were many, many times I was so glad that it was time for "Play School " to come on for half an hour's peace and quiet!

Double layout of new shoes that Georgia got for her 7th birthday. I only tossed them out recently as she wore them nearly every day until they fell to pieces!

Georgia also got a Hannah Montana dress up outfit for her 7th birthday - hence the title! Shy isn't she!
Again, the floral orange strips behind the photos are glittery and you can't see it.  The pink Hannah Montana tag, which doesn't really blend in with the layout because of it's colour, came off the packaging that the outfit was in.

Georgia got her ears pierced for her birthday and the other side of the double layout shows the necklace I bought for her on etsy. It is a lovely g from a typewriter and I let her go when she ran around telling everyone that the letter came from a WRITETYPER, as, of course, Miss Georgie doesn't know what a typewriter is!!! Used up oot's of number sevens from my stash too!

Sebastian was home from school feeling unwell, one day last year, and as usual, I found him playing with his beloved wrestlers.  No boy has ever played with his as much as Sebastian plays with his, every day and every chance he gets! I stuck the boy chipboard shape on and realised I had lost it's head. It looked odd without it so it was very lucky I have such a humungous button collection and just used up one as a head on this layout. It looks perfect!!!

Adam in our pool with Georgia and Sebastian and two of Sebastian's mates from school. We just love our pool!

I will load up some dates for crop nights at my house as soon as i get my act together to think sbout when they will be.
Hopefully it won't be so long between posts again. Didn't I say that last time???
Shell

Scrapping tonight Friday 8th July 2011

Scrapping

is on

@

my place

6 Heriot Court

Wyndham Vale

Tonight!

From whatever time you get here until whatever time you leave! Or you could just come for a gasbag if you want!!!

Lots of new brads!

You would think there could not possibly be any brads that I don’t already posess but new ones have arrived all week!!!

And Adam will be here for you to use and abuse!!!

And he is scared - very scared!!!

See you tonight!

CROP night next Friday and layouts

Just a reminder that there will be a crop night at my place on
 Friday 13th  (WHOOOOOOOO!) May 2011
 starting whenever you get here and ending whenever you leave.

This could be a good chance for you to buy up some of my new goodies as some of the boxes and baskets are looking like they want to explode - and I am expecting new stock this week as well!

This is just one week before we all go away on Karen's fabulous weekend so it could be a good night to sort out page kits or basically just get yourself organised to go.

LAYOUTS
Here are some layouts that I did ages and ages ago but I have just found the photos of them and thought I would share them on the blog.
I know some of these photos are a bit blurry but I think you can still figure out the layout structure.

These first few layouts are of a Christmas exhibition 'Santa's Kingdom', that was in Melbourne in Dec 2004. It was incredibly overpriced but Sam and Bastian were young enough to enjoy the prettiness of it, although Sebastian was always totally traumatised by Father Christmas as it explains in the journalling. I had this hideously dingy green cardstock which I thought I would never use but it was the exact shade of green in the grove of Christmas trees as it was so dark in there. The fake snow falling in there, hey, it was December in Melbourne, was very atmospheric.

Another explanation, on this double layout, as to why Sebastian is not on Father Christmas' knee. Basically because he went hysterical when told we would go through the door to see Father Christmas and start our magical journey to Santa's Kingdom. The stupid penguin then came over to gesticulate (he was silent) at Sebastian, and made him 10 times worse. I was then ushered through a staff doorway carrying a tiny berserk boy, to bypass Father Christmas before he traumatised all the other children waiting behind us in the queue! Oh Christmas is a happy time isn't it?!?!?!?

I love buttons and they were perfect for this double layout! Fake snowballs to throw and a giant slide - Sam had a ball. My fancy striped letrters, to match the elves stripey shirts, and use something other than white, were created with white letters and a red texta!

Sam the Karaoke King! He will die from embarrassment when he sees this layout on the blog.  He has grown so much lately, which I think explains why he is sleeping so much these days, he is now past my chin. I pointed this out to Sam this evening and Sebastian then measured himself against me and was disappointed that he is still only at my boobs!!!

I can't remember where these strings of lights came from but I did like them.

This dreadful layout is here to remind me of how much I HATE bling words or should I say that bling words HATE me?!?!?

This was the first time I had ever used one so I stupidly pulled the whole word off the backing sheet at once and within a nanosecond it had collapsed in on itself and looked like a rolled up ball of sticky tape with green and red jewels through it. I was at a crop night that MY BEST FRIEND KIM happened to be working at so I bellowed for help. She soon came running but as soon as she saw what I had done she told me to unravel it (!) and ran to the other side of the room and hurriedly helped other people, even those that didn't need her assistance, so she didn't have to help me! A sane person would have thrown it in the bin but I sat there for an hour and unravelled it and placed it on a layout that I now loathe with a passion!

As it says on the layout - why did I take such dreadful photos? Now I look at them and wonder why I even scrapped them???? I loved the way these cheap stickers looked though. They were silver, blue and white and looked a million dollars once they were on the layout. Plus I never thought I would be using so many snowflake stickers in my life!

A double layout I love of Sam Sebastian and Georgia, with cousins Jackson and Kathryn eating icy poles in a cool bath on a really hot January day. Kathryn is now 18, Jackson and Sam are 131/2, Sebastian is nearly 11 and Georgie thasnkfully now has hair, lots of it, and is 8! And , of course, the e in icypoles fell off the title, the moment that I took the photo!

This double layout is back at Santa's Kingdom. It doesn't matter that most of the photos are blurry(Adam took them not me) as they just reflect the movement anyway. I put rubon words and flourishes on all the arrows and the bright background paer reminded me of all the sparkly lights at the venue. And that big blurry blob in the teacup with the children is me! I love the absolute joy on Sam's face!!!

I hope you enjoyed looking at these old, old layouts and I'll add some more stuff when i blog again soon!!!!! Please leave a comment!

And for those coming over to scrap on friday night - I will see you then!