Pieces of me

just because I can....

LOL, I now have ADSL! Yippee!! So frustrating that we've had to wait for 5 years what (most) everyone else has been able to access and take for granted.

So, because I can, and I want to try out the speed, uploading some pics of projects I did over a year ago for Bumblebee. I don't think I've posted these before.

Love this box - has an accordian album that goes with it.

Accordian tag book. Making memories letter, stickers, ribbon. charm. Sweetwater paper.

This canvas looks so much better IRL. I cannot remember the paper range I used for this - but love it. Canvas was painted, b/ground paper collaged on, then texture paste roughly applied to disguise edges. Torn strips of green paper pushed into texture paste, and paste slapped over edges, etc.

Photo attached, then flowers/scroll paper.

When this was all dry, I applied wax to all areas except photo and buffed to a matte finish. I've run an ink pad around the edges and over texture to highlight.

Now that it's back, I think I'll add a bit more to this. Might be a nice project for tomorrow if I get home from alana's orthodontist visit in time.

Hey, no wardrobe malfunctions last night, I'm officially a good mum again.

hx

ps - dang that was fast!!

Monday

• Boxing class
• rachel's baby book
• stuff my face wtih cashews and cherries
• finish reading my book
• iron John's shirts

The 4 letter word IRON. Officially a dirty word in my dictionary. Oh, how I hate it. I let John's shirts build up till he's down to 1, then I iron. Under duress. LOL. He has wised up, and now puts ALL his shirts out in one go so I have no choice but to do the lot.

I took some photos of my friends baby a few months back, and finally got round to getting the best ones printed up on Friday. I've turned 6 of them into an album for her.

I love it.

I grow so attached to these little books that I find it hard to give them away.

I've used my favorite colour scheme - cream & green. The stamps (for you, stitched square & stem of flower) are Heidi Grace Stamps which I think will be available here sometime next year. I drew the flower head to match the flowers in the album.

Love, love, love this ribbon. I've been hoarding it.

I absolutely love the fact that I could bind the book myself. My little binding machine - awesome purchase.

A couple of my fave inside pages, again, very simple stuff, just mounted on cream, hand-drawn border and flowers. then mounted on a larger piece of soft green (there's a border all around - can't see it in the pic - with a larger edge on the binding side).

This is how the pages are laid out in the album. Large green page on the LHS so Rachel can add stuff to it if she wants.

We have Ben's graduation dinner tonight. I am dressing with the utmost care.

At Ben's Year 11 Formal, I wore a skirt that was a bit big around the waist (I had lost a few kg's, and didn't have anything warm enough that would fit better), so I wore a long top.

Unfortunately, whilst crouching over to take pics of the kids dancing, the video guy must've done a sweep, and a brief flashing of my g-string is on the Year 11 formal video for posterity. LOL. Ah, well, there were no casualties and IMO ya gotta laugh.

Have a good night, y'all!

hx

Sunday....

Hopefully this time next week I'll be uploading my blog using an ADSL connection! Woohoo! Broadband has finally (after years of petitioning) come to Hoddles Creek! I have put in my order and am awaiting my modem. 21st century, here I come!!!

Had a whole stack of pics printed up & got some scrapbooking done yesterday......

A fun one of Tabby (yeah, it's a terrible photo of the layout, but anyway), this cat is so photogenic (along with being a total psycho),  & he's great to take photos of - Alana took this one. I originally printed the title "CAT" onto the b/ground cardstock in black & cut slots in the letters to slide the photo in, but it didn't stand out enough, so I printed & cut out some letters in bright orange. Much prefer this.

The brackets were fun to do - I scribbled them out direct onto the cardstock & then cut out patterned paper to fit into the gaps so that the areas where the penwork crosses over is still visible.

Liked the brackets so much I turned them into brushes. The brushes are outlines, this way I can colour or pattern whatever way I want :)

Anyone wants a copy of the jpg's of these to convert into their own brushes, shoot me an email :)

My kids frequently abstain with my camera to take photos for their MySpace pages, etc, so when I'm downloading pics onto the computer, I often find stuff I didn't expect.

This sequence of pics gave me a laugh, who knew making cordial could be so much fun??? So, anyway, I turned them into a layout . Though the photos are kind of crappy quality and the style of layout is super-simple - these are actually the types of layouts my kids really love.

Yep, another bad pic. Anyway, I approached these pics as an "incident report" file. Made up the Restricted Access, File notes, Confidential & File Copy stamps in photoshop.

And, just a FYI......Ben actually does have more clean t-shirts & Alana does really give away free hugs. LOL. This is her favorite T :)

Back to my pile of photos :))

hx

I swear, it sounded like such a good idea at the time.......

I'd have some fun, finding the "goodies", wrapping them up, being creative. Well, yeah, that's o.k. for the first couple, but trying to find 24 cheap xmas themed goodies, then 24 creative ways to wrap them up.......grrrrr........I was totally over it by the time I got to day 7!  The wraping progressively goes downhi8ll from there. LOL.

ANYWAY, here's Erin's advent calendar for this year. I also thought it would be small. LOL. But, this measures 1m long, but 30cm high and takes up most of the mantel above the fireplace. AND, cost me a small fortune. Clearly there is not enough cheap christmas crap out there for under $2.00.

This is a once off, never again to be repeated deal. But, I have to say, it was fun seeing Erin speculate each time a few more presents would appear - she has no idea what it was for. I'll explain it all December 1!

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It's CHERRY TIME. Love this time of year. We wait, with our tongues hanging out, to see the sign appear  that tells us we can go get cherries straight from the farm! We pay about half the price, and they are fresh picked. We've downed about 2kg's in the past 2 days, this will go on until just before Christmas and I can't stand the sight of another Cherry. Then, we begin the long countdown till November again!

We're in the midst of Christmas planning - we'll probably have 2 events here this year - hopefully we'll have great weather and can hold them on the verandah. Last year we had to set up 20 people for a seated dinner in our small loungeroom! Anyone in Melbourne will probably remember the shocking, cold, windy, wet, wet day we had last Christmas. It was a shocker!

I have spent the last week putting scrapping "back in it's place", it is now officially "hobby" mode for me with scrapping - I spent the last week cleaning out my study/scrap area - getting rid of a lot of old stuff and turning the room into a more functional entrance hall - not something that you have to jump over boxes and crap to make your way through. Some of you may know that I've been working as the Lead Ambassador with Fiskars for the last year +, handling their demonstrator program, running workshops, etc, I resigned from this role and finished up at the end of October (I'm still involved as an ambassador). I'm now free of scrapbooking committments, and it will be for me what it was when I began. I'll do it for my enjoyment (and will probably be more creative because of it!), and if I feel like submitting something that I've done, I might, but it'll be all about what I want to do with it. I've loved being involved in the industry for the past 5-6 years, but I want to go back to having a normal schedule that my family can work around, which hasn't been the case for a LONG time :) The travel I'd been doing had become really hard on both my mum (who comes to look after the family), and Erin (who just plain misses me :).

Some stuff to check out:

• Check out the Fiskars/Heidi Grace feature in the Christmas issue of Better Homes & Gardens "All the trimmings", some of the very talented Fiskars Ambassadors contributed to this article, as well as some of my work in there.
• There's also a feature running on the Fiskars Ambassador blog starting Monday (running for 24 days) which will feature additional projects showcasing the giveaway papers from the BHG article. Check out the promo on the blog.

I'm still going to my classes at the gym (boxing-monday, yoga-tuesday,fitball-wednesday & step class-thursday), and yep, it's working. My butt is like a slab of marble. o.k., really soft marble, but I can feel a difference. LOL. The Fitbox & Step classes are the hardest - both instructors do their best to kill us. Now, in the step class, not only do I have to move my arms and step up with my feet at the same time, she's now introduced holding hand weights whilst we do it. Linda Hamilton, watch out!

I love the Yoga - it's been something I've wanted to do for years. I've borrowed a couple of dvd's from the library trying to find one that suits what I want (mostly stretches, balances and relaxation), and have even hooked John into doing a couple of the programs with me :) Yeah, I'm feeling very Zen. I even borrowed  a book on macrobiotics to check out yesterday, but read through it last night and it's way too complicated for me. I already eat a good diet, so I'll just stick with eating what I know is good for me and having pizza night once a week!

Have a good weekend, y'all!

Hx

Back from Paper Arts

The show was great! I'm exhausted!! Too tired for my boxing/workout class this morning at the gym. I'll just have to catch up later on in the week!

I was at Paper Arts with Stamp It and we were demo-ing a great new tool for making envelopes & another for cards & boxes. I've given away all my samples for these, but will put together some more later to show here!

Here's a couple of layouts I put together to showcase the Paint Dabbers. These are such neat little paint tools & no brush or washing up required! Loved them :))