Big Happenings...

...in my life the past couple of weeks. First of all, I finished my Design Team term at Scrappin' Patch. Adrienne and Pauline are just fantastic, but I decided not to continue on for personal reasons, although I was tempted. I need to change my focus right now, but more on that in the next couple of weeks. I have to admit, though, I am already missing it. It is strange; I have all this time and nothing to do with it but housework, lol!! I want to say thanks to Adrienne and Pauline, and all the girls on the Design Team; I loved working with you all and miss you all terribly! Although, of course, I will still be hanging around the forum heaps, to get my fix! Oh, and congrats to my dear friend, Liz, who is now a part of the Design Team.

I mentioned, over at the SP forum, that I will make an announcement with my future plans, and so I will, but not just yet... and just in case you are wondering, I am not pregnant, and it's not scrapping related either.

Secondly, I am very excited that I was picked by Kelly Goree to be the 'favourite find of the month' in the Basic Grey newsletter; you can see it here on page 3. Here is my layout, using the BG Wisteria range, tulle and an embossed Bazzill cardstock for the background:

Oh, and thanks to Adrienne and Pauline; I actually made this layout using my last SP DT kit, and they were nice enough to let me remove the layout from their gallery, forum and blog until it was published in the newsletter.

Ok, it's getting late now and I need to go to bed. I'm off to Tauranga soon for a week, so hope to catch up on all my blogging on my nephew's laptop - thanks, Caleb! Then when I get back, it's SENZ, and Liz and I have a class on the Saturday -inking - and then the crop on Sat night. I hope to see some of you there; please come and say hi if you spot me - I am a little shy, but would love to see/meet you.

Enjoy the rest of the school holidays!

So It's Been A While...

... again!! But I have some good excuses this time, lol! Well, first of all, my poor sweet little girl has had a fairly mild case of chicken pox, and had last week off kindy. Luckily, she is all well again now, and I actually have some time to do stuff. And by stuff, I mean housework, paperwork and lots of computer stuff like blog reading.

Then, about a week ago, I slipped over in my backyard, and fell right on my tailbone, and I guess I bruised it. It is still really really sore; sitting and lying down are very uncomfortable, and forget about driving!! Well, obviously I have to drive, but I am avoiding any long drives, as I have to drive with my rear lifted a little above the seat, and I can only do that for so long!!! No laughing...
Anyway, at least it is slowly getting better, and I can spend some time at the computer. I have so many blog postings to read and comment on, and I will get to them over the next couple of weeks.

Here are a few of the projects I have been working on for Scrappin' Patch. I received a kit a few weeks ago, and it has taken me a while to complete it, what with all the great stuff happening in my life, lol. We'll start with a couple of layouts made with the very pretty Basic Grey Wisteria range, available here in the shop:

In both of the above layouts, I used the following Wisteria papers: Tea Lights, Wind Chimes and Primrose. I love the subtle colours, and yes, they are not my usual colours, but I really like them. I am very happy with the Golden Girl layout; all that handcutting was worth it! My DH told me I need to scrap more 'occasion' photos, rather than just lovely portrait photos of Aurelia, so I obliged and made the second layout - hmmm, and that's kinda why I don't usually do occasion photos!! Didn't quite work out the way I wanted, but that's the way it goes sometimes. It's ok, but I don't love it. Might have to do a few more busy photos to practice.

The above layouts were made using the very very good value (!) Prima Breathe paper stack; on sale at the moment for $19, and you get 24 patterned papers!! Can't beat that. As I already had the pleasure of working with the Breathe papers, I ordered the Sasha paper stack which is similar but different colours, also on sale for the same price. Click here to see them in the shop. I love the top page; those photos of my very cheeky darling are so cute, and just show her personality to a T. And I like the beachy one too; one of the few photos you'll see of me, and it's nice to have photos of us together. I really must get more of us a family, with DH as well. Oh, and I made those lollipop flowers with the papers; quite proud of them, I am; they turned out pretty well IMHO. And I even cut up a bling flower and used the petals as leaves! Goodness, I'm clever.

Now, I have lots more to show you, but will save them for another day. Keep your eyes peeled for a bit of an announcement from me in the coming weeks, not what you might expect either; not scrapbooking related and no, I'm not pregnant either. But I might be asking for your help, kind readers...

My behind is beginning to ache now, so I must take it off to bed. Happy scrapping all, and I will be back soon.

Scrappin' Patch DT Kit

Just thought I would give you all a taste of what I have been playing with this month in my Design Team kit...

Full images to come soon...

Happy Queen's Birthday Weekend!!

I hope you are all having a lovely long Queen's Birthday weekend. I have my Design Team kit at the mo, so am busy creating, which is a nice way to spend the weekend. There is a lot happening over at Scrappin' Patch, so if you have some time this weekend, come on over and check it out.

First up today, I have some layouts I created using a gorgeous flocked 7 Gypsies paper - Jai from the shop.

Now, as you may have noticed, this is quite an unusual page for me, but I really wanted the focus on the journalling rather than the photo. I used a strip of the paper as a piece of ribbon. Oh, and the cute butterfly is from an Amy Butler sheet of die-cut butterflies available in the shop, along with some Graphite Glimmermist.

On the page above, I used a photo I love of my sisters and all our kids, and another piece of the Jai flocked paper, out of which I handcut the flourish/flowers. I also used the following products from the shop: Basic Grey Urban Prairie Paper: Kettle, Making Memories Tiny Alphas: White on Black (sold out, but other colours available), Kaisercraft Bling: black, and Tattered Angels Glimmermist: Graphite.

Click here to see what Heidi and Annelie did with their different flocked papers. Very cool!

Also at the Scrappin' Patch forum, we are having inspiration and challenges all weekend relating to the Queen's Birthday. Heidi's challenge is to create a layout about your little Prince or Princess - here is my take on the challenge:

Very pink!! I love the new Prima Vines, and the papers - Collage Press Sweet Shoppe - Chocoholic (backside), Basic Grey Bittersweet - Essence and Truffle, Websters Storytellers letter stickers - Magical, Fiskars Border Punch - Apron Lace, and Melissa Francis crown are all available in the shop. So come join in the fun.

Ok, so it's getting late now and I still have more DT stuff to work on. Keep your eye out for my next projects using some of the Prima papers in the shop...

Yes, it's me again...

and I know it's been a while, but I have a good excuse; I am having major computer problems. First of all, we had no phone line for 2 days, but some internet, although it was down for a whole night - shock, horror, how did I cope??!! - and now, although we have it back now, uploading and downloading often takes an absolute age - hence, there won't be too many pics in this post, lol! That is also why I haven't commented on your blog for a while... yes, I'm talking to you! But I did want to share the following couple of layouts that I have just posted over at Scrappin' Patch for a Scrap Tech Tuesday on machine stitching.


I'm really liking this page, but I'm also thinking I really need to get a new sketch or something... I can't seem to do anything but this page layout lately! The journalling on this layout is particularly funny to me; it reads: You are such a clever girl. Your Daddy was trying to explain something to you, but your reply was "Well, I know somebody who knows better... my Mummy." That girl really is smart!




And then there's this one, which I also really like, and is just a reminder to Aurelia that I do love her - sometimes, you get caught up in the day-to-day routines, and the time-outs and telling offs, and you forget the most important things. I don't ever want her to forget how much I love her.

The lovely product on these layouts is mostly available over at the Scrappin' Patch shop; I am loving all their new stuff, especially the Prima vines and felt gates. Oh, and those Melissa Francis and Websters papers... I could go on...


But it's late, so I won't.


So much to do this week; our bathroom needs painting, and I received my Scrappin' Patch Design Team kit today, so look out for my work from that - very pretty product, so hopefully some nice projects should come out of that.


Oh, and Scrappin' Patch is also having some stuff happening over the Queen's Birthday weekend; some inspiration and challenges, so drop on by and join in the fun.


I must go; layouts and cards to make, and a lovely warm bed awaiting me too... have a great week, and a lovely long weekend, all.

Hope You Had A Happy Mothers' Day...

whether you are a mother or a daughter. We had a nice lunch out with Robin's Mum, and I did a bit of scrapping in the afternoon. In honour of Mothers Day, I made this layout below about my Mum, who passed away 5 years ago. It's the first layout I've done about her, and so it was really important to me to make it really special... it's not quite as awesome as I pictured in my head (they never are, lol!) but I think it's quite pretty. I ended up not journalling quite how I wanted, so will probably scrap this photo again, maybe next time in sepia or something, with more journalling that's a bit more... I don't know, heartfelt. I really wanted to express how I feel, but it wasn't easy. Anyway, here it is:

As you can tell, I'm still loving the Prima, Melissa Francis and Websters, all available in the Scrappin' Patch shop!! Now, if you want to do a Mothers Day layout, shabby chic style, visit the Scrappin' Patch forum here, to get the details on Annelie's Monday challenge, for which I entered this page as an example.

In other news, we finally picked a name for our new little darlings... drumroll please... Felix and Lucy. We had the hardest time deciding, but we liked these names the best. I don't think any of you suggested these names, but I need to go have another look at the comments...

Oh, and had a really nice, quiet day at Trace's crop on Saturday, too. It was so nice to meet Jane and Angela, people I had seen online but not IRL. Good to catch up with everyone else too. And yes, as usual, I got next to nothing done, but that's ok; I'm beginning to accept it now, lol!

Nothing much else to report at the mo, so have a good week.

Another Post...

I'm on fire! Yes, another post! I have had a bit of a crappy weekend, just because I've managed to completely block one of my ears, and I have had a headache since Saturday morning. All my own fault though; I just can't resist sticking those cotton buds in my ears... I'm gonna have to visit the Dr, I think. I've also had this blimen' cold for about 3 weeks now; it's not too bad but still not 100% well. So, all in all, I am pretty pleased I managed to get this layout done:


It's for a Product Challenge over at Scrappin' Patch; the challenge is to use 'bling' on your layout. Come on, everyone loves bling, so come over and play! Here is the link to the details in the forum.

Here are some close-ups:















Now, I have to say, I am a little disappointed in how the photos turned out; I'm really happy with it IRL. And such different colours for me, but I really like the pp, from 7 Gypsies. I also really wanted to use one of the Prima felt gates, so I Glimmermisted it with Graphite to make it darker, and it turned out so cool. I actually used heaps of my new stuff from the shop. And cute photos too - actually taken 2 years ago; time is just going by so fast.

Oh, and I wanted to thank you all for your comments and name suggestions for our darling kitties; we still haven't decided but will let you know as soon as we do. Actually, in regards to your comments, I am pretty sure that sometime soon I am going to move my blog over to Wordpress; I would love to be able to reply to your comments, which I can't do on blogger. So that will be exciting! Well, for me, anyway...

I'm off to Trace's farewell crop this coming weekend, which means I really must put a kit or two together - who am I kidding, I probably won't get anything done, as usual, lol. Am going with my good friend, Liz, so should be lots of fun. Lucky Trace, moving back to my home town of Christchurch - although, I'm not sure I could cope with the cold winters anymore! Best of luck, Trace!

Ok, you've probably had enough for today, so have a great week!