Happy New Year!!!!

I see I have some new followers...WELCOME!!! & sorry I have been so quiet lately, it's cos I have been so busy!
In the past few months we have had some possibly life altering decisions to make for our son; which Intermediate he should go to. It has been very stressful. After many hours of research, discussions, to-&-fro, & ballots we have decided on Farm Cove Digital area.  He is very excited as this means he will be going to Nana's school like he wanted, but not with his best friend.  It also means he will be 80% on a laptop.  We are hoping this will encourage & motivate him to do his school work more.  Part of the deal is we have to supply him with a laptop, so guess what he got for Xmas?  He can't wait until school starts & wants to go & get his uniform & stationery ASAP.  We have a carpool/bus system organised as it is to far to walk.

Obviously Daniel finished Primary school this year.  The school had a lovely graduation assembly for all the Year Six students. He will miss some of his friends (including girlfriend) for the next 2 years. They will all be back together at College soon.....
Daniel moved up to Sea Scouts at the beginning of term 4. He wasn't sure about it at first, but now loves the sailing. Apparently capsizing is "Epically EPIC!!!!"
Nicola shall be moving up to the middle school, but has been separated from her best friend for her own good.  I got very frustrated with the school & even contemplated moving her. They don't start till the 7th of Feb!!!! NO holiday programmes run that last week cos ALL the other schools have gone back.  I got a really rude email from secretary when I asked about who I should direct my complaint to, I am thinking of contacting the BOT.  I wonder how many kids will turn up a week early cos their parents didn't notice the date in tiny print on the newsletter, or people who are new to the area.  I was absolutely fuming, but don't deal well with conflict.....
Nicola was in the Howick Santa Parade again this year with Nicola & her Brownie Troupe.  She loves it.
Then see went to Brownie Regional camp with Elizabeth & Shona.  She had a fantastic time (no problems sleeping) & can't wait till the next camp.  She made lots of new friends :)
I have been having problems with dealing with someone from a certain somewhere where a woman's opinion means nothing.....makes working life very difficult.  He keeps ringing my boss to check everything I say.  After 5 years of working with this guy, my boss finally said that, yes THAT was the problem....sigh.....not like I can change!!
Scott started a new job in December.  They sent him to Oz for a training course & he won an Xbox!!  The kids were very excited as our PS3 has been broken for ages.  However we may have to ban it in the early morning as it sounds like a herd of elephants jumping upstairs!!!  The Kinex games are great fun, but hard work!!!
Christmas was odd this year.  We didn't really feel very Christmasy.  But I felt it sort of snuck up on us.  We were all involved in the RWC, then the elections & then suddenly it was Christmas!  It definitely felt low key, but the kids are happy & that's all that matters.  My home computer finally died so I got a new one, it is so quiet I can hear the hard drive spinning!!!!!  Nicola got an iPod touch from Santa & now I get nagged by text "Mum, can I have a glass of water....MUM....." Scott is building a firewall cos she is getting text bullied by a friend...sigh.....I am talking to her about how friends shouldn't make her so unhappy....Daniel took over iPod for awhile to try to get through to this kid what sh was doing to Nicola....sigh....
Because of Scott's new job the whole family has a couple of weeks on holiday together for the first time in years.  However we didn't know about it till to late to organise anything so we are planning some day trips.  The weather is disgusting!  We went to visit friends up north on the best day weather wise, but still not nice enough to go sailing.
I have not done much scrapping since camp in October, don't know why.  However since I haven't posted for so long it looks like I have done heaps!!
I did this one for the Halloween challenge at camp & won!!!!!!!!!  (Those of you who know me will know how surprised I was) I got a new trimmer! I nicked the plastic spiders from the weekends decorations (I asked Debbie first), hehe.  It is difficult to see in this pic, but the fence has bats in it, thanks Bev for letting me borrow the punch it is no longer available.

I got the photos from our family trip to South Africa in 1987 scanned & printed & took them to camp to work on.  I love this photo of our family in the back of the van at the Kruger Game Reserve.

I am really happy with this school one, quiet different from some of the others I have done.

This is the LO I did from Louise's class at camp.  Love the combination of clustered embellishments & white space.

This is another South Africa LO which I did for the October challenge at NZ Paper Chase blog

These two cuties are actually my hubby & his big bro when they were little.  I started this LO ages ago & am happy to finally finish it.

I have been giving Nicola fancy mini jewelled boxes each Christmas since she was born.  I thought it would be nice to collect something pretty for her that she can still play with.  I have been getting annoyed that we can't always find them so I bought printers tray thing to display them in, yay for Trademe.  Obviously we had to decorate it.....I did cause a problem for  myself. Nicola wanted a red roof & I don't like red & pink together so I said she could have any colour of the rainbow..."I want rainbow!"  Oops!  I did that to myself!  So here it is complete with pink walls, a cat, fence, glass, flowers AND a rainbow roof.  I think it came out pretty well.  Now we just need to hang it up & find all her boxes to put in it. 

Lets start the new year with a giggle.  I was given the link to this website & it had me laughing so hard I cried so thought I would share with you....


http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/spiders-are-scary-its-okay-to-be-afraid.html

Shhhh.....secret.......

I read the Challenge Me Happy post for the month & couldn't think of anything; then in the middle of the night 2 days ago sudden inspiration hit me.  The theme was Book Of Me - Fun/Funny. I thought about a funny, little known fact about me & I knew the photo I needed that I had even printed the day before.  Confession time.....I am a closet Goth, hehe. I am not into the whole skulls, bats, being depressed, etc; but I love Goth fashion, makeup etc.  I love the heavy eye makeup, black nail polish, little tutu skirts, huge shoes, over the knee socks........you get the point.  I do believe that you have to go all out or not at all & therefore I do not dress-up often (don't think I could pull it off full time like Abby from NCIS)  So here is my Goth LO. 

The papers are DCWV.  The metal is the inside of a coke can  wither through my Dymo (journalling) or Cuttlebug (wings & crown).  The stamp is Sweat Pea (I think, I bought it at SENZ).  The metal frame is Making Memories, then embossed & inked.  The fabric is from my fav skirt that I made years ago, but can't bare to throw away even though it no longer fits. I must mention those are not my shoes (although I am trying to find them to buy them), they are my friends. Also I had to get my lovely husband to take the photos for me as my point & shoot couldn't cope with the reflections off the metal at night.

RWC 2011 & some layouts

Last weekend was the start of the Rugby World Cup.  Now up until then I was not really very excited about it.  However going on the ferry to the CBD to see the biggest  fireworks display ever in Auckland did sound like fun.  So Nicola, & her best friend & her dad & I went straight from school to the ferry at Half Moon Bay.  The girls were so excited about going on the ferry at night.    We stopped at the supermarket on the way for supplies cos we figured it would be expensive to buy the girls food in town & arrived at the ferry just before 4.  At around 4:30 we were informed that the ferries were being stopped because the waterfront was full!!!! The girls were not impressed so we had to bribe them with a picnic dinner at the beach.  (We met some Americans on  the way back to the car & they couldn't believe that the ferry's were stopped & venues full at 4 :30 when the show didn't start till 8)  So we decided to try our luck at driving to Devonport to watch the fireworks.  The motorway was empty, but the rods to Devonport were full, so we turned around & went to Mission Bay.   We got a park right at the beach in the main car park!!! & went to the Fishpot cafe for dinner, which the girls loved.  Then they played in the playground with all the hundreds of other children (in the dark) before we drove around to Okahu Bay to watch the fireworks.  The girls played in  the sand & sea (it's freezing! well it is September & 8 at night!) After the awesome light show we went to the Garrison Pub in Sylvia Park to watch the game.  The girls almost made it to the end of the match before they were over come with tiredness.  All in all it was a fun night :)

At Brownies Nicola was doing her Heritage Badge so asked me to look for my old Brownie/Guides stuff.  I found this photo of me when I was 8 in my BROWN Brownies uniform (the Brownie uniform is currently pink)  I couldn't find most of my badges which is not like me, so I googled it & bought some from the UK!!! You got to love the Internet!  The girls in Nicolas troupe loved seeing the pic & badges :)

   

 Shona & I went to the Scrapaholics Crop night on Friday.  I did these two LO's. I am trying to use my stash, but ended up buying a new punch & the cute little knife, fork & spoon, along with a few other bits & pieces.  We had a fun night.

Scott & I had a date night last night.  We went to see 'Friends with BEnifits' at the movies then went to the RWC Fan Zone.  The movie was ok, very predictable.  The RWC fan zone was interesting, not surprising it was full lst weekend, it isn't that big (can only hold 12,000 people)  We went to O'hagans Irish pub to watch Oz verses the Irish.  The Irish won!!!!!!  It was fun to be in a Irish pub when that happened :)  Everybody went crazy, hehe.

It's been awhile....

It was the Book Week Parade at the kids school the other day. This this Harry Potter & Thea Stilton, don't hey look good :) Daniel wanted his hair black so we bought some coloured hairspray, but it didn't work so I PAINTED it! I had seen it done on NZ Next Top Model so thought it would just wash out like theirs did...but no. I have had to cut it & spend hours fine combing his hair.

This is the photo (finally) of the LO we did at SENZ in the Artfull Crafts class.

After all those sketches I did some double LO's. Believe it or not I actually got the idea for my mosaic from one of them. The flowers & tag are Kaiser, everything else is just stuff from my stash. I am trying to use it up, but it is not going well, still buying more than using. Oh well :) I have had these felt fish (Queens Co) for years too. Paper is Bo Bunny (I think) I used the paper that came off the back of the self adhesive fish as a mask for some inking. The brackets are a Pink Paislee magazine give away. Green Glitter letters are also Pink Paislee, the blue letters are Scenic Route.

I have been playing with some of that shrink plastic that I bought at SENZ. It is heaps of fun, but does take some experimentation (hence I just bought some more at the NZS sale) These are those stamps I bought there, I probably should have started with something similar......I discovered paint does not work, it bubbles & lifts. The colours get HEAPS stronger, so if it looks good before u shrink it is probably to much. Even tho the instructions tell u to use Brilliance ink I don't think this is a good idea. The shimmer is almost to much. Also you do need to use Stazon if u want to colour stamped image, other inks don't dry enough, but do stain plastic. I can guarantee I shall be playing some more.

I used my best fairy on the page below. I also used a Cosmo Cricket Gluber to make the flower. the paper is DCWV Ciao Bella that I got on sale at the Warehouse, isn't it pretty? The letters are Basic Grey that I coloured.

I had fun making this Websters style LO inspired by the LO Louise Williams taught us at the retreat last year. It is also DCWV paper.

Finally a sneak peak of two OTP projects I am currently working on.

Paper Chase July Sketch Challenge

Another sketch!! Shocking I know! Here is the sketch from July on the Paper Chase blog.

I have to credit my lovely husband for coming up wtih the titile for the is LO & isn't it cool? It's not often that the title is the first thing I do & everything else has to fit around it. I had fun making the little Jack-in-the-box men, they really move (not stuck down to page)

Challenge Me Happy Sketch #3

I am still working on my aquarium, (no u can't see it yet),but I decided to take a bit of a break & do some scrapping. I have gotten half way through a few LO's & decided they just weren't working, so when I saw the current sketch on Challenge Me Happy I thought it might be just what I needed. However I 'finished' it but felt it was till missing something. I do find sketches hard as some people's interpretation seem to me to be nothing like it, whereas I take them literally. So here is my literal LO from the sketch. One other thing I found difficult was purposely sewing non straight lines! This went against the grain of who I am! (but I love the effect) You probably wont be able to read the jouranling as it is so small, but this is me at 18 with my first car.

SENZ & some Layouts

Yesterday I took the day off work to go to SENZ with my BFF. It was great because we didn't have the kids either! I might have gone just a little bit crazy, but could have bought more! I got some glue, alchol ink, liquid pearls, Cosmo Cricket Glubers, Co-ordinates card stock, 4 stamps, flowers, polyshrink paper, bling, flower soft, Cricut blades & some other bits & pieces, hehe. We did a class with Artfullcrafts from Timaru which I shall share once finished, it was a very fast paced class! This is my first attempt at colouing in 2 Sweatpeas stamps I bought from Pitcher Stamps. The lovely lady said she colours her with watercolour pencils!!!! I love them, but hadn't thought about using them for the stamps as the currant rage is to use markers (which I don't like because you need special paper & need so many different colours), pencils I have been using all my life! I also painted them with my Twinkling H2O's to give them shimmer. I have learned that you do not need to use Stazon ink even though you are wetting them with the watercolur pen, but I think I do need to get a superfine ink pad as it was difficult to get a really clear image with my normal inks. I also found the images stamped better using a normal acrylic block rather than my wonderful Fiscar Stamp-press. She also told me I could use double sided tape to attach stamp to block if i don't have any of the proper sticky stuff! I had fun doing these but don't think it will be something I do regularly, although Nicola wants a LO with the pink one on it. I have done a bit of scrapping lately. When I saw this 'old school' telephone (Cosmo Cricket) the these dicuts (DCWV) I knew which photos I needed to use with them. The papers are Kaiser & DCWV
I finally finished this LO of Nicola being a Diva (she says she is not & doesn't like the LO)

Who is that lovely young couple? And why does he have so much hair? hehe. 1994 seems such a long time ago now! I used one of the SCAL files I downloaded to do this frame.On a slightly different note, I did get a bit annoyed when I read the submission guidelines/hints in a magazine. They said you are more likely to get accepted if you use the same brand on your LO. I don't like this! I like the idea of mxing it all up, if you only use 1 brand you are limiting your creativity. All my LO's are mixed up! So maybe that is why I don't get published.....they can't sell advertising space next to my LO's. (grumble over)

Queens Birthday Weekend

Nicola went to a birthday party at Extreme Edge Rock Climbing on Saturday. She made it to the top of two of them, & wanted me to take pics of her on each wall, hehe. She had heaps of fun & didn't want to go home.....ever!
Scott took Daniel to the Pokemon National Championship. He was very excited, if he won he got a trip to the USA. He didn't win but had a great day & did get some prizes including this ULTRA RARE card Scrappin' Patch had a blind scrap challenge over Queens Birthday weekend. I haven't done one before, it was quiet hard, but fun. They give you a specific list of items you must use, only allowed to add ink, glue, distressing, etc to list. So the list was : 1-12"x12" cardstock; 1-4"x6" photo; 5 different patterned papers cut to these sizes - 9.5"x5.5",1"x11.5", 4.5"x7", 0.5"x11", 2"x2.5"; a diecut shape; 3 circles; 3 tags; 3 stars; stamped image; 1 piece of ribbon; 3 stickers; 2 staples; 2 different colour alphas for the title; journaling; & doodling. This is what I finally came up with.Don't ask me what most of the papers are, they are out of my scraps, the main flower paper is Kaiser & the graph paper is Cosmo Cricket. The blue alpha's are Scenic Route, the red alpha's are Making Memories Foil Love Notes. The bird stickers are also the circles from Cristina Re Paper Chic. I inked some cool decorative staples I got from Warehouse Stationery awhile ago. It was definitely out of my comfort zone to use so many different patterned papers on 1 page, but I think it came up ok. I think it got my mojo back, cos now I want to try some other LO's using same list of ingredients, but I have to finish sewing for Daniel first. Here is my duvet I have been working on for ages too. I haven't managed to get Nicola to stand still long enough for a photo of the party dress I made for her.

Our first Fejoa's

This horrible wind blew our first fejoa's off the tree before they really had a chance, but we were told it wouldn't fruit for a few more years so this is still exciting.

Opps, it's been awhile.....

I have been busy lately, but have got a little bit of scrapping lately.

I finally did a LO of my first BFF, Lenny. It is using Basic Grey Marrakech paper, stickers & letters, & Kaiser Penny Royale paper & flowers. I used my new favourite Stamin' Up! brad maker to make matching flower centres.

Nicola helped me paint the background of this LO. I wanted the paper to look like Daniel's Moko, so the plain black Bazzil is painted white over the Crafter's Workshop Cosmic Swirl stencil.

This was a very fast LO of Nicola using daddy's laptop. It is a pre-printed sheet from DCWV Generation Tech with a few die cuts added.

I finally took a pic of the LO we did at camp last year in Louise's class. There was a lot of discussion at the time of who my dad looks like, the majority vote was for either Austin Powers (after he gets his teeth done), or one of the Flight of the Concord guys. I gave it to mum & dad for Xmas.I have been doing a bit of sewing lately instead of scrapping. I had to mend Daniels school pants, he wasn't pleased, apparently he liked them that way, hehe. I added a frill to the bottom of Nicolas favourite dress-up dress. It reminded me of my childhood, the dresses mum used to make longer for me as I grew, I loved those dresses. Then I made myself a top & started on the new duvet cover. I am now sick of sewing, but I know if I don't finish it now, it wont get done. I did take a break to make a Mothers Day card & a baby card for a friend.

This Saturday was the kids first hockey games for the year, Nicola's first ever! Both the kids did very well & it even stopped raining. Daniel was awake & concentrating for the whole game. Nicola scored her teams first goal! They enjoyed themselves so much that neither of them would take off their uniforms, in fact Nicola even slept in hers....with her stick! Time to get back to the sewing......

Scrapbooking & Lindt Easter eggs

Last weekend I went away with 4 of my scrapbooking friends for 2 1/2 days of uninterrupted craft! No kids, no tidying, no hubby's (missed him tho), no bed time We each had to prepare only 1 meal each over the weekend.....bliss. I got 5 Lo's done & some work on my mini album. One of the girls brought some Lindt Easter Eggs....OMG!! I was in heaven! Yummiest things ever! & the wrappers were so pretty I used them to make these frames for these cute pics of Daniel. I need to find out when they were taken, but he was about 5. They worked so well I used the Cookies & Cream wrappers on this LO of Nicola. (Can't remember if the dark blue were milk or dark chocolate.) mmmmm......yummmy.... Yes that is more Bo Bunny Peacock Lane paper.One of each of the kids & then one of me! I bought this paper years ago to use on some of my photos, don't you love orange/yellow & brown? The brackets are actually a Bo Bunny frame cut in half & the arrow points to me (surprising I know). The brad I made using my Build-a-brad from Stampin' Up! The tags (thanks Annelie) are Cuttlebugged & stamped using my new fav stamps & then on the other side I have the kids names (as many as mum wrote down) I can't believe how many I could actually remember anyway & a few of them are now Facebook friends. I love my baby & my baby loves me, see I have proof....she is so cute.I saw this Kaiser wooden frame in my stash & knew it would be perfect for this school pic of Nicola. I inked & clear embossed it, but for some reason one bit was a different colour, I guess cos it is wood, so I added the flower to cover it. So all in all a great weekend!

Daddy's Home!!!

Daddy went to Waiheke fishing over night (a really loooonnnnng time, not) But Nicola missed him. Can't say you don't feel loved when this is the greeting you get when you get home :) So adorable

More Bo Bunny LO's

So when Shona & I went to the Bo Bunny day the other weekend, they gave us 2 range packs, including paper, brads, stickers, rub-ons & brads, free, very cool!! We got Peacock Lane & Petal Pushers collections. I love Peacock lane & already had some of the matching flowers & paper. I also used the BoBunny Chunky Charms Swirls & Brackets Chipboard stickers they gave us for the class. They were brown so I UTEE'd (Pipe Dream Ink in Macquarine & Lilly Pilly)& them stamped them. The stamp didn't come out to well cos I was scared (I used my new Stampin' Up! En Francais background stamp) I must thank my mum for the inspiration for his LO. I looked at the 12 x12 diecut flower & thought "What am I gonna do with that?" Mum suggested cutting it asymmetrically & away I went. My emporium ribbons & sequins matched perfectly :) The pattern paper behind the chipboard letters is DCWV Madly in Love range that I got for a bargain awhile ago, beautiful paper. The sparklely strips are actually tinsel, hehe.