Author: Nic Howard

I woke this morning to an email telling me giveaway a ticket to one of my classes on freestyle. Yea. Sounds good to me. Then there is a flurry of emails from the tutors about what they are doing about giving away tickets to their classes on their own blogs.
Ok so go here.. for Rhonna’s website.
Go here for Emily’s blog
Go here for Tia’s blog
Go to this space for Kim’s blog
Zina’s Blog is here although I don’t know if she is awake and knows to post a giveaway yet :o)
and finally Wendy’s blog is here.

SO here is the scoop… click your way around the links, be patient with Wendy and Zina, they don’t really know they have to do this yet, you might have to catch up with them later. lol…. so anyway… enter your name under those tutors links and you might win a spot in one of their classes. You make your own way there of course and if you are clever (and extremely lucky) you might win a spot in like all 7 classes, lol… it IS possible right? we like to be positive.

As for my giveaway, leave me a comment here and I’ll close this off Midnight Friday NZ time… and draw a winner. If you tell me in your comments that you have linked back here and told the story on your own blog, I’ll add your name TWICE. And yes i will check all the comments that say they have talked about Freestyle on their own blog – an excuse to sit here and read blogs, why not :o)

And the winner… the winner will win a spot in one of my Freestyle classes in Auckland or Sydney – you gotta make your own way there :o)

Right. get clickin. and good luck!

I know we all have them. Those days where things just go ridiculously wrong. And it wasn’t a bad day, it was just one of those days.

For example, did you know DigitalMax are now having a 5×7 special? 5x7s are now 35c. Of course I just got my order printed. Like today. This happened about 2 weeks ago too, I ordered a heap of enlargements and then they had a half price sale. Lucky to be me. hey. one of those things.

The cherry on the top to this funny kinda day though, was when I was peeling potatoes tonight for dinner. I peeled this potato and dropped it. Down the waste disposal hole. Now this potato was just small enough to fit through the hole. I put my hand down after it, but do you think my hand AND the potato could fit back through? Ahhhh no. So I take my hand out. Please don’t let the children have seen me put my hand down there. I stab the potato with a knife and try and pull it out that way. Uh. No. Ain’t gonna work. So I do what any had-enough-of-today mothers do… I turn on the waste disposal and get rid of that pain-in-the-ass potato. I peel another.
It took a lot to give up though. I was determined not to let that potato win. I was determined I was going to get that sucker out. I’m still not sure who won, me or the pototo. lol.

Anyway. Scrappy stuff… Did I share this?

It’s an art journal challenge – you know, just like Emily does. I’m useless at this stuff. I’m useless at keeping up with this stuff. We are now up to week 12 and I’m 11 weeks behind. lol. But anyway. I’m going to catch up. Soon. lol.

The difference with my cards is that I make them one sided, like this one. And I POST THEM to myself. (Ok so I have posted the above one to myself and i will the rest too, and they survived NZ post, despite their obvipus bulkiness…) So I write my address on the back and post them to myself. *shrug* weird? I’m not sure. I just wanted the date stamps on there.

Freestyle… I know it’s been thrashed on my blog but one more time.. because inbetween fighting with potatoes today I did the powerpoint shows, instruictions etc and I’m PUMPED about this event. It already oozes inspiration and it’s not even underway yet. I’m hoping you’ll click the link and join my classes. Simple as that. Come see me. We’ll have fun.

OK. Here’s to a calmer day tomorrow.
laters.

It’s been a long day. I felt like such a useless mother, I just couldn’t keep Abby occupied today (or the last 3 days actually and quite honestly…) I’ve been feeling more and more useless everyday. Abby and I just haven’t had a very busy week, and have kind of got sick of each other.
So I got the camera out. I’d love some new pics of Abby & I. New inspiration. Unfortunatley I’m a little thing, my arm reach isn’t far. It’s hard for me to do that hold-the-camera-out-infront-of-me thing. Abby and I had fun though. It only lasted 5 minutes, but it was fun. I didn’t anticipate the shadowing (bad me, I’m not a photographer though.. I’m excused…) and damn I never get a good pic of me. I like this one though. It’s a pity that Abby was over being all sweet and girlie and was doing her best Pokemon impressions. I think in this one she was an Abby-a-mon. *sigh* I might scrap it anyway. In fact I know I will. Love those moments really.

Well The new CK Hall of Fame have been called and the names are meant to be released tomorrow. I think I know 2 of them. About 99% sure. Hopefully the names are there when I wake tomorrow and I have some call stories to read through whilst eating my WW muesli and milo.

laters

When did 8 year olds get so clever? As I was standing making dinner tonight my 8 year old asks me… who do you like best, Mum? Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, or Stephen Hawkings. Time stands still as I realise that possibly my son knows more than I do and I have some serious bluffing to do. …Ummmmm…. I’m going Albert Einstein. Yea. Clever dude. And my 8 year old replies. “What about Stephen Hawking though?” ….

Me.. “Stephen Hawking, Stephen Hawking… wasn’t he the guy that…” C’mon fill in the blanks here.I’m thinking.

Long story short. Today I realised that my 8 year old has surpassed me. He officially has a branch of knowledge I don’t, and it only grows from here. And who is Stephen Hawking? Thank goodness for google.

What’s up at the Howard house this week? Lots of little assignments – the kind that keep my spirits high. I tried not scrapping for 2 days last week and it made me prickly. Oooooo Paul says as he walks in the door.. you got prickles. lol
So this week – writing instructions and powerpoint shows for Freestyle. I think at this point I should remind you that there is still chance to join me in my classes. But I won’t, cos I have said that before ;o)

Stampin’Up! I forgot to say – those white gel pens that everyone looks for are sold by Stampin’ Up! It’s where a lot of the US girls get theirs. And the company is just starting and it’s ground level and all that if anyone wants to join and become a demonstrator. Website if anyone is interested.
And I was privy to a huge box of inks and stamps and other amazing stuff “Just to try” arriving on my doorstep. Lucky girl. That day when Paul walks in the door he sees me and the bog box of stuff from Stampin’ Up! and he says “ooo sucks to be you today”. Sarcasm. At it’s highest.

laters

Thursday. When I woke up I knew I’d get nothing done today and I didn’t. Nice when things go to plan :o) Although I did get the product from Kiwiscraps to go ahead and make the step-by-step instructions for my Freestyle classes. I’m on the home stretch to the event now. I see there was an eScraps go out tonight with lots of sneak peek images in it. And scrapbook pizza. Who would have thought.

I found out last week that Stampin’ Up! are coming to New Zealand, launching at the end of march. There are open nights in Auckland and Christchurch for anyone interested in getting in to the business. I’ve been jealous of those people in America that have had access to Stampin’ Up! for years. It is cool that it is coming to New Zealand. They are looking for demonstrators. It would be a good time to get in, while the company is still small in NZ. For those that don’t know, SU is party plan and does stamping as well as scrapbooking. Cute project on that link above.

ScrapScene has a post about my book – and if that wasn’t exciting enough by itself, it also has the names of the ladies that helped me out with some wicked-cool artwork. That is my baby girl on the cover. And actually my 20 year old alarm clock. You’d think I might have enough fly-buys to get a new one. lol. Oh and those are not rings from my coffee cup on the front. I don’t drink coffee.

Did you catch the latest BasicGrey Newsletter? Jaimie Emmerton has a project in there. God I love the 15th of the month, newsletters come from everywhere.

Oh – heads up on the Queen & Co blog competition which runs monthly. I think we wore you all out with the Pub Call’s Blog manufacture challenge, because entries on the Queen blog challenge are low this month so far.. I said so far… I will get a last minute influx of inspirational masterpieces into my mailbox, but hey.. get creating.

laters

It’s Tuesday, which means tomorrow is Wednesday, which means my son has a school excursion. They are walking to a local park. It’s quite a long way. And apparantly the people that organised it didn’t know winter would arrive today. Hello rain. I guess the trip will be called off. Or perhaps they will swim.

Ok so lots of little things. Tarisota Promotion. You guys wanna know this stuff, right? Introduce a friend to Tarisota and you will both received a bottle of Strano Ribbon Stiff (can you imagine them sitting around in a product meeting at Strano and deciding on the name for that? What the?) and a copy of the new Tarisota book, Ribbon Redefined, in PDF format. Freakin bargain. Scroll down on Tamar’s blog to see the details.

Talking of Tarisota, here is another creation that went into the March Gallery.

The little madam is actually imitating me there. I asked her to show me what face Mummy makes when she is angry, she couldn’t do it, she was too busy cracking up. lol.

Aussie Scrap Source April kits have just gone up, something different for me. I have a handmade album class this month.

I normally do layouts so this was a cool change. I also see they now have my march Class kit ‘Always’ back in stock, the one with the dimensional sequin flowers.

So anyway, early night for me, love the sound of torrential rain on the neighbour’s roof, lol. Our roof is concrete tile, theirs is tin tile. I listen to their roof. lol.
A little story to end. I did something yesterday that totally reminded me of my mother. Years ago I remember we were running low on milk. I remember watching my mother add water to the remaining milk so that it lasted til she next went shopping. She claimed noone would know. I remember thinking what a rip-off situation that was. lol.
last night I added water to the remaining milk in the fridge to see us through breakfast time today. As I was doing it I thought to myself how I couldn’t beleive I was doing it. This morning Paul made himself a coffee, took the first sip and said “Damn that’s a GOOD cuppa” and carried on making his breakfast. AHA I though, my mother was right. But then who knows if that really was a good cup of coffee. Paul says that after every single first sip out of a new bottle of red wine too. lol.

laters