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I thought it would be calmer once summer started to come to a close but if it’s not one thing it’s another, and renovations on our home are taking over at the moment. Computer time has been cut dramatically as I spend a lot of time supervising the children while they watch things like concrete trucks and jackhammers etc. I haven’t scrapped a page in nearly 2 weeks. I’ve done other stuff but scrapping, no.

I did go to the dentist the other day. I used to think people that were scared of needles needed to harden up. I thought it was all in their mind but I tell you, I lost the plot somewhere along the way and now it’s me shying at the thought of a needle in my mouth. I’ve had plenty of spots cut out and stitches put in, and don’t worry about those needles, but take one near my mouth and I’m a basketcase.

So I walk into the dentist. I nicely question her about the possibility of doing this without the numbing up bit. I must have had “complete wuss” written across my forehead because she kinda went…”mmmm…noooooo, I think we better give you the pain releif…” and she tried to go into conversation about the new type they have that doesn’t numb the tongue and I responded by bursting into tears. I take back every single thought I ever thought about how silly it was for people to hate the dentist. Make room for me on that couch because, baby, I am there. I can be the president of that club, if you like, because I cried. Like a baby. Poor dentist – she was so nice. I did get the added bonus of a nurse to give me a head massage as the needles went in – that had to be worth it, right?

So anyway. I was at Ngaire’s blog the other day, and she pointed me towards Mel’s blog which in turn pointed me towards Fiona Carter’s blog. No wonder I get no work done. and Fiona made these yummy looking cupcakes. And being the incredibly domestic person I am – my husband is laughing, why is he laughing – I decided to give these a go. So I made cupcakes. I dropped a little easter egg in the middle of them, you don’t need to cover the chocolate up, it rises around it when it is cooking, and I cooked choc filled cupcakes!

So now I am the cupcake making president of the I-hate-the-dentist club.

I’ll leave you with some images of a wall hanging I did. I made this for a book called “Show it Off” which is about to be released in the U.S.A. through Memory Makers Books. It’s all about using scrapbooking in your decor. Showing it off, sharing it with the world. Which is something we should do more often. 700-800 layouts on a shelf isn’t going to be any use to anyone really. Am I the only that has that issue? yes? oh. lol. OK so I did this wall hanging. I used cheap frames from the Warehouse and I hung it from some old meshy stuff that I found in the garage, I have no idea what it’s really for, all I know is that Paul has never asked after it so it can’t have been important.

Other supplies – from memory they were FancyPants Designs rub-ons and maybe some WeRMemory Keepers papers. Thanks for looking!

Laters.

Being awoken by a smoke alarm going off at 5.40am on a Sunday is never fun. Physically I flew out of bed and was running down the hall before my mind caught up with what was going on. When I got to the living area the smoke alarm stopped and I quickly ascertained there was nothing on fire, or even remotely smokey even. I decided it was a cruel trick being played by Daddy-Long-Leg spiders crawling over the sensor, who were probably at that very minute trying to muffle their giggles behind one of their 8 hands and I went back to bed. I have no clue what set the alarm off but I fell back to sleep wondering why it happens on a Sunday morning and not any other morning when 5.40am is actually quite normal.

I told the kids this morning when they got up that it was probably just a Daddy-Long-Legs. I was quickly corrected by Abby who told me they are infact called “Deadly-Long-Legs”. Jacob followed quickly after with stories about how Daddy-Long-Legs are infact one of the most venomous spiders in the world but they are harmless to us because they have no biting mechanism. Nice.
I love the Deadly-Long-Legs thing though. One of my other favourites of Abby’s right now is “Oppsidently”. As in “I oppsidently turned the TV on when I wasn’t meant to”. Aha. Right.

This week holds a lot in store for me including a dentist appointment, sending more SCKC layouts to Australia – we are hitting to supply ALL the camps with layouts now and it’s not going to be hard thanks to ladies like Vanessa M & Rachel R who sent me half their scrap-room in the form of over 120 6×6 layouts! Also Heidi B and more from Christine C as well – thanks so much ladies!

This week I’ll be starting on some Stampin’ Up! stuff. I hinted at this a while back. Stampin’ Up! has been in New Zealand around a year now (guessing!) and I’ve been in touch with the company since their introduction here. Just recently I was asked to join them with a promotion to show you all what they have to offer. Why not, I thought and I’ll be starting to work on that this coming week. Each week I will post an ongoing project I’ll be working on. It’s a cute book for Abby, I make one for each of the kids as they turn 4. With each weekly post I’ll hopefully introduce you to some of the Stampin’Up! products and perhaps a technnique or two. With each post I make there will be a Stampin Up giveaway. It’s a win-win so keep an eye out for that in the coming week.
And I’ve just been to the SU site and they are retiring lots of their stamps! If you are a stamper or a scrapbooker that likes to stamp go check it out!

Ok, back to my Sunday. We are having Hot Cross Buns for lunch. It’s been quite the culinary weekend, yesterday I made Lemonade Scones (you know the ones where all you need is self raising flour, a can of lemonade and cream?) – anyway, I didn’t have lemonade and used L&P instead. Not quite the same. lol.

I’ll leave you with another Tarisota creation. This is done with the “Life’s a Hoot” collection. Which I think has one of the best galleries ever. I’m not big on the cliche type crowns etc, but I loved the crowns in this collection. Especially the one I used in this card, which is actually a brad by Delish Designs.
(Love quote transparency by Delish, Crown card by My Mind’s Eye, papers by My Mind’s Eye)

laters

I’ve got an extra voice around home this morning. Jacob is due to get his cast off today so he stayed home. Mainly because the rest of the senior school have gone to swimming sports. I’m looking forward to having that cast off as much as him. It’s harbouring all sorts of dirt and grime – much more than the average mother likes to see. The trick now is to get to the nurse to request that she tells him he can’t keep it – before he gets to her. It’ll be a rush in the fracture clinic door. lol.

More Tarisota!

This layout talks of Jacob’s nightly routine. His struggle to get to sleep and his amazing reading skills. Which in turn can really be blamed for his inability to get to sleep. What 9 year old boy lost in the african desert with Willard Price would be able to fall asleep easily.

I had a question about this layout in particular which featured on ScrapScene today (and wasn’t that a pleasant surprise!)

I was asked about the dimension in my layouts – I admit I do like dimension. I’ve always been envious of those scrapbookers that can put together beautifully graphically balanced pages. Cardstock and photos. Shapes and design. I’ve never been able to do that. I think of myself as more of a paper-crafter type scrapbooker. I love to cut and scrunch, change and craft the papers. I’m not neccessarily successful all the time but I have fun trying :o) So dimension is my thing.
I was asked whether I use pop-dots or something similar. The answer is sometimes. Usually not. I use tombow green glue and it sticks everything. As in, everything, my laptop keys wish I was a little more careful. If I feel something needs popping off the page, or sometimes one side of an embellishment needs boosting because the other side is already boosted by another embellishment (getting confusing now?) I sometimes just cut a corner of scrap chipboard and glue it under there. We waste a lot of chipboard from around alphas and chipboard shapes. I guess I found a use.

Ok, time for that appointment – a quick note though that Tarisota has the new BasicGrey on it’s way to them and they are due to ship the limited BasicGrey FourYou Take two as soon as it arrives. (Scroll down to see it – as you scroll you’ll notice some gorgeous digital downloads that Jo Kneller has been creating – amazing stuff, we are lucky to have that girl on board!).

Gotta run
Laters!

I’ve been missing in action. I had good reason though because despite the fact that after having our 3rd child we thought we’d never get any look at acting on a whim again – let’s face it, a trip to the local park takes a finely tuned routine and a minimum 15 min organisation time, we packed up on Thursday and went to the beach. And it was not so hard to do so on a whim. With the blessings of both the boy’s school teachers. To be with Vaughan for the final few days before he flew home. We had planned on just one night over on the Coromandel, but had such fun playing Scumbag over a few drinks late that night, that we decided to stay another. And again. It wasn’t so hard. It felt good.

Vaughan left yesterday. That was hard. The night before he left we saw videos from his computer on the stuff he does overseas. Christmas in Bulgaria. Raves in London. I had been sure it was time for him to come home but after seeing those videos I realised he shouldn’t come home yet. It’s such a big world and he is having a ball. I had a mortgage by the time I was 21 and didn’t travel. I kinda thought I’d travel later in life. In the meantime I lost the party attitude though.
So anyway. Vaughan went home. It was an emotional day and the funny thing was that it made me want to scrapbook. On our return home I needed to sit and write. And write. And write. And I wonder sometimes if it is the stories that makes me a scrapbooker, not the ‘creating’. And sometimes I think I should just stop thinking about things so much and just scrap.

Thanks to Rachel Tucker and Kate Mills – beautiful pages for the SCKC arrived in my mailbox over the weekend. Thanks so much ladies! Don’t forget to check in with Julie’s blog – she has pics of what 1600 layouts look like – because we have reached our goal! BUT WAIT – we are supplying for other camps too, including one that is held in New Zealand every year. Don’t stop creating! I’ve seen the corrospondence about how much difference these books make. So keep it up for just a little while yet!

And finally a layout to share. This was in this months Tarisota gallery. which just went up yesterday.

It’s one of my fav layouts for a while. I think it’s the pictures. Abby & I were at Kindy last December and Nannie & Grumpr arrived to see her at the Kindy Christmas concert. Abby was on the playground when they arrived. She rushed to them as soon as she saw them and this is the look on her face as she was telling Nannie all about kindy. If anyone wanted a definition of absolute glee, I think this would be close.

laters.

Hello Autumn, actually it’s been Autumn since the middle of February we decided. We’ve given up all hope of showing Vaughan a true NZ summer, he’s about to go home and that’s the last of the fun summer things over for me. I have nothing but dental appointments that I had been putting off until after Vaughan left and winter to look forward to. That was sarcasm, I hate winter. Except I like to cook more in winter. I’m not sure if that is bad or good. lol

Tarisota time, I’m knee deep in blues and greens at the moment. Quite at home, no layout of mine is complete without blue at the moment. Usually I’m pairing it with red but I’m enjoying the relaxed tones of this collection. Here is the collection and here is a sneak peek of one of my layouts, gallery due up 8th March. One of my most favourite layouts in ages actually. I’ve been doing a lot of instructions and classes so it might be my only layout lately, actually lol.

I hate seeing the date 8th March on anything because it means I should have paid our last installment of provisional tax already. Which I haven’t. I blame February for that, it always flies past far too soon.

Kids pages – still rolling in. Thanks so much to Ann Mclachlan, Naomi Carrell, Kate Anderson, Melissa Davis, and Leila Norton. This makes another 240 to send to Australia! This has really taken off for more than just the camp we originally started to make these pages for… it looks as if we will have enough for Melbourne and perhaps even the NZ camp as well… watch this space as Trina, Jules and I have been talking (far too much as usual!) and there are plans. Check Jules’ blog for the tickers for both the SCKC and the Melbourne SCKC…

I see details for ScrapCamp are out, if you didn’t get the email, here is the blog site with all the details – Rotorua in May with Lianne, Yolande and Kelly Rotherham.

Anyone else having problems with xtra? I know I’m not recieving or sending all of my emails. If you have emailed me and I didn’t answer really when you thought I should, then please try until I do. I’m hoping it’ll be over soon!

Alrighty. One last thing. A lot of you know that I have a friend, Shauna, in the U.S. that is very dear to me. I dedicated my book to her. It’s time to ask for all your thoughts to go her way again. She’s hit a bit of a tough road… her indicators aren’t looking fantastic and it frustrates me and angers me really that she is having to go through this. Thanks for everyone that already stops by and drops her a quiet word of encouragement, even if you don’t know her. She has some poetry on her blog at the moment (scroll down just a bit) that truly explains the fight she is fighting. It’s incredibly touching so pop by if you can. The more positivity the better!

Laters

I must be one of the luckiest scrappers in New Zealand right now, you should have seen my mailbox this morning. Thanks so much to Rachel Tucker who sent me a pile more – I took pics straight away which I’ll share in a minute.. and then later in the day I got more pages from Christine Cleary and Ruth Ross, all sending piles of pages my way to donate to the SCKC in Australia. I sent a box to Aussie last Monday, it has reached it’s destination already.. I guess I’ll be headed back to the post office again this coming Monday!

I thought these journaling spots on Rachel’s were a great idea. This is an extremely bad pic of some great pages, I hope you can see them OK.

Keep sending them in, scroll down to earlier posts to see what the fuss is all about!

Oh look – some pics that my SIL took of myself and my two brothers. Mum wanted a nice pic since we aren’t together very often. Good luck to her. lol

I forget why my brother’s name is Clown?

Yea it’s all fun and games til Mum gets all growly because she isn’t getting a good pic.

I think at this point I stood up ready to have some stern words with Vaughan. (he looks so scared?)

Sorry Mum, this is the best you’ll get!

Ok scrapping – Tamar tells me she has my Water Play class kit for sale. Very cool.

I did some work on some inklination stuff for Tarisota this month – this is the stamp that they have for sale as a limited edition .. images of what I did with it to go in gallery ..um…soon.

Oh and the featured product for Tarisota this month was birdies. I wanted to create a card. I’m not big on the birdie thing but the packaging on some Bohemia stuff had been looking at me begging for me to make them into wings on a bird – so I cut the ‘B’ and the ‘O’ off the packaging and a birdie was created. It seemed a good idea at the time?

Laters!

Sometimes as I sit procrastinating over what coloured piece of paper to stick to other coloured pieces of paper in my scraproom, I wonder what I’d be doing if I wasn’t so busy scrapbooking. In a past life (the one before kids) I thought I’d be a florist. Or teacher. Or journalist. I was always going to write.
And so now I think I write my blog to procrastinate while I scrapbook. Funny how things turn in circles. Thanks for being at the other end of my writing.

I haven’t had much in the way of scrapping stuff to share lately but this should change soon since I’m creating lots for Tarisota this month. I’m also itching to do more pages for the kids (click here to read more about it – and the froggie jumping his way across to the target with each page Julie receives). I’m receiving more and more pages in my mailbox every day. Thanks so Linda L, Kris, and the whole group of Timaru girls who sent me 121 pages! the Timaru package included some pages from Bronwyn’s 9 year old daughter, Natasha and I swear when I got that package I said a big awwwwwwwwwwwww outloud.
This campaign to provide these kids – many of which come from foster homes – with scrapbooks is amazing and due to the generosity of you all, it’s grown so quickly. Thanks to everyone that has linked it on their blogs and who has sent me pages. We still need more so if you feel like creating, read this blog post. For every 8 pages you create and send to either trina or I, you go into the draw for a prize or two.

I was talking about my quiet contemplative middle child the other day. I briefly mentioned my bull-at-a-gate oldest child. This is what he looks like right now. Yes, that is a plaster cast under that bandage. And yes that is a fractured wrist. This is a direct result of a 9 year old boy failing to judge correctly the consequences of cycling extremely fast down a hill. Actually not only did he fail to judge correctly, but he failed to think at all. I think. He did this at cubs. His words when he came in the door holding his wrist and bleeding from numerous other scratches and bruises. “This is serious”. Ya think?!

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Every family seems to have one. You know, the quiet, yet wise one. Our Braden, now 7 years old, has always been this way. Sometimes we’ll travel somewhere and not hear a peep out of him for the whole journey. Jacob and Abby will have bickered and fought all the way, yet Braden will say nothing. I say again. He is a wise boy.

When Braden says something, it’s usually a gem. He can come up with the most amazing philosophical things. Well, as philosophical as a 7 year old with no front teeth can be.

Today we are driving back from swimming. Jacob is contemplating how incredibly amazing his swimming was. Abby was arguing that really she should be going to lessons everyday and Braden says nothing. And then he says, ever so questionably. “I’ve figured it out… that food thing. You know. That good food thing. I can tell a food is good when it tastes really bad. And I can tell a bad food because it’s going to taste reeeeally good, right Mum?”
The kid is a genius. I didn’t argue. I’ve recently made new food rules for myself. They include not eating bad food in my own home. If I go to someone elses else and I am offered it, then it’s fair game. There is a small possibility I may even make a pig of myself. But I cannot eat bad food in my own home. Do you think this will work?
Disclaimer: This does not include alcohol. It also does not include Swiss chocolate if it is hand delivered by said Swiss friend that then might knock on my door and hand it to me, but not come in for a coffee. You know. Should that happen, like.

Talking of food. I took this pic at the weekend. Paul was teaching Braden how to prepare a fish for the smoker. Uncle Vaughan looking a bit green around the gills in the background. hehehe. Cool pic though. Just a random son-father moment. Since Paul has huge plans for both our sons to be fishing-crazy, it’s fitting I get a starting out pic.

And this is a bad photo, but I just had to take a pic to show you. I don’t know if you remember I had a post about 3-4 months ago where I had a green passionfruit with Vaughan’s name scratched in it, anyone else do that when they were little? and I said it was for him when he came over? Well that passionfruit stayed on that vine for months. It fell off onto the ground on the day Vaughan arrived on the big plane from England. I kid you not. How freaky is that.
bad pic. I just took it now. bad light. sorry.

OK in scrapping stuff. This week I work on the march Tarisota kit as well as finishing details of Basicgrey Four you. I had it mostly finished but because I knew it’d be March when the Basicgrey got to Aussie, I left the rest of the instructions for a while. Now I hear the BasicGrey is not far away I’m finishing up. The kit is available here (scroll down) if you are interested. A sampling of Boxer, Sugared, Sultry and Cupcake plus a heap of embellishments including a inque boutique stamp and new BG rub-ons, buttons, brads etc. Instructions for 4 layouts and 2 cards all ready to ship as soon as the BG hits Aussie.

Lastly – something has been on my mind. I love the comments I receive and often I get questions asked. I’d love to be able to press reply and answer but I don’t have that option through blogger. I’d also like more choice of sidebars etc. Is it time to move on? Has anyone moved from blogger to typepad? Can you move your whole blog? I’ve been blogging 3 years now and I’d hate to lose things. Just contemplating things. As ya do.
While ingoring the bickering coming from the back seat of the car on the way home from swimming.

laters.

It is indeed one of those days. One of those days where one washes half the household linens and clothes all with good intentions. With the gale force winds I’d be sure to dry it all, you’d think. It was fairly obvious as soon as I pegged the first towel on the line that it was going to be a battle of the spinning clothesline. I’m not so tall (be quiet Lucy!) so I have to let go of the line while I reach down for the next towel out of the basket. By the time I stood up again the clothesline had spun a full 360 and I was being whipped around the face by the previous wet towel. The dryer looked awfully inviting although I perservered and was rewarded with washing that was dry in 15 minutes. I saved 11c an hour not using the dryer. If I did that every day for a while I’ll save enough for an icecream by winter ;o)

Good to have the phone back on. 9000 lines in Pukekohe were without phones for quite a while. It is nice to have it restored and know I am meeting all sorts of people I didn’t previously know as the number you ring isn’t guaranteed to hook you up with the people you were trying to get. When I ring my Mum’s number I get a lovely old lady across the other side of town. Back to square one for Telecom I’m thinking.

There has been lots of cool things happen this week though. Here is a pic of my very jetlagged little brother, fresh off the London-Dubai-Singapore-Brisbane-Auckland flight that he took. In front of him is the birthday cake my kids decorated for him as it was his birthday when he travelled. Any excuse for cake :o) Great to have him home, pity about the tropical storm. Thanks Queensland.

Abby had her 3rd swimming lesson. She has just turned four and has taken to the swimming thing like a duck to water :o) She is working on her straight legged kick in this pic.

And another cool thing – the pages arriving in my mailbox! I received them from Margo and Rachel this week. They’ll both be in the draw for the prize on my blog as well as Trina’s blog. We’ll join lists when we draw names for prizes, so keep the 6×6’s headed our way!
Check out these pics. How cool are these 6×6 layouts. I’m so happy I get to look at all of these!! Both days I recieved layouts I felt like going to scrap straight away! lol

If you are clueless as to why we are creating, take a look at this post.
And this is how it all started…

Anyone else think that the declaration “I don’t love ANYONE ever AGAIN” by Abby from the lounge needs attention? Me too.

laters.

Who has been busy scrapping 6×6 over the weekend? … ME!!! Unintentionally, what started as a quick visit over to the neighbours for a quick drink ended up in me running home to grab a bit of scrapping stuff (and you’ll see I grabbed my BG Color-Me-Silly and some other random things). We sat down and just started cutting and layering and inking and gluing and before we knew it, both Lucy and I had created 28 pages each for the Kids Camp. Put that with the 4 I had at home and between us, we had done 60 pages. It was easy when we just let all our fussy inhibitions go and just got scrapping. So here are my efforts – simple … yes.. but they have to be fairly generic as we don’t know what pics will go on there? Hopefully the camp will have access to some alphas or something so they can dress them up.. anyhow.. here are some of the pages I have done. (See here for more details of the kids camp)

(Some Stampin’ Up! ones from the other day – my favs and you’ll see these a lot, are those label stamps…)

Color Me Silly, I always loved those froggies!

I got a bit girlie there for …oh…15 minutes… lol

One sheet of BG CMS tags went a long way really!

I knew I’d find a use for that Dr Suess paper at some point!

So remember! For every 8 pages that you do and send to me or Trina (we’ll keep a list between us) – they need to arrive at either my house or Trina’s house to be counted in the draw … for every 8 pages you complete, we’ll put you in the draw. I have a prize from Stampin’ Up! and Trina has one for Fiskars – I might find more prizes, so get creating!!
Trina has updated her blog with more details I see :o)
Oh – for my address – email me (email button up the top, don’t leave me a comment, blogger doesn’t let me reply to your comments :o( and then you can send your pages.
Thanks to everyone that said they will participate – as I said, I can’t answer my comments but I read every single comment – thanks!

Other scrapping stuff – I see Heidi Grace had another baby! This lady is amazing! She jsut released an amazing amount of stuff at CHA and has a daughter that has just turned one AND has another gorgeous wee bubba.

I have finally chosen my favourite CHA new release. Well. For this half an hour. Till I see another favourite. I haven’t got a pic of this but it’s called the ‘Threading Water’ Border punch. Fiskars are releasing it and it’s a scallop with the little holes. Flippin fab idea!! Go Fiskars!!

Oh wait! I thought of another thing from the CHA postings I thought was pretty cool and that is the Sassafras Lass papers. OK these ladies take the cake for thinking power.. they have created papers where the strip at the bottom is scalloped or zi-zagged or whatever. And a coordinating pattern. So you can either cut like 1/2 inch off the top of the paper and have a shaped lower edge, OR cut it off and use it as some sort of border. Clever thinking!!!

Righto. Off to create an Aussie Scrap Source class. Double page this time. Have to keep thsoe Timaru ladies happy ;o)

laters.