Blog

Monday – I always wake to Paul’s alarm. Always. I always get up when he does and start the day with him Ye gawds, did I just say that? Family show here people, I meant I start my day at the same time he does.

So since I have been to Sydney I have been sleeping through the alarm. Sleeping through Paul getting out of bed and doing all that first thing in the morning bathroom stuff right there in the En Suite *is that a universal word?* where I can hear all the washing etc. I have slept through him stomping out past me in the morning, he has had to start the morning by himself. Stop laughing. Serious now.

I’m tired. I guess. I blame you Aussie girls. I seriously still haven’t recovered. I’m blaming the wine. That wine has had a lot to answer for since I get home. I’m tired. Blaming the Aussie wine. I need a sleep in. Blame the Aussie wine. I haven’t even thought of what to make for dinner, it’s 6pm and the washing is on the line still, it’s raining and it is dark and the children are eating potato chips whilst watching some scary SkyTV channel. I’m blaming the Aussie wine.

So I guess that was a long winded way of saying Monday started off a little bit rushed. Cos I slept in, again.

But I have worked hard over the past week. As I mentioned in previous posts, I have been working on the Tarisota Storybook collection. BUT I have also been working on another one.

Tarisota has just released it’s Teckni Colour Collections. Each month one of the Tarisota designers will choose a funky colour scheme and a technique (get it, Teckni colour? Took me a while, I blame the Aussie wine)…. and anyway, each month that designer will choose her fav funky colour scheme and a technique and create a few layouts and one other project using a whole bunch of cool product in that colour scheme/with that tecnique.

So it was my turn. And I chose my current fav – aqua-blue-green – like the yummooo blue green in BG Pheobe and printed vellum. Very very cool. See more details here. Or actually here.

laters

Saturday night, I’ve been working on the latest Tarisota Collection since returning from Sydney, and I also have a 2nd special one I’ve been working on. Nothing like taking on twice as much work when I had half the time.
The 2nd collection is an interesting one – not sure when Tamar releases details of that one, but I’m sure there are a few of you out there that’ll love it.

BTW – talking of Tarisota – Xtra mail had a tonne od issues last week and Tamar said she had lots of newsletters being returned to her undeliverable from NZ email addresses – I think Xtra has their issues sorted out -for now – insert eyeroll– but if you didn’t hear from Tarisota recently, that is why. I’m sure it’s all back to normal now though!

Aussie scrap Source Blog continues to be updated with layouts regularly… I had a few in there recently including this one.

If you could see the side-close-up view you would notice tonnes of Queen & Co beads because a lot of you know how addicted I am to the beads now and gorgeous detail. I love this layout, one of my fav lines currently BasicGrey Pheobe is that really how you spell pheobe? I love those newsprint HS alphas too.

What else – Queen & Co blog still being updated every day or ok, so perhaps 2 days with new LOs etc – we just took on a new DTer, just through noticing her work on galleries and in the blog contests we used to hold etc, so it pays to keep consistently entering these small comps, for those of you focused in that direction.

Check out Ngai’s blog – does she have the linkiest of linkey link link blogs or what? Thansk Ngai for linking my book here . The book is only about 8 weeks away – I’m gettin a touch nervous :o) Guess it’ll be time for sneak peeks soon.

ya know. I think it is time for a new banner. Anyone keen to help out a technogically challenged chick? I have no idea what to put up there never mind know how to. Anyone wanna help out?

laters

I have still not recovered from Sydney. I lay down (on my keyboard) just to rest my head for 5 minutes today and woke to Miss Abby shaking me “you doooon’t have your jammies on!!! It not night-time Muuuuuummy!” Correct and correct. So at just after 9pm, I am off to bed early tonight.

Thanks for those of you that have left comments with links to pics on your blogs (for those of you that want to see, I could post all the links here individually but that’d take precious sleeping time, have a look at the comments in the last post!)
I think some of my fav pics are on Danielle’s blog I love the one of jaimie Emmerton and I warding off the cameras. Truth be known we were around a table of about a dozen ladies and Jaimie and I started laughing at something, became quickly aware of the tears running down our faces and the flash of cameras (no doubt taking pics of the laughter-distorted-tear streaken faces to remind us the next day WHY we shouldn’t drink Aussie wine) and we did the ‘hide from the cameras thing’.

Another fav pic is this one – this is a nearly-finished layout created by one incredibly talented Cassie . This is my wildflowers class, but Cassie turned it upside down and did things her own way a little. Love that part of a class. I love seeing the creativity come out in each and every person. I swear I am the luckiest girl, by the time I taught that class to 200 different people I had 200 more little pieces of inspiration, I could totally rock that layout to a whole new level if I sat and did it again, so thanks to everyone that sits in on my classes. So much inspiration.

A last pic of a fab lady, Chrissy, and I. I never like the pics taken in class, I cringe if I look at them, but this one is proof that if you rush outside in real light and hold the camera out yourself and snap a pic, it’ll probably turn out better than all those others.

keep those pics coming, ladies.

ok sleep.
laters.

Home again and exhausted as expected. So much to say.
And I’m sure there are pictures on cameras out there I need to share. And some I never want anyone to share. (Thanks Jules for your part in making sure some of them are never seen, I’ll slip ya that hundred sometime for that deleting effort). Email me nic.paul (at) xtra.co.nz if you have some you don’t mind me posting. And if I don’t answer you within half a day, that is because xtra is an ass and bounces half the emails it is meant to receive. If you try and send one and it bounces, please report it to your server, as apparantly, xtra won’t fix it until it is reported by the other server. Nice.

Kiwiscraps Sydney was great. Same atmosphere as Auckland. Just getting down and messy with stuff we haven’t neccessarily seen since kindergarten. Thanks for those of you that trusted me with crayons. and if you have any of my projects posted on your blog, or you see one posted on a blog, let me know.

I met a tonne of people this time. One highlight was going for a small walk with 2 incredibly talented ladies, Vivian Bonder and Dannielle Q I learnt more about photography in a 15 min walk than I ever thought I’d know. Just by watching these ladies. I love little gems in the day like that. (Thanks ladies, AGAIN).

I’ll post more when I have pics, but for now, Jaimie Emmerton, this is for you. I told ya I was damn cute when I’m in the garden.

laters

2 more sleep til I get on that plane for Sydney.

So much on my mind.
I have these. Wait. let me upload this pic.

That contains every single LO I had in my book. Those boxes look far too small for the amount of work that went in there. Anyway. There they are, all the layouts have returned home. Seeing them again will be like seeing them for the first time all over again, I sent them all away so quickly after completion.
SO one would think that perhaps I’d rip in and check them out? No. No I didn’t. Those two boxes and now stored nice and safely in the cupboard. Some weird superstitious vibe I’m having won’t let me open them. And so they stay sealed, for now.

And remember how much I loved templates at one time? back in the day people always came to me to see if I bought my stack of templates to a crop. (hi Donna!) .. well it seems that things move in circles – almost literally so, check out that doty round template in this pic. I’ve been playing with some Crafter’s Workshop templates lately. Lucky Lucky girl. Love the doodling ones. And the dotty circles, as I said. Kiwiscraps has these in stock I believe. A doodling template. one of those I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that moments.

Another pic – love this one. Katja’s hubby came to visit us one Saturday, and he took this pic of Paul, Abby and I. Just a random pic. We were just sitting around the kitchen bench and he decided Abby was far too cute and he took some pics. Fine scrapbooker’s hubby :o)
i think I love it because
a) Paul and I are rarely in a pic together, and b) if we are in a pic it is usually without the kids and posed with an uncluttered background etc. I love that I’m jsut standing there in my kitchen in my old t-shirt and there is a birthday cake on the bench and a party hat there too, although it wasn;t for party purposes, it was because Abby thought it was a cool beak. And the ‘house plant’ in the background. The plant has followed us everywhere we go… everytime we move I snip it off at the base because it is easier than letting it get tangled, when it reaches the floor again it is time to move. It has been at the floor for a few years now, no wonder I’m getting itchy feet…

Laters.

It’s been an interesting – busy – day. Sad to see the kiddos go back, I love the busy-ness of them around the home. It all seemed so quiet today.

Tonight I saw an ad on TV for the Ch1 programme “Fair Go”. It seems there is a story on there on Wednesday night that any scrapbookers amongst you might find insteresting. It is in regards to the Chatterbox ‘Make it Meaningful’ competition that I was finalist in last year. I know a lot of the story already but I’ll leave it up to Fair Go to tell it properly.

I posted another ‘Emily Card’ today, as in, I literally posted it. So far NZ post is doing a mighty fine job of taking my cards, giving them a nice postdate on the back and delivering them back to me. The postie probably thinks I’m nuts. Hey. She could be right.
Here is another card, Tarisota fabrics etc, again.
Yea, I’m doing them way out of order. this one is ‘ephemera’ – this little card is the one I got in my Tarisota box.

Queen & Co blog I’m updating this regularly with more ideas, layouts etc, we have had a DT shuffle and new aims for the blog etc, so keep an eye on the Queen blog.

Aussie scrapSource blog has been updated recently with fabric layouts. I worked with some pretty bright fabric layouts.

3 sleeps til I fly out to Sydney…

laters

Anyone else have those delightful little electronic pets in their home? My 2 boys both got Tamagotchis for Christmas. Best. Present. Ever. These little creatures became Jacob and Braden’s best friends. Their pitiful little ‘feed me’ calls were barely audible by the regular person, yet my boys could hear it miles away. The tamagotchis were named. They were nutured. They grew up. The boys practically had puppies when the Tamagotchis evolved to the next level. They even grew into adults, fell in love and had baby Tamagotchis. And then school went back. And good old Mum (that’s me) babysat 4 tamagotchis every day for the whole of term one. And to be honest, I kind of became attached. As much as one can become attached to a small electronic toy. I too, soon became atuned to their tiny tinkly callings.
So the school holidays came, and perhaps those two boys were a little too attached to Mum looking after their tamagotchis, because they were somewhat neglected. And after 68 days, Braden’s grandpa tamagotchi died. There were tears. Poor Braden was devastated. It was sad, I was sad. Yep, it was a sad little time.

Once grandpa died, the boys seemed to loose interest. The Tamagotchis were left. slowly getting sicker, but I refused to fix them, they can’t rely on Mum to look after their toys. And so now we have 4 dead Tamagotchis. Why is it I’m the only one that is sad?!

So anyway. I am looking forward to Sydney, I travel next Thursday.
I’ve been busy with the next tarisota box, and Aussie Scrap Source assignments. I’m not sure I shared all the Tarisota stuff from last time. Here is a layout, more pics by Evana. Extremely talented chick.

laters

Freestyle Auckland… I’ve said it to a few people.. these events always leave me feeling inspired and energised to scrap, but none yet has left me so relaxed and confident about so many new things.

The weekend was full on with many laughs – some I still can’t blog about incase David (Kiwiscraps) reads this, lol.

I won’t go into it toooo much as the Wellington and Sydney versions are still to come. But I have to say that there was such a relaxed mood, despite the craziness of the classes that were overflowing with things to do and no time to do it. It was like a big kindergarten with paint, glitter, sequins, dye, paper, cardboard, spraypaints, fabric. Did I mention dye? ;o) lol. It was an event where everyone just let go and so much different stuff and I saw so many inspired people. I mean these things always inspire us, but it was different. It was a real relaxation of the rules and just a big play around with lots of stuff, noone had time to think , it was just all-out creating.

Am I allowed to tell you all my fav classes? Surely you ladies want a clue?
I saw most of them, I was tutoring as well as teacher-aiding so I saw them all. And the most fav? The one I will be begging to buy a place into? The Whole Enchilada by Tia Bennett. Seriously. Kicked myself all the way home for not booking into it in Akl and then emailed Kiwiscraps 50 million times since my return asking for a spot in Sydney. lol. Close behind is ‘Weaving my way to Constancy’ by Tia Bennett. Another one that I would love to sit in on because there are 50 kabillion techniques and the very relaxed and cruisy Emily Falconbridge at the helm, is Altered State.
And actually from here I could list the rest of the classes but those were my 3 favs. Feel a little guilty for saying so, because honestly, they are all awesome, but those are the ones I wouldn’t miss. Personally. For me.

For those of you sitting in on Wildflowers, here is a pic of someone in action in my class :o) nothing like a little FancyPants, BasicGrey and a little Queen & Co added in there…

laters.

The days are passing faster lately, don’t you think? Just an observation from late on a Thursday night, when I can’t beleive that it IS thursday night.

Perhaps it is that yesteray seemed like summer, I’m still nursing unexpected sunburn from the weekend, yet today it was dark at 4.30pm and it is 8 degrees outside. Welcome to New Zealand, Tia, Emily, Kim and Rhonna. Auckland sure put on a nice day for it. (sorry!).

So – it is the day before , the day before the Freestyle event in Auckland. I’m a lot more excited about this than I was about CC06, I have nooo idea why, perhaps it is the amount of fun (man that sounds so cliche, but it is true) I plan on having in the classes, or just because it’s my ‘hometown’ or.. I dunno.

BUT a note for anyone attending my Ransom class – and I have said this before, but I need to say it again… bring a 1/8 hole punch if you can..those of you on yahoo groups etc that might have people going to my Ransom class… please spread the word :o) Thanks.

So talking of Emily, here is my last Emily Card… I’m way out of order here.. I dont think I have shared this one. “Things I miss”. Photo by the gorgeous Evana Willis (MISS YOU!!)and everything else comes from the April Tarisota kit.

All for now – see some of you over the weekend!
Laters!

I hear the tapping on my screen, yes I am still here! Just busy. Tarisota gallery just went up all of about 5 minutes ago and so I was working on that. I had a lot of fun with the chipboard and other goodies this month, although this is my fav layout probably. Very unusual compared to what I usually do, I had to put my Andrea Senn hat on before sitting down to create this one. I have so much respect for those of you that scrap with a lot of white space and manage to create such calm serene layouts. Suz Doyle and Donna Wild are 2 more ladies that come to mind that scrap this way.

And so we are in the middle of the Easter break – it’s been a fab weekend so far and THANKYOU to those of you that emailed and asked about Jacob, the dental nurse gave him 3 different injections into the roof of his mouth and up under the top lip towards his nose, he was soooo brave, and she pulled that tooth right out. It has been about 6 days now and already there is a good 3 -4mm of big tooth through. The dental nurse said the baby tooth would have stayed right there for months had it not been pulled out. I have never heard of that situation before. And yep, jacob handled it like a trooper.

And so one of the highlights this weekend has been paul trying out his new ‘softbait’ rod – basically you don’t use smelly bait, you use rubber bait (biodegradable, which is good, cos Paul lost 3 lots of it in the rocks at Maraetai).
Love this pic. Love that Paul and Jacob are doing something they love together, and I love that I clicked just as the bait hit the water. I timed it well. Totally unplanned, but timed well.

A big week for me, with this post on ScrapScene. I get scrapscene delivered to my mailbox every morning via email, I learn all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. love it.

And I’m going to point out this thread on 2peas . Mainly because it has all the contributors linked there. I don’t know if they have all been fully ‘outed’ for their part in the book. (thanks ladies!).

Finally – hands up who is sitting in on my Ransom class at Freestyle?!! Ok it doesnt say anywhere but if you have to bring a 1/8 hole punch if you have one PLEASE!!! If you know anyone sitting in on this class, please let them know!? thanks – my fault it isn’t in the tools list – it was case of blindly picking it up, creating away and putting it away and forgetting I even used it. Which meant I was having fun, but also meant it was left off the tools list. So pass the word around please!

I lied. That wasn’t finally THIS is finally – do you all check out the Aussie Scrap Source blog? That thing is chocka full of inspiration. And updated regularly. yea I’m a part of the DT there but I still check back every few days to see what has been placed up on the blog. Cool inspiration.

laters