I made it!

Day 29 and I've fulfilled two goals. To take a photo every day and to blog daily too.

So today's photo:

We were discussing on the SE forum about how we all came by our user names. Some have very interesting tales to tell, for some it's not rocket science, for me it's a fishy tale ...

Back in the day's when I was a student I had a thing for fish. Cute fish not slimy, smelly bait and rod sorts. When I got married it seemed that people knew this - we got lots of fishy gifts, including this cookie canister thing from my sister. (Photo 29)

Anyway, when it came to thinking up a forum name it had to be something fishy. Fish blow bubbles and bubbles starts with B just like Beverley (that's the phonetical teacher in me) and in a past life I was a bubbly person. (Now I'm all grown up and sensible and far too tired to be bubbly.) So that's it - probably not an interesting tale but a fishy one atleast.

And a little look at something I've been working on this week:

I was hoping some magazine might want to publish this one - of course if they don't, I can use it here to make my blog look pretty.

Have a good weekend everyone. I'm off to 'ladies night' with the Church ladies - I think we are painting our fingernails... and I'm taking my camera cause I need photos for Janine's pamper me circle journal which should be here any day now.

Oh and Christi - the cupcake holder - it still cost way more than my modest budget would generally allow - but I'm getting good at serving up rice and peas creatively so that the grocery money can be redistributed to other ... things. (My dh reads this so I'm not telling exactly how much!)

Look what I got.

Ever since seeing this on Ilka's blog I wanted one. Well, no, actually I wanted a cupcake holder before then - from the whole cupcake revival of the SOF girls. But once I saw Ilka's I wanted one like her's and she even told me where to go.

So I was in Spotlight today (yep I go there a lot) and by chance I happened to wander through the clearance area. And I found it - on special even! Well, I couldn't leave it there now could I? So I pick up the box and Rebekah says "What you're getting it? It's not fair adults get everything they want!" So out of fairness I told her I would put it on the top of the fridge till I've 'earned' it. (Just like the kids do when they desperately want something.) Only, the thing is - the top of the fridge is the only place it will fit anyway - so it will live there... except when I get it down on Sunday when I make cupcakes for afternoon tea!

Todays photo:


How to apply lipstick. It's the latest fashion ... honest!

Busy day and I have a layout on the go so trying not to spend too much time here at the computer.

Funny thing about Penny.

She got lost!

I spent ages searching the house. Finally found her in Jessi's drawer - next to her t-shirts! I don't think she was hiding her on purpose. More a blonde moment - like when I put the hairbrush in the freezer...

Playdough

2 cups Flour
1 cup Salt
4 tsps Cream of Tartar
2 tablespoons Oil
2 cups Water
Food Colouring

Put all the ingredients in a pot. Heat gently and turn slowly until it is cooked. (It may go lumpy at first but evens out later and leaves the sides of the saucepan when ready.)

Thanks for your comments on the homework issue. Alexander came home with a new concept in 'homework' today. Meet Penny.

The kids in his class have turns taking Penny home for the night. They have to write a story in the book to record Penny's adventures.

Of course Alexander didn't see this as homework and completed it mostly all by himself. But it gave me a good insight as to where he is at in terms of composing a story, spelling the tricky words and forming his letters - gotta work on those capital L's that pop up in the middle of words!

Now that's homework worth doing.

Homework

OK so I'm lacking inspiration for my photo today - just as well I signed up for a short month!

This is the first time Alexander has brought home a homework sheet. I wasn't expecting it, and I'm not ready for it. I was happy with the reading book and a few little spelling words. Not sure I'm going to manage any more than that. Not sure he will manage any more - he comes home from school grumpy and tired the last thing I want to do is make him do homework!

Maybe I'm over-reacting - his is the loose sheet, there isn't really a lot on it. Not compared to Rebekah's which is the sheet stuck in the book. I think it is more to satisfy the year three kids in Alexander's class. Most of the year three's are getting Rebekah's homework sheet.

I know it's been discussed on other blogs but tell me here:

Does your child get homework, what do they have to do?
How do you manage it?
Do you think it's worth it? I mean are they actually learning something or just keeping busy?
And if you don't have kids - lucky you! No - I mean lucky you don't have the homework issue...

She Scraps.

Well ... if you can call one layout in a weekend scrapping! I think it was the combination of the heat and not feeling well that made it rather hard to stand at my table and do anything useful.

I have a layout that I really need to get done - but have no inspiration for. It's bothering me. So I figured I'd have a go at the SE Friday night challenge just to get me going and then I'd be right.



Gotta go try that other layout now.

And the photo of the day - self saucing chocolate pudding.


Not the most eye pleasing pud but tastes good!

Just Another Lazy Saturday

A little bit of newspaper reading. Pikelets and jam for lunch. An afternoon nap - still not feeling 100% well...

Polly Pocket Goes to the Zoo

I've heard it said ... that when kids have friends over it's easier cause they entertain themselves.

Not for me!

I'm constantly trying to get Jessi to leave them alone and end up spending my time playing Jessi games. Today it was Polly Pocket and the animals. Maybe it will be better when she's a bit older...

I made some cards this week which I've put up on the Fiskars Blog. That has been pretty much all of my creative efforts this week - this cold has really taken a lot out of me. I even had to sit down and have a rest after each card!

Have some layouts coming together in my head though, so hopefully will get them done over the weekend.

Look what I did today!

I've been wanting to do this for ages. The post on Scrapscene this week helped to get me thinking about how it would work at my place. Then I got the latest Spotlight flier in the post and saw 40% off. So I was there at 9am this morning and came home with two of my very own rails.

It took all morning, and I had to go down to the garage for the man tools - my girly tool set just didn't cut it. But I got them up and I reckon they look pretty darn good with my layouts hanging off them.



I really need to tidy up the rest of the corner now! I guess I'm thinking people will look up to my layouts and miss seeing the mess on my table and surrounding areas.

Almost Forgot

After 19 days of daily blogging I almost forgot to post today. As I said when I started Janine's photo a day challenge - the photo part was easy it's the blogging part I've really had to focus on. I'm feeling a little frustrated that in 19 days there has been no layouts to share - what little I have done in the last few weeks can't be shared here yet. I've really got to find some more scrapping time.

Today's photo - my toothless six year old and his toothfairy windfall.

And some photos for Mich from the pirate party of 2006:

The cake.


The treasure chest.


Can't remember the name of this game but the kids had to steal the keys and the kid with his eyes closed had to guess who did it.

Parent Helper

Rebekah's class went on a trip to the beach today. They spent the whole day learning about surf and sun safety, playing on the beach and doing a little boogie boarding.

As a parent helper I had to be prepared to go in the water. I'm glad the sky looked like this for the whole day:

The cool southerly breeze wasn't so great, but it made for some fun waves atleast. I think I would have enjoyed myself if I didn't have a nasty little cold.

Ruled by the Clock

Today was one of those days - the sort when I had a constant stream of drop offs and pick ups to do. All with awkward gaps of time in between - not long enough to go home but I needed to do something.

So I picked up a copy of Up2Scrap and managed to grab moments here and there to browse through and build up my inspiration stores. I wonder if it would be worth setting up a portable scrap desk in the back of the car....

Fun Run

OK so I actually walked! 7km's in 70mins - I think. Will know for sure tomorrow when they publish the results in the paper...

Saturday

We went to the fair at Petone today. Crowds of people and stalls for miles. Didn't actually find much there but did stop at those clown thingys with the open mouths. We each had a turn feeding it a ball and ended up with this as a prize.

Day Fifteen

A tissue paper flower.

Girls and Boys Rally started again last night. Given that I had procrastinated so much and we didn't have a leaders meeting beforehand I had to organise the whole night myself.

I based it around Valentines Day - which of course you would do given that it was the 14th of Feb and all. So we played rob the nest with those heart shaped message lollies. We had a treasure hunt for red jellybeans and cardboard hearts cut out with my fiskars shape cutter thingy.

The cardboard hearts had a memory verse which they had to figure out. Then I talked a little about how God is Love and how they can show love to others by being kind and thoughtful etc.

Then we made these tissue paper flowers. On the leaves (cut from the fiskars shape thingy again) they wrote out the memory verse so they can learn it at home. Some had trouble with the scrunch and turn technique but we got there in the end. Everyone had a perfectly unique flower to take home. (Some more unique than others!)

For supper I made heart shaped biscuits of course with a choice of pink or chocolate icing.

Might just organise that leaders meeting now so that I don't have to do it all myself next time!

And I've been doing real scrapping this week too.

I can only show you sneak peeks at the moment, unfortunately.

But I've been having fun and loving the process.


Today was a great scrapping day. I had no other pressing things to do. Jessi played happily behind me with a family of pretend butterflies. I scrapped all morning with her happily chatting non stop about everything. Every so often I would have to stop and cut a bit of sellotape for her or pat her pet dinosaur. It's the times like this I'll miss when she goes to school next year. I plan to make the most of this year!

Oooops.

I've had a couple of 'duh' moments this morning.

The first was this:

Kelly awarded this to me a few days ago and I'd temporarily forgotten about it. Hey - it's been a busy week, I've had stuff on my mind... So anyway apparently this is a funky blog - thanks Kelly!

I've gotta admit, now that I've developed a daily blogging habit I'm enjoying writing stuff here - and it doesn't take half as long to write as it used to. I still have the slight problem of having a brilliant blog post composed in my head but when I actually sit here to type it up - the words all seem to get lost somewhere between my head and my fingers.

Anyway - because the funky blog thing is a tag, I need to pass it on. Which brings me to the second 'duh' moment of the day.

Yvette - I award the funky blog thing to you. Yvette has recently changed over to wordpress. I knew that but somehow didn't update my bloglines list. So I've been missing out on reading her funky blog for a week - duh me! Anyway, it's fixed now and I'll be checking out her funky blog regularly again.

Valentines Day

You know that the photo a day thing is taking over when ....

You take a photo of breakfast before sitting down to eat!

Or maybe that's just a sign of a dedicated scrapper wanting to remember another moment in time...

Finally a (small) creative share!

A card.

Made for NZ dares - use a photo on a valentines day card.

And my random photo for today...

This is what the dining room table looked like at 2pm today. Laptop, mail, kindy notices, lucky bookclub things, an abandoned barbie doll, shells and pinecones from kindy artwork and the new jk catalogue.

I love the inspiration that's in these kinds of kids clothing things. Check out the owl:


The colour combinations and embellishment ideas all go into my head for later scrapbooking use. Loving that colour they're calling dark teal too.

An apple a day ...

...well, an apple for day 12 atleast.


It's always very exciting when the first royal gala apples of the season hit the shops. For weeks now, I've been putting up with those nasty, floury versions. But this week the 'crunch' is back!

The books.

I was going to take a pic of the huge pile of curled white paper backing from the coverseal but I guess the actual books are more interesting.

We went for the clear stuff this year - purely from a cost point of view. The kids got to choose a pack of stickers and then they went through my rather large pile of scrap papers to add a little colour.


I tried really, really hard to keep it simple and not spend too much time on them - I have 'real' scrapping to do!


Thanks for all your comments on the birthday thing. I have considered creating birthday parties for a job but in all reality I go to all that trouble for my kids cause they are mine and I love them. Not sure if the same craziness would take over if I didn't know the kid.

For now I'm happy trying to keep up with my few scrapbooking commitments... speaking of which - gotta go scrap something!

The Birthday Report

Jessi had a great day yesterday. Thanks for all your birthday wishes. She is now well and truly four and looking forward to the day she will be 8.

So the details:

The cake.

I was going for a butterfly theme but then I remembered I'd already done the pretty butterfly cake when she turned two. So I made a flower cake and added the three butterflies I found at the garden centre where we had coffee on Thursday.

Not the best cake ever - had issues with the dark chocolate cake crumbs getting in the yellow icing. Jessi loved it though, yellow is her favourite colour and she is a lolly monster from way back.



The cupcakes.

I had great plans for amazing cupcakes since before Christmas when the Scrap of Faith girls had the big cupcake revival. But time only allows for so much creativity and I ran out. And I also couldn't find any suitable cupcake papers, the shops always have cupcake papers - just not when I need them for Jessi's birthday.

So anyway I used Mum's old icing set so that made them look fancy without any real effort.

They iced butterfly biscuits like I gave out at kindy too.

Note the blue eye makeup she's wearing - I can thank Charlize's mummy for that!

The party bags.

Not sure what made me decide to sew 6 of these, but I did. I made a couple of larger versions using funky teatowels for Christmas presents. See instructions here.

They are a lined bag - and I guess reversible actually. Nice and easy to make if you can remember how to put the inside and outside together and include the straps at the right places.

They looked pretty cool all lined up around my scrap space waiting for the glitter on the butterflies to dry. But I forgot to take a photo then so I took these of Jessi's one today.



The wings.

Really quick and simple with bits of elastic sewn in the middle and ends for the arms. The girls loved them and they looked especially cool when they were dancing around for the 'freeze' game.

So, that's probably all the creative parts of the party covered. Imagine how over the top it would become if I spent more than two days preparing!

And now, my scrap space is calling ... but first I have a million school books to cover.

My baby is four!

Just a little busy today...

Butterfly biscuits for kindy. Not exactly professional looking but that's what you get when you have a nearly four year old helping and not much time and my hands were getting sore from squeezing the icing out of the tubes. The icing was great though. Angela sent it over from England, it's called writing icing.

They went down well at kindy - I don't think the kids really noticed they were wonky before stuffing them into their little mouths.



These flowers looked so pretty at the supermarket I brought them home for Jessi. They were a real hit she loved them. She kept saying 'For me?' 'My flowlers' and she danced around the room with them.

Have you seen the fiskars blog today? The love letters I made for Karen's wedding are there today. Go see!

Right off to do some more sewing/baking party prep.

Schools Back!

And I didn't even think of getting a pic of the scrubbed faces, short haircuts and new bags.

Actually only one kid has had a haircut - Alexander needs one but I haven't managed to get it done yet, only one has a new bag - no sense in replacing a perfectly good bag just cause it's the start of a new year and they probably both had breakfast on their faces cause I don't remember making them wash them!

But I was pretty darn proud that I was super organised this morning, even had time to put a load of washing on and walk them to school.

It was rather nice to then meet up with Kelly and Janine for coffee and a c.j handover (will be even better when Jessi gets to morning kindy).

Made a quick visit to Spotlight today when Jessi was at kindy.

So tonight I'm going to whip up 5 pairs of butterfly wings and 5 little take home bags. Yep - I'm one of 'those' parents. Maybe a little over the top but I like birthday parties and she'll only turn 4 once.

Clean

My Space

This is a corner of a photo I took for Tanya Leigh's circle journal. She wanted to see my scrap space - actually she wanted to see me in it too!

You don't get to see me here but you do see - the horrible orangey curtains in my lounge, the layouts I currently have on display, the basket I got for Christmas - haven't decided what exactly I want to keep in there yet.

I did a quick tidy up before taking the photo but it still looks messy. I think I might need to invest in some matching storage containers - something a little more classy than the matching pizza boxes I currently have stacked up beside me!

And another yummy paper range I've found - this one from the fiskars blog. Cloud 9 Chocolate Chalet. Really sounds good enough to eat!


Speaking of the fiskars blog, you probably already know, but incase you didn't, they currently have a chance to win a rak. And did you see Donna's valentines canvas? Totally loving her style - so beautiful.

By the way - the fun colourful stuff in the last post is by Glitz Design.

It's a Monday thing.

This is something that happens every Monday at my house.

I have decided not to go back to weight watchers this year. I still intend on losing weight but I'll do in at my own pace and in my own way - eat less - exercise more! I don't need to pay $20 a week to sit round discussing this ideal - I need to just do it. Maybe I should pay $20 into my scrapping fund for each week I lose weight - and take out $20 for gaining - ouch now that would hurt!

And some more yummy product that has caught my eye recently...