Weekend Fun.

Teddies in bed. I got this idea off the SOF forum. Just the perfect thing for Charlize's birthday party today. I knew she had asked for a pink teddy cake so I thought these would match well. The SOF girls are great at these kinds of ideas. The current cupcake ideas are very cool too.

And here are three of the girls at today's party. Charlize is on the right - a big four year old now. Jessi (in the middle) has an unfortunate scratch right under her nose - makes for an interesting look in photos. Maya - on the left has 2 1/2 year old twin sisters. They were so cute and both the same and I had lots of fun taking their photos.

And this one is from this morning at the Sunday School breakup. Is it an unwritten rule that when dressing up as a Bible character one must always wear a tea towel on the head? Anyway - the two girls looked cute together.

And it was confirmed that Alexander is very much like his father in yet another way... The youth group did this very powerful drama this morning and a little after the knife and the fake blood I noticed that Alexander was very white and he leaned over to say he was going to be sick. It turns out he thought it was real and was very concerned for Amanda who played the part of the girl. I had to get Amanda to show him her arms afterwards before the colour returned to his face.

Oh and I found this on Melissa Goodsell's blog, thought it would be fun to do - and interesting to see everyone's answers.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Um both! If I'm using a gift bag it's for a very special present and it will usually be wrapped as well. I just bought some very cool red, white and silver striped paper.
2. Real tree or artificial? Depends on what we are doing for Christmas. This year it's just a little fake one cos we are going away. Last year it was a nice big real one complete with that fresh Christmas tree smell.
3. When do you put up the tree? Sometime before Christmas day. I was real early this year - I had it up on Tuesday. (4th Dec)
4. When do you take the tree down? When we get around to it sometime after new years. This year I suppose it will still be up when we get back from our holiday in mid January.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? A doll that cries and sucks it's thumb.
7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yep - a couple actually. The characters keep moving around this year...
8. Hardest person to buy for? My brother
9. Easiest person to buy for? Myself...or maybe my sister and my kids.
10. Worst Christmas Gift you ever received? I'm sure I've been given a few odd things over the years but I like them all anyway because I appreciate the people that gave them.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Definitely mail - can't email a handmade card.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Polar Express
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I try to put a few things away during the year but start for real sometime in December after all the breakups/end of year activities that I'm involved in organising.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Um - sometimes maybe a box of chocolates that I don't want to eat. And this year we were just given a bottle of wine and cause we don't generally drink wine I will probably wrap it up and give it to someone who will enjoy it more.
15. Favorite things to eat at Christmas? The sweet stuff! White Christmas, Chocolate balls, Pavlova ...
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Depends on the tree - this year it's coloured flower shaped ones.
17. Favorite Christmas song? The Servant King or maybe Mary's Boy Child.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Traveling this year, last year we stayed at home.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph. Of course I can - I know how to use google!
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Usually a star but it's just been replaced by the peg angel Rebekah made at Rally on Thursday.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. When I was growing up we had to wait for Dad to finish milking the cows and then have a wash and then have his breakfast. Now we just have to do breakfast first.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Maybe not annoying but more sad ... that Christmas has become so commercialised and people don't stop to think about the real reason behind Christmas.
23. What is the “silliest” family tradition you do, or miss doing? I guess that would be the one wedge of pavlova that is left without cream cause my brother doesn't do cream.
24. Ugliest Christmas Decoration ever invented? Can't think of one actually.
25. Which looks best, theme trees or homey trees? I love the look of a theme tree, I probably don't have the patience to decorate one and given that the kids decorated ours this year - it's very homey looking. They pulled out all their favourite decorations which happened to be all the things they've made at playgroup over the years.
26. Gingerbread or sugar cookies? Sugar Cookies.
27. Do you like Fruitcake? Not particularly - but I'll eat it anyway.

And two scrappy things you may be interested in if you find you have an abundance of time leading up to Christmas and all ...

Prima has put out a design team call and they had the word 'internationals' in there.

And fiskars has a competition on at the moment with an amazingly generous prize. All this:

Grand prize winner will receive the complete Heidi Grace Designs "Jolly & Bright" collection, complete Cloud9 Design "Christmas is..." collection, a Fiskars Portable Rotary Trimmer, Fingertip Craft Knife, Compact Stamp Press, "Tis The Season" Clear Stamps, Tool Taxi, "Don't Leave me Hanging" Extra Large Squeeze Punch and 1/4" "Round the Corner" Squeeze Punch.

Three honorable mention winners will receive a Squeeze Punch of their choice of design and size.

... for making a holiday card and uploading it to their gallery. That's gotta be worth entering!

Since I last wrote...

Jessi's ballet concerts went well. Before the third one on Sunday afternoon she got the grizzles and I wasn't even sure she'd go on stage but she did, and she did well and even did the cutest little curtsy at the end. She was in the youngest pre-school group and when they came out in their little animal costumes there was a ripple of ohhhh's throughout the audience - they were so cute!

I was playing with my camera during the concert - trying out the different settings, challenging myself to get in focus photos not using the flash from my seat near the back of the theatre ... until a rather annoyed voice said 'no camera's please!' So I put it away until Jessi came out then I sneaked another few photos. I have lots of dressing room photos - spot the scrapbooking Mum!

She's the one in the middle with both arms in the air. And after the last concert - while we waited for a ride home Jessi practiced her photography skills.

Pretty good for a three year old - atleast I'm in focus!

On Monday at playgroup we had a visit from Old McDonalds farm. Another 'spot the scrapbooking Mum' moment....


Not so much crafty stuff happening this week. Apart from a few Christmas cards, tree decorations for playgroup, gift boxes for CRE, peg angels for Rally ... stuff that just happens without me remembering to take a photo.

Creating stuff.

Well, life seems to have returned to a more normal pace this week - maybe I'm just more relaxed and just taking it as it comes.

I've even had time to be a little creative - Christmas presents in mind. I got the sewing machine out yesterday. I even changed the needle cos it was blunt from only sewing paper for the last year or so. Needed to get the iron out too - had to blow the dust off it! And as a really telling sign of how often it comes out ... Jessi came along and said "Mummy what are you doing?" Then I had to answer a million questions about the 'ironer.'


I've been playing a bit over at Scrapbook Outlet with their Christmas Gala festivities. I love how challenges create deadlines to get stuff done by, then I can tick them off my list of things I was meaning to get done at some point anyway.

This is my little box I wrote the instructions for in the SE kit a couple of months ago. Just used Christmas paper this time and jazzed up the bow a bit and added glitter cause Lara's challenge was to use two types of things that sparkle.


These little gift bags were for one of Trina's challenges. I opened up my Queen and Co fontastics purse to get the template - and yes, I bought the fontastics because of the cute packaging - the letters were just a bonus!


So now I have three little packages ready to fill with something small and yummy for teachers/coaches gifts.

And my friend and I have been playing with jewelry a bit. Mostly for Chrissie presents but maybe to sell as well. She has lots of these black cord necklaces and I've been coming up with ideas to make them look cool. Just wish I had more time to play around with some more ideas.


Love getting stuff done and being creative at the same time. Speaking of which - the kids are in bed, I've gotta go make something...

Woooooosh!

That would be the sound of life going past at an alarming rate.

The last two weeks have been crazy.

• There are playgroup Christmas Craft activities to plan and prepare. Last week we did calendars with handprints. I gave them a choice of poems to put on them this is my favourite:

This isn't just a butterfly
As you can plainly see
I made it with my hand
Which is a part of me.
It comes with lots of love
just so you can recall
exactly how my fingers looked
when I was very small.

And today we made Christmas trees. The mums and dads had to help a bit but they all seemed pleased with the results.

Next week I will have come up with a tree decoration using some really funky felt shapes I ordered, or maybe a card would be cool. And we have gift boxes to decorate with glitter and other such messy stuff.

• Rally crafts and end of year events to organise. We just had our prizegiving service/ shared dinner yesterday - which went really well but took a lot of preparing. I had to be organised and order stuff like badges ahead of time so that they could be posted to me. And getting cups/trophies engraved takes a bit of planning. And then working out who earned what badge when I lost the bit of paper with those details on.... And then there was the small matter of making sure everyone had a uniform to wear - totally forgot about my own kids uniform which was still sitting in the wash pile!

Only one more rally night this year. We have a bouncy castle booked and I have a kit to make little peg angels to hang on the Christmas Tree. I suppose a special supper would also be nice. Oh and I used photos from the recent Rally camp in Stacey Julian's finishing line class at CC so I had to have that album finished for the parents to see yesterday. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph it - so there's no pretty picture for you to see.

• RE (religious education) lessons continue each week and take a bit of preparation time too. Starting on the Christmas lessons this week - more opportunity for Christmas crafts - planning for this takes a bit of thought as I have 35 kids and only 30 mins.
  

• And then there was the crazy idea of teaching the ladies group from Church a scrapbooking related project at Kiwiscraps. They made one of these:

That was on Friday night. It was fun but a bit different teaching people I know - they made sarcastic comments if I was too bossy! Lots of them bought extra supplies so they could make another one at home - some Christmas present planning going on I think. We are getting together tomorrow night too for a fancy dinner and have to do the Christmas prezzie swap thing - so I'm making a quick gift for that.


This week seems a little less busy. Jessi has her ballet concert on the weekend. Actually she has to do three concerts over the weekend and practices leading up to it.

Alexander has a couple of birthday parties to attend.

Rebekah has a school trip tomorrow and I'm parent helping - gotta bring my togs apparently!

Oh and I heard that I need to post off the Christmas presents to England this week if they are to get there in time. I found the perfect present for Grace last week when I was out shopping with Mum. I have Angela's present planned but not made and no idea what to get Tim.

OK gotta make the family some dinner before I go out to weight watchers. It will be interesting to see what affect a busy week has on weightloss. I've been too busy to exercise lots but also too busy to eat too much...

Well, the Santa parade went well. Rebekah sat and waved and behaved like royalty. I snuck out of Nic's class to take some photos at the start of the parade - so there are now loads of photos to remember the occasion by.

Crafting Connection was lots of fun. Staying in the hotel was so convenient and luxurious - not so sure about that glass wall in the bathroom - what were they thinking?

Thanks for being a great room mate Ali.

The classes were fun - even the 'chaos 101' class that I TA'd for Nic. It's amazing how much mess can be made when a bunch of ladies are scrapping as fast as they can. I'll have to take pics of the projects I did and give them a post of their own.

It was great to meet up with on-line friends and chat in real life.

It's taken me all week to recover - not sure why I'm so tired but I was kinda greatful for Louise's challenge deadline to help me unpack my scrapping bag and get scrapping again. This one is a lift from a layout by Dallas. Among other things I lifted, I really wanted to use a one word title like she had. So I spent a good part of today looking for a word that was a suitable length, described Jessi and used each letter only once. (My pack of alphas only had one of each letter in it.)


Simple - but it works I think.

Best of luck to those of you who applied for the new SE design team. The waiting part is always the hardest.

Exciting Stuff

Crafting Connection starts today. I'm staying in at the hotel, doing lots of classes and a little bit of helping out. Should be fun!

In other exciting news - Rebekah just won for herself a ride on Santa's float at the Wellington Christmas Parade this Sunday, and a new bed and $200 to spend at Farmers on bedding! How'd she win?

Well ... for some strange reason we were watching Studio Two (after school kids t.v) and they had a comp. running where the kids had to create a Christmas Stocking and send it in. The timing was tight - had to be posted to Auckland and all, but I figured it was worth a shot. So with Lara's gumboot entry to Up2Scrap last year in mind, I gave Rebekah an old Spiderman gumboot, some black gesso paint and a few Christmassy (not too precious) scrapbooking supplies. She came up with a pretty respectable boot so I wrapped it up and posted it off. (without taking a photo!)

So I got a phone call yesterday while I was driving home from Levin to make sure Rebekah was watching t.v cause they were announcing the winners and then today we got a courier package with the beautiful dress she has to wear in the parade.

Pretty exciting stuff for an 8 year old!


The gallery is up at Scrapbook Essentials. This one was the most fun to do. I'm thankful for lots of things but these were my top 10 the other night when I was working on this.


Enjoy your weekends - I plan to!

The gallery goes up today....

... so there's not much point in sneak peeks.

But I like these two so I thought I'd share them.


This one won't be in the gallery straight away, there are a couple of finishing things I want to do first.


Keep your eye on the Scrapbook Essentials gallery for the rest.

And another Grace Layout!

This one is for Louise's sketch challenge. I think you can still see the sketch in there somewhere - the papers kinda had a mind of their own. The little gold butterflies came in one of my birthday raks - thanks Julie. And the ribbon with the zigzag stitch - part of my b.day present from England - only fitting that it should be used on a layout of Grace. Oh and the papers - Urban Lily - 50cents a sheet on clearance at Spotlight.

Up 2 Scrap

Well, I've seen it with my own eyes - it's out and I'm really in it!

So I thought I'd share here too. Matching card and tag - guess which SE kit I had on my table at the time!


My off the page thingy. I started with a NZ recipe book but didn't like the way it was working out. And then Rebekah came home with her Kapa Haka uniform to be washed and the idea grew from there.

It was fun taking photos of the kids performing. Love the way Joseph posed for his Moko photo. And check out those mini poi - white plastic bags from KiwiScraps come in useful for lots of things!


And the layout.

I took the mag to weight watchers last night to show them this. The weird thing is that when I flicked through the mag at the shop - I saw the 'fat' pic of me and thought 'how embarrassing I'm in the mag' but then I realised that's not what I look like anymore. I look like the other photo and I'm not embarrassed about that.

Well, I'm madly working on my layouts for the November SE kit. I'm not sure if it's cause the papers are so beautiful, or cause I know it's my last kit - but I don't want to cut them up! Gotta get over that so I can make beautiful layouts instead.

Three more sleeps till Crafting Connection ....

So Excited!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I checked in at NZ Dare's today and found my blue and green layout there, along with my name saying I'd won a Tarisota kit!

For the longest time I have watched the kits come and go at Tarisota. I have heard others rave about their beautifulness. I have followed the Tarisota design team girls like a silent groupy - they would be one of my biggest sources of inspiration. I have dreamed. I have planned. Yet still have not had the pleasure of seeing one of these kits arrive at my door. Lets just say ... I'm so excited to have won!

And tomorrow I turn 34 - I wonder what surprises I'll find tomorrow. (Lot's of giggles and whispers behind closed doors at bedtime tonight.)

Two colours only.

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I last updated this thing. Not sure why the time goes faster at this time of year ... I guess life is kinda busy.

I've had a great scrapping day today. I got almost 2hrs without Jessi while she played at a friends, then they came here and played together - nicely, so I kept on scrapping!

So first up is my NZ Dare's layout. Use two colours only. I've used green and blue - yay for blue ink pads which help cover any white in the papers. That's my beautiful wee niece Grace walking in the English countryside somewhere far away. It's actually really hard doing layouts of other peoples kids - cos I never know what to journal about. If I was more organised I could have asked Angela to e-mail me some journaling. It's a pity when it's 2pm here it's 2am over there!

The next layout also happens to be about Grace. I have no idea what that thing is she's standing beside - I just really liked the wall behind her - the colour, the wiggly pipes, the writing.

This one is for Louise's challenge on her blog. She said no patterned paper! Well ... you could make your own - just not use any real stuff. Now, me using less than three patterned papers on a layout doesn't happen often. So I got busy and made a variety of papers to use.

• The first is the base cardstock one - I dipped a piece of string in black paint and dropped it on the card. (Thanks kindy for teaching me that one!) Then I found a bead necklace lying on the floor and tried dipping that too! I made a mask by punching swirls in some paper and used my pink paint dabber to make the swirls. I added words to follow the lines and then just a touch of kindy glitz to make it sparkle.
• The blue is just paint wiped on with a sponge.
• The dark pink - I used sandpaper to rub over the paper while it was sitting on my script stamp - so the white bits are the pattern of the stamp.
• The light pink has silver paint and silver stitching in wiggly lines.

Thanks for the challenge Louise - it was fun to think outside the 'patterned paper box' for a change.

Black and White

Well - when life gets hard - I scrap ... and keep busy.

Just had to scrap on Sunday after I found out about Grandad. Thought I'd do Louise's warm up challenge - only I didn't read the bit in the rules about grey tones, so this probably doesn't count but I thought I'd show you anyway.

It's amazing how many supplies I have in black and white - I guess I am a sensible shopper and always buy black or white ... after all they go with anything!



Thanks for your condolences by the way. The funeral was a quiet family affair. My sister and I did a bible reading (without crying), everyone placed a flower on the coffin and I added some star glitter as my final goodbye. Afterwards there was time to catch up with relatives we haven't seen in ages. Nana and Grandad were always big on family so I guess being together like that was something they would have wanted.

Oh and for future reference - when the kids go quiet and stop fighting in the back of the car it means they are about to be sick! We had two car sick kids on the way there - thank you to whoever invented baby wipes, managed to clean up the car and their clothes and still make it to the funeral on time.

I've also been keeping busy by helping pack class kits for the Stacey Julian and friends Crafting Connection. Let me tell you ... I have seen some very yummy stuff go into those kits! Totally can't wait to do the classes it is going to be sooooo fun. If you haven't registered yet there is still time - I am very tempted to add a couple more classes to my timetable - don't want to miss out on all the goodies. And if you are registered - see you there!

The end of an era...

as they say.

It is very hard to believe that a whole year has gone past since I got a phone call from Miss Meg asking me to be on the Scrapbook Essentials Design Team. I think the first thing I said was 'Me? Are you sure?' Thinking surely it can't be true - she must have the wrong person.

But it was me, and I have had a fantastic time working with some gorgeous kits, alongside some super talented chicks for an awesome Scrapbooking Company. I guess over the year I have become a whole lot more confident in my ability and a lot less worried about what people will think of me and my work.

So, anyway, with the end of my year on the team it means there is another design call out. Details here. I highly encourage all you scrapbookers to have a go. Give Meg something to think about - all your talent will astound her and she will have a hard time picking just a few for the new team. It's definitely an experience not to be missed so give it your best shot and who knows, it might be you saying 'Me? Are you sure?'

Here's a layout that you won't have seen yet. I did this for the September Kit but didn't like it, so never got around to taking a pic. I was tiding up a bit yesterday (procrastinating) and found it. I decided it wasn't so bad and besides, that's me jumping off a really high bridge - a bit like how I felt a year ago when I began my term on the design team.

So ... moral of the story ... if I can do it ... you can too!

On a sadder note: It was the end of another era yesterday. My Grandad passed away. He has been sick for sometime now (old age does that) so it was expected that he would die soon. I had hoped he would hang on till his birthday - just two weeks away. Instead he chose Nana's birthday to leave this world. (Nana died 8 and a half years ago.) The funeral is Tuesday so a trip to Wanganui will need to be taken.

I need more

long weekends. Three days is just the right length for a good weekend, especially when the sun is shining.

Didn't end up getting a lot of scrapping done. But did finish this one for the kiwi jack of the month. The original very cool layout belongs to Delys. I loved the black and whiteness of it and just had to jack the dots only I used sequins.

The photos aren't the best quality - scanned from the originals. This is my Grandma and Grandad and four of the five boys they had. (Dad is second from the right in the top photo.)


And a few photos from our visit to Percy's Reserve on Sunday afternoon:

Jessi running - anyone know how to photoshop out those horrible tattoos she plastered on her arms? Grrrrrrr.


The kids - (we swapped Rebekah for Amelia on the right - just for the afternoon)


Jessi being cute.


Feeding the ducks and baby ducklings.


Feeding Jessi!

Is it just my kids or do all kids eat the bread you brought for the ducks?

The bandanna's by the way are from Canteen. We have a kid at church who had leukemia when he was younger. It has become tradition to buy a new bandanna every year when they come out. With three kids we are getting quite a collection now.

OK, better go do something useful.

Another one to cross off the list.

I started this week with a long list of scrapbooking challenges to complete. This is not a must do list but rather a great list of suggestions. So that when I get time to scrap I have already got a place to start - some of the options are already thought out for me.

I'd been flicking through my pile of already printed photos for the last week thinking 'scrap a mood' (NZ Dares challenge) nothing had really jumped out at me until I looked again at a photo of Alexander with me in the background. So I had the photo - had the mood - and then Megan put up the Friday night challenge - so I had the ingredients. And then it was just a matter of putting it all together.


I love it when it all comes together so easily. And there is still plenty of 'suggestions' on my list in case I should get more scrapping time this weekend.

And the winner is ...

... Donna aka Deebee. I have your address on the back of the cj parcel you posted so I'll get a little something off to you in the next few days.

SALT
Yet another challenge blog that I follow. I won't say 'keep up with' cause I don't do very well at keeping up with any of them - what's that saying about the deadline whooshing past? Anyway - I have managed to do my first SALT challenge. The topic was creation, and from the moment I read it I had this song floating around in my head:

I am a new creation
No more in condemnation
Here in the grace of God I stand
My heart is overflowing
My love just keeps on growing
Here in the grace of God I stand

And I will praise You Lord
Yes, I will praise You Lord
And I will sing of all that You have done

A joy that knows no limit
A lightness in my spirit
Here in the grace of God I stand

©1983 Kingsway's Thankyou Music
Words and Music by Dave Bilgrough

So this is what I came up with. Both not very flattering photos of me but I guess they get the point across. I've decided to make a faith book in the 12x 6 size - it's fun doing something a little different from the normal 12x 12 square.

This layout is also based on one of the Becky Fleck sketches from the latest Basic Grey newsletter. So it came together nice and quickly for me.

October Kit Gallery
The kit layouts by the design team at SE have gone up in the gallery this week. So I can share those too.

OK so I would share the rest but blogger is not playing nicely. But you can go here and see more. And that way you also get to see what the other DT members have done too.

Feeling a little tired.

While I wanted to be away at SENZ this weekend, it wasn't to be and instead I was at Rally camp. Rally is similar to Guides/Scouts and I've been a somewhat reluctant leader this year (due to lack of time mostly). Despite my disorganised state we managed to take 18 kids from our Rally and joined with others from the district - about 100 kids in total. We had a fantastic time. Junk food, lots of mud and talking till late at night.

I guess the best thing for me was the realisation that I could keep up with the kids. We took them on a long walk up a hill and down the other side and back along the Hutt river. I was the leader at the front - keeping up with the kids running ahead. Keeping up! This is big - in the past I would have been the leader at the back, puffing and red faced and struggling to keep up. O.K - so I was still puffing and red faced at times but only cause I ran. And I played a game of basketball - and kept up - even with ugg boots on! It's amazing what a difference 60kgs less can make ... and lots of cups of coffee, coke zero and the occasional panadol tablet.

On the scrapping front... I have been working hard with the October SE kit. (Layouts to be seen soon.) And I did my first 6 x 12 layout for Scrap of Faith's birthday competition.
Might just have to do some more this size to match.

Oh and it was my first 'blogiversary' last week. Can't believe I've been doing this for a whole year. I'm feeling kinda generous right now, so how about everyone leaves me a comment on this post and I will draw a name sometime later in the week and send out a little rakking goodness. (This is the time for all you lurkers to come out of hiding and let me know you're reading - please.)

More Inspiration

I've been trying out a few different techniques in my work recently. So I thought I'd share a few links to places where my inspiration has come from.

The first is Melissa Goodsell. I absolutely love her stuff - she's into more than just scrapbooking. Lots of stitching and check out those yummy little teacups she just whipped up. So, inspired by Melissa, I've had my sewing machine out lately - infact I left it out most of the weekend!

I've used it on layouts but also sewed up these book covers - if I owe you a P.I.F gift then you might just get to see one of these in real life sometime soon. ;o)


The next is another aussie Stephi Kemp. I'm not entirely sure how I stumbled across her blog but I love the artiness of her stuff. The collage stuff caught my eye and I also love the painted/stamped backgrounds which she actually describes how to do - very helpful for someone who wants to give it a go too. Must buy some twinkling h2o's cause I really, really like that look.

And some more arty inspiration comes from Marieke. I was rather taken with a fairy layout she did for Scrapgal called believe. It looks deliciously messy with paint and masking.

I was working on a layout over the weekend and thought I might try this masking game with the paint that comes with this months add on kit at Scrapbook Essentials. I was looking around for something to use as a mask and eventually decided to try using a wide piece of lace. Love how it turned out - just gotta master that 'simple' look cause by the time I'd finished the layout I'd covered most of it up! LOL

Anyway, on Marieke's blog she has put up a challenge for World Card Making Day. She said to use accetate and paint. And cause I had those things out for the layout I'd just finished - how could I not have a go!

So, for the first card I used the same lace as a mask and used the teal paint first, then moved it and used white paint. I've smeared kindy glitz and dimensional magic on the other side of the accetate which gives it a sparkle. Then added the bits of Scenic Route paper and the rubons. Trying very hard to keep it simple and not cover up all the paint!


It kinda looks messy it the pic - it's really hard to take a photo of an acetate card, (specially when you have a 3yr old helper) but it does look better in real life - honest! The paint has a lacey texture to it which looks kinda cool and there's way more sparkle too.

And cause I had a bit of acetate left - thought I might as well make another one. This time I painted in teal and then stamped the words in white. Added the circles and rubons and then discovered I could scrape the paint off again which is what I did around the top circle.



That's another two cards to add to my stash, so thanks for the challenge Marieke. :o)

Eye Candy

I just found the most coolest shop ever!

It's a combination of all my favourite Etsy shops all grouped together and in real life! For those in Wellington it's in the Marsden Village shops in Karori and it's called Inky Pinky Inc.

I so wish I had my camera with me, cause the inspiration was amazing. They had an awesome display with the coolest cake plate in the middle - I mentioned to Alexander that he might want to show Daddy this shop sometime before my birthday!

There was handmade jewelry and acrylic letters (like wooden ones but see through and just asking to be altered) and felt stuff - oh the felt stuff! So much inspiration!


I found these very cool felt butterflies and some felt ribbon - which I just had to buy. I took note of some very neat felt brooches and cute felt bags.

Definitely worth another trip to Karori in the near future I think.

The cards in the pic above are some of last nights creations. I suddenly had a need for a few cards so had to visit the daring cardmakers to get some inspiration. Very simple - I pulled out some Tinkering Ink paper, some wiggly scissors and black rubons. One had to have a frame on it and the other a postage stamp.

Really pleased with the postage stamp idea. Grandma had given me these stamps some time ago - she's 93 and still saves all her stamps. I hadn't even thought of using them for creating with! So thanks for the idea daring cardmakers.

Happy birthday to Nan Jules in the deep south. Hope you are having a fab day. Expect some mail in a couple of days - just posted today from Karori!

Rats!

Today I swapped my two girls for a couple of boys from church and took them and Alexander to see Ratatouille at the movies.

Not a smart move for someone scared of rodents!

Mostly they were furry and fake looking but when there was lots of them all running together ... and they had tails ... and they moved like real rats ... uuggghh.


Should've watched the superhero doggy one!

Oh and Mrs Frizz: Those hearts in the last layout were just cut by hand. Nothing fancy, just my trusty scissors and a craft knife for the insides. :o)