And finally she scraps!

My poor scrap desk has been lonely lately - I even found dust on it! So I organised myself and found time to scrap.

And cause it wasn't much time the latest Kiwi Jack was the perfect thing - I didn't have to come up with an original idea, just borrow one from the amazing Christi.
And it was such a gorgeous layout to jack from. There's lots I've copied straight from her layout - including the title. I'd bought this gorgeous piece of Cherry Arte flower paper and the Urban Lily rubons a few weeks ago. It was one of those - "I have no reason to buy these but they are really cool and I want them" moments. So it's cool I actually did use them!

The photo is of Gracie in her English backyard. Obviously English grass grows as fast as Kiwi grass and my brother hasn't gotten any better at mowing it!

And then last night I went to put away the scraps from that layout and thought - 'scraps' that would be the NZ Dare for the fortnight. So I came up with this:




All scraps that I hadn't actually put away yet. I couldn't get the rubon's back in their packet anyway so it was kinda convenient to use them all up! LOL

In other news:

Rebekah now knows what a blood test feels like. I couldn't believe how calm she was when she sat in the seat and waited - then I realised that I hadn't actually explained to her that they were about to put a needle in her arm and it would hurt! She was brave though and now we wait for the results - to see if there's a medical reason for why she's tired and can't concentrate.

Alexander did his six year net test at school. (A test all kiwi six year olds do to assess reading and writing.) He jumped up a whole 12 reading levels! I knew he was really catching on to this whole reading business - he keeps knowing stuff he could only know if he had read it. Unfortunately his first year teacher hadn't kept up with his enthusiasm and had him reading books that were way to easy.

OK - Jessi is playing at Charlize's house and it's a beautiful, fine day ... I'm off for a walk.

Kelly's entry in my CJ ...

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Maryanne Williamson, used by Nelson Mandela in his '94 inaugural speech.

I so needed to read that - in fact the same message has been coming at me from other sources too. You'd think I'd have 'got' it by now, yet still I find myself hiding that light, keeping it all to myself. I'll work on it ...


And cause all good blog posts need pics to look at:
I've been playing with old photos a bit lately. I scanned a few of Grandma's pics. Check out those cute kids! Especially the blond one that kinda looks like Jessi.



And here's Grandma with a different generation of cousins 30 years later - ie. 2 weeks ago!

The Quotes CJ

Here it is - I think I worked out how to make a slide show!

I'm so pleased with it, each and every page is awesome. And such a neat keepsake created by my friends at Scrapbook Essentials ... and useful too - the quotes are great. So thanks everyone who completed a page - you are fantastic.

Another lot of candles puffed out.

Well, I now have a six year old boy in the house.

Happy Birthday Alexander.

Not the best 'scrapworthy' shot of him but hey ... this is real, this is how it happened and this is how it will be remembered. Atleast I mananged to get him to change his shirt before the party. I hadn't planned on face painting being offered and the cake looks a bit weird - but it was what he wanted and he thought it was just perfect. (It's an omnitrix from Ben 10 - in case you didn't know!)

Thanks for all your comments about my kit work. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that other people might like my stuff. So often I look at it and see all the imperfections and 'should'ves' and if only's ... and then you lot say nice stuff and I think maybe it's o.k after all. I enjoy creating and if it looks good to others then that's great too. I should just relax and be more positive.

Kelly (memoryfairy) wrote the best quote for me in my circle journal. Will copy it out here when I next get a chance and you can all benefit from it's wisdom. Must take photos of it too ....

I need more hours in the day!

Beautiful Day

The sun is shining here in Wellington and with the zoo offering $2 entry we've just spent the day at the zoo.


Kit Work
Our work is up at Scrapbook Essentials using the August kit. Lots of black and white and red. Out of one kit I've got four completely different looks, such a fun kit to work with.

A nice cheesy photo of Alexander and Me. Journaling is about how big he's getting. Angela sent me the glitter letters from Singapore last year - they've been waiting for this layout.

I really enjoyed using the tulle ribbon stuff - had to buy more actually. Here I've tied bits through some lace and then added lots of other shiny bits from the kit to make a border.


This is Angela and Grace at Pemberley - straight out of the pages of Pride and Prejudice - well, actually off the movie! Wish I was there too.


I haven't really done a lot of heritage type layouts, but the papers in the kit were just perfect for this. The photo is of my Grandma and her sister and friend. I love how in captures so much of who she was in just one single shot. The black script paper is Scenic Route I think.


This one was in the kit with instructions. I had to hide my journaling cause I didn't want it cluttering up the clean layout.


I loved these Jenni Bowlin frames but didn't quite get them on a layout, so I made them into frames which I can stand on my desk. Photos of my Nana and Grandad are very hard to come by, this one was taken at my parents wedding - they look a lot older now!


Alexander's party invites. These were a bit of a compromise really - I wanted to make something - he wanted to use the McD's fill in the gaps invite and also give his friends a picture he'd printed out. So I made these envelope thingys, wrapped the print out around the McD's invite and popped them in. He was happy, I was happy - done!

The week two layouts from the Ultimate Scrapbooker Comp are also up in the gallery. Some very amazing work there. I've just spent ages trying to pick out my favs - wish Meg would let me pick 52! The next challenge is to use no photo - should be interesting.

Broken

I got an e-mail from my sister this week - "What's up with your blog? It doesn't seem to have been updated recently..." Ah yes, it must be broken!

Just like the dishwasher broke, and the washing machine broke and so did the overlocker. Isn't it weird how everything likes to break at the same time? Only my blog isn't really broken - just neglected. I've been busy - doing stuff. (And reading Harry Potter - I've finished it now though)

And life is busy but not exciting busy and I had no pics to show so it didn't seem like I had anything worth updating my blog with.

But then it occured to me that even though I can't show you the layouts I've just completed, I can put up sneak peeks. So these are a couple of little parts of what's been keeping me busy. And no, these are not sneak peeks of my August Kit work - they are still to come ... I'd better go get busy!