It's looking a lot like Christmas.

Well, I've had a lot of fun playing with the December Kit from Scrapbook Essentials. (In between completing Janine's 12 day's of Christmas challenges.)

Loved the Cosmo Cricket Papers and the Basic Grey is yum too! Full pics of what I've been up to will be in the SE gallery on Friday, until then...

On the tenth and eleventh day of Christmas...

...

On the eleventh day of Christmas
My true love gave to me

Eleven haka lessons
Ten juicy fish heads
Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five - big - fat - pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

So I'm playing catch up cause I missed a day - should have done it on Saturday! This time Janine's prompts were about Christmas Day afternoon and Christmas Eve.

Nice photo there of my brother watching a 3D barbie movie with the kids!

In other news - I went to a wedding yesterday. Our friend Murray found himself a wife. Had a fantastic time meeting up with people we haven't seen in ages. (Got a bit sick of reciting the names and ages of our kids though!) Murray is generally a fairly happy guy but yesterday he was positively beaming - he just couldn't stop grinning.

Right, I've got more stuff to get done - better go do it!

On the ninth day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me

Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five - big - fat - pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

Well keeping in touch seemed like a perfectly suitable title for this little page. I didn't want to cut the photo down so I had to put a tag in behind to write on.

On the eighth day of Christmas...

my true love gave to me
eight plants of puhu
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five big fat pigs
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumera
and a pukeko in a ponga tree!

So family:

These are the cousins from my side of the family. The boys live in Dunedin. Joshua (the biggest one) turned eight today. Happy Birthday Josh!

The cousins from the other side were in yesterday's post. Wearing those gorgeous Christmas outfits.

I've really gotta make time for a longer blog post. I have heaps to share - haven't forgotten about my c.j which needs sharing. And also have some sneak peaks coming for Scrapbook Essentials.

On the seventh day of Christmas...

My true love gave to me
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling

Five- big-fat –pigs
Four huhu grubs

Three flax kits
Two kumara

And a pukeko in a ponga tree

Summertime:

On the sixth day of Christmas...

... My true love gave to me

Six pois a twirling

Five- big-fat –pigs

Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumara
And a pukeko in a ponga tree

Christmas Carols - well, I kinda did this one yesterday although I don't really have a favourite.

Carols by candle light is always fun (not the Wellington Stadium affair though - Carols by glow stick with very loud music, some christmassy some not, but all loud!) There is something magical about lots of people singing Christmas carols while holding real candles. I always discover that I actually only know the first verse and chorus of most of them - it pays to have the words handy if I aim to sing the whole song!

Anyway, here's my page for today:


And for those wanting to know details. It's a Maya Rd Lunch Break Chipboard Book. (Actually the Ali Edwards 'Today You' class kit from CC06 that I wasn't going to get around to using) And I still haven't done the cover - which is very unlike me - I always start with the cover! I am trying to keep the pages flat so that they still sit nicely, which is a change cause I like my lumpy bumpy embellishments! I'm using the Basic Grey fruitcake papers and Basic Grey rubons and Hero Arts Alphabet Stamps. I think that's it - keeping it simple and loving it!

On the fifth day of Christmas

...my true love gave to me

Five- big-fat –pigs

Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumara

And a pukeko in a ponga tree

What does Christmas mean to me? Well, a bit more than five big fat pigs! Although I'm sure my brother could eat that much in Christmas ham!

Yep, it's all about that very first Christmas a long time ago. I love all the tinsel and festivities that this time of year is all about but without Jesus it would have no meaning for me.

Oh and I've just filled in another space on yesterday's calendar - another birthday would you believe. What is it with people needing birthday presents when I should be shopping for Christmas presents?!

On the fourth day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me

Four huhu grubs

Three flax kits
Two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

I've got loads of empty days - I'm obviously not that busy after-all! I'm guessing those days will be filled up with all the things I've forgotten to write down or things not yet planned for a specific date - like Christmas shopping.

On the third day of Christmas...

... my true love gave to me three flax kits,
two kumera
and a pukeko in a ponga tree


I had lots of photos for this - so I had to be a bit more creative. Then I had a space in behind the photos - so Rebekah wrote a note to Santa. (I wonder if Santa shops out of the same Dick Smiths Junk Mail as she used for making her list!)















Check out the blue sky we had in Wellington yesterday. The first day in how long? We've just had a full on weekend. Gymnastics lesson, Christmas Parade, Gymnastics Show/Prize giving, Tutoring a Birthday Party at KiwiScraps, Carols By Candelight - took the kids on the train, Church/ Sunday School nativity play practise, Charlize's birthday party while Michael took the older two to work with him and I've organised most of the Christmas Party for Rally on Thursday, and lined up babysitting for R.E on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. And so it's another busy week ahead for me!

On the second day of Christmas...

... my true love gave to me two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree.

And the second day is done!

Please excuse the quality of the scan - my camera is in the car and it's cold and dark and I didn't want to go outside to get it!

This is Christmas dinner on the farm in Invercargill (a few years ago, but things haven't changed much, except that I'm 50kgs lighter!) Note how we dress up the table but we didn't bother to get dressed up ourselves. Love how the table can look all flash but we are sitting on all available chairs - the computer chair, the piano stool ... Do you remember sitting on the piano stool for Christmas dinner? That must be a tradition all of it's own in our family!

So I'm ready for day number three Janine!

On the first day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me
a pukeko in a ponga tree.

Well I've started Janine's twelve day's of Christmas thing. Got myself a plan, tried to keep it simple and I think I'll manage it!



However - simple doesn't mean quick! This page has nothing much to it, but it still took me half the night. But then I did paint the whole album too. I'm using a maya rd chipboard book. Figured this way once I start - I will want to finish and will just have to keep up. And at the end I'll have a nice little mini album about Christmas as we see it in our family.

Thanks for having such a brilliant idea Janine, you're such an angel!

It's been a while!

Yes, I'm still around - been busy that's all.

I went to a 10 hr relax and scrap at KiwiScraps last Saturday. (Can't believe that was almost a week ago) Organised by Wendy and Kirsty cause they're both leaving. Will have to look out for on-line classes with Wendy cause she's always coming up with cool altered stuff to make. Anyway I had a very productive day - 2 layouts and a noodle box - yes a noodle box!
I put 'A Friendly Face' in the layout of the day competition and won a Making Memories Crafting Apron! Thanks Wendy, Kirsty and KiwiScraps! And I got my c.j. back from Ali - will take pics and post them later.

The end of the month is always busy for scrappy deadlines - I met a few yesterday but there are way more challenges than I can keep up with.

A nice easy one I just had to do was for the daring cardmakers. Doodling on a card - Left overs from recent layouts. And their extra dare was to use a star - got that one covered too. (Another 3 year old birthday to attend on the weekend.)


I've done a couple of other layouts this week which I can't share here - yet! And I've been playing with my yummo box of goodies from Scrapbook Essentials. Hey it's the 1st today - so if you ordered a monthly kit it should be on its way! Then you too can play.

In amongst all that scrapping stuff I've been planning a Sunday School Nativity Play, a Christmas Party for Rally, packaging gifts for my RE class, preparing craft activities for playgroup ...

Scrap Camp was Awesome.

Well, it's over and I've come back to another full on week of life, but it was fantastic. Loved every minute of it - except the bit at 3am when I resorted to counting sheep to try and get to sleep!

I don't have much to show for my efforts, 3 layouts and a few cards. Basically I did what I was told to do (classes and challenges) and nothing more - so much for my intentions of getting christmas cards done. There's just something about a challenge, with a promise of a prize up for grabs, that gets me scrapping. Our table took the challenges very seriously of course - being so practiced in challenges as we are.

Loved meeting up with my imaginary friends - Kelly, Ilka, Steph, Delys , Kirsty and Megan from the DT at Scrapbook Essentials, and others too - sorry if I've missed your name off the list. Kelly is taller in real life and Delys is actually Deleese not Delis!





The Joshua layout is Faye's class, I stuck pretty much to the instructions on this one - the words at the bottom I copied off Kelly (Thanks Kell)

Little Miss Independent was a one hour challenge - had to have doodling and hand writing. One hour was a big challenge for me and some of that doodling happened after the layouts had been judged.

And the Christmas one - another challenge which I spent way too much time messing around with.

Nic's class was great too - but I'm not showing you that cause it will be a christmas present for someone. Not sure who yet!

As I said before I loved every minute of camp - only wish it had been longer!

We called in to Wanganui on the way home to see Grandad. He's looking very old - but then I guess he is! The kids kept their distance a bit - I guess we don't see him often enough, but I did managed to bribe them so we could get a photo.


I'm off to the zoo tomorrow - provided the weather behaves itself. Alexander will be disapointed if it gets cancelled. So if you've got sun please send it to Wellington tomorrow!

One more sleep...

...till scrap camp.

Sort of can't wait - but between there and here I've got such a lot to do - that I'm not actually that excited. I had this great idea that the rest of the family should travel north with me - and stay in Tokoroa while I was at camp. But it has now dawned on me that I now have five bags to pack - instead of just my own stuff. I am finding it hard enough trying to decide what scrapping stuff to take let alone having to think about the essentials (and non essentials) the kids need to take.

Still - I'm looking forward to the part when I get to be at scrap camp - without the kids - meeting my on-line friends, scrapping up a storm and having some good old fashioned scrapping fun!

I made my daring cardmakers card early this week - well, I didn't leave it till the last minute atleast. I wasn't very adventurous with my different language - quite predictable actually - but I'm happy with it. I was actually trying to figure out my card design for this years christmas cards - I usually come up with one design then vary it a bit with different papers/ribbons - but I think making three chipboard presents for each card may take a bit too long. I wonder what just one present would look like ...

I've been embroodling!

The girls on the SE forum were talking about embroodling a few weeks back - so I thought I'd give it a try. Monique came up with the word and Dallas gave us a good example - also a tip about how it helps 'anchor' stuff to the page - visually as well as literally! (Check out Dallas' blog - she has some exciting news to share.)

So anyway - you get to see a bit of my embroodling (just like saying that word) here and you get to see the rest of it real soon in the Scrapbook Essentials Gallery - as part of my very first design team assignment. Keep an eye out for when it goes up.

I have also fallen in love with black gesso paint - that stuff is amazing - sooooo essential for chipboard. Especially for chipboard books, shaped like flowers, with 10 pages in them! No more waiting for the paint to dry and then having to do another coat or two. With this stuff you just paint it on once and it's practically dry straight away, ready to go stuff!

Oh yeah - and going back to Dallas' tip about 'anchoring' stuff to a page - I had this little bit of advice in mind when I created a layout last week, and this week that same layout is flying it's way over to Australia. I submitted it to For Keeps and they wanted it! Totally exciting for me - it was one of my goals to get published in For Keeps. Of course I have to wait until something like April next year but it's still exciting.

I've just set a new goal - inspired by Megan - I want to get something on the Basic Grey web site. (Click that link and you should see Megan's awesome work.) I love Basic Grey - probably still my favourite papers. So it will be a fun goal to work towards.

Well, I had better get my head out of the scrapping clouds and find some dinner for my starving family. Until next time ....

Another year older...

... another year wiser - well, some would debate that one! Check out what I got for breakfast:

Pancakes, berries and cream - yummy. Isn't my hubby nice! Nevermind about the weight-watchers points I used up just looking at it! And of course now there's a whole bowl of cream in the fridge - just waiting to be eaten....

I'm having a pretty good day - but boy did it go fast. Not sure how that happened, I didn't even do much. Nevermind. Thanks to the lovely girls from the Scrapbook Essentials Forum for the birthday greetings, cards and gifts I have received - you guys are awesome!


And I know I've left it till the last minute again, but here's my card for the daring cardmakers dare. Sewing this time - and the buttons are from my Grandma's stash - gotta be atleast 60 years old I reckon!

Going out for dinner - gotta go!

Time for more show and tell.

I made this last week for Grace's Nana. (My kids call her Nana Harding) I was planning on making a canvas but I didn't have a lot of time so I just scrapped it like an ordinary page and then stuck it on a wooden board with the sides inked black. The ribbons go right round the sides of the board.

Took some cool photos today of Jessi and her little friend Charlize. They go to Mainly Music together - and spend a lot of time jumping up and down and squealing together.

Right, gotta go make some dinner - wish it would make itself just once in a while!

Goodbye Grace...

...and Tim and Angela. They've gone - we didn't think they'd actually do it - or rather hoped they wouldn't- but little bro Tim and Angela and baby Grace - who isn't really a baby anymore- really did get on a plane today heading for England. They've sold their house, put their stuff in storage, packed a couple of suitcases and gone. Little Gracie had no idea that she was saying goodbye and blowing kisses for good. Well, for a good two years atleast - not just overnight, or a week, or even a month, but for two years. Will she even recognise us when they come back? She'll have grown up and she'll have a little English accent. They'll have a fantastic overseas experience and hopefully they'll buy us lots of presents but we will miss them lots...

Just a quick post to put up my card making dare card. I found a white candle and drew a flower - then painted it with food colouring. (Back to school stuff) Added some poppy seeds just for interest!

My Entry - the real story!

Am I totally crazy to use a photo like that? What on earth was I thinking? I remember not more than a few months ago I had no photos of myself - it was so difficult to scrap that first page about me - and now here I am using a crazy photo like that - and putting it on my blog for all to see.

Isn't she such a beautiful princess! I had to hang this on the lounge wall to get the pics cause her bedroom wall is actually bright blue - maybe one day we will redecorate to match the mirror! The board and mirror were actually left over from the craft day I ran. We did mosaics - broken tiles and grout - I thought it was a good use of supplies I already had.







Any guesses as to how many photos I took - just to get one good one of the three of them? It was lots - and not without a bit of bribery too.

"But Mummy why do we have to lie on this white table cloth?"

"Alexander's squashing me ..."

At first when I looked at these photos I was really disappointed - I'd tried really hard but they just weren't perfect. But then I looked at them again and I began to see a layout forming. These photos show my kids as they really are - there's personality in them kids!