Another Christmas over...

It is my favourite time of the year, but it is also an incredibly busy time. I look forward to some quiet days after New Year's.
We had a very late xmas Eve at my sister in laws place but it was a great party and the kids loved Santa's early visit. Christmas Day was at our place and everyone was very tired (especially the kids and ME :)). The kids loved their scooters that Santa brought them and Max also got a guitar that he loves (will we regret this?? :) Boxing Day was great. We had a relaxing day around the pool with some friends and far too much food again!
Today I will be picking up a friend from the Airport that I haven't seen for 20 years. Our mum's were school friends and always stayed in touch. We used to spend time together when we were teenagers but moved into different directions after finishing school. It will be interesting to see how we have both changed.
I hope you all had a great xmas and don't forget to check out my website...

Designing Memories

...we will have the first Kit up for sale on the 15th January!
Enjoy the holidays!

Exciting news...

I have finally taken the plunge. Those who know me will not be surprised as I have been toying with the idea for a long time.
I'm starting a Kit Club. I've had a website for a couple of years now and all I really had to do was change the content. Well it's done. The first Kit will go for sale January 15th. I'm excited and also a bit anxious to see how it will be received. A lot of product research and planing goes into a project like this. Well here is a sneak peak...

Designing Memories

Have a good weekend!

One thing ends...

...and another one will soon begin. My little girl had graduation last Friday. She loved being up there on the stage and singing all the songs as well as getting her certificate. She had a great time at Kindalin, loved all the crafty activities and made many friends. I hope she will like school as much, but I don't think I need to worry. Unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out too well but with a few adjustments and a filter they should still be usable.


And here is a little share...a LO I did with a Becky Higgins Sketch.

I'm also working on something exciting and hope to be able to share soon :)
Have a good week!

Not long to go now

...until Christmas! It is my favourite holiday of the year. I love how excited the kids get doing little things like decorating the tree. I really look forward to staying home for Christmas Day this year. It means more work looking after guests but we will keep it small. At least the kids can play with their new stuff and we don't have to drag them out somewhere.
A couple of LO's I did with the December Kit from

Cocoa Daisy.

It will be on sale from December 1st. Pink and lime green, it is just full of yummy goodies :)

Big Congratulations!

...to the new Elite Team...Erica Glover, Susan Doyle, Juanita Walker and Sarah van Wijck!
For Keeps picked a very talented group of girls. I'm sure we will all be inspired by your work.
And thank you to Nic, Amelia ans Steph for being such good 'Team Mates' throughout our Elite year! It was certainly a year of growth for me, personally and in my scrapbooking.

In other news, I had 3 wisdom teeth removed yesterday (I'm sure you all want to know lol) and feel remarkably good. Apart from having to eat mushy food that is. I was going to ask if I could take the gas bottle and mask home after we had finished but unfortunately I couldn't talk.
On Friday I'm going to see U2 in concert at the Telstra Stadium. Looking forward to it :)
There is a competition going on at

Cocoa Daisy

where you can win a free Kit for 3 months!! It is so worth it. All you have to do is come up with an idea for the name of our Design Team :) Easy...
And finally here is some work I've done for 'Addicted to Craft' with products of the new french company 'Rouge de Garance'.
Very yummy papers and Rub-ons!

Live

Cocoa Daisy

is live!! Go check it out, it is a wonderful Kit!

Do you recognize me??

We went to a Halloween Party on Saturday, my first ever, and it was so fun! The hosts, an american couple we met through the kids daycare, went through an enourmous amount of trouble decorating the whole house and making little cakes with orange icing.
The new FK is out and has an article on Kits in it. It was the most fun assignment of the whole year :) I just love kits and can't get enough of them. Here are a couple of peaks...


The only disappointment was that the colours didn't really come up too well.
Have a good week everyone...

One month later...

This is the longest I went without blogging...I guess I try to spend less time surfing the net and reading blogs. I feel I've been wasting so much time just clicking on links and all the sudden it is a couple of hours later! My workload is quite full on at the moment and that is the way I like it. But it means I have to manage my time a little better.
I was asked to join the DT for

Cocoa Daisy

, a new Kit Club that will launch their first Kit in November. It is an exciting opportunity to work along side some very talented ladies. I absolutely adored the first Kit and here are a couple of sneak peaks.


I've read the other day on

Suz's

blog that she entered the Awards for Excellence. She is my hot tip for a spot on the next team. Love your work Suz :)
Memory Trends just finished and there are some cool new products coming our way soon. I really love the stuff that

Karen Russell

is creating at the moment.
Have a good Sunday:)

Layouts

First I want to thank everyone for the kind words I received for my Runner-up position in the MMM. I'm truly greatful for so much support from my scrapping friends :) I've had some time to digest the news and still feel so amazed by it. I can't wait to see where this journey will take me...
In other news...the new fabulous October Kit is up at OPAAT (the link is in my sidebar) and it is full of Urban Lily papers and embellies, some KI papers, ribbons, fabric, rubons, stickers and the new Urban Lily Sugar Cube. It is so worth checking out!
Here are a couple of LO's I did with the Kit.
The weekend is nearly here :))

My husband came home with these flowers today. Isn't it just the sweetest thing that he understands just how much being a Runner Up means to me? I seriously had no idea until this morning when I found an e-mail in my inbox from Amelia, who also got Runner Up. Huge Congrats to you Amelia! I was hoping to get into the top 50, especially since this was the first time I've entered Memory Makers Masters. But being in the top 20 is just a little unbelievable. You couldn't wipe the smile of my face today :) Who knows what will come of it. I'm looking forward to the opportunities along the way.
Thanks to everyone that was so quick off the mark and wished me well :)
Have a good weekend.

OMG!

Just found out...I made Runner Up at the Memory Makers Masters Contest 2007! Top 20 out of over 500 entries! I will have to post later because I would just be going on and on right now :)
Just a little excited right now!

Happenings

Sticky yellow crusty eyes greeted me this morning. Nice :) Off we went to the doctor to get some drops.
Yesterday I had my first class at the local scrap store. I'm so happy I've got this opportunity to teach, I'm really enjoying it.
Some people have already re-booked for my other classes. I'm taking this as a good sign.
In other news...had fun doing this LO for the Becky Fleck

Pagemaps

September newsletter. Great site for some inspiration. Check it out!

I also have a couple of LO's in the latest

Scrapboxx

newsletter as the Guest Designer for September. I was lucky enough to meet Maria and some of the lovely and talented girls from the Scrapboxx DT at Kiwiscraps. Hi Maria, Nic, Zina, Caroline and Roz :) It was great meeting you!


Hope you all have a great week!

some news :)

I haven't been blogging for about 3 weeks...again. Kiwiscraps has been and gone and I have been so busy doing scrapping related things. I will start teaching on Monday at a new local Scrapstore 'Remember Me when'. If you are local drop in and say hello. It is located at Dural Business Centre behind McDonals. I will tech 3 classes per week to start with. Very excited about this as I've been looking for the right store to teach for a while now.
I've also been lucky enough to be approached for the new DT for 'Addicted to Craft'. They are a Wholesaler and have just been bought by Luisa Gibson who literally lives around the corner so it's great working with people that are so close by.
They are my scrapping news that I'm pretty excited about :)
I haven't been so lucky in other regards. Let's take this morning...I walk out the door with the kids to head off to Daycare and discover that our German Shepherd pup has totally chewed Romy's bike seat (that is her new bike she just got for her birthday 6 weeks ago)! So she was devastated. Then I reverse the car out of the driveway (that is the car that we had an accident with a few weeks ago and just got back two days ago from the smash repair), the kids fighting in the back which is always very distracting, forgetting the bin is still outside from yesterday's pick up and drive into the bin with the side of the car leaving some lovely scratches :( Not happy. Steve is away for a couple of days and I can't reach him on his mobile because he is in Uluru and hasn't got reception. Nice.'
Anyway, there are worse things that could happen. I need to look at it with the 'half glas full' attitude.
And here is a little share just because...

Bad blogger

Ok, I haven't been blogging very much lately. Have been struggling with a few things and just generally been feeling a bit low.
I guess we all go through these patches. I don't have any work to share either, although I'm snowed under with assignments for the next month. This is what keeps me focused on a bad day.
I did my first online class at Shop and Crop on Friday and it was more fun then I expected. I enjoy teaching in a real class environment so I expected this to be a bit different. And it was, but I still had to be focused 100% of the time. It was great fun and I hope the girls all enjoyed it. Leave me a comment if you are dropping by :)
On Tuesday we went up the Central Coast to my father-in-laws place to see Tilly. Tilly is a gorgeous little calf that was rejected by her mum and now is being bottle fed. She is adorable but wouldn't stand still for 5 seconds for me to get some decent pics :)


I'm looking forward to Crafting Connections in Sydney in a couple of weeks time. I'm planning on having a good time doing some classes on the Saturday and then staying in town overnight. Nothing to do but scrap and meet old and new friends. Can't wait! I will share one LO that is in the latest FK. It was done totally digital. Loved playing around in Photoshop.

Thank you Amelia, Nic, Zina and Ngaire for leaving a comment on my last blog. We have all recovered from the incident :)
Talk soon.

One second...

...and the world could have changed for us on Saturday. We were on our way to drop the kids off for a sleep over. There was a small car coming towards us. Everyone was travelling normal speed. Then a young guy came out of a side street with his ute, he wasn't looking ahead, he was looking down. And then he drove straight into the car on the other side of the road and pushed it into our car. It all happened so fast. Thankfully nobody got hurt. Our car is a write off and so is the other car that got pushed into our car. The Ute is fine and the driver said his shoe laces were caught in the gas pedal. When we looked at the car afterwards we were just amazed that nobody got hurt. It made me think how quickly our life could have changed. It only takes a few seconds. I'm still feeling a bit shaken here and just grateful that we were all ok.

Last one

I've done my last LO for this month for the Everyday Moments comp. And it was real fun too. I've played around with the photo digitally first and then the entire LO is actually done on photo paper. The frame and the Fleur de Lis have been added in Photoshop. Sometimes I like combining traditional scrapbooking and digital.
Anyway I better get going...we are going to Steve's mum's 70th birthday tomorrow and I've got a million things to do before then :)
Hope you all have a good weekend!

Where do I start?

I haven't blogged for 10 days and so much has happened in that time. Well, nothing too much unless you count my little baby girl turning 5!!! I can not believe she is 5! So I have been busy buying and wrapping presents and Steve made the most beautiful cake. What a great effort this was and Romy was soooo happy!

She had a great little party with only a couple of friends and Grandma and Grandpa coming for afternoon tea as well as Aunty Jenny. There will be a bigger party for all her friends from Kindy at the end of the month.

On to other stuff...Have you signed up for the online class at

Shop and Crop

yet?? The date has changed and the class will now be held on the 4th August 11.30am. It will be a fun girly project we are doing and here is the sneak peak again...

My projects for the August Kit from

OPAAT

have been so much fun.
We used some of the new KI papers and embellihments. Go and check out the kits, they are so full of great stuff.



Back to watching 'House' now...:))

Weekend...

I love weekends when there is nothing on. Last night we went to a very casual dinner with the kids to a friends house. Relaxing and fun. And today we went out to lunch and then took the dogs to the park so the kids could have a run in the playground. We all had a great time enjoying a beautiful winter day. Not much scrapping this weekend but I did take some great shots at the park and also yesterday when the kids opened their birthday parcel from Germany. So I can feel some layouts coming up :)
Finally I'm able to share the layout I did in Karen Ridgeway's online class last weekend. I pretty much stayed with the original since I'm not much of a doodler. But I really like the page and the layout is now sitting up in my daughters bedroom.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

A Start

I've mentioned in my previous post that I've scrapped two layouts over the weekend for the Everyday Moments comp that 'For Keeps' are running. My album size will be 8x8in. Here they are...


I'm a tired scrapper tonight so I will go and get some sleep.
Say hello if you are dropping by my blog :))

Lots to...

...share and do :)
First up I want to share my excitement that I will be teaching an online class this month for Shop and Crop. Thanks Sasha for the opportunity. The class will run on Monday the 24th July from 11.30am till 2.30pm. We will be doing a very girly altered Dome tin and a mini book that fits inside the tin. Here is a sneak peak... And to register you have to go here...

Shop and Crop

If you have a little girl in your life then this workshop is definitely for you :) So come and join me!
I've had an extremely busy scrapping related weekend. Yesterday I went scrap shopping in the morning with a couple of friends and then we headed back to my work office where we regularly scrap (normally on a Friday night). So yesterday we had a day crop where I managed to finish the first two layouts for the 'Everyday Moments' competition that "For Keeps' is organizing. I will share them later in the week when I had a chance to scan them. I'm not sure if I will have the time to do three layouts each month and I'm not sure whether I'm going to enter the album in the comp but I really do like the idea of ending up with an album that makes me scrap the everyday moments. That's what our lives mostly consist of and we should not overlook them.
On Friday my layout that I did as part of the Celebrated Scrapper for June was up on the

Blue Bazaar

Homepage and I was so happy to see that it fitted in well :) The layouts this week where all stunning (as they are every week). As I mentioned the theme was Fabric and I was a bit lost at first, until I found a dress that my daughter had outgrown and that had those beautiful, colourful butterflies on it.
And finally today I did an online doodling class with

Karen Ridgeway.

We did a beautiful girly layout that I need to finish and will also share during the week.
So that leaves me a happy, busy but content scrapper:)

Back to Basics

Apparently FK issue 44 is out. The theme for the ET project in this issue was old and new. It was a coincidence that just at this time Steve found some old pictures that showed him when he was the same age as Max and pretty much in the same situation as well, on Santa's lap. This layout is also one of my favourites because I went back to basics.
My dad turned 60 on the 19th of February this year and I decided on a whim to fly to Germany for a week to be there for the big day. The only problem was that I had about 5 assignments due straight after I got back. So I packed a few basic supplies and got really organized in terms of what paper I was going to use etc. And this layout is one of the projects I did just using a pen, some rub-ons and a stamp for the diamonds. Pretty simple but quite effective I think :) By the way buying supplies in Germany wasn't an option since there is not much around in terms of scrapping products. Looking forward to having a good look at the mag when I get my hands on it...

A good thing

If you haven't heard about it by now then you must go and read Ngaire's blog

here.

I'm talking about the '2006 Ultimate Scrapbooking Raffle in Aid of Breast Cancer Research'.
The fabulous Ngaire is organizing a fundraiser for this worthwile cruisade against Breast Cancer. Please go and check out her blog and make a donation. And that is where I'm off to now...making a donation. Come and join me! There are also some awesome prizes up for grabs!

Fabulous

Had a fabulous crop night yesterday but I'm a little tired today...staying up until midnight is obviously a thing of the past because I seem to suffer the next day. I managed to sneek away this afternoon though for half an hour for a little nap :)
Here is another LO created with the fab July kit from

OPAAT.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Mine is very quiet and uneventful and that is how I like them. Nowhere to go and nothing to do...it's bliss.

Quick post

I'm off to a crop tonight with a few friends so this will be a really quick post. Just wanted to post a layout I did with the July kit from

OPAAT

. I've only used products from the kit, there is so much stuff in them!
Have a great weekend!

It arrived!

I'm talking about my first kit from

OPAAT

that I get to play with! Check it out, so many goodies!

Not much else happening this week. Working on a few projects, an online class for next month. Will tell more soon :)
Feeling tired today so I will take myself to bed and get some sleep instead of blog hopping...night, night.

Class Kits

I have something else to share that I really enjoyed doing...I've designed a class kit for

Aussie Scrap Source.

You can view the July class kits on their website now and pre-order.
I hope to be doing some more of these. It was real fun.
These kits basically get sold to retailers so they don't have to design their own classes. It helps everyone. The retailers save time and the people taking the classes get fresh ideas every month. And I get to play and have fun :) It's a win for everyone.
So here is the July kit I designed for Aussie Scarp Source. Go check it out and tell your retailer about it. Have a good weekend everyone!

Sooooooooo excited!

I can finally let the cat out of the bag...I'm one of 6 girls announced for the new DT at

One Page at a Time.

OPAAT is a kit club in the US with some awesome monthly kits.
I have been in love with kits ever since they came on the market. So I'm really really happy to be part of one now. The girls at OPAAT are super friendly, go check it out. I can't wait to get my first kit and start playing around. Will post some pics here when it arrives :)
Better go and cook some dinner now, I think the family may want some food on the table tonight...still can't believe it...

BB newsletter

I'm happy to say that I was asked to be the Celebrated Scrapper for June for

Blue Bazaar.

Thank you for the opportunity Luise.
I had fun creating some new layouts for the newsletter and playing around with some new products...
And I will get to create a layout for the portal in the last week of June.
I'm having a lot of fun lately just scrapping the photos that inspire me. The load with For Keeps has considerably eased with the book and the calendar done and the teaching at ISC over. I did enjoy all of it though, I'm a sucker for deadlines :)
Hope you all have a good weekend!

Trying

I'm trying to back up old photos at the moment. I'm talking two years old. Everytime I'm looking through the pics I find something that inspires me and I get an idea in my head and then instead of doing a back up I end up scrapping a page like this one...I adore this picture of Max sitting on our dog Cooper.

Otherwise my week has been very slow so far with Romy being home from Kindy with a cold. Didn't get much time to scrap, hopefully the weekend will be better.
Keep an eye out for tonights newsletter from

Blue Bazaar

:)

ISC update

It's overdue I know but I only got home yesterday afternoon. What an awesome weekend, where do I start?
We got there Friday late morning and had a briefing and lunch together. It was great to break the ice between the people that hadn't met before. I shared a room with

Zina

, what can I say, she is just so sweet. Hej Zina, thanks for not jumping into my bed. Zina doesn't like sleeping alone:) Then there were

Ngaire

and

Lisa

, so inspirational and with so much more teaching experience. But they just made me feel welcome from the start. There was a great bond and atmosphere between all the tutors. I hope we get to work together again girls! Kerrin did a fantastic job of organizing the event and made sure everything ran just smooth.
Friday night was the Inspiration Crop sponsored by Sally from Delish Designs, beautiful products. If you haven't seen them before go and have a look at the website. Julia did a great job at runnung the crop and people generally had a good time having a drink and getting to know each other. I met Tamar and Suz from

Tarisota Collections.

Very friendly girls, loved meeting them. If you don't know about Tarisota Collections now is the time to check it out. They bring out a beautiful kit of coordinated products every month, and did I say the kits are beautiful?? I also caught up with Cheryl from

Aussie Scrapsource

, loved meeting her again.
There were also some girls from

Blue Bazaar

that I hadn't met before, Loretta, Juanita and of course Debbie was there. Loved meeting all of you girls!
Saturday we had classes all day and then Deborah generously invited the sponsors, tutors, class helpers and Pride staff for dinner. We had a ball.
Sunday classes again and in the afternoon presentations and thank you's to the sponsors, class helpers and tutors.
It was an exhausting weeking but so much fun at the same time. The friendships that we take away from these conventions are priceless. I hope I get to do another one some day. Then Sunday afternoon Steve and the kids arrived and we spent the next two days at Seaworld. It was such an adventure for the kids. On Tuesday on our way to Seaworld we ran into Jodie from Scraptacular in Melbourne. Jodie's kids and my kids had made friends the night before in Kids Club. So we ended up spending most of the day together at Seaworld and having dinner together back at the resort. It was great to meet you Jodie and we loved your and your mum's company. I will definitely come visit next time I'm in Melbourne.
So that is the wrap up. There is so much more to tell but my head is still a bit fuzzy from it all :)
I will share one of the classes I was teaching. It was the Scrapworks class. Hope to see all of you next time!
Copyright Pride Publishing

Cold, cold go away...

It feels like I'm getting another cold. I've just had one not long ago, so I'm not impressed! ISC is on next weekend, I will have to be better by then...
Not much to tell this week. Pretty much just the normal stuff going on.
ISC preperations going well, I'm looking forward to going.
I did some Urban Lily projects this week. I loved that their papers are so bright and colourful. I love colour!
I'm hoping to get my Jenni Bowlin kit next week. Her stuff is awesome. You have to check it out. There is a link in my sidebar.
Have a good weekend and a Happy Mothers Day!