It's been one of those days...

Cold Turkey, flashing Jim Beam icecubes and remote control tarantulas

Cold Turkey.   That is me.  I had my last Coke Zero on Saturday.  I've always been aware that the 1-2 cans of Coke Zero I was drinking daily contained nothing in the way of nutritional value, and if I looked at the ingredients they comprised of artificial colour, artificial flavour, preservative, artificial sweetner and nothing else to enhance my life in any way.  Except, of course, the caffeine.  Which was the reason I was drinking it.  And probably the reason I feel like I've gone without 48 hours sleep, I'm dropping things and I've developed a tired stutter.  The headache is minor, in the scheme of things.  I'm on to day 3.  It can only get better.  Surely. 

So what do Flashing Jim Beam icecubes and remote control tarantulas have to do with cold turkey?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Nothing at all with Cold Turkey and everything to do with Grumpr's 60th Birthday on Thursday.  Just what do you get a man that has it all?  And if he doesn't have it all he takes out another mortgage and buys one?  I'm going to go with the theory that if I turn up with the three kids on Thursday and remind him how incredibly blessed he is to have such a beautiful family, he won't need pressies.  Ya think it'll work?  It's all my caffeine deprived self can think of right now.  He should be thankful I'm thinking at all :o)

I got some good mail yesterday.  I recieved a copy of "Show It Off" .  It's a book about using scrapbooking and turning it into fun scrapbooking projects to show off around your home.  I completed 5 projects for this.  They ranged from a large wooden framed photo montage to an altered dressform (credited to Wendy Redshaw-Bruhns for the original idea in the book) to an acrylic album and then two large canvases.  It's a great book with lots of wicked cool projects. 

Unfortunately due to noone's fault except those at the UPS parcel service all these projects, plus 4 layouts that were recently featured in the Memory Makers magazine were recently lost in the post.  In the 6 years and hundreds of parcels I've sent overseas, this is the first one with artwork I've had gone missing.  Trust it to be this huge one with so much in it!  The art aquisitions editor at Memory makers is devastated, I'm disappointed, but mostly because 2 of the projects in there were gifts.  I'll be trying to recreate at least one of them.  When I have time. 

Oh - a competition! I nearly forgot.  Go to the Tarisota Blog post to see this in more detail and to enter.
The extremely clever and talented Jo Kneller took pics of the tarisota designers and made them into gorgeous ATCs.  Guess who is who and be in to win.  A clue.  I'm the cute one :o)

laters

Keeping the witches out.

I haven't mentioned much about our house extensions on my blog but it's been most of the reason I've been missing in action lately.  It's hard to work in a house that looks like this.

 

Yes, we still live here and actually the roof got ripped back a lot further and we have been living under tarps for 2 weeks.  But today the roof goes on.  Not before we raised the flag though.  It's a tradition in New Zealand to put a flag on the roof to indicate 3 things.  FIrstly, that the house is ready for the roof to go on.  Secondly, that the owner of said house has to put on a 'roof shout'.  And thirdly, to keep the witches out of the roof space.  We don't want witches trapped in the roof space.  Really we don't.

Here is hubby putting up the flag on Monday.  (Yep that's a steinlager box, lol)

A 'Roof shout' this might take some defining for those that aren't familiar with NZ slang.  The term “shout” is used in the Southern Hemisphere to refer to the altruistic act of purchasing intoxicating beverages for consumption by other persons. (“Hey, I bought the last round, mate, it’s your shout now.”) When used outside the context of a pub, the term can be used for anything really - I'll tell the kids I'll shout them a trip to the movies for example.  Although that has happened.. um... never. lol..I guess I'd better put on a roof shout sometime soon.

The kids were quite intrigued by the whole "keeping the witches out of the ceiling" thing.  Raising the flag to keep the witches out isn't always done these days, but I'm a superstitious kind of girl.  That flag goes up on every house we build for ourselves.

So anyway.  Scrapping stuff.
I'm having an acrylic stamp crisis.  Storage is driving me nuts.  I think it's no longer acceptable to call 'placing set of acrylic stamps in container and sitting on said container to make it close" effective acrylic stamp storage anymore.  I've been posting on 2peas and searching the internet for an answer.  I saw that this acrylic stamp company in the U.K. - Banana Frog - sells their stamps in wallets, with pull out tabs to indicate what set they are, that you then put in a magazine file type thing.  How clever.  How can this help me now? I'm not sure.  I'm dwelling on it.  Whilst dwelling on whether I need more new stamps. lol.  I kinda like this set.  And this set.

I don't think I shared this butterfly box I made for Abby.  I made it with the last Tarisota kit, and it is full of the photos from Abby's last birthday and our trip to Butterfly Creek.

Speaking of that gorgeous wee girl of mine - I have done more on her album, will share a page at a time for now - because you ladies are speeding ahead and I haven't done that much !  This is the page with her best smile.  I used my favourite paper ever right now for this week, hey Sugar by Cosmo Cricket.
I also used that favourite new punch you'll see on every project i do for the next 6 months, the Fiskars Threading Water punch, and some Heidi Swapp bling and Stampin' Up! Stamps.  I have discovered the benefits of owning some proper markers for using with stamps and look.  I even look like I know what I'm doing.  (NOte to stampers - you should have let me in on the markers thing ages ago).

that leaf is from the All Natural set. 

And here is the page.

The flower in the middle is from the Cosmo Cricket paper. 

I've added 10 more pages to the "All about me kiddies album" photo album in the sidebar - be sure to look for the icon to see more - there is more than one page of them there. Thanks ladies for sending them through - there are lots of people makign these kids albums, keep the pages coming, everyone loved to be inspired by them, especially me!

Wow ,who knew I had so much to say - I should blog more often. ;o)

Laters

Ferrero Roche and white blog.

Abby's little gems keep on coming and I don't think I have enough time to scrap the hilarious things she keeps coming out with.  This morning we dropped the boys off at school in drizzly kinda foggy weather and continued on around to the post box to post those 20th of month cheques.  I get out, post the letters and jump back in the car.  Abby says "Wow Mum!  I didn't see you.. must be that blog out there...do you know what a blog is?"

At which point I had thoughts of how kids are growing up far too fast these days.. the girl is 4 years old for goodness sakes, who's told her about blogs... all this runs through my mind in the split second before I open my mouth to answer her but she beats me to it...

"You know Mum! When it's all white out there.  It's all around us and white.  It's called BLOG.
Or could that be fog. Fog is white and all around us.  I can smile and relax that she is still 4 and will stay my little girl for a wee while yet.

I've been working on layouts for Sherry Steveson's new book called "The Scrapbooker's Embellishment Handbook" I have 6 layouts to do - I'm loving working on them, I can use any supplies I like - wooohoooooo!  anyway I picked up a piece of Cosmo Cricket paper and across the bottom it had written: Acid free, Lignin free, Fat free, Sugar free and high in Fiber.  I LOVE IT!  Love the sense of humour at Cosmo Cricket!

My playlist is getting a little boring whilst creating said layouts so I went blog surfing (truth be known I was procrastinating which is my second favourite thing behind scrapping) and I found Kylie Tout's blog.  not only does she have a great rundown of the SIA event from last weekend but I love her soundtrack too.  Poor kylie is going to wonder why I have spent 8 hours reading her blog - I'm listening to your sounds, luv!  I especially love the very touching song by Martina McBride called Concrete Angel.  Actually I hadn't seen the you-tube video until now and hadn't quite understood what it was really all about.  Wow powerful song.  Moving on to Lee Woodside's blog for some more upbeat stuff! 

So anyway inbetween scrapping and listening to music on other people's blogs (and cooking, cleaning, doing Mum stuff and watching *ahem* the builders at work here) I've been cleaning out this scraproom of mine.  I'm moving soon into a new office - sharing with my hubby - yay - and I've been looking for little containers.  they have to be square - you know how I am, clean lines and square is good - I want them to sit in drawers so I can pull out a few at a time depending on what I'm working on and (surprise surprise) put them away afterwards.  I've searched trademe upside down, I've looked through shops and stores and the only really perfect container I can find are Ferrero Roche boxes.

SO I'm not sure if this is good or bad.  I know it's a flippin expensive way of buying containers.  But I get a free 24 chocies with every container!

I guess I need to get real about it and ask if somehow, somewhere, someone has access to dozens of these containers?  No?  Setting my hopes too high here?  Someone in the www has to owrk at the ferrero Roche container factory.  O.K. I may be pushing it - but please keep me in mind if you see these containers going to waste OR if you can tell me where I can get some similar.  They have to be clear.  And rectangle/square. 

Hugs going out to the Oregon girls today.  Just because.

Laters

Torrential rain

I sit here on my laptop catching up on the overflowing inbox that calls me even when I'm in the deepest sleep, with the thunder and lightening around and the rain pelting down.  Thank goodness the laptop can run on battery, too many good computers have been lost because of power surges; two of them being mine.

Huge renovations going on at the Howard house right now - all good but taking up a lot of time and a lot of my head-space.  My blog, my scrapping and my scrapping commitments have all taken a step back for a bit.  I'm working on catching up this week.  I want to get more done on Abby's kids album!!  Please leave a comment or email me and let me know if you are firing ahead - has anyone finished?  I'd love to keep everyone updated - I'm adding pages to the sidebar gallery daily - so keep checking back for inspiration.  I promise to add more of Abby's pages soon.

Here is a link to get free green tea.  Kind of a random link I'm throwing in there but hey, I know someone will appreciate it.  If you don't drink tea, feel free to put my address in there - my hubby drinks it - personally I'm more of a Milo girl ;o)

I have a new class for sale at Aussie Scrap Source.  It's a double page layout designed to hold a whole heap of pics from one outing.  It includes instructions for photo montages and it'll suit any 'event' as there is a whole alpha in there.  Contact Embellish It if your own retialer doesn't get these in - I'm sure the girls there would get you one.  Alternatively you can get it from Tarisota as one of their Limited editions, check back here as it will be uploaded as soon as available.

I'll leave you with another layout - this one is a little different for me.  I did it with the last Tarisota Kit.  But there is something special about this layout and it's all in the journaling.  Which you can't see. Because it's not really something I need to put out there on the whole world wide web .  Jacob & I go through a lot - he has medical conditions which make him vulnerable to alsorts of thought processes that 9 year olds shouldn't go through.  I've had to promise him many times that I would always always be there to guide him through the tough times and that I would never leave him.  Which is a nice thought but fate scares me - what if for some reason I'm not there anymore - how betrayed would he feel.  So I spill it all in this layout.  And you ladies are my insurance.  If ever I cease to be around for this little man.  THIS is the layout he needs to find and read- ok?

laters.

Pink.

"If I could be anything, I'd be a Flamingo".  I love that.  Abby was amazed at the flamingoes at her first zoo visit about this time last year, and has continued to count on them as the number one cutest animal (ok not technically..but...) in the world.  When we left the zoo that day we treated the kids to something small at the zoo shop and Abby chose a small soft toy flamingo, who was appropriately named "Pink".  "Pink" sleeps with her at night and has remained a constant companion ever since.  Alongside a small pink beanie baby pony that was sent to her from Canada, who was named ce-ce-mo-ic pony for some reason - noone knows why.

Anyway, while going through the questions for Abby's "About me" album, she told me if she could be anything, she'd be a flamingo.  I took a photo of Abby with one foot down, and one up, looking remarkably like the cutest pink flamingo there is, and I'll be scrapping that page soon for her little album.

Here are the latest pages I have done for her album, they didn't photograph well.  Again, nothing flash, no great exciting technique or anything here.  I'll put them in the sidebar gallery for closer looks.

Thanks to those allowing me to upload their pages to the 'All About Me' photo album in the left sidebar.  It's filling up fast.  Many of the pages are not in the order I'm doing them and people are putting their own spin on things - awesome!  Really!  It's the way to do things.  Go with the flow! 

I see that ScrapScene have a contest - open to all countries - on their site at the moment.  You just have to create something, layout, altered piece, anything, that uses a few of the most recent trends as pinpointed by ScrapScene lately.  The prize is massive.  Click here for details.  I love when this type of competition is open to NZ/Aussie - even Quebec!  So I hope some of us take the time to enter.  The prize is well worth it!

Anyone have a run-down on the SIA convention in Aussie this past week?  I'd love to read.  I hear it was a success and a true credit to those who orgnaised it, but I need details! lol.  Lonk me to blog posts if you have them!

Ok.  The puke (That's pook-e!) girls are cropping today, I'm home as Paul is working and the kiddos need feeding.  Despite the temptation to lock them in a room with a bag of cornflakes and case of coca-cola , a stack of DVD's and take off for the day, my common sense got the best of me.  They have the best mum.

laters.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampin' Up Buckaroo Blue, Bazzill White.
Font: 2Peas hot Chocolate
Patterned Paper: BasicGrey 2 Scoops.
Flower Stamps: Stampin' Up "Looks like Spring",
Rows of dots: Stampin' Up! "All in a Row"
Ink: Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip.
Ink: Stazon Black.
Sticker: Stampin' Up
Circle Punches: Fiskars.

Two hours.  That's officially my limit whilst sitting in a Chipmunks playland.  We 'owed' Jacob a trip somewhere special for his birthday, which was back in February, but he pretty much has to share a birthday with Abby so she had her choice of destinations on the actual weekend.  Jacob had to wait.  Then he fractured his wrist and has been in plaster.  So an April birthday treat, it was.  So yes, two hours was the complete upper limit.  It was the most I could take of screaming, squealing, running, and quite often crying kids, all in one go.  It was a welcome break to be able to leave and go have a picnic at a local park with a few favourite friends.  Finally the kids could run and play and the adults could talk.  Pair that with an impromptu daylight-savings-is-ending-so all-the-neighbours-should-get-together-for-a-drink-in-the-middle-of-the-culdesac-and-stay-there-til-it's-too-dark-to-find-the-kids-anymore party last night, then the Warriors playing today, and the weekend was over.  Really, it went far too fast.  Goodbye daylight savings.

I didn't scrap today, but did yesterday.  I finished up my Tarisota kit for April.  Tamar was quick off the mark this month and has loaded the Tarisota gallery early.  Erica L, if you don't want to see your CJ entry, then don't look! 

Here's one of my favourite layouts, I'll put it in the sidebar gallery too.

 

(Layout removed)

No Evana has not moved to Africa, yes she oppsidently hit Jacob in the head but more to the point, what is a guts tree?
I still don't know.  But apparently you don't stand underneath one because guts will fall on your head.  Really.  I have no clue where she was going with that.  I can only imagine that Abby has changed one word for another or she has been watching some pretty scarey TV that I was unaware of.

Missions for this week?  3 layouts for the Aussie Scrap Source blog.  They won't go up straight away but won't be too far away.  I'll also be creating a new class kit for Aussie Scrap Source.  I need to get more pages done for the All about me album that we are all doing together - we are all doing the album together, aren't we?  I'll be posting more of those pages this week.  I think that'll do me through til Friday, I hope your weekend was a good one!

Laters

Page supplies list: (April Kit from Tarisota).
Paper: Making Memories. 
Cardstock: Bazzill
Letters: American Crafts
ATC Transparencies: 7gypsies
Brads: Making Memories
Markers: Stampin' Up! and American Crafts

Cheesecake, chocolate and unforgettable songs.

I think I should have had the cheesecake.  Once the inkling of an idea is planted in my mind, it's hard to let go.  Especially when it involves food when one is on a health-kick.  Or perhaps when it involves ridiculous songs from the Hi-5 TV show, like "I've got a box belly boom boom boom boom, boom boom boom boom boom".  That nasty piece of work once stayed in my head for 3 weeks, until I heard some other equally annoying song on the radio which kindly took it's place.  Another one that stayed in my mind for far too long was this song from Youtube (warning incredibly R-Rated).  I couldn't get rid of that one, singing it quietly to myself while sitting in my mother-in-law's lounge one saturday wasn't the ideal situation.

But I digress.  Back to cheesecake.

I have this rule that if bad food isn't in the house, I won't eat it, so I don't buy it.  I was sitting here procrastinating over a layout yesterday cursing myself for creating the 'bad food rule'.  And I remembered something.  Back in January I went to the optometrist.  I now have reading glasses for when I scrapbook.  How ironic that cutting out all those fiddly handcut titles would turn and bite me in the A$s.  Seems they ruined my eyesight somewhat and now I need to wear glasses to scrapbook.  Or read.  So I purchase the reading glasses (nope, you haven't seen a pic on my blog!) and as I am leaving, the receptionist hands me a pen with the optometrist logo and a small box of chocolates.  Really it was the least they could do since they had just cleaned out my bank account.   I smile my best thankyou and leave the optometrist, come home and stash the chocolates in the furtherest corner of the pantry. 

Until yesterday.

Ahhh sweet chocolate.  To be fair, I did only eat 3 yesterday and 3 today.  And it's not likely I'll repeat the whole going-to-the-optometrist-to-get-chocolates thing in a hurry, so I'm guessing no bad habits were formed.  And I satisfied the bad food craving.  Back to being good again.

And all that being said, I never did complete a layout yesterday.  The mojo has disappeared completely.  I couldn't even complete any simple Abby-album pages yesterday, much to abby's disgust.  I did however, get quite a few in my inbox, so I'll be adding those to the sidebar gallery in the next 30 min or so.  Thanks to Beverley, Kelly, and Gwen for the pages I'm posting in there tonight.  Check out their blogs for more details, (I see Beverley got her album for $1.50!).

Is there anyone else that has their kiddie album started and wants to share - email pics my way!  I love how everyone is getting into this.  I didn't expect it and the best thing is how inspiring you all are to me right now.  Hopefully I'll drag myself out of this mojo-less slump soon.

Oh!  I almost forgot - a new stamping challenge blog.  Inkurable stampers.  Cute name.  Visit inkurable stampers here for monthly challenges and giveaways etc.

laters

Pie and Cheesecake day

Yesterday I mentioned that in a moment of I-must-have-bad-food-I-need-bad-food, hubby declared it pie and cheesecake day.  A good old steak and cheese pie was the culprit in hubby's case.  Paired with a takeaway coffee.  It seems the cheesecake part of the day didn't eventuate.  Perhaps that was left up to me to look after but nope, I was good.  I thought I would be rewarded for my efforts but it seems the scales punish for merely thinking of eating bad food.  Next time I'll eat it as well.

A layout to share - this layout is up on the Aussie Scrapjack site at the moment.  There are those leaves. 

 

Alot of the stuff on this page is made by the Scrapbooking Manufacturer Bella.  I'd never used their stuff before and I especially loved the white chiboard word.  Saved me handcutting a title!  Yea I still do that. They are celebrating their 1st birthday over at the scrapjack site so pop over if you get a chance.

I've updated the "All about me " kids album at the side with heaps more pages by other people.  If you aren't sure where to start with this album, checkout the photos in the sidebar.  A few people are emailing and asking about albums.  SEI do a 5.5 x 8.5 but it is portrait orientation, some people are doing 6x12, others are doing 6x6s.  It's really not worth worrying about too much.  As long as the kids can play rough with the album, it's all good.

A quick thanks to Liddy for the 6x6 pages she sent me for SCKC :O)

I see Luxe are holding a design team competition. Details here.

OK. Off to make dinner.  Homemade bacon and egg burgers .  Not the best nutritional value, but has to be better than steak and cheese pie, right?

laters

Materials list:

Patterned paper: MME, BasicGrey, Jenni Bowlin.
Stamps: Hero Arts

Alphabet: Bella!

Brads: Bella!

Rub-ons: Bella!

Paint: Making Memories.

Chipboard Word: Bella!

Chipboard floral: Bella!

Ink: Stazon.

Tuesday

Tuesday turned up rainy.  It's welcome.  Just for a day.  The dark mornings, the rain and the leaves falling off the trees make me want to eat copious amounts of bad food.  Hubby came home to pick up some plans at lunchtime and declared it "pie and cheesecake day" .  We've both been on a health-kick since January and I guess we both wanted to break all the rules today. I laughed at his 'pie and cheesecake' declaration as he left but laughed even louder when I checked online banking later in the day and saw he'd been at the bakery.  I guess he wasn't kidding.

I had great mail today.  I've been coveting the Fiskars Threading Water border punch for a while and I know it's going to be a few weeks til it's in New Zealand and I really couldn't wait.  They are hard to find online but I found some at All Moments Remembered in the USA and couldn't help purchasing. (BTW no I'm not getting a kick-back from Fiskars or All Moments remembered  - I know a few people wanted this punch I'm just lettin ya know).  Look at what this thing does.  Beats using the corner rounder to make the scallops! 

I'm going to confess here though that I bought two of them.  I decided I wanted to get some money back on the flippin hurrendous U.S. postage charges so I bought a 2nd one and put it on trademe.  It's there for the bidding if anyone wants it.

Check out the Queen & Co blog.  When I write posts for that blog I keep it somewhat tame.  I don't think my latest post on the blog really conveys just how much I loved the layout I posted.  In real life I wanted to shake the lady that made it and scream "you are a freakin GENIUS!" at her.    She used the backing off the felt borders and I love how it looks and I really need to try it.  Another one of those 'Why didn't I think of that" kind moments.

April Taristoa kit is up.  Galerry due 8th April.

I'm loving trees on my layouts. I'm loving leaves on my layouts.  You'll see a lot of them, when one is enjoying something one should enjoy it, right?  It used to be flowers, then it was the spiral punch, I've never really got over the paper curling.  Right now it's leaves. I feel like I'm almost warning you. lol.

Kiddie albums - GOOD NEWS is that Stampin' Up is following along with us have suggested they will give away some stuff if we especially like some of the products.  Well heck YES I like some of the products and heck YES we would love some giveaways! I got the new catalog today and they seem to have more of the scrapping products in like the Crop-O-Dile, bling brads, some really nice patterned paper and I was surprised to see rub-ons too.  Anyone that plans to join in the kiddie book thing - well there's an extra incentive!

I have uploaded some more into the photo albums. Is there anyone else that doesn't mind sharing what they've done already? I'd love to post more.  For now, here is page 2 & 3 of Abby's album.  Click the image for better detail.

Yes, that's the Fiskar's scallop punch you see.  I mentioned I like leaves in my layouts at the moment, I like this punch too.  I guess that's another warning.  Wonder if I can combine them. lol.
(Materials list below)

Other details - I used the Stampin' Up! Everyday Flexible phrases stamps to stamp words on the background papers.  I use a typewriter font a lot so these caught my eye.  They have 2 words per stamp (just incase you can't see in the picture).  The scallop circle punch is a Marvy Uchida one, but I spied a scallop circle punch in that latest Stampin Up catalog.  I enjoyed matting the photo.  Which is kind of a sad detail that you didn't really need to know I think but I had a small thought at the time that perhaps I should throw any knowledge of current trends aside sometimes and just scrap . 

Again - email me with pics of your kiddie albums!  Looking forward to seeing them.  I'm off to enjoy pie and cheesecake day before it expires.

Laters.

Materials list:
Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Old olive and Chocolate Chip.
Punches, Fiskars (Scallop and Circle), Stampin' Up! (Flower) and Marvy Uchida (Scallop Circle)
Stamps: Stampin' Up! 'Looks like Spring'
Stamps: Stmapin' Up! Everyday Flexible Phrases.
Ink: Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip
Font: 2peas Hot Chocolate.
Pen: Uniball Signo.