Once again...

...life has got in the way of posting on my blog. I have good intentions, but it just hasn't happened lately. I have been posting on the Simple Aussie Girls site, make sure you check out the latest challenge, its a good one!

Anyway, thought I'd stop by and show you what I have been up to. It is Jacob & Ella's 9th birthday in a couple of weeks, so of course we are in party planning mode. We've gone for a combined party this year (we haven't done combined for a few years now) just at a park. As I was a little worried about how I'd keep track of 25 kids, we came up with theme's for each of them. Ella has gone with an aqua theme as its her favourite colour. So all her friends are to wear aqua. Jacob has gone with a footy theme so all his friends are to wear a footy or soccer jersey.

Ella's invitations were obviously done in Aqua seen as that was the theme! With Ella's help we decided to use the new Stampin' Up! bunting stamp set and matching punch. I have been dying to use these and am loving bunting at the moment, so I was very happy that Ella loved it to. I'm really happy with how the invitations came together. They are very simple, but cute!

Jacob's invitations weren't quite so easy to come up with. Stamping on a 9 year old boys inviation is apparently not very cool! So we took a different tact and went with the footy theme. I pulled a picture of the Sharks footy mascot from the internet and made up the invitation in the Sharks colours!

Jacob was very happy with the finished product. I couldn't help myself and added a brad to finish it off!

So I'm busy with party plans and also organising our school fete that is on in a few weeks. So lots happening around here!

As I mentioned, the SAG challenge at the moment is to do a layout that includes a news or current event item. This really made me step outside what I would normally do, but I loved the story behind the layout I came up with. The layout is basic as I did it in a bit of a hurry, but for me, its all about the story! So head over to Simple Aussie Girls and check it out.

Thanks for stopping by, hopefully I'll be back soon. Don't forget the new Stampin' Up! catalogue starts on 1st September. You'll be able to check it out through the links on my blog.





Week in the Life

Just stopping by quickly to let you know I've posted some of my Week in the Life pages over at the Simple Aussie Girls blog, so check them out! I'll post some more here in the next day or two when I finish my title page and finish page. In the meantime, I'll leave you with one photo...

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Back!

I've had a busy couple of weeks, so not a lot of time for posting on the blog...sorry!

Last weekend, I went on a scrapping weekend with some friends, run by Remember When. We had an awesome time and I got lots of layouts done. I've shared one of my favourites today on the Simple Aussie Girls Blog so make sure you go check it out. I will share more over the next week or so.

But today I wanted to share a couple of cards I have done for a Workshop I have tomorrow. These are simple cards, but I think they are quite effective.

You can't really see it in the photo, but when the card is closed, there is a different colour strip down one side which you can also see when the card is open.

I'm looking forward to making these with the ladies tomorrow.

Also, just as a bit of a teaser, I have seen the new Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalogue which will be available on 1st September and it is gorgeous. As I did last year, I will be doing a special series on my blog of my Top 10 favourite products from the new catalogue so stay tuned for details of that. It will probably be mid September that I will do this.

Thanks for stopping by and I promise I will be back tomorrow with another layout.

The SU Retiring List

As always at this time of year, Stampin' Up! release the Retirement List...the items that will no longer be available when the new Catalogue comes on 1 September.

You can view the list of retiring items here. There is a variety of items including stamps, paper, cardstock, ribbons and lots more. Some items are available at a discounted rate. So get in quick as this is only while stocks last and trust me stock sells quickly fromt this list.

So if you would like to place an order, email or call me (0419 219 240).
Some of the items that are not to be missed are the multitude of ribbons, stamp sets like Lots of Bots (one of my favourites) that is 25% off, some great Simply Scrappin kits (a few at 40% off) and lots of 12x12 cardstock including Tempting Turquoise at 25% off.

So get in quick as its while stocks last!

WEEK IN THE LIFE UPDATE
Ok so I know I promised more photos from my week but once again life is just too busy and I have not had a chance to upload the second week of photos. I will try and do it in the next day or two. But I'm pleased to report I did take photos everyday during the week and I have written notes on our daily lives. Now I just need to find the time to put it all together and finish the album! So stay tuned, I promise, more to come on this very soon.

Thanks for stopping by,

Week in the Life...some photos!

Week in the Life...I'm making progress!!! I have finally loaded four days worth of photos onto my computer. Now I'm no Ali, I haven't taken hundreds of photos each day, in fact most of the days so far I've only taken 20-30. My life is busy and I am running around constantly. I don't take my camera with me the whole time so some things just aren't recorded. I'm ok with that though, I've written everything down and when I compile the journalling I will decided what to keep in and what to take out. I'm loving that this project is getting me to look at all the little things of our lives. So below are just a couple of photos from each day.

MONDAY

Love that Scooby loves Ella. He can always be found right next to her!

Monday morning blues...Noah not happy about going to school.

Jacob doing his homework.

TUESDAY

Noah loves scaring me with his remote control terrantula (Sp?), gets me everytime!

Now I am the first to hate photos of myself, but I think its an important thing to document. This is the photo before I picked up my glasses and the after - hate the glasses, glad I only have to put up with them for a few weeks!

WEDNESDAY

A beautiful rainbow this morning taken from our back deck.

Scooby the dog, wouldn't be an album about our life without a pic of Scoobs!

THURSDAY

This is how Noah sleeps, with everything laid out on his bed...very strange and I would imagine very uncomfortable!! This was just before I woke him up this morning.

Ella just before I woke her this morning.

Making sandwiches for lunch, something I've just recently got them doing themselves!

Doing Ella's hair before school.

John and Noah mucking around - love the looks on both of their faces.

Now I am the first to admit none of these photos are perfectly composed or using the right settings, pretty much all of them have been taken quickly in auto mode. For me this is about the story, not about the perfect photo! If I fiddled around with settings and getting lighting right then I'd miss the moment or I'd be put off because it took too long. So for these, I'm fine with them. I'll play around a little in Photoshop with the ones I decide to include in the album, but apart from that they will be as they come.

I'm looking forward to the last few days and I'm happy I've kept up so far. I'm really looking forward to putting it all together.

So I'll be back with some more photos of the next few days. Would love to know if anyone else is doing WITL and how you are going with it!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Week in the life update

Ok, so I don't have photos to share with you as I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet, but I am progressing with my Week in the Life. I'm taking the photos and writing the notes. 2 days done. This is a big thing for me as I tend to not finish projects like this. But I think 1 week is achievable. Am really hoping I can keep it up!

Life is crazy as always, and this is one thing that I really want to capture...the good and the bad!

I'm planning to get some photos onto my computer tomorrow, so I will share some on the blog then just to give you an idea of what I'm doing. I probably won't start putting it all together till next week. Right now its just about capturing the moments in photos and journaling!

So stay tuned.

A few Random Things

I've had a few bad days with a terrible eye infection that I was told could potentially make me legally blind! When I saw the specialist yesterday he gave me 24 hours for it to improve or I'd be off to Sydney Eye Hospital for 5 days of intensive treatment which I have to say I was not at all looking forward to! Luckily the last few hours and my eye is starting to feel better. I can only see out of one eye (so you'll have to forgive any typing errors!!), but the bad eye seems to be on the mend. Its amazing how these things happen so suddenly. It was all a bit scary really.Anyway, onto to brighter things now that my mind is not focused on my eye!! LOL!!!

Firstly, over at the Simple Aussie Girls Blog Di has written a post today in relation to a question Ali Edwards posted about how do Aussies/Kiwis print 8.5 x 11 inch digital pages. Basically the answer is that we don't! However, we do print 8x10 and turn it into an 8.5 x 11by adding cardstock and/or patterned paper. Sure it isn't a true digital layout, but still it solves the problem. There are some wonderful examples over on the SAG Blog and I highly recomment checking them out! I went through some of my pages to see if I could find an example, and I have to admit I don't do many like this. Often I'll do a semi digital page (usually a collage to fit in a lot of photos) and then I'll adhere it to a 12x12 rather than an 8.5 x 11. Not sure why, probably because it gives me a bit more space, but after seeing the ones the SAG team came up with, I think I'll be doing it on 8.5x11 from now on! Here is one example of a layout I did with a 8x10 print added to a 12x12 layout.

This layout was about meeting my new nephew and the excitement we all had about it! I've used a strip of patterned paper at the bottom (an old Stampin' Up! Designer Series Paper).

Next up, I wanted to let you know that I have decided to do this...

Ali Edwards always has these great projects and I often want to take part but never get around to it. This one I am determined to do! A week in my life starting next Monday. I am getting prepared now. Next week I will just take notes and photograph and then I will put my album together. However I want to have a plan for my album and things ready to go so that it is an easy process rather than a hard one which would mean I would then not end up completing it as has happened with other projects I've started! So over the next few days I will show you my plans...the album, page layouts etc. I will do a lot of this album in digital format as I think it is quicker and easier for this type of thing. So stay tuned and hold me to my promise that I will finish this! For more info on Week in the Life go here.

Thats it for now. Off to rest my eye - its hard to look at a computer screen with only one eye working and the other one completely blurry!!!

Stay dry and as always thanks for stopping by.

SAG Challenge # 5 - Product

When the SAG girls suggested I do a product challenge, I automatically knew which product I would choose...STAMPS! Of course this is partly because that is what I sell, but also because I don't use stamps on my layouts very often at all so I knew it would also be a challenge to myself!

So as I promised on the SAG blog, here is another layout using stamps.

On this layout, the hearts are stamps. They are from the I {Heart} hearts stamp set and I love how they turned out. I have used the 3 heart punch to punch them out (this punch co-ordinates perfectly with this stamp) and then I've stuck them on the layout. It was all a very quick and easy process. I think they work really well with this layout. I haven't done the text border for awhile so it was good to do it again as I think it adds a bit of interest to the page! It takes a little playing around in Word, but is fairly easy to do. I was really happy with how this layout turned out.

So if you haven't alread, go to the Simple Aussie Girls blog and check out my other layout using stamps along with the layouts from the SAG team. We'd love you to take part in the challenge and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Just a reminder if you spend $100 with Stampin' Up! during July (in one purchase) you receive a free gift. Go to my website and click the promotions tab for all the details.

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to leave me a comment so I know you were here!

School Holiday Fun + a Download!

I thought I'd share with you a project I did the other day with Ella and a couple of her friends. They all love scrapbooking. So I thought I'd give them a bit of a project and make up a quiz for them and get them to fill it in in their own handwriting and then do a layout with it. They all did a fantastic job of their layouts and they really liked doing the quiz part of it.

Here is what they came up with...(apologies for the photos as I did them quickly before the girls went home!)

This was a great activity to do with the kids and I got my boys to do one too and even they loved it! So I thought I'd share the document I created with you to make it even easier. To download the Word document go here. You can change the questions etc if you want to, but this will give you a starting point! I'd love to see any pages that you or your children do with this quiz!

Thanks for stopping by. Make sure you come back tomorrow as I will be posting a new layout and its my turn for the Simple Aussie Girls Challenge!

A card for a change!

I haven't posted many cards lately, I've completely been in scrapping mode! But today Ella was going to a friends birthday party and I had no cards in my stash (usually I have heaps!). So I made this card.

I love butterfly's and it is my go to theme for any card for Ella's friends. 8 & 9 year olds love butterfly's! This was very simple to put together and I used my Flight of the Butterfly stamp set with a bit of bling in the middle to make it a little more special!

Card Recipe:
Stamp Set: Flight of the Butterfly
Cardstock: Poppy Parade (ink colour), Baja Breeze & Whisper White
Embellishments: Rhinestone jewels and Stitched Poly Ribbon in Poppy Parade

Also, don't forget the current Stampin' Up! Gift with purchase promotion.  Go to the promotions page on my website to get all the details...definitely not to be missed!



As always, thanks for stopping by!

SAG Challenge

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all enjoying the school holidays. I love and hate the school holidays all at the same time. I love not having to be out of the house with lunches packed etc by 9am and I love spending time with my kids. But I hate it when they get bored and whinge because they want to be constantly entertained! Plus the fighting between the three of them increases when they are bored! July school holidays are the hardest I think because we can't go to the beach which is easy (and cheap) entertainment!

Anyway, I'm a couple of days late posting this, but the new challenge is up at Simple Aussie Girls and its a colour challenge. I love these colours and was very happy with the layout I did.

So why not give it a go...its a great challenge and we'd love you to take part!

I'm working on a digital layout which I don't normally do, so will be back to show you that very soon.

Thanks for stopping by.



New Class

Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you know about a new class...

Strength & Hope Cards Class.

Wednesday 20th July 2011 at 7.30pm.

Sutherland Shire location

Cost $20 which includes all materials and instruction to make the four cards pictured.

Please bring your own tape adhesive.

Places are limited so please email me now to reserve your spot!

Just another reminder about the gift with purchase promo that Stampin' Up! is running at the moment. Place an order of $100 and receive a gorgeous gift of flower buttons and adorable ribbon. Email me to place your order. I can have orders sent anywhere in Australia at no more than the standard postage charge (5% of order)!

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out the Simple Aussie Girls blog today for my latest scrapbook layout!

Sketch Challenge 3

Stopping in quickly to show you the layout I have done for the latest challenge on the Simple Aussie Girls challenge. This week is a sketch challenge by Nicole (the queen of scrapping in Australia!). Here is my take on the sketch...

Love these pictures of Jacob with my nephew Aiden. Aiden adores all the kids and I love the look of delight on his face! You'll also notice that there is handwriting on this page. This is not a common thing on my pages as I prefer the look of typed journaling. However, after a comment on the SAG blog last week, I realised I need to make a bit more of an effort to do it more often. I am not a fan of my handwriting, but I'm sure my kids will like to see it in years to come!

Just a little note on the SAG blog...I am loving all the inspiration that it is providing. Now I know you will be thinking I'm a little bias, but truly all the SAG girls are posting truly amazing layouts and that on top of all those that are joining in on the challenges provides a one stop shop for inspiration! So make sure you check it out and pop back regularly.

Don't forget there is a fabulous FREE gift for any Stampin' Up! orders over $100 for the month of July, so check out the catalogue and place your order now via email or phone (0419 219 240).

As always, thanks for stopping by. I love getting comments, so make sure you let me know that you have been here!

Free GIFT!

For the month of July there is a special promotion running. See info below or go to my website for details. Email me to place your order!

Thanks for stopping by!

Simple Aussie Girls Challenge #2

I'm a little late in posting this...things have been very hectic this week! Anyway, just letting you know that the 2nd Challenge is up at Simple Aussie Girls. This weeks challenge is...

Conversation.
Parts of conversation.
Things people say - all the time.

I find using conversations a great way to scrap. As long as you record the conversation at the time, this is an easy way to journal as you don't have to think quite as much!!!

My layout for this challenge is about Noah my mischevious 6 year old and a conversation I had with him back in his preschool days. I'd written this down in a notebook but had never gotten around to scrapping it till now!

Also just a reminder that I have organised a Scrap Chat Create day for this Saturday - 12 uninterupted hours of scrapping! What more could you want!!!! If you are interested, please send me an email or call me on 0419 219 240.

First Challenge

Hi everyone. The first challenge is up over at Simple Aussie Girls and we are very excited about it! It was a sketch challenge this week and this is what I came up with.

I've not strayed from the sketch too much, but kept it very simple and clean. Love the colours in it and who can go past white cardstock. It is definitely my go to colour!

Why not join in on the challenge at Simple Aussie Girls. You can link up your entry or add them to our Flickr group. All the info is on the blog. So make sure you check it out!

Don't forget, I'm offering FREE POSTAGE for all orders over $30 for the month of June. I can have orders posted anywhere in Australia, so check out the catalogue now and place your order.

Thanks for stopping by!