You are invited...

To celebrate the launch of Sale-a-Bration, I am having an Open House night. Everyone is welcome to attend! It will be an informal, fun night. Some of the things happening on the night:

• You will get to see the Sale-a-bration catalogue as well as the new Mini Catalogue.
• Everyone that attends will receive a gift and there will be lots of prizes and giveaways.
• Free postage on any order placed on the night.
• There will also be Make & Takes (where you get to make a card or two!)
• A special gift for anyone that books a Workshop on the night
• See some sample cards and layouts.
• Supper will be provided.

So what are you waiting for?!?!?! Email me now to reserve your spot. Wednesday 9th February from 7pm-9.30pm (you can drop in anytime). Engadine area. RSVP no later than Friday 4th Feb.

I hope you can make it!

Don't forget Sale-a-bration is on now. Spend $100 and receive a free exclusive Stamp Set. To view the Sale-a-bration catalogue go here and then email me your order.

Thanks for stopping by...kids are back to school tomorrow so hopefully more to show you in the next few days!

Sale-a-Bration is HERE!!!!

Stampin' Up's! once a year sale, Sale-a-bration is here. Running from now till end of March, you can receive a FREE Stamp Set with every $100 order placed. The Stamp Sets are chosen from the Sale-a-Bration catalogue and are only offered during the Sale-a-bration period and will not be offered again. Believe me you will want all four sets - I know I do, they are absolutely adorable!

Click on the picture to go to the catalogue.

The other great way to earn the free stamp sets is to Host a Workshop. You need sales of $600 or more and you'll earn one free Sale-a-Bration Stamp set in addition to the generous hostess benefits.

Also, if you join Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator during the Sale-a-Bration period, you get to choose a free stamp set from the Idea Book & Catalogue (valued up to $79.95).

So email me today to take advantage of Sale-a-Bration!

I will be back in a few days (once the kids are back at school!) with some cards and layouts to share with you!

Back to Reality

Well our big family holiday to New Zealand has unfortunately come to an end and we are back to reality at home. I've done 6 loads of washing since we got back yesterday! We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed catching up with my grandparents and Aunts, Uncles and cousin.

We went with my parents, two brothers, sister-in-law and nephew...we all stayed in one big house together. My dad kept calling it the Griswald Family Vacation!!! It was lots of fun having everyone around, the kids loved that there were so many people to play with them!

I thought I'd share a few photos from our trip...(some of my relatives will be checking them out!). There are a fair few, so sorry if they are a little boring! (some of the photos are quite average as my Digital SLR died on the first day so we had to use my little instant camera that I keep in my handbag and the quality is definitely not the best!

We drove from Auckland to Mangonui near the Bay of Islands on the North Island. It was a beautiful location and the house we stayed in was perfect. It was located on Mill Bay and at the end of the backyard was the bay which was perfect for fishing (and relaxing!).

The view of the house from a boat in the water.

We did lots of fishing and the kids thought catching fish was wonderful!

John was the record holder for the biggest catch of the week...he is very proud of himself and taking every chance he can to rub it in to my brothers!

We got to spend time with my grandparents who I haven't seen for about 5 years. It was so nice to see them again and they loved seeing their great grandchildren.

The kids were constantly doing something and were exhausted at the end of each day.

We all loved spending time with my nephew who is the best baby and absolutely adorable!

We did a few "touristy" things.

Love it that I get on so well with my sister-in-law...I also love that my kids absolutely adore her.

We spent time at the beach swimming and digging for Pippi's (not sure if thats how you spell it!).

What holiday is complete without a family photo (I thought of this on the last night when the kids were in their PJs and looking rather dishelved as were John and I!!).

All in all an amazing holiday. I hope we get to do it again in the next year or two. Now we are back to reality with only a week left of school holidays. These holidays have gone so fast and I can't believe school goes back next week.

I will be back in a few days with some layouts and cards to share with you. I'm also working on classes I will be running in the coming months, so more to come on that as well.

Enjoy the last week of the school holidays. Thanks for stopping by!

I'm a Top Pick!

I'm very proud to say that my scrapbook layout was a Top Pick at Just Add Ink! I'm very excited, I've never been a Top Pick before in a challenge, so I'm honoured!

I'm off on holidays tomorrow so I will leave you with a very quick card I made the other day for a friends birthday. It was very simple and quick to do. This layout could be used for any stamped image so it is very versatile.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back after my break with lots more to share with you.

 

Some more Scrapbook Layouts

I'm so excited to get some Scrapbook Layouts done. I love scrapbooking and I love that my kids will have lots of information about their childhood. I am by no means "up to date" with my scrapbooking. I started scrapbooking around 5 years ago, so there is a lot to cover from before I started and then I struggle to keep up with all the photos I take! But it really doesn't worry me. I don't scrapbook in any sort of order, I do older photos and recent ones...whatever inspires me at the time. I print a big bunch of photos every couple of months so that I have lots handy when I sit down to scrapbook. At the moment all my albums are just a jumble of layouts in no date order at all. For now, I actually really like it that way, its kind of fun to flip through and see a photo of one of the kids as a baby and then a more recent one next to it. One day though, I will put them in some sort of order, but for now I'm happy with what I am doing.

Ok so on to some layouts that I have done in the last few weeks. I must apologise for the photos of my layouts...I took them fairly quickly and they are quite crooked! Sorry!!

This first layout is one about a dinner my family had at a Japanese Restaurant. It was the first time at Japanese for the kids and we had lots of fun...especially Jacob, he thought it was wonderful!! The layout is very basic and simple. There was so much going on in the photos that I didn't want to add too much to the layout. I've used black in the background and Poppy Parade (one of the new In Colours) for the journalling block and Poppy Parade Designer Series Patterned Paper (from the paper stack) for the other two blocks. The letter stickers are American Crafts.

This next layout is some older photos of Jacob & Ella when they turned 6. The journalling is more about how the photos really some up their personalities, rather than their birthday. Ella always looking out for Jacob and taking the mothering role - the look on her face at what he is doing with the knife is priceless! Again, another simple layout...looking at it now, it could probably do with a border around it, oh well! This uses Crumb Cake cardstock for the background and a strip of American Crafts patterned paper.

The Sharks layout below is one of my recent favourites. Again I was dealing with fairly busy photographs, so simple was definitely the way to go. I've kept the colours as the blues, greys and blacks to match the photos. This is one of those layout designs that you could use over and over again...I'm really happy with it and will definitely use it again for other photos. When you find a really good layout there is nothing wrong with "lifting" (or copying) yourself. Different colours and embellishments will change the whole look of it anyway.

Well thats it for now. As always thanks for stopping by...make sure you leave a comment so I know you've been here. Hope everyone is staying dry!



Just Add Ink 50 - A Scrapbook Page

I've really got back into my scrapbooking the last few weeks and as always I am loving it! So when I saw the great colour challenge (JAI#50) over at Just Add Ink, what better way to use it than on a Scrapbook layout. Firstly, here is the colour combo...

So this is what I came up with. It is a really old photo that I have had in my pile to scrap for several years. For some reason I just never got around to doing it. So now I have and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

All items used are Stampin Up...Pear Pizzazz background cardstock and Concord Crush cardstock for the bottom piece. For the circles I have used some of our patterned paper from the In Colour Paper Stack, along with a few cardstock pieces of Riding Hood Red. Then there is the So Saffron button and brad.

This was a fun colour combo...I wouldn't normally put a yellow colour with the others, but it seems to work!

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back in the next few days with some more scrapbook layouts.

Treats for your Sweets

Happy New Year! We are already in January, who can believe it! And amazingly enough Valentine's Day is just around the corner...that is just so scary! Time flies so quickly. Anyway, Stampin' Up! have a great promotion running at the moment so that you can make a Treat for your Sweet!

This promotion is running from 30 December 2010 through 24 January 2011,while stocks last. So get in quick and order your treats now! this might be something fun to do with the kids during the school holidays as a suprise for dad on Valentine's Day! So email me now to place your order.

To check out some card samples made with these, go to my new Stampin' Up! Website.
Hope you are enjoying the holidays,