She's Off ...

to a Canon PIXMA party tonight!! The lovely Danielle won an invitation to the party, but she is not able to go due to distances and the ever-present Sydney traffic (bah humbug!!) so she has very kindly extended her invitation to me. I have been told to bring my scrapping tools and my photos, and enjoy the evening!
I have never been to a class or group thingo, so it will be a first for me. I hope I'm not completely overwhelmed by it all (how embarrassment ...)
So, I am trawling through photos trying to copy some to my USB key to have printed off tonight, then I will grab my tools and throw them in a bag - along with some bling, some flowers and some ribbon methinks, and maybe some of the yummy new papers I got from Allcraftz yesterday. The new Imaginisce range is just gorgeous, and I'm loving the funky Bo Bunny range as well.
I think I should be able to find some photos to print off, out of the 1000s we have taken recently ...

Happy Birthday To You

Happy Birthday Princess!! 2 years seems to have just flown by ... not a baby anymore, Miss A is a real little girl. Her pressies included a tea set, a bracelet, some new clothes, a hairband, a Dora dvd, some "Legos" blocks as she likes to call them, some sunglasses and a baby doll. Not sure yet which she likes best, but she did enjoy pizza for dinner on the day!!
She is adored by everyone in the family; she is most certainly Daddy's little girl; she has both big brothers wrapped around her little fingers; she is the apple of Nan's eye. She is definitely our little princess.
May you enjoy many more happy birthdays sweetie.

You Belong In The Zoo!!

On Wednesday we went to the zoo, courtesy of some free tickets from Bing Lee!! 5 hours of solid walking, ooohing & aaahing at the animals.

It all started with the koalas just inside the front gate, a baby with mum & dad. Very cute.
The boys loved the crocodiles, frogs & snakes. Miss A liked the babrbary sheep (there was a little baby one running around like crazy during meal times ...) and I liked the fact that we didn't have to pay to get in!! A fabulous day out, and there's nowhere else in the world with a zoo with a view like ours. Just magnificent!
If you haven't been there for a while, its time to take a look at what they've done.

The Last For A While ...

This is the most recent layout I have done for a while - Miss A out the back. The photo is gorgeous although the colours are quite washed out, so I had problems choosing papers again. So I stuck with a rosey red cardstock, and some gorgeous Kaisercraft butterfly papers too. Another reject, but I love it and I'm hoping she will too when she looks back at her scrap albums when she is older.
We headed off to the zoo today - it was a great day but very tiring! The boys took turns being the tour guide. Even though we spent the whole day there, we still didn't get around to seeing all of the animals. The kids seemed to have fun though, and Miss A was very good. She knew the lions and tigers and birdies, and had a ball watching a small mountain goat?? running around playing in its area. Have taken loads of photos and will check them out to upload tomorrow.

Thank you very much to the lovely Ebony at Allcraftz for her very generous prizes following World Card Making Day. All of the challenge entries look superb - I was completely blown away by the ATCs especially; they take a very special knack and Linda in particular seems to have this covered!! Her ATCs are spectacular. The shaped cards were all very clever and a wonderful tribute to Hannah, the longest serving DT member who has had several of her own cards published and is a very talented artist with cards, scrapping, stamping ... pretty much everything I have seen her turn her hand to!! And I love the sketch challenge too - I would love to create cards in honour of all the sketches created by AC4U members, and I will upload them when they are completed.
Thanks for looking ... catch you soon.

PS - happy 3rd anniversary babe. It is complete madness at times, but its OUR madness, and I couldn't do it without you.

More Gorgeousness

Hi all!!
Today has been a great day - the family went to see Wall-E at the cinema. Miss A didn't sit still the whole time, but (thankfully) didn't annoy the other moviegoers. She missed out on her afternoon nap though, and is coming down with a cold - fingers crossed she has a decent night's sleep tonight!
Some more of my layouts from last week:-
These are some pics of Miss A helping herself to chocolate bars from the pantry. I don't "do" bright layouts, but matching colours to these photos was proving to be a nightmare, until I hit on the pink and lime green. The embellishments are Love Elsie - they really are gorgeous, just not my usual colours!


And this is my favourite layout of this bunch - Miss A and her dad taking a walk together. I love the photo, but I also love the way the layout turned out. I have so many stamps but rarely use them - this layout I used Basic Grey stamps as the background on a muted MME paper, flourishes all around the border; then a larger butterfly stamp as an accent. I wanted to continue the line of the fence in the photo, and initially thought of stitching but decided on flowers which I think also turned out ok. The 2 acrylic butterflies I received in the last WOM swap, handmade and embossed, then I added pearls to the bodies.
We are headed off to the zoo tomorrow, so its almost certainly going to rain!!

More Cardmaking!!

I managed to finish off several more cards yesterday, most of them actually designed to use rather than just put away in my stash of pretty things!



There's a birthday card for Miss A, a congratulations card for my niece, an anniversary card for the firefighter, and a pretty one for my stash.



There are still 2 challenges left from WCMD - a shaped card, and a set of ATCs - unfortunately I think I have used up all of my creativity already, as I have absolutely no idea for either of these challenges.



And it has been back to work for me today after a very slack week last week. I have to earn some $$ to pay for the pretties I bought over the weekend at Allcraftz!!

Master 9 has just come back from a birthday party at Code Red - a laser skirmish type thing (its all like a foreign language to me ...) where the boys get dressed up in gear and run around madly trying to shoot each other. He had fun!! He's added that as another suggestion for his next birthday, along with a Wipeout party, a Wii party, a bowling party ...
I'm loving daylight savings !!! It is still light outside, and the kids have time to do something in the afternoon without it being pitch black and cold. And none of us are morning people, so the fact that the sun doesn't come up until 7.30am really doesn't matter for my family.
Thanks for looking - more layouts tomorrow, after the card fest has finished.

DayLight Savings

A day later than expected - but for a very good reason!! Yesterday was World Card Making Day, celebrated in great style by the girls at Allcraftz 4 You. A day full of challenges, games & excitement, topped off by a massive sale including $1 stamps (missed out on those) and half-price paper (stocked up on those :-)) and I purchased a new Making Memories Trimmer as well!!


One of the most fun challenges was a card hop -like Chinese Whispers, only with cards. It worked amazingly well on the day, and was a great quick way to complete a few cards in a set time frame. I completed 4 of the 5 hops (a later starter after a visit to the plant nursery earlier in the day ...). So, here are some of my creations.

There are more challenges due on Monday October 6th, so if you get in quick, you won't miss out!!

Thanks But No Thanks

Hey all!! TGIF - stinking hot here in beautiful Sydney today, but what better place to be, right??

Now, on to sharing some more of my recent layouts, which have already been given the thumbs down for publication, so HERE is the only place to catch them:


I am looking at getting a new trimmer soon - maybe an early christmas present for myself! I started my cj yesterday - an 8x8 all about friendship. It has ot be ready for take-off on November 1st.
Take care, stay cool, and keep smiling :-)

Do You See What I See?

Look at this picture and think of what you see ...
It's a photo of the recent White Bay Hotel fire. You can see the hotel, one of the fire trucks, the awning starting to collapse and maybe even the pouring rain. Some of the things you can't see are the two firefighters inside the building at the precise moment when the fire flashed over and the hotel exploded - causing the awning to fall, and their SO knowing he could do absolutely nothing to help his firefighters and hoping & praying he didn't have to make the terrible journey to their families to tell them they had suffered an injury or worse. Thankfully, both firefighters escaped without serious injury - they had gone inside the abandoned hotel because their SO knew that sometimes there were squatters inside the building, and if anyone was inside they needed to be rescued quickly. Shortly after they entered the hotel, the fire flashed over, as the accelerant probably used to start the fire exploded pretty much without warning. My husband was at the fire that night, on another appliance. He had to sit out in the pouring rain ensuring the safety of his fellow firefighter atop an aerial appliance, pouring water onto the fire. I can look at this photo and marvel at the power of fire and the bravery of the firefighters, but knowing the story behind it, I can also appreciate the terror of being caught in such a situation. May God protect all of those men & women who choose this as their career: putting their own safety on the line in order to protect the lives & property of others.

Today's quote: "When a man becomes a fireman his greatest act of bravery has been accomplished. What he does after that is all in the line of work." ~Edward F. Croker

Some Recent Layouts

Hi again! I thought I would share a couple of my recent layouts with you - these are ones I completed over last weekend.



During the last school holidays, we visited Scott's parents at the new house. It's a lovely house, but all the doors look the same (I guess that's true of all houses actually, I just hadn't realised it until this particular visit). Chris got a little confused with all the doors, and on several occasions whilst he was searching for the bathroom, he ended up in the walk-in wardrobe by mistake!! He was able to laugh at this little confusion, so it was all good in the end. This layout uses new Vintage Moon papers from Pink Paislee, amongst other products.



This second layout uses my new stamps from the MM passport range. It is the story behind the picture of how Miss A ended up wearing Anthony's t-shirt during a visit to Apple Tree Bay recently. You would think as parents of 3 that we would have learnt by now that kids cannot resist temptation, but it seems we have a lot of learning left!!

I have removed many of the clock widgets I found yesterday - they looked lovely, but many were simply the wrong size for my blog and overshadowed the posts (which is a bit silly, as the posts are what make the blog, right??)

And keep your fingers & toes crossed - I have sent off a few layouts for submission to the mags. I think it would be pretty cool to see your own work published, and it ain't ever going to happen unless I put them out there to be picked up, right?? And of course, there's always the Elite Team entry ...