A Creative Life

Grrrrrr!!!

Well I got my results for my blood test and I'm afraid the nasty little mosquito has got the better of me!!!  Yep I have Ross River Virus.  Thankfully I am still able to work, the most annoying symptoms being extremely itchy hands and feet as well as aching in my joints.  The itching is driving me crazy!  I swear that itchy hands and feet could be used as a very successful torture method.  The info I have read on the net suggests that symptoms can last from 3 to 7 months, with the worst of it being in the first 3 weeks.  Lets just hope the itching stops soon!

I haven't felt much up to scrapping in the last week so I was very greatful that before we went to Port lincoln that I had got myself up to date with all the shop DT work.  I don't know how much scrapping I will be doing over the next few weeks, but I doubt anything will stop me for too long!

I had the most lovely thing happen on Friday!  Steph brought to my attention one of the letters in the latest FK where a lady had written in and said how she had found my Bling article an inspiration.  I was completely blown away by this!  It made an otherwise ordinary day, extrodinary.  I just wish I could thank her for the lovely comment.

Here is my layout for Scrapbook Station DT this fortnight.  It was for a mothers day theme.

I have used the new Heidi Grace papers, I just love these as they are so fresh.  I love all the chipboard embellishments she has created as well.

TFL

What a Time!!

Well, the intrepid explorer that I am, has returned!!!!  We traversed this wide brown land of ours for the 6-7 hour drive from Adelaide to Port Lincoln and I have to say.....I was impressed!  I haven't been to Port Lincoln since I was old enough to remember and part of me was under the misguided impression that it would be like Port Augusta or Whyalla, which quite frankly are NOT attractive places!  But Port Lincoln was absolutely beautiful.  As we were there on a 4wd holiday we were able traverse very bumpy tracks and reach some more remote locations.  One of those was the picturesque, Memory Cove which is steeped in history, as it was along this portion of coastline that Matthew Flinders lost 2 officers and 6 shipmates to the rugged ocean when they were sent ashore on a smaller boat in search of water.  All of the sourrounding islands have been names after these 8 unfortunate men who perished on this stretch of coastline.

This is Memory Cove and the water was an incredible blue, so very inviting but not enough considering how cold it was! LOL!

The kids had a heap of fun frolicking on the beach and searching for crabs in the rocks that are visible along the furtheres aspect of the beach.

One of the things I loved about Port Lincoln was the contrast between sheltered coves and the rocky savagery of the exposed coastline.  It shows the dramatic extremes of our landscape.

  Ethan and Hannah had a ball together.  This is the two of them at Memory Cove.  I have to confess that Ethan was a very bad influence on Hannah.  By the end of the weekend he had her running off with him across the sand dunes, refusing to return, blowing rasperries when they were told off and a few other 'poorer' behavioural points.  I can't even deny that it was my son leading the sweet and innocent Hannah astray!!  They were extremely cute together and I have some adorable nudie shots of them on the beach together (I wont be showing these here) which will make perfect 21st torture in years to come.

On the down side, i have returned home to the prospect that I may have Ross River Virus.  I will get the results of my blood tests on Friday.  I have just about all of the symptoms that they say occur with this virus, so I wont be supprised if the result is positive for RRV.

I will also share a copy of the last DT layout I did for Scrapbook station.  The theme was Making Memories and I created this layout almost entirely from MM products.

It is a shocking scan and the background is all a very light purple, not that you can tell from this.  Picture is of my cousin Andrew and his wife Amy.  They were married in January this year.

Busy Busy Busy

It just seems to be a permanent state of affairs these days.  This will be my third night in a row where I still haven't gone to bed before 1.30am!!!  So what the heck am I doing updating my blog!!  I wont be able to update for almost a week if I don't do it now! 

What's new......we have finally gone live with the Scrapbook Station Forum!  Donna Wild has created the most amazing banner on the forum site and I just adore it.  She is one very talented lady!

I have been going beserk creating layouts for the shops DT and will share as each of them go live on the site!  I am officially up to date now, so I should be able to relax.....yeah right!!!  I will just find more projects to sink my teeth into!  I have also made a little mini book for Kym's baby shower (which is next Thursday).  I have to credit the idea to Sally Donovan, I just thought it was a wonderful way to make the night more memorable and have a keepsake from that time.  I will scan it after it has been filled in with all the guesses as it will look more complete then.

I also got a bit of a suprise this week when I opened up SM.  I knew I had an acceptance for the mothers day theme but somehow it had slipped my mind until I was looking through the mag and saw my Mum's beautiful face staring back at me!  Here it is...

My dad just adores this layout. I think it is just because it has so many pictures of my Mum on it and he is still besotted with her!  Even after 36 years of marriage!  Wow, just writing that time makes me stand in awe!  I still think my Mum is a very beautiful woman.  Dad is in full agreement with me on that! LOL!!

I have to say that both this months SM and SC are fantastic issues and i have looked through them on numerous occasions.  It is so great to see our very talented shop DT so heavily featured in SC this month with both Donna and Jenni having articles in this issue!  Susan had a fantastic layout featured as well.  I am ever so greateful for the fabulous DT we have at Scrapbook Station and I think it always inspires you to strive for greater things in your own work as well.  Thanks for reading my ramblings...I have no idea if this will make sense in the morning... but now it is officially time for me to go to bed!

Kid at Heart

OK call me stupid, insane or just a kid at heart, but our family spent the Easter weekend up on the river (Murray River) at friends who own riverside property and I succumbed to peer pressure!  It may have taken all weekend and up until the last morning my feet hadn't even set foot in a boat, let alone the water (well it was cold all weekend) and then DH convinced me to hop on the boat and watch our friend on the G-force!  Well it was incredible to watch him being slung around like a rag doll and made airborn on the odd occasion.  Now tell me how I could watch this and come to the conclusion that this could be fun??????  This is where I seriously question my sanity, or have I just reverted to some childlike thirill seeker??  I donned the wet, wetsuit and threw myself into the icy waters, and let me tell you they were EXTREMELY ICY!!!! 

Now call me a dreamer,  but I was under the impression that my DH would be kind to me while I was on the G-force since he hasn't seen me engage in water sport for close to 10 years!!!  How wrong could I be!!!  Somewhere in his brain I think he was reliving every time he hadn't got his own way, or I had done something wrong as he gunned that boat and made it his mission to make sure I flew over every ounce of wake that was created!  I must have frustrated him somewhat with my clinging tenacity as I was thrown airborn and somehow landed back on the G-force in an upright manner.  Even the times where there was more of my body skimming along the water with only my fingers gripping the handles for the last ditch effort to restore myself to the relative comfort of the G-forces cushioning must have left him unfulfilled!  He resorted to 360 turns, and not just one at a time!!!!  I am talking about 3 in a row!!!  Not only am I at the end of some serious 'whip' but then I have to contend with walls of wake!!!  I can assure you that water isn't soft when hit at those speeds!!  Yes, I will admit in some perverse way I had an absolute blast, as there is something exhilarating about skimming across water at warp speed!  However, I will never trust my husband behind the wheel of a speedboat if I am behind it - EVER AGAIN!!!!

I am somewhat battered and bruised, and I doubt I will be moving with a great deal of spring in my step tomorrow, but for those 10 - 15 minutes that I was on the water, I was living life like a carefree teenager and it was good!  BTW, all 3 of my kids were on the boat, laughing each time I was flung across the water!  I will remember this!

Here is a super quick card made from the leftovers of the stitching class.  If they have time they will get to make this as well.  Hmmmm somehow I think I will be cracking the whip a bit too hard to expect a whole heap of handstitching to be completed in 2 hours as well as this 5 minute card, but it's always good to be prepared.

Justified Scrapping

After the arrival of all that stock, all I want to do is bury my head in my stash and scrap!!!  There never seems to be enough time to scrap and i am feeling rather tired from staying up past midnight way too many times in order to feed my obsession!  I also feel like I have to have a justifiable reason to sneak off to my space to create!  It may have been DH that wanted me to find a hobby a few years ago, but I don't think he ever bargained upon my becoming so addicted!  So these days I feel like I have to justify why I am scrapping.  I will use any excuse! LOL!  It's for mag deadlines....well that doesn't work anymore as I'm not on the DT.  It's for shop DT work...yep that one is still a goer!  I need to finish this album for my parents (or whoever else I can conjure up as an excuse).  I have to do new layouts for classes for the shop, that ones always a good one!  If all else fails there is the "I've got PMS so leave me alone to my scrapping, I'm not good company at any rate!" excuse!!  that one seems to work quite well when delivered in my best snarly voice and dagger look! LOL!!!

So this weeks excuse was the need to create a layout for class.  Here is the one for my "Stitch in time" class.

I tried so many different background colours and eventually decided to go with Kraft as it just sets off the other colours so well.  I have to say that I am loving the versitility of black, white and kraft ATM!  Sometimes I purposely have to try other colours as it just seems so easy to reach for one of those 3!  Hopefully those that book into the class at Scrapbook Station will really enjoy doing this.  I have tried to keep the stitching elements small but showcase a few different techniques across the page.

This layout has been created from the new Anna Griffin papers and I have to say I am in love with so many of her new papers, they are just divine.

I have also created a layout for a class on "Vivid Colour".  I adore my bright and bold colours right now, it is so very me.  When i finished this layout I wondered if it would be too complex to teach in a class, but then decided that 'what the heck' they are hear to learn so they can figure out (with my help) how  all the different layers of paper are put down on the page.

I will confess to having a button obsession as well!  A few years back I splurged and bought a container of Making Memories buttons, it cost me an arm and a leg at the time and then I barely used any!  Now I have just about used all of some of the colours in it!  I love it when I can justify my spending as well!

The photo is of my cousin from a few years back.  He had been living in Fiji most of his life and they had come over for Christmas this year and I was so shocked when I saw Brett as he had developed this chiselled jaw and looked so much like a teenager.  The last time I had seen him he was 10 years old and was just a boy!  He's 14 in this photo.  It really hit home to me how quickly children can change.  TFL.

What a Week!

Ever have a week that is so busy you barely have time to think!  I had one of those this week.  A crazy non-stop whirlwind, where everything seemed to need doing at once.  Did I complete everything I needed to? No, but it will still be waiting for me tomorrow, or the next day! LOL!  How was it so busy?....we had 20 boxes of product arrive from the US, then the next day another 11 boxes and the day after that another 6 boxes!  Someone has to enter all those new product lines into the system and that someone was me!  On the bright side it was great to wallow in the new KI Memories, Creative Imaginations, Lil Davis, Heidi Swapp, American Craft, Cactus Pink, Scrapworks, Karen foster, Junkitz, and Urban Lily.  Ohhhh did I get myself some goodies!  Lots of chipboard alphas, because anyone that knows me knows i have a serious alphabet addiction! LOL!!  I have created a couple of pages from some of the new stuff for classes at the shop (I made time to do this, a girl has got to  be able to play a little bit and it was work that needed to be done at any rate!).

To make matters more interesting this week, DH had to go to Melbourne for a few days.  I have to say that the kids were really well behaved for me.  Cam didn't even try on his usual bedtime routine of getting up 4 or 5 times.  On the down side they are all up at 6am!!!  Aaaarghhhhh, I hate the changeover of daylight saving back to normal time, it just messes with your body clock!  The kids really missed their Dad while he was away, and I asked them if they missed me when I go away and the cheeky little devils said NO!!!  How rude is that!!!  Mind you Cam went back that night and played on the computer and printed off a page that said "You are Great Mum, I love you!"  He redeemed himself!  I put it on the fridge to remind me that they do love me heaps as well, even if the older ones are Daddy's boys!

Back to the grindstone for me!  So much to do, so little time.  For that matter, so much to scrap, so little time as well.