A Creative Life

Feeling HOT HOT HOT

I am not usually one that is overly bothered by the hot weather, but this is ridiculous!!  I mean, it has been over 40 Degrees celcius since Tuesday and still forcast for 40 today and tomorrow!  Oh and then it drops a bit for the rest of the week....

Monday        Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 22    Max 39
Tuesday       Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 22    Max 38
Wednesday     Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 22    Max 38
Thursday      Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 21    Max 37
Friday        Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 19    Max 35

HELLO!!! That is not much of a drop.  Mind you 35 is 10 less degrees than it was last Wednesday at 45.7 (114.25F).  I am dreaming of snow!  White mounds of snow!!!

The kids are tired and grumpy, and I am tired and even more grumpy!!  To make it worse school went back last week so there was a lot of running around in the heat with Ethan finishing at 12.30 and then I had to get back into the car for the 3.30pm pick of the other 2.  Then we went straight to the inlaws place for  a dip in the pool.  When the weather is this hot for so long the water is such a lovely temperature!  I even went in and that says a lot!

Ethan started school!  My baby boy is now at school and each day this week he has asked....am I going to school today?  (Me) Yes Ethan, you are. (Ethan) Yay!!  I think he likes being one of the big kids but he sure is grumpy by the end of the day!  I took a few pics of the boys on the first day.

         This is Ethan in his classroom finding his name on his desk!  I am still in shock that my baby boy is at school!  Paul and I think he seems way to young still!

Here is a layout as well!  My take on the Colour Combo Challenge no 107.  I just had a desire to play with flowers. Love a bit of all out girly from time to time! My LO is a lot more pink here in the picture but IRL it is far more redish-pink.

   

   

Loving velvet flowers and leaves at the moment.  The texture is so rich and completely touchable!!  Can't wait for the weather to cool down so I can scrap some more!!  Actually, I just cant wait to get some cooler weather...full stop!!! 

I also had the opportunity to play with a Cricut Expressions machine this week (thanks to the lovely Lorraine, yes I do know you read this!!!! LOL!) and I have to say I was very impressed with it.  I almost think that I need one of those to compliment my sweet little slice!  I cut some stuff for a LO I hope to get to this week, so hopefully I will be able to share something soon, if I get some more inspiration to finish it off!!  Once again thanks for the play Lorraine!

TFL.

Dreaming Of ....

CHA!!!  I'm just pining to be there!  To see all the new releases.  To soak up the atmosphere. To just have a holiday! :)  There have been a few things that have really caught my eye this time.  Like always, Prima never fails to make my heart go pitter patter!!  These 3 things really caught my eye

 

Then Making Memories  have released quite a few new cartridges for the slice.  I think I will NEED to have these ones!!

 

Now there are heaps of papers that I know I will NEED to have, including CBX whole new release! But that is enough product drooling for me for the time being.  Now onto some cute Kaitlyn pics!!

        

  I just love all the cheeky character this little girl posesses!  I put her hair up in these adorable pigtails!  She looked so cute in them, especially the way they hung in ringlets at the back!

On the scrapping front I have done a couple of LO's as well.  So here they are:

This one uses colour combo #106 as well as the January bonus sketch from Inspired Blueprint.  Also used a whole lot of my new slice diecuts on it as well!!  I LOVE my slice!  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!  It seems I have been given an early birthday present! I am a very happy girl!

I still had a lot of scraps on my desk from CCG #104 so I whipped up this LO as well.  Just trying to document the day to day of family life.

Hope everyone is having a great Australia Day Holiday and enjoying all the peeks coming through from CHA!  TFL!

More Creating to Share

Well these hands have not sat idle over the past week!  Whenever Paul is working late afternoon to evening shifts I seem to get a LOT of time to play.  So it is a bit of a juggle with all 4 kids on my own until bedtime, but I am used to it now and have a very good routine so once 8.30pm hits and all the kids are tucked away in bed... I become a scrap obsessed monster!  The house is quiet and I can create until the wee hours!  I look forward to my evenings alone now.  At first I found it very difficult when Kaitlyn was younger as I felt like I never got a break, but now, now it is my time with no one to answer to and I can enjoy the peace of the evening. 

So, what have I been doing lately .... I decided to play along with Inspired Blueprint this week!  A sketch site and a great way for me to get more LO's done for the boys albums.  Here is what I created:

Lots of journaling on this all about Cam and his need to be noticed at all times and how it worries me for the future, especially when he is old enough to drive!!!  Eeeeek!  I know, he is only 6 weeks away from turning 9 and I am already worried about him at 16, but I am learning that time waits for no one and this will come well before I am ready for it!

I also played along for CCG no 106.  I was really struggling with this one and then I pulled off a few of the papers I was trying to use, simplified it, changed the photo and now I am really happy with it.  It took me quite some time to do, but I really wanted to do justice to this pic of Cameron as it is my favourite!  I just love it and can see him in the future as a young man, a handsome young man at that!

   

Now that I see the colour sample next to my layout the colour on the far right is far more mustardish than the terracottaish colour I have used!  Ahh, it's all good!

BTW, my slice machine has been delivered today, but my very generous husband won't let me play until my birthday!!!!!  How torturous is that!  He was fine about me ordering it, Lucky hey?  Oooh soo excited and so frustrated all in one!

A Kaitlyn update!  The little girl has discovered words in a very big way.  She just parrots everything we say.  I can't even remember how many new words she came out with this week or what they all were but she did say her own name, which I think is quite a milestone.  She has also said Camera on a few occasions, what does that say about her mother!!  She got very excited about a jet flying overhead yesterday and now the boys have taught her to say jet!  Of which she repeated over and over with great excitement yesterday.  She struggles with pronouncing the letter B and inserts a D instead which makes it quite amusing when she says Bye and Birdies are apparently Dirdy. 

She loves grapes and blueberries, and slices of cheese! Is obsessed with shoes and I mean OBSESSED!!! Including bringing shoes out to me which I MUST put on! Won't get out of bed in the morning without having her wrap to hold, but will give it up later in the morning.  Loves to sit at my desk and pretend to play on the laptop and annoyingly closes the lid all the time!  Has a habit of closing the front door, despite the fact I want it open for the breeze!  Has officially attacked my scraproom while Daddy was looking after her and mangled a couple of photos and lost the lid off a zig writer as well as drawn on a few pieces of paper!!  Grrrrr!  There is a door for a reason DH!!!

So now that you are all thoroughly updated. TFL and happy scrapping till next time!

Being Presumptuous!

Have you ever given a couple of hints for something you want for your birthday, hoping you will receive it?  Well I may have gone a little too far today!  I have dropped the hints and I am not talking subtle, I don't have time for that and I definately dont want to give a false impression of what I want so I basically spell it out in black and white!  You see I want one of these:

and these little cartridges to go with it...

   Well..... I may have ordered them without telling DH that I have!  I will let him give it to me for my birthday, but maybe I wont tell him how much it all cost! ;)  But hey, I am buying it wholesale because I have the luxury of owning a shop, so really I have saved him a fortune! :)  If he doesnt want to give me this as a gift, I have spent all my spending money for quite some time to come!

Onto other matters!  My Dad had a birthday last week and I almost forgot to ring!  I was mortified when it came around to 4pm and than suddenly realised what the date was and that I had not yet called my Dad!  Thank goodness for mobile phones!  Then I felt a lot better as my brother hadn't yet called him, so all of a sudden I was off the hook!  Now rather than let my brother let it slip by his brain, I rang him, but he hadn't forgotten, he was just too busy painting his house and planned to call when dad had finished work (Dad should really be retired but quite likes the tax breaks you get for working beyond 65!)  Priorities! LOL!

Friends of ours got married on Saturday.  It was a lovely outdoor wedding and the day was perfect.  I got a couple of pics of the bride and groom.  This was my favourite

Russell and Vivian having a smooch!!

And the bridal party, which included Vivians 3 other sisters!  I am just so happy for them both and wish them all the happiness in the future.

 

While the camera was out, and I was a little glammed up, I asked a friend to take a pic of Paul and I together, as those shots are as rare as hens teeth!!  There were 4 shots taken and unfortunately 1 was blurry, and one I had my eyes closed in, not a good look, but these two are quite nice!

  Gee I am short next to Paul!!  I only make it up to his shoulder even with 3inch heels on!!  Lucky I really like my man tall!  I'm still totally in love with my hubby and we will have been together for 15 years this year and married for 14 of them when our anniversary comes around.  Sometimes I marvel at how quickly that time has flown by.  So glad I have my best friend by my side.  Yep that is as mushy as I get!!  LOL!

I have been scrapping feverishly this week, working on a mini album, but I can't show you yet!  sorry, it is one of those mag pieces but I will say it is BRIGHT!!!  In fact I have not scrapped anything this BRIGHT in a very long time....maybe ever!  Have another LO designed on my desk but I am procrastinating about sticking it together.  It is one of those LO's that you just KNOW will never go back in quite the same way when you stick it down.  Wish me luck!!

Till next time... happy scrapping!

Remind Me to Journal More!

Yes, I want to journal more!  I used to be a prolific journaller on my pages but lately I spend so much time on the details I find there is no room left for the stories!  This troubles me!  I have always believed that a photo on a page, even a pretty page is not going to mean anything much to an observer in years to come unless it at least has a date and a name to it. (I have come to this decision after looking at old photographs that are apparently my relatives, but without additional information they are just nameless faces staring back at me!)  I still try and date or name those on my pages but I feel like I am missing the stories.  So this is my reminder.... to journal more! 

With that in mind I designed my layout for this weeks colour combo around the journaling first!!!  I also discovered I didn't have much room for anything else on the page, but I dug deep and squeezed out a corner for some lovelies!! LOL!  The layout is all about me wanting a girl, then add to that a girly girl and just because I am greedy, a Mummy's girl!!  Toss in a few of her little antics and that I seem to have hit the jackpot on all 3 accounts and you get the gist of the LO!!

 Thought I would give it to you a bit bigger so you could read the journaling!!  The flowers on this layout were inspired by Steph Caskey Devlin's beautiful tissue paper flowers but I wanted to put my own spin on them, so mine are made from the 2 ply of a napkin ( the ply you throw away when modpodging a napkin to your page, It's my attempt at recycling! LOL!)  I fold it up and then cut out a circle, staple it in the middle, I then use my fingers to press and scrunch it into it's desired shape.  Then I attack it with glimmermist whilst simultaneously using my heat gun to mold it into the shape I want as the layers dry.  Sounds far more complex than it actually is!!  Just be prepared to have very stained fingers!  Here is a close up for more detail:

    Colours for this challenge. 

I used the oriental poppy colour on these flowers.  It is an unusual colour that throws a lovley gold glimmer.  I feel a great need for many more glimmermist colours in my stash! Oh for the elusive money tree!!

Last week I ended up scrapping 2 LO's for the colour challenge.  In fact I have a 3rd on my desk right now from the remainder of my scraps!  I really did like that scheme!  Here is my 2nd LO.

Do you like the birdies I have on my pages?  I am a little addicted to them atm.  I purchased a new diary, that I have no intention of using as a diary, but all the beautiful hand drawn birdies on the pages will surely see a great deal of use!!

OK, I'm not going to forget this time!!  Deb gave me 2 awards, 1 a christmas award and a second one for a lovely blog.

 I am truly hopeless at this sort of thing, but I will pass this award onto Kerry Murray and  Nic Wood and Lydell Quin (maybe she will update if I do this...hint hint!!).  I am supposed to nominate 7 but I'll cheat and nominate just 3!!  OK ladies consider yourselves Lovely Blog holders!

Lachlan got back from Summer camp and he was soooo tired!!  He had a great time and the highlight for him was learning how to wakeboard!  So proud of him and I think he is pretty proud of himself too! I am so glad he can have opportunities like this to learn new and exciting things.  Some of my fantastic memories as a child were at summer camps like he has been on and I learnt how to ski because of these camps!

Well, I had better go back to keeping the multitudes happy (yes, that is what it feels like with 4 kids at home all day! LOL!)  Believe it or not I actually enjoy school holidays with the kids, it is fun and the house is always filled with laughter and merriment, and the occasional fight, tear and tantrum, but hey, that is mohterhood.

Finally thankyou to all of those who stopped by last week and left such lovely comments, truly appreciated.

Colour Combos and ET Layouts

I know, it hasn't been a week and I am already updating!  Very strange indeed!  Firstly I was very lucky to be aked to be this weeks guest designer on the Colour Combo Blog.  Here is my combo and my LO

   

I started out with a piece of Amy Butler (her first release) paper with the peacock on it!  How inspiring is that beautiful bird and then added a couple of other sheets of her paper from the same range.  This LO came together really easily and I just love it.  I also love how fresh the colour scheme makes it feel.  The journalling is about how after 4 children you would think I could have learnt some patience but it is still a quality I seem to lack!  I was rather frustrated with miss K and how unco-operative whe was in her photo shoot!

Also thought I would share my ET layouts. I still really like all of these layouts even though most of them were created at least 8 - 12 months ago. So here goes.

  This was my favourite page that I sent in.  It is just so pretty an feminine.

This one almost didn't make it into the entry but in the end I decided that the photo was worth it.  The reflection is captured on a glass sliding door!

Love the movement in this one and the fact that the photos are not posed, just candid shots of Emma and Ethan playing.  Until last year I had only ever scrapped 12x12, but after reading Ali Edwards just slips the different sized page protectors into the one album, I thought I should give it a go.  I can't believe that 3 of my LOs were 8x11 doubles!  I never would have thought that some of my favourite work last year would be in this smaller format.  Mind you, they were all doubles so maybe it wasn't smaller after all, but larger!! ;)

This was my only really boyish layout in my entry.  I still love this LO and as for that cheeky rascal of a boy.. got to love him!

  I was so pleased with how FK Creative paper photographed this layout as I was sure you wouldnt be able to see all the stitching detail, but it is very obvious in the mag.  Without the stitching detail a lot of the charm of this LO is lost.  I still marvel at what a doll miss K was as a baby.  She has become a lot more rascally looking as she gets older, but here, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth!

I did have a chuckle that people will only think I have 2 kids! Kaitlyn and Ethan, but I probably dont photograph the older boys as often as they were at school when a lot of these pics were taken.  I have since made a point of getting some good pics of all 4 of them!

TFL!! 

Another one Rolls By

Another week rolls by!  This week Lachlan goes to Summer camps, he won't stop talking about it!  A friend went last year, so he now is gleaning every little bit of info from him and then parrotting it back to us!  Especially all the meal options they had last year???  Typical male, obsessed with his stomach!  Lachlan purchases his much anticipated ipod this week with his christmas money and now Cam has decided he wants one as well, but still is a little short on the cash department!  We have advised him to wait until his birthday, which is in March and I am sure that the rellies will make up the shortfall with birthday monetary gifts! LOL!  And rolling on from this is Ethans obsession with wanting a camera now that Cameron has one!!!!  Will it ever end?  Thankfully we have a small little one that we can let E use so that is keeping him amused.

Oh My Goodness, a whole paragraph and not one mention of the spoilt little girl!  What is this world coming to?  Time to rectify that!!!  She has become a parrot!  I tell you, the number of new words that have escaped her little mouth this week is amazing!  The boys are rapt as they taught her to say "Bubble", which is very cute.  They must say stop a lot at childcare as that is another word sneaking into her vocab.  Now that we have a trampoline, she tries to say that, I say tries as you would have no idea what the word was unless you heard it in context.  She loves this new toy and I love that it is fully fenced in so she can go on it!  Man I adore this little girl!

O'kay, on the scrapbooking front, this is my LO for colour combo challenge #103.  I was so glad that I had dressed my children in aqua the other day for the photo shoot! :)  Had no idea it would come in sooo handy for this colour challenge.  The layout is about how Kaitlyn has 3 older brothers to watch out for her as she grows up and how this may actually cramp her style a little when she is older, but for now she loves it!

   

I was cleaning up in my scraproom and discovered this very old layout I had done!  I did it about 3 years ago.  The look on Ethans face is just priceless!  This is back when E was just a little 2yo!  How time flies by!

 

We had our friends Derek and Miranda over last night and I captured this beautiful picture of their baby girl Gracie!  I love it when i get a really cute photo!  Miranda is just delighted with a couple of the pics I took, and I love to be able to capture these moments for her!

      

While I had the camera out, I was able to get this cute candid moment of Lachlan and Kaitlyn together!  I know it isn't a perfect picture, but the interaction between them is just too cute!  It is as if she is totally in awe of her big brother!   The cute little dress she is wearing was a Christmas present from Miranda, not a bought dress, no, Miranda's very first attempt at dressmaking and Kaitlyn was the lucky recipient of it!  Just adorable!

 

Finally, I just want to thank all those that stopped by my blog with their congrats.  Thanks so much you guys, it was really appreciated. I'm still on cloud nine! LOL!