Scrappy Zaccie

Another One!

2010-04-06T18:49:00.002+10:00

I'm on a roll :-) I did manage to get another card done last night.

This one's for:
Basic Grey Challenges Week 17

Ingredients:
Basic Grey Lemonade papers
WR Memory Keepers My Deer stamp
Jenni Bowlin button
Kaisercraft rhinestones

Thanks for visiting :-)

Some Cards

2010-04-05T18:37:00.003+10:00

Well that weekend went super dooper quick lol! At least we managed to have a good productive day today with a chainsaw and bonfire ;-) The backyard is looking much better! Thanks heaps to all our helpers.

Last night I felt inspired to do some cards, so I checked out a few challenge blogs.

This one's for:
ICSketches #60
Dutch Dare #74

Ingredients:
Penny Black "Balloon Madness" stamp
Penny Black "Party Time" stickers
Unknown paper and material from my stash

This one's for:
CPS #161

Ingredients:
Basic Grey "Wisteria" papers
Basic Grey "Wisteria" chip stickers
Kaisercraft and Delish Designs pearsl
Kaisercraft flowers

I'm still feeling inspired so might whip up some more tonight :-)

Another Dollies Trifecta

2010-04-03T10:41:00.003+11:00

Happy Easter everyone! Hope you're having a great weekend so far :-)

I had quite a slack day yesterday, although I did manage to get a layout done for the Design Dollies trifecta.

Colour Challenge: Turquoise, Red, and White or Black
Elements Challenge: A frame, a stamped image, the colour brown, 3 flowers, and butterflies
Sketch Challenge: See here

Ingredients:
Papers: Websters Pages, Sassafras Lass, Scenic Route
Alphas: Pink Paislee, Kaisercraft
Embellies: Green Tara flowers, Fancy Pants ball trim, Sassafras Lass felties, and various other bits and pieces from my stash

I decided to make a card with some of the leftovers from my 'Pony Games' layout.

I don't have particular in mind to give this to, but lately it seems like everyone's getting pregnant, so I'm sure I'll find someone :-)

Have a lovely rest of the Easter weekend and I hope the Easter bunny is good to you!

Some New Layouts

2010-03-30T17:58:00.003+11:00

I've been busy lately with starting my new job and getting settled there. All going well so far, except I need to spend far more time at the gym with all the choccie I'm eating!

On Friday night I went to Laura's for a crop night. It's the first time in ages that I've done any scrapping and I was quite pleased to get three layouts done :-) They're not for any challenges or anything, but I did use some of Krissy's sketches from the CISters Stylish Sketches blog.

Pony Games
Cardstock & Papers - SEI Playday
Alphas - Kaisercraft Fozz Fonts and Adorn It Tiny Alphas
Rubons & Felt Flowers - SEI Playday
Journalling Spot - packaging from SEI Playday rubons :-)
Lace Trim - Secret Santa present from last year :-)

On Parade
Cardstock - Aussie Scrap Source
Papers - Little Yellow Bicycle Traveller and Basic Grey
Alphas - American Crafts Thickers
Bling - Kaisercraft

Cuddles
Paper - Collage Press and Basic Grey Lemonade
Alphas - Doodlebug and Adorn It Tiny Alphas
Rubons - Kaisercraft and We R Memory Keepers
Bling - Basic Grey Opaline Swirl and Lemonade brads

We went camping on the weekend which was a bit of fun. We had to buy a tent on the way and luckily we found a decent one! It didn't rain too much - just a bit on Saturday night. There were plenty of nice opportunities to walk down to the beach and sit around outside socialising. I didn't sleep too well, but I really do think I sleep far too lightly for going camping! Lucky it's only a short week this week :-)

Hope everyone has a nice Easter with lots of choccie!

I love My Vintage Blossoms!

2010-03-09T18:26:00.002+11:00

Krissy is feeling in a very generous mood and is giving away this gorgeous pack of her handmade flowers! Visit her My Vintage Blossoms blog to find out how you can win!

Playing with Dollies

2010-03-08T10:00:00.005+11:00

Mum and Dad arrived on Saturday, just in time for the massive storm! We were out having a late lunch when it hit, but luckily where we were and where our house is didn't get flooded or storm damaged. In fact, I think the main part of the storm missed our house altogether!

Yesterday we went for High Tea at the Sebel Heritage in the Yarra Valley. It was very civilised - we got some finger sandwiches, mini pizzas and scones with jam and cream presented to us on one of those multi-tier serving platter things. Then there was a dessert buffet thing with lots and lots of yummy cakes! We went for a walk down to the river after the tea but I think we'll need a lot more exercise than that to work it off!

Last night I felt inspired to do a layout - the boys were watching Top Gear, and Mum was interested in watching (she wants to do scrapbooking some day as well). I did another Design Dollies trifecta.

Dollies Sketch Challenge
Dollies Elements Challenge: Use something to do with the sun and the colour yellow - my sun and yellow are in the title
Dollies Colour Challenge: Royal blue, sky blue and lime

We're off to Philip Island to see the penguins tonight, so I better start getting organised!

Dollies Trifecta!

2010-02-28T11:46:00.004+11:00

Wow it's been ages since I last posted! So slack! I guess the big news is I have a new job, which I'll be starting in 2 1/2 weeks. And my parents are coming to visit next week - it was just going to be Mum, but then Dad made a last minute decision to come too :-)

I've been sick for the last week with tonsilitis. So annoyed that I went through all the trauma of having my tonsils taken out and I can still get tonsilitis bad enough to have a week off work! Hopefully the antibiotics will sort it out quick smart so I can get on with enjoying my week off with Mum and Dad, and starting my new job.

I got so sick of laying on the couch for the last week watching movies, yesterday I thought I would get out my scrapbooking stuff and check out the latest Design Dollies challenges. I've never done one of their 'trifectas' before, so I decided to give it a go.

Colour Challenge: Orange, brown and neutral
Elements Challenge: 3 circles, the colour green, 2 kinds of ribbon, inked edges
Sketch Challenge: As at Design Dollies

Initially I was going for a kind of pretty vintage look, but I have to admit I don't find orange all that easy to work with, so it ended up looking a bit retro. Still, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing given that the photo was early 80s.

While I had all my stuff out, I thought I'd also do one of the layouts from Laura's Websters Pages Christmas kit. When we first got Oliver I decided to get him his own tinsel to play with, hoping that he wouldn't destroy the Christmas tree. It seemed to work :-)

Well thanks for visiting, and I will try not to leave it so long before the next update!

Christening the Bikes

2010-01-26T13:54:00.006+11:00

Happy Australia Day everyone!

Nick and I decided to celebrate by seeing some of the beautiful scenery from our new bikes :-) Nick got up early to change the tyres on his bike, then realised that the new tyres he bought were a bit chunky and the back one just wouldn't rotate at all, so he just left the back one as the road tyre and changed the front one to the off-road. It seemed to work out ok on the trail, he didn't have any problems with either tyre. We packed up the bikes in Nick's work van (very handy!) and made our way to the Lilydale-Warburton Trail in the Yarra Valley.

We decided to make our way to the bike cafe in Mt Evelyn, and set off about 10km away, so we started off in Wandin East, just about where the old Killara station used to be. It ended up being more like 12km by the time we found some parking etc.

The ride to the cafe nearly killed me! It's the first time I've really ridden a bike in about 15 years, and it took well over an hour to get there. We had to stop for breaks a few times, and it was really a hard slog. I started to think maybe we'd been a bit ambitious for my first ride! Towards the end there was a not-too-steep but loooong hill. We didn't realise we were only about 500m from the cafe when we had our last rest stop!

We had a nice little rest at the cafe and some cold drinks and muffins. Nick looked at a contour map of the trail and discovered that we'd actually made our way from the lowest point to the highest point on the trail! No wonder it was so hard!

When we set off again we realised how steep that last hill actually was, and were just able to coast down it without pedalling. It was a much easier ride back, and only took about 40 mins, but I was still happy to see the car when we finally made it back!

It was a really nice way to spend the morning, and Nick and I are looking forward to taking Mum when she visits in March :-)

Congrats to Mum and Dad who completed their first triathlon this morning! I just found out that Dad came 2nd in his age group - woohoo!

My First Layouts for 2010!

2010-01-24T13:42:00.007+11:00

Once again I have been very slack in keeping my blog updated. I guess I haven't really had that much to share that I thought would be interesting for people to read lol!

On Friday night Laura had a crop night and I managed to get a few layouts done. I haven't so much as picked up a patterned paper since I finished the last of my Christmas cards, so I was pretty thrilled to get 3 layouts finished!

The first 2 are for Krissy's BOM challenge over at Wicked Princesses. I thought it would be a nice little non-threatening challenge to start the year off with, since there's no deadlines and no voting. The BOM will go for the whole year, with 2 challenges each month. If we manage to do all the challenges by the end of the year we get a little participation prize :-)

Cardstock: Bazzil
Papers: Cosmo Cricket Earth Love, misc book page
Alphas: Basic Grey Wisteria Chip alphas, Adorn It Tiny Alphas Burlap Rust
Embellies: Misc buttons, brads and vintage lace from op shop

This was the first challenge for January - choose a word for 2010. I chose RELAX (for obvious reasons to anyone who knows me lol!) to be my word to guide me through the year. The photo was taken on our weekend away in Gippsland last year.

Cardstock: Bazzil
Papers: Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts
Alphas: Kaisercraft Fozz Fonts Rose, Adorn It Tiny Alphas in Pink and Burlap Rust
Embellies: Heidi Swapp and Kaisercraft flowers, crocheted flower, Basic Grey Bling-It swirl, misc buttons and lace from op shop

The 2nd challenge for January was to use the alphabet for the journalling. I chose to do mine as a list of words for each letter, hidden under my photo mat. I found it a bit tricky to try to think of a word for each letter, but I got there in the end! The photo was taken on our trip to Queensland in Feb 08.

All products and instructions from 'Adorable' Stylish Class Kit by Laura Overdyk.

I have always loved this kit and did hope that there would be one left over for me to do. I had planned to use a pretty girly photo, but the papers and colours just matched so well with the school photo I couldn't resist!

So far this year I have been managing to mainly be guided by my word :-) Although work was a little stressful last week and there were some times when I was certainly NOT relaxed! But generally I think I'm getting better at it.

I'm really starting to see some results from the gym. Last week I started to feel a bit skinnier, definitely healthier, I'm sleeping better, have more energy - I'm definitely going to keep going and join up for the year once my trial period is finished! I'm really getting into the yoga classes - it's so relaxing and I can just feel all the tension being released from my body as I'm doing it.

I hope everyone else is having a positive start to the year!

We Survived!

2010-01-11T18:49:00.002+11:00

It's nearly 7pm and me, Nick, the cats and the house have survived the 40 degree + temps today. It was a lovely welcome home when I got to Emerald and saw a big sign up saying 'Fire Danger Area - Avoid Unnecessary Travel'... I guess that's what happens when you choose to live in the hills ;-)

Got home to a coolish house. The air-con is on but apparently the house was really hot when Nick got home so it must have had a bit of a struggle to keep up. This morning I thought I'd leave the fan on for the cats, but Nick thinks it brought in the hot air from outside so I won't do that again.

Decided to skip the gym tonight. In high fire danger times I like to either be evacuated or at home ready to evacuate lol! Will be going tomorrow night anyway to have my appraisal thing and may go to boxing before work. Will see how I go.

I hope all my fellow Victorians have been keeping cool and safe :-)

A Scrappy Update

2010-01-08T20:06:00.004+11:00

Well, it's certainly been a while since I shared anything scrappy, so I thought I would finally upload the latest layout and card I finished off when I got back from Perth. This was a class kit from Crafting In Style by the lovely Laura. The instructions for the card were in there too. I haven't been feeling very creative lately so it was nice to just follow the instructions :-)

In other news, I bit the bullet and signed up for a month's trial membership at the gym this week! I'm totally not a gym person, but I do enjoy the classes, and I actually feel quite comfortable at this particular gym (it's only just up the road too). I've been twice now, did a BodyAttack class and RPM yesterday. I might do the RPM class again on Sunday, or else wait until Monday and try out the BodyPump after work. I've got my appraisal on Tuesday so that will be interesting lol!

Hope everyone has had a great start to 2010!

Home Again...

2010-01-02T12:19:00.002+11:00

Happy New Year!

Last night I arrived home from Perth, via Adelaide. Nick's mum picked me up at the airport which ended up being really handy since I decided to bring back Mum's old bike with me (when I say old I mean she rode it a few times then upgraded). Was really fun trying to wheel that through the airport on a luggage trolley lol! Was even more fun trying to fit the bike, suitcase, hand luggage, 2 cats in travelling boxes and the cat mat into my little car to come home!

The cats (especially Abbey) were very pleased to see me and absolutely thrilled to get home. I don't think I've ever seen Abbey quite as contented, and I was hassled for cuddles all through the night. I don't think I've ever heard her purr quite so much either! She was certainly a very happy kitty. This morning she has been having a great time with the new toy that Emily sent us home with :-) Oliver has pretty much just been his usual self, he's sleeping on the fluff at the moment.

I had a great time in Perth, catching up with everyone, just relaxing at home and spending heaps of time with my family. It was a bit sad to come back to Melbourne, but it was great to see the cats and it is always nice to get home.

So now back to normal life... I've got some washing going - not sure how it's going to get dry since it's pretty drizzly and cool around here. Will spend the day tidying up around the house, checking out the damage around the garden, and may even pull my bike out and attempt to put it together. Will have to take down the Christmas tree too I suppose... Then back to work on Monday. Holidays always go too quick!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T21:03:00.005+11:00

Wow I have been slack lately with my blogging! Or perhaps just busy with life... My store has officially closed down now so hopefully I'll have a bit more spare time in the near future :-)

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Christmas and that Santa was good to you :-) I've been having a lovely time in Perth with my family. My business class flight over here was awesome! Not so much looking forward to the economy trip back via Adelaide! We had a Christmas brekky this morning with the rellies and played some bocce (sp?) in the park.

Santa was very good to me - I got the Snow White DVD, some books, cash, and a voucher for Flight Centre which will come in very handy! Thanks also to Hilde (aka Scoobie) - I was lucky enough to win twice in her advent calendar give away!

Anyway, I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Better go back to socialising and demolishing the gingerbread house :-)

Another Busy Day

2009-12-06T20:12:00.008+11:00

I had another busy day today! Lots of odd jobs in the morning so I feel like I've been productive :-)

I finished Karen's sketch challenge for the cybercrop:

Managed to get a couple more Christmas cards done as well.

This one's for the sketch challenge at Inspirational Card Sketches. Here's the sketch:

And here's my take on it. I combined it with the Christmas card challenge at Creative Card Crew. I thought the baubles on this Kaisercraft paper suited the sketch perfectly!

I used the sketch at Fab n Funky for the next one. Here's the sketch:

I combined this one with the clean and simple challenge at Flourishes. Not sure if you can really notice in the photo, but I glimmermisted the stamped image.

I'll have to check out my Christmas card list - must be nearly through it now!

A Busy Day!

2009-12-05T19:18:00.005+11:00

I FINALLY got around to putting up the Christmas tree this morning. Oliver tried to help by having a swipe at the lower branches and running off with the tinsel, but I managed to convince him he wanted to play outside and things progressed a lot quicker after that!

I've been busy at the last ever Crafting In Style Cybercrop. It's a bit sad to be having our last one :-( There's some great challenges up though and bingo is coming up soon! Here's what I've been working on:

Kerryn's challenge was to include a goodbye phrase in the title. I came up with this:

Laura's challenge was to include lyrics from 'Time of Your Life' by Greenday, and also include a winged creature.

I just uploaded a surprise colour challenge, using chocolate, watermelon and teal. Here's my example:

I've also managed to complete a card for the Colour Throwdown. I just missed out on the deadline last week so I thought I'd get in nice and early this time! Here's the challenge:

My card doesn't have any pink, but we were allowed to leave out one of the colours if we wanted.

I also used a sketch from Design Dollies, but forgot to use the thankful theme so couldn't enter that challenge :-(

Now off to prepare for the bingo!

Card for Colour Throwdown

2009-12-01T21:02:00.003+11:00

I've been wanting to use this stamp for ages, so when I came across the Colour Throwdown challenge for this week I thought I thought it might be a good opportunity to use it :-) This was the challenge:

I don't use much orange (and didn't have much!) so found it a bit tricky, but in the end here's what I came up with:

Thanks girls for a great challenge and thanks for looking!

In other news, at the Crafting In Style forum we're having our final cybercrop ever this weekend! Come and check it out for a great weekend of scrappy fun! There's also a few bargains still to be had at my closing down sale.

Oliver's New Favourite!

2009-11-29T15:19:00.008+11:00

Nick brought some old duct insulation home from work the other day thinking that the cats might enjoy it. Abbey wasn't too keen, but Oliver made himself comfy :-) It seems to be his new favourite place to have a little cat nap.

I finally finished off my entry for Elle's circle journal - her theme was happiness and what makes us happy. So of course I did an entry about the cats :-)

I managed to get some more cards done today, although I did find these challenges rather... um... challenging lol!

This one's for the Sophisticats ATC challenge. The challenge was to make an ATC or a card using an ATC. I don't have much experience with ATCs, so it was a bit tricky to figure out what to do! I came up with this:

I ended up getting the idea from the papers, the Kaisercraft Dash Away All range.

I managed to do both the colour challenge and elements challenge at Design Dollies. The colour challenge was baby pink and white. Mine has a little gold as well, hope that's ok.

The elements challenge was to include 3 elements that represent water.

I have to admit I struggled with this one, and ended up using the vellum, bling and fish as my elements that represent water.

Thanks for looking!

Now off to get some things organised for dinner.

Krissy's Gorgeous Flowers!

2009-11-28T11:09:00.004+11:00

Just thought I would give a quick shout-out to the amazing Krissy who is so talented and patient with all the fiddly work she does lol! She has moved into an etsy store to sell her gorgeous flowers and new girls headbands as well. Check it out at My Vintage Blossoms!

Or check out her blog, Krissy's Handmade Flowers, for more info!

Some More Cards

2009-11-27T23:46:00.004+11:00

I've been flat out this week putting orders together from my closing down sale, but it's a good sort of flat out :-) If you haven't checked it out yet, I suggest you have a look soon before everything sells out!

In between packing orders, I've managed to do a couple of cards.

Basic Grey Challenges
Glitz & Bling

My bling is the big sparkly ribbon, the rhinestones on the prezzies, and I also glimmer misted the prezzies and card base.

Allsorts Challenges
Take inspiration from a Christmas carol or song

I took inspiration from Winter Wonderland with the snowflake papers and snowman stamp. Added a bit of Kindyglitz to the stamped image for extra sparkle :-)

Sorry the photos aren't that great. The challenges are due tonight so I couldn't wait until tomorrow!

Thanks for looking!

Woohoo!

2009-11-25T08:14:00.004+11:00

I just checked out the results for the Sophicats challenge and I made the top 3! I'm so excited! Thanks girls for a great challenge!

Blog Candy at Scoobie's Lil Blog!

2009-11-23T11:43:00.001+11:00

I've never got involved with blog candy before, but I couldn't resist this one at Scoobie's Lil Blog! Scoobie will be counting down the days to Christmas with a blog candy draw each day - like an awesome scrappy advent calendar :-) You could win some of this gorgeous stash - go check it out!

Some News & Some Cards

2009-11-22T22:57:00.006+11:00

Wow! It's been a long time since my last blog post! Sorry! I've been a busy bee lol!

Well first of all my news... I've decided to close down the Crafting In Style store. It's been a tough decision and I'll feel a bit sad to shut it down, but I feel it's the best decision for me and my family. I have just put up a bit of a closing down sale if anyone's after a few scrappy bargains!

Now for the cards...

I've been getting into some Christmas cards lately and found a couple of card challenge blogs. This one is for the Sophisticats sketch challenge.

I used some Kaisercraft paper, Stampin' Up stamp and Flair Designs paper lace.

This one is for the Colour Throwdown colour challenge - using chocolate, olive, cream and dark red.

I used a cream card for the base, and added some Kaisercraft papers in the red and green, a Kaisercraft rub-on, and some Flair Designs paper lace for the chocolate.

TFL!

A Great Night of Girl Power!

2009-10-18T11:40:00.006+11:00

I just wanted to thank everyone who came to the CISter's Night In and especially those who made a donation even though they couldn't make it! It is so much appreciated and thanks to your generosity I have $235 to donate to the NBCF! Congrats to all the winners and I hope everyone had a great night!

Thanks also to the DT girls for all their help in organising the night and for donating their time and resources to make it such a great night! Also to Sketch Queen Krissy for creating her gorgeous sketch for the night - I'm sure there will be many beautiful takes on the sketch appearing in the gallery during the week :-) Here's mine, all about the special relationship I have with my Nan (who is a breast cancer survivor herself):

Now to start organising the cybercrop lol!

Oooh I forgot I can put up this layout of Oliver now too :-) I used one of Krissy's October sketches. He's so funny and such a clever boy learning to climb up and down the ladder! He was doing it again today lol!

Finally Some Sun!

2009-10-11T18:05:00.003+11:00

No scrapping for me this weekend, we've had such gorgeous weather I've had to take full advantage of it... apart from yesterday... when I spent ALL DAY inside finishing off my tax stuff! But at least it's done now :-)

Today Helen came over with some lunch which we ate outside since it was such a nice day. The cats were having a ball out there, and Abbey was even brave enough to socialise for a bit. We were going to have Joan over too but since it was a last minute thing she was already visiting elsewhere.

After Helen left I went to see Zaccie. Didn't ride as there was nobody to ride with and she's full of spring grass and coming into season at the moment, and hasn't been ridden for a while. So I took her for a nice walk instead. I need the exercise, and it was good for Zaccie to get out and about without me being all nervous and stressed. She even got to have a pick at some grass while we were out.

Joan passed us while we were out on her way home, so I got to catch up with her and Dick when Zaccie and I got home. Zaccie had a nice pick on the driveway while Joan and I had a chat, and I gave her some wormer too. She was very good for me and as a treat she got some tiny little carrots that Nick pulled up from our veggie patch yesterday :-)

Hopefully tonight I can make a few more Christmas cards and maybe even scrap my example layout for Krissy's exclusive sketch for our CISter's Night In!

Well, that's it really for this post! I just wanted you to know that we do sometimes get nice weather in Melbourne ;-)

I'm Going Business Class!

2009-10-08T20:56:00.004+11:00

Well, since I left it so long to book my flights to Perth for Christmas, there was quite a limited selection of frequent flyer flights available. So I was forced to go business class one way :-) I'm VERY excited I've never been business class before! And I still have frequent flyer points leftover!

Speaking of exciting, I'm looking forward to the CISter's Night In next weekend! A great night of scrapping and fun games with the girls all in the name of breast cancer research - sounds perfect :-) We've even got an exclusive sketch by Krissy that she's made up just for the night! If you haven't put your name down yet, make sure you head over to my fundraising page and make a donation for access to the group. And don't forget to check out the gorgeous new Stylish Class Kits - Kerryn will be holding a class for hers at the CISter's Night In (you do need to buy access to the class though).

All the October challenges are up at Crafting In Style. Kerryn is asking you to use rings for your Shaping Up layouts, Karen has shown us some great ribbon flowers for the Technique challenge, and for the Favourites challenge I'd like you to scrap a photo of your favourite women using your favourite sketch from September. Check out the forum for more info!

Here's my favourites example:

I also finished off my entry for Christine's Circle Journal. Her theme was 5 Things You Can't Live Without.

I've also made a start on some Christmas cards but haven't photographed any yet. I'm trying to use up the scraps of last year's Christmas papers first before I break into any new ones :-) So far it seems to be going quite well.

So that's about it for me on the scrapping scene at the moment - I haven't had time to do much but it's been fun :-) TFL!

CC Creations

2009-10-01T22:16:00.005+10:00

Just a quick update with some of my creations from the September CC...

This was for Karen's REDUCE challenge. She provided a gorgeous sketch and the added requirements were using small photos and an item that has been in our stash for ages! The music paper, spiral paper clip, scrabble letters and thread had all been in my stash for well over a year, so it felt good to finally use some of them! I really should have waited to get a better photo, but I was too impatient!

This one was for Laura's REUSE challenge. The challenge was to scraplift one of the layouts in the gallery and I chose one of Krissy's. The added criteria was that we had to use at least one technique and one of the colours from the original layout. The techniques I used were paper cutting and layering, and the colours were the red and green.

Karen gave us a surprise challenge over the weekend to use the scraps from one of our layouts to make a card. Hopefully Helen doesn't read my blog lol!

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to do Kerryn's RECYCLE challenge. Her challenge was to use our scraps to create a layout, and also to include one of the quotes she provided. I got as far as getting some scraps out... Kerryn's example layout was accepted for publication though, so she did very well!

While I was in a scrappy mood I finished off my layout for the favourites challenge for September.

October is a girly theme at CIS, and the forecast is now up for the month! Stay tuned for the monthly challenges and don't forget the CISter's Night In and Stylish Classes by Kerryn and Laura to raise some money for breast cancer research.

Well, it's past my bed time and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe has just about finished, so I'm off to bed :-) Thanks for looking at my creations!

September CC at Crafting In Style

2009-09-24T20:14:00.004+10:00

Friday 25th September
7:00pm Sign in and chatter
7:30pm Challenge 1: REDUCE with Karen
8:00pm Challenge 2: REUSE with Laura
8:30pm Challenge 3: RECYCLE with Kerryn

Saturday 26th September
8:00pm Live chat sign in
8:15pm Game: Scavenger Hunt with Lana

Sunday 27th September
Scrap and chat all day!!!

Upload by Wednesday 30th September midnight AEST

Hope to see you there!

This and That

2009-09-20T14:23:00.010+10:00

On Friday night I went to Laura's for a scrappy session, and we both got 3 layouts done :-) I can only share one right now, which is for the Young Scrap Birds September Sketch Challenge, featuring the famous Zaccie!

I also did an example for the October Favourites Challenge at Crafting In Style, and another one using one of the October sketches for the Stylish Sketch Blog.

Speaking of October, we have an exciting month coming up at Crafting In Style! The CISters Night In will be on Saturday 17th October, should be a fun night! There will be heaps of games, and some scrappy fun too, and there will also be goody bags for all attendees. Everyone is welcome, just go to my Girls Night In fundraising page and make a donation to get access. Also the lovely Kerryn will be holding the class for October on that night. I will be uploading the class kits to the store today - $1 from each kit or class access will be donated to breast cancer research. Here's a sneaky peek!

Next weekend we have our September Cybercrop, with some great environmental themed challenges from the DT girls and a fun game from me. Keep an eye on the forum or newsletter for the timetable! Thanks to Laura for the cool graphics :-)

In other non-scrappy news, I had a nice visit with Zaccie yesterday. It was all nice and sunny and still when I woke up, but by the time I got out there it was a bit windy and cloudy. Joan wasn't around to ride with, so I thought I'd take Zaccie for a walk down the road. I was quite glad I'd decided just to walk her as she was pretty jumpy with the wind and did quite a few big shies, and even threw in a little pigroot when a big rattly truck went past! Being on the ground, I wasn't really concerned, but if I'd have been riding I would have been a bit nervous! There's a lot of good grass starting to come through in the paddock, so she's probably feeling quite good at the moment. I think she may be coming into season too as she's been a bit obnoxious lately when I've brought her in to groom or saddle up :-(

I just want to finish off with a couple of cute cat photos :-) Oliver loves to get into boxes, bags, basically anything he can hide in! So the other day he took full advantage when the washing basket was on the floor.

And we've discovered that Abbey loves peas! The other night when Nick was cooking dinner he had a bit of an accident with the frozen peas and ended up with quite a few on the floor... Abbey was in there like a shot and did a great job helping us to clean up!

Hope to see you around at the cybercrop or CISters Night In!

Birthday Update & Circle Journal

2009-09-15T21:49:00.006+10:00

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes :-) I had a great birthday! Nick got me some drawers for my scrapbooking, and a Disney DVD and gorgeous framed print of Pooh and Piglet! Anna and Greta at work got me a Coles Myer voucher and cake and covered my desk in balloons! Nick took me out for dinner last night at the Pig & Whistle in Mt Dandenong - I ate far too much, but it was very yummy!

I finally sent off my circle journal today! I took a few pictures before I sent it. Here's my front cover:

Here's my welcome and instructions page:

Here's my sign in page:

And my page, Part of That World, using Kaisercraft Offshore papers:

TFL!

Weekend Update

2009-09-13T18:58:00.004+10:00

It's been pretty windy all weekend in Melbourne, but yesterday it was fairly warm and the sun even made an appearance, so Joan and I still took the horses out. We took them down to an arena at the back of one of the neighbouring properties. Both horses had a little lunge, and there was a cavalletti that we had a go at too - the horses loved it! We had a bit of a swap too and I got to have a go on Storm. He's just lovely to ride, but was a little lazy, and not quite as responsive as little Zaccie. We spent a couple of hours out there just hanging out, spending time with the horses - it was really nice.

Last night Helen and Chris (Nick's parents) invited us over for dinner. Joan came too. We had some yummy lasagne and finished off with an ice-cream cake for dessert :-) Helen got me a nice 12x12 concertina file and some drawers for scrapbooking storage for my birthday.

We went to see the new puppies at Emily's place while we were in the burbs. They are so cute - eye still closed and still crawling. A couple of them had a bit of a squeak and a crawl while we were there but mostly they just suckled. I thought it would be better not to disturb mum by taking photos, but I'm sure we'll be visiting again so I should be able to get some next time.

We all had a bit of a lazy day today (including the cats)...

When Abbey woke up she decided to have a go at Nick's shoes.

Well, I've been told to be half an hour late for work tomorrow, but I'll be taking advantage of that opportunity and having a bit of a sleep-in :-) Off to put the finishing touches on my circle journal now.

New Layouts

2009-09-10T22:35:00.005+10:00

Just a quick update with some of my recent layouts.

I finally got around to doing Laura's inspiration challenge from the August Cybercrop! Was a bit of a tricky one for me being such a small photo as I struggle a bit with white space. 2 weeks late, but I got there in the end!

I had some papers left over from Karen's class kits, so thought I'd join in on the class. I didn't have any of the spinners left, but I found this chippie bird which goes ok. The class was awesome - easy to follow with some great techniques! There are 2 kits left if anyone wants to have a go :-)

And here's the cover of my circle journal for Young Scrap Birds. It's my first ever circle journal so will be interesting... but fun :-) Mine is a Disney Soundtrack theme so I made my journal in the shape of a piano.

Sorry about the dodgy night photography :-( TFL!

Weekend Away

2009-09-05T20:04:00.009+10:00

I know we got back on Tuesday, but I've been so flat out this week trying to catch up after having just 4 days away! So here's a quick run-down of the weekend...

Saturday we went the 'back way' to Nilma North (ie spent 3 hours driving around Bunyip State Forest on little dirt tracks lol!). We received chocolates and afternoon tea on arrival at the little cottage which was very cute and cosy :-)

Here's a pic of the state forest:

And here's a pic of the gorgeous cottage:

On Sunday we took a trip to Walhalla and did the gold mine tour which was interesting. It's such a gorgeous little town, unlike anything I've ever seen. Everything was just built into the side of the mountain!

We took a bit of a detour on the way back to have a look at Thomson Dam. It was really quite disturbing how empty it is!

Monday we went to the Grand Ridge Brewery at Mirboo North - we were supposed to go for lunch, but found out when we got there that the kitchen wasn't open on Mondays. So we went elsewhere for lunch and then went back to the brewery for some drinks. Nick found a home brew shop on the way home which he bought a few supplies from. We went via the Grand Ridge Road and it was a really nice drive through some gorgeous scenery.

Tuesday was home time and it was sad to leave our little cottage, but we were both anxious to get home to the cats. We took a short detour to Noojee to visit the trestle bridge.

Then another little detour to the Ada Tree.

Then we ended up having another little tour through state forest on little dirt tracks and came home via Warburton.

Thanks to Joan and Dick for looking after the cats for us, and the bins were even put out when we got back :-)

Gourmet Delights CC Starts Tonight!

2009-08-27T15:20:00.002+10:00

I'm very excited about the cybercrop starting tonight! It's Kerryn's first one as DT, and she has done such a great job on her challenge with only a couple of weeks prep time! The other DT girls as usual have done a fantastic job too! There are a few new faces around the forum too so I hope they can join in! I'll be around tonight between jobs, and looking forward to Karen's appetizer challenge :-)

Tomorrow night I'm looking forward to doing some scrapping with Laura :-) Hopefully I'll get onto a couple of the CC challenges and I've got a couple of cards to make as well. Hoping to have an early night tonight so I don't fall asleep at the desk lol!

Then Saturday we're off on our mini-break! Yay!

Here's the timetable for the Gourmet Delights CC over at the Crafting In Style forum. Come check it out if it sounds appetizing :-)

WHAT'S ON THE MENU:

THURSDAY
7:30pm Meet & Greet - Sign in and welcome
8:00pm Appetiser - Sketch challenge with Karen

FRIDAY
7:30pm Main Course - Recipe challenge with Kerryn
8:00pm Snack - Bingo game with Laura

SATURDAY
7:30pm Dessert - Inspiration challenge with Laura

SUNDAY
Get cooking!

Good on ya Mum!

2009-08-25T10:14:00.003+10:00

Just wanted to say congrats to my mum! Her team won the best presented award at the cycling meet on Sunday - woohoo!

Looking forward to our little weekend away - I can't believe how quickly it's come up! Can't wait for a little R & R :-)

Congrats to all the winners at the Young Scrap Birds cybercrop! There were some gorgeous layouts in the gallery over there!

Starting Thursday night is the Gourmet Delight Cybercrop at Crafting In Style - come and join in with some enticing challenges with some delicious prizes up for grabs! I won't be around after Friday, but the DT girls will be holding the fort. Keep an eye out for some new challenges coming in September too!

Layouts as Promised

2009-08-22T11:26:00.006+10:00

Thanks to everyone who commented on my first post - it gives me the confidence to keep going with this blogging stuff :-)

Turns out it's a lovely sunny morning, so I managed to take some photos of my latest layouts.

Here's one from our recent holiday in Queensland - I used one of the Crafting In Style sketches from July:

This one is from Laura's Follow the Leader finale over at the Crafting In Style forum:

And this one was my take on Krissy's latest sketch for the sketch blog - it will be my last sketch blog example now I've got a lovely and talented team of girls on board :-)

I've also done my example layout for the September Shaping Up comp, but sorry no sneaky peekies just yet ;-)

Yesterday morning Oliver was having a lovely time in the ensuite basin - he's such a weird cat he loves water! Managed to snap a few pics of him :-)

Don't forget to head on over to Young Scrap Birds if you're a Gen Y scrapper for their cybercrop this weekend - they've got some great challenges and games up!

Also Crafting In Style will be holding their cybercrop next weekend, starting on Thursday night, so mark that in your diary - everyone welcome :-)

I'm just about to upload some new papers to the store, from Rouge de Garance Aile ou Fleur. They're gorgeous colours and designs on both sides of the page, come and check them out in the store!

My Very First Post!

2009-08-20T21:51:00.005+10:00

Well, I've finally got myself a blog! I don't really have much to say at the moment, but I have to stop procrastinating and just do the first post!

I've been keeping busy with work and scrapping this week! One of the girls at work is on holidays this week, so I've been busy doing her work as well. I'll be glad when she gets back next week!

On the scrapping front, we've got the CIS Idol comp happening over at the forum. It's a comp for everyone, you get points for starting and replying to discussions, leaving love in the gallery, entering comps, participating in classes, and getting your friends involved. Come check it out - there's a Kaisercraft prize pack for the winner!

We've also got the sketch blog, monthly Shaping Up comp, the August cybercrop coming up soon and organising some great challenges for September!

There's also a cybercrop happening this weekend over at Young Scrap Birds - go check it out if you're a Gen Y scrapper!

I've done a few layouts in the last week or so, but I'm trying to wait for sunlight to take decent photos! I got a couple of cute photos of the cats though :-)