ive found the

most inspiring blog. Have a look at the details in this work, gorgeous.
Kirstens blog.

Basic Grey bittersweet

These are 2 layouts that I did on the weekend for Chandon Craft. I so loved using this basic grey paper. I think I have to get some more and make some cards. The papers gorgeous. I used the Heidi Swapp damask stamp and Autumn Leaves stamps on this page too cause I think they matched the paper perfectly. I have so many stamps and after going to create08 last week have been inspired to use them more on my layouts instead of just cards.

heidi swapp

I haven't been on since the Heidi day but it was awesome. I had the best time and am happy to have learnt a couple of things. This is a card I made for Jords teacher as a thank you for the past 2 years. She's been amazing. It was only a quicky 15 min. thing but it done with one of the techniques we used on Tuesday. I have used Heidi Swapp masks before but never as successfully as what i did at the class. I have a renewed love of them. I have a stash a Tim Holtz inks and his blending tool so knew what I was doing with these but it was nice to use them in a different way. We did use the Ranger craft mats on the day and they are the nicest surface to work on. This week Chandon Craft got them in stock...guess what I'm buying tomorrow? :)
I love the shadow on the card from the clear butterfly.
I did get her to sign my name tag from the day because I'm wanting to use it to use it in a layout. Am so busy and so tired will upload pics of our classes when I get a chance to go through my goodies.

better go to bed

im up early in the morning

HEIDI SWAP!!!!!!

I found this on Melissa Cooks blog. How stupidly cute is this!!! I love it. Love the moves my husband has...and I thought the serious looking pic of his was perfect as he's always been very bah humbug!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

kaisercraft entry

i picked up my kaisercraft scrap off entry the other day. It got top 14 and got me into the next round. It was quite a hard thing to do with being so limited with what could be used. In my pack I got 4 sheets of paper, black paint, a pack of flourishes, a 2009 album, 2 different sizes of white flowers, black and red pearls and a pack of rub ons. The rub ons were difficult to use because they were the ones with all the sayings like 100% created by me, so I had to cut them up to suit what I was doing. The flowers were also really hard to use. Even tho I got 2 different sizes, they were both white so I had to try and adapt them using rubons, ink and paint. I was able to add my own ribbon because its something that kaiser dont make

I cried today......

...high school orientation. So not fair having to leave them alone in a place they don't know with no one they know.

crop 4 a cause

day was on again yesterday. Its on every 3 months and its such a great day. This time it was held at the kaisercraft store. Last time I only managed to do 1 page in the whole 12 hours but yesterday I outdid myself...2 pages and a few quicky christmas cards.
This first one I've wanted to do for ages but didn't quite know how I wanted it done. It's a photo taken by Simonne of the sunset on Gary and my wedding night 10 March last year. I love this photo.

This page is just because I wanted to use the new Rose Moka papers. How gorgeous are they!!! And they match this photo that the princess took of herself perfectly....and very cool Heidi Swapp stickers on here too. Wonder what goodies of hers we'll get. Its only 9 more sleeps til the Heidi day.

my apron strings

are loosening just a tiny bit.
I let my son go to his nans for the weekend when the kaiser scrap off was on. He had to go by bus. Big deal I suppose, except for its nearly a 2 hour trip.
Then last week he came home from school asking to go swimming the next night with his mates. Not such a big deal either....but he would normally be at after school care until I finished work. I spent that night making sure that everyone I knew was programmed into his mobile phone (no matter how far away they lived). I rang my work no and my mobile so that he only had to press the resend button to get me if needed. When I dropped him at school that morning he had all his swim gear, some cash and the phone. I had spent an hour drilling into him what he had to do. He knew if I wasn't able to get away to call him at 3.30 then a 3.45 he was to ring me at work. It really freaked me, and not cause he was doing something with his friends, this has happened plenty of times. It was me needing to trust that he was able to get himself from school to his mates and then walk to the pool, and know when to leave and walk back to his mates. Safely. But he did it and I survived.
Tomorrow I have the crop 4 a cause day and it all happens again. Off to the train station for a bus trip to my sisters this time. Its the only time ever that my son is allowed to play his ds at 8.30 in the morning. Apparently, according to him, all he needs for his 2 hour drive is his ds, a bag of chips and an ice coffee big M.
Gee I'm getting brave, must be growing up at last ..... although I know I will still cry when the bus leaves, and not because I will miss him (that is a given) but because once again I face the reality of my baby growing into a young man.
......tuesday I have to face orientation day for high school :)

my saturday so far

banana muffins with cream cheese icing and choc chip cookies...time for coffee i think

I've been tagged

by Melissa Cook. How cool is she!
Here's the rules to follow
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. List 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

So my 6 random are:
1. I am the eldest of 8 children and I'm 25 years older than my youngest sister. Oh and I was pregnant with my son at the same time mum was with her......some say how sweet...i say grossly weird.
2. I really really hate talking on the phone.
3. I have an obsessive compulsion with washing my hands. They always feel dirty. I've tortured the skin on my poor hands with constant washing...I have lots of little obses. compulsions :)
4. I don't eat sausages! No one in my house eats sausages!!! I watched a program on how they are made and whats in them. Now they are banned! I have a sausage embargo at our house.
5. I'm afraid of going to the dentist. Can't go without crying. Not a great sight when your 13 year old is rubbing your hand telling his mummy that it will be alright. You would think that with all the technological advances made in this world that something could be done about the pain they inflict. Surely. I don't understand why at 37 it still hurts as much as when I was 5!
6. White chocolate is my favourite...and so is milk. And cheesecake. mmm carrot cake from the muffin break and bannana cake and any muffins with cream cheese icing on them. oh and lindt balls, yum yum :)

So the 6 I'm tagging are
Anthea
Debbie
Melissa Kennedy
Simonne
Sharni
Nicole
looking forward to learning some things about you all

32 sleeps to go

I sound like such an oldie when I think how the older I am, the faster time seems to be going. I made a few more chrissy cards for the ones we sell at work and then decided it was time to start some of my own. I've done 3 today. This first one is inspired by the work done by Faith Hofrichter. I so love her blog, and everyday there is a new gorgeous card on there. I got to play with my spellbinder labels for the first time.

This next card was done just so I could play with the spellbinder labels 2 which I wasn't too sure whether I liked the shape when I ordered them. Am very happy that I got them tho. For this card I've used basic grey papers and prima christmas flowers.

This next one is a copy from a card from Heart Prints, if you've never had a look at this blog make sure you set an hour or two aside to have a look at the gorgeous cards. She makes the most elegant looking cards with white card and embossing folders. This one is designed for gift cards. It's a bit messy where I've cut the slot but I've added a label punch to my wish list to over come this....good idea tho :)

Feels like forever..

since I've scrapped. I did one for chandon the other day but apart from that I hadn't had time to play with my slice machine. So last night I sat up til 1 am getting to know it (i did spend a little time playing jords ds brain training game). I'd bought the paper a few months ago and loved it but hadn't thought of what to do with it yet. My new slice cartridge came in this week so I used this and the pink paislee paper for this layout of my spunky nephew. I've just got his kinder photos from my sister and there's heaps of them busting to be scrapped. The cartridge used is the back to school/fall one. I wanted it because of the leaves on it. This page is embellished with leaves and a tree, all cut with my slice and mounted in 3d. I was going to cut out the title as well because I didn't want to add any embellies to the page that hadnt been done with the slice, but I so love these pink paislee alphas. Am adapting this page to make a double layout for a class.

kaisercraft box = mm slice keeper

Ive used a kaiser box and adapted it as a box for my Slice. I wanted to keep it in something but cant justify the cost of the mm one. It was easy and not the first time ive altered kaiser products to suit what i wanted them for. With this box i just cut the piece of wood that goes all the way across the middle and just left off one of the top pieces. The glass mat fits in there perfectly and the little box in the front (where u would usually put ribbon) is perfect for the little cartridges. V.cool. Only $17- and few pieces of sassafrass lass paper...bargain. Will get around to embellishing it soon.

I've visitors for the last week and I havent got much scrapping done. Have played a little with my slice. I did a layout for chandoncraft and used it for a couple of things on this. My Fall cartridge came in today so when i get a chance to play I will see what it can do.

I did this a while ago now but I thought I would put this up cause its another kaiser product not used the way it was meant to be. Its a wood pet placemat from their store and the skull album and I just used the first two pages. All the rubons are kaiser and some Ive cut up to make different sayings. It hangs on my sons door and he loves it.

I also want everyone to have a look at Melissa Kennedys blog. She has details on there about how everyone can help by making some 6x6 easy scrap pages. These are used for albums for kids who attend the Southern Cross Kids Camps - these are abused and at risk kids from Australia and New Zealand. They need more than 6000 and as an incentive Mel is offering 10 kaisercraft stamp sets to the person who can send her the most. Great way of helping out and awsome carrot ;)

Guess what i got!

Well almost!!!
Making memories slice is in at chandoncraft. The only reason I didn't pick it up today was cause i was at work. My husband could have gone in and got it for me today but he's been on night shift...for some reason he thought sleeping today was more of a priority.
I've also got on hold the back to school/fall card. It looks so cool with lots of different leaves on it. hhmmmm wonder what i will be playing with tomorrow night.

kaisercraft scrap off

Had a great day on saturday. Great fun, awsome company and beautiful papers. I didn't make it to the final 5 but was definately worth doing. I was in the top 14 for my initial beyond the page entry and then I was in the top 10 for the layout round. We only had 30 minutes to do this in and it was quite nerving at 1st. Knowing that we had to work so fast was bad enough but then we'd be concious of the camera going past because the day was filmed. The last round i did was a btp book, 8 pages and 60 minutes to complete. Worked as quick as i could but know way i could get it finished, was hard trying to work out what to do with it in that amount of time too.

The final 5 did an great job of their layouts. The poor ladies had a room full of people watching them and again the cameras were filming.As a challenge for myself i decided i was going to do a layout in the papers that they used on the day and only give myself 30 minutes to do it. I failed, it took me 40 minutes (the stitching took me 10 minutes so i should have left that off)- although for me this is still a triumph cause i push and shove things around my pages sometimes for days before i stick them down. Not my favourite page ever but gorgeous papers and again my gorgeous nephew laughing for the camera.

kaisercraft 100-1

This is on saturday...am I organised...nope! I need to find some phots i want to use. Ive been really looking forward to this but ive just gone and had a look at what we are doing and im a bit worried that i wont be able to finish anything. i didnt realise that we only get 30 mins to do the layouts and there is also a beyond the page. 30 minutes!! wow!! im lucky if i can get a lo done in 5 hours and my btp entry i would have spent at a guess at least 15 hours on.....and thats probably being conservative. may have to have a try the next couple of nights at doing a couple of real quick pages for practice :)

more layouts...2 days in a row

just a layout

this is the layout i started at the lh4l run by chandoncraft. finished it this morning.

heidi swapp has boy paper

This is the first page ive scrapped in ages. its a pretty simple page but i had to use some of this paper as soon as i got it home. Love the clear plastice stickers on here, they're by colorbok and are pretty cool. ive done them 3d on this page, cant tell in the pic tho.
I think I've finished my btp for the kaisercraft scrapoff. its due on saturday so will fiddle with it a bit more tomorrow and fingers crossed that i get it done.

kaisercraft frames

these 3 frames i did at the lh4l scrap day last weekend. i will be putting pics of the 3 kids in them...when i remember to get that done.

Woo Hoo!!!! I got my kit today. I decided Thursday night that i definitely wanted to do this and then started thinking that I might miss out. Registration started today and it is for the first 100 only. I set my alarm for 6am, dragged myself out of bed by 7 and then left. Didn't dry my hair and only had a couple of mouth fulls of my coffee but was worried that there would already be a line up at kaiser. So wanted to stop at maccas for a coffee to go but thought the 2 minutes it takes me to do this may be the difference between me getting in or not. Pulled up at kaiser by 8am...... no one else there. Checked my form, yes, rego is today. There was another car there and I later found out it was Carmel (who i met at crop 4 a cause and the lh4l day), but she had the sense to go and get a coffee while she waited for the shop to open. I stayed in my car at first listening to nova re runs of huesy and kate and after 10 minutes started worrying what if all of a sudden 100 women run past me and beat me in the door. So at 8.10am i stood firmly in my place (all alone) at kaisers shop door, at least i took a book to read.
I got my kit and found out that they're not all the same. I am so loving what I got. The paper is next months release and its gorgeous, I'm sure this is quickly going to become one of my favourite ranges from them......how exciting.

i love my new background

i changed the html a couple of weeks ago to give me 3 columns on my blog. have now decided that its too busy but cant get my brain functioning enough atm to change it back. i did save the original code but of course its now working...who know what i did. i do like my new background though.

new look

im still trying to find a background that feels like 'me'. uploaded this tonight and ive been mucking around with it to make a background in photoshop but it doesnt feel right....too tired to fix it atm

my 1st class

Yesterday ChandonCraft held its crop for leukaemia day. Was such a great day with a awesome bunch of ladies....and my first day teaching. Find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that 15 months ago i didn't even know what a layout is and now I'm teaching others to do them. This pic (excuse the quality its a copy from the chandon blog) is a bit dark but its the lo I designed about 6 months ago for my class. It had to be done so far in advance for the class to be advertised and the scariest part about teaching it was remember what i did.

Raqual has asked me to teach some classes next year and I've learnt a little lesson with this one i designed compared to the others I've made up for next year......measure everything i cut .....don't just do it by eye when it needs to be written up for instructions :)

isn't he gorgeous

A layout with the new sassafrass lass papers for Chandon Craft

my best friend

its been a while since ive scrapped a wedding pic and i bought this paper months ago specially for a wedding one. i used pencils and ouderless mineral spirits to colour the paper.

Really poor quality on the photos, sorry, but i wanted to post a pic of the frame i made for one of my brothers and his fiance. i really love this but i didnt upload my pics until after i had wrapped it and given it to them and didn't realise how bad the quality was :)
These next ones are some design team los ive done for Chandon Craft. this is a pretty basic lo, ive used opalette embossing powders and the colours they come in are so pretty. i love all his school pics (despite him cutting chunks out of his hair in the first few) except for his grade 6 one and his long, combed straight 70s hair. grade 5 i coped with the mullett but this year the long hair is feral. hes now got a few black streaks in it and he puts heaps of product in it and has it as messy as possible...feral but cool (apparantely)....

and this is my dt layout using mm falala papers...i love my spellbinders :)

one more sleep..

and the weekends over. What!!! where do they go?
this morning i made a couple of acetate cards, havent made any for a while and then this afternoon i made christmas cards. 16 of them. have just stopped cause ive had enough for the day. at work we have a community thing that we do each year and this year my office is making christmas cards and selling them. we tried it with fathers day and only put the cards up 2 weeks before and raised $50- so now we're doing chrissy ones. We've had them out for a couple of weeks now and even tho its still early there's been a few selling. So far ive only made a few so i thought i better start trying to catch up :)

my beautiful niece

My gorgeous niece was 18 the other day. I made this frame for her with one of my favourite photos of her. just used flowers and ribbon and bling and also stamped on accetate for the butterflies and the bird. Very similar to a layout I'm doing at this years lend a hand 4 leukemea crop.

Melissa Kennedy loves my blog :)

She gave me an i love ur blog award, how cool. I didnt really get seriously into this craft until around jan/feb this year. After i was asked to design some layouts for Chandon Craft i started to accept my scrapping as being 'OK'. I'd bought SMs masters mag and had seen Melissas work in it but didn't realise at first she was a local, she worked at Kaiser or what a gorgeous person she is.

Yesterday I was a newbie at the Crop for a Cause days that she organises and I had the most relaxing and enjoyable day I've had in a long time. It was also obvious that a huge amount of work goes into setting these days up. I sat with the best company I could ask for, the views were amazing and the atmosphere full of laughter. She runs these days every 3 months and I am going to be a regular.

The rules for the award are - (1) The winner can put the logo on their blog. (2) Link the person you received your award from. (3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs. (4) Put links of those on yours. (5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated.

Melissa Cook, I know Mel only through an online site when i first started scrapping and she is the most genuine, caring person. Her scrapping is awsome.

The next two i only met a few months ago but they are great fun and they scrap heaps, loved looking at their work yesterday, very cool. Nicole and Sharni.

My next one is the Crop 4 a cause blog because i want everyone to check this out. Look at the older posts. The photos show what a great day this is and the stories touch us.

Master in my own mind :)

Long entry, lots of pics of my masters entry. Unfortunately no call for me. Debbie from Chandon also entered and didn't get a call, have a look at her blog, http://livewelllaughoftenlovemuchleavememory.blogspot.com/

and like I said, haven't they missed out this year not picking the 2 of us :)

this is my single page which u had to think beyond the square





This is my double page about my hopes and dreams.

My keepsake was a timber lamp that i stripped the stain from and painted. Ive used a heat resistent transparancy to print my photos on.





My calendar was done in my favourite paper of ever, Kaiser sublime. This thing took me at least 60 hours to make.

Phew!!!!!.....there are more pics , lots more :) , but i think this gives u an ok idea.