happy birthday mum

well its my mother in laws birthday 1st september....and the cards in the mail....almost.

i am so awful with these things the last couple of years, always seem to be a couple of days
behind. i used the back of k and co wild saffron paper, kelly poloston paper and prima flowers. the stamp is from a set that i think is 'stamp it'.

Basic Grey

....not really been a fan, some lovely papers but didnt know what to do with them and not quite me.....until now. The new basic grey is so gorgeous. I have finished a kaiser frame for chandon in 'ambrosia', gorgeous orange papers and last night I had a play with basic grey 'Eva'

....and a couple of close ups

just thought id throw this one in, its another acetate card, this time for a swap on the Chandon Craft forum, am loving this colour combo atm.

last weeks layouts and cards

Thought I would post some layouts that i did for chandon craft last week

This one is with the new Jenny Bowlin paper and stickers.




















It may be a bit premature but it will be here in no time. i did a christmas layout with a fancy pants glitter cut. I really love how simple this one is.





This layout is of my mum when she was a toddler. I used pink paislee and kimberley poloston papers and gorgeous prima flowers

I also made a few cards last week, going to try and do more of these cause there's a few techniques i want to practice on.

My step mothers birthday card, my first go at using ouderless mineral spirits (i think this is what a lot of the american blogs are refering to as gamsol) to colour instead of water colours.

Jords birthday card which was made at midnight the night before cause I'd forgotten to make one.

This little tin i think had prima flowers in it at one stage. ive stamped 'woo hoo 30' in it for my sisters birthday last week. I did copy this from the hero arts blog, no where near as good as theirs but she liked it.

Dads fathers day card, pretty dodgy pic,

hard to see the sewing.

The elephant card i made just because. I used the mineral spirits (seems to be refered to as the magic pencil technique) hard to see again but i stamp extra flowers and foam dotted them and the butterfly so they're 3d, also stickled the flowers.

This little card was made after seeing the lamb on another blog that was linked to Chris Millers. heres a link to the original, i just really wanted to have a go at the lamb. http://scrapbookgirl.typepad.com/paper_scissors_and_superh/2008/08/ahhh-where-were-we.html

talk soon

Just a quick 'hi'

My isp is driving me insane tonight and i keep dropping out but i just wanted to post a pic of this. It's a gift bag I made yesterday morning for my sisters birthday present. Its just made with bazzill and kaiser pearls and the beautiful Kimberly Poloston papers, the butterflie is cut out of these papers too.

Thanks Debbie

Debbie from Chandon Craft has nominated my blog for and I love your blog award.

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.

Here's mine:

Tammy James, the 1st person whos craft really inspired me. http://girlswearbluetoo.blogspot.com/

Anthea M, Antheas scrapping style is very different to mine but I love the boldness and textures of her cards and layouts, check out the latest lot that shes uploaded. http://antheam.wordpress.com/

Faith Hofrichter, i absolute adore the cards that Faith has on her site, so beautifully embellished http://stampinwithmarkiesmom.blogspot.com/

Liz , i love her memes http://www.lizslounge.blogspot.com/

Julie Schmitt, snail mail, makes absolutely gorgeous cards http://julieschmitt-jewls.blogspot.com/

NgaireB, I've only recently discovered this blog and I love it http://scrapblogmebaby.typepad.com/blog_me_baby/

Leonie, a stampin up demonstrator and although I don't own any su stamps i adore looking at all the lovely cards she has on blog http://www.stamp-a-latte.com/

Thank u again Debbie, I hope you all enjoy these blogs as much as I do :)

Well..he's a teenager now!!!

and it's happened....there's a teenager in the house or as jord would say

"ders a teenager in da house, dawg"

now my eyes are stinging and I've sooked half the day away and i don't care how stupid people think i am. my baby is getting bigger, i am feeling older and the realisation that he's going to be my only child makes me cry like a baby.

I have secondary infertility. Falling pregnant the first time took me a couple of years then i miscarried when he was about 2. After more years of trying and hormone tablets and tests etc etc my doctor told me i had to consider him as just a miracle that happened. I had keyhole surgery and was basically told that my ovaries are dead and that if i were to ever get pregnant again then it would be a miracle.

So i had the day off work today and took him to school. He kissed me goodbye and I took his bag of party food to his classroom, came out and stood near him and his friends. His mates excitedly said hi to me and he said "bye mum". I walked outside the gate and I just stood there and i watched and i stood there and i watched...for about 20 minutes, in the freezing cold like some psycho woman stalking the kids at school.

I had parents walking past me taking their kids inside the gate, they would smile or say hello. The same parents 5 minutes later walked past again but this time there would be no pleasantries just a sideways glace to check me out. Every few minutes I would see Jords hand come out and give me a little wave as if to say 'nick off mum'

But I just kept waving back, standing there watching until his class went inside at about 9.10am. At least I didn't cry at the school, I saved that for when I was in the car, howling and barley able to see the road because of my tears.

que, sera, sera

my digital slr

my husband bought me an slr camera last year and ive had no idea how to use it expect for point and shoot. ive felt for a while now that although i love the quality of the pics it takes it was a huge expense that i was wasting. for my birthday this year he bought me an 2 day digital slr camera course. how cool.



so i spent last weekend in a freezing cold warehouse doing my course. i came away on saturday feeling like i hadnt really learnt very much but when i got home sunday night and loaded the pics to my pc i can definately tell i learnt something. these are just simple photos taken down by barwon river but its so nice to finally take my camera off automatic and know what im doing.



i'm proud anyway :)

i love my cuttlebug

so i got my cuttlebug in october last year and thought i would used it heaps. its just sat on the shelf collecting dust for most of that time and when i did use it i hardly used the dies just the embossing folders which i soon became sick of.

i pulled it out again when i got my nestabilites (which ive ordered more of and cant wait) and the past few weeks have been getting some new embossing folders. i spent nearly everynight last week looking on the net for different ways to use these and i have now fallen in love with my cuttlebug :)

this one is my least favourite but i wanted to used my water coloured pencils which i havent touched in a while.

i love this one, i learnt the technique of embossing only the middle of the card on another site and i forgot to save it to my favourites for future ideas :(

the next 2 are just me experimenting to see what i could do.
and these ones are my favourites so far, i love the simplicity of them.

Look what came in the mail today :)

i love love love these. these are basic grey grow a garden stamps. how cute are they!!

wheres my mojo?

having a mojo crisis at the moment with my scrapping. normally if i feel like this i will clean or reorganise my room. i also make cards too, this usually gets my mojo back. heres another couple i made this week. acetate again. the green one has some stamped acetate that i cut out and stuck under a flower with brads. the clear one ive cute with my spellbinders scallop dies (OMG i cant say how much I LOVE THESE), i just used a few different sized ones here to cut the card and the cardstock. the rub on is on small scallop of acetate with a kaiser rub on. ive also used autumn leave stamps and kaiser droplets.

is the weekend over already?

I have spent heaps of time this weekend in my craft haven but have emerged tonight feeling a little less than productive. I have finished 3 los for Chandon, 1 for myself, finished my acetate card for a swap and made another card. I'm lucky if I can put a lo together in a week with the way that I fuss about them and here I've done 4 but feel like i've not done much . confused. The 3 los I've done for Chandon are the new kaiser papers..gorgeous.

The one I did for myself is with LYB Zachs Life, which I've wanted for ages and ages. Got it on thursday and am very impressed, its even better irl. Something else Raqual ordered in for me was my latest embossing folder for the cuttlebug, Swiss Dots. It is so cute. I love it. I slapped this card together just before because I just had to try it out. The bird has been stamped in red but for some reason the scan came out pink.


The little white banner is done with one of the cuttlebug embossing strips.

I'm going to see Heidi!!!! Yay, got a ticket to her class in december which i'm sure will be here before i know it.

Seventeen days now until my baby is 13. I'm having trouble coping with this, i feel this is more of a milestone for me than turning 30 was.