The finished work.....

I just love this photo of Ella even though it's a bit fuzzy and dark. I found it again the other day and thought it would great with these MME paper I had. Love the Heidi Swapp bling words too, I've had them for ages and used a couple on the weekend. How funny is this photo of Hudson??? I love it, it's of him winking, hence the title, lol.
I had fun with a bit of doodling on this layout, had to tell myself to stop rather Kirsty had to tell me to stop, lol.
This is a photo of my Mum and her sister, my Auntie Joan that was taken earlier this year at my Mum's 70th Birthday party, I think it's a great one of the two of them. I used the Crate Paper tags and paper for this layout. This is a scrap lift of a layout in the very talented Ali Edwards book, A Designers Eye. I hadn't planned on doing this layout at all, I had the photos with me to finish off the mini book from the Convention. I decided to use the B&W ones for the book so had these spare as well as the papers which I had just thrown in in case I needed them. Glad I did.
And lastly, a layout using the gorgeous Basic Grey range, Phoebe. It took me ages to get this right but I'm quite happy with it now. You can't tell but the circles and birds are raised by using pop dots so it has a bit of dimension to it.

What a Fabulous Weekend!!!

I had an absolutely awesome time away on my scrapping weekend. The company was wonderful, the cottage very cute and the weather surprisingly mild. I was expecting to really feel the cold but it was very pleasant and the house had a coonara fire so we all kept very toasty warm. I flew down Friday morning and we headed up to the house Friday afternoon via a Scrapbook shop for last minute supplies of course, lol. We found the house up the end of a very hilly, narrow dirt lane and unpacked our gear, popped into Healesville for a few bits and then got back to start scrapping. I managed to complete one layout with the second nearly finished too, I was very happy with that.

We met another lovely friend of Sharon's, Tracey on Sat morning in Healesville and then took ourselves out for a very yummy breakfast. Then after a quick scrounge in the local op shop (got some really cute buttons) we started our scrapping day, only stopping for a late lunch, to say goodbye to Tracey and then for dinner. I finished off my layout from the night before, completed 2 more and then started the last one which I finished on Sunday. I would of liked to have done more but I am a very slow scrapper so that wasn't too bad really, we all could of stayed and kept scrapping for much longer. It was so wonderful to be able to sit uninterrupted and scrap away with the lovely, funny & talented company of Sharon, Steph & Kirst. These women were so much fun to go away with and totally inspiring as well, I had an absolute blast with you ladies!!!!!
Thankyou so much Sharon & Andrew for one of the best Birthday presents ever, it was exactly what I needed and I had the best time ever. It was fabulous to see you again and to have a cuddle with Max & Jemima, we miss you all so much.

So here's a few photos from the weekend:

The girls outside our very cute little cottage.

Steph & Kirsty hard at it.

The five of us on Saturday just before Tracey went home.
The view or lack of on Sunday morning. It was one of those very foggy mornings that turn into a beautiful sunny day :)

It is just so beautiful up that way, I love it.

Funny photo of Sharon

Everybodies work for you to see.

We went out for lunch in Healesville on the way home to a fabulous wineries cellar door called Giant Steps where we had the BEST pizzas I have ever eaten, they were so delicious and so was the wine. If you're up that way make sure you call in and check it out, it's a fab place and it was a totally wonderful way to finish off a fabulous weekend.

I haven't had a chance to take photos of the layouts I finished, hopefully I'll get to that tomorrow so I'll share with you all then :)

Off to bed now, sleep well all xx

WOOHOOO!!!!!! Doin the happy dance!

I'm off for a few days of scrapping bliss! The wonderful Sharon (and Andrew too) have shouted me a flight south for the weekend for my up coming Birthday and she has also organised a scrapping weekend with the gorgeous and fabulous Kirsty and Steph. We're going to be staying at this very cute cottage, I can't wait! I'm going to miss the kids terribly & Col of course, I haven't ever been away from Hudson and have only left Ella for a few days when she was 10 months old and we came up here to find a house to live in. I must admit though I am looking forward to waking up on my own and then just rolling over and going back to sleep, lol.

I had planned on doing my next art journal card before I went but haven't got to it so that will be on the list of projects to do on the weekend. I shall share what I manage to do with you next week. :)

Have a great weekend xx.

Finally catching up........

I finally got a chance to finish off the little book I started in the class I did at the Scrapbooking Convention with the very lovely and talented Loretta Grayson and also the layout I did in the class with the gorgeous Kelly Goree. I still have the book to finish from Kelly's class, hope to get to that later in the week. I had grand plans of doing them last week but I felt completely exhausted and had to drag myself off to bed early every night, so not like me to be in bed before 10pm but I was last week.

We had our regular 'Crap & Craft' night on Saturday night so I was able to get them both finished then. I love our craft nights , so much fun and so great to be able to sit and chat child free with the girls while scrapping . LOVE those girls too, they have made our move to Brisbane so much easier and have welcomed us with open arms, THANKYOU from the bottom of my heart xxx.

So here's the proof that they're finished :

This little book is made out of one 12x12 piece of paper, very clever and very cute! We got a big pack of Heidi Grace papers, some rubons, stickers and ribbons in the class to use and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

This is the layout from Kelly's class, all done in the beautiful Basic Grey Romani range, love it!! I should've put the title a bit higher but I'm still pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Art Challenge - Week 23.

This weeks prompt is 'Right Now', as in what is happening in your life right now, right here.

We've just sold our investment property in Victoria so that we can buy a home here for us in Brisbane. Its something that I really didn't want to do initially because the house was mine before I met Col. I bought the house after a rather nasty breakup and I was so proud of myself for achieving something so big on my own. The prices here in Brisbane are a lot higher than we ever expected and it was silly for us to be putting our family second just because I had sentimental attachments to the house. So we have sold and we can now look seriously for a home here for us in Brisbane. I'm so over renting and I think it's made living here in Brisbane feel like a it was a temporary thing, not that we have decided we'll be here forever but we gave ourselves 5 years and then we'll decide so we still have 3 to go.

So here's my card for this week, pretty happy with myself for actually finishing it before the next challenge is out, lol. I used one of my new stamps from Autumn leaves, my dymo and cut out the arrows from Scenic route paper. I' m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Just wanted to also say a big thank you to all you lovely ladies that have put a comment on my blog, it's so lovely to read them and to know that I'm not rambling on to myself, lol. I've been loving checking out everyone's cards and trying to comment more on your blogs :) .
Thanks Emily for such a great, fun and inspiring challenge too.

Carnival fun.

I forgot that I hadn't added these photos from the Carnival we went to the weekend before last. It was the Crackerjack Carnival which raises funds for local youth groups. We went down on the Sunday after most of the festivites were finished but the kids still had a great time. Of course the first thing we saw when we walked in was the face painting and what did Ella want??? A Tiger again! I tried to convince her to have fairy or butterfly or another animal but no she definitely wanted a tiger again. So here she is, not a great photo because she moves and bounces around so much that it's hard to get a good one of her.


I must say I was very impressed with the face painting though, she looked like a fabulous Tiger!

The other thing the kids loved was the pony ride. Hudson wasn't sure at the beginning as you can see but he warmed up a bit as the ride went on.

Brisbane Scrapbooking Convention

I took myself off to the Scrapbook Convention today to do a couple of classes. I did a class by the lovely Loretta Grayson first and then the very full of life, Kelly Goree. What a heap of fun!!! I loved both of them and learn't a lot. I haven't got photos yet as I didn't finish either of the projects in the classes and I was hoping my mojo would continue when I got home but then I finished off the bottle of Vintage Grant Burge (to celebrate!!! more of that later) and I sort of fell in a heap, lol.
Promise to post photos soon.

I'm looking forward to catching up with our gorgeous friends Amanda and Nathan for lunch tomorrow, poor Dave has been called to Newcastle to help with the huge storm damage they've had down there so won't be here and we'll miss him but otherwise it should be fun!!

Enjoy the long weekend. xx

edited to add: I forgot to say that I walked around a corner of the exhibition today and saw a huge photo of my boy that was up as part of the very talented Rachel Richter's display. Also another gorgeous one of Max and Jemima, photo as proof following!

Art Journal - week 21 & 22

Well I was going to try and be really good and do each weeks prompt on time but I've already been a bit slack. Last weeks prompt was 'your redeeming qualities or qualities you aspire towards' which I found really difficult. I was going to take the easy way out and do qualities that I aspire to have but I decided to do as Emily suggested and take some time to think about my qualities. In the end I had to ask Col what he thought they were as I just felt like I was being really vain and then I started to doubt that I actually was these things. Anyway here's week 21 Art journal card:

I tried out a method that Emily told us about at the beginning of the challenge (week 3). You can't see it very well but my photo has been burnished onto the card. You take a colour photo copy of a photo then paint the back with nail polish remover and then burnish it on with a spoon. You're supposed to use nail polish remover with acetone in it but of course my nail polish remover was acetone free, lol. I tried it out anyway and it did work but probably not as well as using the proper stuff. It 's was a lot of fun trying it, I'll definitely give it a go again.

This weeks challenge was 'what would you love to learn?'. There are so many things I would love to learn, another language, photography, adobe photoshop, patience lol, new cooking skills, quilting, felting, shall I go on!! I had trouble just choosing one of them. In the end I settled on learning to sail. something I've always really wanted to do, I think the feeling of being in control of a boat sailing around on the water would be bliss. I love the water and what better way to enjoy it more. So here's the card, not really sailing inspired at all........ but I was pretty happy with it. You can't see very well but there is a little bit of bling on the card, every girl needs a bit of bling don't they.