I brought a dress...

Anyone that knows me will agree I'm a "jeans & shirt" sorta gal - definitely not a "dress" person. I'm still trying to work out what possessed me to buy a dress!! I was looking for something nice to wear to a friend's wedding next weekend, when I found the dress (I think it's a dress/tunic outfit, but because I'm so short it's the perfect length for a dress!). Surprisingly I look pretty good in it - I have such a weird body shape it's hard to find a dress that fits properly and looks nice. Mum's worried it's a bit too casual - but the right shoes and accessories it will look nice.

I finished my Creative Artz challenge and Black Magic sketch #2 on Wednesday night. I didn't get a chance to get the Creative Artz LO photographed before I handed it in yesterday.

I really love the sketch - I am going to use it to scrap Cohan's first Santa photo- have struggled with that LO for awhile.

We have another busy weekend planned. Tonight we are going to our work Halloween party. Since we only found out about it when we got back from holidays we have pretty basic costumes - I'm a fairy and DH is Dracula. Tomorrow we are taking DH's mum to Australia Zoo for her birthday. It's a surprise and I know she will absolutely love it! DH and I have been twice already - the elephant enclosures and Madagascar Island have been completed since our last visit - so that will be something new. Saturday night is Erin's hen's night. It;s an 80's theme - so I have been running around town trying to find fluro coloured jewellery. I managed to finally find it (plus some fluro eye make up) and even better it was all marked down - bargain!! Sunday is a nice relaxing day - scrapping at Cathie's!! Can't wait to get some serious, uninterrupted scrapping time!! Might even start scrapping the holiday pics!?!?

A HUGE happy birthday for tomorrow for my bestie Bec!! Hope you have a fantastic day sweeite and get spoilt rotten!!

Wow - 500 visitors! I would love for everyone to leave me a comment - that way I can pop over to your blogs and have a look around. So go on...I dare you...leave a comment!! LOL

First wedding layout...

We arrived home from holidays last Thursday afternoon - so that gave me a couple of days to scrap! It's nearly the end of the month and I really wanted to get a couple of the challenges done, especially since it was too hectic last month.

October White with 1 challenge. I totally love the way this all came together!


I took a heap of pics of Lacey where she had a real serious look on her face - so when I saw this pic of her I just had to scrap it!

I have a few finishing touches to add to the Creative Artz and the 2nd Black Magic challenges and they will be finished tonight :o) I'm hoping to get 1 more challenge done, but I think I will run out of time.

We're back....

We had a fabulous time!! We visited so many beautiful places and saw the most amazing things! I took about 500+ pics! My favourite thing was snorkeling on Green Island (just off Cairns) - we saw heaps of baby Nemo's (clown fish)! I was a bit worried about not being able to see too well without my glasses, but I could see everything within close range. I am glad I couldn't see the shovel-nose shark and sting ray that DH pointed out to me! When we got back to the beach DH asked if I realised what he was pointing out to me- I told him if I did I would have been swimming so fast back to shore I would have been skimming across the top of the water!! PMSL

Another favourite day was at Kuranda - we went on a rain forest cruise (saw a crocodile), then took the train down the mountain. We came back over the mountain on the Skyrail - there were the most AMAZING views!! I have a fear of heights and will admit I was terrified the whole time, especially when the carriage started to drop and rise (the cables were tightening), then swing side to side over the river!! Poor DH said he spent most of the train trip worrying about how we would get back up the mountain to our car, because he really didn't think I would get on the skyrail!! LOL

These journalling spots from the Savvy swap were waiting for me when we got home. I made the purple cupcake (I also made pink ones). This is the pic from the forum - I haven't had a chance to photograph mine.


This is the last lot of ebay stuff that arrived just before we left for holidays - how cute are the little animal brads?!?!

Free journalling spot downloads...

While doing my usual blog hopping I found this fantastic blog and just had to share it with you all. Go over to HERE to check out this blog by Åsa in Sweden. She has created a HUGE range of journaling spots, tags and things that are FREE to download. Here are Åsa's download instructions:

If you would like to use any of the journaling spots in my blog in your scrapbooking/paper craft, feel free to! There are a couple of ways you can do that:
1.Download the Word-file by clicking the word HÄR in every post. Then you can open the designs in your Microsoft Word program; edit the texts and whatever you like, before printing them on a nice piece of paper.
2.Click the picture so that it opens up in a new window. Save the image to your computer by right-clicking and selecting Save as... Then you can insert the picture into an appropriate program that can handle jpg-images and print it.
This is free. Free is good! Come back often. Tell your friends about it and please leave a message before you leave, it makes me happy… and when I’m happy I make more creative stuff for the blog.
PS-If you need a special font to be able to view the designs in your Word program it is stated in the post and you can easily download them from DaFont.com

I love Ebay - these cuties arrived over the week or so...



**If you look carefully on the Kindy Graduate LO you will see the orange butterfly peeking out from the right hand corner of the photo!**
I still have one more parcel of some shaped brads and black ribbon with hot pink skulls to arrive - hoping that's today.

All the camping gear is packed, we brought some groceries last night, now we just need to finish packing our clothes tonight. We are only going as far as Rockhampton tomorrow - so we aren't heading off too early. Mum and Mike are going to a weeding there and I want to catch up with some friends. I can't wait to see Bec's baby belly and give it a rub!! I"M SO EXCITED!!!

I will see you all in 2 weeks!

Holiday countdown...1 sleep!!

Happy Birthday Katie!

Hope you have a fantastic day!!

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to Petrina who has just released a range of chipboard designs!! I am totally loving this Paisley Little Chick - keep an eye out for it on future layouts!

Check out more designs over here...

A few more layouts...

One of my fav pics of DH and Cohan. This LO was created for This & That September kit challenge. I'm going to toot my own horn and boast that I won the challenge :o)

This is Black Magic August sketch #2 - I loved the sketch, but wasn't keen on the colour combo / technique - so I just decided to scrap it to my own preference. I actually scrapped the LO at ISTIA last month, but only just got a chance to print the photos! LOL

Katie, James and Cohan are heading home today :o( They spent a week at Airlie Beach after their wedding, then have been back here this week. I'm going to miss them. I can't believe how much Cohan has grown and changed in these 3 weeks - he got a second tooth, said "mum" and "bub", sits up from a lying position, stands up (holding on to something), learnt to make a variety of funny sounds and throws a tanty if he doesn't get his own way!!

Holiday countdown...2 sleeps!

Layouts...

These are 2 LO that I did on the weekend - I am really happy how they turned out.

I have tried to scrap the Kindy graduation LO twice with different papers and layout ideas, but it just didn't seem to "work". I absolutely love the way this one turned out though :o) Black Magic October sketch #1


The papers and some embellishments were from Creative Artz challenge kit for last month. Due to the wedding I didn't get a chance to enter, but I already had some ideas and printed the photo specifically for the kit. I decided to do the LO, but added some different embellishments and left other bits & pieces out - which gave me more creative freedom.

We took Indy to the dog groomers on Monday - it was the first time we've had him clipped (he's only 10mths old). We got him clipped short all over ready for summer. He looks completely different - I though he might look silly, but it suits him just as much as long hair. I have tried to take pics of him, but as usual he just won't sit still long enough LOL He was a little distressed and unsettled afterwards - we've never left him anywhere with strangers before and usually Jedi is with him, but he's back to his usual self now.

We started packing this morning!! My mum and her partner Mike are travelling with us - we are taking our own cars (there is way too much stuff to fit in just 1 car). Because they do a lot more camping then us they have majority of the gear we will need (cookware, portable stove, etc) already packed into containers / bags. DH & I just have to pack our tent / camping stuff, fishing gear and clothes. I have to duck out to the shops at lunch to pick up some bits & pieces.

Holiday countdown...3 sleeps!

Holidays....

Due to all the weddings and social events this year DH and I though we would have to delay this year's holiday till March next year. However...over the weekend the opportunity to travel to our chosen destination came up. We went to work yesterday and asked our manager for 2 weeks annual leave (due to such short notice we didn't think it could be approved) - it was approved and we are soooo excited!! This weekend we are heading off on holidays!!!

So, where are we going? We are heading north to Cairns - a 2 week driving / camping trip - just stopping along the way and visiting all the tourist spots. Last year we went to Sydney & Canberra and had a fabulous time (nearly froze to death in the tent though LOL). That trip was our first 'real' holiday together (work commitments, studying, etc just didn't allow it previously) and we were truly bitten by the travel bug!

I have a confession to make.... I still haven't scrapped my photos from our last trip!! Bad scrapper! Bad, bad scrapper!! I have only done 2 LO - the pile of photos are still sitting there waiting! I haven't even printed any pics from Katie & James' wedding either - I was trying to work with the pile of pics I already have.

Holiday countdown...4 sleeps!!

Weekends never seem long enough...

We did grocery shopping on Saturday morning - I realised I hadn't done that since I started singing rehearsals for the wedding!! We also picked up a birthday present for Katie. Saturday afternoon I finished a LO that I started on Friday night. I used the Creative Artz September kit. I didn't get a chance to complete it in time for the competition, but really wanted to use the kit for a particular photo of Kylie and I. We went out for dinner on Saturday night.

Sunday morning Paul (the wedding singer) called me and asked me to do a gig with him - so DH and I organised a small 'rent-a-crowd' and had a nice, relaxing afternoon at Burnett Heads Lighthouse. DH went off to a footy grand final party and I scrapped another LO! I will put up photos in the next couple of days.

We finally ate the mackerel DH caught - absolutely delicious! I have put in my order for at least 3 more!! LOL

While doing my daily blog lurk I found Nina (The Scrapbooker's Nest) has a giveaway for some fabulous Technique Tuesday clear stamps on her blog. Go over to here and leave a comment to be in the running!

A mish mash of photos....

Cathie has been playing around with some of the wedding pics in photo-shop and emailed this through to me... I love B&W wedding pics - I think they look very classy.

I have been wanting to have a go at card making for ages - I think it's a great way to use up the lots of little scraps that I have been accumulating. This is my first attempt - what do you think?

I mentioned a few posts back that DH went fishing and caught a mackerel - I thought I would share a picture of the proud fisherman and his catch... We still haven't had a chance to eat it yet :o(

I popped into Creative Artz last night to pick up this months challenge kit and was lucky enough to order some Cuttlebug cut & emboss combos for $20 each. I have been looking for these since they came out, but could only find them for around AU$35 - so a total saving of $30 is awesome!! They should arrive in about 2 weeks.



No exciting plans for the weekend - just relaxing, doing some scrapping (finally - yahoo!!), a bit of grocery shopping and a work dinner Saturday night.

A few more layouts...

Just a few more LO I did early last month...

Some of my friends at my 30th birthday party last year.

This photo is from my photography workshop- I didn't think I would like still-life photography, but I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot.

My friend Chris while he was deployed to the Soloman Islands - I'm glad he's back home in OZ - not sure for how long though!

Unfortunately I didn't get any challenges done last month due to my crazy wedding schedule. I still have the Creative Artz kit that I haven't even had a chance to open and play with :o( I am still going to do a few of the challenges though - I had photos printed and brought specific papers / embellishments to do them. I also missed my monthly midnight crop - it was the Friday night before Katie & James' wedding and I thought it best not to push my luck!! LOL This month I am back on track and will be scrapping up a storm!!

I have been buying some summer clothes over the last couple of weeks - my wardrobe consisted of jeans and tops that are all 3/4 length sleeves. I picked up some more cargo pants and tops today and even spoilt myself with 2 pairs of shoes.

Mid week layouts....

These are some LO I have finally finished... I have been making an effort to complete the small pile of half finished LO sitting on my desk.

Some earlier pics of Cohan

This is my nephew Andrew - how cute is he!?!?

This is my beautiful niece Brodie (I created this LO for last month's ISTIA team challenge). I will confess that for some crazy reason I actually scrapped her 2nd birthday party photos before her first birthday photos. Like I have admitted before, there is no structure to my scrapping!! LOL